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THE LAND OF SUNSHINE. THE WORLD'S WORK. TWO FOPULAR MAGAZINES SPEAK IN GLOWING TERMS OF IMPERIAL IMPROVEMENT. LOOKING BACKWARD FROM 2001. THE BLOOMING OF A SAHARA. THE NILE OF THE WEST. The October number of The Land of Sunshine, Southern California's popular magazine, contains an illus strated article under the title of "The Desert Translated" that so forcibly presents the case of looking back upon the Imperial Settlements from the beginning of the next century — one hundred years hence — that we are constrained to give the article entire without comment. The illustrations are three in number. First, the virgin desert; second, the reclaimed desert — a sorghum field of two weeks' growth; and third, a view of the main canal that furnishes the water that makes it possible to convert the first into the second. This article is as follows: LOOKING BACKWARD. "One hundred years hence the newspaper scribes of the Pacific Coast will be engaged in telling the wonder ful things whic_ marked the course of the twentieth century. Taking down from their dusty shelves in cob webbed nooks of public libraries the records of the long-gone year of 1901, they will discover prominent notices of an event precisely contemporane ous with the birth of the century they are describing. And they will proceed to write something like this: 'What is now the scene of the densest population in California, on New Year's Day one hundred years ago, was one of the most forsaken and desolate spots in all the West. We ask our readers to put forth the utmost efforts of their imaginations and endeavor to see the wide-spread ing delta of the Colorado River as it appeared in the time of our ancestors. Remove for the moment, if you can, the great city in the heart of this marvelous plain, the score of villages and hamlets that mark the horizon on every hand, the long, shaded ave nues leading out through the country in all directions. Imagine that the three great railways now traversing the Imperial Valley, and the elaborate network of electric lines never ex isted. Rub out for the instant the miles — the tens of miles — of gardens, field and orchard. Close your eyes to the thousands of homes, sugar fac tories and other industries — in a word, take away the entire fabric of civili zation as it now exists in that wonder ful region and try to think of it as it was when the sun rose over the East ern mountains on January 1, 1901. " 'No railroads, no homes, no fac tories, no fields or orchards, and — no water! Silence and desolation! A place so barren that even the coyotes shunneu it as a hopeless waste! And yet in the first year of the century now dead and gone, the great river was turned from its channel, and broad canals bore its waters into the heart of the desert. And, lo! Men came to plant and to build, to live and to rear their children, to break the silence of desolation with voices of industry, and to make the barren waste blossom with all the beauties of Eden. One of the great achieve ments of the century, it has now be come so large a part of the very foundation on which our social and economic life is builded, that it is scarcely possible to conceive of South ern California without it. And yet it is related of some of our ancestors, who must have been stupid fellows indeed, that they persisted to the last that the undertaking was visionary, and that where the desert then was, human beings could never live be cause of the heat and drought.' "Such will be the reflections of those unborn scribes, the writers of the year 2001. Over and over they will tell the story of how the desert was translated. A million acres of fertile soil, and water enough in the Colorado River to irrigate it all with out storage! It is a situation which cannot be duplicated in the world. Is it any wonder that it flourishes?" The Blooming of a Sahara. The World's Work, an Eastern magazine that has lately stepped rap idly to the front as one of the leading IMPERIAL PRESS magazines of the country, contains in its October issue a very interesting, illustrated article on ' The Blooming of a Sahara," from the pen of that talented writer, William E. Smythe, author of "Arid America." Among the illustrations are the following: "Work on the Imperial Canal," "A Typical View of the Desert." "Main Canal of the Imperial Canal System," "San Jacinto Mountains," "A Group of Wild Palms," "A Bit of Reclaimed Desert," "Sunrise on the Desert," "Children of the Desert," "A Date Palm," and two salt scenes at Salton. This article is so well written that it is difficult to take simply an ex tract, but we venture to limit the clip ping to the following: "Under the magic influence of na tional prosperity and Oriental expan sion, a new impulse of development is sweeping over our Farthest South west. This is the region drained by the noble stream which, after receiv ing great rivers of Wyoming and Colorado, of Utah and Arizona, be- HEADQUARTERS OF CALIFORNIA DEVELOPMENT COMPANY AT CALEXICO, CAL. comes the Colorado — the Nile of the West. When to this is added the ter ritory around the Gulf of California, and the mountains and seacoast stretching westward to the ocean and northward to Santa Barbara, we have a segment of the continent truly de scribed as the Farthest Southwest. "With the exception of a little dis trict in Southern California, chiefly within sixty miles of Los Angeles, this is an undiscovered country, in an economic sense. Here and there the perennial flow of small mountain streams have been made to coax a lit tle verdure from the desert and to sustain a few families or communi ties. Here and there some wilderness mine of extraordinary richness has sent its lonely pack trains through the shimmering heat and voiceless silence. Over it all, but particularly in a few favored spots, td^ pastoral industry has flourished with varying degrees of success. Along its sea coast, villages have dreamed of com ing greatness as ports of world-wide traffic, but practically, the gates of the Southwestern empire have stood barred and locked, awaiting some new and powerful impulse from with out. "Within this region are vast areas of fertile soil which, if irrigated, would support millions of people. Singularly enough, the water supply is more abundant than in localities favored with earlier development. There are mountains of iron, of coal and of salt — yes, literally mountains of these valuable raw materials. There are mines unworked and burst ing with ore worth $100 a ton at the smelter. There are in the remarkable combinations of soil and climate po tentialities of production beyond any thing known in the agriculture of the day. Why, with these alluring possibil ities, has this region remained almost untouched by the intense life of the past generation? Hon. Thomas B. Reed made eloquent explanation of the mystery when he said: " 'There wealth only can produce wealth. Man singly and alone might as well attempt to subdue the Hima layas as to cope with these wastes, but the hand of united and associated man will some day reach forth to grasp the great results.' "That day has come simultaneously with the day of great aggregations of capital and 01 daring conquests of new industrial fields. This time it is, first of all, the conquest of growing channels of communication. Railroads Lead the Way. "For years, one of the dreams of the Far South wes. has been a direct line of railroad from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles. This would unite the incermountain region with the sea coast, and affect a wonderful social and commercial interchange between localities differing radically in their climate and products. Even more im portant, it would open up to settle ment and development an immense territory which must lie vacant and useless without transportation facili ties. About a year ago Senator W. A. Clark of Montana announced that he would back such a project with his millions. Work was soon begun and vigorously pushed. To the amaze ment of the public this resulted in arousing the Union Pacific interests to action. They, too, determined to build a similar line, and today both roads are in process of rapid construc tion. Hence, the cup of joy runneth over in 'the City of the Angels' and 'the City of the Saints.' The Bride of the Colorado. "The valleys traversed by the Colo- rado River and its tributaries will constitute the focal feature of the Southwest. Here cheap power and ir rigation will bring into existence towns, manufacturies and a dense ag ricultural population. The transfor mation is already well begun. "If popular imagination has pic tured one place above another as the true American Sahara, it was the wide stretch of desolation known as the Colorado Desert, lying on the borders of California and Mexico. No traveler on the route from New Orleans to San Francisco ever approached it without dread, nor was borne too swiftly through . its stifling heat and alkali dust. Taies of prospectors who had fallen of thirst and left their bones to whiten in the pitiless sun lent a touch of horror to the evil reputation oi the place. Against this sombre uackground a new picture of green fields, and singing brooks and rising homes shows only the more brightly by contrast. For the trutn is that this is not a desert, but a delta — not a stretch of sterile sands, but a vast tract of sedi mentary deposit rich almost beyond belief. It is the natural bride of the Colorado River. The marriage of the water and the soil was celebrated on the 13th day of last June. Already several thousand acres of crops have sprung from the union. During the fall and winter tens of thousands of acres will come into cultivation. In a iew years it wnl be hundreds of thou sands of acres; ultimately an area ap proaching two millions of acres will have been conquered, peopled, made opulent with fields and homes. No where else in the world is there an other such favorable conjunction of abundant water supply and large tracts of fertile soil lying in one com pact body. Even in its smaller as pects it means that the productive ca pacity of Southern California will be more than doubled in the next few years. "In appearance the delta is a wide, level plain, enclosed in a frame of pur ple mountains. Much of it is so smooth and free of vegetation as to stand ready for the plow, requiring neither grading nor clearing. Other parts are marked by "wind-blows" or heavy growths of mesquite. But everywhere the soil is rich and deep, the creation of the silt-laden waters that are now to make it blossom, with the aid of man." The apple' orchards or Oregon cover 16,500 acres, and are valued at $1000 per acre. An . . . EXCURSION To . . . OLD MEXICO Will be run from LOS ANGELES via the Southern Pacific Company DECEMBER 19th, 1901 Making stay in the CITY OF MEXICO ROUND TRIP RATE $70.00 Good for Sixty Daya In presenting this opportunity to the public to visit this quaint city of the Az- tecs a very low rate has been made, and those who can should take advantage of it. The train will be made up of first-class Pullman Sleeping Cars with Dining Car service through to the City If desired, and enough can do so to insure the ex- pense, the Sleepers can be used during the stay in the city. We would request that you inform the nearest Southern Pacific Agent, if you desire to take advantage of this Excur- sion, so that accommodations may be reserved for you. Corresponding Low Rates from all points on the line of the Southern Pacific R. R. will be made. All Side Trips while in Mexico are op- tional and can be taken at nominal ex- pense. Remember it is personally conducted by a competent Excursion Manager who knows the customs and language of the people. He will be with you on all side trips and take care of all detail. Make your Reservations at Once Imperial Telephone Comp a n y W. Fv HOLT, Manager Offices at Imperial, Cameron, Flowing Wells and Iris Messages sent to or received from any part of the world. TELE PHONES FOR RENT 3