Williams news., 1903-02-28
A MOTHER OF
 THE..OCCIDENT
The Colorado River Will Be Made the Nile of the New World
 Close Resemblance

There does not seem to be among
 the general public a realization oi
 the importance of the investigations
 now in progress along the Colorado
 river, between Arizona and Cali
 fornia. by the reclamation service
 of the United States geological sur
 vey nor the importance of the Col
 orado river itself as an irrigation
 scheme, says the Los Angeles Her aid.
 When congress accepted the prin-
 ciple of federal aid in the construc-
 tion of irrigation work and the re-
 clamation of the arid lands that it
 might furnish homes for the people,
 it was recognized by all western
 people that an important step had
 been taken which would greatly
 benefit all the states and territories of arid America, but few realized
 what might be the far-reaching re- suits of this policy. It is almost paralleling the policy of the Eng fish government in it's great irriga- tion works of India and will mean the expenditure of vast sums and the more vast returns, not only in money but in homes and happi- ness for the settler. All over the western United States are tracts of land, now waste and unprofitable, which aggregate 5O,OOO,OOO acres of reclaimable land, and of all these millions the government engineers believe the best and greatest oppor- tunity for reclamation lies in the lands along the Colorado river Gin Arizona and California; from the neighborhood of Needles. Cal, to Yuma, Ariz., and around Imperial, Cal. Between Needles and the Mexican line it is estimated that there are 500, ,OOO acres of land that can be reclaimed, and about Inn perial there is an equal amount. While in Sonora and Baja, Cal, the alluvial bottoms stretch out and on until there is no defnit( !
 knowledge of their acreage, and weV can only wish that they were among our possessions, in that part of our country that in few years may equal the productiveness of the lands of the fertile Nile. And the parallel between the Colorado and the Nile is remarkable, as has been pointed out by R. H. Forbes. of the University of Arizona.
 "Like the Nile, it rises in a dis tant, mountainous country; it's lower courses traverse a sub trop- cal and nearly rainless desert; both rivers empty into great land locked arms of the ocean at little less than thirty-two degrees north attitude. Like the Nile. the Col orado has, for long distances along ts lower courses, created a narrow .ibbon of fertile soil in the midst of he desert through which it flows, md has deposited a great alluvial lelta between Yuma and the Gulf 'f California. Like the great river 'f Egypt, the Colorado is subject o an annual summer rise sufficient o overflow great areas of it's border nd delta land. These high waters re rich in feitilizing sediments, are exceptionally free from alkaline ats and come at an opportune ime for irrigation. When the Col rado floods are less than normal, he Yuma Indians fail of satis- actory crops, just as do the Egyp- ians with the low Nile.
 Although the climatic condi- ions are slightly more severe in he Colorado delta than that of the 'ile, yet those two regions closely esemble each other agriculturally. ome common products are tor nay bel alfalfa, wheat and grains % f the sorghum class, the date alm, fig. orange, olive and pome-
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