The Arizona sentinel., 1910-08-04
POSSIBILITIES 0F YUMA
 REGION UNEMPLOYED The Soil Simply Marvellous in its
 PrOduCtiV9neSS And the Climate is IntOXiCatiHgIy
 SdIGbriOuS
BY GEORGE N. BU RTON. In los Angeles Times.


 1t is very far from semi-lnllenium since
 three little open boats under the flag of Spain ] first touched the waters of the western hemi
 sphere and revealed the new world 10 the eyes Of Europeans. II is only little over a century since the United States Of America sprang, so to speak, like PaIlas Athene from
 the brain Of love- a completely armed ad
 dition to the family Of nations. It is but little yer half century since California be came a part of these United States of America, and less than generation since the settle
 ment of the Great South west began.
 In ali 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- aiizaticn of the vast riches of the American continent, Of the territory of the United States and of this Great Southwest has been more ald 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 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 a little con- ceit 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 tenderfoct who had come in on the last train. New to him. this wonderful region and it's 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 Laguna dam, at the confluence of the Gila and Colorado Rivers. It is twelve miles from Yuma down the river to the Mexican bound-y line OH the Arizona side of the river
 At one point. just below Yuma, the interna- tionai 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 tine 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
 ridges Tine Colorado River in these past ages was mighty stream, sweeping down debris in tons every second Of it's flow. The Cobra do sink was at that time a great inland sea, which spread over the country on both sides of where the river now runs. As the erosion of winds and storms, landslides and glaciers wore down the mountain ridges year by year, the great river carried down a vast amount of silt, erosion from the rocks full of pboS plates, times and dIsintergrated gFanites, as
 well as the vegetation along its 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 l but the erosion of rocks and river banks, the trees and vegetable mould torn from the banks still came down and settled into the
 bottom Of the great inland lake. This geogieal process went on from age to age to our time leaving tlle Colorado at Yuma a stream about half mile wide and being at tiEe preseT;
 time about twenty feet deep in the deepest portion.
 1t is not necessary 10 remind CalifoFnianS
 Chat the Spanish missionaries and explorers called this river the Colorado because of tht
 reddish color of it's waters. It is the Colorado
 up in the Grand Canyon in Arizona and | down past The Needles. BHt at this time O.
 the year, after passing the mouth of the Gila instead Of the red river it becomes the bTowT
 river It actually looks today as f ten pel cent of its flow was silt and only ninety pc | cent water.