Perth Amboy evening news., 1923-03-20
Geographic News
Bulletins by the
National Geographic Society
Seaport for Inland State

some of the by-products, valuable
and otherwise, that the United States
would acquire if it successfully acted
on a recently reported resolution of
the Arizona House of Representa-
tives The resolution seeks to add
to the State a small triangle of
northern Mexico.
1T is for quite a different reason,
however" continues the bulletin,
that Arizona desires what might be
called this second Gadsden Pur-
chase of one of the most desolate
and least-known regions of North
America. The map shows that while
southern boundary of the State ex-
tends due west for a space from the
southwestern corner Of New Mexico.
it then strikes northwestward at a
very slight angle. The resolution
seeks an arrangement with Mexico
by which this bend in the southern
boundary of the State would be elm
mated so that the line would con-
tinue as 1t started, in a due east and
west direction. The triangular area
that would be added to the State
would be about 240 miles long by
about fifty miles wide at the point Of
greatest breadth.
Bottled Up BY Narrow Strip
The important consideration is
that this long narrow triangle is all
that separates Arizona from the sea
the Gulf of California, huge arm
Of the Pacific. Add it to Arizona.
and overnight the State would desert
the ~ inland commonwealths and
Join the u that border on salt water.
With its hundreds of thousands of
tons OF minerals to ship, the State
Is Tow bottled up by narrow region
undeveloped and little likely to be
developed by its present owner, It
IS felt that even the desolate, prac-
tically trailless desert, and the lack
OF natural harbors on the Gulf would
not deter Yankee enterprise and
farkee engineering ability from lay
ing down a trail of steel and con-
structing quays or piers at which
ocean steamers would soon be load .
ing, furnishing the cheap transporta-
ton that bulky products demand.
The areas of most states are we'll
known, even the parts sparsely pop-
ulated. 1t is hard for dwellers in
many other portions of the United
states to realize, therefore, that not
only is this triangle of Mexico a.
terra lncognita, but that the portion
OF Arizona which adjoins it is almost
equally so. Most of the region
south of the Southern Pacific Rail
road may be thought of as desert on
which small broken cocky ranges of
mountains have been superimposed.
In the valleys between the craggy
mountains are numerous patches of
fertile soil, but little rain falls and
there are practically no running
streams-only dry stream beds
which now and then carry water fer
a. few hours until it is lost in the
sand, and d very few water-holes.
Uncle Sans Communists
Both north and south of the bor-
der. this region is given oven almost
wholly to a handful of Papago In
diaifs with communistic customs who
range as freely as did their remote
needing to give in rheir
desolate homeland" little ~ Eo
thought to border-lines or 10 The
governmental machinery of state and
nations. The region-both American
and Mexican-is known roughly as
and is seldom traversed
by white men.
Through it the international
boundary extends, the ultimate in
lines. Swerving neither 10
the right nor to the left it extends, a
straight, geometrical line, running
up sheer cliffs and over craggy
peaks, hurdling great valleys and
tiny arroyos, crossing deserts, lava
flows, and sand dunes, until it
strikes the Colorado River some fif-
teen miles below Yuma. And it is
as well as arbitrary. Little
from three to five miles
apart mark it's progress, but these
are often obscured; and the Indians
and the occasional white or Mexican
travellers, may, and do cross aud re-
cross it frequently without knowing
its location, and with no guards or
officials to question them.
Indian "Noah" Saved Wolf and
Beetle
"The Mexican triangle of Papa
guerra which it is proposed to add to
Arizona, is even a more inhospitable
country than the border region. In
addition to the features of the latter,
It en- races a district thirty by forty
miles covered by extinct volcanic
craters and an ancient lava flow, and
hundreds of square miles of great
lowering sand dunes that create a
like that of parts of the
Sahara. On the highest lava peaks
Of Pinacate, say the old Papago
legends, their Elder Brother land
ed from his cask after the deluge
and after floating around the world
four times. While solicitude for ami
mails was not as extensive as that of
the Hebraic Noah, he at least man
aged to save a coyote and beetle.
The Papagos formerly were sand
people living in the sand dune reg
lon near the lava fields. headquarters
1T the few small water-holes. This re-
gion is now practically deserted, the
Papagos living by dry-fa4 ming and
farther east and north
and making Journeys coastward only
at intervals for salt.
There is no general knowledge of
good natural haTbors along the por-
tion of the Gulf of California that
would be included in the proposed
triangular addition to Arizona, but
probably there would be little diff
ficulty in constructing harbor faciIi-
ties either along Bahia Adair which
would mark the southern boundary
of the addition, or northward toward
the head of the Gulf. The larger
sand dunes are twenty miles from
shore near the Gulf head and equal
distance from the Colorado River.
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