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ness, excellent ventilation, and well-devised construction are a credit to those in charge. This building, with others, was constructed by the labor of the soldiers, at very little cost to the government.

Fort Yuma, California, is in latitude 32 deg. 23 min. 3 sec., longitude 37 deg. 33 min. 9 sec., altitude 267 feet above tidewater, and at the highest point of the rocky bluff on which it is built, 110 feet above the bank of the river. The Colorado river, after receiving the Gila, 180 miles above its mouth, bends to the west, and forces itself through a rocky defile 70 feet in height, 350 yards long, and 200 yards wide, thus isolating a rocky bluff, now on the California side of the river, having been shifted many ages since from the Arizona side; but during high water it is an island. On this bluff, in the midst of its two embracing rivers, rises Fort Yuma, white and parched, above the broad sea of green of the river bottom here seven miles wide, covered with a dense growth of cottonwood and mesquite. Chains of low, serrated hills limit the view, all bare and gray, except when sun-painted with delicate tints of blue and purple. This post is remarkable for its intense heat, the results of which will be considered in the chapter on climate. Its historical reminiscences will be found in the chapter on towns and cities.

By an Act of Congress approved March 3rd, 1873, the sum of $50,311.80 was appropriated "for the construction of a military telegraph line from San Diego, Cal., via Fort Yuma and Maricopa Wells, to Prescott and Tucson," to be expended under the supervision of the quartermasters' department of the United States army, under which appropriation 540 miles of line were built at seventeen posts to the mile. Fearing that the appropriations might be defeated, a sum sufficient to equip the line with good posts was not asked for, which occasioned some adverse criticism unwarranted by the facts. By an Act approved June 23rd, 1874, $40,000 were appropriated to enable the line to be extended to Camps Verde and Apache, and payment of running expenses of the previous line was authorized to be made from its receipts. In pursuance of instructions from headquarters of the Army, on August 27th, 1874, Lieutenant Philip Reade, third U. S. infantry, was relieved from active duty in the Department of Missouri and ordered to take charge of the military telegraph and its construction. By an Act approved March 3rd, 1875, $30,000 were appropriated for the extension of such lines in Arizona and New Mexico. In July, 1875, Lieut. Reade arrived at San Diego, and there

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MILITARY TELEGRAPH.

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assumed control of the military telegraph lines, between 500 and 600 miles of which were then in operation from San Diego to Tucson via Maricopa Wells, with a branch to Prescott. Detachments of troops were that summer occupied in extending the lines to Camps Grant, Apache and San Carlos, and into New Mexico. The commander of the Department in his annual report characterized it as an invaluble means of transmitting orders," by which he was greatly aided in his administration. The insufficiency of the appropriation for the purpose was made up by the liberal contributions of citizens in New Mexico, and the zeal of the soldiers engaged in its construction, under the efficient superintendence of Lieutenant Reade; and in the course of the following spring the line was completed to Santa Fé. It is now a complete success, both as to charges and efficiency, charging but twenty-five cents for ten words 600 miles, and accumulating a surplus fund at that, though operated in a country very sparsely settled at about one-sixth the rates usually charged by private companies. Between San Diego and Yuma the poles, twenty-five feet in height, are frequently covered up with sand by storms, and Lieutenant Reade desires to replace them by a cable, which would soon save its own cost. The Government telegraph has no stock to water, no dividends to make, no retinue of high-salaried officials, no pets to favor. Our soldiers thus found adequate to the requirements of ordinary life, should receive more consideration in the way of appropriations; and it is much to be regretted that, under instructions from Washington, the military operators are forbidden to furnish items of general news for the press, for which service they receive a small but welcome addition to their meager pay. So appreciative of its benefits are the people of Mojave, that they offered to pay $2,500 cash and a liberal supply of material for its extension there. When the facts connected with the success of the military telegraph are carried to their logical deductions, some important conclusions follow, going to the very core of problems connected with government.

CHAPTER XIII.

CLIMATE.

PHYSIOLOGICAL AND PATHOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF HEAT. ITS REMEDIAL PROPERTIES. DISTINCTION BETWEEN DRY HEAT AND SULTRY HEAT. TEMPERATURE AT VARIOUS PLACES. HEALTHFULNESS IN CHANGES OF TEMPERATURE. CHANGES IN AMOUNT OF RAINFALL. EFFECT OF CULTIVATION. MODUS OPERANDI OF DEATH FROM THIRST. EFFECT OF STIMULANTS. HOT SPRINGS AND SALINE DEPOSITS.

The current proverb that tastes are not appropriate subjects for controversy has no more pointed illustration than the diversities of climates on the earth's surface, and their corresponding adaptability, not only to the different races of the genus homo but to different individuals of the same race. There is no portion of the Union of the same area that is more accommodating to these diversities than Arizona. Beginning at its western portal, Yuma, J. Ross Browne, who was there a short time in the winter of 1863, thus describes it in his book entitled "The Apache Country": "The climate in winter is finer than that of Italy. It would scarcely be possible to suggest an improvement. I never experienced such exquisite Christmas weather as we enjoyed during our sojourn. Perhaps fastidious people might object to the temperature in summer, when the rays of the sun attain their maximum force, and the hot winds sweep in from the desert. I have even heard complaint made that the thermometer failed to show the true heat because the mercury dried up. Everything dries; wagons dry; men dry; chickens dry; there is no juice left in any thing, living or dead, by the close of summer. Officers and soldiers are supposed to walk about creaking; mules, it is said, can only bray at midnight; and I have heard it hinted that the carcasses of cattle rattle inside their hides, and that snakes find a difficulty in bending their bodies, and horned frogs die of apoplexy. Chickens hatched at this season, as old Fort Yumans say, come out of the shell ready cooked; bacon is eaten with a spoon; and butter must stand in the sun an hour before the flies become dry enough for use. The Indians

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