The Arizona sentinel., 1910-10-06
POSSIBILITIES OF YUMA
 REGION ljHFATHONED ) The SQii Simply Marvellous ia it's
 PFGduCiiYenasS kHd the Climate is lHtOXiCatingiy
 SaIGbriOGS
BY GEORGE N. BURTON. In los Angeles Times.

it is very faT from a semi-nilleniUm sine;
 three littic open boats under the lag of Spair
 f rst touched tEc waters Of the western hemi
 sphere and revealed thc new world to tht
 eyes Of Europeans. It is only little over | century since the United States Of America spraug, So tc speak. like pallas Athene from tie brain Cf .iave. completely armed ad l! dit!on tC :he family Of nations. It is but ! little -vCr half a century since California be-
 came paIt cfthese United States of America and less than a generation since the settle 1 ment Of the Great south west began.
 In ail tie l25 years since the Republic was i founded, ,,aisC in the half century since Cali 1 fornia bocan!e one Of the States of the Union. and during every year of the last thirty, re. l alization ofthe vast riches of the American continent, Of the territory Of the United States and of this Great Southwest has been more and more astonishing 10 the minds oi men. Che would suppose that by today we knew pretty thoroughly what the undevelop- ed resources of inc Great Southwest might reasonably he expected to become. We have not reached the depths of this great ocean Of wealth with our plumnct line yet.
 In a residence of forty years on the Coast the writer thought he knew Q little about what there is OF the Coast, and as most of these years have been spent in and around ;,,- Angeles. he naturally lad little con ceit t.iat he was pretty well acquainted with the Great Southwest. Last week trip to the Colorado River bottoms below Yuma made hIIn feel as a tenderfoot who had come in on the last train. New to him. this wonderful region and its possibilities arc pretty well known to 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 Lacuna dam, at the confluence Of tbe Gila and Colorado Rivers. It is twelve miles from Yuma down the river 10 the Mexican bound-y line on the Arizona Side of the river At one point, just below Yuma, the interna- tiouai bouudry line runs Ep along the river which there takes a westerly trend and from Yuma to Mexico is only a few miles.
 ONCE A MIGHTY STREAM Ages ago when the mountain ranges of Arizona and California lowered toward the stars, at least twice as high as they do now, rains were very freduert and came down in torrcntial volumes all along these mountain Ti-tS lic NOiOtdilO tNlNtI III ti1cNS past aSS 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 0n boih sides of where the river HOW rGEs. As tue erosion of winds and storms, landsiides and glaciers wore down the mountain ridges year by year, She great rver.carricd down @ vast amount of silt, erosion from the rocks full of phOS- phates, times and disintergratcd grGRiies, as well as the vegetation along It's tanks; and this was all deposited in what are now the sinks of the Colorado.
 As the mountain tops were worn down, the rains becaiue less frequent and less in volume but the erosion of rocks and river banks, the trees and vegetable mould torn ffOIn the banks still came down and settled into the bottom Of the great inland lake. This geogicai process went on from age to age to our time, leaving the Colorado at Yuma stream about half a mile wiGe and being at the present time about twenty feet deep ia the deepest roTtioTl.
 It is not necessary tG remind C&ifornians that the Spanish missionaries and explorers called this river the Colorado because Of the reddish color Of it's waters. IL is tlPc Colorado up in the Grand Canyon in Arizona and down past Tie Needles But at this time of the year. after passing the mouth Of the Giia, instead of the red river it becomes the brown river. 1t actually looks today as if ten per cent of its flow was silt and only ninety per cent water.