The San Francisco call., 1906-11-12

Their work has been of titanic ma
ture. They had to turn back this
enormous stream into its original bed
and send il down TO the Gulf of Cali
fornia. The task seemed hopeless at
one time In January. 1905, the water
already had commenced TO get beyond
the control OF the engineer then in
charge Of the work. Several attempts
were made TO stay its course, but were
ineffective. II looked as If the con-
troll OF the river had passed beyond
tie powers Of man and there was
nothing TO do but let it go down the
desert and wash out the growing
colonies
Naturally the Southern Paclhc was
interested. The Imperial Valley colony
had been aided by the corporation. 1t
was the third largest shipping point
in the southern country, and to have
IL destroyed meant large loss OF
revenue and this made the railroad
come TO the rescue Of the settlers
WEAKENS BANKS OF RIVER.
The work originally had been under
taken by a corporation known as the
California Development Company Its
promoters are men well known in the
territory and the company selected as
SIS chief engineer c. r. lockwood The
Z story is that the plans Of the develop
rnent company did not meet with the
approval Of the officers OF the reclama-
tion service The Government officials
told the DEVELOPMENT company that
private corporation could not monopo-
lie the water of z navigable stream
for irrigation purposes. There was no
gainsaying the law, and the develop
ment company, not to be frustrated,
obtained from the Mexican Government
permission to take out the water in
Mexican territory, and new company
was formed. which went under the
name Of La Sociedad de irrigation
y Terrenos de Baja California
Rockwood was still the engineer, and
in his attempts TO take water from the
Colorado River TO the Imperial district
he managed to so weaken the banks
that he let the whole of the river on
70 the desert
It takes money to do diversion work,
and al this juncture the new company
with the Spanish name found itself
powerless. It had already made FIVE
futile attempts to get the river under
control when il appealed TO the South
ern Pacific for monetary aid The rail-
road responded. but il put its own men
in charge Epes Randolph, an expe-
rfenced engineer, was selected, and he
IN turn placed Cory in Immediate
charge.
BEGIN BATTLE WITH WATERS.
was running at terrific speed through
an orihce 375 feet down the desert. The
first thing Cory did was TO build q
railroad sixteen miles long on the
banks Of the river and span the tor
rent with two trestles in one week
He next established q camp, which
from fifty men on July ! OF this year
was raised 70 800 men on July Is, and
by August Is il had grown TO 100
men II was decided that the only
way TO stop the river was by mats.
These so-called mats were simply
fascines of brush 100 feet long, bound
together by wire. These were let into
the stream and anchored, then piles
were driven through them. Sometimes
as many as six mats were let down on
top Of each other TIL a solid bed was
formed and the water was stopped
from securing out beneath. This was
the first part of the battle These mats
were merely the foundations for the
casting in Of rock Quarries from De-
clez 10 Nogales were opened up, and
every fat car in the Southern Pacific
country was impressed into service. At
one time success was near TO Cory.
bur on October II out went q bigthead
gate which had been put in by Rock
wood. and one Of the temporary tracks
collapsed and two cars were ditched-
II was enough to make the stoutest
LfcEL 4Acllr E6L1O-plA Nc1 A--Ilts anu
all he said was. Wen have to close
that gap.
COLORADO Is CONQUERED.
It was low water then. the lowest
water the engineers could hope TO have
for some months The battle was now
, between two forces-that of nature and
Of man Mats were sunk and rocks
were piled atop. Some Of the rocks
were 50 huge that they were blasted on
the cars, and for three weeks and
three days. night and day. with every
car that Randolph and Cory could lay
hands on belonging TO the great road
10 haul rock, the work Of closing the
gap went on The water could carry
away the powders. but they formed q
buttress downstream Tor the rock that
was being hurled in. and slowly and