Arizona sentinel and Yuma weekly examiner., 1912-11-21
-OS ANGELES TRIBUNE TELLS
 YUMA'S STORY

There is a true jubilee planned a; Yuma for today, tomorrow and alsC Wednesday of this week, that will bC nore than a celebration-for the gov ernment's three-year task on the Yu-
 na siphon is completed and this weel
 yater for 130,000 acres of as fine lanC
 IS there is in the Southwest will bo
 urned through this great engineering
 monument. The festival the city
 Yuma has planned is for all the peo ole of the Southwest, and from al points of the compass they are now
 pouring into the historic city by the Colorado to join with the Yuma citi
 ;ens and land owners to make the big event a notable one.
 The construction of the s1phon was lecessitated because the land it iS proposed to irrigate, south and west 1f Yuma, is south of the Gila river anC east of the Colorado, and the watel is taken from the Colorado at a point fifteen miles above Yuma. It wa necessary, therefore, to cross either the Gila from the east intake of the canal systems, or to cross the Colorado from the west intake, which is on Califor- lia soil. The engineers decided on the latter course, because the mair canal, leading to the siphon woulc serve large acreage in the Yuma In dian reservation, opened two years ago, on the California side, before reaching the siphon.
 The latter is nothing but a largo U-shape tunnel running under the riv CT. The mouth of the tunnel, on tho north, or California side, is higher thar that on the south, or Arizona side, ano he water drops down fifty feet below the bottom of the river, crosses under and is forced up on the Arizona side by gravity.
 Project Engineer Francis B. Sel- lew and his assistants encountered many difficulties in driving the tun- nel under the river, as water was tap ped early in the work and, as in some places, even bedrock, in which they were working the miners found pock cts of quicksand and loose rock.
 But, although the work was delayed more than a year, and although it cost more than had been estimated. it is now finished and the cement bore is ready for service.
 The entire length of the siphon is over 900 feet and is forty feet below the river bed. The siphon is fourteen feet, inside diameter, and the wa..s of concrete are two feet in thickness. This work is a marvel of engineering skill and too much credit cannot be given to those directly responsible for it's successful completion.
 After passing through the siphon the water is conducted through the main canal, which is eighty feet across the bottom, 12O feet across the top and ten feet in depth, along the upper DOT tiOn of the valley for a short distance, when it is separated into two channels That on the west side of the valley will be located along the high ground near the river, and the one on the east side will follow along the elevated areas near the mesa. Both these can als reach southward to the Mexican boundary and command all the irri- gable bottom lands in this portion of the project. The east branch is of sufficient capacity to cary water for future mesa extension. Provisions have been made for a pumping station to supply the 10000 acres of mesa land. The mesa, one of the largest frostless