6 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [16:1— Jan., 1920 



In 1900, the various channels forming this natural waterway, 

 were begun to be cleared and connected and by 1901 water was 

 being used for irrigation purposes in the southern part of the 

 valley now called the Imperial Valley. Having unsuitable head- 

 works, as more and more water was required, other channels were 

 cut and in 1904-05 a tremendous flood in the river began to cut 

 and enlarge the channel so that by the end of 1905, almost all of 

 the river was flowing into the Salton Basin. It was not until 

 1907 that the engineers were able to turn the river into its pro or 

 channel, which had become so choked with plant growth and silt 

 that the river made repeated attempts to escape. It is estimated 

 that it displaced and redistributed in the Sink over 450,000,000 

 cubic yards of earth, "almost twice that of the Panama Canal." 

 The deep gorge-like channels of the New River and Alamo show 

 how much material was carried; in truth, one of the chief causes 

 for alarm for the engineers was that these tremendous cuts would 

 work back to the Colorado itself and the whole valley would be 

 lost to man. Even though an early control was effected, it was 

 done only after an inland sea forty-five miles long and seventeen 

 broad had been formed, with a total area of 410 square miles and a 

 maximum depth of eighty-three feet. It necessitated the removal 

 of the Southern Pacific track for sixty-seven miles to a higher 

 and more northern bed. 



After matters were again under control, the Salton Sea, as it 

 was now termed, began to lose its water, as it had no doubt done 

 many times before, by the evaporation of tremendous quantities 

 into the intensely hot dry desert air. It has now gone down so 

 far that in places its shore-line is a mile or more below that of 

 some years ago. But the waters did their work and killed the mes- 

 quite and other desert shrubs and low trees, leaving on them a 

 white incrustation so that their white exposed skeletons stand out 

 clearly and will no doubt remain for many years, so slowly does 

 decay proceed in the desert. 



As the water has receded, it has left a white deposit on the 

 soil in which only few plants can grow, such as the fleshy Spiros- 

 stachys (a close relative of Salicornta), and Sesuvium, a member 

 of the Portulacaceae. Judging from the huge scales left on the 

 exposed shore, the water of the lake has produced tremendous 

 carp which washed in from the Colorado River at the time of its 

 overflow. The beach is also covered with great masses of dry 



