Arizona citizen., 1876-01-22
Lower California.

States must always be pestered witl
 vlrmin to greater or less extent
 but the most voracious and trouble
 some insects of this class are the
 kind which have made the great
 end and aim of their existence, the far
 ther acquisition of foreign Territory
 on the part of our government They
 succeeded in getting Alaska into our
 uncle's pocket, and although if the country could take time to grasp the lenormity of this fraud, that acquisition
 ought to stop similar efforts for a cen.
 tury to come, they still plot and scheme
 for more Territory. There have been spasmodIc efforts for the last five years
 to bring into favorable consideration and action the acquisition of Lower
 California Whether it is another be
 ginning to the same end, we know not,
 but telegrams from Washington of
 December 26, last, advised Us that " the
 reports of the survey Of the Lower Cali
 fornia peninsula, recently made by the United States steamer Narragansett. contain many interesting facts relative that country" Thereafter we are in
 formed that Asst. Surgeon Streets, of
 the navy, who had charge of the geo
 logical part of the survey, speaks high ly of the mineral products &c. of the peninsula. After Dr. Streets has ex-
 hausted his stock of good things, Asst.
 Surgeon Evers, of the same navy, also reports on the botany, mineralogy &c.
 of the same survey.
 We don't know why this survey was
 made. There were so many other fields
 open to survey, which are now in our
 actual possession and of which we are
 as ignorant as we are of what Bowles
 will next do with Charles Francis.
 How much better would it have been
 for this gallant ship with its gallant
 crew of surveying prOficients, 10 have
 passed by this toothsome morsel of a peninsula, to have rounded its most southern point and ascending the beau
 tifUl gulf of California. have anchored at the mouth of the great Colorado: thereupon its efficient and expensive corps of surveying experts could have
 boarded rIver steamer and ascending farther to Yuma, here landed thereat and proceeded to survey the Territory of Arizona. We would not advise specIa eXpeumJure Jo sucn all emu, UuC if it Is necessary that surveys be made, if there is nothing else that the navy can do, let Us survey this goodly land of promise which we already have and of which with all is promise, we are so wocfully ignorant. The writer of this has had the privilege of seeing and learning much of Lower California Some five years ago we saw many of the things spoken of in this survey. We saw the salt lake of Carmen island, on the peninsular coast. We saw many of the minerals and learned something of the mineral developments at La Paz, Mulege and elsewhere. We investigated the farming and grazing facilities of the peninsula. We eXplor- ed the land On horseback and on foot, crossing from ocean to ocean at an. angle of forty-ive degrees We stopped for weeks at a time in various locali- ties. We were poor and unknown and presented no surface or inducement for deception, and this was our conclusion: There may yet be such mineral made in Lower Califor- mia as will make the country valuableI future acquisition. None such have yet been made. And while it certainly has some mineral showing, and con- siderable too, it has nothing in com- parison 10 the yet undeveloped and mineral lands already In our. possession and which, with great and persistent prosecution, it will take usI the next fifty years to get into proper working condition, and the develop ment of which requires and ought to have every dollar of the money which would have to go to the pur-i chasing of a new mineral field. The peninsula of Lower California has also places upon which by the expenditure of a large amount of money, artesian water may be obtained and thereby something be produced by its soil. But if the government of the United States has any money for such pur- poses, in the name of reason and de- cencv let it be expended in Arizona and elsewhere, upon land now owned by us and which on its most sterile mesas has soil as productive as the largest portion of Lower California. Other than third class mineral showing and an occasional site for an artesian well, with little orchilla on it's western coast, the peninsula would be a very undesirable lot except to establish a. penal colony, and with New York city still in our possession our government needs nothing additional in the latter respect.
 Lower California has nothing beyond what we already have ill an unlimited and as yet untouched supply We know very well what the officers of this survey saw. They saw the pearly bot,