The Arizona sentinel., 1911-01-05
POSSIBLE TIES 0F YUMA
 REGION UNEMPLOYED The Soil Simply Marvellous in its
 PrGGaGtiV2reSS Ard the Climate is EntOxiCatiEg'y
 Sa!ubTi0uS
BY GEORGE N. BURTON.

' III lISH <Ai+S5NANS l iiA'N'>'
 It is very far from a senli-milenium since three little open boats under the flag Of Spain fl irsf touched the waters of the western hemi- sphere and revealed the new world to the eyes Of Europeans. It is only @ little over a century since the United States of America sp,ang, so to speak, Ike Pallas Athcne from the brain of love, a completely armed ad- dition to the family Of nations. It is out little yer half a century since California be- came part of these United States Of America, and less tban a generation since the settle ment Of the Great Southwest began.
 In all 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- alization otthe vast riches Of the American continent, Of the territory of the United states and Gf his Great Southwest has been mere and more astonishing to the minds Of men. One woulG suppose that by today we knew pretty thoroughly what the undeveop- ed resources of thy Great Southwest might reasonably ne eXpecie ed to become. We have .lt reached the depths of this great ocean Of wealth with our plummot line yet.
 In a residence of forty years on the Coast the writer thought he knew a little about what there Is on tho 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 a trip to the Colorado River bot 0ms. below Yuma made hlm feel as a tenderfoot who had come in on the aSt train. New to him, thiS wonderful region and it's possibilities are pretty well known to a great many readers of The Times 5y the stories published, if not by the demon ssration of their own eyes.
 Yuma lies on the map just twelve miles from where the government is putting in the great Laguna dan at the confluence of the Gila and Colorado Rivers. 1t is twelve miles from Yuma down the Iiver to the Mexican houndry line on the Arizona side Of the river Al enc point, just below Yuma. the interna- tionai boundry line runs up along the river which there takes westerly trend and from Yuma to Mexico is only 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 V ere very freduent and came down in torrcntial volumes all along these mountain ridges The Colorado River in these past ages was a mighty stream, sweeping down debris in tons every second Of it's flow. The Colora- 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, landsides and glaciers wore down the mountain ridges year by year, the great river carried down vast amount Of silt, erosion from the rocks full of phos- rhatcs, times and dlsintergrated granites, as well as the vegetation along it's banks, and this was al deposited in what are now the 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 geogical process went on from age to age to our time, leaving the Colorado at Yuma a stream about halfa mile wide and being at the present time about twenty feet deep ia the deepest portion.
 It is not necessary to remind CalifOrnians that the Spanish missionaries and explorers called this river the Colorado because of the reddish color of it's waters. It is the Colorado up in the Grand Canyon in Arizona and down past The Needles. But at tliis time of the year, after passing the mouth of the Gila,
 instead of the red river it becomes the brown river. It actually looks today as if ten per cent ofits flow was silt and only ninety per cent water.