The silver messenger. (Challis, Idaho) 1890-1912, 1900-12-04
IN SIZZLING YUMA.
TEMPERATURE RISES As HIGH
AS las DEGREES.


K Cuple III the %dbL VINO complained Oh
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 105 to LIS degrees In the
shade for four or five months at
stretch. Imagine a village of several
hundred adobe, stone and brick squat
one-story houses and store buildings,
all with clumsy porches in front .strewn
along a dreary red brown roasting
bank Of droWsy. muddy stream;
where rude thoroughfares struggle up
and down naked hill shimmering un-
der the dercest, emptiest sky you ever
saw. Such Is Yuma.
Imagine region thousands of square
miles in area, OF yellow sand, quaint
cacti, whitened powders, not one COM
handing mountain or shapely promi-
nence--a desolate. CHASTITY desert waste
under a fiery sun-and you have the
setting of Yuma Imagine yourself on
some vantage spot and looking over
frontier town paralyzed in overwhelm-
ing sunlight, where scantily clad,
swarthy Indians sprawl fast asleep on
hot earth in patch of shade, no white
person in sight, not sign OF activity
anywhere. stores shut. houses bolted
and blinded, not sound heard save
rustling of dried sage brush. And that
is life in Yuma during midsummer
afternoon, writes a correspondent on
August TO-
The summer thus far this year in
Yuma has been an average one. From
May Ia to May 30 the temperature ev-
cry afternoon ranged from SO degrees
TO 101. Then there was week of COM
parative GOODNESS; the mercury never
rose above 80. From June to June
rs the mercury varied from los to lib
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 122 degrees twice. From
July to July 20 the average afternoon
temperature was lis degrees During
nights the mercury sunk slowly to an
average of 1o5 at about a. N. With
the rising OF each sun the mercury
climbed MP steadily until about
e'ciosk-
And the waxmext weeks OF the year
are yet TO make their records Last
summer the hottest aay in Yuma was
August ~. when the mercury touched
137. In September there were several
days when tbs Temperature was at 121,
and a few Rirhts when the Their
mometsr never registered lower than
/ l0S degrees. In 1885 Tuma's red letter
hot day occurred. It Was August Is,
when extra hot winds blew from off the
| the desert. Between dawn and noon
the mercury rose from ITO to LIB, and
by 4 o'clock IL rose to 12s. Several
deaths among children occurred during
the heated spell.
Geographically Yuma is situated for
the making Of high records. AS far as
the eye can reach, and miles and miles
farther, In any direction. there is moth
Ing but profound aridity through which
the Colorado drowsily meanders to the
gulf of California. From some points
nothing Is in sight but vast crumpIed
sea of yellow sand and the horizon.
Yuma 10 the heart OF a region Of ex-
dnct volcanoes, barren hills and sterile
canyons; a region OF mirages, ella
monsters and reptiles that thrive amid
burning slkali wastes and deadly
thirsts. wMere not green thing in ma
ture may be seen rs far as vision
sweeps, except few sparse cotton
wood trees at the railway stations.
where q whitening white sunshine
blazes from out cloudless sky twelve
hours day, months at a time; where
infamed eyes and even blindness from
the intense sunshine are common;
where the earth IS so hot that white
people can scarcely walk upon It with
thin shoes, and where tough range
cattle sicken and die in few weeks.
ut night the whole population sleeps
out of doors, and many people slumber
under the open heavens 10 months in
the year.
Fishing an Art in China