McciEE) PRIME VALUE OF WATER 181* 



average man daily ingests nearly (i pounds of water and but little over 1 

 pound of actually solid nutrients. Tbus the ratio ot the consumption 

 of li(]uid food to that of solids is (naturally, in view of that readier elimi- 

 nation of the liquid constituent so characteristic especially of arid 

 regions) somewhat larger than the ratio of water to solids in the human 

 system, the ratios being nearly 6 : 1 and 4 : 1, respectively.' This analysis 

 serves measurably to explain the peculiarly develoi)ed water-sense of all 

 desert peoples, a sense finding expression in the tirst tenets of faith 

 among the Pueblos, in the fundamental law of the Papago, and in the 

 strongest instinct of the Seri; for among folk habituated to thirst 

 through terrible (albeit occasional) experience, water is the central 

 nucleus of thought about which all other ideas revolve in a])propriate 

 orbits — it is an ultimate standard of things incomparably more stable 

 and exalted than the gold of civilized commerce, the constantly 

 remembered basis of life itself. 



The potable water of Seriland is scanty in the extreme. The aggre- 

 gate daily quantity available during ten months of the average year 

 (excluding the eight wettest weeks of the two moist seasons) can hardly 

 exceed 0.1 or 0.2 of a second foot, or 00,000 to 125,000 gallons per day, of 

 living water, i. e., less than the mean supply for each thousand residents 

 of a modern city, or about that consumed in a single hotel or ai)artment 

 house. Pi'obably two-thirds of this meager supply is confined to a sin- 

 gle livulet (Arroyo Carrizal) in the interior of Tiburon, far from the 

 food yielding coasts, while the remainder is distributed over the 1,500 

 square miles of Seriland in a few widely separated agua.jes, of wliich 

 only two or three can be considered permanent; and this normal sup- 

 ply is supplemented by the brackish seepage in storm-cut runnels, as 

 at Barranca Salina, or in shallow wells, as at Pozo Escalante and Pozo 

 Hardy, which is fairly fresh and abundant for a few weeks after each 

 moist season, but bitterly briny if not entirely gone before the begin 

 ning of the next. The scanty aggregate serves not only for the human 

 but for the bestial residents of the Seri principality ; and its distribution 

 is such that the mean distance to the nearest aguaje throughout the 

 entire region is 8 or 10 miles, while the extreme distances are thrice 

 greater. 



The paucity of potable water and the remoteness of its sources natu- 

 rally affect the habits of the folk ; and the effect is intensified by a curi- 

 ous custom, not fully understood, though doubtless connected with 

 militant instincts fixed (like the habits of primitive men generally) by 

 abounding faith and persistent ritualistic practice — i. e., the avoidauce 

 of living waters in selectiug sites for habitations or even temporary 

 camps. Thus the principal rancherias on Tiburon island, about Rada 

 Ballena, are some 4 miles from Tiuaja Anita, the nearest aguaje; the 



' The plare of water among food substances is more fully discussed in The Potable Waters of 

 Eastern United States, 14th Ann. Kep. of the U. S. Geol. Survey, 1894, pp. 5-8; the physiologic conse- 

 quences of deprivation of water are outlined in The Thirst of the Desert, Atlantic Monthly, April 

 1808, lip. 483-488. 



