The Fairmont West Virginian. (Fairmont, W. Va.) 1904-1914, 1904-08-22
Just Be Glad You Don't Have to Live
in El Paso, Phoenix. Yuma, or Any
Other OF Half Dozen Other
Places South.

other or rtalr a OOzcn Se'ST
Places South.
New York (now- and them 1880. 81
Ell Paso. Texas IL,
Phoenix, Arizona 11$
Indio California :. :. Ii:
4 Fort Yuma ~
Death Valley, California. j. s. IL:
Mammoth Hot Tank. California. LIS
AS big towns go. New York is cool
At least it calls itself that. and usually
it is right. But even when it is really
a hot here New York is all the way from
25 to 10 degrees better off than half q
dozen other places in the United
/ States show an annual average rang.
ing from SIS to 40 dgrees. and annual
maxima climbing as high as 125 and
$50, says the New York Evening Mail.
I The highest temperature, ever recorded
1 by official instruments in this country
was at that appropriately named little
California town-Mammot Hot Tank,
on the borders of the Colorado desert.
There in July, 1857, the thermomete:
| reached les In the shade.
Americas hot belt may perhaps be
from Los Angeles southeast to the
! Gulf of Mexico, four day trip 10y
train. Not three hours east of Los An
geles the train leaves the crest of a
ridge OF hills two thousand feet above
sea level and drops the traveller down
to Indio, $50 feet below sea level. 1t
is change - with the thermometer
ranging around 10 at six In the after
noon. and the air coming in from Tie
surrounding desert in short. dry putfG,
as though out OF the mouth OF a fur
mace. Yet Indio is a health resort, an
oasis town of palms and white cot
tages. set down on the bed of what
was once an ancient sea. but now no
more than vast. hot pit, into which
the suns rays converge mercilessiy.
For one bound yet farther to the
southwest on down into the very cor
ner of California, where lies Death
Valley, Indio is a fit preparation for
what is to come.
Death Valley! The very name tells
the whole awful story of that mystic.
rious cavity of desolation buried two
hundred feet below sea level, and hcn1-
med In by bare, black mountains-"t'u:
neral Hills men call them - whose
precipitous,S naked walls beat: down on
the white sand floor the heat that
pours from a coppery blue sky, till a
temperature of 102 is not worth CON
ment. For weeks upon end the daily
maximum will range from 112 to 81.
Small wonder that the government rec.
ords of the spot declare that birds
a
nid-hight. and that the only fauna OF
the region consists of horned toads
and lizards, scorpions and spiders.
Two hundred miles still farther
south and 23O feet below tide water
lies the Colorado desert, nine thou
sand square miles of a waste SO mcr-
CHESS. SO CHASTITY, SO fierceIy hot, that
no one dares cross it in the summer
and never in winter or early 4
spring unless accompanied by com
panion or two. and supplied with an
abundance of drinking water and food
Besides these wastes of heat and
famous Painted desert pales
in all save its strange beauty. It is
a land where the juices of the body
dry up and moisture is all but un-
known
This is not all that Arizona has to
show of heat. Phoenix knows many
Summers day which starts with the
thermometer at 100 between e and in
the morning. rising steadily and l1ler-
rily with the hours to Is and 100. Yet
AriZona's hot days seldom show ,lu-
nidity of more than - per cent. which
explains away much of New York
mans wonder when he is told that
20 in the west is after all far easier
% meet and master than is 100 here.
Barring only Death Valley and The
Colorado desert, Fort Yuma is the hot.
est spot on the North American con-
inent, and it yields to no place in the
and, if one takes into consideration
'uiy localities where men must live
md work. All conditions seem to unite
n making it the thing it is. 1t lies
4 a low, basin-like locality on the edge
# the lazy, muddy Rio Colorado, as :
t meanders through the desert sands
nd adobe soil down to the California
Sulf. There is. not a blade of grass
0 be found, no green thing. save
ew sparse cottonwoods, shimmering