THE BOTTOM OF THE BOWL 



49 



a rise in the Colorado, the waters rushed in and 

 flooded the whole of what is called the Salton 

 Basin. When the Colorado receded, the basin 

 soon dried out again. 



It was undoubtedly some accident of this 

 kind that called the halt in the original reces- 

 sion. During the interim the lake had time to 

 form new shores where the waves pounded and 

 washed on the gravel as before until miles upon 

 miles of new beach pebbled, shelled, and slop- 

 ing downward with great uniformity came into 

 existence. This secondary beach is intact to- 

 day and looks precisely like the primary except 

 that it is not quite so large. Across the basin, 

 along the southern mountains, the second water- 

 tracery is almost as apparent as the first. The 

 rocks are eaten in long lines by wave-action, 

 and are honeycombed by the ceaseless energies 

 of the zoophite. 



Nor was the change in beach and rock alone. 

 New bays and harbors were cut out from where 

 the sea had been, new river - channels were 

 opened down to the shrunken lake, new lagoons 

 were spread over the flat places. Nature evi- 

 dently made a great effort to repair the damage 

 and adapt the lake to its new conditions. And 

 the Indians, too, accepted the change. There 



New 

 beaches. 



The second 

 fall. 



