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rests lovingly on the few mementoes brought from far away homes in gentler climes imparting to them the same dusty, sunburnt, desolate tint that meets the eye all over that arid zone euphoniously yclept Arizona by some unknown and unsung minstrel wandering in wits as well as in footsteps.
The peculiarities of the climate of Arizona in general and of the Colorado Valley in particular are too well known to require further description. The specific gravity between a silver watch in one's fob and a hot hard boiled egg just out of the boiler may differ - at this season, however, there is no doubt but that they possess the same temperature.
Stories are rife of weary and thirsty travelers oppressed by the heat and wandering in search of water which is nowhere to be found, being lured onward and onward to their fate by delusive mirages until reason totters upon its throne and a horrible death meets them at last.
It has always been supposed, by unbelieving mortals and doubting Thomases, that the story of the soldier at Fort Yuma who having crossed the Styx and received his ticket-of-leave from Pluto's dominions came back for his blanket was somewhat apocryphal, but a three year's experience has demonstrated to the writer's satisfaction that more wonderful things have been taken on trust.
The following table of variations in temperature, rainfall etc, computed from the records of the Post Hospital at Camp Mohave, from September 1876 to September 1877 may be taken as a fair average of meteorological phenomenon for the entire Colorado Valley from the mouth of the river to the Grand Cañon - a [[underline]] very slight [[/underline]] allowance being made for the different latitudes and altitudes. 
The morning observations were taken at 7 o'clock AM, the noon at 2 PM and the night at 9 PM, with instruments furnished by the Medical Department of the United States Army - Post Surgeon Lightburne in charge from September 1876 and Post Surgeon Freeman from August 1877.