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Appendix to Section Sketches

Section of the Mouth
The only place of interest at the mouth of the Colorado river is, or rather used to be, the repair yard of the [[underline]]Colorado Steam Navigation Company[[/underline]] previous to its transfer to the [[underline]]Southern Pacific Railroad Company.[[/underline]]
It was situated on a small fresh water lagoon shown in the sketch. The ocean steamers of this company composed of the "Newbern" and "Montana" made regular trips from San Francisco to the river mouth calling at the Mexican ports of Magdalena Bay, Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlan, La Paz and Guaymas. Arriving at the mouth their freight was transferred to the small river steamers, Gila, Cocopah, Colorado and Mohave for Yuma and up river ports, hence the necessity of a repair yard at the mouth. Some sixty miles above it stands "Lerdo" a small Mexican settlement at the head of the tide water originally started with a view to the cultivation of hemp [[underline]]but now[[/underline]] nearly [[underline]]abandoned[[/underline]].

Section of Yuma
Yuma, formerly Colorado and again Arizona City, bids fair to become, with time, a place of some importance since the construction of the S.P.R.R. whose bridge spans the Colorado river at that point. Situated at the confluence of the Gila and Colorado it is the starting point for Freighters to Tucson and the Southern part of the Territory. A United States Quartermaster Depot is within or near the town limits and the celebrated Fort Yuma stands immediately opposite the town, built on a commanding rocky eminence in California, in the acute angle formed by the Arizona, California and Mexican boundaries. Its climate is looked upon as a sanitarium for consumption and diseases of the lungs.