El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1910-01-31

EOR fully a third of a century Ari-
iona has been hoping and work
| ing for statehood. At last it
stands on the threshold of realizing
this ambition. and it is asserted that
no other territory has come into the
union with more splendid past or
more promising future
Here irrigation is touching the soil
J as Moses touched the rock with his
rod. Here the mineralogist finds fab
| ulous hidden wealth. Here the geologist
sees the worlds best story of its own
making.
Written in books of stone in its can
yons and gorges and petrified forests,
! In characters which the expert may
read, is the account that nature gives
| OF the unnumbered millions of years
since America emerged from a shore
! less sea The four greatest Of scuIp-
| tors-fire, water, sand and wind-have
united to make Arizona treasurehouse
of wonders. The debris Of their studios
I has not been cleared away, hence It is
| the biologists paradise.
| Records of the Past.
| Here, too, the ethnologist and the
Archaeological find wonderful records of
| the past. The ethnOlogist can picture
a people who lived but little removed
from the stone age. Through the work
[ OF the archaeolOgist he is permitted to
study the surroundings of cave dwell
ers and cliff jewellers who lived in
| times so remote that even tradition is
! dumb as to whence they came or with
er they went In fact. one wonders if
| he does not survey at one glance the
| whole existence OF man from the time
or Adam to this year of grace 1910
The dry, preserving qualities of the
| atmosphere have kept intact ruins that
! elsewhere might have crumbled into
dust thousands of years ago.
But Arizona is more than a nature
! written record of bygone ages. 1t is
as much a land of tomorrow as of yes
terday.
The plants of the tropics commingle
with those of northern climes, and the
growing things of the desert associate
with the fruitage Of the valley. Nature
has stored up mineral wealth of untold
value Gold, silver, precious stones
copper, lead zinc and coal are all here
There is copper in such quantities as
TO justify the prediction that the Ari-
IONA ranges henceforth will lead the
world.
Irrigation Projects.
The work of the government in con-
structing the great irrigation project of
the Salt river valley will make this
one OF the foremost irrigated regions
of the world. The famous Roosevelt
dam is one of the parts OF this project.
1t is located across the canyon of the
Salt river, almost 20 miles northeast
of Phoenix. It rises 276 feet above bed
rock. and is so intensified with the side
walls of the canyon that il seems al
most a part Of the everlasting hills.
Over 100000 cubic yards of solid
masonry, and nearly as many barrels
of cement, have entered into its con-
struction. The water it impounds will
form the largest artificial irrigation
lake in the world, with the single ex-
ception Of the one which will be formed
by the Elephant Butte dam, near Engle,
N NJ
This lake will hold enough water TO
cover 1.2s4.O0O acres of land one foot
deep. The average amount of water
required TO grow a seasons crop is four
feet, and all but some 10 inches of this
must come from the mountains through
the rivers that drain the watersheds.
The government builds the irrigation
works and gets its money back from
the sales of land and water
The Yuma project is almost as large
as the one at Salt river. The Colorado.
mad from its wild rush down the Grand
canyon, is impounded, and its waters
scattered over the desert, transferring
the barren waste into land of sur
passing productiveness.
Great Reclamation Work.
1t is said that Arizona has the largest
unbroken forest in the world 1t lies
within the San Francisco mountains and
the Black Mesa forest reserves and
contains over 5000 square miles of tim
Der land In addition to this there are
other vast areas of timber that stretch
far north of the Grand canyon.
The work of the reclamation service
is converting millions of acres OF land
into a veritable Eden, and intensive
farming will make possible a density
OF population undreamed of in any re- !
gion where irrigation is unknown.
Egypt, with less irrigable land than /
New Mexico and Arizona, with no for
ests, no minerals and next to nothing
In the way Of manufactures supports a /
population of 1000, 600 souls; at the /
same time paying tribute Of $1,000 /
900 a year to the sultan, maintaining /
an army of $4,000 men, and paying in |
terest on bonded debt of staggering 1
proportions. With its giant dams and /
reservoirs, Arizona may well be expect |
ed to rival in prOductiveness the far |
famed valley of the Nile
Horne for OStricheS
The Salt river valley ranks with
South Africa as a home for the ostrich I
and so percent of all the ostriches in 4
the United States are to be found in
this one little section. More han 90O1
baby ostriches of last years hatch are