THE SALTON SEA—NEWELL. sod 
muddy flood. The waters converging to form the channel as above 
described would dig through the fields these narrow, deep gorges, 
as shown in PI. ITT, and forever destroy what had been a prosperous 
home. In a few cases, where small towns had been built, such as 
Calexico and Mexicala, the inhabitants gathered together and with 
strenuous exertions, working day and night, attempted by means of 
low dikes to hold back the flood and direct its course. A view looking 
over one of the dikes is given in Pl. IV. In the case of Mexicala 
the converging torrents, forming a deep channel, began to progress in 
their cutting toward the town. Attempts were made by means of 
heavy explosives to change the direction of the back cutting and turn 
it away from the settled country. All this, however, was without 
effect, and the wide, deep channel turned abruptly toward the town, 
cutting a chasm, as shown by PI. V, into which toppled, in succession. 
houses and barns, the railroad station and a large part of the railroad 
track. 
It soon became apparent that the danger of this back cutting was 
not confined alone to the destruction of agricultural lands and of 
houses and fields; but that if it continued it would ultimately involve 
the heads of the canals leading water cut to the remaining agricul- 
tural lands. When once the heads of these canals were cut off by the 
retreat of the channel it would be impossible to keep an adequate 
supply for the valley. In other words, once these headings were de- 
stroyed, although there would be a flood rushing down to Salton Sea 
through deep, steep-sided walls of earth, as shown in Pl. VI, yet there 
would not be any water available on the surface for the crops or for 
the ordinary uses and necessities of man and beast. More than this, 
it was readily appreciated that the back cutting, continuing to the 
Colorado River, would in time lower the bed of that stream, and allow 
it to deepen at Yuma to a point where it would no longer be possible 
to divert water by gravity for irrigation in the vicinity of that town. 
Then continuing upstream, it would imperil the safety of the great 
dam being built by the Government across the Colorado River. The 
situation became very serious and alarm was felt for the future, not 
merely of the lands under cultivation in Imperial Valley, but of those 
along the Colorado River in California and Arizona. 
RISE OF THE SALTON SEA. 
The rapid influx of the entire volume of the Colorado River 
was quickly noticeable in the steady rise of the Salton Sea, which, 
swollen by the muddy torrent, gradually engulfed the works of the 
New Liverpool Salt Company and creeping up on the ranches near 
Mecca, threatened to submerge the main line of the Southern Pacific 
Railroad. 
