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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



INTERIOR OF THATCHED SHELTERS IN FRONT OF HOUSES IN DATE-PA EM GROVES AT 



SAN IGNACIO 



These are general living-rooms in hot weather. Note porous water-jar on left, in which 

 drinking water is kept cool by evaporation from the outside of the jar 



receives from them but scanty and un- 

 certain precipitation. 



Light frosts occur in winter on all the 

 lowlands except a narrow belt along the 

 immediate shore-line. At higher eleva- 

 tions, especially in the north, frosts are 

 severe, and snow falls from one to six 

 feet deep on the San Pedro Martir 

 Mountains, where it sometimes remains 

 for several months. The cool northwest 

 winds and accompanying fogs on the 

 west coast render the climate there much 

 cooler and more agreeable in summer 

 than that of the Gulf side, which is ex- 

 cessively hot and dry, temperatures com- 

 monly going far above ioo° Fahrenheit 

 in the shade. 



The peninsula suffers long periods of 



drought, during which no rainfall suffi- 

 cient to start vegetation occurs over large 

 areas for periods of from three to five 

 years. These dry periods may be suc- 

 ceeded by torrential rains, which sweep 

 the country and roll great floods down 

 the usually dry water-courses to the sea. 

 During the long rainless periods the 

 smaller desert herbage crumbles and is 

 blown away, leaving the ground between 

 the larger woody and fleshy plants as 

 bare as though swept, and the larger 

 plants become more or less dormant. 

 With the heavy rains which follow, the 

 bare earth is covered as by magic with 

 an abundance of small flowering herbage 

 and the larger plants burst forth into 

 flower and foliage. 



