Imperial Valley press., 1920-04-17
A DESERT RECLAIMED

of the Pacific Mutual News, the hous
organ of the Pacific Mutual Live Insur
ance company, which appeared in tn
March issue. 1t is entitled "a Deser
Reclaimed" and is as follows:
Roses blooming in a desert is
picture that made very strong ap
peal to our earliest fancy. But il
those days it was only picture-ont
among the many that hung upon tn,
walls of our imagination. When the
Hebrew prophet placed it there-tht
one who sang "the desert, shall rejoice
and blossom as the rose"-we had M
thought that we should ever see the
realty. But in these latter years, il
many sections of this southwest coun.
try, the reality has spread itself be.
fore us, surprising in it's beauty anc
wonder and picture the boldest imagin-
alton can paint. Water-developed
directed, controlled by man, has beer
the transforming agent, for, as that
other dreamed of Israel sang, every
thing shall live whittier the river COM
eth"
This has all been illustrated in a
most remarkable way in the Imperial
Valley of California. True to it's name
in it's magnitude, in the difficulties en-
countered and overcome, in the result
secured in few short years, it stands
out as the greatest achievement in
desert reclamation in the history of
the world.
The map, reprinted on the opposite
page from an Ell Centre paper
shows the location of Imperial County,
which lies in the extreme southeastern
corner of California. The Colorado
River is its eastern boundary line,
Riverside and San Diego counties join
in on the north and west respectively,
and the Mexican state of Lower Cali
fornia on the south.
1t will be noticed that Imperial
Valley occupies a quite central posi-
ton in the county and lies in basin
below the level of the sea. The Mexi-
can boundary line at Calexico is ex-
actly at sea level, but from tito the
north the surface has gradual down.
ward slope to the Salton Sea, which is
more than two hundred feet below
the level of the sea. Barren hills and
mountains shut in the valley on the
east and west, while to the south an
open level country of similar charac-
ter stretches away to the Gulf of Cal
ifornia, about one hundred miles dis
tant.
How the Imperial Valley Was Made
To the Colorado River, Imperial
Valley is indebted not only for it's pres
ent wealth and prosperity, but for its
creation. In some far distant age
the arm of the sea known as the Gulf
of California, thrust itself some two
hundred miles farther inland than it
does at present. We have arrived at
this knowledge by the Bertillon meth
cd, if you please, because it has left its
finger prints in the ancient shore line
which can be easily traced at several
points along the base of the noun
tains.
Time was, " in the eternity that lies
back of all yesterdays" when the great
river emptied into the gulf at point
one hundred and fifty miles north of
it's present mouth. One day as we
sat, in a meditative mood, on the rim
of the Grand Canyon Of the Colorado,
several hundred miles north and east
of the Imperial Valley, we fell to mus
ing and wondered what had become
of the vast quantity of material car
ried away by the river when it gouged
this greatest of all gashes in the sur
face of the earth. We figured that if
every man, woman and child now
living in the world had lived here since
Adams day, and if each one could
have removed a cubic of rock each
day, it would take the present entire
human family working ceaselesslX all
those six thousand years to excavate
the rand Canyon proper as we now
have it. But to this we must add
MANY hundreds of miles of other
gorges and canyons, which the river
and it's tributaries have carved. Where
has the Colorado deposited all the
earth and rock it has to carry away
as through the centuries it sculptured
the fantastic fashioning that now
amaze us? In the Imperial Valley
and below it we have the answer to
our question.
At first the river threw mighty
dixie westward across the gulf and at
a point where it's north shore line now
lies. The portion of the gulf thus cut
off became an inland sea, on the floor
OF winch CHe TlNeT, WoiNiiiS ciAOuSh
long ages, deposited great quantities
of silt, which is today the wonderfully
rich soil of the Imperial Valley. In
time the river walled itself in from
this inland sea, thus leaving rays OF
semi tropical source of supply and
subjected to the fierce, beating rays
of a semi-tropical sun in an almost
rainless land. How long it took no
one will ever know, but under the blis-
tering heat of the sun, aided by the
almost ceaseless winds that swept
over it's surface from the arid regions
about it, the sea with all its life disap-
peared. Through other long ages that
followed, Apollo continued to shoot
his shafts into this basin OF death,
so that man or beast that dared en-
ter the desolate waste with it's blind
ing sands and ouivering heat, did SO
at great risk. At times, in high-water
season, the river overflowed it's banks
and made its way to the lowest point
of thevalley, but the thirsty land soon
drank it up, and if any remained it