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The National Geographic Magazine 



the railroad track of the Southern Pacific 

 road, and would have required extensive 

 alterations of its alignment in the vicin- 

 ity of Yuma. The rapid erosion of the 

 channel leading to the Salton Sea would 

 advance upstream slowly but surely. It 

 has already cut the channel at Yuma two 

 or three feet below the former level. 

 This cutting would be continued until 

 the 200 odd feet of excess fall in the 

 channel had been distributed up the 

 Colorado River, eventually, perhaps, as 

 far as The Needles. It certainly would 

 have cut a deep channel up to Parker — 

 so deep that it would probably have been 

 entirely impracticable to dam and divert 

 the Colorado River at any point below 

 Bill Williams Fork, and thus it would 

 have become impossible to irrigate the 

 great valleys of the Colorado River. 

 These valleys aggregate about 400,000 

 acres. It is estimated that there are 

 300,000 acres of fertile irrigable land in 

 the Imperial Valley and twice as much 

 more in the Colorado delta in Mexico. 

 The lands referred to are now settled by 

 a population of 12,000 to 15,000 people, 

 most of whom would have had to aban- 

 don their homes. 



It may be said, therefore, that during 

 the past year the fate of 700,000 acres 

 of fine irrigable land, in a semi-tropical 

 climate, the homes of over 12,000 people, 

 and 150 miles of railroad track have been 

 trembling in the balance. It is impos- 

 sible to assign definite values to all these 

 elements, but $100,000,000 would not be 

 an overestimate. 



The railroad company spent immense 

 sums of money in repeated removals of 

 its track, as the shores of the Salton Sea 

 grew higher and higher, and also ex- 

 perienced great difficulty in preventing 

 the destruction of its bridge across the 

 Alamo River, as the channel cut deeper 

 and wider. The railroad company ap- 

 preciated the gravity of the situation in 

 the summer of 1905 and made a large 

 loan to the irrigation company for the 

 purpose of damming the channel. Re- 

 peated efforts to do this were unsuccess- 

 ful, and the control of the irrigation 



company passed into the hands of rep- 

 resentatives of the railroad company. 

 About one year ago the construction 

 of a dam across the new channel 

 was in progress, and strong hopes were 

 entertained by the railroad people of the 

 success of the attempt, when a very 

 large and unexpected flood came down 

 the river, which carried away the works 

 and left the situation more threat- 

 ening than ever. As soon as the water 

 subsided sufficiently the efforts were re- 

 newed and continued throughout the 

 spring of 1906 without success. When 

 high water came in May the company 

 was obliged to abandon its efforts until 

 after the flood season. The heavy dis- 

 charge of the river during May, June, 

 and July nearly all went down the Alamo 

 and New rivers and cut the channels 

 larger and larger. The railroad south 

 of the Mexican line was entirely washed 

 away, the former site finally becoming a 

 deep channel. 



THE DESTRUCTIVE CATARACTS 



The cataract in New River ad- 

 vanced upstream past Calexico, took 

 away some of the buildings of that town, 

 and nearly all of the buildings of the 

 Mexican village of Mexicala, and con- 

 tinued to advance eastward at a threaten- 

 ing rate. The Alamo River cut back 

 similarly, and in August, 1906, the cata- 

 ract had passed the town of Holtville 

 and caused the temporary shutting down 

 of the power plant at that place. In the 

 endeavor to prevent the destruction of 

 valuable buildings and farms, the people 

 made strenuous attempts to guide the- 

 cutting of the water by the use of dy- 

 namite to assist the cutting where it 

 would do less damage than if left to its- 

 own inclinations. It is not apparent, 

 however, that any great benefit resulted 

 from these attempts. During the high- 

 water season of 1906 the irrigation com- 

 pany made two plans for the diversion- 

 of the destructive waters. One of these,, 

 the success of which was relied upon, 

 was the construction of large headgates 

 at the foot of Pilot Knob, substantially 



