Identifier: watersupplyirrig224unit (find matches)
Title: Water Supply and Irrigation Papers of the United States Geological Survey
Year: 1909 (1900s)
Authors: United States Geological Survey
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Contributing Library: Clemson University Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: LYRASIS Members and Sloan Foundation

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rom. Yuma to Salton, and throughout a part of thelatter distance the difference is even greater; for example, from Sharpsheading to the — 250-foot contour north of Brawley the distance is a The writer had proposed to call the ancient water body of which the Salton Sea is the successorBlakes Sea, after Prof. Wm. P. Blake, who, as a result of his exploration of the Colorado Desert in1853, explained so clearly and so satisfactorily the phenomena that exist there and their origin. Themanuscript of this report was prepared in accordance with this intention, but before it was pub-lished Professor Blake had himself proposed the name Lake Cahuilla (Nat. Geog. Mag., vol. 18,p. 830). While I regret that the name ot this honored pioneer in western geology can not be attachedto one of his most striking discoveries, I realize that no other man has an equal right to name the nowvanished water body, that the name is especially appropriate, and that it now has priority; thereforeit is adopted here.
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GEOLOGIC SKETCH. 21 not over 50 miles and the fall is about 280 feet, or more than threetimes that from Yuma to the gulf. This steep and irregular character of the northwest slope of theColorado delta, as compared with its flat and relatively uniform south-east slope toward the gulf, is due entirely to the fact that the latterslope represents a stream grade determined under usual conditions,whereas the former is determined in part by the deposition of thesilt in the still water of the lake that once existed there. The twoslopes are therefore of entirely different origin and, of course, are ofdifferent grade. This fact bears in two important ways on the problem of conduct-ing Colorado River waters to the Imperial Valley for irrigation. Inthe first place it makes it easy to lead the waters in this direction,as it would not be were the grade no steeper toward the sink thantoward the gulf; and in the second place it introduces an elementof danger, because the northwestern course is so muc

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