The Arizona sentinel. [volume] (Arizona City [Yuma], Yuma County, A.T. [Ariz.]) 1872-1911, 1911-02-16
Possibilities OF YUMA
REGION UHFATH0MED
The Sell Simply Marvellous in IFS
Pr0duGtiVeFaSS
and the Climate is EEt0XiCatingiy
SeIabFiOuS
By GEORGE n. RU RTON.
In Los Angeles Times.

III lsOS AiSCitH 1 iliiC7'
T. is very far from semi-milenium since
three little open boats under the flag of Spain
first Touched the waters Of the western hemi-
! sphere and revealed the new world to the
J eyes OF Europeans. II is only little over a
. century since the United States of America
sprang, So ID speak, like Palias Athene from
the brain o: love, a completely armed ad-
ditiGn to the family or nations. 1t is but
! Little YER half a century since California be-
came part uf these United States of America,
and less than generation since the settle
ment OF the Great South west began.
Ia all thu l25 years since the Republic was
founded also in the half century since Cali
fornia became one of the States OF the Union 9,
and during every year OF the last thirty, q re-
aiizaIion o 1.-THE vast RIGHTS OF the American
continent, OF the territory Of the United
states and of this Great Southwest has been
more and more astonishing to the minds of
men. One would suppose that by today we
knew pretty thoroughly what the undevelop-
ed resources of the Great Southwest might
reaSonabIy he expected to become. We have
not reached the depths of this great ocean OF
wealth ii th our plummet line yet.
Ia a residence OF forty years on the Coast
VIZ NI3afI tilObfs1t hS INV ~ itbbAS oDOdt
what t!Ie.e is on The Coast, and as most of
these years nave 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 Il trip to the
Colorado River bottoms. below Yuma made
hIm feel as a tenderfoot who had come in on
The las train. New to him, this wonderful
region and it's possibilities are pretty well
known to a great many readers of The Times
by the s.orieS published, if not by the demon
stration of their own eyes.
Yuma lies on tie map just twelve miles
from where the government is putting in the
great La,una dam, at the confluence of the
ella and Colorado Rivers. 1t is twelve miles
from Yuma down the river to the Mexican
boUn5Ty 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 few miles.
ONCE A MIGHTY STREAM.
Ages ago when the mountain ranges of
Arizona and California lowered toward the
stars, az least twice as high as they do now,
rains were very frcdGent and came down in
t0rrcntial volumes all along these mountain
ridges The Colorado River in these past ages
was a mighty stream, sweeping down debris
i'm tons every second of its flow. The Colora-
do sink was at that time great inland sea,
which spread over the country on both sides
Of where the river now runs. as the erosion
of win DIS and storms, landslides and glaciers
wore down the noun tain ridges year by year,
the great river carried down vast amount
of silt, erosion from the rocks full OF phos,
pilates, lines and disintergrated GRANTEES, as
well as the vegetation along its banks; and
this was all deposited in what are now the
sinks OF the COiOra5g.
4 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 ana 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 stream about
half Il IL le vide and being at the present
lime about twenty feet deep ia the deepest
portion.
1t IS not necessary to remind Californians
that The Spanish missionaries and explorers
called this river the Colorado because of the
reddish color of its 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 ella,
instead OF the red river it becomes the brown
river. 1t actually looks today rs if ten per
cent OF its flow was silt and only ninety per
cent water.