The Arizona sentinel., 1911-06-29
POSSIBILITIES GF YUMA hees0H tjhfATa0nED The Soil Simply Marvellous in Its Pr0duciiVeHess
  And the Climate is latCxiCatiac;y SdlabfioaS
BY GEORGE \. BURTON, In Les Angeles Times.


 r. is very Tar from semi-miilenium m since three little open boats under the flag of Spain first touched the waters Of the western heInl- sphere and revealed the new world to the eyes Of Europeans. Ii is only little over century since the United States of America sprang, so to sreak, like Pallas Athene from the brain of love, completely armed ad- dition to the family Of nations. It Is but little .ver half a century since California be- came part of these United States Of America, and less than 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 ofthe vast riches Of the American continent, of the territory of the United States and of this Great Southwest has been 3ore and more astonishing to the minds Of men. One would suppose that by today we knew pretty thoroughly what the undeYelop- ed resources of the Great Southwest might reasonably be expected to become. We have not reached the depths of this great ocean of wealth with our rlummet line yet.
 In a residence Of fforty years on the Coast the writer thought he knew a 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 little con- ceit that he was pretty we'll acquainted with the Great Southwest. Last week d trip to the Colorado River bottoms. below Yuma made htm feel as a tenderfoot who had come in on the last train. New to him, this wonderful region and its 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 L.aguna dam, at the confluence of the Gila and Colorado Rivers. It 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 line runs up along the river which there takes a westerly trend and from Yuma to Mexico is only a few miles.
 ONCE 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 frcduert and came down In torrcntial volumes all along these mountain
 
 was a mighty stream, sweeping down debris in tons every second Of its flow. The Cobra do sink was at Shat 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 vast amount Of silt, erosion from the rocks full of phos. plates, times and disintergrated granites, as well as the vegetation along its banks; and this was all 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 half 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. 1t Is the Colorado up in the Grand Canyon in Arizona and down past The Needles. But at this 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.