240 THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



the party will thoroughly explore the country, taking about six weeks 

 time to do it, after which a most exhaustive report may be looked for, 

 including more details as to the great undertaking which is no less 

 than a water storage dam to impound the waters of the Bill Williams 

 Fork for purposes of irrigation and the generating of electric power 

 for use in the rich mining region of which the dam will be the center, 

 and also to supply light and power for the to be populous centers of 

 the fertile citrus belt of valley country below. 



As the Courier understands it, this darn will be located at a point 

 in northeastern Yuma county, close to the southern line of Mohaye 

 and the western line of Vavapai, while the agricultural land and great 

 beds and bars of auriferous gravel lie in Yuma county. The whole 

 section between Bill Williams Fork and Tyson's Wells is said to be 

 gold bearing. 



Before the last storms commenced, and after one of the most con- 

 tinuous and depressing drouths ever experienced in Arizono, Bill 

 Williams Fork contained a flowing sheet of water 100 feet wide and six 

 inches deep. 



The dam will be 125 feet high and will create a lake eight miles 

 long and two miles wide, storing 21.000,000,000 cubic feet of water- 

 more storage capacity than is possessed by all the combined water 

 storage dams of the state of California. For three miles below this 

 dam the maine irrigation pipe conveying the water to the valleys 

 below will be suspended high in mid air, spiked to and along the sides 

 of the perpendicular walls of stone peculiar to the massive natural 

 scenery of that weird and wonderful section of country. Directly be- 

 low and tributary to this water so piped lies 500.000 acres of fertile 

 land situated in one of the mildest and most even climates in America, 

 and wherever touches this land all growths valued in the semi-tropic 

 zone will spring up almost spontaneous. Here, the man with the hoe 

 need not be bowed down or miserable, for nature herself has provided 

 so many of the elements of success that little labor will be needed to 

 perfect the plan. The valleys to be irrigated are Cullens valley, 

 Desert valley, and Piomosa valley. There are also tributary to this 

 dam almost limitless beds of gold-bearing gravel, the gold taken from 

 which is coarse and high grade. 



The company now owns 10.240 acres of this gold-bearing gravel, 

 and there is 30,000 acres of what is known as the desert placers. The 

 existence of great veins of copper and gold bearing quartz has long 

 been known of in this section which, owing to its isolation, is as yet 

 almost a virgin field, so far as mining is concerned. The water power 

 will be used to work great dynamos, which will supply electric power 

 to all that section, which will, beyond any question, in the not distant 

 future support a population of not less than 20,000 people, and 



