The Arizona sentinel., 1899-02-18

=
 than that Of the Nile The Nile
 has been cultivated for thousands
 of years. Now if we were to pop
 .late the cultivablo portion of this desert as thickly aa the valley of
 the Nile is populated. we would
 have three million inhabitants on it, or more than twice the popula-
 ton of the whole of California at present.
 There is a misunderstanding
 about this land. It is like this:
 The Gulf of California undoubtedly
 ages ago extended all over this country; for the Salton Sink, form ed in '91 by the great overflow of the Colorado is 28O feet below the level of the sea. It is salt heca use
 there is so much salt in that section of the desert. There are sea shells
 here and there, too When the Colorado overfowE each June it rushes down . channel it has cut southwesterly for about thirty miles
 Starting at Hanlon's about six
 miles west from Yuma, I will utilize this natural ditch for my canal, going south into Mexico in order to avoid the shifting sand hills which are working north and east, and
 would bury canal taken straight into the country. 1 have to de absolutely no work along this first ! thirty miles save to put in an occa- sional weir. From there on Salton River runs, and for about fifty
 miles the cut is too deep fer my canal. 1 shall have to bank in ncre a little. My canal will carry ten feet of water, and to conduct 1t
 Q all sections of the land we shall simply build branches.
 'The land is government and railroad land. The government land can be preemrted in the re- gular way, and the railroad land. bought for not less than 45 an acre. l presume. Land there is worth 'ess without water. We propose to sell water to the settlers at a very low rate.
 "At present believe that there is just one Mexican family living in the south part. They plant small vegeta blss after the overflow. For twenty miles on either sido you can't sse hillock as large as 8 trunk. Down in Mexico by Black Lake are the mud volcanoes. There arc about six or seven hundred of them. Standing anywhere there and looking about it is a wonderful light. There are those smoking cones, about four feet high, scat tered over the level country for miles ar'und. At night they show fire, It is no exaggeration that in
 ome places the crust IS so thin that you have to step carefully or you migh. break through to where the heat Is so great that your foot would be burned eff. These so- called volcanoes arc really sulphur ous. This sulphur cannot be mined here because i! is on fire and is con stantly burning up. It is being mined in portion somewhat dis tant where a guard is constantly on watch to put ont fires.
 "This country lies between our irrigable land and the Cocopah mountains. It Is probably one of the most sanitary places in the world. Whisky besotted, rheumatic miners aRd ranchers from Arizona go down there to bathe in Black Lake or Lake of Ink, and I know of cases who have really been benefit ed. I bathed in Black Lake myself and found the water 90 hot that l could not stanI it five minutes This lake is only about halt mile across, and separated flom . larger volcanic lake by sand spits. It is fed by underneath mud springs, and the water is opaque and black. You cannot zee your hand ixinches below the surface.
 "Old Senator Fair used to go down there for the benefit of his rheumatism. He spent several weeks. Two weeks before he died in San Francisco he told me that he thought of buying all that c0un- try and putting in big sanitarium. He believed that if he had lived there it would have added ten years to his life.
 "The climate of New River coun. try nroner ts inst as beneficial. |.