. Our country: West. The Valley. brazen sky could rain, and whether, if it did, all the water inthe territory could fill that immense lake-basin, which layparched and lifeless beneath the blistering Arizona , the outlook seemed dubious enough. There lay theoutstretched water-basin, a very desert in barrenness, its redvolcanic soil aggravating the sense of aridity derived from A BUILDED LAKE. 175 seeing the lurid heat. In the basin were brown grass, brownrocks, stunted oak-brush, withering cactus, cattle dying on theroad to water, the only water in sight a sluggish creek windingthroug
. Our country: West. The Valley. brazen sky could rain, and whether, if it did, all the water inthe territory could fill that immense lake-basin, which layparched and lifeless beneath the blistering Arizona , the outlook seemed dubious enough. There lay theoutstretched water-basin, a very desert in barrenness, its redvolcanic soil aggravating the sense of aridity derived from A BUILDED LAKE. 175 seeing the lurid heat. In the basin were brown grass, brownrocks, stunted oak-brush, withering cactus, cattle dying on theroad to water, the only water in sight a sluggish creek windingthrough the valley and sinking, at intervals, out of sightbeneath the sand. The flood-gates had been closed three months in expecta-tion of the rains, but winter had come and gone without evena sprinkle. Heavy snow had lain on the mountain sinceFebruary, but no rain had fallen to bring the snow down in a. The Lake. freshet. At last, in April, came a driving wind and rain,blown in from the Gulf of California. Rain-drops as big as marbles bounded from boulder toboulder and down into the lake-basin. Every groove in therocks fed a hollow, the hollows fed the streams and thestreams quickly grew into torrents that tore their way through 17^ A BUILDED LAKE. the empty creek-beds. The lake-level rose three feet in anhour, but the effects of the warm rain on the mountains hadyet to be seen. At midnight a cowboy rode in on horseback, breathlesswith excitement, to tell us, There s a wave from fifty to ahundred feet high crashing down the valley ! We seized our pouches and lanterns and started for theboom. We could hear the roar of the river, ten miles away,but it was an hour before it rushed in upon us, twenty feethigh and fifty feet across, a great tidal wave, seething withfoam, carrying trees, boulders, everything before it. Thenfollowed the deafening boom of the other creeks, as one afteranothe
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectwestusdescriptionand
