814 



GLEANiNGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Nov. 1. 



year I thought I would try putting a notice in 

 our county paper, and we have had purchasers 

 for almost all of them, right from the field. 

 Sometimes it pays to tell people what you have 

 got a surplus of. 



Notes of Travel 



FROM A. I. ROOT. 



The parched jirouiid shall become a pool, and the 

 thirsty land springs of water.— ISA. 35: 7. 



MIRAGE; IRRIGATION; ANCIENT I)WELI>INGS IN 

 ARIZONA. ETC. 



Arizona, with all its grotesque features, has 

 something more wonderful still in its mirages. 

 Many people, however, have never seen these 

 wonderful visions, if so I may term them, be- 

 cause they have not watched for them and 

 been ready to see what is to be seen; in fact, we 

 did not have a good treat in this line until just 

 as we were leaving the Territory. We took the 

 train at Tempe before daylight, and the sun 

 was rising when we were a few miles away 

 from Maricopa. I was on the lookout, and was 

 rewarded by seeing first a magnificent suspen- 

 sion bridge in the clouds, just over the tops of 

 the mountains. These bridges are perfectly 

 level and straight, and T judge the mountain 

 vapors have something to do with it, for they 

 often seem to settle to a water level; and right 

 along this level, a slender thread, as it were, 

 seems to run from one mountain to another. 

 Now. this might be easily explained were it not 

 that this thread is frequently cut up by regular 

 ci'oss-beams, say like the ties on a I'ailroad, 

 only they are so wonderfully exact and even y 

 spaced that one would think it was a piece of 

 the finest mechanical work. While you watch, 

 the scene changes, and you are treated to a 

 series of dissolving views. As we came into 

 Maricopa, a wonderful mountain reared its top 

 clear up amid the skies. By and by an aim 

 shot out of the side of the mountain, some- 

 thing like the horn of an anvil. In fact, the 

 whole mountain began to look like a huge 

 blacksmith anvil. While we gazed, the horn 

 began slowly to grow in length, and to stick 

 out further and further into the sky. Pretty 

 soon the point of it narrowed down to a sort of 

 neck, and finally it broke off. Even though it 

 did break off, however, it did not drop, but re- 

 mained suspended in the air. Then a sort of 

 loop-hole made its appearance in the middle of 

 the anvil near where the horn started out; and 

 this hole kept enlarging until you could see ol> 

 jects on the other side. While this was going 

 on, a tall rock or spire was all at once discov- 

 ered near the lailroad track. It was as straight 

 as some of the great chimneys in manufacto- 

 ries. As it was near the track, near the line we 

 were soon to take, I congratulated myself that 

 we could soon run up to it and see what it was 

 like. I felt sure; there must be some sort of 

 rock to give foundation to the illusion: but 

 when a bystander told me there was no rock- 

 there at all, and that those wonderful ranges 

 of mountains we had been admiring'were not 

 mountains at all. I could not believe his words. 

 In fact, it seemed as if my senses were a good 

 deal more reliable than his statements. The 

 grotesque mountains, and this wonderful rock, 

 were in plain sight for perhaps a couple of 

 hours, although they changed form ca :good 

 deal. Imagine my liisgust, when we took the 

 train and arrived at the point where the rock 

 ought to be. to find nothing whatever — just the 

 plain level surface of the desert. Sometimes a 

 rock or mountain would be plainly visible while 



we were standing on one side of the railroad 

 track, but just as plainly invisible when we 

 stood on the other side; and this made me 

 think that the iron track, so perfectly straight 

 and true, running away into the distance, had 

 something to do with that wonderful shaft of 

 rock that seemed to shoot almost into the sky. 

 The books tell us that this mirage is a reflec- 

 tion of something that exists somewhere else. 

 Well, now, there is not any such great bridge 

 anywhere in that region: and there is not a 

 mountain that looks like a blacksmith's anvil; 

 and why should these things grow and shape 

 them.selves? You may suggest that it was only 

 a queer-shaped cloud or vapor; but this would 

 not explain the cross-ties and other forms of 

 architecture. It was quite evident that nature 

 seemed to delight in sporting in a certain form 

 of regularities. Things would be spaced off 

 into distances so exactly equal that there was 

 no "happening" about it. The reflection of 

 the sands of the desert has something to do 

 with it: and on the great prairies, along the 

 wSouthern Pacific, through the whole South, I 

 saw iiow and then long strips of horizon with a 

 streak of either sky or water underneath. The 

 great cornfields in Dakota sometimes produce a 

 similar result. I suspect that these appear- 

 ances are produced by the same phenomena, to 

 a considerable extent, that show a ring around 

 the sun and moon before a storm — the same 

 thing that produces what we call "sundogs;'" 

 and these latter are sometimes accompanied by 

 beautiful geometric circles, as you may have 

 noticed. We have been told, however, that 

 there is really no circle around the sun and 

 moon at all — it is " all in your eye " — at least, so 

 scientists tell us. just as a rainbow is '• all in 

 your eye," and that there is no rainbow at all 

 across the heavens, and never was and never 

 will be. Nevermind. We enjoyed the mirages 

 of Arizona fully as much as we ever enjoyed 

 looking at a great city or great steamships or 

 great fireworks; in fact. I think I enjoyed them 

 a little more, because the mirage is the work of 

 iwture. and the other is the work of m(tn. 



Before leaving Arizona with its wonderful 

 natural scenery I wish to mention a pleasant 

 visit that my ijrother and I paid to A. .1. King, 

 for so many years editor of the Bec-kcepcrs' 

 McKjazlne. That magazine was, as you may 

 know, conducted a great many years, had a 

 large subscription list, and certainly came next 

 to the American Bee Journal and Gleanings. 

 Friend King is away ott' in the desert, almost 

 alone by himself. One can not say there is no 

 other dwelling-house in -sight, for you can see a 

 house thirty or forty miles on the deserts of 

 Arizona, if you have a telescope equal to the 

 need. On page 628, 1891. friend King gave us 

 some enthusiastic reports of this strange 

 country. Well, his anticipations have not all 

 been realized. 1 believe; and just at the time of 

 our visit an unusual frost had made his fruit- 

 ranch look rather sad and dreary. His wife 

 was away at the time, and he and his boy were 

 living alone amid their fruit-trees and shrub- 

 bery. The boy was engaged in clipping off the 

 tops of the small orange-trees where they had 

 been frosted. Right close by his house are 

 some specimens of giant cacti that make one 

 stand and gaze in open-mouthed wonder. I 

 guessed they were ".'Oor :.'.■> feet high; but friend 

 King said the tallest was ovei'4u feet: and when 

 I asked about the rapidity of their growth, he 

 said he thought they grew very slowly: for dur- 

 ing the three or four years he had been on the 

 place he had not been able to detect any growth 

 at all. 



Before I forgt't it I wish to tell something 

 about the hot season of Ai'izona. Please re- 

 member it Is almost as hot there nights as it is 



