The Arizona sentinel., 1892-12-31

Mountains. The very sands of river so supplied must be as rich as gold. And, lest you may have some doubts about the fertility of these sand dunes that lie along and little back from
 the rivers bank, permit me to call at tention to the shifting, drifting and
 blowing banks of sand that once lay be- tween Seal Rocks and San Francisco.
 These sands had been washed down in
 the long centures from the Sierras
 through the Sacramento River. They seemed to be as barren as snow-banks.
 They were as migratory as gypsies, aud moved up and down the iaRd with
 all the exasperating irrigularity of the scale of figures in the reports of the stock market, One pioneer, per
 sonal friend of mine, who attempted to
 settle down and locate homestead on
 these shifting dunes of sand in the
 early days of California, told me that
 he actually tried to stake his land
 down and hold it still by spreading
 blankets on it and then driving pegs
 through the blankets. But failing to hold his real estate still even by this
 process, he abandoned it in despair and
 went back to the mines.
 "And meanwhile what has become of the bIowy and drifting sand dunes
 that my friend in the early days of California tried to hold down with
 pegs and blankets back of San Fran cisco towards Seal Rocks? They are in the heart of the most beautiful park in the world-a veritable garden of reses.
 "I assert that the same thing can be done with every sand-dune wihtin reach of the waters of the Colorado River or the Gila either. Ay, more; much more. For the banana, every one of the six hundred varieties of figs, indeed all fruits, all flowers of the semi-tropical lands can be made to flourish on the banks of this North American Nile.
 'I read, under the authority of the Government surveyors, .tEat there are sixteen thousand square miles of these Colorado and Gila sand-dunes-desert1 lying below the level of the waters of these two genial rivers. Stick pin here-if you have not the enter prise to stick a peg in the ground there and get possession of little land and watch the development that must be born of these facts. With all the Northern States waiting for better quality af tropical and semi tropical fruits, waiting for something better than wild fruits gathered by half-wild people and shipped to them in a green and a half-rotten condition, and with sun, soil, water-what may we not expect with this vantage ground before us from the banks of the North American Nile.
 "I am constantly receiving letters from people in the States asking for advice about land. 1 cannot answer these letters. I cannot even read them; for ] must work for the many, not for the few, and my time is not my own in this work. But I will say this much right here: Settle on these warm, healthful and responsive sand-dunes of the Colorado or Gila, and lead the waters over your land. There is no malaria !. there. A sun stoke was never heard of there. You can work all day in the sun at a temp erature that would kill you in ten minutes in the States. WhyY I don't know: purity of the air, l reckon"
 Every word of the foregoing applies IS directly and forcibly to the Gila valley as though it had been penned | specially for it, and is a tribute as as truthful and impartial. MT. Miller, when impolled to cast his 'bread upon the waters" of eternal progress, saw with the prescience of the Prophet the infinite possibilities os this wonder" land, that only awaits the vivifying touch of waters to make 1t ''blossom as the rose" and bring forth of grain and fruits an hundred fold.
 School District No. 1 has paid | put of the Building fund already