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Robert Rush Miller i 368 nbiota a host of exotic species has had a striking effect on the c (Tab. 1) • in western New Mexico and fol- Gila River.-This river, rising unction with lowing a westerly course of more 1) has nged drastically since it the Colorado River at Yuma (1'ig ) e essen- as first seen by white men. In Arizona, itre new w ter, twit ,a well-I Of clear to tially permanent stream flanked by `numerous cottonwoods and set defined, narrow charm a dense growth of willows and cane that re lagoons an difficult extensive off by its course were numerous approach. Along beaver, and fish life (Parke, marshes that abounded in waterfowl, 134-135). On November 17, 1 IV opp. P 19; Antisell,1957, PP- 1857, 185?, Emory ( 91) wrote of the Gila (when li was perhaps 1846, 18`x' p "The bottoms of the river are wide, G Gila Ben w h y?,il and a tall aromatic weed, 35 or 40 miles Wes overgrow rich, and thickly eese, and ducks, with many had ' and alive with flights of white Brant, g of deer and beaver." Prior to the lt' ?a(Ross, bottom 1923, lands P- 661) signs become "desolate wastes of sand and el intermittent, Throughout most of its channel, the river is now largely to Yuma, it is nor-ence and in its lower 250 miles from $Dd°fmarshes an once abundant malty completely ?' eared. The condition of surface aquatic life have long since disapP waters in the Gila River basin, Arizona, in 1950 is shown on a map by Miller (1954). otiated from the Pimas Villages In October 1849, the river was na flatboat 16 feet long and 51/2 feet (South of Phoenix) to its, 2hother men. During the winter of 1890, wide, carrying a family attempted to go by boat over Sykes and a partner, on a dare } frequent Stanley dragging their flat-bottomed craft over this same route. By stretches (for even then the river sand bars and across numerous dry finally reached Yuma they had become ay stunt let in midwinter), the the last men to traverse the 1 after a 30-day srugg 1950) lower Gila by boat (Sykes, personal interview, watershed of the Gila River did much to Although the pristine n in its earlier days (1833--69), was resulting from rains of 1111- regulate the runoff, the Gila, eve not without occasional floods however, was to spread out usually long duration. The effect of these, reat detritus-carrying, erod- over wide areas rather than to become g in flood crests such as have furred subsequent to settlement by the ? g