Arizona weekly citizen., 1889-05-11
THE BUTTE RESERVOIR,

storage system IS the key to the pros perity of southern Arizona in common with other portions of the arid regions of the southwest, and anything that tends to the development of tho water resources is of the greatest importance to the people. We of the Gila valley are particularly well situated in respect to the availability of both water and land, and all that is required is the energy of capital to bring these two natural ele
 ments together. The water and the opportunity for its storage are found just where the rugged mountains end and the broad and fertile plains begin. Nature has there fashioned wonderful basin among the rugged hills and has left but little for man to do to gather the waters of the floods and safely hold them until their fructifying influence is required in the fertile valleys below. Nowhere else within the great arid belt can a more perfect adoption of natural conditions of the kind be found. The very purpose of its wonderful formation is unerringly stamped upon this mar velously perfect work, and upon be- holding its strangely beautiful pro portions one is profoundly impressed with the evident design of that mystic hand that fashioned it when time was young for the benefit of those future ages the door to which is now ajar. Just think of the entire drainage of a country fully two hundred and fifty miles square-from the White noun tains on the north to the sierras of So- nora, and from the eastern ranges of New Mexico to the Buttes at Florence concentrated into narrow gorge through the solid rocks, across which a
 boy can throw a stone! Here is the grandest opportunity for public or pri- vate enterprise that can be found any where upon the continent to-day, and it is one that the government can cheaply experiment upon with the absolute cer- tainty of achieving brilliant success. We trust the senate committee that will visit Arizona in September may find it convenient to examine the combination
 of re sources that exist here, and our word for it, they will exclaim like the Queen of Sheba upon beholding the
 beauties of King Solomon's temple, ''the half has not been told me-" The honor able committee will find not only the natural facilities for the creation of a huge storage reservoir at a small expen-
 diture of money, but they will see town
 ship after township of level and fer
 tile lands of wonderful agricultural and horticultural possibilities, but
 entirely worthless for the want of the
 water that is now permitted to go uninter-
 ruptedly down to the sea in seasons of plenty, doing no one any good. The
 impoundeing of this periodical excess of
 water and its diversion upon these arid
 lands will speedy make this valley a
 veritable garden of Eden, save the un- fashionable fig leaf and traditional ser
 pent lurking around. This undertaking
 is one of the greatest importance to the
 people of this valley and its early com pletion is looked forward to by all as an
 event that will mark the commence
 ment of an era of wonderful prosperity
 an grandure. If it be the intention of
 the government to proceed at once in -A-~ ~---------i---- "A --S---o- ------.--
 and in this particular instance to enter
 in good faith upon a work fraught with
 so much good to the people, no one will
 be found to interpose single obstacle
 to the plan. But if it be the intention of the government to simply withdraw all reservoir sites from private appropria- tion and to proceed with red-tape pro- gress that is closely akin to living death;
 process that means the exclusion of private enterprise and the postponement of its good results for five, ten or twenty years, the interests of our people will be best subserved by asking a special ex- emption from its county, for as a simple business proposition it is bound to enlist the attention of private enterprise and become gratifying realization within the next two or three years at the ex
 treme limit. Every one at all familiar with the experience of all works con- ducted by the government need not be reminded that it never hurries, even though the hope of those dependent up- on the completion thereof may perish in utter despair. If it proposes to with draw this reservoir site from market to hold it pending long years of considera- tion of the question of extending aid, the people of this valley want none of it, for human life is too short to hope for recovery from such a calamity.-Flor- ence Enterprise.
 HON. A. l.. MORRISON of New Mexico, appointed to succeed special agent Slater has, among other duties, been instructed to proceed to Casa Grande and inspect