Imperial Valley press., 1913-12-26
Electric Power
Plant for Canyon

Yuma Examiner: The commercial
practicability of furnishing cheap
power to all Arizona from dam in
the Grand Canyon of the Colorado
will be known in four months to Col.
Epes Randolph, associated with Ralph
H. Cameron, who has held rights for
years. Eugene S. Ives of Tucson
also has an interest in the project.
Colonel Randolph has engineers
now at work to show clearly, as it
must be shown, whether or not it is
worth while for capital to make the
great venture. He said in Tucson Sat
urday that he would be ready in four
neutrality-suspicious. less--either to go
ahead or to give the matter up.
| Ralph H. Cameron has furnished
the rights he has held almost since
boy near the famous Ell Tovar no.
tel on the Hermet Rim road. Colonel
Randolph furnishes the engineering
and judgment; Ives the legal skill ne
cessary to steer so gigantic an un-
dertaking. -a..
at is my guess that it can be done
and done profitably," said Colonel
Randolph. 81 am in a position by
reason of my engineering knowledge
to make a better guess than the ma
jority of the people, and we must
know.
"The plan is to develop very large
amount of energy and sell to the pub
lie service corporations at very much
lower figure than they are able to
make it themselves, and in addition to
sell to land owners throughout the
state not using power at a price at
which they can afford to pump water
and to cultivate profitably lands which
are now desert"
The character of the men interested
is a guarantee that the proposal to
build dam in the mightiest of chasms
is at last being seriously con-
sidered. .,....
Col. Epes Randolph is president of
the Southern Pacific of Mexico and
of the Arizona Eastern. Ives is ac-
knowledged to be one of the shrewd-
est and most capable lawyers in the
state. Mr.. Cameron was territorial
representative in congress for Ari.
iona.
So tremendous are the terms that
must be used to describe the building
of such dam and the volume of en-
ergy that would be generated that it
sounds like a fairy tale. The imag:-
nation may be trusted to picture the
capital required to build it and to
construct electric power lines hun
dreds of miles over the state.
1t is the waters of the Colorado
river at the bottom of the canyon, y
mile from the surface of the plateau,
Al 70
the top in many places the canyon is
more than fifteen miles wide, but at
the bottom where the stream flows it
is very narrow.
Dwarfed by such prodigious noun
tain shores, which rise Immediately
from the water at an angle that would
deny footing to q mountain sheep, it
is not easy to estimate confidentl''
the width and volume of the rive. |
Clicked by the stubborn granite at
this point, it's width is probably be-
tween $50 and 800 feet. It's velocity I
is $50 miles an hour and its volume
and turmoil equal the whirlpool rapids |
of Niagara. It's rise in time of heavy !
rains is rapid and appalling, for the
walls shed almost instantly all the
water that falls on them. Drift is I
lodged in the crevices thirty feet over
head.
Issuing as from mountain side, it
slides with oily smoothness for space
and suddenly breaks into violent |
waves that comb back against the cur
rent. The river is laden with drift |
(huge tree trunks), which it losses
like chips in its terrible play.