The Arizona sentinel., 1910-07-14
POSSIBILITIES OF YUMA
 REGION UNEMPLOYED The Soil Simply Marvellous in is
 PrOduCtiVeneSS Ard the Climate is EntOxiCatingiy
 SdIahriOGS
BY GFORGE N. BU RTON. I'm Los Angeles Times.


 three little open boats under the flag of Spain ! fl rst touched the waters Of the western heIni- sphere and revealed the new world to the eyes of Europeans It is only a liit!e over 8 century since the United States Of America sprang. so to speak, like Palas Athene from She brain or love, a completely armed ad- dit;on to the family Of nations Ii is but Uttle yer half a century since California be- came a part of these United States Of America, and less than generation since the settle nent Of the Great Southwest began.
 In all the I25 years since the Republic was founded, also in the half century since Cali rpr,lia became one Of the States of the Unicn. and during every year of the last thirty, a re alizaticn of the vast riches of the American continent, of the territory of the United states and of th.s 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 uRdeveiop- 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 little about what there is on the Coast, and most Of these years have been spent in and around Los Angeles. lie naturally had little con ceit that he was pretty well acquainted with the Great Southwest Last week a trip 10 the Colorado River bottoms. below Yuma made hl,,l feel as a tendcrfoot who had como in on the last train. New to him, ihis 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 owa eyes.
 Yuma lies on the map just twelve miles from where the government is putting in the great Laguna dam, at the confluence of the Gila and Colorado Rivers. It is twelve Hiiles from Yuma down the river to the Mexican boundry line on the Arizona side of the river Al one point, just below Yuma, the intema- tional boundry line runs Up along the river which there takes a westerly trend and from Yuma to Mexico is only few miles.
 ONCE A MIGHTY STREAM. Ages ago when the mountain ranges of 1 Arizona and California lowered toward the | stars. at least twice as high as they do now, ] rains were very freducrt and came down in | torrcntial volumes all along these mountain ridges. The Colorado River in these past ages was mighty stream, sweeping down debris ! in tons every second Of it's flow. The. Cobra l 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, landsides and glaciers wore down the mountain ridges year by year, the great river carried down a vast amount of silt, erosion from the rocks fell Of phos pha1cs, times and dlsintergfated granifes, as well as thc vegetation along It's banks; and this was all deposited in what are now tbe sinks Of the Colorado.
 | As the mountain tops were worn down, the rains became less frequent and less in volume 1 but the erosion of rocks anf river banks, the trees and vegetable mould torn from th' banks still came down and settled into the i bottom of the great inland lake. This geogica process went on from age to age Go our time leaving the Colorado at Yuma stream abou half a mile wide and being at the pTesen time about twenty feet deep fT the deepcs portion.
 1 It is not necessary t0 remind Californian | that the Spanish missionaries ssnd explorer called this river the Colorado because of th' reddish color of its waters. It is the Colorado
 up in the Grand Canyon in Arizona ant down past The Needles. But at this time o
 the year. after passing She mouth of the Gila
 instead of the red river it becomes the browl
 river | actually looks today as if ten pc
 cent of its flow was silt and only ninety pc
 cent water.