The mirror., 1922-03-02

IToIn tnc upper NOiOTduO, ana Wnlle the
streams which enter the lake are dark and
muddy, those which flow out are almost
clear.
On the edge of this lake are numerous
mud volcanoes, small mounds which ap-
pear from distance like roughly conical
shocks of hay From their craters boils
soft, scalding hot mud, while streams and
sulphurous gases escape in Kissing jets,
leaving orange-yellow crystals around the
vents and scattering golden dust over the
slopes of the mounds. Similar volcanic
activity occurs few miles north of the
United States line. One theory is that the
tremendous pressure generated on the un-
derlying strata by the deposits thousands
of feet thick which the Colorado has laid
down through the ages has caused the heat
which shows itself in the development of
the mud vents.
The Colorado has been destroyer on
grand scale, and a creator as well of
strange geographic regions and forms.
But one of its most signal achievements
has been in the economic sphere-the addi-
ton of hundreds of millions Of dollars of
value to the country. In this accomplish
ment the labors of the river for unnum-
bered centuries must needs be supple
mented by brief, but all-important labors
of man.
Ages ago the Gulf of California thrust
long narrow arm more than $50 miles
into the interior of North America, per-
haps 100 miles above the present United
States border. Into the side of this deep
gulf the Colorado emptied near the present
site of Yuma.
Blindly the river carried the sands torn
from the Grand Canyon and the upper
reaches of its streams and dropped them
into the gulf. Cubic miles were thrown
into the depression and steadily bar was
built out into the salt water. Eventually
the bar was built above sea level entirely
across the gulf and became mighty dyke,
damming it. AT first fresh or brackish
lake existed to the north of this dyke, while
the Colorado alternately fed it and dis
charged southwark into the shortened gulf.
But eventually the river took a more or
less permanent course to the south; and
the lake, no longer fed, and bathed by the
intense sunshine and dry air of the south
west, evaporated. When this country was
first explored by the Spanish pathfnders,
half century after Columbus discovered
America, this old lake bed, with its deepest
point more than 260 feet below sea level,
was one of the hottest, dryest, most desolate
regions of the North American continent
the Colorado desert.
And so it continued during the explora-
ton and settlement of the West by Ameri-
cans. Many of the pioneers bound for the
California gold fields in the rush of '49
passed this way, and found the great de-
preston of the Colorado desert the most
forbidding stretch of their journey. Where
anything grew it was typical desert vege-
tation-cacti, grease-wood, an occasional
desert palm. But much of it was dry, pow
derry soil devoid of all vegetation. The
was one of the highest on the
globe, sometimes reaching 1870 degrees
Fahrenheit.
But though the region was desert be-
cause of the lack of moisture, its soil was
a wonderful rich silt, washed down by
the Colorado, as potentially productive as
the soil of the famous delta of the Nile.
A few engineers recognized this and saw
that since the region lay below the level of
the Colorado river its irrigation would be
a relatively simple matter. Water was
first taken by canal to the desert in 1901,
and wherever it was led the desert char
acter disappeared. Alfalfa and other crops
quickly covered the one-time dead, scared