Winning the West 



95 



19 feet, but its length up and down 

 stream will be 346 feet. Its weight will 

 be approximately 600,000 tons, and its 

 cost will be $797,650. The diversion 

 headworks will be on both sides of the 

 river, connecting with two canal systems, 

 which will supply lands in California and 

 Arizona. The headgates are so arranged 

 as to draw off only the top foot of water, 

 thus avoiding most of the silt. The silt 

 deposited will be sluiced out by opening 

 gates which discharge back into the river. 

 The problem of silt which confronted the 

 engineers here can be better understood 

 when it is known that during a flood the 

 Colorado River in 24 hours carries past 

 the dam site 1,500,000 tons of silt.* 



Many miles of levees on both sides of 

 the Colorado and Gila rivers will be built 

 to provide against the annual inundation 

 of the bottom lands. These levees will be 

 of the same type as on the lower Missis- 

 sippi. The canal crossing the Gila River 

 will pass several feet below the river bed 

 and will be in a siphon of steel and con- 

 crete about 3,300 feet long. 



Especial interest attaches to this work 

 by reason of the very unusual conditions 

 which now exist in this region. In 

 former times the Gulf of California ex- 

 tended as far north as Indio. The Colo- 

 rado deposited its great burden of silt 

 and detritus into this arm of the sea 

 and finally built up a bar clear across 

 it, shutting off a portion of the gulf. 

 Under the burning sun of the desert 

 this inland sea gradually evaporated. 

 From time to time the river over- 

 flowed this dike and spilled some of its 

 floods into the lake, carrying the salts to 

 the deepest part of the depression, which 

 became heavily impregnated, and leaving 

 nil the higher grounds a portion of its 

 rich sediment brought from its mountain 

 drainage. The Colorado River flows 

 through its delta mi top of a dike which 

 it has built up, so that its channel is at a 

 higher elevation than the country through 

 which it passes. 



LOSING CONTROL OF THE RIVER 



In 1900 men came and viewed the 

 sunken desert and, realizing its possibili- 

 ties if watered, began the construction of 

 a canal which headed in the river a short 

 distance above the international border. 

 Complications arising in regard to this 

 diversion, the heading was moved farther 

 down stream into Mexico. The canal for 

 some distance was just below the interna- 

 tional boundary and then followed an old 

 river channel, turning northward into 

 California into what is now called Im- 

 perial Valley. Irrigation wrought its 

 usual miracle. Hundreds of settlers 

 flocked into the valley and took up homes. 

 Railroads were built, towns grew up, and 

 last summer more than 80,000 acres were 

 under cultivation and 8,000 people were 

 living below the level of the sea. There 

 were no permanent headworks in the 

 canal, and a great flood came which could 

 not be controlled. The canal, having a 

 heavier grade than the river channel, 

 gradually took an increasing share of 

 the water, until at this time the Colorado 

 is pouring its floods as well as its normal 

 flow into the Salton Sea, now a great 

 body of water 60 miles in length and 

 many miles wide. The railroad has been 

 submerged and the company forced to 

 build on higher grounds. The salt works, 

 which had become a prominent industry, 

 have been destroyed and there is danger, 

 if the river cannot be returned to its 

 proper channel, that the rising sea will 

 submerge all of the valley which is below 

 sea-level. Several of the best engineers 

 of the country are in consultation, and it 

 is hoped that the problem of returning 

 the Colorado to its proper channel will 

 be solved. 



THE KLAMATH BASIN 



In northern California, in the "Land 

 of Burnt out Fires," and extending over 

 the line into Oregon, work has just begun 

 upon what is classed as one of the most 

 unique of all of the projects undertaken 



