The Arizona sentinel., 1910-09-15
POSSIBILITIES OF YUMA
 REGION UNFkTHOMED } The Soil Simply hiaTvaIous ia ifs
 PrGdGajiVGaGSS And tha Climate is IntoxiCating!y
 SalG5Ti0uS
BY GEORGE N. BU RTON. In Los Angeles Times.

Ii is very far from sen}i-rniilenium since ! shree little open boats under the flag oc Spain
 first touched the waters or the western hemi- sphere and revealed the new world to the
 eyes Of Europeans. It. only little over a century since tue United States Of America sprang, SC to speak, like ra:las Athenc from
 t3e brain Of love, completely armed ad- dillon to the family Of nations. IL is but i little yer halra century since California be- 1 came part of these United States Of America, and less ihan 9 generation since the settle
 ment Of the Great south west began.
 In all the l2J years since the Republic was founded, also in the half century since Cali falnia became one of the States Of thc Union. and during every year of the last thirty, a re- alizaiion Of the vast riches of the American continent, CT the territory of the United states and of this Great Southwest has been 3lOre and more astonishing to the minds of men. Che woniG suppose that by today we knew pretty thoroughly what the undevelcp- cd resources of fhe Great Southwest might reasonably bc expccted to become We have net reached the depths of this great ocean of wealth with our plummet line yet.
 In residence Of forty years on the Coast tke writer thought he knew a little about VI these years have been spent in and around los A ngrIpS he naturally lad little con ccit ;hat he Mas pretty well acquainted with the Great Southwest Last week trip to the Colorado River bottoms. below Yuma made hInl feel as a tenderioot who had come in on the last train. New 10 him, this wonderful region and is 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. IL 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- tional boundry inc runs up along the river which there takes a westerly trend and from Yuma to Mexico is only q few miles.
 ONCE A MIGHTY STREAM.
 Ages ago when the mountain ranges of Arizona and California lowered toward the stars, al least twice as high as they do now, rains were very freduent and came down in torrcntia volumes all along these mountain ridges. The Colorado River in these past ages was a mighty stream, sweeping down debris in tons every second oc it's flow. Tie Cobra do sink was at that time great inland sea, which spread over the country on both sides Of where thc 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 phos pilates, times and dlsintergTated Granites, as well as the 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 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 geogica! process went on from age to age to our time, leaving the Colorado at Yuma a stream about halfa a mile wide and being at the present time about twenty feet deep in the deepest portion.
 It is not necessary to remind Californians that the Spanish missionaries and explorers reddish color of it's waters It is the Colorado up in the Grand Canyon in Arizona and down past The Needles. But at this time of the year, after passing tIe mouth Of the Gila, instead Of the red river 1t becomes the brown river. It actually looks today as if ten per cent ofits flow was silt and only ninety per cent water.