Imperial Valley press and the Imperial press., 1906-04-21

country this must have been when all
 these dry lake beds were filled with
 clear blue water and running streams connected one with another. Then the
 hills were covered with tall cedars and
 the valleys with waving grass, and the elk, deer and buffalo wandered in herds through land blessed with the finest climate imaginable, rich in verdue and
 beautiful with sparkling waters.
 was sitting at "Uncle Johns" camp
 fire discussing gold veins and things,
 when he showed me bit of pottery he
 had washed out that day from the gravel 20 feet below the surface. remarked that there must have been people live ing in that section for long time.
 "Yes, sir" he replied, "and lots of them. There are places where the ground seems like it is half made of fragments of pottery and things. This country used to be very fertile coun- try and lots of people lived here"
 "Why 1 know place down towards the Colorado river where there was an ancient city. The houses were adobe, and nothing is left of them, but they
 had the streets paved with hagstones and you can follow out miles of streets. There aint water enough in that country nowadays to keep pair of jackrabbits. There aint man that has prospected
 this country that aint seen them signs of ancient peoples and lots of them.
 "How do you account for the country drying up Uncle? said l. "Well I'll tell you," and he put greasewood coal in his pipe to keep it lit awhile, "you prob rbly have noticed that every day you've been in this country the wind has blown from the west or southwest" 1 recall ed that had. "Well," he said, if you was ever down in the Altar district near the Gulf of California or along the coast by San Diego, you probably have noted
 that the prevalent wind is land breeze. Once in while we do geta sea breeze here, but the Sierras suck it dry
 before 1t gets here" l had to take his word for that never having investigat- ed. Well" he continued. 'taint but short time ago that the Colorado river used to flow into the Salton desert, and the water backed up into the Death Valley and parts of the Mojave desert There is a whole lot of that country be- low sea level and it is all on the east side of the Sierras. At that time there was quite a chain of large inland fresh water lakes" knew the Colorado riv- CT does, even nowadays, sometimes flood the Salton desert Git is doing it now) and 1 knew the basins he mentioned were all below sea level.
 1 have never been over the country that "Uncle John" mentioned, but he had, with his burro and his gold pan and his bright keen eyes noting many things besides gold veins. As 1 said above the old prospector's theory ap- peals to me. No one who has travelled on the Nevada desert can doubt that only few centuries ago the country was great deal more fertile than it is today. 1 saw cedar butt 1-2 feet in diameter in we'll in the Saline basin, Inyo county, Cal, myself. Tbere are no such cedars in the country nowadays and while cedar is very durable wood, l doubt if it had lain buried over 800 years. The slow climatic changes which result from the gradual tilting of the poles of the earth or from the rise or subsistence of large areas of the earth's crust. are altogether too slow to account for the comparatively sudden change that is recorded in the soils and rocks of Nevada. That the conditions that once prevailed in that section may be eventually reinstated by the recla- nation work that has already been started, seems to me well within the limits of the possible.
 Near Denver Colorado, we have had an unquestionable demonstration of the effect of irrigation on the rainfall. Around Denver there are about 200,00 acres of irrigated land. During the neat of the summer the evaporation is very great from this area and one can zee the clouds form over the irrigated section. If the wind carries the clouds lway from the mountains there is no 'esult, but if they are carried over the into cooler air, heavy show ITS almost always result Of course here always were summer showers in he mountains, but that these showers rave been heavier since irrigation be- gan is proven by the fact that nearly every mountain meadow close to Den Ter has been badly cut to pieces by hummer clOudbursts since irrigation be- .ane general.
 If took thousands of years for the silt