The Arizona sentinel., 1905-09-27

which mas wrought miracle
| since men first heard of it AM
still is working them
The Colorado gathers it
strength, in the mountains o
, Wyoming. Utah, and Colorado
and after boring through hun
dreds of miles Of canyons settle:
itself with dignity and repos'
into the warm waters of the
Gulf of California. White mer
have known of it almost as lons
as they have known Of America
Only forty-eight years after the
landing of Columbus, the gen
tlemen adventures of Spair
wandered through this land Of
mystery, Del Cardenas coming
out on the rim of the Grand
Canyon after crossing the Paint
ed Desert from Zuni, and Altar
con sailing up from the Gulf. 1t
is two thousand miles long
rather more than as far as from
New York to Chicago and back
again-and for somewhat over a
hundred miles from it's lower
course it is navigable. In it's
middle journey it booms for a
thousand miles through canyons
which, in places, are mile deep
and thirteen miles across from
rim to rim-a part Of the world
which some have ventured to
describe and paint, but before
which it would better become
the best of them to lay aside
their brushes and pens and medi-
tate on the ittleness of men. In
it's lower course, where it leaves
the canyons and flows between
southwestern Arizona and south
eastern California, this versatile
stream, as if not satisfied with
the work Of awful beauty which
it has left behind, turns to prac-
tical utility and becomes as we
put it-more useful, by building
up a fertile delta and minister
ing to mans comfort and physi-
cal needs. 1t flows, in other
words, through a comparatively
level valley, on the floor of
which it has deposited through
all these years, just as the Nile
deposits each year at it's flood
period. the pulverized rocks and
earth which it has ground out
along its upper course. The
Colorado brings down each year
silt to cover sixty-two
miles one foot deep with compact
alluviaL soil, and it is in the
of its delta that we wit
ness the most extraordinary per
Torrance of this most eXtraOr-
binary river.
In the beginning, the land that
the maps still call the Colorado
Desert was the bottom of the
arm of the Gulf of Cal
fornia stretching northwestward
10 the feet of San Jacinto and
San Bernardino Mountains. To-
lay this desert and the farms
md towns of what is now called
he Imperial Valley are slightly
lbove or actually below sea level,
he land sloping northward for
me hundred miles to the Salton
Sink two hundred and sixty
hree feet below the level of the
ea. Into this gulf the Colorado
brew its mighty burden of silt
the ground-up mountains of
Arizona, Utah and Colorado
until finally with the help, per-
laps, Of some crystal elevation,
dixie was built clear across the
I'm of salt water from Yuma l
'ver to the Cocopahs in Lower !
california. The upper part of
he gulf became an Enclosed salt t
axe. This lake dried up, and S
ii that is left now to show the |
,arentage of the ocean is the 1
atty morass at the northwestern S
nd known as the SaltOn Sink, c
he old line of the beach and it's [
ca shells, and the level floor of |
That was once the bottom of the I
ca. The final result is river {
owing between banks of it's t
wn building, which, as soon as $
he foods makes it high enough, {
overhows and goes gallivant- /
ap off backward into the Sunkpn G