MEMOIR OF THE PROPOSED TERRITORY OF ARIZONA.

BY

SYLVESTER MOWRY, U. S. A., DELEGATE ELECT.

WASHINGTON: HENRY POLKINHORN, PRINTER. 1857.

"The NEW TERRITORY of ARIZONA, better known as the GADSDEN
PURCHASE, lies between the thirty-first and thirty-third
parallels of latitude, and is bounded on the north by the Gila
River, which separates it from the territory of New Mexico; on
the east by the Rio Bravo del Norte, (Rio Grande), which
separates it from Texas; on the south by Chihuahua and Sonora,
Mexican provinces; and on the west by the Colorado River of the
West, which separates it from Upper and Lower California. This
great region is six hundred miles long by about fifty miles wide,
and embraces an area of about thirty thousand square miles. It
was acquired by purchase from Mexico, during the mission of
General Gadsden, at a cost of ten millions of dollars. In the
original treaty, as negotiated by General Gadsden, a more
southern boundary than the one adopted by the Senate of the
United States in confirming the treaty, was conceded by Santa
Anna. The line at present is irregular in its course, and cuts
off from our Territory the head of the Santa Cruz river and
valley, the Sonoita valley, the San Bernardino valley, the whole
course of the Colorado river from a point twenty miles below the
mouth of the Gila river, and, worse than all, the control of the
head of the Gulf of California, and the rich and extensive valley
of Lake Guzman, besides a large and extremely valuable silver