“The effect of this flood, in a geological way, was of extraordinary interest and very spectacular. In nine months, the runaway waters of the Colorado had eroded from the New and Alamo River channels and carried down into the Salton Sea a yardage almost four times as great as that of the entire Panama Canal. The combined length of the channels cut out was almost forty three miles, the average width being one thousand feet and the depth fifty feet. To this total of 400,000,000 to 450,000,000 cubic yards must be added almost ten per cent for side cañons, surface erosions etc. Very rarely, if ever before, has it been possible to see a geological agency effect in a few months a change which usually requires centuries.” [Illustration: Channel Cut by the Runaway River on Its Way to the Salton Sea] FOOTNOTES: [9] The sill of the Chaffey gate proved to be too high for low stages of water, and a canal, at a lower level, was cut around the structure and closed every year with a brush-and-earth dam before the approach of the summer flood. G. K. [10] Mr. Randolph was a distinguished civil engineer and railroad manager, who had been, at one time, superintendent of the Tucson division of the Southern Pacific under Mr. C. P. Huntington. After the latter’s death, he went to Los Angeles, where he built and managed Mr. H. E. Huntington’s interurban system of electric railways and where he made the acquaintance of Mr. Harriman. Finding that his health would not permit him to live in the climate of Los Angeles, he returned in 1904 to Arizona, where he was appointed president of the Arizona Eastern Railroad Company and the Southern Pacific Railroad Company of Mexico--Harriman lines. Mr. Randolph, at that time, was regarded as one of the ablest civil engineers in the United States, and he had already had much experience in dealing with river-control problems in the South. He was also one of Mr. Harriman’s most trusted counsellors, and it was upon his recommendation that the Southern Pacific Company’s lines were extended into Mexico. [11] Mr. Cory was a talented civil engineer who had left his professorial chair in the engineering department of the University of Cincinnati to enter the service of the Southern Pacific Railroad system. Just prior to this time--in May 1905--he had been appointed assistant to President Randolph, with headquarters at Tucson. THE SAVING OF THE VALLEY