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The narrative traces the region's geologic past as an ancient shallow sea and explains how sediment from a great river isolated the basin, leaving a dry sink. It recounts later human irrigation that created a fertile desert oasis, the catastrophic breach of the river that refilled the depression as an inland sea, and the determined efforts led by E. H. Harriman and engineers to close the breach, protect reclaimed lands, and restore agricultural productivity. Chapters combine geology, engineering, flood accounts, and the valley's economic recovery.
Copyright, 1917
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
Set up and printed. Published May, 1917.
I desire gratefully to acknowledge my indebtedness to the Smithsonian Institution, the U. S. Reclamation Service, the U. S. Geological Survey, the American Society of Civil Engineers, and the officials of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, for their courtesy in furnishing me information, or permitting me to make use of their maps, diagrams and illustrations.
George Kennan.