Wonderful New Inland Sea Covers the Desert
By Edgar L. Larkin, in Cosmopolitan Magazine for October. (With Slight Omissions.)
Earthquakes, volcanoes, floods, the
turning of a vast river out of its bed,
and the formation of a new sea, have
conspired to make this year one of
striking geologic unrest, turbulence, and
confusion. The Colorado river has en
tirely ceased flowing in its ancient course
to the Gulf of California; has forsaken
its channel traversed during uncounted
centuries; and now pours silt-laden
floods into one of the most remarkable
depressions known to geologists—the
Salton Sink.
The lowest depth of this sink is 287
feet below sea level. Millions of years
ago it was connbeted with the Pacific
ocean, and was therefore tilled with salt
water. Later, this connection with the
ocean was tilled up with tine silt from
Colorado and Utah. The tierce semi
tropic sun of Southern California made
short work of evaporation. The sea
vanished and left a thick layer of salt on
the bottom. And then, a million or two
years later, the Southern Pacific Railway
Company put down tracks to the center
of the sunken area, backed in whole
trains of cars, shoveled up the pure
white salt, and sent it to Chicago and
New York. I have seen them tilling
cars standing on tracks more than 250
f et below the level of the ocean, who. e
waves were beating beyond that bul
wark, the San Jacinto mountains, and
have wondered what would happen if
an earthquake came and suddenly split
the giant granite walls.
In remote ages the Gulf of California
extended to the northwestern end of
what is now the Salton Sink, just includ
ing the site of the town of Indio, on the
Southern Pacific railroad. The ancient
beach can now be traced around the
primeval depression. It contains oceanic
remains and prehistoric debris. In
places, marks worn by waves can be
s en in the rocky shores.
All the buildings of the salt works, the
homes of the workmen, the machinery,
railway tracks and stations are now
(July 15) fifty-live feet under water.
The sea is forty-five miles long and from
twelve to twenty miles wide. It is now
rapidly rising and will continue to rise
until the new dam is finished, or until
the Colorado river lowers to a stage
where its inflow due to gravity will !«■
balanced by ev ip 'ration from the sur
face of the sea. Then the sea will l>e
stationary. At present, all the water of
the river is p'airing with rush and roar
into the sink. A man crossed the for
saken lied near Yuma with horse and
buggy, and the wheels were not in
water, f or the fact stands out that the
taittoni of the new channel, cut in yield
ing silt, is lower than that of the old.
This gives rise to an engineering prob
lem of vast proportions. The break in
the side of the river is m>w utssit 4.Ion
feet in width the vehs ity of the water
is that of a mill race. A dam must tie
put across high and strong enough to
turn the river away from the Dalton
Sink into its original bed, and to the
gulf. This problem is now attracting
the attention of the Southern Pacific
Railway Company, the California De
velopment Company, and the Imperial
Land Company. The ablest hydraulic
engineers are on the ground, and elab
orate plans are being worked out. The
work will be costly, but many millions
are at stake.
Not the Nile nor the Ganges, the Mis
sissippi nor the Amazon, has brought
down from continental areas and depos
ited a richer soil than has the Colorado.
Several years ago 1 explored bare and
denuded wastes in Colorado. Later, I
descended to the profound depths of the
Grand Canyon of the Colorado, in Ari
zona, amid the scenic splendors of the
earth, and wondered where the pioducts
of hundreds of millions of years of wear
ing and abrasion might then be. For
the colossal canyon, dOO miles long and
from 6,000 to 6,200 feet in depth, was
entirely excavated hv sand- and silt
laden water.
I climbed a tower in Calexico, Cal.,
and saw all the material—nearly 12,000
square miles of it, and of great, but un
known depth. The expanse is hemmed
in by mountain ranges on all sides save
the southern, where, extending into
Mexico, it stretches far and away to the
gulf. This area is composed entirely of
silt of exceeding fineness. Since 1S4">, it
has been called the Colorado desert—an \
appropriate name, for death awaited
man, animal or bird attempting to cross
its mystery profound. But now entire
equate miles are covered with crops of
grain, grasses fruits and vegetables, all
growing in almost tropical luxuriance.
The rapidity of growth astonishes all
who behold. Since 1901, water supplied
from the Colorado river by a network of
canals has turned this precious expanse,
this splendid valley, into a remarkable
garden — the hothouse of the United
States. The very soil cries out for a
hundred thousand from the pent-up
east to entne, plant and till. And now
rieh fields are being worn away from
the western side of the lovely vale by
rapid Hoods and d«i«isited in that eapa
eious and hungry desert maw, the Salton
Sink. Houses, hay, grain, fruits, vege
tables, roses, and carnation* are torn
away and hurried to the liottom of the
new sea.
“ilh, look!" was an exetanmtion I
heanl in Mexieala, just across the line
from Calexico. A house was falling into
the Imiling Hood. "See that little eof
tin! * tne end projected over the water.
It soon fell into the torrent, and then
another and another. The Mexiean
Cemetery was lieing undermined. In a
few hour* it all fell into the rapids,
twenty feet l»*|ow When I left Mexi
> ala every business house was on its
way to the sea, ale I f.air fifths of the
dwelling-. * alexk'o, m California, was
threatened, and great trees were cut and
rolled to the brink. Ropes were at
tached to their trunks, and then they
were lowered into the flood, which
pressed them against the perpendicular
walls, diminishing the cutting force of
the water. The advance water of the
coming Hood traversed the dry bed of a
small stream, New river, flowing, at
times, northward past Calexico to the
sink. The new floods cut out this
channel, hut not fast enough, so they
overflowed and became a wide and rapid
stream.
The California Development Company
began excavating the elaborate system
of canals in the autumn of liKK). On
July 1, 1001, the first water in quantity
sufficient to irrigate 1,(H)0 acres was de
livered in the Imperial valley, 60 miles
west of the head of the canal leading out
of the river eight miles below Yuma.
When the present flood came water was
being supplied to 22.'>,000 acres. Silt
was deposited in the first cut in the
river bank. Tins lessened the speed of
the water and allowed more silt to settle.
Another intake was cut below the first.
It clogged up. A third was dug still
lower. It choked also. These three cuts
were in California. But the Imperial
valley folk put up a great cry for more
water, as the valley was rapidly increas
ing in population. The company decided
to go still lower down the river into
Mexico. They cut another canal, fifty
feet wide, leading into the main Imperial
canal. The idea was to get a greater
incline, with increased velocity of water,
so that silt would not be deposited, and
afford temporary relief to the farmers
below. The Colorado was at a low stage,
and the engineers thought that gates
could be put in long before the regular
Hood time came on.
But an unlooked-for trouble came.
The tiila river suddenly poured a wall of
water into the Colorado at Yuma. This
unexpected flood soon found its way into
the new cut in the Mexican bank. Silt
had no time to fall. Instead, the cut
deepened and both hanks began to cave
into the stream ever increasing in mo
mentum. Soon alarm came into the
minds of the engineers, anil hurried at
tempts were made to secure control.
Piles were driven above all the ditches
into the bed of the Colorado. Willows
were cut, bound with cables and lowered
alongside of the piles; and stones were
thrown upon them.
t>v this time the annual tlnntl oi the
Colorado liail come, and tlu* first, second
and third “attempts,” as they are called,
were destroyed. Piles, willow bundles
and stones were swept away as grass. A
large island op|s>slte the Mexican ditch
vanished, and floods came on apace. The
hew aO-foot canal soon widened to 100,
toaOO, to 1,000, to 4,000 feet; and the
roaring waters seethed in an angry flood,
cutting out hanks and tearing down
t rees.
When the fir*d water of the flood
reached the sink it |M»ured over into it
with great speed. And then a wonder
ful thing occurred—cutting backward.
At once the falls «»r rapids l«-gan to go
up stream. At times the rat*- of reces
sion was half a mil** in 1M hours. If this
Ho**! continues, this cutting up stream
will reach the Uink of tin* Colorado at
the original cut. It may keep on cutting
until Yuma is pc*st| and the lakguna
dam reached. If this I tap pen* this great
dam will co||.»|m^», and with it million* of
The
Miners Store
Just received a full and complete 4
line of 1
Men’s Furnishing
Goods.
<
SPECIALTIES:
Underwear,
Overshirts,
l
Also a complete line of
Socks i
Groceries
Eggs, Potatoes \
I and Onions <
Mike Engels
(Sourdough Mike)
FREIGHTING
and PACKING
To all the Creeks
(inr vm Ione t*’osc PC0P*e wa°v
AmL I UU seldom write home? \
They will know you are all right if you I
send them the YUKON VALLEY NEWS. I
Mail yours or let us send one weekly.^
dollars, the cost of the dam, and other
millions, in loss of irrigation.
A vast scheme to restore the river to
its old hcd, now almost ready for execu
tion, has been planned by one of our
greatest railway engineers, Col. Epes
Randolph. A branch railroad twelve
miles long has been built from the main
line of the Southern Pacific, through
thickets and jungles to the break. The
plan is based on concerted action; two
thousand men have been carefully in
structed how to act at the critical mo
ment. When the exact time for action
arrives they will hear the word of com
mand—and they will act with the accu
racy of a machine. Each man will know
just what to do. First will come hun
dreds of mattress men bearing great
mattresses or bundles of willows bound
with hcavv wire ropes. These will lie
sunk to the bottom. The pile drivers
will pin them down with heavy piles.
This line of bundres and piles will ex
tend 4,(HK> feet across the break. Trains
loaded with large stones will then lie
backed across the break and the stones
will lie dropjHil on the bundles. And
then another layer of mattresses and
another of stones will t>e added, and so
on up to the Imttom of the railroad
track, t'arloads of tine stone and gravel
w ill be dumped on the dam until the
colossal barrier is completed. More than
half of the water w ill tie diverted around
the dam through a side canal while the
work is going on. The scheme is com
prehensive indeed. A vast <|Uantity of
material will Is1 at hand on each twuik.
When the dam is finished the great head
gate in the side canal will lie closed, a is I
the river will return to its original
eours.1, mi to the tiiilf of t alifornia, thus
saving the Imperial valley and its
precious soil, in which many millions
arc in wo ted.