--- In BoundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com, "Lowell G. McManus"
<mcmanus71496@m...> wrote:

> The current 1970 MXUS treaty says that the international boundary

in both the

> Colorado River and the Rio Grande "shall run along the middle of

the channel

Thanks! That should be a fairly easy point to estimate.

> The juncture of the two mentioned river would be the ghost

tripoint; however,

> both rivers show evidence of having been highly braided and

meandering

> streamcourses in their relevant reaches. I doubt that it would be

humanly

> possible to ascertain the precise point.

One idea is that perhaps I could swing by a library in Yuma Saturday
morning to see if they had any historical maps of the region.
Checking the city's website, I see that Fort Yuma was built on the
U.S. side in 1853, and the Gadsden Purchase was made one year later.
If I'm in luck, they might have a map from the time that the fort was
founded. It depends on how much time I have; I'll be travelling with
a buddy who has to catch a plane at LAX on Saturday night.

The Colorado River used to have a lot more water in it before so much
got siphoned off to quench the thirst of Southern California and
various agricultural areas. So it's possible that with a higher flow,
the river was less braided back in the days before irrigation. The
confluence has probably changed pretty drastically since 1854, though.

Adam