Life In Desert Research Articles

Life in sandy deserts: the scorpion model

The biology, ecology, biogeography, phylogeny, and evolution of sand-dwelling scorpions are reviewed. We present general features of sand that form the ecological theatre on which psammophiles have evolved. Sand scorpions, compared to those that live off sand, are not very diverse in any one local habitat, although they are often relatively abundant. Worldwide, they are represented by 29 genera, 11 of which exist exclusively in sand. Endemic genera belong to non-related families, suggesting that psammophilic adaptations evolvedin situin different sand deserts of the world.

The Imaginative Claims of the Artist in Willa Cather’s Fiction: “Possession Granted by a Different Lease” by Demaree C. Peck

178 Western American Literature white ambulance, into the wide-open back doors, gauges, timeless clocks, upside down bottles of clear fluid. Other fine fiction includes “Two Deserts,” by Valerie Matsumoto, and “News from the Volcano,” by Gladys Swan. In addition to good story-telling, Matsumoto’s harsh descriptions of desert life and Swan’s magical realism offer a refreshing departure from some of the more preachy pieces. Walking the Twilight II is an intriguing collection of women’s voices. However, Wilder assumes that it is enough to establish that each and every piece was written by a woman living somewhere in the Southwest. Surely there is more complexity here for an editor to unearth. LORRAINE ENGSTROM Santa Rosa, California The Imaginative Claims of the Artist in Willa Cather’s Fiction: “Possession Granted by a Different Lease”. By Demaree C. Peck. (Cranbury, New Jersey: Susquehanna University Press, 1996. 342 pages, $48.50.) In The Imaginative Claims of the Artist in Willa Cather’s Fiction, Demaree C. Peck argues that Cather’s work is part of an American tradition of romanticism, a tradition inspired particularly by Ralph Waldo Emerson. In Emerson, Peck writes, Cather found “the best model for her peculiarly American ideal of imaginative possession.”According to Peck, Cather’s characters struggle to “absorb” the world in which they live in order to “recreate an imperial self,” and when Cather writes about her characters, she is, in fact, writing about herself and her own psychic needs. Beginning with Alexander’s Bridge and ending with Sapphira and the Slave Girl, Peck groups eight of Cather’s novels into three distinct phases through which she traces Cather’s evolving notions of Emersonian possession. Peck describes the first phase as “celebratory,” and it includes characters, Alexandra Bergson for example, who recall Emerson’s poet landlord, thus reflecting Cather’s struggle “to assert her own authorial claim upon Nebraska.” The second, a “darker middle phase,” depicts characters such as Niel Herbert and Godfrey St. Peter, who confront, as Cather did, a world of crass mate­ rialism. The third is an “affirmative” phase that brings Cather back to a fundamental struggle between “a material possession and an imaginative appropriation of nature” as she recovered her imaginative territory in works like Death Comesfor the Archbishop. In her concluding chapter Peck extends her argument from Cather’s self-possession to her readers’need to possess Cather, citing numerous reviewers and critics who have used Cather’s literature to support their own themes. Like Cather, her readers seek to “escape” from the real world into a narcissistic quest for sovereignty, the kind of pos­ session known most fully in childhood and described in “The Treasure of Far Island.” In this story, published in 1902, Cather writes, “A child’s standard of value is so entirely his own... that it may be said thathis rights are granted by a different lease.” It is this notion of possession, in Peck’s view, that aligns Cather within an Emersonian tradition of American romanticism. ELIZABETH A. TURNER William Rainey Harper College ...

The Laying Out of Gussie Hoot by Margot Fraser

266 'WesternAmerican Literature dramatic colors and textures of the desert, as well as its stillness and powerful silence, and leave readers with a sense of the region’s intensity. Sonoran Desert Summeris a sensitive and at times humorous cataloguing of desert life, realistic and yet poetic enough to convince even the most skeptical that the desert, America’s last frontier, is truly a captivating and enchanting land. R. L. STRENG Texas Christian University The Laying Out of Gussie Hoot. By Margot Fraser. (Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1990. 289 pages, $14.95.) By the end of the richly detailed opening scene, mystery aficionados will have no doubt that Gussie Hoot (Augusta Euanthe Houghton née Merriwether) is asking for it—it being the retribution meted out to feisty old ladies whose hubris lets them make a habit ofleaving the screen door unhooked while every morning they count out stacks of dirty money on the kitchen table. And, indeed, at some delicately concealed point between Chapters 1 and 2, Gussie gets it, setting in motion the leisurely action of Fraser’s engaging first novel. Though motivated by the apparent murder of Gussie, and nudged forward in part by the small-western-town version of police procedure, TheLaying Out of GussieHootdoes not belong solely to the realm of crime fiction. Fraser’s strong sense of place and her classic cast of caricatures and near-caricatures place her firmly in the tradition of western humor, practiced with such success (though often with differing goals) by such present-day talents as DanJenkins and Larry McMurtry. Though not as raucous asJenkins, the playfulness with which Fraser hands us (for instance) law partners named Austin and Houston isvery much in the Jenkins mode, as are the delightfully drawn figures—both “Messkin” and Anglo—that fill out the background of the novel. My favorite is Jesus Valenzuela, the Tequila Canary.Jewel Ray and Sherrylee Cantwell, the teenage Bonnie and Clyde of the novel, are attractive as well, and while Gussie has not the abiding presence of Faulkner’sAddie Bundren, her spirit adds vigor to the story. Gussie is not flawless. Fraser often explains where a more experienced writer would suggest, or create intriguing ambiguity (the “mythical signifi­ cance”of the get-away Cadillac is a case in point), and some scenes, particularly the climactic courtroom scene, are simply too long. However, the strengths of this first novel (not the least of which is Fraser’s skillful handling of Spanish) outweigh its weaknesses and bode well for future publications by the author. CHERYL L. HALL Columbia, Missouri ...

Métaphores en génie mécanique, en anglais et en français

In the present paper we deal with metaphors which are used in the field of mechanical engineering. We claim that these metaphors largely depend upon civilizations. When the metaphors in the Arabic language are compared to those in French and English, there seems to be symmetry in corresponding cultures. This however is an illusion, which can for instance be illustrated by the terminology of a milling-machine (cf. fig.l). These differences can be explained by the fact that every language is influenced by its own culture. Moreover the English seem to choose pragmatic and concrete metaphors, the French abstract ones and the Arabic language is both influenced by the desert life and by European cultures.

Mary Austin and Houghton Mifflin Company: A Case Study in the Marketing of a Western Writer

K A R E N S. L A N G L O I S The Huntington Library Mary Austin andHoughtonMifflin Company: A Case Study in the Marketing of aWestern Writer At the time of her death in 1934, Mary Hunter Austin was nationally recognized as a prominent spokeswoman for the American West and an important figure in regional literature. Included among her western works are essays on California, Arizona and New Mexico, collections of short stories and folk tales, translations of Indian songs, dramas of Indian life, four novels, and a volume of poetry. Although considerable attention has been given to analysis of her western writing, little notice has been paid to Mary Austin’s relationship with Houghton Mifflin Company, her major publishers, or to the design, advertising, and marketing of her regional work. Such an investigation can enhance our understanding of her literary career and our knowledge of how the work of a western writer was per­ ceived and marketed by the eastern publishing industry in the early decades of this century. At the turn of the century Mary Austin was a provincial frontier wife, school teacher, and aspiring author, who had been living in the California desert for most of her adult life. Originally from Carlinville, Illinois, in 1888 she had graduated from Blackburn College, a small denominational institution, where she had been class poet and editor of the school news­ paper. Shortly after graduation she had traveled west with her widowed mother and brother to homestead 540 acres in Tejon, California, at the edge of the Mojave Desert. In May 1891 she was married to Wallace Stafford Austin, a vineyardist, farmer, and speculator. Her only child, a mentally retarded daughter, was bom the following year. Mary Austin’s first short story, “The Mother of Felipe,” was published in the California periodical, the Overland Monthly, in November 1892. Overworked and in ill health, she struggled to continue her writing. In 1899 she relocated in Los Angeles to teach school and seek medical treatment for her daughter. There she became a member of the Arroyo literary circle of Charles Lummis, the editor of The Land of Sunshine, who published some of her 32 Western American Literature short pieces and encouraged her in a literary career. Her association with the genteel Boston publishing house of Houghton Mifflin Company began the following year with the publication of her short story, “A Shepherd of the Sierras,” in their periodical, the Atlantic Monthly. In 1900 Houghton Mifflin was considered the arbiter of good taste in literature and the reigning symbol of America’s literary tradition. Among the authors who appeared on its list, generally acknowledged as “one of the most formidable in the country,” were Emerson, Hawthorne, Howells, Longfellow, Thoreau, and Whittier. Also appearing under its distinguished imprint, a “guarantee ... of literary superiority,”1were the regional authors Sarah Ome Jewett and Bret Harte, as well as the naturalists John Bur­ roughs and John Muir, in whose company Mary Austin is now usually classed. In January 1902 Mary Austin sent several story sketches describing and interpreting desert life to Bliss Perry, editor in chief, asking if he thought a book of essays such as these might be published. In his reply Perry praised her “descriptive papers about the portion of California which you know best” and requested that she send more of her material. The follow­ ing July he informed her that “Houghton, Mifflin and Company [would] be glad to undertake the publication of the volume.” He no doubt recog­ nized the book’s literary promise and, in light of the general interest in the picturesque American West, believed that her volume of essays might be a fine addition to his house list. Emphasizing that the “appeal [of the book] would ... be to a comparatively limited number of readers,” he offered her a ten per cent royalty, “reserving the royalties due you upon the first thou­ sand until two thousand have been sold.”2 The Land of Little Rain was published in 1903 by the Cambridge Riverside Press, Houghton Mifflin’s manufacturing division. The press was well-known for the excellence of its design and the quality of its paper and fine bindings. The...

Effects of artificially imposed shade on a Sonoran Desert ecosystem: microclimate and vegetation

Artificial shading was provided to a Sonoran Desert ecosystem with an array of 12 regularly spaced, opaque structures. Shading resulted in a cooler, moister microhabitat below and behind each structure. Open gaps between structures also exhibited moister soils relative to a control. Ephemeral plants increased in species diversity and showed a shift in species composition in shaded microsites, but exhibited decreased total biomass relative to controls. A deciduous shrub, Ambrosia deltoidea, had more mesophytic leaves, higher leaf area, carbon dioxide assimilation and growth in shaded microsites. An evergreen shrub, Larrea tridentata, had highest carbon dioxide assimilation and growth in sunny microsites within the array of shading structures. The plant responses observed in this study illustrate the contrasting adaptations of different desert life forms from the same habitat.

Mary Austin and Lincoln Steffens

Recently there has been a revival of interest in the American writer Mary Hunter Austin (1868-1934). Once hailed as the Queen Victoria of American letters, she wrote in a wide variety of genres and was one of the most versatile and prolific of American women writers.' Her literary achievements include thirty-four published books, numerous poems, plays, short stories, articles and reviews, and an extensive personal correspondence with celebrated members of the American cultural and intellectual community. Ranked with Henry Thoreau and John Muir as a naturalist, she also achieved an international reputation as poet, mystic, feminist, folklorist, and novelist. Following her death in 1934 she was praised as perhaps the most monumental of our American women writers.2 Mary Austin was born in Carlinville, Illinois on 9 September 1868. She attended local schools and was graduated with a Bachelor of Science Degree from Blackburn College. Shortly after her graduation she traveled west with her widowed mother and brother. In California the family unsuccessfully attempted to homestead 540 acres of barren range land in Tejon Pass at the edge of the Mojave Desert. There Mary Austin began to collect material for her future stories. An unsuccessful marriage, financial hardship, and repeated moves among sparsely populated towns along the borders of Death Valley followed. A daughter born in the second year of her marriage was mentally retarded. Discouraged by the hardships of desert life, ill health, and the care of her daughter, Mary Austin struggled to continue her writing. Her first story, Mother of Felipe, appeared in the Overland Monthly in 1892. This was followed by publications in Out West, Cosmopolitan, and the Atlantic Monthly. In 1903 the publication of her first book, The Land of Little Rain, storysketches describing and interpreting desert life, won her immediate fame among literary critics as one of America's important new writers. In 1906, after eighteen years in the California desert, she left her husband and daughter and moved to the literary colony of Carmel on the California

In The Strong Woods: A Season Alone in The North Country by Paul Lehmberg

64 Western American Literature journalist, in true journalistic style he capitalizes on the many fearless adventures of John Muir’s life. He skillfully creates an appropriate and colorful background that highlights each event. Occasionally, in his enthusi­ asm to vividly portray a heroic adventure, he exaggerates to the extent of making the incident unbelievable, as is true in his relating the episode of Rev. S. Hall Young and John Muir on Glenora Peak in Alaska. Mr. Clarke relates an anecdote of Muir’s having had a more than friendly interest in a young woman of Julian, California, a Mary Jane Talley. Some gifts, a scrapbook herbarium and a collage of a woodland scene, that Muir supposedly gave her, were deposited in the San Diego Historical Society by her daughter in 1939. Although the gifts are likely ones that Muir could have given to a girl he liked, the anecdote cannot be accepted as truth until some evidence establishes the fact that Muir was in Julian and spent some time there. To date, the records do not support this. Furthermore, a Muir scholar has examined the writing in the scrapbook, and firmly believes that the writing is not that of John Muir. Mr. Clarke makes the rather common error in referring to the Sierra Nevada as “the Sierras.” The Sierra Nevada range is a single range and not plural as indicated in several instances. In relating Muir’s first visit to Yosemite, the author writes that Muir and his companion camped in the Merced Grove on their way out. Muir and Chilwell came in by way of Coulterville and Crane Flat where they might have camped in the Merced Grove near there, but did not. Actually, they departed by way of Wawona and camped in the Mariposa Grove on their way out to Mariposa. Mr. Clarke spent five years writing the book. The reader will quickly realize that the author is not only a great admirer of Muir, but is also a preservationist dedicated to the ideals for which Muir worked throughout his life, and therefore writes with sympathetic understanding. This book will not be of great interest to the scholarly student because of its discrep­ ancies and also the fact that it is fictionalized to some extent. To the casual reader, however, the biography offers a lively and moving account of our renown naturalist. WILLIAM F. KIMES, Mariposa, California In The Strong Woods: A Season Alone in The North Country. By Paul Lehmberg. (New7York: St. Martin’s Press, 1980. 149 pages, $8.95.) When author Paul Lehmberg chose the title In The Strong Woods, he had in mind the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition of strong as “of country: thickly covered with undergrowth.” The northwoods of the Minnesota/Ontario country are so dense that roads in this land are usually water routes: lakes and rivers. It is a land one can easily get lost in. Ironically it is the land in which Mr. Lehmberg chose to find himself. Reviews 65 Having finished his course work for his Ph.D. and not having the energy to begin the dissertation, he also found his marriage at a stalemate. After deliberating a summer’s solitude at a modest wilderness cabin that he and his wife, Suzanne, and two other couples built, Paul chose to leave the desert city of Salt Lake and move to Nym. Do not confuse this book with traditional nature writing. Rather Mr. Lehmberg writes of the nature of man. Most of the book concentrates on the dilemmas of modern man and his decision-making processes, his evaluation of his environment ,and his relationship to it. The author does not write of canoe adventures as the Sigurd Olson reader might anticipate, but most often from his kitchen table at Nym Lake. The text is predominantly meditative rather than descriptive of the land. Occasionally the reader experiences a portage or sees the northern lights. But mostly the northwoods allows Mr. Lehmberg to escape from the desert life of a twentyeight year old student-teacher-husband to reevaluate himself and restore life to his drying shell. Mr. Lehmberg praises housewifery and the menial tasks while alone at his cabin. Through the repetition...

Life in Desert and Plain.Richard Perry

<i>Life in Desert and Plain.</i>Richard Perry

Combs of the Beni-Amur

T he approximately 60,000 Beni-Amur are nomadic or semi-nomadic herders who live in the East Horn Culture Area designated by Herskovits in his 1924 treatise on the culture areas of Africa. They are a subgroup of the Beja, a people closely related to the ancient Egyptians who occupy the area between the Nile, the Atbara, and the Red Sea, which includes northwestern Eritrea in Ethiopia and west central Sudan. The Beni-Amur have possessed camels probably for only some 2000 years, and this animal has given them greater command over desert life than their early forbears ever had; thus, they occupy areas that formerly must have been uninhabitable. In the past, these lowland pastoralists found sufficient grazing lands to support large herds of camels, goats, and sheep, as long as they migrated seasonally between the regions of summer and winter rains. Although historically travel was dangerous and men were confined to their tribal units, urban development has led to the increased importance of trips to the village markets, which are undertaken only a few times a year. Townspeople and herders are beginning to mingle, although uneasily, and as towns become a greater part of Beni-Amur life, there may be less need to rely on the grazing unit. Today, however, whether it be goats, cows, sheep or camels, the grazing unit still functions as the source of income, and much value is placed on it. Marriage continues to be effected by a dowry of animals. A tribesman will sell an animal to obtain currency with which to purchase his clothing, beads, perfume, swords, knives, spears, sandals, amulets, safety pins, kohl, and a few other personal items. His annual cash income is probably much below the Ethiopian average yearly income, estimated by the United Nations in 1960 at $46.00 U.S. During 1962-1964 when I lived in Agordat in Eritrea, I became friendly with Abdul Wahab Nur Rahman, an Arab merchant who had a stall in the Bahakim Scuderia. The Scuderia is a large covered shed in the middle of the market where tribesmen go to barter or to purchase items. Abdul's stall was situated next to an entry door in the Scuderia, and his days were spent selling safety pins, cloth belts for men's pants, perfume, Tagias (skull caps), an assortment of herbs and spices, and beads made of amber, agate, sandalwood, ebony and glass. The Beni-Amur men I observed at the market wore rubber sandals carved from

South American mammal zoogeography: evidence from convergent evolution in desert rodents.

Current theories regarding colonization of South America by mammals are divided between those supported by fossil evidence, which suggest the original mammal fauna of the isolated continent was augmented by early immigrants (primates, caviomorph rodents, and later, procyonids) with a final large influx of northern mammals occurring with the formation of the Panama land bridge, and an opposing view which states that the purported "recent invaders" are too taxonomically and ecologically differentiated to have colonized since the land bridge arose. The second theory suggests that most extant mammals entered before the Plio-Pleistocene land connection. An analysis of degree of physiological adaptation, natural history, distribution patterns, and a multivariate assessment of convergent evolution of Monte Desert rodents indicate that South American cricetine rodents are not highly specialized for desert life. Their degree of adaptation could be accounted for, in large part, by adaptations for arid or semiarid Andean habitats. No Monte Desert rodent has developed the specialized desert traits that have evolved in most desert rodent faunas of the world, although extinct marsupials similar to living bipedal desert rodents were present in the Monte as recently as late Pliocene. Evidence suggests that Monte caviomorphs have been associated with the desert for a longer period than cricetines, and that the latter represent a fairly recent invasion of the Monte Desert. The data thus support the first hypothesis of South American mammal colonization.

Metabolic effects of insulin blockade by d-Mannoheptulose in the sand rat ( Psammomys obesus) and the rat

Injections of d-Mannoheptulose (M-H), which blocks insulin release, have been used to compare the changes in fasting metabolism of the sand rat ( Psammomys obesus) and the laboratory white rat. Changes in O 2 consumption. CO 2 production. NPN excretion, and blood sugar were measured. The sand rat, which is adapted for desert life, differs from the laboratory rat in utilizing little or no fat when fasting. However, when utilization of carbohydrate is blocked by M-H, fat catabolism in the fasted sand rat reaches the same intensity as in the rat.

Water balance in desert arthropods. Despite their small size, arthropods may be highly adapted for life in xeric conditions.

As judged by the number of species, or of individuals, arthropods are an extremely successful group of desert inhabitants. There is very great structural and physiological diversity within the group, and since adaptations to desert life open to one are not open to all. we should not expect to find the maximum possible development of adaptive features in any arthropod simply because it lives in a desert. Most adult insects fly; their larvae and all other arthropods do not, and their adaptations will differ accordingly. Desert beetles have very impermeable cuticles and tolerate high body temperatures, while desert cockroaches live below the sand. have more permeable cuticles, and absorb water vapor. There is probably no single respect in which all desert arthropods differ from insects of other environments. Perhaps a profitable way of viewing desert animals is to recognize that each is a whole organism with a specific collection of adaptations that must be consistent within themselves and which are associated with a specific mode of life and a specific evolutionary history. The arthropod organization is capable of producing highly efficient desert species. There is, however, a converse way of looking at the situation, Which is often neglected but which may be of general biological interest: does the evolution of adaptations to desert environments necessarily involve loss of viability in more mesic habitats? If so, then what are these disavantages- what, for example, is the disadvantage of a highly impermeable cuticle? In some cases the answer is clear: sandroaches need sand dunes to live in because they are morphologically and behaviorly specialized for this habitat. More often the answer is not obvious.

Life in Deserts.

Life in Deserts.

Life in Deserts

Life in Deserts

THE CAMEL CAPILLARY.

VARIOUS mechanisms have been proposed to explain the ability of the camel to survive the dehydration stresses of desert life. The use of the fatty hump as a water store has been excluded because calculations of the volume of water released from the metabolic breakdown of this amount of fat do not coincide with the measured losses of body water1. Consideration has been given to the stomach asthe organ in which the camel could store water for periods of severe dehydration. There is some evidence to indicate that the stomach of the camel may indeed play such a part. However, measurements of the amount of water which the camel stomach can store for such a purpose do not give clear evidence that such stores could in fact be completely adequate to see the camel through the prolonged periods of dehydration which it has been known to endure2. Peck has observed that camels develop a ‘physiological’ subcutaneous œdema immediately after rehydrating themselves, and he noted that this phenomenon may last as long as 24 h. On this basis he suggested that the subcutaneous tissue might act as a water-storage depot3.

Skin adaptations of some rodents to life in the desert.

Skin adaptations of some rodents to life in the desert.

Pulmonary peculiarities related to life in the desert

Pulmonary peculiarities related to life in the desert

Animal Life in Deserts. A Study of the Fauna in Relation to the Environment.P. A. Buxton

<i>Animal Life in Deserts. A Study of the Fauna in Relation to the Environment.</i>P. A. Buxton

The Religious Life in Desert, Factory and Sea

The Religious Life in Desert, Factory and Sea