In the Giant Cactus Belt 177 
Narrow desert areas lying between these 
isolated ranges, which are merely parts of the 
larger plain surrounding the mountains, are 
the valleys of Arizona, their level floors com- 
posed of the detritus or “‘wash” of those 
mountains themselves, swept down the arroyos 
after heavy rains and gradually distributed 
more or less evenly over the surface. The 
numerous creeks are “‘dry creeks’’—arroyos, 
that is—through which water rushes after a 
heavy shower, only to sink into the sands and 
to be speedily lost to view. On the map of 
the Bradshaw quadrangle, an area of only 
about twenty-five by thirty miles, are given 
some seventy or more creeks and streams, yet 
of this number only one, the Agua Fria— 
such is the report of the Geological Survey,— 
contains water all the year. They are dry 
creeks—and the arroyo, like the isolated 
mountains rising abruptly from the plain, is 
one of the very distinctive features of this 
country. Equally characteristic are the names 
onthismap. Here are, for instance: Humbug 
Creek, Dead Cow Gulch, Chaparral Gulch, 
Blind Indian Creek, Horsethief Cafion, Little 
Squaw Creek, Crazy Basin, Bigbug Mesa, and 
Battle Flat,—names which bespeak rudely 
and vividly the life of the pioneer and the 
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