Arizona weekly enterprise., 1890-08-02
ARIZONA AND COLORADO.
Prehistoric Canals of the Southwest High Engineering Skill---Utiiizmg
 the Ancient bitches.

In many respects Arizona presents the most interesting field on this continent for the subject of irrigation. There IS an abundance of irrefragable though mute testimony here to the fact that far in the past the forbidding and uninhabitable deserts of the Territory teemed with human life, and were covered with vege- tation. In whatever portion of the val leys of the Salt and Gila rivers and their tributaries the traveller goes, If he be ob servant, he will find traces of systems of irrigation by which these broad plains and mesas once must have been brought to the highest state of productiveness Enough can yet be seen of these prehis- toric works to show that they were con structcd with no small amount of engi- neering skill, while the labor expended upon the canals must have been immense. 1t Is a singular fact, in this connection, that modern engineers, who are now en- gagged in again diverting the water of the streams mentioned upon the barren plains in many places find that all their skill Is unavailable to provide any better grades or levels for the canals, and that the pre- historic engineers of long centuries ago were possessed of the highest skill in that art
 The valleys of the Verde, San Pedro, the Colorado Chiquito and other streams all show unmistakably that at some for mer time they were under high state of cultivation As far back as 1539 travel CTS from Mexico visited the Salt river valley. and the records yet in existence of these journeys contain accounts of the ruins of these irrigating canals by which the water of the river was diverted. One of these canals is described as having been at least ten varas long and four varas, deep and inclosing many leagues of land. Other ancient travellers have de scribed rnins of immense reservoirs which have subsequently been found by modern explorers 1a what are called the Super stition mountains, and which undoubtedly supplied water for large area. One of the largest of these reservoirs occupied a site which had evidently age ago been the bed of a lake between the Salt and Gila rivers, near Mesaville, i'll plain thirty miles long by four or five i'll "idtl which was evidently all under cultivation at some time, for il Is marked by the re mains of old canals. Near Phenix are the remains of an old canal which was twenty five to fifty feet in width and over thirty miles long. Twenty five miles above Phenix is another canal on the south side of the Salt river. For eight ol
 ten miles this was fully fifty feet wide and was exeavated in the rock and in the
 hardest sort of soil. It conveyed water
 by which plain sixty miles in length and thirty in width was irrigated, and whicl
 was evidently thickly populated.
 Still farther down the river, at Tempe
 are the ruins of other canals, while o1
 tod TlNn,,
 are vast ruins of cities which must hay
 sustained an immense population.
 Space Is too limited to enter into des
 cription of all these prehistoric remains
 but 1t IS enough to say that every water
 course in the entire region was at som
 time utilized for irrigation and that al
 immense population was sustained wher
 now Is naught but desert.
 It IS barely twenty years since the frs
 systematic attempts were made to agai
 reclaim the fertile lands of the Salt an
 Gila valleys by diverting the water C
 those streams. Since that time million
 of dollars have been spent and thousand
 of acres of land have been supplied wit
 water, and curiously enough, some of tn
 ancient canals have been rebuilt, and tn water Is again being conducted in th
 same channels where 1t first ran unde the guidance of the pre-Aztec race ths once inhabited the valley. Several hun dred thousand acres in the valleys name are named are now accessible to irrigs ton, and wherever the land has been GU tIvated the best results have followed. In the Mohawk valley, near Yuma, sever; canals have diverted water from the Gil and large amount of reclamation Is no
 being done. Every fruit or other cro
 that Is produced in Californa also attair
 perfection Tn Arizona wherever water ca
 be had, and large crops of grain and Il 3 falfa are also produced under the san beneticent stimulus.
 , The subject of reservoirs for preser-
 ing the waste water of the numerol streams has long been under discussion l the prehistoric remains of such structure r showing that the matter was perfect , feasible and only needed a little ente . prise Ill order to be carried out. Ne;
 Prescott the Hassayampa creek has bee
 damned by wall of masonry l35 fe 1 thick at the base. 400 feet long and I ! feet high, by which an immense amoul . water is rendered available both for mi !, ing and for agriculture. They are nun s berless opportunities for similar ente 3 prises in all parts of the country, and Is not too much to say that water enous 2 can be economized in this and oth - methods to irngate all the arabic land n Arizona; an area, by the way, which Is f Q larger than is generally supposed by u n casual observer or nasty traveller
 r Preliminary steps have already be- !. taken for the construction of a reserve e near Florence, by which the surplus flc e Of the Gila river Is to be held ill resery n A stone dam is to be built at an estimat, e cost of $250,000, and by it a reserve i some ten miles long and two in width W l. be formed which will contain wat r sufficient to irrigate many thousand