Arizona sentinel and Yuma weekly examiner., 1912-07-25

ing it's soil fertility. At first though | it seems a long stretch of the imagina
 tiOn from the Egypt of the Pharaoh's to the United States of today, yet the
 simile is not misplaced, for here iT
 the great Southwest, traverSed by an
 other Nile, stretches the Egypt of the
 New World, land of plenty, home ot
 contentment-wher neither seasons
 nor water fail where the vine and
 fig tree flourish side by side with the
 date and the olive, the orange and the
 lemon; where balmy breezes and Ital-
 ian skies invite alike the seeker after
 an ideal home spot and the searcher
 after health; where Opportunity
 awaits the touch of Industry and Cap
 ital; where waving fields beckon the
 husbandman of less favored localities and proclaim that in seasons of drOuth the road to well-filled granaries leads down into the beautiful Yuma Valley of Arizona, in the center of which and on the banks of the wealth-laden Col orado is situated Yuma, future metrop- oils of a peerless commonwealth.
 "It is a notable fact when in 1775- 76, while exploring the Colorado Riv- CT, Father Garces selected the site where Fort Yuma was built seventy years later, as the most suitable for the establishing of a mission. The of Purisima-Conception was erected in 1776 but in 17S1 this fore runner of civilization, Father Garces, together with his associate priests were massacred by the Indians and the mission burned. From the time of the destruction of the Purisima- mission in 1871, the pale face did little towards re-establishinG himself at Yuma, until from 1S46 to 1860 the Lower Colorado was visited and examined by several surveying and exploring parties under the au- thority of the War Department. Steam boating began on the river in 1851. the supplies for the garrisons and min
 ing camps being shipped in ocean steamers to the mouth of the river where they were transferred to the river steamers and delivered at Yuma for further distribution.
 Yuma again became the basic point df yet another, a newer civil zation, and from this nucleus grew he town of Yuma The richness of he surrounding valley attracted the 'armer and soon Yuma Valley began o assume an agricultural aspect. De bending upon the overflow of the riv- 1T as had the Indians before them, it oon became evident that a more sub sElntial and dependable method of irrigation would be necessary. A topo- graphical survey revealed the fact that tt a point between 12 and 14 miles lbove Yuma the granite hills of Cal fornia and those of Arizona, scarcely | mile apart, formed a natural lOca | ion for a dam of the Indian Weil l ype. This type originated in India yer fifty years ago, one across the | River Sone being over 12,000 feet in ength. The principle of the dam | S raising the surface of the river | bout ten feet above it's normal level, | uch raise being sufficient to carry | he water over and irrigate the gen ral lay of the land. The dam is over zoo feet, or nearly one mile in length, with a width of 250 feet and a height | f 19 feet. It is composed of a rock 1 i'll between parallel walls of concrete attending entirely across the stream etween the natural rock abutments n each bank The top of the rock i'll and the entire top surface of the am on it's downstream side is covered with a concrete pavement IS inches nick.
 "The Colorado is silt-bearine, tream of considerable magnitude, car ying at times nearly three per cent n weight of light, sandy material yhich rapidly fills the heads of canals hat are constructed without due re ard for this contingency. This fea- ure has been carefully considered l the designs of the United States Service, and elaborate have been made to in ure freedom from silt deposits in he canals under the project. The dam as created a lake about ten miles I length and of considerable width, nd in this there has been a great de osit as the water approaches the am.
 Leading from this lake to the can Is at each end of the dam, are sluice yays about 1000 feet in length, so that the water must pass trough them with a velocity appro mating one foot per second, so that he main body of silt will be dropped.