Arizona republican., 1904-07-22
VALLEYS FIRST SHOWER BATH
IL Rained Yesterday for the First
 Time in Nine nonths.

Not for months have the people of this valley smiled as they 'smola" yes terday. Every face was like an are light and it was all because Of a It. tie rain: rain that was hardly large enough to make a Kansas man swear, and Kansas men are on their temper this year toe. But nearly everything in this world is valued by comparison, and when fifty-siXth hundredths of an inch of rain falls within a very few hours, in a country which has not had a total precipitation amounting to s) much during the preceding nine months, it is very momentous inc dent.
 There have been sight rain signs for a month or so past, some days ap- bearing very propitious, Cnly to be followed by a day that was clearer and dryer than ever before. But for the preceding two days these rain signs seemed better defined than ever. The lmOst notable thing was the increaTe1 l humidity and intense Oppressivene s, unusual here with the prevailing tenn perature which in itself was not un- usual. Wednesday night was very op- pressive, though in the early evening 1 it cleared up and another hope seem ed to be blasted. But shortly after midnight the clouds began to thioken and about 4 o'clock in the morning ! it began to rain, accompanied by a gentle wind. There were fears at first that the wind was only another 1 sand storm. which would blow away the rain. but it gradually died out and ! the rain increased, falling gently and with cors-derble regularity until 10 ! o'clock in the forenoon.
 1 Reports have not been received from many far away points concerning the area covered by this rain, but Weather Observer Blystone says that he thinks | from the prevailing conditiors that tt i was very general throughout the r.
 ritory He held out no pr mise ye-- l terday that there would ba 2 repe-
 titfon of the pleasing event last night,
 but it is a general belief wonderfully
 bolstered up by hope that other good rains will follow soon.
 1 There was a notable raise in the river at the Ariz-na dam yesterday. ! The water the day before was les than 5000 inches and about midday yesterday the gauges showed over 30,-
 900 inches. Most of the flood water
 came from the Verde and it remained
 at high tide but a short time, bs- ing back to about 20,O0O inches last 1 evening.
 This rain, beyond question, has done
 a vast amount of god, especially m ! the ranges, where it has probably af- ] forded a good drink to hundreds of cat
 tie that had almost forgotten the ! taste of water and were fast forgetting ! everything else. The ground is so | dry, of course, that the water will all
 dry up in q day CT so, and is probably all gone now except in the tanks, but
 it is a temporary relief and very
 material encouragement to prayer.
 To put this country right again il
 should rain about that much every
 morning for the next month and the
 total then would not be surprising in , a section where rain is an established
 institution.
 It is known that it rained equally as
 hard or harder as far west of Phoe- iV
 as the junction of the two rivers, for
 a hunting party that left here tn night before got the benefit of the en- | tire downpour coming home about noon yesterday, pleased at the rain bus disgusted with the hunting enterprise.
 Last night the electric lights we (
 cl1uded with bugs, as they always art ' during a wet spell in summertime i and though they were a nuisance, they were welcomed as a sign of furtte- precipitation. The prevailing bug was
 a winged red ant, of which some | seven hundred ifty-siX thCusan1 mil 1 lion were counted by The Republican: ! bureau of statistics. The roads yestar-
 day were little heavy for whee!men { but they will be all the better today
 for the dreuching, unless it rains
 moro but there is a lively hope
 that it will rain 50 much before tn, i week is cut that the wheelmen will al be put out of business.