THE CAHUILLA BASIN AND DESERT OF THE COLORADO. 11 



ASPHALTUM AND PETROLEUM. 



In the year 1907, according to the report by Dr. Stephen Bowers to the State Mineral- 

 ogist of California, the recorder's office at San Diego showed that more than 450,000 acres 

 of land had been located for petroleum in the Colorado Desert Mining District, in San 

 Diego County. Expectations were great and many borings were made, but it does not 

 since appear that any petroleum has been developed there. 



Asphaltum was reported in 1891 by Dr. Bowers, from the Fish Creek District, south- 

 west from the Mesquite Company's wells. Asphaltum occurs there and at Superstition 

 Mountain. Dr. Bowers also reports nearly pure asphaltum from section 7, Township 11 

 south, Range 10 east, and at several points in the same township. 1 



SULPHUR. 



Deposits of sulphur in the Cocopah Mountains have been worked in a desultory, 

 intermittent way for many years. Common report assigns a considerable quantity to the 

 locality on the west side of Volcano Lake, but no reliable descriptions are at hand. It is 

 about 20 miles south of the bounda^. 



SODIUM CARBONATE. 



Carbonate of soda occurs in quantity on the shore of the Gulf at Adair Bay, but has 

 not been developed. The quality, as shown by samples submitted at the University of 

 Arizona, is excellent and the crude material could no doubt be advantageously shipped to 

 United States ports were it not for the import duties. 



GOLD. 



Gold-bearing quartz veins are found in the mountains north of the Desert. One was 

 worked at Carga Muchacha, and the ore was milled at Pilot Knob for several years. 



ANALOGOUS CONDITIONS ELSEWHERE. 



We find in the Old World conditions analogous to those of the Gulf of California. 

 The Red Sea, for example, also occupies a great trough or valley about 1,200 miles long, 

 extending northwesterly and southeasterly over nearly 20 degrees of latitude, from ap- 

 proximately 12° to 32°, from the Indian Ocean nearly to the Mediterranean. It appears 

 to have been cut off from a former connection with the Mediterranean by the deposits 

 which form the Isthmus of Suez. 



The Gulf of Suez, at the north end of the Red Sea, extends north-northwest for 170 

 miles, with an average width of 30 miles. Its shores may be regarded as a portion of the 

 Isthmus reclaimed from the sea; the former limits of the ocean waters can be traced for 

 several miles inland. 



In each of these great continental longitudinal valleys, great geographic changes 

 have resulted from deposits of silt-laden rivers. The Red Sea has been shortened by the 

 deposits from the Nile, and the Red Sea of California by the deposits of the Colorado. 



The phenomena of the Colorado Delta, especially changes of channels, find a close 

 counterpart in those of the Indus Delta. This river, rising in Central Asia, in the moun- 

 tains of northern India at the northeastern extension of the Himalayas, flows south and 

 westerly and empties into the Arabian Sea about 25° north latitude. It there forms a 

 delta 10,000 square miles in area, with a coast line of 125 miles. It exhibits a network 

 of abandoned channels and "lost rivers," calamitous in their drying up, reducing thou- 

 sands of square miles of a once fertile and inhabited country to waste and solitude. Chan- 

 nels once filled with flowing water are often forsaken. The flow often shifts suddenly and 



1 Reconnaissance of the Colorado Desert Mining District, by Stephen Bowers, Ph. D., Sacramento, 1901, p. 17. 



