Word: desert
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1920-1929
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Will TIME'S expression: "dry as a cactus" hold water? Desert travelers sometimes split a barrel cactus in half, squeeze the pulp through a cloth, get a cup of sweetish water. The giant cactus, a mass of pulp held together by fibrous ribs, absorbs water on rainy days and swells out like a toad. Woodpeckers drill holes in the trunk, occupy them...
...eminent naturalist (Dr. Horniday) tells of a duck disappointed with prohibition, who retired to the desert. Selecting a suitable giant cactus, she shoved out the woodpecker tenants and moved in. It was cool and comfortable, had running water in every room. In this rustic solitude she spent her declining years. On summer evenings she might have been observed sitting by an open window, her bright green head thrust out in an attitude of expectancy, a sharp eye peeled for passing worms and unsuspecting bugs...
...Great conquered the Near East and in the present Syrian hinterland founded a military colony, Europos. This was about 300 B.C. The next century the Parthians conquered the place; then, in the next, the Romans. The name became Dura. About the time of Jesus, the Romans retreated and desert sands quickly covered buildings. In 1920 British soldiers accidentally discovered Dura. Word went to the late Gertrude Bell. She sent a call to Professor James Henry Breasted of the University of Chicago, who was at Luxor, Egypt, his headquarters for Egyptian research. He sped to Dura, hastily made photographs and maps...
Through the western desert stretches of his own Main Street, Mr. Hoover rested, read books, beamed confidently from the platform. He entered California with the dawn before election. Palo Alto made holiday. To throngs he said, and repeated that evening over the radio: "This enormously enlarged interest is evidence of the great depth of conviction and even anxiety of our people. . . . Whatever the conscience of America determines, that will be right. . . ." Everywhere he made special reference to women. Before noon of election day friends were generally addressing him as "Mr. President...
...mighty Anaconda itself which carried the Carson case, last August, to the U. S. Supreme Court. Chief Counsel Charles Evans Hughes argued earnestly that side-charging furnaces had been used before the Desert Rat won his patents. Dubious, the Magna Copper Co. of Ari zona did not wait for the decision, settled last fortnight with Carson's backers for $75,000 and an arrangement for future use of the patents. And last week, the Supreme Court briefly denied Anaconda's petition. Holding the battle at length won. the Carson Investment Co. announced that only the labor of accounting...