December, 1905 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



399 



of the provisions being lost. They soon passed into a lake 

 twenty-five miles square, dotted here and there with dark 

 objects which proved to be the tops of trees. Leaving this 

 lake bv a river flowing west, they narrowly escaped a sheer 

 fall of eighteen feet. This necessitated landing, and the 

 boat was pulled upon the beach and the party camped here 

 all night, observing in the morning a remarkable illustration 

 of the illusive nature of the sand. The fall which they had 

 landed to avoid in six hours had traveled half a mile up- 

 stream. The current was now a small edition of the Niagara 

 River. The body of water under full force was running 

 down the desert hill, carrying the skiff into the Salton Sea. 

 Here it stranded on treacherous quicksand, and for hours 

 the men worked to reach solid land under a temperature of 

 120 or 130 degrees. The scene was terrifying. The heat 

 caused great evaporation, and mists were constantly rising 

 and strange mirages forming everywhere, out of which the 

 distant mountains rose. After a vast amount of labor the 

 pluckv boatmen reached the salt works, having demonstrated 



each side, is covered with water. At the desert town of 

 Calixico there is a rushing river, a third of a mile wide and 

 fifteen feet deep. The Salton River is equally large, and it 

 is estimated that each is carrying over ten thousand feet a 

 second into the Salton Sea. What the extent of damage 

 will be can not be told. There are no bridges left in the 

 region except those belonging to the railroad; the flood has 

 made a clean sweep. 



The trouble is due to the extraordinary rise of the Rio 

 Colorado, and gangs of men are working on the river with 

 pile drivers and sand bags endeavoring to divert the water, 

 and as the river is going down the worst, possibly, is over. 

 The Colorado has been known to rise thirty-three feet, and its 

 flow at this time was 35,000 cubic feet per second. The 

 writer crossed it when it was twenty-two feet high, a raging, 

 yellow torrent, menacing in its velocity, changing the face of 

 the country for miles. The railroad property threatened be- 

 longs to the Southern Pacific, which runs twenty-eight miles 

 two hundred and sixty-seven feet below sea level at this point. 



A Typical Desert Scene Through such Sand as this the Rio Colorado Has Made its Way. The Curious Structure is a Church 



that the Salton Sea came from the overflow of the Rio 

 Colorado through New River, making one of the most ex- 

 citing trips ever made west of the Colorado. 



This was ten years ago. Since then the water has dis- 

 appeared and the salt works have been in operation; but 

 again the Indians have taken to the mountains, and from 

 Mount San Jacinto the eye rests upon a vast sea, which 

 stretches away, covering many square miles of the desert, 

 and is rushing down into the strange pit or sink with great 

 velocity. Investigation has shown that a mighty stream, 

 two hundred feet wide, is passing through the intake or 

 canal of the California Development Company, so finding 

 its way through several streams to the Salton Sea, that is 

 rapidly creeping up and seriously threatening property on 

 what has been considered safe ground. The writer inter- 

 viewed a Yuma resident recently who had just come from 

 across the desert. He said there were several breaks in the 

 Colorado River through which water was running, and from 

 other sources it is learned that a triangle, ninety miles on 



There are nine miles of track from two hundred to two hun- 

 dred and fifty feet below sea level, six miles between one hun- 

 dred and one hundred and fifty feet below, five miles between 

 fifty and one hundred feet below, and about four miles fifty 

 feet below, all of which would be at the bottom of a deep 

 sea if the gulf should claim its own at any time, which is 

 not within the possibilities. The total mileage of the rail- 

 road below the sea level is 60.3 miles. The bottom of the 

 lake about three miles from the end of the salt deposit is 

 280.8 feet below the level of the sea. 



This, in all probability, will be the last Salton Sea. The 

 lower part of the desert has been settled, the towns of Im- 

 perial, Calixico and others have been established, and large 

 and varied crops raised wherever water is introduced by 

 canals; and so much capital has been invested here that before 

 next year the banks of the Colorado will be closed to further 

 floods, and the Salton Sea, dissipated in the hot air of the 

 desert, will become a memory, to be told to generations to 

 come as a modern flood. 



