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Part First
General description, geographical, of the Section

From its junction with the Gulf of California, some minutes north of the Thirty Second parallel to its abrupt bend eastward somewhat north of 36 degrees of north latitude the general course of the Rio Colorado is a meandering line running almost due North and South between the 114 and 115 meridians.
The general conformation of the sections of our territory through which it traces its course to the sea partakes more of the nature of the "Basin" than of the "Valley" proper as exemplified in the following figure.

Apex of first Mountain Range
4500 feet above sea level.

[[MAP]]

755 feet above sea level
Elevation of Camp Mohave

Taking a diameter of one hundred miles on each side of the river as an illustration for the contours and starting toward the river from either end of this diameter the stream is reached by descending from one elevated plateau to another of a lower level, placed, as it were, "en echelons" and each possessing a modicum of its proper vegetation in accordance with its altitude and latitude, until the edge of the real Colorado basin is reached.  The aridity of the sides of this basin, varying in vertical extent from 12 to 25 miles, is seldom surpassed, owing to climatic influences for, apart of their geological formation ranging from gigantic cañons to high and low “mesas” or table lands of the coarse, pebbly surface of the true desert.  The rainfall is so limited that vegetation sinks to a minimum of utter insignificance and in some instances disappears altogether except in the alluvial bottoms in the immediate vicinity of the river where, Nile-like