THE CALL OF THE WEST 



425 



for water to be utilized on lands belong- 

 ing to that Republic. The problem in- 

 volves interstate as well as international 

 features, and will require the expenditure 

 of a sum of money great enough to makq 

 the work comparable with the largest 

 schemes for irrigation attempted by Eng- 

 land in Egypt or India. From its head- 

 waters in Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, and 

 Arizona to the rainless delta, the river 

 must be absolutely controlled. Enor- 

 mous reservoirs must be created by build- 

 ing dams in the mountain regions to store 

 the floods, and hundreds of miles of ca- 

 nals must be laid out to carry the water 

 upon a sleeping empire. 



The Colorado desert is a region unique 

 and wonderful. Potentially, it is greater 

 than any area of its size in the world. 

 The fertility of its soil, its climatic adapt- 

 ability to unusual crops as well as many 

 staples, make it one of absorbing interest 

 to the agricultural scientists. The first 

 important step has been taken by our 

 government for the subjugation of the 

 Colorado. A few weeks ago the engi- 

 neers of the Service, after two years of 

 difficult labor, succeeded in placing a dam 

 across this intractable river. As if re- 

 sentful of any attempt to check it in its 

 mad course to the Gulf, the Colorado 

 rose in flood to oppose the engineers. 

 The final struggle was of many hours' 

 duration and full of excitement and 

 danger to an army of men who fought 

 bravely for hours against the rising wall 

 of angry waters. The coffer-dams held 

 fast and the Colorado was safely turned 

 at last into the enormous sluiceways on 

 either side. Today a solid wall of stone 

 and concrete 4,780 feet long and 250 feet 

 wide, tied to enduring hills of rock on 

 either end, rests in the channel. Man 

 has again conquered the forces of nature, 

 and a mighty river, never before con- 

 trolled, is now a servant to his hand. 

 During the present summer 17,000 acres 

 will be opened to settlers on this project, 

 the lands lying in California. 



in America's egypt 



Arizona is America's Egypt, but, un- 

 like the land of the Pharoahs, whose 



secrets are revealed to us in hieroglyph- 

 ics which our wise men have learned 

 to read, the history of the ruined cities 

 of our Southwest and the race that built 

 them is yet unfathomed. 



This is our land of mystery and en- 

 chantment, where nature has painted the 

 landscapes with the rainbow's hues. It 

 is the land of the painted desert, with 

 its inspiring scenery and colors ; it is the 

 land of the Grand Canyon, Nature's 

 architectural masterpiece, the Titan of 

 chasms ; the land of the meteoric moun- 

 tain and the petrified forests. With re- 

 sources of soil, minerals, and forests as 

 varied as the wonderful colors of the 

 landscape ; with every gradation of cli- 

 mate from north temperate to semi- 

 tropic; with an area double that of New 

 England and a population less than that 

 of the city of Washington, Arizona is 

 yet practically undeveloped and almost 

 unexplored. 



Over its vast expanses of divinely 

 tinted desert wander the Bedouins of the 

 United States. Here and there on the 

 higher mesas, or beside the deeply eroded 

 waterways, dwell the strangest people on 

 our continent. 



This land of mystic dreams, of lost 

 races and crumbling ruins, is awakening 

 to the touch of modern civilization. The 

 streams that once swept on unchecked 

 through gorge and canyon are now being 

 spread upon a thirsty land, and emerald- 

 tinted oases are clotting landscapes which 

 for ages were barren and desolate. 



After the long and dusty ride across 

 Arizona the traveler who awakes in 

 Phoenix in the early morning feels trans- 

 ported into a new world. He is in a land 

 where vegetation is almost tropic in its 

 splendor and luxuriance. Here are ave- 

 nues of palms whose spreading branches 

 bend in graceful curves. Here the or- 

 ange, the lemon, the olive, and the pomelo 

 attain perfection in color and flavor. The 

 date palm, laden with luscious fruit, the 

 bread of the desert ; the delicious fig, the 

 almond, and countless other donations of 

 generous nature are seen on every hand. 

 Broad fields of alfalfa, yielding eight tons 

 to the acre ; bumper yields of grain, veg- 



