The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1900-09-21
SIZZLING
TEMPERATURE RISES AS HIGH
AS 1875 DEGREEs.
And People for 10 Months In tho Year
s,eep Out of Doors-The Town the
Hottest In the Entire Country-Ans
Business Susrends at Noon.

Business SuSrenuB at NoOn.
People in the east who complained of
the great heat Of August should con-
graduate themselves that they are not
forced to live in Yuma, Ariz., the ban
ner hot town of the United States.
/. Fancy an everyday temperature
VARYING from los to 125 degrees in the
shade for four or five months at a
stretch. Imagine a village OF several
hundred adobe, stone and brick. squat
one-story houses and store buildings,
all with clumsy porches in front trewn
along a dreary red brown roasting
bank of a drowsy, muddy stream;
where rude thoroughfares straggle up
and down a naked hill shimmering UNI
der the f%lercest, emptiest sky you ever
saw. Such is Yuma.
Imagine a region thousands OF square
miles in area, of yellow sand. quaint
cacti, .whitened powders, not one COM
manding mountain or shapely promi-
nence-a d~esolate, CHASTITY desert waste
under a fiery sun-and you have ,the
setting of Yuma. Imagine yourself on
some vantage spot and looking over a
frontier town paralyzed in overwhelm-
ing sunlight, where scantily clad,
swarthy Indians sprawl fast asleep on
hot earth in a patch of shade, no White
person in sight, not a sign OF activity
anywhere, stores shut, houses bolted
and blinded, not a sound heard save a
rnstling of dried sage brush. And that
is life in Yuma during a midsummer
afternoon, writes a correspondent on
August 10.
The summer thus far This year in
Yuma has beer an average one. From
May IA to May 80 the temperature ev-
cry afternoon ranged from SO degrees
to 101. Then there was a week of com
parative GOODNESS; the mercury never
rose above so. From ,Iunes7 to June
Is the mercury varied from 105 to l13
! degrees. Old Sol then settled down to
business. The desert sand dunes had
become baked, and the foothills were
glowing. For six weeks the mercury
never was below 102, and from that-it
, has gone to 1872 degrees twice. From
! July 8 to July 20 the average afternoon
8 temperature was lis degrees. During
nights the mercury sunk slowly to an
average of los at about 4 a. m. With
the rising of each sun the mercury
q climbed up steadily until about, ;
: o'clock.
And the warmest weeks of the yea
are yet to make their records. Las
summer the hottest day in Yuma wa
August 26, when the mercury touched
1877. In September there we're sever
days when the temperature was at 121
n and a few nights when the Their
tmuncter -nevar-rogistered lower thai
IOS degrees. In 1896 Yuma-s feu-1ette
Y hot day occurred. 1t was August Ii
when extra hot winds blew from OF tn
the desert. Between dawn and moo;
the mercury rose from Ito to 1913. an
!, by 4 o'clock it rose to 1923. Severa
= deaths among children occurred durin
n the heated spell.
l. geographically Yuma is situated 70
? the making OF. high records. AS far a
y the eye can reach, and miles and mile
II farther, in any direction, thereti is moth
50 ing but profound aridity through whic,
y the Colorado drowsily meanders to tn
q gulf of California. From some point
nothing is in sight but a vast crumple
g sea OF yellow sand and the horizoz
Yuma is the heart of. a region Of ex
e tinct volcanoes, barren hills and steril
canyons; a region of mirages, Gil
t monsters and reptiles that thrive ami
: burning alkali wastes and deadl,
: thirsts, where not a green thing in ma
ture may be see as far as visio,
sweeps, except a few sparse cotton
wood trees at the railway stations
wher a whitening white sunshin
= blaxes from out a cloudless sky twely
:, hours a day, months at a time; wher,,
: lntamed eyes and even blindness i
;. the intense sunshine are common
: where the earth is SO hot that whit,
: people can scarcely walk upon it witt
!. thin shoes, and where tough rang,
cattle sicken and die in a few weeks.
. At night the whole population sleep,
: out OF doors, and many people slumbe,
! under the open heavens 10 months ii
: the yea
; Fishing an Art in China.
Nowhere in the world is the art q
"A 49, ~ q. - ~