Río Grande Valley

“ The once free-flowing 117 rivers became dry in places, and new waters were developed in the drainage ditches in the Rio Grande Valley. The competition for water is very keen and fish and wildlife uses come after domestic, commercial, and irrigation purposes. ”

“ The Mexicans call it the Rio del Norte in its upper course, the Rio Bravo in the “Big Bend,” from the mouth of the Conchas river to the mouth of the Devils river, and the Rio Grande only in its course through the Coastal Plain. From its headwaters, 12,000 ft. above the sea, it rushes rapidly down a mountain canyon to San Luis Valley, in Colorado. It flows with moderate speed through this broad valley, enters a long canyon with a maximum depth of 400 ft., about 4 m. above the boundary between Colorado and New Mexico, and is hemmed in between canyon walls rising as high as 1000 ft. ”

“ It is situated at an immense elevation, about three miles south-westward of Port Antonio, and commands the most extensive and varied landscape scenery. This view, which is terminated southerly by some of the highest of the Blue Mountains, includes in the valley, along which the Rio Grande has its impetuous course, the Golden Vale and Seaman’s Valley estates, with some small portions of Stanton Harcourt and Hope estates. ”

“ To hold that high level the main ditch, which is first taken out to serve the west side, crosses the Rio Grande on a high flume to Derry; curves high and winding about the wide farm lands of Garfield valley; is siphoned under the river for Hatch and Rodey, and then is siphoned once again to the east side, to break out in the sunlight for the use of Rincon Valley. Rough and crooked is made smooth and straight; safe bridge and easy grade, a modern highway follows up the valley, with a brave firefly twinkling by night, to join the great National Trail [Pg 76] at Engle Dam. ”

“ Now the valley, as I scarcely need tell you, is the key to the situation. In the first place, if the country is to be properly developed as sheep and cattle range, the valley will furnish the farming land upon which hay for winter use can be raised, and it also furnishes some good winter range. Moreover, it is now an open secret that the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad proposes building a branch line through that country and [pg 121] into the San Juan Valley. No surveys have been made, but it is certain that the road must follow the San Antonio to the top of the divide. ”

“ One of these is that which we left behind in the evening of the 18th. [The other] is better because it carries much more water. [Both branches] go to unite with each other in the middle of the tule swamps, where we slept on the day mentioned.41 We kept on cruising up the river with the tripled volume of water. The water is clear and both banks are covered with oak trees. At three leagues we encountered the Río Grande. Here we observed the junction of the rivers; it has about 5 varas depth in the center and a width of about 100. ”

“ From this place, he made a sketch of Pike's Peak, and is "charmed with the view of the valley of Fountain Creek," on which Manitou and Colorado Springs are located, and which he reached a little north of its junction with the Arkansas River. He speaks of finding at this point a "Pueblo" where a settlement of mountaineers were living, married to Spanish wives, "who had collected together and occupied themselves with farming, and a desultory Indian trade." They had come from the Taos Valley settlements, the Valley that was later named the Rio Grande. ”

“ In this beautiful region—where, besides the nineteen streams that feed San Luis Lake, sixteen others flow into the Rio Grande, here a little white mountain stream newly born—it is surprising how little great elevation affects trees, grass and flowers. It is an all-the-year cattle country at almost any height. Big trees grow 10,000 feet above the sea. Cereals and the tender vegetables thrive at 7,000 feet, and potatoes at 8,000. Beautiful flowers and all the grasses are found at 11,000, and the pines and firs are of fair size at 11,500 feet. ”

“ We had a double purpose in making this trip, first to see one of the most fertile valleys on the island; and, second, to pay our respects to Datu Piang, a friendly Moro of considerable influence among the natives. The Rio Grande is a crooked stream, wending its way through the high grass, the monotony being broken now and then by cocoanut groves, rice fields, mango trees, banana plants and hemp. While there is no such systematic cultivation here as in the northern islands, there is enough to show the possibilities of the soil. ”

“ A tributary is called by the geographer North Fork, but is locally known as Aguas Calientes or Hot Springs Creek, and where its land is represented as suitable for grazing only, it is found in reality to be adapted to the agriculture of the Mexicans, ranches at intervals being passed along its banks.
“The entire course of the La Jara may be likened in its direction to a huge frying-pan in outline, the long handle upon the plain extending to the Rio Grande, the basin within the foothills to its source. ”

“ Examining the affidavits and other evidence introduced in this case, it is clear to us that the Rio Grande is not navigable within the limits of the territory of New Mexico. The mere fact that logs, poles, and rafts are floated down a stream occasionally and in times of high water does not make it a navigable river. ”

“ The streams of the Sierra Nevada mountains begin their course in steep-walled alcoves under the shadows of the high peaks, where they are fed by perpetual snow-banks. Soon they bury themselves between granite walls, which at last tower three thousand feet above their roaring waters. After many miles the cañons widen, the walls decrease in height, and the streams come out upon the fertile stretches of the Great Valley of California.
Nature works in many ways. Her tools are of different kinds, but the most important one is running water. ”

“ The "Pueblo Valley," which is eighty or one hundred miles in length, varying from ten to twenty in breadth, is well watered by the Rio Santa Clara and numerous arroyos, and is one of the most fertile and picturesque plains in California. For pastoral charms, fertility of soil, variety of productions, and delicious voluptuousness of climate and scenery, it cannot be surpassed. This valley, if properly cultivated, would alone produce breadstuffs enough to supply millions of population. ”

“ This I learned first from an old Mexican guide at our camp, who said that the Indians stood in awe of him as a great medicine-man, and loved him for his uniform kindness to them.
Santa Fé Mountain behind us, there were no more hills save the sand-hills, that seem shifting and changing from day to day, so that very often in the neighborhood of the Rio Grande, the river itself is followed as a landmark, the land being more unreliable than the water. The big sand-hill opposite Albuquerque, however, seems to be stationary; people who had been here twenty years before remembered the location. ”

“ It has many solid brick edifices and many pretty cottages on its gentle slopes and rounded hills, overlooked by the great mountains. The view from any point of vantage of orchards and vineyards and semi-tropical gardens, with the wide sky-line of noble and snow-clad hills, is exceedingly attractive. The region is watered by the Santa Ana River and Mill Creek, but the main irrigating streams, which make every hill-top to bloom with vegetation, come from the Bear Valley Reservoir. ”

“ Arizona prices do not, like the ostrich, hide their heads in the sand. The completion of the dam made Salt River Valley realize that the climate she had always possessed, crowned with fruit and flowers, made her California’s rival. She began to cultivate oranges, pecans and a professional enthusiasm for herself. One Native Son of Phoenix of whom I was buying post-cards almost sold me a triangular corner of his ranch, at $300 an acre. ”

“ At Riverside is found a continuous belt of settlement and cultivation twelve miles long, by two miles in average width. It will be twenty long when all complete. The population is not large, but revels in a great deal of room. The general situation is a valley of about forty miles square, at an elevation of twelve hundred feet above the sea. The access to this valley is by four several passes, one each on the north, south, east, and west, as if so many doors had been providentially left open in the encompassing mountain ranges. ”

“ The west wind is now the ruler of this network of fossil valleys. It carves their slopes, and brings into them sand, with which it makes dunes.
We must not confuse with these dead valleys the long depressions, with no outlet, which are scattered over the granite and sandstone tableland (bajos, valles, cuencas) . Some have obstinately, but wrongly, sought in these the traces of rivers that have disappeared; [Pg 123] and the bajos of Gualicho and Valcheta have wrongly been regarded as the former bed of the Rio Negro and the Limay. ”

“ The early settlers had expended much toil on the formation of the first and most dangerous trails to the principal points, charging some small fee. It was in 1864 that Congress granted the valley to the State of California, as "the cleft or gorge in the granite peak of the Sierra Nevada," under the express condition that it was to be kept for "the benefit of the people, for their use, resort, and recreation, and especially to hold them inalienable for all time." And so it always is in America, parks, gardens, all places are kept and maintained for the people. ”

“ I'm going to send for engineers and find what it will cost to impound water in the cordilleras and run ditches into the valley. We ought to be watering thousands of acres for alfalfa and grain that now are dry."
"It never has been done—not in the time of Don Alvaro or even in that of Don Bartolomé."
"And so you think it never can?" she asked, with a smile.
"The Rio Chama Valley is grazing land. It is not for agriculture. Everybody knows that," he insisted doggedly.
"Everybody knows we were given two legs with which to walk, but it is an economy to ride. So we use horses." ”

“ Everywhere are school-houses of artistic designs, most magnificent ones in the older settlements, smaller but tasty ones in those of almost yesterday. As we pass along the mesa, the upper San Bernardino valley, closed in by steep and lofty mountains, lies on our right, and in front the Santa Ana river courses through the center of the valley, with its vast broad river bottom covered with wild vegetation, pastures or cultivated fields. We cross several ditches, one laid in cement, with the water running in them as clear as that in the washbowl. ”

“ This Valley is on the western slope of the Sierra Nevadas, and is a narrow gorge about 10 miles long and half a mile in width, enclosed within gigantic granite precipices like monstrous walls, which rise, almost unbroken and perpendicular, to a height of from 4,000 to 6,000 feet above the green, quiet vale beneath. Its most remarkable features are its perpendicular walls, and their great height, as compared with the narrow width of the Valley. In the spring and early summer it is one vast flower garden, and plants, shrubs, and flowers, of every hue, cover the ground as with a carpet. ”

“ Its oak-clad hills wander out into the great, plain-like coast promontories, enclosing yellow or, in spring-time, green bays of prairie. The hill-forms are rounded, or stretch in long, longitudinal ridges, broken across by the river cañons. Above this zone of red earth, softly modelled undulations, and dull, grayish groves, with a chain of mining towns, dotted ranches and vineyards, rise the swelling middle heights of the Sierras, a broad, billowy plateau cut by sharp, sudden cañons, and sweeping up, with its dark, superb growth of coniferous forest to the feet of the summit-peaks. ”

“ They are cut up with numerous {181} streams, the largest of which are generally bordered for several miles back by hilly uplands, which are for the most part sandy, dry and barren.
The most notable of the great plateaux of the Prairies is that known to Mexicans as El Llano Estacado, which is bounded on the north by the Canadian river—extends east about to the United States boundary, including the heads of the False Washita and other branches of Red River—and spreads southward to the sources of Trinity, Brazos and Colorado rivers, and westward to Rio Pecos. ”

“ Moreover, the soil of the valles is generally composed of coarse and permeable alluvial deposits, which absorb the rain-storms immediately. There is at the foot of both sides of the hills which enclose each valle an immense and far-lying bed of imperfectly rounded shingle. This double zone of detritus is strangely desolate, for the vegetation on it is restricted to isolated bushes of jarilla and tola. From the sheepfolds on the mountains to the oases in the valleys one hardly meets a single house. The bed of the valley is not so desolate. ”

“ Some of these streams flow through broad and fertile valleys within the mountain's range, and, from thence emerging, irrigate the plains of the great valley for the distance of twenty or thirty miles. The largest of these rivers is called by the Spanish inhabitants the river Reyes, and falls into the lake near its northern end; it is a well-timbered stream, and flows through a country of great fertility and beauty. The tributaries of the San Joaquin are all on the east side. ”