Los Angeles herald., 1891-07-09

Ions near the Ell Rio station on the S.
P. R. R. Ayear ago last May the river
on its summer rise began to cut under
these hills and in a few days they were
all swept away. This allowed the Colo.
rado to overflow just below Hanlon's
house, and the waters to escape and run
off to Indian Wells, uninterrupted, in
place of being forced, as in the years
past, to overflow the east bank and find
relief from the food in the bottoms on
the Sonora shore. Since June year
ago whenever the Colorado has been up
to the nineteen feet mark at the Yuma
bridge, the water has overfowed at the
point near the boundary line, near Han
Ions for ten to twelve miles in width
and from three to five feet deep and the
water ran into Algodones lake and from
that filed m. D.
THE GREAT NATURAL CANAL SYSTEM
of New river, and though it was con-
Quoted into the great laguna region of
Indian Wells, which is thirty-eight feet
below the level of the sea, while the Col
orado at the point of overflow is 120 feet
above sea level, giving the water 15S feet
fall in the liz miles that it has to run in
order to reach the sink of the laguna,
big holes, and mud lakes near Indian
Wells. In the great food of February
last that whole region was filled with
water from the Colorado. and from that
time down to the present the water has
been rushing over the west bank
of the Colorado and running at
a five-mile pace into that region.
Near Indian Wells there is section
of the desert which is full of holes from
two to six, and even eight, feet in
diameter, to the most of which no bot
tom has ever been found. In 80 and
'91 Engineer D. G. Mendenhall and N.Y.
self explored this region, and found that
the water from the heavy desert rains
would run into these holes for days
without filling them. There is part
of that region so thoroughly honey
combed that no mule or horse can cross
it without sinking into it so that he can
not escape without help. Mendenhall
and myself found that all that keeps the
water in that basin from flowing into
the Salton desert (where it is filled to
the highest point reached for years, and
no record of any such flood in the
sand, nine and one-half feet high and
RCI1dPb Adlk q lllIO III WlObL, bhdu
has blown across the desert ten or
twelve miles from ths mysterious noun
tains into, and formed bar or rim
across. one of the branches of New river
at that point. If that bar was cut
through, not only would all the water
that now covers the Indian Wells basin
run into the new sea at Salton, but New
river itself would bring the water from.
the Colorado, at the point where New
river enters it, back to the north and
pour ~
VAST FLOOD INTO THE NEW SEA,
for the reason that the mouth of New
river (Hardy's Colorade) is twenty feet
above sea level and the sink at Indian
Wells is thirty-eight feet below it, max
Ing ffty-eight feet fall for the water in its
run of 12O miles between those two
points. The Salton salt works are 270
feet below the level OF the sea, hence
the great area of water forty miles
square, around Indian Wells is 232 feet
above the Salton sink, and probably not
line. A few days ago party made up
Hon. Murat Masterson and my
self made the trip from Yuma
down the Colorado to the mouth
of New river and up that stream
sixty miles in small open boat. They
could hardly find place free from
water enough for camp on the west
bank of the Colorado, or on either bank
of New river, for the 180 miles they
travelled on these two streams, so great
was the overflow. This was my sixth
trip up and down the Colorado river
within the last two year, during which
time examined the entire $50 miles of
the great natural canal system of New
river. Having examined the country
lying between the Colorado and New
rivers in boat, after the floods came,
as had done before.on my mule in the
dry season, in the interests OF the PENN
sula railroad company, my theory of the
new sea at Salton is that the immense
flow of water since February, into the
Indian Wells basin, has filed up those
great holes and subterranean pas
sages at Big Hole and Mud lake
and that the pressure of the water from
above, and in the descent of 232 feet
into the Salton sink. has forced the
water through the sands of the rim
lying between the two great basins, and
that at first the water only seeped
through the sand, but that when once
we'll wet, and with the great pressure,
the sand gave way to the waters, and
now, that the water has an underground
passage from Indian Wells to Salton,
and that is the source and cause of the
water which is' making that new inland