Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 January 1892 — Prehistorie Canals. [ARTICLE]

Prehistorie Canals.

Prehistome irrigation canals in Arizona ar.e really worthy of more notice •than is usually given them. The Salt and Gila River valleys are intersected by a vast network of these eanuls, which antedate, at least, the arrival of Coronado in Lf*s2, for he mentions these ruins and the traditions of the Indians regarding a once dense population iu this region. Modern engineers cannot improve upon the lines of these canals, nor in the selection of points of diversion from the rivers. The first irrigation canal in this section, the one that has made Phoenix, with its present population of 20,000, simply followed the lines of one of the>e old canals. Their extent may be appreciated when it is said that in the Salt River Valley alone the land covered by these canals once aggregated over 250,000 acres, nnd the canals themselves, with their laterals, must have exceeded 1,000 miles in length. This country is filled with prehistoric ruins, with walls of stone or adobe, nnd almost every acre contains fragments of pottery, shell ornaments, stone'implements and other remains of a population which can only be estimated in its aggregate. —[Engineering News.