When, in July 1905, the summer flood in the Colorado began to subside, Chief Engineer Rockwood determined to fend off the main current, and lessen the pressure on the crevasse, by means of a jetty. Just opposite the intake was a bush-overgrown island, five eighths of a mile long by a quarter of a mile wide, which split the river into two channels. Across the western channel, from the head of the island to the bank, a semi-barrier was built, of piling, barbed wire and brush. This obstruction, it was thought, might check the flow into the western channel, cause a deposit of heavy silt, and eventually create a bar which would deflect the main current around the northern end of the island and thus carry it away from the mouth of the crevasse. The attempt was only partly successful. A bar was formed, but it did not completely close the channel, nor deflect the main current. There was still an opening, about one hundred and twenty five feet in width, through which the rush of water was so great that it could not be controlled. The attempt to deflect the main current into the eastern channel, by means of a jetty, was then abandoned. Up to this time, the Southern Pacific Company had not taken part directly in the work of river control. After the failure of the jetty, however, in August 1905, President Randolph sent his assistant, Mr. H. T. Cory,[11] to the scene of operations, with instructions to confer with Chief Engineer Rockwood and ascertain what his views and intentions were. Mr. Rockwood, at that time, did not regard the situation as at all alarming. The flow through the crevasse, he said, was doing useful work in scouring out and deepening the main canal (the old Alamo barranca) and there was little danger that the whole river would go that way. He was not in favor of closing the enlarged intake altogether, because that would shut off the water supply of the Imperial Valley and cause more damage than was then being done by the river. The deeper part of the Salton Sink, he said, was a natural drainage basin, and as it was much below the zone of cultivation in the valley as a whole, the accumulation of water in it was not likely to do a great amount of damage. “I told him,” Mr. Cory says, “that I thought the situation was serious, even granting all he said were true; that he would better shut the break right away, for while the water might be doing good work in enlarging the canal of the California Development Company, the situation was dangerous; that it was playing with fire.”