The Arizona sentinel., 1909-01-07
POSSIBILITIES OF YUMA
 REGION UNEMPLOYED
The Soil Simply Marvellous in Its
 Pr0duCtiyeneSS
And the Climate is IntOxiCatingIy
 SdIubriOaS
BY GEOR6E N. BURTON, In Los Angeles Times.

1s IS very far from semi-nlilleniun since three little open boats under the flag of Spain first touched the waters of the western hemi- sphere and revealed the new world to the eyes of Europeans. 1t is only a little over a century since the United States of America sprang. so to speak. like Pallas Athene from the brain of love, a completely armed ad- aition to the family of nations. It is but little .ver half a century since California be- came part of these United States of America, and less than generation since the settle Inent of the Great South west began.
 In all the l25 years since the Republic was founded, also in the half century since Cali fornia became one of the States of the Union. and during every year of the last thirty, a re- alization of the vast riches of the American continent, of the territory of the United States and of this Great Southwest has been more and more astonishing to the minds of men. One would suppose that by today we knew pretty thoroughly what the undevelop- ed resources of the Great Southwest might reasonably he expected to become. We have not reached the depths of this great ocean of wealth with our plummet line yet.
 In a residence of forty years on the Coast the writer thought he knew a little about what there is on the Coast, and as most of these years have been spent in and around Los Angeles, he naturally had little con- eeit that he was pretty well acquainted with the Great Southwest Last week trip to the Colorado River bottoms. below Yuma made hIm feel as a tenderfoot who had come in on the last train. New to him. this wonderful region and its possibilities are pretty well known to a great many readers of The Times by the stories published, if not by the demon stration of their own eyes.
 Yuma lies on the map just twelve miles from where the government is putting in the great Iaguna dam, at the confluence of the Gila and Colorado Rivers. It is twelve miles from Yuma down the river to the Mexican boundry line on the Arizona side of the river At one point. just below Yuma, the interna- fional boundry line runs up along the river which there takes a westerly trend and from Yuma to Mexico is only a few miles.
 ONCE A MIGHTY STREAM.
 Ages ago when the mountain ranges of Arizona and California lowered toward the stars, at least twice as high as they do now, rains were very freduent and came down in torrcntial volumes all along these mountain
 
 was mighty stream, sweeping down debris in tons every second Of it's flow. The Cobra. do sink was at that time great inland sea which spread over the country on both sides of where the river now runs. As the erosion Of winds and storms, landsldes and glaciers wore down the mountain ridges year by year the great river carried down vast amount of silt, erosion from the rocks full of phos ,.l.,,o. fi,,oS o,,d dtSip cd 0raDifpS as we'll as the vegetation along its banks; ana this was all deposited in what are now the sinks of the Colorado.
 As the mountain tops were worn down, the rains became less frequent and less in volume but the erosion Of rocks and river banks, tho trees and vegetable molld torn from tho banks still came down and settled into th' bottom of the great inland lake. This geogica process went on from age to age to our time leaving the Colorado at Yuma a stream abou half mile wide and being at the present time about twenty feet deep ia the deepes portion.
 It is not necessary to remind Californian that the Spanish missionaries and explorer called this river the Colorado because of tho reddish color of it's waters. 1t is the Colorado pin the Grand Canyon in Arizona anC down past The Needles. But at this time o the year. after passing the mouth of the Gila instead of the red river it becomes the browI river It actually looks today as if ten pc cent ofits flow was silt and only ninety pc cent water.
 RICHES OF SOIL WONDERFUL
 But the object or thS story is t0 call attcn fion once more, and for perhaps the thon Ssndth lime. to the riches of the soil alon