ARIZONIQUES

Something of an almanac, a sampler, and a guide to places, events, and people unique to Arizona and the Southwest.

ARIZONA'S MEGARABBIT

There's an Arizona rabbit that weighs up to thirteen pounds, stands as tall as your sink, has snow-white flanks and pinkish paper-thin ears exceeding seven inches in length, and can disappear across the desert in moments. Once you see Lepus alleni, the antelope jackrabbit, all those stories, cartoons, and taxidermists' tricks creating "jackalopes"-the mythical antlered offspring of a jackrabbit and an antelope-seem a little more credible. If rabbits can grow to the size of a fawn and take on a pronghorn's coat, why not a small set of antlers?

The antelope jackrabbit, unique to south-central Arizona and Sonora and northern Sinaloa, Mexico, usually roams mesquite plains and grassy sloping bajadas. In Arizona, good places to see these unusual creatures are the vicinity of Tucson and Oracle Junction, the Santa Rita Experimental Range, and the Altar Valley north of Sasabe. They also extend onto the Tohono O'odham (Papago) reservation, where they are called toha chuwi and considered game animals. Antelope jack litters average less than two babies, but a healthy doe can produce up to four litters a year, most often in spring and midsummer. As with all hares, the newborn come fully furred with eyes open. The parenting period is short, and the youngsters are off and running in a matter of hours.

The antelope jack's skipping run with head held high at first seems comical and inefficient, but the especially energetic fourth or fifth bound enables the hare's bulging eyes to survey the brushy terrain ahead and evaluate the efforts of any pursuer. The jack can speed off at thirty-five miles per hour and clear a five-foot fence with hardly a break in stride.

Primarily a grazer of poor range grasses, the antelope jack also browses on thorny shrubs and trees, with mesquite comprising a third of its diet. There's no need for a drink of free water, for the animal obtains sufficient moisture from the green foliage.

SCENIC HIGHWAYS

Take a beautiful drive - or fivethrough some of Arizona's most inspiring and interesting scenery. The Arizona State Transportation Board has designated the Apache Trail as a "historic highway" and four other roads in the state as "scenic highways," posting these routes with special signs to alert motorists to their significance.

The Apache Trail, traversing spectac ular desert lands from Goldfield, the once-bustling mining town near Apache Junction, northeast to a mile past Roosevelt Dam, was built in 1905 to transport construction workers and material to the dam site. President Theodore Roosevelt traveled the road to dedicate the dam in 1911. The Apache Trail then became a scenic automobile side trip in the 1920s and '30s for Southern Pacific Railroad passengers.

Southeast of the Apache Trail, U.S. Route 60 from Florence Junction to Miami has been designated a scenic highway. Climbing to the high desert, U.S. 60 passes such attractions as the Boyce Thompson Southwestern Arboretum, the Apache Leap Cliffs, the Picket Post Mountains, and Queen Creek.

Another spectacular drive, via State Routes 83 and 82, rolls through the lush grasslands of southern Arizona's ranching country between Mountain View, southeast of Tucson, and Nogales.

In the high country to the north, U.S. Route 89A winds through the erosionsculptured red rock formations of Sedona and Oak Creek Canyon, the setting for Zane Grey's Call of the Canyon.

What one writer calls "the most pleasant forty-four miles in America," State Route 67 from Jacob Lake to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, crosses the 8000-foot-high Kaibab Plateau through dense aspen and pine forest and green alpine meadows. This highest of the scenic highways is closed in winter.

The Arizona Department of Transpor tation is improving pullout viewpoints along these treasured routes. State law protects the areas from unsightly development.

THE EARTH IN A JAR

Dr. Nicholas Yensen is creating some intriguing miniature scenery within small glass spheres. A research ecologist for Tucson-based Engineering and Research Associates, Yensen calls his products EcoSpheres, and each of the little globes contains "a completely self-sufficient life system-the planet Earth in a jar."

Within the round quart container of filtered seawater supplemented by various chemicals, six tiny shrimp swim busily through shimmering sea-whips (sticklike sea plants), filaments of algae, and fragments of oyster shell, in what Dr. Yensen describes as "a closed system in which everything recycles. If just one ingredient doesn't cycle, the whole system will begin to collapse-much like what is happening, sadly, in many places on earth."

The idea came from an experiment by Joe Hansen, a scientist at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and CalTech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, to create completely self-sustaining life systems for decade-long space trips. But where Hansen took his material solely from nature, Yensen explains that "we have created a sort of 'soup of life' from more than a hundred components. The balance of chemicals in the liquid is very complex. We guard the formula closely; only two of us understand how to duplicate it."

Although the EcoSpheres look like small aquariums, Yensen smiles at the comparison. "An aquarium would shut down in days without someone dumping in food and performing other life-sustaining functions. The EcoSphere is on its own. Just set it near a window with indirect northern light, and it takes care of itself. The algae convert the sunlight to oxygen, which the shrimp breathe. The shrimp eat algae and produce carbon dioxide, which in turn is used by the remaining algae in photosynthesis. Bacteria decompose waste material from the shrimp into chemical nutrients used by the algaeand the cycle continues."

the comparison. "An aquarium would shut down in days without someone dumping in food and performing other life-sustaining functions. The EcoSphere is on its own. Just set it near a window with indirect northern light, and it takes care of itself. The algae convert the sunlight to oxygen, which the shrimp breathe. The shrimp eat algae and produce carbon dioxide, which in turn is used by the remaining algae in photosynthesis. Bacteria decompose waste material from the shrimp into chemical nutrients used by the algaeand the cycle continues."

More than 3000 EcoSpheres have been sold for 250 dollars each, many of them through Neiman-Marcus. Each is shipped with an insurance policy guaranteeing a new system upon the return of a defective one.

Of the rejects Yensen says, "I try to see to it that returned systems that still have some live shrimp and still are functioning well are given to schools free. The EcoSphere is, after all, as good an ecology lesson as a teacher can find. It is, we think, very beautiful as well."

For more information on EcoSpheres, write or call Engineering and Research Associates, ERA Plaza, 500 North Tucson Boulevard, Tucson, AZ 85716; telephone (602) 881-6555.

MORE CIVIL WAR IN ARIZONA

The April, 1862, "Battle of Picacho Pass," forty miles northwest of Tucson, is generally-if erroneously-accepted as the westernmost skirmish of the Civil War. However, there was the lesserknown clash between Blue and Gray near the site of modern Gila Bend that same spring (see page 26) in which a soldier of Colonel James Carleton's California Column was wounded.

Even farther west was the incident at La Paz, on the Colorado River, on May 20, 1863. While not quite a battle, it left two Union soldiers dead and two others wounded. The late historian Bert Fireman uncovered documents and newspaper reports revealing that a Confederate sympathizer named "Frog" Edwards had accosted the Union troopers, screamed curses at them, and then opened fire in front of Mike Goldwater's store.

The U. S. Army launched a manhunt to capture the murderer, and in July of 1863 reported: "While fleeing from the scene of his murders toward Sonora, Mexico, he was followed by an avenging God, and famished on the desert." Dean Smith

IMPORTED ELK

All of Arizona's elk are descended from animals imported by the Elks lodges of Arizona in 1913 from Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming and Montana.

YESTERDAY IN ARIZONA...

In January, 1864, Kit Carson led an Army attack on hostile Navajo Indians in Canyon de Chelly.

In January, 1906, Zane Grey and his wife arrived at Grand Canyon on their honeymoon, the budding writer's first visit to Arizona.

In January, 1953, Phelps Dodge closed the United Verde Mine at Jerome, ending mining in the billion-dollar copper camp and turning it into one of Arizona's more famous ghost towns.

In January, 1961, President John F. Kennedy appointed Stewart Udall as Secretary of the Interior, the first Arizonan to hold a Cabinet post.

For more information on Arizona attractions and events, free of charge, please write the Arizona Office of Tourism, Department CE, 1480 East Bethany Home Road, Phoenix, AZ 85014.