Los Angeles herald., 1910-02-01
Wonders of Arizona
Bv Frederic j. HaSkin

rz=5zzz=SOR fully third of century
! Arizona has been hoping and
| AZ Sl2N working for statehood. AT
| lES YsSs last it stands on the thres-
/ lEsES lSA hold of realizing this ambi-
! lIssxGsaG ton, and it is asserted that
! no other territory has come
! into the Union with a more splendid
past or a more promising future.
! Here irrigation is touching the soil as
! Moses touched the rock with his rod.
Here the minerologist finds fabu-
! lous hidden wealth. Here the
geologist sees the worlds best
story of its own making. Writ
ten i'm books of stone in its canyons
! 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 shore
| less sea. The four greatest of
sculptors-fre. water and wind-have
united TO make Arizona a treasure
house of wonders. The debris OF their
/ studios has not been cleared away,
! hence it is the geologists paradise.
Here, too the ethnOlogist and the
archaeologst find wonderful records
of the past. The ethnologist can pic
ture a people who lived but little re-
moved from the stone age. Through
! the Work Oh lle dIGildeOloBlSl llG -
/ permitted to study theA surroundings
Of cave dwellers and cliff dWellers who
| lived in times 50 remote that even
tradition is dumb as to whence they
| came or whittier they went. In fact,
one wonders IL he does net survey at
! ore glance the whole existence of man
from the time Of Adam to this year of
grace 1910. The dry preserving quail
! tiles Of the atmosphere have kept in
ole rlns4sr ffrhi
crumbled into dust thousands of years
ago.
But Arizona is more than n nature
written record of bygone ages. 1t is
as much a land of tomorrow as of
yesterday. The plants of The tropics
commingle with those of northern
climes and the growing things of the
| desert associate with the fruitage of
| stones. copper, lead, zinc and coal are
all here. There is copper in such
quantities as to j stify the prediction
| that the Arizona ranges -hehceforth
will lead the world.
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
|
this prophet. It is located across the
| canyon of the Salt river, almost
| seventy miles notheast of Phoenix. It
rises 276 feet above bed rock and is
so intensified with the side walls of
! the canyon that it seems almost
part of the everlasting hills. over
100000 cubic yards of solid masonry
| and nearly as many barrels of cement
| have entered into its construction. The
water II impounds will form the largest
artificial lake in the world, with the
single exception Of the one which will
be formed by the great Gatun dam
at Panama.
| This lake will hold enough water to
cover 1,2S4000 acres of land one foot
deep. The average amount of water
required to grow a seasons crop is
! four feet, and all but some ten inches
| 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 a
land of surprising pToductiveness.
| 1t is said that Arizona has the
| largest unbroken forest in the world.
| 1t lies within the San Francisco noun
| tain and the Black Mesa forest re-
| serves, and contains over 5000 square
miles of timber land. In addition to
| this there are other vast areas Of tim
Der that stretch far north of the
| Grand canyon.
| The work of the reclamation service
is converting millions of acres of land
into a vertable Eden, and intensive
| farming will make possible a density
| OF population undreamed of in any
| region where irrigation is unknown.
Egypt. with less irrigahle land than
| New Mexico and Arizona, with no
| forests, no minerals and next to moth
| ing in the way of manufactures sup
ports a population of eleven million
| souls at the same time paying a
tribute of s3,000,O00 year to the sui
| tan, maintaining an army of 10000 men
| and paying interest on a bonded debt
! of staggering proportions. With its
giant dams and reservoirs, Arizona may
well be expected to rival in produc-
tiveness the far-famed valley of the
| Nile.
The Salt River valley ranks with.
| South Africa as a home for the ostrich,
and so per sent of all the ostriches in
/