The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-08-05
From the North American Review

From the North American Review.
 XN WING to diversion of the course kVI of the lower Colorado river, ~ southern California has, within the last two years, added to its geograph- teal features lake that covers more than 400 square miles. is surely destined to att tain much greater dimensions, but is ai- ready, without reckoning Lake Michigan, the largest sheet of water, next to the Great Salt Lake of Utah, wholly within the boundaries of the United States of America. The main line of the Southern Pacific Railway traverses the southwest corner of the Great Colorado Desert, and by a series of submersions It's roadbed Is being gradually driven off the plain to- ward the foothills of the adjacent noun tains. Agricultural areas, too, that with in recent years have been reclaimed from the wilderness by great irrigation works, as well as by stalwart individual effort, are seriously menaced.
 This great saucerlike hollow. 1S7 miles across from Yuma to Palm Springs, with some sixty-five miles of the distance actu- ally below the level of the sea, is bounded on the north by a broken up series of ranges known collectively as the San Ser nardino mountains. On the south, run hing eastward from the San Gorgonio Pass, is the sweeping curve of the mas sive San Jacinto range, but when Salton is reached there is only protruding spur of the range in evidence and soon this also disappears, leaving toward the south the broad open plain now known as the Imperial Valley, where for some years past great irrigation project has been in progress. Imperial Valley rises at a sharp pitch out of the Salton Sink for Calexico, on the Mexican border, just for ty miles south of Salton, Is at sea level.
 Now will be understood the precarious position that has been occupied up to re- cent times by the lower Colorado river. In point of fact, it has been flowing south along the rim of deep hollow that lies to the west of its course. Five years ago the California company set Itself to sup ply irrigation water to the Imperial Val ley, rich lands formed of Colorado silt deposited. centuries ago. and requiring, in a climate of perpetual sunshine. only mols- ture to make them highly productive.
 The intake, of course, was on United States soil, as the diverted water was required primarily for the irrigation of United States lands. The spot selected was eight miles down the Colorado river from Yuma-that is to say, almost at the limit of United States territory on the Califor- mia side of the stream. No head gates were put into the canal; the river water was simply allowed to flow in. just as into an open ditch. This was economy as regards construction expenses certainly, but very costly economy in the long run as the sequel proved.
 In the summer of 1904 it came to be realized by those responsible that the ditch was no longer carrying enough water to supply the wants of the Imperial valley lands already under cultivation. To dredgeoff the canal for six or seven miles would have been an operation requiring time, and already the danger of ruined crops had grown to be an urgent one So the company decided upon taking a quick (and once again cheap method