Arizona republican., 1895-06-25
Eighty Thousand Acres
 to Be Reclaimed.
Cost of the Plant Nearly One
 and Half Million.
A Most Potent Factor in Assisting Yuma County to Forge to
 the Front.
From the Yuma Sentinel.

From the Yuma Sentinel.
 Col. George W. Norton. the we'll. known civil engineer, came down from his place in Mohawk valley, on the Gila river, on Sunday morning, the purpose of his present visit being to permanently locate the line of the great canal, the preliminary survey of which he completed few weeks ago and which runs it's entire length | through Yuma county Arizona. MT. Norton has just completed maps and a profile of the proposed work and made a careful calculation of the amount of earth. loose rock and solid rock to be excavated with an approximate esti- mate of the cost of the same.
 The canal heading will be at Hinton's island, at the lower end of Eureka caflon. The island is solid rock back bone in the center of the river, 150 feet long, eighty feet wide and twenty feet above high water mark, making a 1 splendid natural anchorage or support I for dam.
 | AS the currents very strong nd wift between the island and rock bluffs on
 
 | can be secured for manufacturing, light. ing and other purposes. The first g. 200 feet will be cut through solid rock, the solidity of the walls insuring the canal against any damage from & sud. I den rise oi the river. From there to the crossing of the Gia the canal will pass through more or less solid and loose rock country, making the con- InTy I,,A | into consideration the security and permanency of the banks thus afforded, 1t will eventually prove more of an ad- vantage than otherwise.
 The water of the canal will be car ried across the Gila through several steel pipes and after again emptying into the canal will continue on down the valley to the Sonora line. 1 As the fall is 0 528 to the mile, water can be carried on to the messs below Yuma and in Sonora, which will be done az the country becomes settled, as it is well known that for grapes and several other varieties of fruits, as we'll as for all of the small grams. the mesas skirting the valley of the Colorado, are unsurpassed. The canal will be sixty feet wide in the bottom with slope of one to one and will carry water seven feet deep, a volume of 50,0O0 miners inches or ,000 cubic feet of water per second.
 It is estimated that this amount of water will irrigate 60,000 acres, or, 125 square miles. The canal from it's head to the Sonora line will be about fifty four miles in length and in its con- struction it is estimated that 6,203, 1885 cubic yards of material win be moved, 2S3, ,251 cubic yards of which will be solid rock. The cost of eXcavating the main waterway approximstes close to three-quarters of million dollars, while the additional cost of superstruc- ture, buildings. pipe line, laterals. etc., will be nearly as much more, making the total cost close to one and half
 million dollars.
 At a casual glance this looks like large sum to expend on an irrigation scheme, but when 1t is considered that it will bring under cultivation 80,000 acres of fsemi-tropical land suscepti ble of the highest state of cultivation, where
 on can be raised all kinds of citrus and deciduous fruits, as we'll as grains,
 vegeta bles and forage, the cost is only
 mere bagatelle as compared with the great benefits and profits to be derived
 from the outlay. The value of the , lands irrigated. now only nominal will reach enormous figures when brought under cultivation, through the agency of the richly siIt.laden waters of the Colorado.
 The successful completion of this great undertaking will be 6 most potent
 factor in assisting Yuma county to forge to the front and take that place which nature from the first destined her to occupy, as the first county of all the great southwest, in population, weali h and material advancement.