334 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



is actually two hundred and sixty-two feet below the level of the sea, 

 say at the head of the Gulf of Lower California, about a hundred miles 

 away ! Indio, another railway station about one hundred and twenty- 

 five miles west of Yuma and about twenty-five west of Salton, is almost 

 at sea-level, so that it is evident that we have here a great depression not 

 only below the Colorado which passes Yuma, but actually away below the 



THE SALTON BASIN 



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level of the sea. The extent of country actually below sea-level is in- 

 cluded by the dotted lines upon our map. Now it is evident that if the 

 volcanoes should once conclude to open up a way for oceanic waters, the 

 sea might easily take possession of the Salton basin as the newspapers 

 say; but have they done it? 



It has been noted that the Colorado Eiver at Yuma is far above the 

 bottom of our basin, and it skirts along our southeast border to the gulf 

 all the way, of course, far above the valley. In fact, with respect to the 

 basin and its sloping sides, the river occupies exactly the position of a 

 great irrigating main carried along some hillside above waiting fields. 

 Some years ago enterprising men who saw the situation, realizing that 

 large areas of the basin were not sand at all, but the finest sort of fertile 

 alluvial soil, began to use this great natural main by constructing a 

 secondary, carrying the waters of the Colorado out to the south part of 

 our basin, near the Mexican boundary, where it was easy to bring under 

 water some 100,000 acres of beautiful land. This artificial channel 

 should bring part of the water of the river to certain old river channels 



