ns, thus compelling the
prospectors to return as speedily as possible to save their lives. Smith
felt discouraged and left the company at San Bernardino. Whether he
perished in again trying to find his mine or left the country is not
known. At any rate, he was never heard of afterward.

In 1860 a man named McGuire deposited in one of the San Francisco banks
several thousand dollars in gold nuggets which he said he obtained near
Smith Mountain. He organized a party of six to hunt for the Pegleg Mine.
What they found, however, will never be known, for they all perished,
and their bleached bones were found on the desert a long time afterward.
They were not alone in disaster, however, for very many others in trying
to find the legacy of Smith have met the same fate.

But the hidden wealth of this great region, so long known as the "Great
American Desert," is by no means confined to its storehouses of gold,
silver, and copper. Here, there, and almost everywhere are areas that
lack but one element to make them the most productive regions of the
world, and that one element is water.

The conquest of the Colorado desert is not the first instance of desert
land reclamation in the United States, but it is certainly one of the
marvels of the world's history. A more pronounced and inhospitable
desert never existed; and, in proportion to the area reclaimed, it is
doubtful if one can find greater productivity than the lands that
constitute Imperial Valley. Let us take a glance at nature's work in
this region.

Long before the Mississippi was born the Colorado was an ancient river
and it formerly flowed through a fertile valley. During countless ages
it has stripped from the plateau and carried into the Gulf of California
a deposit of rock waste from the land surface of its basin many feet
deep, and abraded billions of tons of material from its channel. All
this silt and detritus have served to fill up the northern part of the
gulf, the result of the deposit being an immense land area. At length a
great bar was formed across the northern part of the gulf, making a sort
of inland sea. Then the hot climate caused the water to evaporate, while
from time to time the Colorado overflowed its banks, spreading a rich
sediment over the former sea-bed.

Various parts of this depression, which, like Palestine, lie below the
sea-level, are known as Salton, Coahuilla, and Imperial Valleys. The
lowest part, now filled with water, is usually ca