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Show 222 BY PATH AND TRAIL. new river, and onwards, almost due north, to Salton basin, seventy- five miles away. Salton Basin was a vast depression in the earth's sur face, sinking from sea level to 287 feet below. It wid ened over two counties of southern California and stretched well into Mexico, forming a huge depression be tween well defined " beaches " of an ancient sea, and covered an approximate area of fifteen to forty miles wide and about 100 miles long. There is no doubt but that at some time in the past this sunken desert was an extension of the Gulf of California. From a point near the boundary line to the gulf, a dis tance of about eighty- five miles, lies the delta of the Col orado, a rich alluvial plain of great depth, equal in pro ductivity to the delta of the Nile ; a vast area, apparently as level as a table, built up by the Colorado river, that has drawn its material from the plains of Wyoming, through Green river, and, adding to it all down through Colorado, Utah and Arizona, deposited it on the new land it was forming at the end of its flow. This is the first time in its history that the Colorado has changed its course, and all efforts of men and money of the great Southern Pacific and the giant irrigation companies have failed to coax or force it back to its natural bed. A river that has flowed on through the ages, laughing at all obstacles, tearing the hearts out of opposing mountains and ripping for itself in places a channel a mile deep, and, in places, leagues wide, is not going to be turned aside easily. Great is the strength of the Southern Pacific ; enormous is the power of corporate wealth; cunning is the brain and deft the hand of the American, but as yet the strength of the Southern Pa cific, the power of corporate wealth, combined with the |