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Page 46
Neither is the rainfall deficient from any lack of evaporation.
Upon the contrary the evaporation is excessive and according to
the estimate of Major Powell amounts fully to one hundred inches
of water per annum. If the vapors arising from this enormous
evaporation should all be condensed into clouds and converted
into rain it would create a rainy season that would last
throughout the year.
The humidity caused by an abundant rainfall in any low, hot
country is usually enough to unfit it for human habitation. The
combined effect of heat and moisture upon a fertile soil causes
an excess of both growing and decaying vegetation that fills the
atmosphere with noxious vapors and disease producing germs. The
sultry air is so oppressive that it is more than physical
endurance can bear. The particles of vapor which float in the
atmosphere absorb and hold the heat until it becomes like a
steaming hot blanket that is death to unacclimated life. All of
this is changed where siccity prevails. The rapid evaporation
quickly dispels the vapors and the dry heat desiccates the
disease creating germs and makes them innocuous.
The effect of heat upon the body is measured by the difference in
the actual and sensible temperatures, as recorded by the dry and
wet bulb thermometers. When both stand nearly together as they
are apt to do in a humid atmosphere, the heat becomes
insufferable. In the dry climate of Arizona such a condition
cannot occur. The difference in the two instruments is always
great, often as much as forty degrees. For this reason, a
temperature of 118 degrees F. at Yuma is less oppressive than 98
degrees F. is in New York. A low relative humidity gives comfort
and freedom from sunstroke even when the thermometer registers
the shade temperature in three figures.
A dry, warm climate is a stimulant to the cutaneous function.
The skin is an important excreting organ that is furnished with a
large number of sweat glands which are for the dual purpose of
furnishing moisture for cooling the body by evaporation and the
elimination of worn out and waste material from the organism. As
an organ it is not easily injured by over work, but readily lends
its function in an emergency in any effort to relieve other tired
or diseased organs of the body. By vicarious action the skin is
capable of performing much extra labor without injury to itself
and can be harnessed temporarily for the relief of some vital
part which has become crippled until its function can be
restored.
A diseased kidney depends particularly upon the skin for succor
more than any other organ. When the kidneys from any cause fail
to act the skin comes to their rescue and throws off impurities
which nature intended should go by the renal route. For this
reason diabetes and albuminuria, the most stubborn of all kidney
diseases, are usually benefited by a dry, warm climate. The
benefit derived is due to an increase of the insensible
transpiration rather than to profuse perspiration. The air of
Arizona is so dry and evaporation so rapid that an increase in
perspiration is scarcely noticeable except when it is confined by
impervious clothing. The disagreeable feeling of wet clothes
which accompanies profuse perspiration in a damp climate is
changed to an agreeable sensation of coolness in a dry one.
The atmosphere of Arizona is not only dry but also very
electrical, so much so, indeed, that at times it becomes almost
painful. Whenever the experiment is tried, sparks can be
produced by friction or the handling of metal, hair or wool. It
affects animals as well as man, and literally causes "the hair to
stand on end." The writer has on various occasions seen a string
of horses standing close together at a watering-trough, drinking,
so full of electricity that their manes and tails were spread out
and floated in the air, and the long hairs drawn by magnetic
attraction from one animal to the other all down the line in a
spontaneous effort to complete a circuit. There are times when
the free electricity in the air is so abundant that every object
becomes charged with the fluid, and it cannot escape fast enough
or find "a way out" by any adequate conductor. The effects of
such an excess of electricity is decidedly unpleasant on the
nerves, and causes annoying irritability and nervousness.
The hot sun sometimes blisters the skin and burns the complexion
to a rich, nut-brown color, but the air always feels soft and
balmy, and usually blows only in gentle zephyrs. The air has a
pungent fragrance which is peculiar to the desert, that is the
mingled product of a variety of resinous plants. The weather is
uniformly pleasant, and the elements are rarely violently
disturbed.
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