lled the Salton Sea.
The whole of this region is comprehended under the name of Colorado
Desert. In 1900 a company was formed to reclaim that part of the desert
included in Imperial Valley, by taking water out of the Colorado River a
few miles below the boundary between California and Mexico.

A main canal, called the Imperial Canal, one hundred miles long, seventy
feet wide, and eight feet deep carries water from the Colorado to
Imperial Valley, where it is distributed by hundreds of smaller canals.
The irrigation facilities are already sufficient to water more than one
hundred thousand acres.

This region, rightly named the hot-house of America, produces marvellous
crops of hay, grain, and fruits; it is an ideal place for raising
live-stock and poultry as well. Some of this land already brings into
its owners from three hundred dollars to seven hundred dollars yearly
income per acre, and because of its wonderful fertility it is likened to
the valley of the Nile.

In 1904 the Imperial Canal was filled with silt for some distance, thus
preventing the flow of the proper amount of water needed for irrigation.
To remedy the defect a temporary canal was cut around the head-gate.
This expedient had been tried and then the gap had been closed up before
high water. At this particular time high water came earlier than usual,
and a great flood tore out the channel of the temporary canal to such an
extent that before it could be prevented the whole Colorado River was
flowing through the breach, leaving its own bed perfectly dry to the
Gulf of California, filling up the Salton Valley, burying up the Salton
salt-works, and making an inland sea such as formerly existed there.
After most strenuous efforts, and at the enormous expense of upward of a
million dollars, the gap was at length repaired and the Colorado made to
flow in its own bed.

One should remember that in the development of these deserts the
prospector owes a deep debt of gratitude to that patient, faithful
little beast, the donkey, or "burro," as it is commonly known; without
the service of this animal many a man would have suffered a lingering
death. As a matter of fact, it is unsafe to venture far out into the
desert unaccompanied by this oft-maligned creature--about the only
animal fitted to carry supplies.

[Illustration: _Built by the U. S. Reclamation Service_ The Roosevelt
Dam, Arizona, showing south bridge and spillway]

But the use of dams and canals to