:：：:：：:： **, ** （º.s.v.！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！... 8-**************** º *******, *ſ* （**************** · * … * * · · ·• •ſ. （*·· * * · · · ·* ·، ،： ، i № ******** ， ， （**** ！** º *. ：） ¿? №? ：） . . . . . . :： - …！！！--º.ſ. „ ſº：№& && ！e） + ***º №t！！！！！ 㺠NITINUI &: º!!!"H Er- E.J.H.IIITITITUT; E º: Eft. |U|||||INUUU|| # . | = - É º E E E E E. : E|. E \; E E E E. º º 2. º : :i - *: |- * § d •. .. - ** , , ºr 6 - *: 3. ºr:: *...: 2. - - ºw W. ºf ENINSuvºº **.3 2}:ſłł. - ! . .';''...} *~ sº 3. º – - º - - 2= < - - - †- § #3 OF 5 : Gºś ," "Lº" § -º # º fill º D t º U O [. ſ C C º ſº wº B ** *- - §§º — E ITITITITITITIIIſ IIITIIIITſº ſtill DITIſ:-B iſſºliº # # E º & 3-3. 4 4:34 /27 t A REPORT s ON IRRIG ATION AND ! THE CULTIVATION OF THE SOIL THEREBY, WITH PHYSICAL DATA, CONDITIONS, AND PROGRESS WITHIN THE UNITED STATES FOR 1891, ACCOMPANIED BY MAPS, ILLUSTRATIONS, AND PAPERS. * ...º \; N RICHARD JS'HINTON, Special Agent in Čharge, OFFICE OF IRRIGATION INQUIRY, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. J Senate Executive Document No. 41, Fifty-Second Congress, First Session. IN F O U R P A RTS. P A R T I. WASEHINGTON: GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 1893. LETTE R. FROM THE SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE, TRANSMITTING The final report of the artesian and underflow investigation and of the irrigation inquiry. - FEBRUARY 4, 1892.-Referred to the Committee on Printing. FEBRUARY 17, 1892.-Ordered to be printed. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY, Washington, D. C., February 4, 1892. SIR: I have the honor to transmit here with the final report of the artesian and underflow investigation and of the irrigation inquiry, as conducted under my direction in pursuance of authority conferred by act of Congress approved April 4, 1890, and an act approved Septem- ber 30, 1890, and an act approved March 3, 1891, and to state that it was fully completed and deposited in accordance with the terms and conditions of the last-menuioned act. I have the honor to remain, yours respectfully, J. M. RUSK, Secretary. The PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE. 3 TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S. - Page. Letter of transmittal, Secretary of Agriculture-------------------------------------------...-- wº 3 Preliminary---------- • - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - * 5–7 Work on the Great Plains and the results------------------------------------------------- 7–9 Water conservation and management----------------------------------------------------- º 9 State supervision of irrigation and works-------------------------------------------------. 10–12 Growth of reclamation for 1891 ...--------------------------------------------------------- 12–18 Art of irrigation and American success---------------------------------------------------- 18–20 - Work of American engineers ----------------------------------------------------------- ... 19–20 - Irrigation legislation.-------------------------------------------------------------------- ... 20–27 Municipal control of irrigation water and Works--------------------------------------..... 27–29 Opposition to the system ------------------------------------------------------------------ 29–34 Fruit culture by irrigation.---------------------------------------------------------------- 34–36 Arid climatology ------------------------------------------------------------------------- . 37–41 Aération of water and irrigation --------------------------------------------------------- - 41–45 Need of drainage -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 45–46 River silt and its value .------------------------------------------------------------------- 46–47 Influence of light and heat on vegetation. ------------------------------------------------- 48–49 Alkali and irrigation ---------------------------------------------------------------------. 49–54 Physical conditions and progress of irrigation----...-------------------...-...-------...--... & © Irrigation in States and Territories---------------------------------------------------..... 57 Arizona-------------------------------------------------------------------------------. 57–80 California-----------------------------------------------------------------------------. 81–131 Colorado ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 132–164 Idaho---------------------------------------------------------------------------------. 165-182 Montana------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 183–197 New Mexico.--------------------------------------------------------------------------- 198–227 Nevada-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 228–337 Oregon -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 238–245 Utah------------------------------ * - - - - - - as e ºs e s sº e - - - - * * s = º as s = - - - - as s m sº e ºs e s - e = * * * * = & ...... 246—265 Washington --------------------------------------------------------------------------. 266–275 Wyoming------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 276–287 rC)I{l IIl Cº. The Great Plain s—Kansas, Nebraska, the North and South Dakotas, Texas-.......... 288–298 Papers accompanying the report of the Office of Irrigation Inquiry: Preliminary report on the possibilities of the reclamation of arid regions of Kansas and Colorado by utilizing the underground waters. Howard Miller, Ph. D. . . . . . . . . . . ..... 301–306 Methods of applying water to land as practiced in the central portions of California. C. E. Gunsky, C. E. --------------------------- * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 307-322 Cultivation of the soil by means of irrigation in some of the Southern States..... º “s sº dº ſº s ºn - - - 323–349 Agricultural hydraulics. From the French of M. J. Charpentier de Cossigny...--- tº sº s - - - e. 351–370 Irrigation by artesian Wells in Algiers --------------------------------------------------. 372—377 Facts and conditions relating to irrigation in various countries. Richard J. Hinton ... 379–432 Extent and importance of ancient water supply and irrigation works. Frederick S. Gipps, C. E., Sydney, New South Wales................ * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ... 434–438 TABLE OF MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. Map illustrating progress of irrigation reclamation...... * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * s us as ºr sº - - - at title. Physical conditions and progress of irrigation------------------------------------------------. Rio Gila Valley, unreclaimed lands--------------------------------------------------------- tº º gº 57 Mohawk Valley, looking Southeast-----------------------------------------------------------. 65 Orange orchard, Los Angeles, Cal 2---------------------------------------------------------- • * 81 Turlock and Modesto Dam, Stanislaus County, Cal. ---------------------------------.......... 100 Modern cement ditch, near Redlands, Cal ....... ---... • * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * s * * * * * * * * 107 “Zanja,” or old-style ditch, near Redlands, Cal ----------------------------------------------. 111 Cement hydrant and flume, near Redlands, Cal-----------------------------------------------. 119 Irrigated kitchen garden and orchard, Tulare, Cal ------------------------------------------.. 122 No. 1 Flume, Colorado Canal, Arkansas Valley, Colo. --------------------------............... 132 Diagram, water strata, San Luis Valley, Colo-------------------------------------------------- 135 Map of Greeley canals, Colorado--------------------------------------------------------------. 138 View of Greeley, Colo., 1870 ----------------------------------------------------------------- ºn as 141 Garden by irrigation, Greeley, 1890-...--- ** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - e. e. 145 Pumping pianſ at Greeley--------------------------------------------------------------------- 146 Canals of Otero County, Colo-------------------------------------- * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 147 Plan of the Big Sandy underflow ---------------------------------------------------------- * * * * 150 Diagram representing canal Wear ------------------------------------------------------------- 155 Artesian Basin, map of San Luis Valley.....-----------------------------------............. º ºg 153 Irri § by seepage-------------------------------------------------------------------------- 155 Snake River Canals--------------------------------------------------------------------------- º 167 Map of Southern Idaho ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 169 Rocky Cañon Trestle and Flume, Montana (Gallatin Valley).................................. 190 Irrigation by checks, Montana, (Gallatin Valley)---------...---------.................... -----. 192 Rio Pecos, near Roswell, N. Mex-----------------------------------------------...... --------- 198 Irrigated market garden, in Santa Fe, N. Mex -------------------............................. 206 Raton table land reservoirs, Santa Fe, N. Mex - - -............................................. 209 ºrrigated orchard near Roswell, N. Mex....... ---------...-------...-...------.................. 221 Rock cut on curve, Pioneer Canal, Texas......... * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * s = * * * * * * * 222 Residence and orchard near Eddy, N. Mex. ------------....................................... 224 Sage brush and alfalfa, Wadsworth, Ney----------------...................................... 230 Underflow works, Emigration Caſion, Utah --------........................................... 250 Irrigation map of Wyoming ------------------------------------------------------------------- 281 Railroad map, showing underflow region and wells - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -...--------. 301 Plans and diagrams illustrating irrigation methods in central California. C. E. Grunsky, C. E. 18 plates, from pageS- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 307-322 Box irrigation in Piedham Orchard, Texas ---...----------......... * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 347 Two-year-old irrigated tree in Piedham Orchard, Texas................................... tº e º & 348 Spike channels-------------------------------------------------------------------------- de º 'º e º º º 356 Phreatic waters in Desert of Sahara ............... e tº º 'º - • * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 373 º º, ſº - - - - ſº º - º yº y - - - º º Fº º Y. sº-Tºsº, ºl. º - - - - - - - Y Aºt - Z2- -- 2^ - { \ZSITZT º §§ {{…,' - º \ - | sº *… - -----N - , NJ- {| Nº. º jº º >º -N- ºr - º -- -z º º - º 2. º **** * , *ºr 2, - - - Zº NL-Q. --- H. \ - X- º - º - Q *-rk--- -- º º - * || || C. º - -- ºf V - º: º - - - ------ -- gº - * Ǻ ~ - - - y - & º - | | tº-fi º --- --- 'L - º _% --- *3. A \\ - º º : N ſ | º \ º Y *AY - Nº.2 - S. --- º º - --- - ſ - * º ſ º ! º | º - Y. !. º - _/ ( ) | (T) ; --- º - - - - - | - ~ cº NJ - - º - - - - - --- i * g w §§§ - -- - - QN º- º - S - } ~ --- º - D. t - - º - - A Z \% o Z O escott ºn "- º § - - -> - D º e \ ſ Q). TS | C. P 6 º - º §e | ſ º U- 2 : º ºn Pºn - - - - - - 0. º T- Q --~ || || TFT-- *------- - Q - - - *~. ~. ~. - - - º \ Yºs, - - n º º °. -> - ~~. ^. sº - **...] º T-_ C Sº e5 . - § *>. - º - \ º, Aſ - º Nº. 2. - ----- 32" s C. - . º c * - l e." ~s ^ N YZ, fºll T--- - sº 2^ N || "y - Irrigation Areas and Artesian wells west of the 97th Meridian. - | - * * - B- Artesian UNITED STATES º, Under Ditch. | cº- Well- State and Territory. -T- -- -- --- 1890 1891 || 1890 isºl −"-Hºº-º- DEPARTMENT OF ACRICULTURE |Estimated. || || Estimated. Estimated. - --- —H- –H - Arizona | ºwl sisºol wool stolool alsº 1. Office of IRRigation Inquiry. California.-- sºooo sºooo sooooo sºooo assoooo 3,500 * Colorado --- 2.513278 400,000 || 4,200,000 || 1,585,000 1,600,000 | 4,500 º, *::::::::… º. º. º. 327,000 || 480,000 | 1- | - - / Kanº, was of 97” ºf longitude- ºg sºlo ºf lºw tº 250 - - Montºna. … ºo 1,100,000 1,250,000 || 400,000 || 410,000 | 30 *__ __ - - Nebrask of 97” of longi 50,000 65,000 || 200,000 10,000 | 40,000 100 Map illustrating the Prºgress ºf Imigation within the Arid and Semi-Arid Region ºf the ºn 2. º:****** : : : : : 7. - - 7-k New Mexi ------ 888,455. 315 700 450,000 || 485,000 10 United States west ºf the 97th degree ºf lºngitude west frºm Greenwich. O T ...”. ": : "... "...: 670 a Oregon, east of Cascades.------ 75,000 || 100,000 wººd 45,000 45,000 º - South Dakota.---------- | 100,000 foopoo. 100,000 || 22,000 24,000 950 - Texas, west of 97” of longitude--- 200,000 340,000 || 350,000 || 100,000 | 180,000 1,000 tº - - - Juah ------. -- tº 700,000 | 738.24 418,000 428,000 2,524 e Prepared by FRANK BLASDELL, civil Engineer. washington, east of cºde--- ſºon | 150,000 || 175,000 tº 75,000 10 - Wyoming -------. – lººſe 1945,878 1946.37& 175,000 180,000 º +-H + Total – 141* isosalso 17,1stºn 187809 || 1si4000 | 13,651 leºl- | L Note-Thetable is necessarily ºne of estimº, but well within the facts. All the wells given come within the definition. (a) The deep artesian wells in South Pakota, now completed, number 105; the shallow flowing or drift wells are estimated at lºs than tº thºse Enginees reports over 100 ºwnship well-contracted for and in prºse of - - - construction, and about 250 more private enterprises are reported. In North Dakota there are 19 deep flowing ºff-rrigated area represented by portion colored in blue. wellº, and about 850 flowing shallo-wylls in drift deposits in the Red River Basin. (b) In Texas, in 1890, about 700 flowing wells, deep and shallow, were reported upon, and at least 300 more have since been bored. (e) the Utah total is the statement of the U.S. census, accepted as correct in the territory, up a July 1, 1890. The º haa º been increased * we warrant the estimates of 2,800. These are all shallow depth flow- ing well-, -u from drift deposi (d) statement º - Z. 4.--&- tº Fºssego - - *…A. Oºce Zºtton Zaguiry Joeciazºentºn &aº. - | l | | |\ ^ſ | \ | - --- loa- lº- 100° lus" A REPORT ON IRRIGATION, AND THE CULTIVATION OF THE SOIL THEREBY. INTRODUCTION. During the past year, under the direction of the Secretary of Agri- culture, the office of irrigation inquiry has endeavored to obtain as comprehensive a view of the conditions of “irrigation, and the culti- vation of the soil thereby,” as the means appropriated would allow. In the work of the office itself an endeavor was made to systematize the mass of information, data, reports, and papers at its command. That this work has not been entirely completed is due to the pressure of other duties. The increasing correspondence has borne heavily upon the small force employed. This correspondence shows the rap- idly growing interest and attention that is being aroused by the whole subject of water management in connection with agriculture. A steady demand has been made for the reports published in relation to the work of the office. This demand has been so great that it has been impossi- ble, with the limited editions issued, to respond to one in fifty of the requests made for the Progress Report of 1891 and that of the report on artesian wells made in 1890. Of the latter report Congress ordered printed its usual edition of 1,734 copies. The Department, for official use, purchased 100 copies, which is all that were at its disposal." As an illustration of the value accorded to this report, it may be stated that dealers in Government publications have been holding a few copies that they obtained at the rate of $2.50 each. Of the Progress Report, Parts I and II, in addition to the ordinary Congressional edition, the Department purchased from the Public Printer 1,500 copies. This num- ber has long since been exhausted, and there are a large number of names on file in the office as evidence of the requests made for the copies of these two reports. Many of these requests are from distin- guished foreign engineers and experts, Government officials, and libra- T18,118. During the year past this office has sent out several thousand circu- lars for the purpose of obtaining the latest data, the responses to which have been more than usually numerous. In face of the fact that re- quests of a similar character have been circulated by several bureaus and officers belonging to another department, the responses received by the office of irrigation inquiry were gratifying in number and char- aCter. Early in the year it became evident that the work of the inquiry, to be of full value, must be personally directed in the field. It was de- cided by the Secretary that the special agent in charge, accompanied 5 6 - IRRIGATION. by an assistant, should visit the several States and the areas within them in which irrigation works are in operation and progress. This conclusion was reached upon the conviction that the work would be more thoroughly accomplished in this wise than by the employment of local agents over whom only a distant and insufficient supervision could be had. As a result of this determination, the special agent left Washington early in May and returned the latter part of July. Dur- ing the eleven weeks of that absence himself and assistant, traveled by rail about 14,000 miles and by private conveyance some 1,500 more, visiting the most important irrigation centers and districts in the States of Kansas, Colorado, Texas (west of 970), California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, as also the Territories of Oklahoma, New Mex- ico, Arizona, and Utah. While on this journey some forty irrigation districts and centers were visited and inspected ; the plans, reports, and maps, etc., of leading organizations were obtained, and the testi- mony of about 300 persons actively interested in the organization and management of irrigation enterprises was obtained. This testimony, condensed and summarized, is presented in this report. One of the most notable instances of the past year has been the inter- est aroused in this subject in sections of the Union that are most largely affected by heavy precipitation and constant humidity. From the South, for example, there has been received a large amount of informa- tion on the subject, illustrating the fact that in such States as Louisiana, Alabama, and Texas, the semi-tropical heat of the summer, with its attendant evaporation, tends rapidly to produce drought in the grow- ing season, and as a consequence thereof materially affects the security of the important commercial crops which are grown in our Gulf States. The irrigation problem in Florida gives evidence of being a very inter- esting one, especially in the eastern part thereof, where artesian water by means of Wells can unquestionably be utilized to make secure the orange orchards and vegetable gardens whose productions form so valuable an industry in that State. The evidence and information which has been sent to this office from these and other States has been carefully collated and arranged and is here with presented. More re- cently a number of inquiries have been received from the New England States. Another inquiry consists of systematic observations made under the direction of Mr. Howard Miller, special agent of the Depart- ment and this office, as to the volume of water, its rise and fall, that may be found and recorded at stated periods of each day in a series of railroad wells, lying along the Kansas branch of the Union Pacific Railway west of Wa Keeney, Kans. The object of these observa. tions, which it has been expected may be conducted through a period long enough to make reasonably sure of the conditions affecting the inlet of the water into the wells, is to ascertain the extent of phreatic draining in the region covered by the observations. It is the principal portion of the area in which what the geologists term the “rivers of the plains” take their rise. The railroad along which the wells are directed passes across a section of the great plains in which the head waters of the Republican and Solomon rivers, the principal branches of the Ransas, make their first appearance on the surface. At moderate depths below the surface, though not always to a regular degree, a gravel stratum is found saturated with drainage waters. In most in- stances the wells under observation terminate their shafts in this gravel stratum. It will be a matter of great value to be able to ascertain the ebb and flow, if any such exist, of this drainage or phreatic supply. THE PIONEERS AND THEIR METHODS. 7 Mr. Howard Miller's first report, which forms part of the present one, will be examined with interest. Another paper of very considerable technical value is that of Mr. C. E. Grunsky, C. E., formerly assistant State engineer in California. Mr. Grunsky’s paper, the result of several years' continuous study of the conditions affecting irrigation in the San Joaquin Valley, will prove of general interest to all irrigationists, and the ample and clear illustrations which accompany it of the methods and works employed render it of the greatest practical value to all interested. In addition to these papers, a translation of several chap- ters from a work on “agricultural hydraulics” by the French expert, Charpentier de Cossigny, has been prepared for and accompanies the special agent's report. A very condensed review prepared by him of irrigation conditions in foreign countries is also added. The principal map attached to this report, constructed from data carefully gathered by the special agent in charge and the office of irrigation inquiry under him, is designed to present as an object lesson an illustrative statement of the progress in areas and acres of the work of reclamation by irrigation in the arid and semi-arid region west of the ninety-seventh meridian of longitude west from Greenwich. It serves to show not only the progress of irrigation itself, but the manner in which the American pioneer has been and still is in the habit of seeking and obtaining under his own inspiration and judgment, a home upon the public domain, and by his own efforts in combination with those of his neighbors, organizing industrial security for his home, himself, and his family. There is another lesson to be learned from this map, and that is, that the progress of such settlement and reclamation as it exhibits is also steadily increasing our knowledge of the water supply, while it is steadily tending to encourage the investment of capital in the work of agricultural reclamation and cultivation by means of irrigation. In this wise the use of water is proven to be the conservation thereof. It will be observed that the areas of cultivation along the principal water courses and within the drainage basins are growing in extent quite rapidly. This is a proof of the improvement in character of the works constructed, and in the methods of supply, means of administration, and the distribution of water. With these larger areas will be found a numerous body of very small ones, almost beyond recognition upon the Scale allowed for the map, but from which the observer and student can See that the hardy pioneer is pushing across every mountain basin, through foothill sections, and up all the small valleys, seeking surface and underground supplies from which he may obtain water sufficient to make fertile the wild and waste lands which need only the touch thereof to make “the desert bloom and blossom as the rose.” WORK ON THE GREAT PLAINS AND THE RESULTS. The final reports of the artesian and underflow investigation were completed as the law required. The thorough and comprehensive character of these reports, with the series of maps and profiles and illustrations that accompany them, is apparent on the most casual ex- amination. The work of correlating effects and results which neces- sarily fell upon the special agent in charge, whose duty it has been to note the same over the whole field of inquiry, warrants him in stating that the direct as well as the indirect results, the latter of which are to be felt hereafter even more positively than at present, show that no expenditure on the part of the General Government has achieved such large and immediate benefits for so small a cost. 8 IRRIGATION. º During the season of 1891, additional interest was aroused by the irrigation of two farms in South Dakota with artesian water, under the direction of the chief engineer of the investigation. By this means systematic instruction was given, which so greatly encouraged the farmers and the people generally, that capital remained that was pre- paring to withdraw, and new investments have been made on every hand. In a certain degree, the same state of things appear in all the other States, covered by the artesian and underflow investigation. In Nebraska, where, in 1890 there was not a single irrigation enterprise in practical operation, there are now several scores of separate works under Way in the western counties, by means of which a large area will be brought under cultivation, heretofore given over entirely to stock. In western Kansas the beneficial influences, direct and indirect, have been as strongly felt as in the Dakotas. When the work began, in 1890, the counties west of the one hundreth meridian of longitude were in danger of being entirely abandoned for agricultural purposes. As, however, the existence of the underflow waters in the valleys of the Arkansas and Republican rivers in Kansas, of the South Platte in northeastern Colorado, and the North Platte in southwest Nebraska, were being es- tablished by the assiduous labors of the investigation, the fears caused by the recurrent drought have ceased. The existense of underflow or phreatic waters at varying depths and quantities throughout the length and breadth of the great plains region has been in a large degree ten- tatively established by its work, and that fact has given great en- couragement to the pioneer farmers and communities in western Kan- sas. , Encouragement has also been given, by the large work done dur- ing the past twenty-one months, to agricultural enterprise and industry in southwest Colorado, in eastern New Mexico, and throughout Texas West of the ninety-seventh meridian. The practical work of construc- tion and cultivation which is in progress has resulted in great part from the impetus given to energy and enterprise by the same influence under the small appropriations made by the Fifty-first Congress. In an address made to the students of the North Dakota Agricultural College, and to other bodies in South Dakota, in the month of March, 1891, by direction of the Secretary of Agriculture, the special agent endeavored to sum up the economic possibilities of the investigation under consideration. He said: For my purpose I assume, temporarily at least, that the reclamation of the great plains is not to be accomplished by any great system of water storage. I assume, also, that, taking the plains as a whole, great systems of canals and other large sur- face works will not be a necessity. I am, of course, cognizant of the fact that there are large areas in which surface storage and distribution on an extensive scale may be required—indeed become a necessity, but the reclamation of the division I have out- lined, the 700,000 square miles defined as the great plains, is to be accomplished by a multitude of small detailed works, and must in the end be largely the result of neighborhood and individual exertion. Along the broad valleys of some of the rivers that infrequently cross those plains, there will necessarily be both surface and sub- canals or ditches on a large scale. But the security of the agriculturist is to be chiefly accomplished by small farm storage, by the impounding of the little streams, by the utilization of springs, and by the restoration to the surface through artesian drills or by the mechanical lifting from other bored wells, of the waters that are stored below the surface soil in the earth itself. The strata below that soil are for great distances a series of huge sponges, wherein the lost, imbibed, and percolated rainfall will be found to be stored. º * # * º * * There is not then a farm of 160 acres in extent as now located upon the great plains region upon which the farmer need fail in the worst year of drought to obtain a liv- ing for himself, family, and stock, keeping free from debt also, provided he will util- ize the small natural supplies of water beneath his feet, and content himself at first with direct cultivation of only so much of the land in his possession as may be nec- THE PROBLEMS OF WATER CONTROL. 9 essary to make certain the supply indicated. The rainfall everywhere appears to be so conserved by the nature of the known stratum beneath the soil that any man with a quarter section can secure and distribute the requisite moisture, that may be abso- lutely needed for from 10 to 30 acres of tillable ground. I am talking of the day of small things and beginnings, and urging the consideration of security therefor. Thirty well tilled and watered acres will feed and care for family and stock, and will also enable the plains farmer to enlarge and take better care of his stock, thereby increasing income and aiding him to obtain in the near future and as necessary a greater share of a more permanent water supply. WATER CONSERVATION AND MANAGEMENT—THEIR SCOPE. The more thorough the investigations conducted by this office have been the wider and more comprehensive the field became. It is per- ceived that the natural phenomena and conditions relating to the cul- tivation of the soil by irrigation extend far beyond the mere limits of reclamation or agricultural economics in the region affected by a defi- ciency of rainfall and humidity. The problems underlying the subject relate themselves to the greatest of physical and cosmical facts. They make a draft on the one hand upon the sciences from topography to chemistry, and on the other hand, they embrace somewhat of all the great economic factors which go toward the solution of largest socio- logical problems. Systematic irrigation involves not only successful reclamation, but it embraces intensive cultivation, small farms and orchards, largely increased and specialized production, intelligent direction under the educated brain and trained hand, with the massing of cultivators into highly organized communities. Important as are the influences involved in these conditions, they by no means include the most significant of the problems that arise. More and more the conduct of the investigation and inquiry that has been committed to this office tends to prove that a right understanding of the magnitude and character of all that is included in water conservation and man- agement must be a necessary condition of successful agriculture. One statement made by Geologist McGee at the Washington meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, will serve to illus- trate this. That gentleman described a professional trip through Missis- sippi. Over one-fifth of the area of that State, if recollection serves aright, was stated to have been rendered unfit at present for cultivation; first by the reckless destruction of the timber, and next by the torrential effects upon the soil of the heavy rainfalls. The denuded land had been torn into gullies and ravines, and thereby became worthless for industrial use. The decrease in the level of the Great Lakes, which is generally accepted as a result of deforestration, is another evidence of the want of proper knowledge in dealing with the earth and its laws. The de- structive floods of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers are also in proof. The effect of excessive humidity of undrained lands, and the existence of marshes and similar areas, all belong to the largest problems in- Wolved. - The utilitarian and hygienic factors connected with town and city water supplies are a part of the work that some day will be correlated and directed with the observation of other and related phenomena and conditions, under the direction of the Department of Agriculture. A knowledge of the laws of climatology will establish conclusively that irrigation combined with drainage—that is, of water management in the large sense—is an absolutely necessary condition of successful agricul- ture. It is seen by even a cursory examination of the facts that the conservation and distribution of water may be made as serviceable in obtaining security for crops where the rainfall is excessive as it 10 IRRIGATION. -- must necessarily be in making possible the reclamation of arid lands. The question of heat and consequent evaporation far more than rain- fall during a given season will decide whether or no a growing crop will be fully matured. Many questions besides the more simple ones involved in the act of applying water to the soil are bound up in the problems of surface conservation and management, as well also in the conditions of earth or phreatic waters. It is remarkable how very little is known as to the extent or character of controlling phenomena in the matter of subterranean water supplies. Even the examinations made by the artesian and underflow investigation, simply objective as they have necessarily been, go a long ways towards disturbing pre-accepted theories of artesian and drainage supply. The rise and fall of the sub- Water plane in cultivated valleys or other areas is one of the conditions which at no distant date the physicists engaged in correlating for economic uses such phenomena as are here suggested must take into serious consideration. Two years since, for example, it has been stated, that in Hocking Valley, Ohio, a region which is certainly not deficient in rainfall, the entire water plane, as shown by the wells sunk from 20 to 40 feet below its usual level. The continued changes going on . beneath the crust of the earth projects a speculative inquiry, which may, however, have something of importance in it, as to how far the disintegration of rocks and strata may affect the phreatic supply. Water forms a large proportion of all rocks or strata. Again, no one has any systematic knowledge of the extent, egress, or ingress of sub- terranean channels and the volumes of water they convey to or from the ocean. The British Government printed, among other papers re- lating to the famous explorations of the ship Challenger, one by the chemist of the expedition, which, with maps, is designed to illustrate the density of the Ocean waters at various depths and conditions. In this paper attention is called to the fact that a greater proportion of Solid matter is found held in solution in such portions of the ocean as are regional with the arid sections of Asia or Africa. In other words, it is indicated that the fertilizing qualities of the soil have long been Systematically washed through silt-bearing streams in enormous quan- tities into the ocean itself. Surely, then, the whole subject of agronomic hydraulics presents features of the greatest importance. But the work of this office was defined and, in an indicative sense, limited by the terms of the law, in virtue of which it was organized by the Secretary of Agriculture. Its work has been directed by very simple yet comprehensive terms, and demands an inquiry “into the cultivation of the soil by means of irrigation.” To that end this report now directs itself. STATE SUPERWISION OF IRIRIGATION AND WORKS. One of the serious problems pressing steadily for consideration is that involved in the question of supervision over works and water sup- plies by the States interested in the reclamation of arid lands. At the present date there is not a properly equipped State engineer's office or board of water control in existence. Only two States have engineer officers with any powers approaching the needs of hydraulic adminis. tration. One other has provided for the supervision of artesian waters. The work of such oversight and control must be done by the States themselves; first, through a competent engineer's office or board of control, of which the engineer shall be a member; and second, by the establishment of municipal subdivisions, administering through popular NECESSITY OF STATE SUPERWISION. 11 control by practical experts the water supplies at the command of the dis- trict. Irrigation construction and administration is not a matterfor hap- liazard movements or mere speculative endeavor. It involves, practi- cally, the organization for Americans of a new system of agriculture. In the progress of that systemitis certain that great profits are to be achieved. It is equally as certain that the irrigation cultivator must be a person of intelligence, of keen capacity, a faithful student, and untiring worker; otherwise he will be left in the race. It is already indicated in such a degree as to point to an almost positive result that the effect of sys- tematic reclamation within our Western States will be a great subdi- vision of land holdings. As a necessary consequence of such subdivi- sion the isolation of farm life will vanish, and agricultural or horticul- tural town or village centers will become a marked feature of Settle- ment. The character of works to be employed, the facts of climatology, the relations of the atmosphere to the water and the soil, the adapta- bility of the plants to different zones, and at least a primary knowledge of hydraulic engineering will become a part of the training of every successful cultivator of the soil by means of irrigation. The adminis- tration of the water supply involves subtle questions of law and econom- ics, and goes for illustration back to the very dawn of history. All communities, the cultivation of whose food products has been achieved by the artificial application of water to the soil, have in a more or less elementary manner been compelled to organize some form of gov- erning the water-using people, directing and controlling the construc- tions needed for the storage and conservation and distribution required for the purpose of tilling the land. The Pueblo Indian and the Mexican farmer alike appoint or elect their local water masters and submit them- selves with great faithfulness to customs and provisions more or less stringent in character. An examination of the habits and customs of all communities long using irrigation brings to view the same condition and establishes the same order of procedure. It is evident from even a cursory study of the great hydraulic systems of ancient days in Mexico, in South America, in Northern Africa, or Arabia, or throughout the great oriental countries, that the most elaborate codes of laws were established by the central authorities, whatever character they may have been, and that these were supplemented by local regulations, a great many of which have survived to the present times in the rehabilitation or recrea- tion of these great works. In Egypt, Ceylon, and British India the same necessity of rigid supervision and careful administration has been im- peratively settled. In the British Australian colonies of New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia, the discussions show a full ap- preciation of oversight and control. In New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, and South Australia de- partments of water supply have been organized. The two first-named colonies have in their employ a body of able engineers and other profes- sional men, whose duties are directly associated with the conduct of the water trusts authorized for irrigation and for domestic purposes. They are also charged with the study of climate, geology, topography, and forestry in connection with the requirements of a proper conservation of the property held by the state in the natural waters. Queensland has recently undertaken, through its water department a systematic series of borings for an artesian supply. Victoria and South Australia have made extensive contracts with well-known American organizers for the reclamation of 250,000 acres in each of the colonies named. The maps and reports that have been prepared and published by these colonial governments are among the finest and most thorough of their 12 & * IRRIGATION. ~q= character issued in the world. In Victoria especially no extensive system of irrigation can be inaugurated except upon plans approved by the government engineer, while the construction of the works required is carefully watched by the water supply of the department. Of course it is true in these as in other parts of the British dominions, where the storage of water is a necessity for successful agriculture, that guestions of statecraft in the way of colonization, maintenance of peace oversubjugated races, as in India, and methods of insuring loyalty to the mother country are all involved in the plans which have been adopted alike in South Africa, Ceylon, India, and the Australian countries. The general existence of all these tendencies is pointed out not by way of argument for any plan or scheme or policy, but in order to il- lustrate what seems to be the natural and necessary law controlling irrigation work and the communities connected therewith. In the States west of the ninety-seventh meridian upon this continent, so far as any action has been taken it is to provide for the right of appropriating the water, to give a means of legal appeal in case of contest, and to leave all the rest to the friction of an aggressive and struggling existence. California has relegated, and very efficiently, local construction and dis- tributive supervision to the communities interested. Several other States have in part followed this lead. But the laws establishing such a system touch in nowise upon the greater needs, soon to be pressing ones, involved in the demand for water storage for the protection of river and stream sources, for the insurance of security to life and prop- erty, by compelling proper construction in the great storage works that must be built ere long, for the enforcement of systematic drainage in the interests of health as well as agricultural economy, and for the proper dealing with a thousand other important questions that might be mar- shaled here and that can not safely be left to the accidents and emer- gencies that arise from a day-by-day avoidance of public obligations. The Utah settlers, who first organized neighborhood systems of irriga- tion upon an extensive scale within our boundaries, have, by the pe- culiar nature of the obligations that control them, succeeded, without definite codes of law or even an efficient water police, in coöperatively maintaining equity among the users. Nowhere else, except in the sur- vivals referred to among the Pueblo Indians and Mexicans, or in the new organization expressed in the California districts, have we begun to reasonably realize the needs involved in this matter of State control of local supervision. The constitution and laws of Colorado have been di- rected almost wholly to securing the rights of appropriators, the freedom of conveyance, and a reasonable method of settling disputes while pro- claiming the public character of water property. The State of Wyo- ming, modeling its legal action upon that of Colorado, has also simpli- fied and improved upon it. So far as the protection of appropriation, the guarding against this undue and unjust exercise, and the control of ditches in that direction, its State board of control and the engineer's office are better equipped than elsewhere is the case. Consideration of the questions involved in these suggestions must ere long be seri- ously taken up. THE GROWTH OF RECLAMATION FOR 1891. The year 1891 has been marked with great activity in the direction of reclamation enterprises on a large Scale, and in the development by means of irrigation of numerous small localities west of the one hundreth me- ridian. This beginning, of cultivation, generally upon small areas of INCREASE OF RECLAMATION BY IRRIGATION. 13 land, is even a more notable illustration of economic progress than the organization of great enterprises whose works are designed to ultimately reclaim and bring under use several millions of acres of land not now adapted to agriculture. If the lines of cultivation and migration dur- ‘ing the year 1891 were laid down upon a map, they would show within the arid region of the United States movements so defined as to make a distinct parallelogram. In the region between the ninety-seventh meridian and the foothills of the Rockies, almost from north to south, there has been a decided growth Öf settlement and a marked increase of cultivation. The Inore distinctly this growth has been brought under the influence of irrigation development, however supplied, the more cer- tainly it shows evidences of permanent prosperity. The increased feeling of security in the Dakotas has been followed by as marked an increase in acreage and production. The Black Hills portion of South Dakota, for example, has almost escaped attention during the pendency of the present inquiry and discussion. In 1889 it was estimated that some 13,000 acres were cultivated chiefly for forage and cereals, by means of irrigation supplied by small ditches. In 1890 the area so cultivated was estimated at 20,000 acres. In his final report as geologist for the Dakotas in the artesian and underflow investiga- tion, Prof. Garry E. Culver places the area of irrigated lands in the Black Hills section at 50,000 acres. In Nebraska and Wyoming, mov- ing Southward on the eastward line of the parallelogram, there will be found to be a considerable increase of population and a much larger proportionate increase of effort in the direction of extending reclama- tion works over the arid lands. The estimated area of increase for the year in Wyoming is 856,700 acres. That of Nebraska, for works par- tially finished or in progress, shows an estimated increase of 135,000 acres under ditch and of 30,000 acres under cultivation. The public feeling is turning strongly in the direction of a smaller number of acres and a more careful cultivation, with an eager desire to secure, whenever possible, an independent water supply by which to make farming operations Segure. Another marked feature of business enterprise and public opinion is to be found in the fact, as indicated by discussion in the press and the correspondence of this office, that the officers and managers of mortgage companies and of farm-loaning banks all express themselves as most eager to aid the development of water Supplies under such circumstances as will assure upon the Great Plains the disposal for cultivation of the lands they hold, or control as security, in areas much less in extent than has heretofore been held in that region. Both north and southeastern Colorado have been benefited by the movement under review. Many small enterprises are also recorded in the eastern portion of that State. A special development of eastern Colorado is the growing interest and effort in and for the establishment of reservoirs, both large and small. The valley of the Arkansas is marked by the progress of a number of great enterprises, one of which is distinguished by its efforts to utilize open basins and depressions south of the river for storage purposes. One engineer reports seeing in the eastern portion of the State from an elevated point 134 storage basins, small lakes, or ponds all lying within the range of his vision. One of the chief objects of this effort is to obtain a supply for and store the same during the winter months, so as to be able to keep the ditches running when planting begins in the spring. The discussion of the past three years over the advantages and needs or otherwise of storage reservoirs has certainly developed some features of hydraulic engineer. 14 IRRIGATION. ing which, when the discussion began, would have been considered au- dacious in character. In spite of the arguments relative to loss by evaporation and the wates claimed to follow all attempts to bring moun- tain supplies long distances without high altitude storage, the tendency is quite marked towards a development of storage basins upon the open plains. Something of this is due to the increase of knowledge which has followed the artesian and underflow investigation as to the extent and condition of precipitation over such large areas of land free from mountain range and gradually passing into the prairie formation. It has become apparent, under the close local observation which has been aroused, that if the local precipitation can be thoroughly con- served it will with the current daily rainfall go far towards supplying the needs of the farmers of table-lands and plains. Experimentation in such directions is a necessary feature of its development and progress. As a result of all this there is already a considerable increase in culti- vation and a promise of a much more rapid growth in the immediate future. The increase in security in western Kansas within the past year and a half is a notable tribute to the discussion, interest, and investigation that has followed the work ordered by Congress. The people of the new Territory of Oklahoma have already found it necessary to consider the need of preparing for a moderate degree of water conservation and dis- tribution. The fertile agricultural area, on which they have so rapidly built a new commonwealth, is liable to the same drought and depression that has elsewhere along the eastern line marred agricultural settle- ment with variable rainfall and hot winds that desiccate. The able and almost minute report of the geologist for Texas in the artesian and underflow investigation, Prof. Robert T. Hill, as well as evidence given elsewhere in this report, shows a marked increase in activity in cultivation and growth of population throughout the central, western, and northwestern portions of Texas. But the largest result of irrigation enterprise in the opening of a great area. yet seen is that which is mak- ing so marked a development in eastern New Mexico. The valley of the Pecos and the plateau region of the Raton Mountains have, until within a year or two, been practically unknown to the average Amer- ican as a part of the common country. What little use has been made of this extensive area during the past twenty years has been confined to a sporadic occupation thereof for the feeding of stock and the raising of sheep. The irrigation development of the past two years is notable in char- acter, not only because of the extent of the works and the capital in- Vested or of the area opened, but because, in the case of the more northern enterprise—that which is located upon the Raton plateau—there are engineering and agricultural experiments under way, which, if they prove successful, will add vastly to the value and utilization of great ta- ble land regions that are now supposed to be adapted only to pastural purposes. The two systems in operation upon the Maxwell Grant, cov- ering an area of 65,000 acres, and supplied from branches of the Cana- dian and Cimarron rivers—streams whose mountain sources are fed from the vast precipitation of the Sangre de Cristo Range—present in their development the possibility of a great, even vast, increase of the agri- cultural area of the arid region. The altitude at which successful farm- ing is carried on, the still higher range at which healthy orchards bear. ing an ample return of fruit in fine condition were seen during the sum- mer of 1891, the remarkable engineering experiments by which with MOVEMENTS OF WESTERN POPULATION. 15 works of a simple and not costly character the mountain supplies are brought out and stored upon the open table land and from such storage distributed to the farm lands under them, all these point to both the possibility and probability of utilizing a very considerable proportion of such higher table lands and plateau region. The experience now being gained will probably encourage experiments and operations in favora- ble northern latitudes. The Special Agent after his visit to Northern New Mexico and elsewhere, expressed the opinion that the success of the open table land reservoir system illustrated on the Maxwell Grant, in Southeast Colorado, at Nampa under the Boise River in Idaho, and more recently in the conservation of water in the Open lagunes which are being appropriated under the Bear Valley system in Southern California, will add from thirty to fifty million more acres to the arable area of the country. Certainly, that portion of the table land or plateau region which will be affected by the success of the Maxwell system will be likely to come under the influence of a development that, by taking advantage of every opportunity of Storage, large or small, and of all available phreatic supplies that may be found, will tend to the establishment in time to come of a mixed arable and pastoral farm set- tlement. Such a statement may seem quite speculative in character, but to the observer making the same it is based on both comprehensive and minute inquiry, facts, and conclusions, and it enforces on him a re- markable and even early possibility of successful achievement, or at least the decided beginnings of the same. The north and south lines of the parallelogram of movement and de- velopment already indicated, runs on the north, chiefly through Wyo- . ming and the southern portion of Idaho, and further north up the Valley of the Yellowstone and over the Rocky Mountains at Missoula, into the Pacific northwest, east of the Cascade Range. The increase of popu- lation has not been large, but steady in character, while the increase in reclamation enterprises is on a decidedly large scale, and the invest- ments made and enterprise shown in construction, point decidedly to an early effort to encourage and direct active settlement. Several great areas are opened up under this northern line. Perhaps the most direct increase of cultivation and the systematizing of necessary works upon the north is to be seen in the Gallitin Valley, Montana, where ir- rigation has practically been a success for the last twenty-five years. New all d extensive areas that will soon invite occupation are to be found in southern Idaho, eastern Washington, and Oregon, as well also in northern and central Montana, east and west of the Rockies. Extensive reclamation works are in progress in that State, but consid- erable attention must yet be given to organizing administration of the water and occupation of the land. On the southern line the movement of population is slower. It is nat- urally somewhat different in character to that which moves upon the northern line, because the climatic conditions of New Mexico and Ari- zona invite a somewhat different type of population; but the horticul- tural development and the large promises of return it carries, are build- ing up a very distinct and definite character, cultivation, and settlement therein. The western line of the parallelogram suggested is following northward from the Colorado desert through the great valley regions of California, until it meets and mingles with the movement that along the northern line has already begun to occupy the southern portion of eastern Oregon. The great interior of the region thus defined has felt to a considerable extent, though not generally over its whole area, the 16 IRRIGATION. - * same interests and activity, which, under investigation, is shown to be most directly along the lines given. - The progress of irrigation reclamation is concretely indicated in a Statistical form by a table that follows. There is but little satisfaction in presenting estimates, but the limited force, with the equally as lim- ited time at command, forbids doing anything else. This claim can be made for the figures annexed, and that is, that they are all reasonable: and it is believed well within the facts. Irrigation areas and artesian wells west of the ninety-seventh meridian. Acreage. Number State and Territory. |Under ditch. Cultivation. artesian Wells,” 1889, 1890. 1891.x 1890. 1891. * Arizona --------------------------. 529, 200 643, 450 | 660,000 || 310,100 || 315,000 a 45 California ------------------------. 3, 294,000 || 4,044,000 || 4, 500,000 || 3,444,000 || 3, 550,000 3, 500 Colorado. -------------------------- 2,813, 273 || 4,082, 738 || 4, 200,900 | 1, 585,000 | 1,757, 162 4, 500 Idaho. ----------------------------- 715, 500 1, 181, 500 | 1, 200,000 327,000 330, COO 12 Ransas, west of 970 of longitude... 500,000 860, 010 900,000 100,000 120,000 250 Montana--------------------------. 986, 000 | 1, 100,000 | 1,250,000 400,000 410, 000 36 Nebraska, west of 970 of longitude. 50, 000 5,000 200, 000 10,000 40,000 100 Nevada ---------------------------. 142,000 | 150, 000 || 150,000 75,000 || 100,000 * 76 New Mexico.----------------------. 638, 455 677, 315 700,000 450,000 465,000 10 North Dakota ---------------------|----------- 1, 000 2,500 1,500 2,000 b670 Oregon, east of Cascades .......... 75,000 100,000 125,000 45,000 45,000 South Dakota ---------------...... 100,000 100,000 100,000 22,000 54,000 b950 Texas, west of 97° of longitude.... 200,000 340, 000 350,000 160,000 160,000 c1,000 Utah ------------------------------ 700,000 || 700,000 || 735,226 || 413,000 || 423, 364 d2, 524 Washington, east of Cascades..... 75, 00 150,000 175,000 60,000 75,000 10 Wyoming-------------------------- 1, 946, 876 ſe2, 172,781 |e:3,038, 481 e175,000 e180,000 6 Total.------------------------ 12, 765, 304 |16,367,794 |18,286,207 7,577,600 8,026,526 13,695 NOTF.—The figures of this table are necessarily estimates, made by the Irrigation Inquiry, but they are all well within the facts. All the wells given come within the definition of “positive" artesian water adopted by this office. * a The first successful artesian well in Arizona was drilled in 1881; the total given was reached by 88. b The deep artesian wells in Dakota, now completed, number 105; the shallow flowing or drift wells are estimated at less than 800. The State engineer reports over 100 township wells contracted for and in process of construction, and about 250 more private enterprises are reported. In North Dakota there are 19 deep flowing wells, and about .650 flowing shallow wells in drift deposits in the Fed River Basin. c In Texas, in 1890, about 700 flowing wells, deep and shallow, were reported upon, and at least 300 more have since been bored. - d The Utah total is the statement of the U. S. Census accepted as correct in the Territory, up to July 1, 1890. The number has since been increased sufficiently to warrant the estimate of 2,800. These are all shallow depth, flowing wells, supplied from drift deposits. This is an addition of 276 wells, making the total 13,971.-Statement of Territorial experts. e From report of State Engineer Mead, 1889–90, and of Mr. P. L. Naismith, assistant engineer, for 1891, made to this office. The figures given for 1891, as “under ditch,” are from the State records; those for 1892 include 856,700 acres as covered by works in process of construction or projection under prior appropriations. The irrigation developement in Wyoming is as remarkable as that of any portion of the western region. Up to January 1, 1891, the fol- lowing are the figures: - Total number of ditches -----------. ------------------------------ tº 3,050 Total length in miles------------------------------------------------ 5, 464 Total capacity in second feet.--------------------------------------- 2,563,900,000 Total acreage under ditch.----------...------------------------------ 2, 172,781 Total estimated cost at $3.62 per acre.----...----...----. ----------- -- $7,865,467. 22 For the year 1891, closing December 31— There were of applications for ditch appropriation.----- a sm º ºs ºs e s is º ºs º ºs { } 210 Covering a mileage of.---------------------------------------------- 970 Designed to serve (acres)----------...---- * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * = as as s = * * * * ~ * tº gº º 856,700 At a cost (estimated) of.---------- ..-------------------------------- $3,464,269 IRRIGATION works IN COLORADo AND DAKOTA. 17 It is true that the projected operations of 1891 are as yet mainly in the air, though a considerable proportion of the work needed is under way, and the greater portion will finally be constructed. Another most notable development is in the matter of storage. Col- orado is especially active in that direction. The State engineer's re- port for the two years from 1888 to 1890, shows the following totals: Reservoirs recorded in his office up to 1890 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 354 Ditches on file there 1888; number of.----------------------------------- 2, 679 Estimated and stated mileage of same----------...----------------------- 10,023.45 Number of ditch appropriation recorded from 1888 to close of 1890........ 1,380 At an estimate of 4 miles to each ditch, the total will be -----...-- - - - - - - - 5,420 The report for 1886–88 shows a total of 74 storage reservoirs, most of them smaller than the latter constructions, while a number of them were only intended for stock purposes. The increase in two years has been 280, and if we to allow a filing of one-half more, or 140, for the year 1891, it would increase this class of constructions, more of which are under way, to 494 storage sites. A great many of these, the majority in all probability, belong to the class of plains or open valley storage which has been referred to. The increase in ditches and mileage for the past year will certainly be one-half the total given for two years covered by the State engineer's report, 690 ditch filings, with an estimated length of 2,710 miles. Adding these totals together we shall have for Colorado, at the close of 1891, an estimate Of reservoir sites and construction -------------------------------------- 494 Of ditches constructed and under way ---------------------------------. 3,369 Of mileage, recorded and estimated ------------------------------...----- 18, 153 At 300 acres per mile, this will give a total as under “ ditch’ of.......... 4,445,900 Another step in the conservation of water within this region has been in the passage of the act passed by the last Congress authorizing the President to set aside by proclamation any portion of the public do- mains as forest reservations as may be desired. It is to be hoped this measure will be so administered as to include the sources of all inter- state waters. The need of such reservations will become at once ap- parent to anyone who will examine a proper map with critical eyes. It will be seen that the controlling power over a continental Water supply is held both geographically and hydrographically by the minority in phys- ical area, civic organization, and population. Three States, embraced within the area of the Rocky Mountains, holds the Sources of at least 60 per cent of the western waters of the Mississippi system, and at least 90 per cent of all the flowing streams west of the one hundredth merid. ian. It is a subject of profound interest and one that must command the attention of legislators, state and national. The deep artesian wells of South Dakota now completed number 105. The shallow flowing wells of the drift area, chiefly found in Miner and Sanborn counties, are not less than 800 in number. According to the State engineer of South Dakota, over 100 public artesian wells have been authorized and contracted for. As many more have filed applications in his office. Some two hundred and fifty private artesian enterprises are reported. There are. in North Dakota 19 deep wells reported and about 650 shallow flowing wells, nearly all located in the drift deposits of the Red River basin, in the northeast section of the State. About 150 wells have been added to the number previously re- ported by the artesian and underflow report of 1890 as located in western Kansas and Nebraska. In the San Luis Valley, Colorado, some two hundred shallow wells have been bored during the past year. S. Ex. 41 2 * 18 -- URRIGATION. In New Mexico there are now ten or more flowing artesian wells near Springer and at Roswell and Eddy, in the Pecos Valley. Several ex- periments elsewhere in the Territory are under way. The successful boring of artesian wells in Arizona is of considerable importance and bids fair for future development in this important direction. There . is no doubt whatever that Arizona has a large supply of phreatic waters, with at least a negative artesian character—pressure sufficient to rise in the bore, if not to overflow at the surface. In western Texas (west of ninety-seventh degree) there were reported in 1890 about 700 flow- ing wells. At least 300 have been added to the tally, while the number of bored wells with an ordinary phreatic supply and pressure has more than doubled in the past two years. Up to July 1, 1890, the total (2,524) given in the table for Utah, being the same as reported by the United States Census Office, is accepted as correct. Since that date, however, the increase justifies a present estimate of 2,800 flowing wells in that Territory. The chief fact about recent development is the achieved certainty of a large phreatic supply, which is certain to be reached and utilized to great benefit by means of bored and driven wells. In the Pacific Northwest there has been some notable well development, and in California an increased irrigation supply is being obtained from that source. Other development in the direction of drainage supplies is found in the increased number of underflow enterprises, such as bed- rock dams, drift tunnels, gravel-bed gravity or pumping, the opening of springs, the lifting of water, and the increase by sub-canals of under- flow supply. Altogether, the activity and development in reclamation works has been very notable. - THE ART OF IRRIGATION AND AMERICAN SUCCESS. The art of irrigation, probably originating in Southern Asia, has been known from remotest historic times. The Chinese, the primitive in- habitants of India and Persia, those contemporary with the kingdoms of Babylon and Nineveh, and who then inhabited the country lying be- tween the Euphrates and Tigris, and finally the Egyptians, all appear to have made extensive use of irrigation. The Romans borrowed the system from the East, and transported it into Italy and the south of France. Lastly, the Arabs, also coming from the West, introduced it into Spain. Since then, however, the art of irrigation has remained almost in the same condition as at that time, and in spite of the unpre- cedented spread of modern civilization and in spite of the indisputable progress made of late in agriculture, but a small amount of territory, comparatively, has been reclaimed by irrigation. The largest progress of area in later years has been made in British India, where about 30,000,000 acres have been either newly reclaimed or made secure to the cultivator by the construction of new supply works. The larger propor- tion of this great work has been done within the last thirty years, and one-half of it at least within the past fifteen years. The amount in- vested exceeds $150,000,000, and the profit thereon is large though obtained from indirect methods, such as land revenue and the increase for industry found in the Security and peace of the empire. A con- siderable proportion of the works have, however, yielded a fair per cent of profit for several years on the large capital invested. In the northwest provinces, for example, where the administration has been able to concern itself with Some simple questions, though of great mag- nitude, such as the reclamation of new lands, the restoration on purely sº *º- AMERICAN HYDRAULIC ENGINEERING AND ITS VALUE. 19 engineering grounds of old works, the renewal and settlement of land workers or ryots, and the framing and execution of simple laws and regulations based on old customs and rules, the direct profit resulting on capital invested has been sufficient to satisfy the most exacting of investors. The progress of the United States is next in order. In the past seven years the actual area of reclamation by irrigation cultivation has in- creased from about 5,000,000 acres to at least 8,500,000 acres, or, accord- ing to the table accompanying this report, 8,026,526 acres. There are small areas scattered throughout the region beyond the one hundredth meridian west from Greenwich, of which no reports have been made, sufficient in total amount to increase the figures to over 8,500,000 acres. But greater activity than this addition of 3,500,000 acres to the area of cultivation is seen in the growth of important hydraulic works. “Under ditch” this office reports for 1891 an estimated area of 18,286,207 acres. The largest proportion of this great addition to the cultivatable area will be made available for use within the next year; and by the opening of the World’s Columbian Exposition, the United States may anticipate the cul- tivation by means of irrigation of at least 17,000,000 acres of land that within the past decade have been declared by learned authority as wholly. irreclaimable, worthless for agriculture, useless for tree planting, and hardly fit for even the grazing of scraggy sheep and the broad-horned steer. Under projected works or partially constructed, nearly 5,000,000 acres may be added, making in all as now reclaimed Or in process of reclamation not less than 25,000,000 acres. THE WORK OF AMERICAN ENGINEERS. The map prepared from data furnished by the special agent in charge of the irrigation inquiry clearly illustrates the mode of settlement and occupation, and indicates also what must be the principles controlling the work of consulting engineers. Some sharp criticisms of the hydraulic and construction conceptions and execution of American engineers engaged in irrigation work are finding their way into the great and general dis- cussion now in progress. A large amount of this criticism is pertinent and well directed ; but very much proceeds from engineers trained in other lands, or from their younger admirers, who endeavor to imitate or mold after formulas and systems adapted to other conditions. There is doubtless considerable truth in Mr. Cope Whitehouse's criticism that “we have lots to learn in western America before we can talk irrigation.” That may be unquestionably true, but there is good reason for deny- ing the correctness of the further remark, attributed to the same emi- nent engineer, that “with scant exceptions” we are “below the level even of the minor modern constructions to be found among those Oriental nations whom the American engineer has been taught to despise.” Putting aside the self-contradictory segment of this dicta it must be said that a large proportion of the important irrigation works con- structed in our Western States during the past six or eight years are the equals of even the Anglo-Indian works, after taking out such great enterprises as the Upper and Lower Ganges canals, those of the Jumma, and a few others. There are American works that will stand compari- son with any in the world not constructed of masonry. Among such must be considered the very notable system known as the Bear Lake and River irrigation works in southeast Idaho and northern Utah; the Idaho and the Nampa canals in the Boisé Valley, Idaho; the splendid 20 - IRRIGATION. * constructions that are progressing in the Modesto and Tuflock, and the Colusa irrigation district of California; the very clever work done on the Maxwell grant in eastern New Mexico, where in both cases there is a large degree of engineering adaptability shown in devising plans suitable for climatic and topographic conditions. The great activity now displayed in Colorado with regard to the storage of water is giv- ing play to skillful use of engineering and expert knowledge and capacity. There is not to be found elsewhere the equals in capac- ity and economy of service, in results obtained, in methods of conser- vation, and in modes of distribution, especially in the latter direction of some of the systems now in vogue in southern California. There is no more bold engineering than that which has already stood the test of time and the strain of most unusual stormy precipitation, in the Sweet- water and the Bear Valley reservoirs and dams. They clearly point the way to the large systems of water storage that are, as rapidly as needed, coming into use. And the new works, such as the Tuolumne, the Hemet, and others, that are under way show a careful taking advantage of past experience. The methods of distribution, the materials em- ployed, and the skill displayed in the work accomplished by the service at Riverside, Ontario, Redlands, and the Alessandro and Perris dis- tricts, are almost if not wholly unequalled in the history of irrigation engineering, ancient and modern, and their projectors, engineers, con- structors, and administrators, are all Americans. Only one important California work has been devised by an engineer trained in the great Anglo-Indian school of irrigation works, and it has received very sharp criticism. The able engineers who have officially examined our systems on behalf of the Australian colonies of New South Wales and Victoria, as well as the more recently, the representative of the Russian Govern- ment, whose duties relate to the plans for irrigating the Asiatic oases now in possession of Russia, do not appear to share in the critical objec- tions under consideration. The transfer to Victoria and South Australia of the energies and organizing abilities of the irrigation experts who made the settlement of Ontario, southern California, an era in fruit cult- ure and economical water service, is a tribute to American capacity in that direction, which engineer critics can not afford to ignore. This reference is made not because the unfavorable allusions are undesirable as a spur to better efforts, but because their expression represents a point of view unfriendly to the progress of irrigation on lines already well defined. When it is really based upon a genuine desire to see security in construction combined with comprehensiveness in plans, it is too closely identified with the type of intellect and training which can only work to its best advantage upon the method of the paleontologist, who from one fossil bone can reconstruct the full skeleton of an unknown mammal. 4. IRRIGATION LEGISLATION. During the year 1891 great activity and interest has been manifested in legislation, as well as in judicial decisions relating to water supply and its management within the States and Territories of the arid region. A brief review of the salient facts in connection with these is given. In California the district irrigation system has been pressed steadily to a slowly growing success in spite of the fact that certain interests in various districts have made a strong legal fight against the laws and their operation. So powerful, however, is the feeling in that State in favor of this system that both the supreme and district courts uniformly LEGISLATION IN CALIFORNIA, NEVADA, AND WASHINGTON, 21 advance all cases arising under them. The majority of such cases here- tofore have been of a friendly character, intended to obtain decisions upon amicable presentations of disputed points of interpretation. Dur- ing the year 1891 a number of cases have, however, arisen in deliberate hostility to the effective working of the laws and the constitutionality of their provisions. The reason of this feeling is not far to find. The effects of district irrigation in southern California and in the San Joaquin Valley have been so marked in both the peace produced and the profits thereof, that it has stimulated activity in the northern and more cen- tral portions of the great valleys of the San Joaquin and Sacramento. The organizations of districts projected, like the West Side and Sunset in Fresno County, the Madera, the Turlock, and Modesto, in Stanislaus . County, and the three large districts in Colusa County have aroused feelings of hostility against the system on the part of many engaged in very extensive wheat culture or in the holding of lands for speculative purposes. To those acquainted with the conditions of wheat ranching in the portions of California mentioned it will not be a surprise that legal resistance should be made against well directed efforts under the district law of the small landowners and farmers to bring about better cultivation and the settlement of a larger population. They want more population and industry to bear the burdens of taxation and bring about improvements. Recently the State supreme court directed a retrial of a case in which the Madera district is involved. The constitutionality of the original Wright law was pressed by the parties against the dis- trict. This, it is reported, was more directly involved in the Madera case than in any that has appeared before the court, but the full bench threw out all such pleas and simply directed a re-trial upon an error made by the lower court in hearing some testimony not properly before it. It seems probable that with this conclusion there will be a cessation of attempts to legally obstructing the progress of the irrigation district system in California, * In Nevada the present district system has been applied and limited to the storage of water, leaving to irrigated communities themselves the task of managing and arranging with prior appropriators the commu- nity work or plan of distribution through the amicable purchase or condemnation of individual rights. One district has been fully organ- ized under the law and embraces the Truckee Basin, with Lake Donner as a storage reservoir. Another one will probably soon be organized in the Humboldt Valley. In Oregon, at the last legislative session, elaborate provisions of law were made for the supervision and distribu- tion of water for irrigation purposes. These provisions were of such a character as to lead almost inevitably to the enactment at the next Ses- sion of a district system for the eastern part of the State. In Washington, under an act passed at the last session of the State legislature, a district system has been organized. Several water supply areas have been formed into irrigation districts. Two of these are in the neighborhood of Ellensburg. A section of which North Yakima is the chief town has also been formed into a district. Others are reported, but no details have reached this office. The districts in Kittitass County it is claimed have proved a marked success, united the efforts of the people toward the improvement of their water supply, and aided in stopping neighborhood litigation. The first legislature of the State of Idaho, in session from January to March, 1891, passed a memorial to Congress, which, as it represents very clearly the feeling in favor of a change in the national public land 22 - ** IRRIGATION. - i system and presents the argument therefor in a conservative manner, as a matter of information and as a part of the general record, is here- with embodied : $ To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States in Congress assembled : Your memorialists, the first legislature of the State of Idaho, would most respect- . fully represent : That the State of Idaho lies wholly within the arid domain, and that agriculture is dependent upon irrigation. The reclamation and settlement of the agricultural lands must be accomplished therefore under different conditions from those confront- ing the pioneers in the humid portions of this country. The present land system is the outgrowth of the experience of humid districts, and is wholly unsuited to the conditions which prevail in this State, and as a result interposes serious obstacles to the rapid and prosperous utilization of our agricultural resources and the making of . homes by those who are ready and willing to take part in reclaiming the desert. Your memorialists would also respectfully represent that the most effective rem- edy for these evils, and the measure which promises the most beneficial results, not only to this State, but to the whole country, would be for Congress to donate to this State all the agricultural and grazing lands within its borders, under such restric- tions as would safely and perpetually secure their utilization by actual settlers and cultivators of the land donated, and would respectfully offer the following as among the reasons for asking for such control and as justifying such donation : That the reclamation of the agricultural lands imposes upon the settlers engaged in the work and upon the State government obligations and expenses not incurred in the humid portions of the country. Not only must ditches be constructed and the lands be prepared for the application of water before there is any return to the farmer, but with the multiplication of these works it becomes necessary for the State to ex- ercise a supervision over them in order that those entitled to the use of the public waters may receive it. The expense of such supervision is of necessity heavy. In Idaho there are 2,000 ditches diverting the waters of over 500 streams. The exami- nation of these claims, the determination of the priority and the subsequent division of the waters among the various claimants gives rise to problems which require both ability and experience on the part of those charged with their solution and requires the employment by the State of a large number of officers. Thus far the Territory has borne the entire expense of the investigation of our agricultural resources and of the supervision of our public waters, and by the action of Congress granting the State the ownership of all the waters within its borders the expense and responsibility of such supervision must continue to be borne. The effi- ciency of this supervision is greatly impaired by the inability of the State to assist in any way in the reclamation and settlement of the desirable lands or to restrict the diversion of water on the less desirable. In this connection it must be remembered that the lands susceptible of irrigation is largely in excess of the water to serve them, and that agricultural values inhere in the water rather than in the land. Such se- lection should therefore be made as will secure the use of the water on the best lands, since they vary greatly in value and the quantity of water required. . With no super- vision the water may be so diverted that the quantity required for irrigation of one acre would suffice for the reclamation of two, three, or four acres of land in more favor- able locations, but so long as this matter is left wholly to individual ability and in- clination, so long will the public interest be lost sight of and wasteful and improper diversions be made. Our experience during the past five years has shown the evils growing out of the control of the land being under one authority and the water under another. If the late Territory of Idaho could during the past ten years have controlled the disposal of the irrigable lands within its borders, it could, while disposing of it to actual set- tlers only, have afforded such protection to canal companies as would have given our agriculture four times its present importance and more than doubled our popula- tion. The most extensive and valuable bodies of irrigable lands in the State, those bordering our principal rivers, more particularly the Snake River, are untouched, be- cause the experience in constructing canals and the time required for their comple- tion places the work beyond the reach of individual enterprise and effort, and the general land laws have made colony or corporate enterprises too hazardous, to be undertaken. The local government could do nothing to aid the work, both from lack of means and want of proper control. Another evil of the present cordition of affairs is the tendency toward a separation of water rights and land titles. If the State controlled the lands it would be possible to connect water rights with land titles of all irrigable lands. That this is desirable is admitted by all familiar with the subject. It is both an aid in preventing monopolies in water by companies and securing its more economical use by farmers. The importance of the pastoral interests in this State makes it desirable that pro- .* <2. * IRRIGATION LEGISLATION VETOED IN IDAHO. 23 vision be made for the utilization of the grazing land in connection with the contigu- ous irrigable areas. These lands comprise a large part of territorial extent. They can never be made the self-supporting habitation of man, but furnish a valuable complement to the lands reclaimed—the first furnishing the summer's and the latter the winter's food supply. None of the present land laws make adequate provision for securing possession or management of these lands, and some further legislation is needed to meet the requirements of our prospective development and increased population. We believe, however, that it is impossible for Congress to pass a gen- eral law which will operate with equial justice and success on the arid belt as a whole. The conditions differ in different sections, as do our water laws. Idaho differs from Utah, and Arizona from Montana and Wyoming. The people of each section are the best calculated to determine the system best suited to their needs, and should be given the means of carrying it into effect. The results already achieved are a sufficient guaranty of what can be accom- plished under more favorable conditions. Under the territorial laws $10,000,000 was invested in irrigation works and over 1,000,000 acres of land reclaimed thereby. Not only has the value of the land been enhanced thereby from ten to one hundred fold, but its productive capacity has been correspondingly augmented. Such results are of interest and value to the whole nation, and we believe entitle the State to generous recognition. The provisions of the State constitution require the inaugu- ration of the most systematic and complete supervision of the public waters yet un- dertaken by any Commonwealth in this country. It is only, however, by uniting the control of both water and lands under one authority that our irrigation system can have the fullest measure of stability and success. We believe that the control of this subject can wisely and safely be in- trusted to the State, since the practical knowledge of irrigation in this country is almost wholly confined to those engaged in the work. By endowing the State with 1means and placing upon it the responsibility for the development of our resources, a great impulse will be given to the diffusion of intelligence on the subject and to local pride in the character of our irrigation works. It will put the solution of this prob- lem in the hands of the people best informed and most interested in its success. An elaborate bill providing for the appropriation and distribution of water, the condemnation of land for canals, ditches, and conduits, em- powering C unty commissioners and district courts to establish a max- imum rate for the use of water, and providing also for the adjudication of right and priorities in appropriating, diverting, carrying, or storing water for beneficial purposes, was passed by the legislature. The gov- ernor, under date of March 21, returned the bill to the secretary of state with his veto. This document is one of decided interest, and so clearly gives the objections urged against certain forms of water man- agement and administration that it will be read with interest. It is as follows: The general scope of this bill, as is shown by its title, is a very broad one. It aims to regulate one of the leading (if not the leading) industries of the State. A large per- centage of our arable lands are properly termed arid, and without water artificially introduced will be valueless for centuries to come, as they have been for centuries past. The land exists in place. It can not be brought to the water—the water must be brought to the land. Only a small amount of our arid land is susceptible of irrigation by small and comparatively inexpensive canals, which are or may be constructed by associations of farmers, who divide the water among themselves and are quite inde- pendent of any statutory system of distribution and regulation. But by far the largest portion of the arid land Illust be irrigated by canals of great size and length, involving the expenditure of great sums of money and much time in their construc- tion. These enterprises are the ones mainly affected by the provisions of this bill. It is true, the consumers of water are also intended to be protected in their constitu- tional and equitable rights, and though not numerous at present, it is fairly to be presumed will become very numerous, indeed, in the near future. But this can only happen when water is brought on or in the vicinity of the land to be irrigated. Up to the present no complaint has reached me that the rights and privileges of this class of our citizens have been infringed or threatened. It is one of the possibilities only of a more or less distant future that these rights may be in- fringed. In the meantime the possibility of rigorous and perhaps prohibitory re- striction upon the sale of water tends to discourage the completion of canals already under way, and prevents the formation of new enterprises, of which our State now stands so much in need. These considerations lead me to the conclusion that so much power ought not to be conferred upon a practically irresponsible body of men as is conferred upon the county commissioners by this act. The law is premature. The danger has not arisen. I have examined the present law. It contains the fun- 24 . - IREIGATION. - . - damental principles that underlie a good irrigation scheme, and when the time for elaboration of details arrives I am fully convinced that a legislature with wisdom and discretion equal to the task will also appear in view. Respectfully, NorMAN B. WILLEY, Governor. In Arizona, during 1891, a constitutional convention met at Phoenix, the capital of the Territory. The most striking discussion during its Session was over the article on water rights. Propositions to the num- ber of six were introduced. They all united in declaring that the nat- ural waters of the proposed State belonged to the people, were the property of the State, or were held by the legislature thereof for the use and benefit of the public. Riparian rights were denied by all. The legislature was to be given power to supervise and control the distribu- tion of water. The two points at issue were, first, whether by the terms of the article the natural waters of the State should be declared to be the property of the public, held by the legislature in trust for their benefit, or the “the property of the State,” the mode and manner of acquiring and exercising which should be subject to legislative control; second, whether or no irrigation districts should be formed. The following article was adopted in open convention September 29, 1891, as the certificate of the secretary of the convention, H. C. Bar- nard, testifies: * WATER AND WATER RIGHTS, SEC. 1. All natural streams and lakes within the boundaries of this State, capable of being used for the purposes of navigation or irrigation, are hereby declared to be the property of the State. 3. SEC. 2. The common law doctrine of riparian water rights shall never be applie in this State, nor shall the right to use water heretofore lawfully appropriated to beneficial uses ever be denied. SEC. 3. The right of the people to appropriate and use the unappropriated waters of this State for beneficial purposes shall never be denied ; priority of appropriation shall give the better right. SEC. 4. The right of individuals or corporations to construct reservoirs and im- pound and appropriate the surplus and flood waters in this State, for sale, rental, domestic, stock, or any beneficial purpose, shall never be denied. The first locator of a reservoir right shall have priority. A failure to construct reservoirs and canals within a reasonable time after location, and a failure to use reasonable diligence to maintain the same so as to supply water, shall be held to work a forfeiture of such rights. . 5. Every appropriator of water shall use the same reasonably and economi- cally. SEC. 6. The mode and manner of acquiring and exercising all of said rights shall be subject to legislative control. AMENDMENT BY COMMITTEE. SEC. 7. The legislature shall have power to authorize the organization of irrigation districts, and the creation of a debt, for the construction or purchase of reservoirs, dams, canals and ditches, and other appliances required to supply water to lands in said districts. But such debt, principal, and interest shall subject only the lands benefited or reclaimed to taxation to pay the same— SEC.—. The legislature shall pass laws requiring the owner or owners of every ditch or canal from which water is rented or sold to other parties, to use reasonable diligence in keeping such ditch or canal in such condition and repair as to supply the water required. The constitution, with this article in it, was ratified by a majority of 3,000 at an election held on the first Tuesday in December, 1891. The discussion in the press and before the people was quite exhaustive, it being charged that, by the article adopted by the convention and pop- ular vote, to the State as a corporate body was given the ownership of the natural waters; that the legislature was empowered to dispose of them and to permit their sale or rental for “beneficial purposes;” that IN ARIZONA, KANSAs, souTH DAKOTA, AND COLORADo. 25. it had no power to prevent access to any body of natural water by any corporation or parties seeking their appropriation for sale and profit; and that said provisions were contrary to the principles found in Span- ish and Mexican law, upon which the territorial code had been founded, and the provisions were altogether at variance with the general policy of States like Colorado, which makes water natural wealth and the property of the public, while providing that the legislature shall only be the trustee and conserver, and not the owner or seller thereof... The irrigat- ing ranchmen and farmers of Arizona took a contrary view to these criti- cisms, while the district provision met with general favor on both sides. The State legislature of Kansas passed, at its last session, 1891, an elaborate code of legal regulations for the government and distribution of Water supply within the semiarid portion of that State. It is prob- ably the most direct, simple, and even drastic system of State and mu- nicipal control and supervision, which has yet been legislatively adopted. It provides for the organization of municipal irrigation dis- tricts with power to issue bonds for works not to exceed in amount $1 per acre of the area embraced. It also provided for tribunals to settle Water disputes and contains other provisions of importance. One dis- trict in Finney County, embracing Garden City and adjacent portions of the Arkansas Valley, has already been organized. This bill was framed and submitted to the legislature by Judge J. W. Gregory, of Garden City, who has served the Department in the artesian and under- flow investigation. Its main features as drafted by him were adopted. The operations under the Melville irrigation act in South Dakota bid fair to prove as useful to that State in its degree as the Wright code of laws has in California. It provides that upon petition of at least twenty property owners within a township, the State irrigation engineer shall examine the township for sites for artesian wells. If the engineer approves, the township may issue bonds to pay the cost of constructing not more than nine 6 inch or sixteen 4-inch wells, located by the en- gineer with a view to their success as wells and their availability for irrigating the lands of the township. During the year 1891 State Irrigation Engineer J. H. Baldwin located One hundred and fifty well sites, and the number may be increased before his official report is made to the State legislature. The limita- tion of the townships to the issue of but 5 per cent of their assessed . valuation in the matter of artesian-well bonds has given a market Stability, which, combined with the assured success of irrigation by means of artesian water, has made this legislation a success. During the year the State legislature of Colorado adopted laws which were approved by the governor, providing for the encouragement of water storage by means of reservoirs. These methods of storage are multiplying very rapidly, and the legislation proposed seeks to define the legal methods by which the people owning them may be able to use the same without infringing upon the rights of others. Another bill was introduced to define the phrase “water for domestic purposes,” as used in the State constitution. This is a subject very much in con- troversy in that State. Under the bill introduced it was provided that the phrase shall not be so interpreted as to include water for the irri- gation of land or plants in any manner or to any extent whatever. Water intended only for domestic purposes is not to be carried for irri- gation ditches or conduits, where the loss by seepage, breakage, or evaporation exceeds 2 per cent of the water so carried. Whether this bill became law the office is not informed. Two decisions have recently been made by a district judge, in which the old irrigation settlements of Greeley and neighborhood are greatly interested. 26 IRRIGATION. e- This case has been decided by the judge in favor of the landowner on which an irrigation pump had been operated. It was charged that the Water lifted by the pump was the product of seepage from a neighbor- ing ditch. The ditch, however, was not a party to the suit. The per- Sons suing were appropriators of water from a small creek on the other side of the pumped land from the ditch. It was alleged that the ditch Seepage had increased the flow of the creek and that upon such in- creased flow the appropriation in 1886 had been made. When the pumps were in operation upon the land lying between the creek and the ditch the allegation is that the flow almost ceased in the creek. Action was brought to enjoin the further use of the pumps. The judge’s instruc- tions were in substance as follows: That water percolating beneath the soil (in no well defined channel) belongs to the owner of the land and he is privileged to use the same as he thinks best. This is the first time that the question has arisen in Colorado and, so far as knowledge now goes, in any of the States requiring irrigation for reclamation purposes. It is quite probable that in Colorado the decision, if sustained by the Supreme Court, will give great impulse to the use of pumps in lifting the gravel-drainage and other phreatic waters. A clause in the irriga- gation laws of that State, conveys to the man who will develop or bring to the surface of his own land all the water which he may find under- neath the same. This much is certain, that, in the interpretation given by the judge and sustained by the jury, the application will most cer- tainly be at variance with the codes and practices of older and more ancient irrigation communities. The general principle of Spanish, Moor- ish, Indian, and Asiatic law on this subject is, that underground waters developed by a land owner are the property of that person, subject to the condition that the water rights of other persons are not injured , thereby. It is quite within the power of persons using pumps to place the same in such close contact with a reservoir or ditch, as actually to drain the waters thereof. A clearer comprehension of the equities un- derlying such a question as this may soon produce a modification of the decision given. Another decision by the same court embodies the principle embraced in the contention that a public irrigation canal is a common carrier. It also embodies the conception that the beneficial uses to which water Is to be applied must not be hindered or prevented by the action of the canal companies. The plaintiffs in the suit were the owners of a cer- tain reservoir constructed by themselves as farmers. They were also the owners of certain or all of the water rights in a connected ditch. During the last summer their crops being in danger, they desired to run water from the reservoir through the ditch, but were refused by the parties owning the same. An order was given in court granting the right to run the reservoir water through the said canal. An in- junction was obtained in a Denver court forbidding this action. This was afterwards dissolved by the same judge. Suit was then entered in the Greeley court, and damages to the extent of $1,200 were obtained. It is alleged that the exercise of this power would interfere with the duties of the ditch as a common carrier, as all headgates along theroute would have to be shut down while the water was running. The probability is that this objection was a legal fiction in the case under consideration, as it is understood that the plaintiffs were all the patrons of the ditch in ques- tion, but the presentation of such points show the importance of the issues that arise and the legal principles involved. The courts in Col- orado are especially involved and loaded with cases connected with irrigation and water conservation and distribution. More and more --- REFERENCES TO LAWS AND MUNICIPAL DISTRICTS. 27 the necessity will arise for simplifying legal enactments and placing . the control of water and works nearer to and more directly in the hands of the people affected by and interested in them. The following dates and titles refer to the irrigation legislation of the past year in the States and Territories named: [California.—(State Laws, pp. 46, 127, 128,211,229, 247) March 1, 20, 31, 1891.] Regulation—Election of boards of directors of irrigation districts. Assessments for improvements, irrigation districts. { Board of railroad commissioners to have same powers in relation to irrigation com- panies as in relation to railroad companies. Reclamation of lands—Powers of trustees of districts. Reclamation of districts, unpaid assessments payable in installments. Organization and government of levee districts, to confine innavigable running streams to fixed channels. g Land and water corporations may divide property among stockholders. [Colorado.—(S. L., pp. 96, 97,385,402) March 19; April 1, 2, 1891.] Reservoirs—Construction by ditch companies. - Ditch and reservoir companies may extend term of incorporation. Water appropriated for domestic purposes shall not be used for irrigation. Water rights and lands—towns and cities may purchase. - [Kansas.—(S. L., p. 133) March 10, 1891.) Creation of irrigation districts. Diversion and appropriation of water for industrial uses. Rate of charges for water purchased from irrigation companies. Disposal of seepage waters. Artesian wells—regulation. [Montana.—(S. L., p. 295) March 6, 1891.] Mode of obtaining right of way. [New Mexico.—(Territorial Laws, pp. 54,71) February 24, 26, 1891.] Water—Appropriation for ditches, canals, or feeders of reservoirs. Filing state- ment of work necessary to secure priority of right. º County commissioners to furnish tools, work to be done by citizens. [Nevada.—(S, L., p. 92) March 23, 1891.] Irrigation districts, organization and government. [North Dakota.—(S. L., pp. 33, 34, 75) March 6, 7, 11, 1891.] Irrigation, formation of districts, regulation. Creating office of State superintendent of irrigation and forestry—duties. Sinking by townships for public purposes, issue of bonds therefor. To encourage construction by private parties and corporations. [Oregon.—(S. L., pp. 52, 74) February 28, 20, 1891.] Appropriation of water for irrigation and other purposes. Irrigating ditches. Punishment for obstructing streams. [Washington.—(S.L., pp. 60, 142) March 2, 9, 1891.] Appropriation of water for irrigation, mining, manufacturing, or public water works. * * Cutting or breaking of dikes or dams. [Wyoming.—(S. L., pp. 8, 88) December 22, 1890; January 10, 1891.] Water districts—Constitution and government of. Water commissioners—Appointment and duties of. Ditch and water companies may issue bonds or mortgage property. MUNICIPAL CONTROL OF IRRIGATION WATER AND WORKS. The irrigation districts of California still continue to hold, in the discussion of administrative organization methods, the largest place. The following table, corrected up to November, 1891, will be of value in this connection. It gives a list of the fully organized districts (now thirty-two in number), their location, the names and post-office addresses of the secretaries, the acreage embraced in each district, the amount of bonds voted and sold, and the amount per acre for which the irri- gator will be liable in each instance. § | Irrigation districts in California, 1891. Bonds tº a tº No. of | Con- Bonds Bonds * Name of district. County. Secretary. Address. acres. |firmed. | voted. sold. *: Alessandro -------------------- San Bernandino--------------- ‘gº H. Kelsey------------- Moreno, Cal ------- gº º ºs tº º 25, 506 || Yes. $765, 000 765,000 || $30.00 Citrus Belt ---------. ----------|------ do ----------------------- C. C. Woodroof.--------------. Colton, Cal.------------- 11, 700 || Yes. 800,000 800,000 68. 37 East Riverside........... is tº s is a = | is tº sº e s = do ----------------------- J. A. Vanarsdale.-------------|------ do ----------- tº º e º sº 3, 600 || Yes. 250,000 100,000 83. 33 Grapeland ---------------------|------ do ----------------------- E. T. Myers.... --...-- tº tº e as a sm as ºn tº Grapeland, Cal.--...----- 10,787 || Yes. 200,000 Oſle, 18. Rialto ------------------ & Cº. is º º ºs ºs I º ºs º ºs º ºs do ----------------------- Devillo Robinson ..... gº tº gº tº ſº ºn tº ſº. Colton, Cal.---- gº as is º e º gº tº s 7, 200 || Yes. 500,000 500,000 69. 44 Box Spring --------------------|------ do -----------------------|----------------------- & e º sº s = * * * | * * * * * is e º ºs s = º ºs e º ºs ºº e º ſº º ºs º sº º e 4),000 | No. | Not st'd. | Not st'd. |........ Elsinore ----------------------- San Diego --------- sº a s s = * * * * * * D. F. Pierce......... gº tº º ºs º ºs & dº º ºs Flsinore, Cal.----------- 11, 300 || Yes. 452,000 (a) 49.88 Linda Vista -------------------|------ do -----------------------|---------------------- tººl tº its tº tº $ tº * * * * g g g g g º gº gº º º ºs º ºn tº E tº ſº tº gº e º ſº tº gº tº ſº 42,000 | No. None. None. ------- ſº Jamacha ----------------------|------ do -----------------------|--------------------------------|-------------------------- 22,000 || Yes. | Not st'd. b25,000 |..... tº º º Otay---------------------------|------ do -----------------------|--------------------------------|-------------------------- 60,000 | No. None. None. -------- San Marcos. ------------------|------ do -----------------------|---------------- ---------------|-------------------------- 40, 000 || Yes. 350,000 c350,000 9. 45 Alessandro --------------------|------ do -----------------------|--------------------------------|-------------------------- 25,000 Yes. 765, 000 a765, 000 30. 65 Escondido ---------------------|------ do ----------------------- A. J. Werden ----------------- Escondido, Cal.......... 12, 800 || Yes. 450, 000 (a) 35, 12 Fallbrook.---------------------|------ do ---------------------- - G. A. Scott.------------------- Fallbrook, Cal .......... 12,000 | No. 400,000 (a) -------- Murrieta ...---- tº e s e º e º ºs e s is e º 'º e I s is as s as e do ...--------------------| J. C. Mason ----- gº tº s º ºs tº * * * -----| Murrieta, Cal.---------- 15, 600 | No. None. None. 33.83 Perris -------------------------|------ do ----------------------- H. A. Plimpton --------------. Perris, Cal.------------- 22,800 || Yes. 442,000 || a252,000 19.48 San Jacinto and Pleasant Valley |...... do -----------------------|-------------------------------- Winchester, Cal ........ 19, 700 | No. None, None. -------- Spring Valley ----------------. ---- do ----------------------|------------------------------ * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 22, 000 | No. None. None. -------- Big Rock Creek --------------- Los Angeles------------------- L. C. Tilghman --------------. Llano, Cal -------------- 40,000 || Yes. 400,000 400,000 10. 00 Pomona Orange Belt. ----------|-- ----do ----------------------- F. P. Firey-------------------. Pomona, Cal ------------ 4, 500 | *Yes. 200,000 None. 44. 44 Palmdale -----...-----. tº ſº tº º º sº tº $ tº º ºs º ºn tº sº do ----------- dº e º ºs s a te e º 'º e º | * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * g º me tº ſº a sm ºn tº s \ is tº sº tº º ºs º º º º ºs No. 1.-----------|------------|-------- Vineland ..... tº e º is ºn tº dº nº sº tº ſº tº gº gº ºn tº a ------do ----------------------- I.N. Rhodes -----------------. Vineland, Cal........... 4, 500 | No. 50,000 50,000 11. 11 Santa Gertrudes. --------------|-----. do ----------------------- F. McCarie ------------------ *| Santa Fé Springs....... 2, 600 O. None. One. I. - - - - - - - Anaheim ---------------------- Orange ------- tº ſº e º e º 'º sº sº sº dº sº º sº º ºs B. V. Garwood ----------------| Anaheim, Cal-...--...----- 32, 500 | f Yes. 600,000 200,000 18, 46 Orland South Side ............. Colusa.----------------------- T. H. Dawson. ---------------- Orland, Cal -...---- gº º e º s sº e 25,000 || Yes. On 6 None. I.- ... --- Central------------------------|------ do ----------------------- R. DeLappe. ------------------ Maxwell. Cal ----------. 156, 550 || Yes. 750, 000 480,000 4. 78 Kraft ------- is º 'º gº tº tº gº tº tº ſº * * g º tº tº tº º ſº º || * * * * * * do ----- tº gº gº gº ºn tº e º º ºs º gº tº gº ºn tº tº Gº J. W. Rogers ----------------- Orland, Cal.------------ 13, 500 || Yes. 80,000 O]] 0. 5.93 Colusa. ------- tº gº e º ſº tº $ tº tº tº º is ºn tº sº sº * * * * * * * * do ------ tº gº tº ºn gº ſº s is us tº tº s vs. º ºs ºn tº e s sº tº s = * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * : * as sº as * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 100,000 | No. 600,000 None 6. 00 Tulare------------------------- Tulare.----------------------- E. Oakford.------------------. Tulare, Cal ------------- 36,700 || Yes. 500, 000 150,000 18, 61 Tule River --------------------|------ do -----------------------|---------- * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * e º e º sm º gº is s º ºs º ºs ºn s is m = * * * * * * * * * * ić, 000 | No | Not std. | Not st'd. ....... tº º sº a tº º º ſº tº º te tº gº º g tº ſº tº tº gº tº º tº tº sº tº ern -------------------------| J. E. Anderson. ---------------| Spottiswood, Cal.------- 40,000 || Yes. 500,000 250,000 12, 50 Rern and Tulare ---...--------- Rern and Tulare ------------. J. O. Sidener -----------------. Delano, Cal ,------------ 84, 335 | tyes. 700, 000 350,000 8, 60 Madera ...---------------------. Fresno------------------------ B. H. Cox --------------------- Madera, Cal -----------. 305, 000 || Yes. 850, 000 OIRO, 2. T8 gº tº º º tº º sº º º ºn gº ºs e º ºs º º sº gº º ºs e º ºs º º ºs Fresno and Tulare.----------. George H. Weaver............ Dinuba, Cal.------------ 129,927 || Yes. 675,000 416,000 5.19 Sunset. ------------------------|------ do ----------------------- M. McWhorter --------------| Selma, Cal.------------. 363,400 | No. 2,000,000 None. 5. 50 Selma--------------------------|------ do ---------- we º 'º we as dº º is sº tº we º 'º W. L. Chappell ---------------|-----. do ----------------- 271,000 | No. None. None. -------- Modesto. ------------ tº is nº º ſº is tº me a m Stanislaus -------------------- C. S. Abbott ----------- tº e º e º ſº tº Modesto, Cal.--...--...-. 81, 500 || Yes. 800,000 142,000 9.81 Turlock ---------------- * tº gº tº gº º ºs Stanislaus and Merced........ R. M. Williams --------------. Ceres, Cal -------------- 176,210 || Yes. 600,000 422, 500 3. 40 Browns Valley ---------------. Yuba -------------- tº se me e s an º ºs e º sº John McFarlane.------------- Browns Valley - - - - - - - - - 43,000 | No. 100,000 100,000 2, 56 Happy Valley------------- ----| Shasta.---------------- dº sº º sº tº º e ºn tº E se as tº as as º ºs ºn sº e º e s e* - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 18, 000 | No. None. None. I.--...--- Total sº as ºn tº º ºn e º 'º gº ſº ºn tº ſº ſº º sº e º 'º ºn as ºn as tº º sº is sº º ºs e º 'º º tº ºn tº sº sº º is e º sº tº ge * * * sº e i s m me ºn tº s as e º sº tº e º ºn tº e s m º ºs tº ... & tº ſº tº ºn tº ſº tºs tº ſº º ºs ºº tº gº tº ſº º gº ºs ºs tº e º sº, sº as we an ºn tº e s tº sº s 2, 412, 215 * & ſº tº tº gº º º 14, 787,000 652, 500 t20.80 * Confirmation of bonds denied. f Bond issue declared illegal. {Average cost per acre on 29 districts that are among the most costly in Cali- fornia. This figure represents, however, a 20 years purchase. f e, a These districts are now bein system of reservoirs. b Works of a private corporation have been purchased. - c Negotiating with Eastern construction company for sale of bonds. * g, or will be furnished water from the Bear Valley ADVANTAGES OF IRRIGATION DISTRICTS AND CONTROL. 29 It will be observed that twenty-four of these organized districts are located in the four southern counties; that one is in Fresno County, two in Tulare; three jointly in that county and Tulare; one in Kern, and one in Kern and Tulare; with one, the Turlock, in Stanislaus County, and one in Merced County (the Modesto); the San Joaquin Valley has 11 of these organizations. Colusa County, in the Sacramento Valley, northern California, has three districts, and Yuba, a lower Sacramento county, has the remaining one. Up to the date of this table, twenty-four districts have been confirmed by the courts. The bonds of only one district have been declared illegal. Thirteen of the thirty-nine named in the table are still in process of organization. The voters of the Sunset district have rejected the proposition for an issue of bonds. The State Association of Irrigation Districts have succeeded in secur- ing the favorable support of San Francisco banks in the work of nego- tiating the bonds of the several districts. The State Board of Trade asked for a special investigation of the district system by the De- partment, and the Irrigation Congress which assembled at Salt Lake City in September, 1891, also indorsed the system. Under a later date than the table given, from report made at a meeting of the State Asso- ciation, it is learned that the Vineland district, Los Angeles County, had successfully disposed of $50,000 in bonds. The district is small, containing only 4,500 acres, and is devoted wholly to fruit growing. A tunnel of 300 feet has been made and 15 miles of vitrified clay pipe has been laid. The Anaheim district has sold its bonds to the amount of $200,000. In the orange district, not given in the table, the water needed has been bought with bonds at par. East Riverside (embracing the Gage wells and canal system) has been successfully organized and all the bonds are sold or taken in exchange for a water supply. No other particulars received. The Browns Valley district, Yuba County, has sold $120,000 of its bonds, the full issue. Pasadena, the well- known fruit-growing community of Los Angeles, has also decided to form a district organization, and steps to that end have been taken. The consensus of opinion throughout California is strongly favorable to this policy. Engineer Grunsky, of San Francisco, expresses this opinion when he says in a paper sent to this office, that— - The advantage of vesting ownership and control of canals upon which landowners must rely for their supply of irrigation water in the landowners or rather in the land itself, received a proper recognition when the law authorizing the formation of irri- gation districts was passed four years ago. District after district has been formed under this law until there are now about thirty duly organized in this State. Some of these districts by reason of the purchase of canals already in successful operation are now gradually developing sets of rules and regulations for the distribution and use of water, others are rapidly carrying their works forward to completion, but most of them have barely commenced construction of works. As already stated the California method has made its way into other States. There are three districts formed in Washington, and one in Kansas, under recent legislation of those States. In South Dakota over one hundred artesian wells districts (township) have been formed. There is some question as to the bonds under the Dakota law, which however will probably be cured by the next State legislature. ÖPPOSITION TO THE SYSTEM. The progress of the California irrigation district system is a matter which materially concerns all of the communities interested in the man- agement of water for the purpose of cultivating the soil. A consider- 30 IRRIGATION. able controversy has arisen, and various charges have been made as to the failure of certain districts to furnish a proper supply to their resident irrigators, and also intimating extravagance and corruption in the man- agement of other districts. This office, in consideration of the policy involved in the progress of the California system, endeavored to ascer- tain the truth of the criticism of the charges made. Without partisan- ship it is easy to perceive that well-established canal and irrigation companies having large areas prosperous in condition tributary to their systems would naturally be opposed to any change which would destroy their organization. The opposition this would make must of necessity be powerful when the company interests is strengthened by the objec- tion of the cultivators under their ditches to any change in the system. In the great raisin-growing region about Fresno this feeling on the part of canal owners and irrigators is very marked. Outside of the vine- yard section there are in that county great tracts of land owned by single individuals or combinations of persons and held largely unculti- wated for the market rise. A natural consequence of such a condition is the efforts of the more intelligent irrigator, who may own but a small farm, to Secure the advantages which association produces under the Wright district system. Following the lines of this interesting move- ment a controversy relating to the Selma irrigation district was noticed as proceeding in the press. Correspondence had with leading men shows that the proposed district is now irrigated by a system of ditches belong- ing to a private corporation. The issue of bonds for the purchase or con- struction of works was decided at a district election, and a majority of 119 votes were cast against the proposition. It is alleged on the onehand that the corporation actively worked to secure the defeat; on the other hand it is asserted that the majority of those voting were content with the service furnished by the private company. All sorts of statements were made during the canvass. The Alta irrigation district, on the other side of Kings River from Selma, is one of the oldest formed under the Wright code. Against its administration accusations were made that the cost of irrigation was $5.75 per acre for the last season and that only 10,750 acres were watered. Mr. C. C. Wright, author of the laws and attorney for the district, in reply to a letter, pronounces the statements to be without foundation. Mr. Wright says: When the Alta district was formed there ran through it a large canal (then the largest in the State), and as its location was of the most favorable character it was purchased by the district at a cost of $410,000. This purchase was made on the 1st day of July, 1890. Since that time the board of directors have diligently prosecuted the work of completing the distributing branches, and as a result almost all of the land in the district is within easy access of the water for irrigation. The work of distribu- tion is not entirely completed but is mainly done and is practically at an end. There is no reason why every farmer may not have all the water he may need for irrigation at the coming season. The pay roll of the district during this constructive period has been very large and expenses correspondingly heavy. But the work which has been done will never have to be repeated, and if every acre in the district were actu- ally irrigated the cost would be but a trifle more than the expense which had to be met during the last season. The engineer most familiar with the situation estimates that a further expenditure of $65,000 will complete the system. The interest on this last-named amount at 6 per cent per annum would be $3,900, and this represents the additional amount which would have to be raised on interest account above what was raised for last year. The expense of officering the district would not be materi- ally more if every acre in it were actually irrigated. If the system is completed and every one may have water by applying for it, the cost of supply should be determined in dividing the total acreage by the total expense, and that will give the average cost per acre. The levy for 1891 (covering interest fund and general expense fund) will raise something over $55,000, and this sum, divided by the total acreage, 130,000 acres, gives an average cost of something over 40 cents per acre. Before the district . WESTERN SIDE OF THE SAN JOAQUIN WALLEY. 31 was organized the corporation which owned the canal furnished water on the follow- ing terms: $10 per acre for a water right and a further charge of $1 per annum per acre for supplying the water. Counting interest at the rate of 10 per cent per an- num (a rate which would have to be paid for small loans in the part of the State where this district is situated), the annual cost of irrigating each acre before the district was organized was $2. You can easily arrive at a fair estimate of the cost of this district irrigation with these figures before you. They have expended $410,000 for the main canal and the estimate of finishing the system is $65,000 more. This limit will enable the board of directors to cancel $200,000 of the bonds voted by the people for the perfection of a system. That is not very disappointing to the people I would say. By consulting the law one will be able to arrive at an approximately correct estimate of the current expense of running the district. The board of di- rectors are required to meet at least once a month. When the system is completed they would not meet oftener. For one meeting each director would get $4 and mile- age to the place of meeting from his residence. The other officers get such compen- sation as the board may fix, provided that the people of the district can vote a sal- ary schedule at any regular election. Mr. Wright states of other district matters in the valley of the San Joaquin that the Sunset district, as it is termed, to the west of Fresno, and comprising a very large portion of the comparatively low table- land region which make up the eastern slope of the Coast Range, is now engaged in making the permanent surveys necessary for the com- petitive plans they will need in order to carry on their system. The usual preliminary court proceedings necessary to establish the legiti- macy and legal character of their organization have been successfully carried through the courts. The establishment of this district, if suc- cessful, will open up a great range of fertile country now entirely given over to very sparsely occupied sheep and cattle ranches. A section profile of the San Joaquin Valley, passing through Fresno City as a central point and following the mountains to their summits on either side of the valley, will reach the summit of the Sierra Nevada at or near Mount Whitney on the east. On the west it will pass just north of San Carlos on the famous Panoche Grande grant. On the ex- treme eastern point the elevation will be over 14,000 feet, on the extreme western end it will be about 6,000 feet. In the center, a few miles west of Fresno City, the valley will be at or near sea level. On the east- ern range the precipitation at the highest point will be not less than 75 or 80 inches per annum. On the western it will be from 28 to 35. At the lowest point in the valley it will not exceed 7 inches. Nearly all of the streams from which an irrigation supply is derived for the San Joaquin Valley, head in the Sierra Nevada Range, finding their sources at the base or on the sides of Mount Whitney, The streams of the Coast Range run toward the Pacific. As a result of these topo- graphical conditions, the western side of the lower San Joaquin Valley has been deemed too arid to be utilized for irrigation purposes. The plan of the Sunset district managers involves the carrying of a water supply from the east side by means of a costly flume across the lowest portion of the great valley. It is this situation that gives such impor- tance to their enterprise. The development of a water supply upon the Coast Range is too hazardous a plan to be undertaken at present, and so it becomes more practicable to furnish the same from the Sur- plus of the eastern streams. Great prizes, commercially speaking, are presented to the minds of men of organizing and speculative character in that region by the possibility still before them of obtaining a profit- able control of the surplus and storm waters of streams like the King Tiver. Doubtless this possibility adds a great deal to the tenacity with which the district system has been fought. The recent decision of the Supreme Court as to the legality of the Madera district, also a part 32 IRRIGATION. of this great valley, is one of magnitude in its possible effect upon the system of large landowning and of water monopoly. The Madera dis- trict has an area of 330,000 acres, and under present circumstances more than one-third of the land is under the control of six owners; while the entire acreage irrigated as to water is tributary to two or three companies. The great canal and other works in the Modesto and Turlock districts are reported by Mr. Wright to be proceeding with considerable rapid- ity. He says: The great dam above La Grange will probably be completed within six months or less time (November, 1891). They have got high enough now to be independent of the rises of the winter and the work will go on without interruption until completed. The entire cost of construction in Modesto district will fall $200,000 below the amount provided for in the bond issue, while in Turlock district it will exceed the estimate by about the same figure. We expect that both of these districts will be supplied with water in time for the spring of 1893, or about one year from this date. This means that more than one-quarter million acres will be redeemed in these two dis- tricts alone. The valley of the Upper Sacramento is one of the great wheat-grow- ing regions of the State of California. In the valley the farms assume the character of large plantations. The smallest seldom ranges below 500 and then run up all the way to 40,000 acres. During the summer work of the special agent he drove over a portion of Colusa County for the purpose of examining the extensive works of the central irrigation district. The wheat harvest was in progress of reaping and gathering, as was the case also in Stanislaus County. It was a remarkable sight to see the great double-header machines drawn by from 24 to 36 mules and attended by from 5 to 10 men, making swaths often a mile in length, reaping, thrashing, and sacking the grain while in progress. The enor- mous areas of golden grain, ripening in the unblinking sunlight beneath the cloudless skies of central California, almost unvocal of human voices, with scarcely a dwelling in sight, and nothing to be seen but the monstrous machinery, and the enormous area of unfenced grain, was iudeed a striking spectacle. One could but sympathize with the bitter remark of a prominent public man with whom the journey in Stanislaus County was made, as we looked upon the huge machine in operation : “I want men, not things, to inhabit this country. That is why I am for irrigation.” In Colusa County, the center of the Sacre- mento Valley during the last decade, according to the United States census, the average size of the holding of land to each individual owner has increased considerably. The farm inhabitants have lessened in numbers. The foothill sections on either side of this valley are held in farms of moderate size, though much larger than the average fruit-holdings in Southern California. The farmers have been working down from the foothills into the valley and find themselves almost inevitably arrayed against the greater land-owning interest. The orchard is a profitable feature of the foothills region and the commercial value of California. fruit is stimulating great horticultural activity. This again creates a demand for the advantages embodied in the irrigation district system. As a consequence of the feeling on that subject three districts have been formed in Colusa County. The majority of votes cast in favor of this action by no means represents the majority of acres embraced. That fact probably accounts for the assertive vigor of the anti-district irriga- tion feeling. It is asserted that the cost of the great works now being constructed in the Central district will be so much larger than the offi- THE ENGINEER's OPINIONS ON CERTAIN DISTRICTs. 33 cial estimate as to result in the practical bankruptcy of the people interested. Mr. Wright, the attorney for the district, states that— The people first voted, I believe, $750,000 in bonds. If $200,000 more are required it will still leave the cost at less than $6 per acre. This cost per acre would be just what the people of Alta district paid for three years' water before the district was formed. C. E. Grunsky, the civil engineer in charge of the works, says, under date of December 1, 1891: The cost of our work as compared with the original estimates, which were of a general nature and made before the plans of work were fully matured, is clearly and correctly set forth in W. H. Hall’s report on the district. It is a fact that right of way has in some instances cost an excessive amount, but in submitting my original report I stated to the board of directors that I had not included right of way in my estimate because I was not then sufficiently familiar with public sentiment in the district to know at what value to figure the lands and privileges to be condemned. Excessive cost of right of way can therefore only be compared with an indefinite gen- eral estimate of its value as originally fixed by the board. - It is clearly shown that a further issue of bonds will be necessary to complete the district works. No new contracts have been awarded since Mr. Hall's report was written and work for this season has been suspended. Mr. William Ham. Hall, C. E., in a report on the district under con- sideration, states: At this day over 140,000 of its 156,540 acres are in tillage for cereals. Fruits and vines are in a small way and locally grown, and alfalfa in especially favored locali- ties, where water can be cheaply pumped. There are probably not over a couple of thousand acres in the district which have not been in tillage for a number of years. Wheat-growing is not profitable for small landowners. In the Cen- tral district of Colusa, according to Mr. Hall, there are 40 owners of over 1,000 acres each, with an aggregate among them of 89,000 acres or more than half the area of the district. The whole district contains but 180 owners of farming land. On these lands and outside two small towns there are but 260 voters—that is, 1.06 voters to the square mile. Ordinarily this would make five persons on that area, but as a consid- erable number are laborers and unmarried, the permanent population is very small indeed. A very large proportion of the landowners are not residents of the districts, and some of them not even of the State or nation. The upper Sacramento Valley has not until recently been discussed for irrigation purposes, but the former State engineer declares that the area is admirably adapted for farming by irrigation and small holdings. He gives the following succinct account of the system : As planned by the district chief engineer (Mr. Grunsky), the Central district irri- gation works will consist, of (1) a main canal, 61.35 miles in length, having in suc- cessive divisions 60, 55, 50, and so on down to 25 feet of bottom width, with side slopes of 1 in 13, and to carry 6 feet depth of water throughout on a uniform gradient of 1 in 1,000; and (2) 199 miles of distributary canals and ditches, varying in width from 8 to 20 feet on the bottom, and to carry water from 2 to 4 feet in depth on the slopes of the country generally across the district, as modified by occasional check weirs and drops to be built in these water ways. These canals and ditches are ex- pected to distribute water to the highest point of each section (640 acres) of land. The charge has been made by the opposition to the district that the total cost will not be less than $2,000,000; the estimated cost is $940,354. There remains of this sum to be contracted for, $304,602. Engineer Hall's statement—and from his position as the engineer adviser of bank- ers engaged in disposing of irrigation bonds, it must be deemed very conservative—is that the work can be put in good running order, and the 10 per cent discount on the sale of bonds be allowed on a total issue in bonds of $1,000,000, or a field and construction cost of $945,000. As the original amount of bond issue was $750,000, this leaves $250,000 to be raised for completing the works. The assessed value of farming S. Ex. 41—3 34 - IRRIGATION. * lands in the central district for the year 1890–91 was $2,188,278, making a mean valuation per acre of $13.97. The best farming lands in that district will sell for an average of about $55 per acre. It is the opinion of Mr. Hall that the completion and operation of the canal System in the central district of Colusa will, within five years thereafter, double the value of every acre of land. He estimates the present market or mort- gage value of the whole acreage at $4,500,000. As a business operation the bonded indebtedness to complete this irrigation system when charged entirely against the farming lands will make a debt rating at $6,423% per acre. The valuation under the tax levy is now $13.97. For mort- gage purposes the average value of the acre would be $30. Doubling . that figure and taking five years for the period of increase the rate Will be 20 per cent per annum or dollar for dollar at the end of that time. These instances have been referred to, first, because of the controversy in the California press, and second, because of the light they shed on the Questions involved pro and con in connection with the organization of municipal districts for the purpose of constructing works and admin- istering a water supply to be used in the cultivation of land by irriga- tion. Many grave matters are embraced within such a discussion. FRUIT CULTURE EY IRRIGATION, The California State Board of Trade, on September 8, 1891, author- ized the statement that 2,075 carloads of fruit had been shipped East as against 1,750 carloads for the same date last year. It is interesting to note that the shipments of vegetables for last year according to the same authority was 2,492 carloads of 10 tons each. This product, which includes potatoes and beans, is of more money value to the State than the entire citrus growth, a fact not very generally known. The maturing of these vegetable products is as a rule at that period of the year when elsewhere, except in Southern seaboard and Gulf States, such produc- tion remains a climatic impossibility. The chief shipments of such win- ter-grown vegetables are from sections of Los Angeles, Orange, and San Bernardino counties favorably affected by natural sub-irrigation. There are considerable areas, especially in Los Angeles County, where the drain- age of higher sections, as well also as the irrigation seepage affect the, moisture of land lying nearer the coast and at a lower altitude than the more inland section. As a consequence, much of this area has not been placed “under ditch.” It produces vigorously, and being almost semi- tropical in climatic conditions, with the favorable facts of winter rains and sub or phreatic moisture, it has developed rapidly as a producer of early vegetables. The returns of the State Board of Trade are in proof. In the course of his inquiry in the several States of the arid region, the Special agent found a considerable demand for statistics of horticultural and vegetable products. At present California is at the front, but the rapid growth of fruit culture as stimulated by irrigation, and active profits, is causing the rapid planting of large orchard areas in Colorado, New Mexico, northwest Montana, eastern Washingtou, and southwest- ern Idaho. Utah is also a good horticultural field, and western Colo- rado is rapidly taking a large place. Mr. L. C. McAfee, identified with the enterprises of Haggin & Tewis, in Kern County, Cal., expressed a general desire in the following suggestion made to the special agent. After remarking that he had written the Department on the subject, Mr. McAfee said: There is great difficulty in obtaining accurate statistics of fruit and vegetables. The way it presents itself to me is from a commercial standpoint. California is ca- pable of producing fruits and vegetables of almost every kind, and the facilities of SYSTEMATIC STATISTICS AND LEGISLATION. 35 transportation have so increased that the world is our market; therefore we desire to find out what the world is producing and what the world demands. What is most in demand is what we would first desire to raise, and in order to accomplish that object we ought to have accurate statistics of production. For example, a com- pilation that would show the whole fruit production and consumption of the world, by counties, would cover this desire. There is another thing which such a statistical report would show, and that is, the horticultaral importance and agricultural value of the arid region. If only one acre in four could be reclaimed it would still bring the product of the arid region up to the product of the balance of the country. I think this simple-statement is sufficient of itself to show the absolute necessity and super- abounding importance that it holds. This land can only be associated with the val- ley of the Nile, which is the ideal of agricultural production. - The matter of just legislation on the subject of reclamation of arid lands by irriga- tion is of the gravest importance, and the Agricultural Department ought to be sus- tained with great liberality, because it is undertaking to advance knowledge on a new and important enterprise, which needs guidance and direction. The irrigator requires consideration even more than the farmers in the humid States, because irri- gation requires more intelligence and arrangement. They can not work singly at all; it requires associated effort to do it properly. Irrigation, more than any other branch of our economic life, demands inquiry and experimentation. I am very em- phatic on that. I do not say that we want it, but I say that our people as an inte- gral part of the Government demand it. The importance of the enlargement of the powers of the Agricultural Department can be easily understood, because here are 1,000,000,000 acres of land that are practically worthless without irrigation. With it they not merely take stand with other agricultural lands, but far surpass them in their intrinsic value, and it can be put down as an assured fact that these lands will }roduce grass, crops alone of from $100 to $150 per acre, and represent a minimum §§§º per year. - No better object lesson of the growth of irrigation in California is to be presented than by a glance at the development of the citrus indus- tries. These fruits are now raised for the purpose of commerce from the Southern border of San Diego line to Red Bluff, in Tehama County. Oranges have been raised much farther north, but only as experiments or for ornament in gardens. The six most southerly counties raise the greater part of the product, and so industriously has their staple been advertised that Eastern readers hardly think of Southern California in any other light than as a citrus-growing region. In 1870 there were 7,086 lemon trees and 38,991 orange trees in the State of California. The following table from the report of Mr. B. M. Le Long, secretary of the State Board of Horticulture, will show the amount of increase since the general adoption of irrigation : Orange trees. Lemon trees. Counties. e Not bear- º Not Bearing. ing. Bearing. bearing. SOUTHERN. Los Angeles --------------------------------------------- 475,726 511, 376 47, 403 29, 524 Orange (estimated) ---...--------------- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 89, 260 51, 769 5,097 19, 969 San Bernardino------------------------------...--------- 391,656 1, 895, 544 24,066 155,934 San Diego -------------- --------------------------------- 26, 715 177, 311 7,006 58,916 983, 357 2,626,000 83, 572 264,343 SOUTHERN COAST AND RANGE. - Santa Barbara ------ -----------------------------------. 6,700 37, 500 3,750 9, 400, San Luis Obispo ----------------------------------------- 1,200 4,600 600 1,950 Ventura ------------------------------------- tº º me tº s is º ºs s = en s 8,614 55,056 4, 215 32, 512 26, 514 97, 156 8, 565 43, 862 COAST Monterey.----------------------------------------------. 75 146 14 I---------- Santa Clara.--------------------------------------------. 920 4 5 } 56 175 - Santa Cruz ---------------------------------------------. 120 - {}6 44 .80 San Meteo --------------- w e s w is ºr s w w w = s. s sº e s = e s us as e s s s is as is as e = 126 244 50 l. --...----- 1, 241 901 264 255 36 IRRIGATION. Orange trees. Lemon trees. - Counties. - - - - * Not bear- * Not; Bearing. ing. Bearing. be. ge SAN JOAQUIN WALLEY. Fresno--------------------------------------------------. 1,113 4,828 400 980 ICern ----------------. . . . -------------------------------. 42: 852 275 365 Merced.-----------------------. -----------------------. 325 625 215 420 Tulare-------------------------------------------------- 1, 580 1, 750 455 1,430 San Joaquin.-------------------------------------------- 112 2,640 22 65 3,555 10,695 1,367 3,260 - TITE BAY COUNTIES. Alameda.-----------------------------------------------. 722 1, 874 525 622 Contra Costa -------------------------------------------- 155. , 243 118 | -140 arin ------ --------------------------------------------- 225 23 16 ---------- Napa ---------------------------------------------------. 455 920 378 254 Solano--------------------------------------------------. 1,303 2, 114 189 215 Sonoma.------------------------------------------------- 1,619 1, 466 255 840 4, 479 6, 530 1,481 2,091 SACRAMENTO VALLEY. p. Colusa.--------------------------------------------------- 195 6, 728 44 54 Lake ---------------------------------------------------. 125 236 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Sacramento. --------------------------------------------- 1, 310 12, 300 166 976 Sutter --------------------------------------------------- 353 3, 144 27 125 Yolo----------------------------------------------------- 485 856 214 309 Yuba ---------------------------------------------------- 3, 132 18, 027 321 ---------- 5, 600 41, 291 778 1, 464 FOOTFHILLS. --- Amador ------------------------------------------------. 72 4 34 18 Butte---------------------------------------------------. 3,007 116,005 362 1,400 Calaveras. ----------------------------------- -------. --- 145 8: 18 200 El Dorado ----------------------------------------------- 108 176 30 265 Mariposa ----------------------- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 28 145 18 115 Mevada.------------------------------------------------- 100 200 1------- - - - - - - - - - - - - - Placer ---------------------------- sº º sº º ºs ºº & > -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - 6,055 5,480 595 1,300 Stanislaus ----------------------------------------------. 1, 154 16, 642 254 314 Tehama ------------------------------------------------. 380 866 104 114 11,049 139, 643 1,459 3,726 NORTHERN. Shasta --------------------------------------------------. 74 125 44 I.--------- IRE(; APITULATION. Southern -----------------------------------------------. 983, 357 2, 636,000 83, 572 264, 343 Southern coast and range ------------------------------. 16, 514 97, 156 8, 565 43, 862 Coast Tange --------------------------- - ----------. . . . . . 1, 241 901 264 255 San Joaquin Valley ------------------------------------. 3, 555 10,695 1, 367 3, 260 The bay connties --------------------------------------- 4,479 6, 530 1,481 2,071 Sacramento * = as me as as * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 5, 600 141,291 1, 778 1, 464 Foothills ------------------------------------------------ 11,049 139, 643 1, 459 3,726 Northern------------------------------------------------ 74 125 44 I. --------- 1,025, 869 || 2, 932, 341 97, 530 318, 981 Total number of orange and lemon trees in the State of California, 4,374,721. It will be observed that the citrus cultivation is largely on the in- crease, taking previous planting as a basis of calculation, in the south- ern, coast, and coast-range Counties. hills counties. This is especially so in the foot- A portion of this sub-classification may be disputed, as 'in the case of Stanislaus County, but for this purpose it is in the main quite accurate enough. The figures and others that might be given offer a warrant for Mr. McAffee's suggestion as to a report on horti- Culture. RAINFALL EFFECTS BY PRECIPITATION AND DISTRIBUTION. 37 ARID CLIMA TOI, O.G.Y. This report gathers considerable utility from the use made in the re- view of several of the States and Territories, so far as climatology is concerned, of the admirable report “Irrigation and water storage in the arid region” (Fifty-first Congress, second session, Ex. Doc. No. 287). The Chief Signal Officer and former chief of the Weather Service tersely review the meteorological conditions of the arid region and pre- sent careful tables of precipitation, etc. His contention is one that appeals to practical common-sense observation and judgment. “Identical rainfalls do not suggest,” he says, “that any industry or pursuit in which rain is an important element would succeed as far as water is concerned equally at either place.” This reference is made on the rainfall figures at Pittsburg, Pa., and Julian, San Diego, Cal., at which places the precipitation is, respectively, over 36 and 37 inches per annum. The difference in effects lies in the difference in distribution by precipitation. At Pittsburg the rainfall is fairly felt throughout the year. At Julian for six months the fall ranges from “no trace” to “fifty-five hundredths of an inch.” The rainy season at Julian begins in November and ends in April. For irrigation, whether in the Pacific slope or in the Great Plains, or in the intra-mountain basins between the Rockies and the Sierra Nevada, the vital necessity lies in the distribution more than in the quantity of precipitation. In this relation, then, it is well to emphasize by reproduction the facts involved in the following brief tables of precipitation and temperature presented in the “Progress report,” 1890, on “Irrigation in the United States” (pp. 128, 129, 130), published for the office of Irrigation Inquiry by the Fifty-first Congress and the Department of Agriculture. The significance of these summary tab- ulations consists in the evidence they offer of the seasonal distribution of the rain. If a map of the arid region be taken and the stations given be traced thereon by lines of given longitude, it will be seen that the difference between winter and summer rainfalls rise and fall from a line near to or running on the one hundred and seventh meridian of west longitude like regular steps. East of the line given the summer precip- itation ranges it will be seen 7.45 inches at Fort Carter, Mont., to 15.88 inches at Fort Sill, Ind. T., on or near the ninety-seventh meridian, while westward from the line of one hundred and seventh longitude it falls 6.64 inches at Prescott, Ariz., to forty hundredths at Fresno, Cal. These deductions are emphasized by the following summarized tables: Average West annual longitude. meap north to south. East of 1079: Degrees. | Inches. One ----------------------------------------------------------------------. 97 26.67 Two ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 102 19. 12 º - - - * * * * * * - * * * * * * * * * - * * * * * * * * * * * *e s = º ºs - - - e s s sº is a - - - * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 105 ; ; Ollſ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 107 12. 83 West of 1070 : Five------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1, 120 12. 22 Six ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1, 170 14.00 . Seven ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 121 to 125 18.00 In the progress report the special agent in charge suggested that in such seasonal divergencies may be found the key to some of the weightier problems presented to the irrigator. The tables of stations, etc., are given as follows: 38 * IRRIGATION. ** Mean seasonal rainfall, mean normal (seasonal) temperature, and elevations of stations named, lying within the gemiarid and arid region, west of the ninety-seventh meridium of longitude west of Greenwich and east of the Cascade and Coast Ranges, on the Pacific 00a&t. I.—ON OR NEAR THE NINETY-SEVENTH MERIDIAN. •o in f', Mean normal Mean rainfall. temperature. - Eleva- Annual | Nov §. tion State. Station. Jan. May. | Sept. average, iſſec. i. above, Feb. June. Oct. I rainfall. jan. jūry. , Sea Mar. July. Nov. Feb. Au 3. level. Apr. ; Aug. Dec. Mar. Sept. Oct. Inches. | Inches. Inches. | Inches. | Inches. Inches. | Feet. North Dakota ....... Pembina - - - - - - - -. 2.88 || 13. 92 4, 40 21.06 1. --.....]. --...--. 791 Do . . . . . . . .----..] Morehead ------.. 4. 72 || 14.24 6. 28 25.6l - - - - - - -] . . . . . . . . 903. South Dakota ... . . . . Yankton. --------. 5. 76 15. 80 5, 80 27.84 23.3 62. 4 1,234 Kansas . . . . . ...-----| Coucordia -------- 5. 32 || 13. 60 5. 88 25.58 |........!. * * * 1, 384 Indian Territory .... Fort Sill.----..... 6. 20 15. 88 9. 44 32. 28 43.3 72. 6 1,200 Texas --------------- San Antonio ------ 8. 56 | 12, 80 9. 92 31, 63 55. 9 77, 2 78? II.—ON OR NEAF THE ONE HUN DRED AND SECOND MERIDIAN. North Dakota . . . . . . . Bismarck --------- 4. 80 || 11, 12 3.76 19. 57 14, 6 57.1 1,681 South Dakota . . . . . . . Fort Sully . . . . . . . . 3.20 | 10. 04 2. 14 15.81 I. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,600 Nebraska. --...--...--. North Platte ---.. 3.44 || 11.84 3. 80 19. 11 30. 7 62.6 2, 841 Colorado -----------. Las Animas - .....] 2.56 8.48 2. 24 13.46 1. -------|-------- 3,899 Texas --------------. Abilene - - - - - - - - - - 6. 00 9.72 8. 24 24.78 |.-----..! ----, -. 1, 748 Do.-------------- Fort Stockton . . . . . 2.76 7. 96 8. 20 20.09 --------|-------- 3,010 III. —ON OR NEAR THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTH MERIDIAN. Montana........----. Poplar River .... 2.08 || 7.76 2.24 || 10.79 |..... ...|........ 2,002 Wyoming. ----------. Cheyenne. ----- * * * 6. 32 6. 56 7, 84 9.96 29.4 56.0 6, 105 Colorado. --...-------. Denver ---------. 4. 27 7. ()4 3. 15 14.58 34, 2 61, 0 5,281 Texas --------------- Fort Davis ....... 1.95 || 10, 45 6. 87 17.71 48.2 69. 3 4,928 IV.- ON OR NEAR THE ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTH MERIDIAN. Montana ------------- Fort Assiuniboine. 3. 41 9. 02 3. 12 16. 38 19.8 55.9 2, 690 Do . . . . . . . . -----. Fort Custer------. 3.24 7, 54 2.95 13. 64 28.7 59. 1 3,040 Colorado. ------------ Montrose - - - - - -... 2.88 3, 48 3. 32 9.34 . . . . . . . . . . . . . .] 5, 780 New Mexico........ Santa Fé. --------. 2. 49 7. 70 4. 24 13.94 33.6 59.2 7,026, Texas --------------- El Paso. ---------. 1.77 5. 49 3. 61 11.08 49.3 74.4 3. 796 v.–ON OR NEAR THE ONE HUNDRED AND TWELETH MERIDIAN. Montana - - - - - - - - - - -. Helena ---------.. . 52 5, 68 3. 92 13. 89 25.1 55. 3 4,069 Utah ---------------- Salt Lake------... 7. 24 3.00 5. 48 16.68 34, 6 63. 6 4, 348 Arizona ------------- Prescott. --------. 5. 88 6. 64 4.48 17.06 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -. 5, 389 Do. -------------. Phoenix---------.. | 2. 40 1. 44 3, 00 7. 38 55. 9 78. 0 1, 120 VI.-ON OR NEAR THE ONE HUNDRED AND Washington Idaho----------- tº a s = * Nevada.---- * - - sº sº º is sº * California • * * * * * * * * * * Spokane Falls .... Boisé City Winnemucca Tellachapi a s as is as 7. 52 4. 44 7, 56 6. 24 2. 56 4, 60 3. 80 1. 76 2.92 7. 64 . 64 2.72 19.08 13. 47 8. 92 11.04 • * - - - - - - • * * * * * * * INDUSTRIAL PRECIPITATION AND EVAPORATION. 39 Mean seasonal rainfall, mean normal (seasonal) temperature, etc.—Continued. VII. —STATIONS NEAR º; ONE HUNIDRED AND TWENTY-FIRST TO THE ONE HUN. DRED AND TWENTY-FIFTH MERIDIANS. • a twº £". Mean normal Mean rainfall. temperature. Eleva- Annual NOV. #. tion. State. Station. Jan. May. | Sept. average De c. j. above Feb. June. Oct. rainfall. jan & Jul & Sężl. Mar. July. Nov. feb. Au #. level. Apr. ; Aug. Dec. Mar. Sept. Oct. -- Inches. Inches. Inches. Inches. Inches. Inches. | Feet Washington.-- - - - - - - Fort Simcoe . . . . . . 6, 72 1. 12 2. 72 10.61 --------|-------- ge sº is º º º Do--------------. Ellensburg ....... 3. 72 1.76 3.44 8.97 l.-------|--------|-- gº ºn tº s sº sº. Oregon -------------- Fort Dallas....... 9. T2 2. 08 || 10. 12 21.96 --------|-------. 350 0- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Linkville ------... 8. 56 3.48 4.92 14. 41 36.0 55.2 l.------- California ---------. Berryvale -------- 5. 48 1. 20 | 13.00 28.84 ||--------|-------- is e º Do.-------------. Red Bluff......... 17. 92 1. 60 | 10. 04 25, 99 49. 9 71.2 342 Do.-------------- Sacramento....... 8.44 1. 56 5. 80 19. 69 50. 1 67. 4 65 Do--------------. Stockton. --...-- º 8.92 | . 68 4, 28 13.91 l--------|--------|-------- Do.-------------. Merced -----...... 7.28 72 3. 72 11. 75 l.-------|-------- 17 Do.-------------. Fresno -------...-- 5. 36 . 40 3. 00 8. 79 |--------|-------. 295 120--------------- Visalia. -----...---. 6. T2 . 60 4.00 9.25 --------|-------- 348 Do.-------------- Los Angeles . . . . . 10. 92 68 4. 56 16. 3 55.7 67. 0 ||. 371 Do--------------. San Diego ........ 6, 68 . 64 3.36 10. 26 55. 5 64. 7 66 While with Lieut. Glassford and other experts, agreement is had on the general proposition that 20 inches are necessary for industrial use there is evidence to show that as low as 15 inches will serve under proper conditions of soil, etc., if the same can be secured when needed. This conclusion will be found sustained as Gen. Greeley states: The latest rainfall maps of the United States compiled at the office of the Chief Sig- nal Officer (March) show that there are enormous areas of country in the so-called arid regions where the rainfall exceeds 15 inches (by which isohyetal, or line of equal rainfall, the arid region is, by some, limited), and even very large areas over which the annual precipitation exceeds 20 inches, and in lesser areas 25 inches. The discussion of evaporation in Gen. Greeley’s paper is very inter- esting as well as of value. A summary of some of the data is given in the annexed table, prepared from the Weather Service monograph (p. 10, 11, 12). Average - sº depth States and localities. (cubic of possible. measure). ** Inches. Arizona ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 145.9 80 California -------------------------------------------------------------------. 170. 9 87 Colorado ---------------. ---------------------------------------------------- 108. 6 69 Nevada.---------------------------------------------------------------------- 145.8 90 New Mexico.---------------------------------------------------------------- 146.2 78 Utah ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 90. 9 68 Sweetwater, Cal.-------------------------------------------------------------|------------ *29.83 Salt Lakef -------------------------------------------------------------------|-----------. 74. 04 Albuquerque -----------------------------------------------------------------|---. ------- 80 Lake George, New South Wales f --------------.........................----. -------...---- 46 Caspian Seaf-----------------------------------------------------------------|------------ 43 * These figures are for seven months only. f Salt Lake has a surface of 4,700, Lake George one of 80, and the Caspian Sea a surface area of 80,000 square miles. The conclusion in part arrived at by Gen. Greeley as to the practi- . cability of storage will bear quoting. He says: What has already been said shows, however, that over very extensive sections of the arid regions the heavy rains from which must be derived waste water for irrigat- 40 - IRRIGATION. ing purposes come at such a period of the year as to render it necessary to keep the water stored for a long time before it can be generally used for irrigating purposes; that such storage occurs in countries and under conditions where evaporation pro- ceeds rapidly and to a degree almost unequaled in any other part of the world; and also, that the violent rainfalls are in such quantities and cover such an area of coun- try that the whole of these waters can not be store l; and that where storage facili- ties are provided they must be of most durable and solid construction, with such facilities for carrying off waste water as will render the recurrence of calamities sim- ilar to the great disaster on the Hassayampa River in Arizona practically impossible. The ocean “passage winds” are important to our western irrigation crops, but their humid effects are most strongly felt upon the northwest. portion of the Pacific coast. The movement across the ocean plane of these winds tends steadily to west by north. As a result of this, the largest share of the aqueous contents of such winds is precipitated upon the comparatively narrow shore plane of Oregon and Washing- ton, giving thereon the greatest recorded rainfall within the United States. The coast line break at Puget Sound acts as a funnel to draw inward a marked share of this oceanic precipitation, and as the conti- mental topography at this point is considerably less in altitude than fur- ther south, we see a marked increase of humidity along the western slopes of the northwest Rockies in Washington and Montana. There is also a considerable influence exercised by what are locally termed the “Chinook” winds that, laden with moisture from the sea, are en- abled to pass over low portions of the range and modify the winter cli- mate of such intra-mountain settlements as Helena, Mont., and Boisé City, Idaho, as well as by their deposition of moisture to make Idaho's panhandle section and the eastern foothills region of Washington a sub- humid area, fertile to a degree, and largely capable of sustaining culti- vation without irrigation, though like the largest portion of the Great Plains the artificial use of water in the ripening months will surely in- crease security and thereby add greatly to the value of industrial life. The excess of precipitation along the northwest coast is so marked and peculiar as to warrant a brief reference. Take, for illustration, the record of annual precipitation at San Francisco, Cal., and Tatoosh, Wash., at the entrance of Puget Sound; San Francisco, reports 23.80 inches of rainfall; Tatoosh, one of 94,42, a difference of 70.62 inches. The theoretical difference, as figured by the meteorologist's rule, of a certain per cent of moisture absorbed by the passage winds for each mile of ocean surface they traverse, is much less. Tatoosh is set down under the rule given as entitled to 61.97, a difference of 32.45 inches less than the actual rainfall. The theoretical difference between San Francisco and Tatoosh is as 27.29 to 61.97, or 34.68 inches. These figures strongly illustrate the remarkable northwest tendency of the actual rainfall. Doubtless it will aid greatly in explaining glacier action in Alaska by the evidence given of a high precipitation in a re- gion of very low temperature. The “humid constitution” of the south- west passage wind accounts normally for a considerable portion of the peculiar deposition of the ocean moisture; yet the fact that the increase is in proportion to the northern in latitude points to other causes than the one first named. The materials for explanation are scanty, and the meteorologist does not, as yet, offer any. I venture to suggest that the polar influences may possibly have something to do with the cosmic movement of winds which bear moisture to our Pacific coast, and that the aqueous current thus drawn northeastward may hereafter appear as part of the Atlantic humidity to the south and east. The analytical summary hereafter given of climatic factors within our Cordilleran region shows how the four barometrical “constants” of two “highs” and two “lows” relate themselves, in general terms, to the ANNUAL RAINFALL witHIN SECTIONS NAMED. . 41 northwest. When the area of high barometer, which is a “constant " factor in Oregon and Washington weather, overlies that region the Center is probably far to seaward, subject to violent perturbation, and produces storms of the cyclonic type. The eastward movement is checked by the Cascade Range and the Rockies, and the result is heavy precipitation, especially in Washington. The eastward “low” beats against the mountain barriers, and the “high,” as it rises and crosses them, remains steadfast, though very much desiccated, over the northern plateau and adjacent parts of the Great Basin. The “low” baromet- rical area generally has its center near the coast, and its influence as to rain is usually spent upon the shore plane southward to San Fran- cisco, very rarely passing beyond that point. It will be observed by this brief outline how favorable all the conditions are for the extreme northwest section, alike for present irrigation and future water storage. The following condensed table of rainfall is one of the most useful . presented by the Weather Service (p. 19), report on Arid Climatology: Annual rainfall in 8ections mamed. tº * Average - Area in | Cubic State. Elevation. square mile ºf , º, miles. I rainfall. inches. Arizona --------------. Sea level to 3,000 feet. ... ---------------...... 38, 670 5. 3 8. 63 3,000 to 5,000 feet. ----------------------...----- 27, 230 6.3 14. 56 5,000 feet and over---------...---------........ 47, 120 10. 7 14.30 Whole State............................ 113,020 22. 3 12. 42 California ....... -----. Sea level to 2,000 feet........... -------------. 82,290 27, 9 || 21. Gi 2,000 to 5,000 feet. ----------...----...--....... 53, 530 18. 2 21. 66 5,000 to 7,000 feet. ------...- ...--------........ 17,334 7. 5 27. 56 7,000 feet and over.................. * * * * * * * * * * 6, 246 2.7 27.75 Whole State ---------...---------------. 159, 400 56. 3 22. 56 Colorado.-----.... ----. 4,000 feet and less ..... ----------...----------. 8, 773 1.5 11. 15 4,000 to 5,000 feet ....... - - - - - - - - - - - . . . . . . . . . 18,031 3.2 11. 78 5,000 to 7,000 feet ---...--...--------...--....... 31, 314 6. 1 12. T4 7,000 feet and over.-----...----...--..... --...-. 45, 885 9. 2 13. 12 Whole State. -------........ . . . . . . . . . . . . 104, 500 20. () 12, 61 Nevada................ Less than 5,000 feet--------------------------. 39, 759 5. () 7. 98 5,000 to 7,000 feet -----------........ -- - - - - - - - 57,654 10. 7 11. 85 7,000 feet and over.---------...--------------. 14, 590 2. 9 12, 92 --- Whole State ---------...---------. -----. 112,000 18.6 10. 64 New Mexico. ... . . . . . . . 4,000 feet and less. -----------...-------------.. 6, 996 1. 1 10, 14 4,000 to 5,000 feet ..... - - - - - -...----------...----. 34, 407 6, 1 11.59 5,000 to 7,000 feet - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -. 57, 503 12.4 14, 13 7,000 feet and over.-------------------------- 22, 300 5. 6 16. 34 Whole State ---------------------------. 121, 200 25, 2 13. 62 Utah ------------------ 5,000 feet and less.---------------------------. 28, 615 4. 0 9.00 5,000 to 7,000 feet ...--------------------------. 35, 444 6. 5 11.59 7,000 feet and over.---------...----. ------.... 20, 441 3.2 6, 97 Whole State ---------------------------- 84, 500 13. " 10, 32 THE AñRATION OF WATER AND IRRIGATION. With the application of water properly ačrated and the opening of the earth by intensive cultivation to the same atmospheric forces, the irriga- tion farmer must naturally study the crops best adapted to his condi- tions. Horticulture is a special culture, requiring careful conditions of place, soil, and climate. The general farmer will necessarily take a wide range. The capacity of plants to penetrate the soil deeply, to draw water supplies by capillary attraction, as well as their differing 42 . IRRIGATION. . . demands for plant food, are all to be considered. The relations of plants also to alkali soils are of very considerable importance. The most valuable crops yet grown in the arid section are the alfalfa, clover, and other leguminous plants; also the sugar and common beets, with other root and tuber varieties. All cereals and small grains generally derive their nourishment from the first 5 or 6 inches of top soil. Hence the rapid growth that is often seen under irrigation, clear skies, and warm Weather. It is a matter of constant remark after planting clover or alfalfa, the latter especially, that the land produces finer crops of wheat, oats, or other of the small grains. The secret of this for irriga- tors is, that leguminous plants require and contain to an appreciable degree less water, while their roots go deeper down in seeking nutri- ment. The aération of water is an almost indispensable condition of suc- cessful cultivation by means of irrigation. Atmospheric gases are always present in the soil. Combined with water, they are essential to the processes by which the mineral constituents are dissolved and their useful portions conveyed to the plant roots for sustenance and growth. The importance of atmospheric impregnation can be forcibly realized by recalling the fact that nitrogenous food is essential to plant life; that pure nitrogen, or azote, from which alone by combinations can such food be produced, comprises four-fifths of our atmosphere. All Water absorbs air. The more it does so the better it becomes for use in irrigation. Its fertilizing powers increase rapidly by accelera- ting the direct and indirect absorption of nitrogen and of its various combinations, such as ammonia, phosphoric acid, potash, etc. Water itself is composed of oxygen and hydrogen in the ratio of 100 to 124 by weight. Common air, according to Silliman, is composed of oxygen and nitrogen in the proportion by weight of 23 of the former and 77 of the latter. At the ordinary temperature water absorbs of air forty-six one-hundredths of its own volume. The rate will be in a liter* of water: Nitrogen, 65.1; oxygen, 34.9. The enormous value of nitrogenous material has been forcibly illus- trated by Dr. Wiley, department chemist, who has said that 80,000,- 000,000 pounds enter into the creation of one harvest in the United States,f the value of which is not less than $5,000,000,000. This enormous mass of plant food is chiefly found as nitrates or al- buminoids. All nitrogenous food material is converted before assimi- lation into nitrate acids or nitrates. Such combinations are soluble in water. The waste of such materials is as enormous and significant as the sum of its utility. Dr. Wiley declares that in the production of the cereals the annual total of phosphoric acid taken from the earth is nearly 3,000,000,000 pounds, while the loss of potash is not less than 4,000,000,000 pounds. Vast stores of such material are carried away by stream or river, and washed from the earth by floods. The enor- mous masses of silt borne by the streams to the ocean are loaded with nitrogen. This waste is almost ceaseless; nature's destructive or re- molding forces are constant. They are not hindered, except by the skill, knowledge, and art of man. The essential food of plant life is thus continually diminishing, and without the artificial aids which knowl- edge alone points out, there is perpetual tendency to waste, disintegra- tion, barrenness, and aridity. Hence it is that whatsoever tends to the preservation of all such materials belongs to the domain of economic conservation. The care and skill which cultivation, under irrigation *1.0567 quarts, United States measure. # Address before the New Jersey State Board of Agriculture, 1889. NITROGEN CONVEYED TO SOIL BY WATER. 43 must create and bring into practical operation is a force the importance of which is hardly demonstrable by any known expressions of value at command. § To let the air into the water for irrigation is equally as important as to admit the air into the soil by efficient and intensive cultivation. Agricultural chemists are divided on the question of direct assimila- tion of nitrogen by water, either as rainfall or exposed phreatic sup- plies and bodies. Large quantities of ammonia and nitric acid are always found in rain water. From a tabulation of the “Average composition of American feeding stuffs,” computed and calculated by E. H. Jenkins and A. L. Winton, jr., and published in Experiment Station Record, July, 1891, Vol. 2, No. 12, United States Department of Agriculture, the following average results are obtained as to the average amount of water chemically found in cer- tain food-plant groups: Average. Remarks. Per cent. Cereal grasses-------------------------------------- 47.7 | Four varieties and 63 analyses. Other grasses ------------------------------------- 67.4 || Six varieties and 90 analyses. Legumes, grasses -----. ---------------------------. 75.1 | Five varieties and 86 analyses. Tubes, roots, bulbs, and other vegetables. . . . ...... 93.7 || Fourteen varieties and 104 analyses. * In Johnson’s “How Crops Grow” (p. 39, ed. 1890) the following aver. ages are given: Meadow grass, 71; red clover, 80; corn, 82; cabbage, 85; potato tubers, 75; sugar beets, 81; carrots, 86, and turnips 91 per Cent. - The careful investigations constantly in progress at Rothamstead, Eng- land, shows that the yearly averages range from 54 to 135 per cent. In a gallon of water the ammonia ranged from 17 to 60 per cent, while of nitric acid the amount was 0.86. But these averages are not enough for the demands of agriculture, and land which is not supplied with the necessary quantity is soon exhausted. The nitrates are not only con- sumed by the plants, but as already shown, they are constantly being washed from the soil. A recent writer in the Noveau Revue discus- sing the productiveness of the earth declares it to be illimitable if a. sufficient amount of nitrogenous material can be applied to the soil, and he further declares that this is entirely within the range of human skill and prevision. In this view then, the power of fixing as well as gathering nitrogen is of the utmost importance. Professor Atwater, till recently director of Experimental Stations in the Department of Agriculture, in conjunction with such able chemists as Hellriegel, Muntz, Berteloc, and others, believes the weight of testi- mony supports his view—that nitrogen is absorbed or conveyed by water directly from the atmosphere. Other chemists hold to the view that only a portion of nitrogenous matter is furnished by rainfall, the balance and the more important part being obtained through the di. rect influence of plant growth itself. In either way, irrigationists can readily perceive the importance of fully ačrating their supply of water before distributing the same to the land. It may be suggested that such insistence upon the value of ačration would necessarily affect the value of systems of conveyance of water by pipes or other under- ground conduits. This is not necessarily correct, as sufficient atmos- pheric exposure is usually obtained in streams, standing waters, and reservoirs, before conveyance for irrigation actually begins. But it is | 44 IRRIGATION. almost essential that direct underground supplies shall be exposed to the atmosphere before use. Certainly such ačrated water will be more valuable for farm purposes. It is doubtless true that artesian and other phreatic waters contain a proportion of nitrogenous material, though potash does not often appear in the analysis, and of phosphoric acid there is no mention made. The author of “Agricultural Hydraulics,” M. J. Charpentier de Cos- signy, gives the following interesting presentation of the manner in which “gas in solution in water” relates itself to plant life and the cultivation of the soil by means of irrigation : It must be observed that the oxygen and nitrogen not being in combination act separately, according to their affinity for the liquid, so that the water is always found to have absorbed, following the proportions of the atmosphere, more oxygen than nitrogen. We will investigate the rôle played by these gases introduced by irrigation waters into the cultivable soil. Oxygen is not so much a food for plants as it is one of the principal agents in the the complex phenomena by which the sap is prepared in the depths of the earth. It slowly burns away the organic matter of vegetable or even animal origin mixed with the soil; it transforms little by little the insoluble matter into a humus which is soluble, and which can be easily assimilated by plants. The oxygen, moreover, holds and returns to the soil at need the sulphur found there in the state of sulphates (inoffensive salts), to the exclusion of the sulphurets, especially the sulphuretted hydrogen, which last is frequently the product of putrid decomposi- tions and which is poisonous to plant life. Finally, this same gas—a life-giving agent par excellence—in encountering calcareous or alkaline matter in the soil, causes the azote or nitrate mixed therein to pass into an azotic state. * * * As yet no experiment has been made determining the exact part played by the water in introducing azote into the soil, and we can only advance arguments in favor of our presumptions. Is this azote finally disengaged into the atmosphere? It would seem probable for that portion corresponding to the water, which is evaporated on the surface of the soil, under the combined action of the sun and winds. But this is only a small portion of the irrigation, for independently of the limited part which sometimes penetrates to great depths in the earth, there is still another im. portant portion which, after having passed through the plant with the running sap, is returned by transpiration to the atmosphere. But vegetables do not exhale any nitrogen. There is reason to believe, then, that the azote found in solution in that portion of the water of which we are speaking must have become fixed there, either by the soil a little in advance of the penetration of the water into the plants through the roots or else by the plants themselves during the passage of the water through them. In the first case it would not have been impossible for a nitrification of the azote to have occurred, owing to the action of the oxygen and the alkaline substances contained in the water before its absorption by the plants. A gas dis- solved in water is in a veritable state of liquefaction. and the molecules are infinitely more condensed than when they are in a gaseous state, which considerably aug- ments the energy of the physical force. Who has not noticed, for instance, that the action of the air has no effect on iron nor on most other minerals when they are in a dry state, but that it oxidizes them as soon as water is introduced. Would it not also be possible for nitrogen—usually in an inert state—to become a more active prin- ciple when in solution? M. Hervé Mangon has experimented upon a prairie by irrigation through a whole season. At each irrigation he has measured the quantity of water appropriated and also the quantity which has afterwards escaped, not having been absorbed. He calculated the quantity of nitrogen furnished to the soil by known agents and the quantity found in the crop itself, and found the last quantity in excess of the first. Whence comes, then, this excess, except from the atmosphere, and through what channels, under what influences, and by what chemical aid does this substance pene- trate into the earth f M. Georges has claimed that the azote (nitrogen) is directly absorbed by the leaves, but the truth of this hypothesis has not yet been demon- strated; and it is now generally believed that, through the intermediation of the soil and the roots, azotic matter passess into the organism of the plant. But water contains in solution not only oxygen and hydrogen, but carbonic acid also in various proportions. But the carbonic acid found in the water could not be accounted for by the quantity found in the atmosphere, without the inter- vention of other causes; one of these facts is that the water of the springs is more or less mixed with carbonic acid and their water is more or less mingled with that of the rivers themselves. On the other hand, Mangon found that irrigation water running along in narrow channels on the surface of the ground was found to THE FUNCTION OF WATER IN VEGETATION. , 45 be much more highly charged with carbonic acid than before its passage over this prairie. Might it not be by means of a similar phenomena, that is produced during heavy rains on the surface of each field, that the waters of a river are much more highly charged with carbonic acid at the time of high water than at low water? In any case this acid plays a very important rôle in vegetation. It is by means of it that water attacks solid rocks, sand, clay, etc., and extracts from these inert sub- stances the fertilizing principles which are assimilated by the soil and which improve it. Water charged with carbonic acid carries with it, in penetrating the soil, the instrument whereby valuable substances are disengaged from it, such as potash and phosphoric acid, which would not otherwise be found either in the water itself or in the fertilizer applied. * * * jº. * + # We know, of course, that water is indispensable to culture and vegetation. The soil deprived of it entirely would either be reduced to a fine dust, incapable of giving that support to the roots of plants which they require, or would form so compact a mass as would be difficult to work with agricultural tools, and which would be al- most impenetrable to the reaching out of fine threads of the roots. Water, moreover, seconded by the atmospheric gases with which the earth is usually impregnated, attacks the mineral constituents of the soil and by dissolving carries away from them the useful principles which are at once appropriated by the plants. Water also serves as a vehicle for the conveyance of all the active properties of the compost, and, in a word, water constitutes the principal part of the sap. The sap absorbed by the spongioles or suckers of the hairy branches of the roots rises to the green parts of the plants and to the leaves. There it is elaborated, as- similates the carbon taken from the carbonic acid of the atmosphere, is concentrated by a considerable evaporation of water, then, descending, is distributed through the plant, producing a growth of these various organs. We know that this transpira- tion by which plants lose a portion of the water they contain takes place during the heat of the day, and that it is greatest in proportion as the atmosphere is dryer and the soil most saturated with water. Moreover, this evaporation can never be de- creased for any species of plants beyond a certain limit. It becomes, however, enor-, mous under the combined action of the dry wind and sun. Physiologists estimate, approximately, the daily evaporation as being one-half the weight of the plant. Thus, according to this estimate, one hectare of cabbages (4,471 acres) may lose 20,000 kilograms (44,000 pounds) of water during the twelve hours of the day. It is easily understood that the general activity of vegetable functions is in proportion to the abundance of transpiration, but only on condition that the soil is able to sup- port the afflux of sapºcaused by the incessant consumption of water. As soon as the humidity of the earth becomes insufficient, the current diminishes and the plant re- mains inactive. It is true that transpiration has also diminished, but it can not be altogether annulled; so that if the quantity of water restored by the soil continues to diminish the plant withers, dries up, and finally dies. - THE NEED OF DRAINA.G.E. Dennis C. Crane, secretary of the Union County (N.J.) Board of Agri- culture, in 1889, made a report, in which he argues for underdraining and irrigation. He brings up the whole question of water management when referring to the damage done by excessive rains. “There is no way of insuring,” he says, “against loss * * * so certain as under- draining. By surface ditches it is only partial and not lasting.” Mr. Crane declares that two-thirds of the land in his country requires such drainage. The effect is to not only carry off the surface water, but to warm the land, facilitating the working thereof, keeping the surface from being washed, but it also enables the land to better withstand the effects of drought. The soil's nutrient qualities are retained. Mr. Crane, in connection with the effects of drought, presents this argument in favor of irrigation: In a dry season everything everywhere is parched and sickly; then the farmer or gardener wishes he could utilize the abundant supply of water under the surface 20 or 50 feet, or the brook not far off, which is running to waste. Drought can be very much mitigated by deep plowing, thorough cultivation, high manuring and mulch- ‘ing, * the inducing of a rank growth early in the season in order to shade the ground: - * - - - - 46 gº • IRRIGATION. These are some of the simple, but not always effective, methods. Moisture has two offices: one to give sap to the plant and the other to make the ground soft, so that the fibrous roots can penetrate and reach out for food. To lose a crop by drought is no small loss, especially if it be garden vegetables, fruit, or even general farm crops. Often from $20 to $100 is spent on an acre for plowing, planting, cultivating, and the use of the ground. The crop, if saved and sold, might yield double the above amounts. In every dry season an extra price is usually realized, so it becomes the farmer to study whether he can not, by irrigation, insure himself against drought. Irrigation necessitates underdraining, for water can not stand on the surface and stagnate. Irrigation is practiced largely out West and in other countries, and why might it not be adopted here by many farmers and gardeners ? Those who have streams of water running through their farms might, by a simple, inexpensive method, raise the water to such a height that it could be led to flow over their fields and in a dry season increase the crop a hundredfold. The saving of one crop would often pay for the original outlay. Grass, especially, responds generously to such treatment. Many places have ba- sins between small hills that could be made reservoirs and filled with water during the rainy season. THE RIVER, SILT AND ITS WALUE. The importance to cultivation by irrigation of the silt carried by streams to land where the water is to be distributed is a matter that, can not be too vigorously emphasized. All hydraulic engineers and irrigation cultivators, except the professional directors of Anglo-Indian works, are in favor of utilizing the silt for fertilizing purposes. The French authorities, de Cossigny, Mangon, and others, are emphatic in favorable argument and illustration. Professor Lyell, the illustrious geologist, taking the experiments of Everest on the waters of the Ganges as a basis, has calculated that this river bears annually to the Indian Ocean quantities of mud of extraordinary fertility, the weight of which would be equal to six times that of the largest pyramid of Egypt, which is higher than the cathedral spire at Strasburg, and three times the height of Place Vendome column. M. Hervé Mangon says that— The mud carried off by the rivers to the sea is either taken from the lands under culti- vation or from the surfaces of denuded territories. In the first instance, agriculture, in not arresting this mud, allows a part of its domain to escape, thus losing the most valuable part of its capital; in the second instance, she fails to take possession of that which nature so generously places at her disposal. The weight of the mud drifted by the War during one year would form a volume of 12,222,000 cubic meters, which would be sufficient to colmatage more than 6,000 hec- tares to a thickness of 20 centimeters. A small lateral canal carrying water from the War, properly planned and carrying only one cubic meter of water per second, could Colmatage every year to an average thickness of 50 to 60 centimeters ten hectares of sterile soil, and, consequently, create each year a value of 30,000 to 40,000 francs. If the weight of the drifted mud be added to the weight of the soluble matter * . * * it must be remembered that the Seine carries away, under our eyes and without our noticing it as it were, 2,117,984 tons of solid matter every year, a weight nearly equal to the whole of the merchandise transported over this stream to Paris (Agricultural Hydraulics, M. de Cossigny, Paris, 1889, pp. 27, 28). The utilization and value of this material is constantly and strenu- ously insisted upon by all European authorities on irrigation. The Works of leading French writers and scientists, Messieurs Cossigny, Poyen, Deville, Mangon, and Buffon, are full of illustrative discussion of this problem. Mr. Hervé Mangon, for example, states that the river Durance, an Alpine stream, largely availed of for agricultural pur- poses, carries annually with its flood a volume of not less than 11,000,000 cubic meters of silt, the fertilizing power of which is equal to 100,000 tons of stable compost or excellent guano, fertilizers full of nitrogenous qualities. This volume of silt contains as much carbon as would 119,000 acres of forest trees. The War, carrying to the sea, as M. Mangon esti- IMPORTANCE OF RIVER SILT FOR AGRICULTURE. 47 mates, not less than 12,220,000 cubic meters of silt, also bears off in it at least 23,000 tons of azote or nitrogen. g? Water carries with it as it flows something of all the mineral sub- stance it touches. Rain dissolves the potash in granitic soils and the phosphates in those of a volcanic character. Care is needed, as it some- times happens that more mineral matter is thus held in solution than is necessary for the crop. The rule, however, is the other way. River water has been found to contain potash in considerable quantity. The famous artesian well at Grenelle, France, yields water affected by potash. As an example it may be stated on the authority of M. J. Charpentier de Cossigny (Agricultural Hydraulics, Paris, 1889) that a hectare (247 acres) of land receives in six months, under the French plan of irrigation, about 49,600 cubic feet of water, which contains . nitrogenous matter equal to 98 tons of stable compost. At Paris the same authority, quoting Deville, estimates that every 3 quarts or liter of water precipitated, contains at least 43 grains of ammonia. The nitrogenous material that runs to waste is, therefore, enormous. Every drop of water contains it and the poorest of river silt is more than equal in fertilizing qualities to the best of stable compost. The word “colmatage” is necessarily coming into use in connection With irrigation work and an explanation is in order. It signifies a method of raising lowlands by the deposit thereon of river silt, ooze, or mud, which has long been used in Italy and more recently in France. The Italians call the operations carried on by them on the banks of the Arno, Po, and other rivers, “una colimatu,” which means “filling up.” Mr. Nadault de Buffon has made a new word, “colmatage,” which has already become incorporated in the French language and is now coming into use as a technical phrase among English-speaking experts. The deposit of mud or silt on the same piece of ground very quickly acquires a remarkable consistency, especially if the water be freely applied. This plan may be still further pursued. A piece of ground may be sub- merged by the muddy waters of a river, letting the water continue to run after depositing the mud, and then repeating this operation several times. A substantial soil will thus be created, which will be suscep- tible of the highest degree of culture, at the same time raising a low- lying piece of ground and transforming the area subject to frequent inundations into one much better adapted to cultivation. This is what is understood by “colmatage.” This process has been suggested as a means of beneficially utilizing the “slickens” or déoris of the now aban- doned hydraulic gold mines of California. This débris became so injuri- ous to the farmers of the San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys by rea- son of its being deposited in the sierra river beds and thereby causing overflows, that such placer mining was stopped by law. It is now found that the “slickens’ can be flumed onto the low tule or marsh lands and be made valuable by creating new soils and new farms. By all these processes the intrinsic value of the matter contained in the water courses is, by means of irrigation, placed, in a great part, at the disposal of agriculturists. But after all, the value of the fertilizing matter contained in the water is but a small percentage of the value of irrigation, which consists principally in the marvelous effects of the judiciously combined action of the water and the heat. Water assures the efficacy of manure, so that when the application of a fertilizing sub- stance will not produce a sufficient increase of products to pay for the expense of applying it in an unirrigated soil, as soon as the same soil is irrigated this state of things is changed, and a large interest is real- ized on the amount expended. 48 IRRIGATION. * THE INFLUENCE OF LIGHT AND HEAT ON VEGETATION.—IMPORTANCE IN IRRIGATION. This is as important as the absorption of nitrogenous materials. A German chemist and writer, Dr. Hellriegel, declares that the stock of nitrogenous matter “at the disposal of a plant is capable of being assimilated only when a given quantity of heat and light is simulta- neously offered.” At a point lower than the “optimmum temperature,” as Dr. Hellriegel terms it, sluggishness of circulation prevails. With the increase of both factors the energy rises to the life point, which is placed between 64 and 1040 F. (20 to 400 C.). Heat up to 1220 F. (500 C.) is not destructive, though not as desirable as the lower degree of temperature. Above that point it is considered injurious to highly organized plants. Light operates with similar results. The germina- tive process goes on best in darkness, following in that of course the lines of all natural action. But the seclusion of light from growing plants prevents the formation of leafgreen (chlorophyl) and of all that aids the decomposition of carbonic or carbon dioxide. The assimilation of light into the leaf cells is absolutely necessary to plant growth. Faint light and persistent cloudiness makes feeble the circulation. This increases in intensity with the rise to “optimmun.” All these condi- tions are found in favorable relations within those sections of the United States where irrigation is needed for security or absolutely required to insure cultivation. The lowest point of field germination as to heat is from 32 to 410 F. (0 to 50 C.). The process of respiration in the plant is the one requiring the least amount of light, but the effective assimila- tion of carbon, so essential to the health of the plant, requires both heat and light. As the vegetation approaches maturity it requires a large degree of both. So it appears that the quantity or range of mean tem- perature is the measure of productiveness, water and soil being both considered. With irrigation then the dry, warm air of the arid region bears the palm. Heat, light, and water are prerequisites of successful agriculture when brought to and combined with the soil in appropriate conditions and quantities within the laboratory of the earth. The power of heat transmission combined with the transparency or clear- ness of the atmosphere which is so remarkable a characteristic of arid regions, is another condition of the highest importance to all plant as well as other life. It is shown that “the diathermancy and trans- parency of the air are both of the very highest importance to the life existing upon the earth. It is its diathermancy which enables the sun's heat to reach the terrestrial surface for the performance of its marvelous operations. It is its transparency which renders the air the window of the earth, giving man his outlook into space, and admitting the wonderful effects of color and light. If the air were not transparent, all nature would be in a perpetual dense fog.”* - The same authority presents some figures which forcibly illustrate atmospheric influences on plant growth. Condensing the phenomena presented, it is found that air has weight, a cubic foot turning the balances at 573.5 grains, while 13 feet respond to one pound in weight. Its particles or atoms are so small as to be invisible even under the microscope. Being in the gaseous state they are compressible, and by a pressure of 15 pounds to the square inch air is reduced to half its previous bulk. It has been established that every time the pressure is doubled, the volume of atmospheric air is halved. This is the reason * Scientific American Supplement. “Physical properties of the atmosphere.” Marriotte and Boyle. * - - i LIGHT, HEAT, AIR, ALKALI IN IRRIGATION. 49 for rarefication at high altitudes. But heat also expands it at “the rate of rºw part for each degree Fahrenheit. The atmosphere is com- posed of two gases, which mingle without pressure. “Each is, as it were, a vacuum to the other.” Aqueous vapor then rises to and is held in the interspaces in a similar manner, but more may be sustained in suspension in warm than in cold air. There is besides the aqueous vapor “3.36 parts in every 10,000 of carbonic acid gas, and 3.5 to every 10,000,000 of ammonia.” Every 1,300,000 tons of carbonic acid pro- duces 377,475 tons of carbon for the air that rests upon every square mile of the earth. Of ammonia 30 pounds are carried down each year by rain to each acre on which it falls. A small quantity of ozone is also formed under the operations of atmospheric phenomena. The ba- rometer rises when the air is overcharged with vapor; when that is condensed the barometer falls and rain is produced. For that reason when warm air drinks up the moisture, it rises rapidly and is carried to an altitude when a change of atmosphere brings about condensation and it falls again. Thus the mountain tops become condensers of mois- ture. These simple items of physical data are presented only to empha- size the conditions which tend, whenever irrigation is practicable in a region without the industrial mean of precipitation, to make agricul- tural reclamation by the artificial conservation, conveyance, and distri- bution of water a process so secure and effective to captivate the brain and energies of all who pursue its practice. ! ALKALI. AND IRRIGATION. The treatment of alkali soils, which are so prevalent in the West, is one of the serious problems of reclamation by irrigation. The salt- impregnated earth, black or white in character, requires leaching and aérating; also systematic draining. It needs sometimes the application of neutralizing fertilizers. Irrigation by flooding may generally appear to remove this evil, but it will be found that leaching and ačration may not prove permanent curatives. The alkaline salts, washed from the surface, are seldom wholly carried away, and in fact, especially by flood- ing, are séeped into the soil and carried down, to often reappear again on the surface, especially where indifferent farming and waste of water will leave the same unduly wet or allow the forming of puddles, pools, and standing bodies of shallow drainage or phreatic waters. The most effective, remedy, then, in addition to leaching and ačration, is that of sub and deep drainage, especially the former. The adapta- tion of plants to alkali soils needs to be closely studied. Wheat can often be profitably sºwn; forage plants also, especially alfalfa, which has in a great degree the qualities of neutralizing the injurious salts. Root crops, carefully selected, are also excellent aids in the eradica- tion of alkali. The best are beets, rutabagas, mangoes, which take from two to three years to absord the salts, but they do it quite effectually. Sugar beets are more rapid, but the first crop used on alkali soil is of no value. Potatoes and artichokes can both be used on small areas, but they are not so efficient as the several beet roots. Irrigation far- mers who expect the water to do all the reclaiming are sure to be dis- appointed. The application of “land plaster” or sulphate of lime, in combination with stable manure, by which sulphate of ammonia is pro- duced, is of great value in eradicating black alkali. The white alkali earth is less noxious or injurious. In dealing, then, with alkali soils the irrigator must leach or wash them well; plow deep and pulverize thor- oughly ; then prepare, if the conditions demand, for both sub and deep S. Ex. 41—4 50 IRRIGATION. drainage. With these in hand and proper use of land plaster and special crop planting, he may, nay, nearly always will succeed in re- claiming land, which, irrespective of the alkaline salts in it, is gener- ally very rich and remarkably productive. Such reclamation is seldom or never a problem beyond reasonable solution. In chemistry the alkalies belong to the class of caustic bases, such as soda, potash, lithia, ammonia. These are the alkalies proper. The alkaline earths are magnesia and lime. Magnesia with oxide and other compounds of iron with oxygen belong also to the class of insoluble bases. The principal compounds or salts of alkali, which are formed by union with acids, are the sulphate and carbonate of Soda (glaubers and washing sodas) andehloride of sodiuin or common salt. In smaller amounts, but not always, are found also, sulphate of potash, phosphate of soda, nitrate of soda, saltpeter, and carbonate of ammonia. These last five are recognized fertilizers. The “black alkali” results from a combination of carbonate of soda with black humus, or vegetable mold, and in this way is formed the most injurious of alkali soil. It can readily be recognized when dry by the dark rings.left on the margin of places formerly wet. The white alkali is the result of the combi- nation of the glaubers and common salt; the alkaloids are from the bases named, formed and found in many roots, such as the sage brush and other indigenous plants of the arid region. The cropping out of alkali on lands under irrigation is due largely to the almost reckless waste of water common to earlier irrigation efforts. The evil effects of waste by undue flooding, by standing surface pools, and by the sideway seepage or Soakage from canals made through porous soils, the effect of which has been to raise the phreatic plane or table, thus bringing again to the surface the alkali which was soaked and seeped in on the first floodings that followed the use of irrigation, are now being greatly mitigated in California. E. W. Bilgard, professor of agriculture in the State University of California, and director of the state experimental station, is doubtless the best American authority on the subject of alkali soils and waters. He does not consider the presence of alkali an unmitigable evil, and under some gonditions and to certain crops thinks it is even of advantage. * In dealing with this evil it must be borne in mind that when water sinks only vertically, by reason of its hydrostatic pressure, it causes the ground water plane to rise at remote points, and forces moisture to the surface which does not necessarily come directly from an irrigation ditch, but which may have been a component part of the ground water for years past. Water thus permeating, and at times saturating, the soils that are rich in salts, ordinarily classed as alkali, are sure to dissolve more or less of these salts, and it will retain them in solution until sooner or later Some portion arrives at the surface and there evapo- rates. Though the quantity of salts in solution may be very small and imperceptible to the taste, yet the effect on the soil of the continual upward motion of water is ultimately sure to become apparent. At the surface the soluble salts are deposited, and at the surface and in the surface soils there will be a gradual increase of mineral salts. The white efflorescence so frequently making its appearance on alkali soils, at the commencement of a long dry season is directly due to this cause, whether the upward moving water be supplied artificially or other- WIS®. It is evident that the alkali of surface soils may be variously affected by rains according to the amount of rainfall and its duration. A light rain which wets the ground only to a depth of a foot or two may dis- COPIOUS FLOODING AND SUBDRAINAGE REQUIRED. 51 Solve the efflorescence and all alkali crusts on the surface and carry the salts back into the soil. Some of them will return to the surface in the course of time, when the moisture returns and is evaporated at the sur- face. A long, continued steady rain may send a large amount of water vertically down through the surface soils to ground water. The salts leached out of the surface soil will pass into the ground water, and may perhaps be carried off to some other region. A sudden heavy rain, on the other hand, may dissolve the salts on the surface, and flowing in depressions, creeks, and sloughs carry it into streams that flow to the ocean. Only in the latter case is there any certainty that the alkaline salts carried off have been disposed of permanently. - The simplest remedy for such evils suggested by their cause is to Secure a preponderance of the downward motion of the moisture. If this can be done more of the salts leached out of the soils by water will move downward away from the surface than upwards toward it. The quantity of alkali at the surface where it is most injurious will neces- sarily be decreased. The remedy will be made still more effective if under drainage is resorted to, i. e., if the water descending to the sub- soils through the surface soil be in a large part carried off into natural channels. The downward motion of water can be secured by copious flooding. Ordinary flooding may prove an injury instead of a benefit, because in case of ordinary flooding the soil is wet to such slight depth only, that capillary attraction and the hydroscopic properties of some of the alka- line salts cause a return of all or nearly all of the water that has been put on the surface, and it comes back from the saline subsoils freighted with more alkali than it carried down to them. By flooding copiously and draining off the water from the surface of the land into natural drainage channels, some of the salts can be per- manently disposed of, but too much reliance should not be placed on this method of getting rid of alkali, because the process of flooding affords ample time for the water which wets the surface layers of soil to dissolve the salts and carry them into the ground, where they remain, while only the water which holds the least salt in solution is drained off from the surface. Flooding and surface drainage is for this reason an imperfect remedy. Deep plowing always mitigates the evil, because the alkalies accumu- lated at the surface are turned under and, as is well known, the alkali at the surface has the greatest power to do harm to tender stems of young plants. By frequent tillage capillary attraction from the surface downward is interrupted and the amount of moisture reaching the sur- face to be there evaporated is diminished, consequently the amount of alkali brought to the surface is thereby reduced. It has been difficult to ascertain with any degree of precision what has been the cost of preparing lands for irrigation and what the annual cost of applying water to the land. As but one method of irrigation has found favor for all the different kinds of crops raised, the variations of cost depend principally on the topography of the surface to be irrigated and the permanency of the irrigation ditches. Mr. H. Scougall, of Salt Lake City, a civil engineer with considera- ble experience in British India and the Australian colonies as well as in the United States, in a recent paper suggests that water should be sparingly used in irrigation where there is any danger of the appear. ance of alkali. This advice should, as a rule, be followed under all cir. cumstances by all irrigatºonists. Sub-drains from 18 to 36 inches below the surface are the best means 52 IRRIGATION. * - . of removing alkaline and surplus waters. Deep open drains are also of importance, but successful irrigation in general farming will be found to require subdrainage. There is another possibility to be considered as to the value of such a system. All waters which have passed over growing crops obtain thereby an increased atmount in solution of nitro- genous material. Their return by drains to the chief irrigation supply may very often prove of value as a factor in fertilization; the more so that all drainage carries with it nitric acid and potash, while losing most of the injurious salts the alkali land has held. To ascertain the presence of carbonate of sodium there are several tests that may be applied by any farmer. Standing water in low alkali spots has a dark brown tint. It will turn turmeric paper dyed yellow to a brown, or blue litmus paper to a red tint. Gypsum water will de- tect the presence of carbonate of sodium in any suspected water to which it may be added. Gypsum is excellent as an anti-alkali, where car- bonates and borates are detected. Lime, well harrowed in, is also of value. In India the “reh” or alkali is disposed of by leaching or wash- ing it out of the soil affected. The water is then drained or drawn off before soakage can ensue. In both India and Egypt such washing is most successfully done during the winter months. The analogy will probably hold good for a large portion of our arid region. The reason for it is that the water is more clear, and being cold is not likely to sink into the soil. Mr. Scougall's paper states that— For three or four years a company has been at work near Alexandria, Egypt, re- claiming the land under Lake Aboukir. The lake itself covers an area of about 35,000 acres and the water is being removed by means of centrifugal pumps. A fresh- water canal has been constructed around the lake, whereby the land from which the water has been removed has been washed. Small dams have been used to retain the fresh water on the newly exposed surface for several days, and it has been found that fresh water will take up 3.5 per cent of salt and become the same specific gravity as sea water. Several acres have been reclaimed and are now under cultivation. As to India, the evil has long been a prevailing one. In 1760 “reh ‘’ existed all along the West Jumna Canal, in the northwest provinces. From 1800 to 1830 the canal was abandoned and “rell’’ disappeared. In 1838 the canal was reopened and trouble was soon experiened. Since 1838 the Indian Government has constructed several miles of deep drains and limited the amount of water used in irrigation. In addition the natives must now, at least in some instances, pump water from the canals instead of drawing it from head gates, as formerly. This, of course, reduces Waste. The effect of such drainage has been to largely reduce the alkali. But the methods of treatment of alkali employed in California are of value to the intending and operating irrigator. Professor Hilgard has treated of this at length,” and his views are of such value that, elimi- nating local references, they are condensed here: All regions having a deficient rainfall and requiring irrigation for successful agri- culture have tracts of land afflicted more or less with “alkali; ” that is, showing dur- ing the dry season a “blooming-out” of soluble salts on the surface of the ground. This phenomenon is the direct and inevitable result of a scanty rainfall and a natu- rally productive soil. The mineral matters required for plant nutrition are being set free by the natural processes included under the general term of weathering; that is, a decomposition of the minerals contained in the soil, among the products of which are always the soluble salts of the alkalies (potash). The potash salts are mostly re- tained, and form an important part of the mineral food of the plant. Where the rainfall is scanty, and especially where showers wet the soil only to a light depth, current washing-out can not occur. The sodium salts necessarily, aº- cumulate in the soil, together with those of potash, lime, and magnesia, which usually are wholly or in great part retained by the soil . Each time, then, that the soil moisture evaporates between showers it carries with it to the surface in solution whatever of soluble alkaline salts may have accumulated within the depth to which * Experimental Station Bulletin, California, No. 83, pp. 140-144. Af.KALI. MUST BE REMOVED BY UNDER DRAINING. 53 it penetrated, to be again washed down by the shower to such depths as its amount may justify. This process is indefinitely repeated with one and the same quantity of alkali salts, diminished only to the extent to which some heavier shower may wash away part of the surface accumulation. Hence the lower ground will, as a Tule, show a larger proportion of alkali. Being naturally richer in the fine and easily decomposable mineral powder carried down and deposited by the streams, this low ground will develop proportionately more alkali than the higher land. We often find such lands, and even the river bottoms, heavily incrusted, when the ad- jacent plana, are practically free from alkali. The richness of such valley lands is II). OTOOf. Fiji salts vary in composition, but usually consist of three principal ingredients. These are, in the usual order of their abundance, common salt (sodium chloride), Glauber’t salt (sodium sulphate), and sal soda (sodium carbonate). The latter, when present in predominant quantity, gives rise to what is known as “black alkali,” from the fact that the sodium carbonate forms with the humus of the soil a dark-col- ored solution, which, on evaporation in mud puddles, leaves black rings on the soil and surface. The distinction between the “black” alkali and the “white,” consist- ing mainly of the relatively innocuous Glauber's and common salt, is important, for the effect of carbonate of soda upon vegetation is many times more injurious, not only because of its direct corroding effects upon the root-crown when it accumulates near the surface, but also because, as already stated, it dissolves that highly import- ant ingredient, humus or vegetable mold, and, moreover, renders clayey soils almost completely untillable. The latter effect is seen in the low-lying alkali spots, where the soil in which the clay accumulates is so obstimately caked together as to render it extremely difficult to put in the plow. The heavy intractable clods are most diffi- cult to break up. This difficulty does not exist in the case of the “white” alkali soils; they till kindly, and the only trouble lies in the accumulation of the salts at the surface, in consequence of evaporation, to such extent as to injure the surface roots and root-crown. Carbonate of soda or “black ’’ alkali is converted into the “white ” (i. e., Glauber's salt) by dressings of gypsum or land plaster, and the relief thus afforded is in vely many cases all that is needed to insure profitable cultivation. It is only in exceptionally bad cases that enough of any of these soluble salts to in- jure the deeper roots exists in the depths of the soil or within more than one inch of the surface. This surface accumulation is obvious to the eye during the dry SeaSOIl. Aside from the three most prevalent ingredients of the alkaline crusts, there are always present a number of others, some of which are of fundamental importance to plant life. Their mere presence in the soluble form proves that the soil contains in a more or less insoluble shape, but still accessible to the plants, all that it can retain of these useful ingredients. Such are particularly the salts of potash and soluble phosphates, both of which are very commonly found in the alkaline salts from the heavier soils; while saltpeter, in the form of both potassium and sodium nitrates, is common, especially in the “black” alkali districts. It represents a sur- plus of the most expensive of the fertilizers which the farmer finds it necessary to supply to his soils in order to maintain their productiveness. - The most obvious mode of correcting the condition of alkali soils generally is clearly to supplement by artificial means the natural deficiency of drainage through the soil, resulting from the scanty rainfall. For, if we once leach out the surplus salts that have accumulated for ages, it will take ages to bring about the same con- dition of things and we shall practically have put an end to the “alkali’’ difficulty. But this leaching out can not be done by putting water on the surface of the land, unless at the same time its removal after passing through the 8oil is provided for; for it is manifest that if the alkali solution descends farther than the subsoil and remains there, ready to reascend so soon as evaporation at the surface calls for it, we shall have done no good. In fact, the inutility of this mode of procedure has been so thor- oughly tested in practice, both in California and in India, as to have shown that it is the reverse of useful and increases instead of diminishing the evil, because the solu- ble salts thereafter ascend from greater depths than the annual rainfall could have reached and their sum total is thus materially increased. This is the simple explana- tion of what is known as the “rise of the alkali,” which is observed in all lands sub- jected to surface irrigation for some length of time, creating increasing inconvenience and alarm as time progresses. Underdrainage is the general and absolute corrective of alkali. To flood the land until underdrains, laid reasonable distances apart, shall have run for some time, will end the trouble, not only for the time being, but for centuries, provided only that solid beds of the alkili salts do not underlie it. But this is the rare exception. There is, however, in certain regions one difficulty in the way of the success of this operation, namely, the existence of a bed or layer of calcareous hardpan, equally impervious to roots and water. Farmers have already learned that where this hard- pan underlies the subsoil at a few feet depth trees and vines will not flourish unless 54 -- ~, IRRIGATION. ~ - . . . . . it is broken through, so as to enable the roots to pass beneath.” This “knocking the bottorn out” of the holes in which trees are to be planted has already become a well-understood operation in the hardpan neighborhoods, the crowbar, or even a charge of powder, being called into requisition. It is noticeable that in such locali- tiés the alkali plague comes soonest and is most persistent, being the natural result of the retention of the alkaline water above the hardpan layer, and its reascent, with all its salts, so soon as evaporation sets in. The obvious remedy in such cases is to make the drainage. ditches deep enough to cut through the hardpan and to knock - so many holes into the latter as to facilitate drainage to the necessary extent. And where the land is otherwise suitable to special crops, such as fruits, the irrigator will always find underdrainage a paying investment. In reference to gypsum as a remedy, Prof. Hilgard says: It is apparent that, so far as the efficacy of the use of gypsum against alkali is con- cerned, each region will have to determine for itself whether or not its alkali is of the black or white type ; and as this can be generally readily ascertained by a simple inspection of puddles on alkali ground—whether or not tinted by the dissolution of the vegetable mold into an inky liquid, leaving black rings on evaporation—no one need be long in doubt on that point. Wherever the black tint appears, dressings of land plaster, ranging from 200 to 500 pounds per acre, will usually effect the change from “black” to “white,” after one or two irrigations followed by cultivation; pre- venting the killing of seeds in the ground as well as the dwindling of seedlings after sprouting, and greatly improving the tillage of the heavier soils. Thereafter, the chief measure toward the prevention of the rise of the salts to the surface is whatever tends to prevent evaporation from the land surface ; and therefore particularly the maintenance of deep and thorough tilth and the avoidance of the formation of any surface crusts. These means, together with a proper choice of crops and mode of cul- ture, will serve to maintain good production in most cases until the radical cure by drainage alongside of irrigation shall be justified by the increased value of the land. * Such a danger may be found in Southwest Idaho in the otherwise rich region of the Boisé and Fayette valleys, where a volvanic hardpan is found. THE PHYSICAT, CONDITIONS AND PROGRESS OF IRFIGATION. º C O N T E N T S. - - Page. Arizona----------------------------------------------------------------------------- tº e º ºs º ºs ... . . 57–80 California.--------------------......----------------------------------------------------------- 81–126 Colorado----------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------- 127–159 Idaho------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 160–177 Montana--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 161–197 New Mexico.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 198–227 Nevada.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 228–237 Oregon----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 238–245 Utah------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------. 246-265 Washington --------------------...------------------------------------------------------------ 266–275 Wyoming------------------------------------------------------ * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * s is is sº e s m = * * * * * 276-287 Thé Great Plains—Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas (North and South), Texas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288–298 IIST OF MAPS AND IIILUSTRATIONS. - Page. Rio Gila Valley, Ariz., unreclaimed lands in ...-------------------...-----...-- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - fi'7 Mohawk Valley, Ariz., looking Southeast ------------------------------------------...--------- 65 Raising water from a lost river, Arizona. ------------------------------------------------------ 72 Phreatiº waters in Arizona. -------------------------------------------------------...--...-- * * 7 Orange orchard, Los Angeles, Cak -----------...--------------------------- * ~ * * * * * * * * * * * = * * * * * = 81 Turlock and Modesto Dam, Stanislaus County, Cal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 Modern cement ditch, near Redlands, Cal. ---. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 Zanja or old-style ditch, near Redlands, Cal.................................................... 111 Cement hydrant and flume, near Redlands, Cal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 Irrigated garden and orchard, Tulare, Cal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 No. 1 Flume, Colorado Canal, Arkansas Valley, Colorado. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 Diagram, water strata, Colorado-----------...-...--------------------------------. . . . . . . . . ----- # 135 View of Greeley, Colo., 1870-------------------------------------------------------------...----- 141 Garden by irrigation, Greeley, Colo------..... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 Canals of Otero County, plan of, Colo ------. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 Plan of Big Sandy underflow, Colorado. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15t) Diagram representing canal wear, Colorado........................................------------- 151 Artesian basin, map of, San Luis Valley, Colorado. .......... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 Irrigation by seepage, San Luis Valley, Colorado -- . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 Map of southern Idaho --------------------------------------------------------. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 Rocky Cañon Trestle and Flume, Montana (Gallatin Valley) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 Irrigation by check, Montana (Gallatin Valley)..... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192 Rio Pecos near Roswell, N. Mex-- - - - - - - - - - - - - ------------------------------------------------- 198 Irrigated market garden in Santa Fe, N. Mex. ............ . . . . * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 206 Raton table land reservoirs, New Mexico.................................................. ---- 209 Irrigated orchard near Roswell, N. Mex............................................... -------- 21 IRock cut on curve, Pioneer Canal, Texas.............................------------------------- 221 Residence and orchard near Eddy, N. Mex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . -------------- 224 Sage brush and alfalfa, Wadsworth, Nev .................. --------........... ----------------- 230 Underflow works, Emigration Cañon, Utah ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... ------------------------------- 250 - Irrigation map of Wyoming-------------------...-----------..... $ e e s = e a... • * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 281 56 - vºozaev ‘ww.mae awan disvºl diawiwioºnism usy wºrry A virſo oni IRRIGATION IN STATES AND TERRITORIES. A R I Z0 N A. The messengers who brought the news of the “land of promise” were ridiculed. Their report was doubted because of its very truth. The ruins that mark some of the valleys of Arizona and the lines of pre- historic canals that still wrinkle their surface tell of the life that has been and promise nature's bounty to future irrigators. Even in its arid expanses the traveler remains entranced. After entering the Territory, mountain walls tower around him at every step, which the constant sunshine paints with vivid tones. As he proceeds into the settled por- tions, the luxuriance of the tropic growth is encircled by the desert cactus, and gardens of magical beauty dispute the land with the fantas. tie vegetation of an arid desert. In a little while, however, the irriga- tor lengthens his ditches, and the gold and green of harvest overspreads the face of nature. For the last quarter of a century the growth of the Territory has proceeded by small but sure degress, the population following the lines of the canals; and each year sees a new, if small, area brought under the dominion of man. In this struggle it is inter- esting to note how closely the modern cultivator has traversed the canal lines of the elder agriculture. In the Salt River Valley a map will show the present ditches, sometimes in the beds of the old water ways, but never diverging to any wide variance. It is doubtful, in- deed, if the Mésa City Canal would have ever been built had not an old rock cut been discovered, by which great labor and expense was saved the early settlers. The reclamation of Arizona is simply the repetition of history. A portion of the country once supported a populous life. The modern records of precipitation, as analyzed by Lieut. Glassford, of the Weather Bureau of this Department, show that there is suffi- cient Water if properly distributed and applied to support a greater one throughout the Territory. It is of interest to note that while many remains of a once widespread irrigation system are apparent, there are no evidences of high storage or artificial lakes. Certain theorists, however, have determined that the future of Arizona lies in the con- struction of enormous storage basins to hold the storm and winter water; yet practical experience is demonstrating that the success of a gen- eral system of reservoirs in Arizona may be very doubtful. The amount of sedimentary matter carried down the cañons of the Gila, Salt, and tributary streams is enormous. The problem of storage has another difficulty in Arizona, for bed rock seldom comes within many feet of the river or stream surface; and it is doubtful if many reservoirs could be constructed that would not either fill with detritus, silt, and sand, or be able to resist the force that may wash out its dam during a spring flood. The flood of February, 1891, washed away a stage station at Phoenix that had been built since 1858. According to the observation of several local engineers, if that flood had been restrained sufficiently 57 58 IRRIGATION. * to deaden the force of its water it would have deposited enough mat- ter to bury the city of Phoenix 200 feet deep. The débris traveling in the water wore iron bolts 3 inches wide and 3 inch thick down to a feather edge. Iron nuts were worn off, and 4-inch planking was re- duced in size to 1 inch. The problem of storage has been carefully considered by the local irrigators and inquirers, and abandoned for the present as too costly for the resources of the community and danger- ous. Dams in the beds of torrential streams are never likely to stand the tests required for security. Under the present irrigation system two and three crops per year of the staples can be raised. Vegetables, such as celery, tomatoes, and beans, and fruits like melons and strawberries, can be raised during the winter in the open air. The slightest irrigation will suffice for these crops, and in the season water is abundant in all the streams, and is supplemented by rainfall in the valleys. The orange, the grape, and the fig need the heat of the ever-bright summer, but every month in the year has its crop. The Chinese raise enormous quantities of vegetables during the winter on very small areas, the only limit of production being the market, which, on account of incomplete railroad facilities, is prac- tically confined to the farmers’ immediate neighborhood. Under the direction of Congress the United States Signal Service has prepared a series of able monographs upon “Irrigation and Water Storage in the Arid Region.” The experience of the writers therein in connection with the Weather Service gives to their views and con- clusions the weight of expert authority. In this place it will only be necessary, as part of the review of progress that belongs to the irriga- tion inquiry, to briefly refer to some of the chief conclusions they have reached. Lieut. Glassford, whose knowledge of our southwestern region and its climatology, is most extensive and accurate, says in his report on Arizona : In general it may be said that the question of the reclamation of any arid land presents itself for discussion under five topics, which it is well to note. They are : (1) Geography and hyetophysics of the region ; (2) amount of land which may be irrigated; (3) amount of water which may be used for irrigation ; (4) economy of irrigation; (5) legal questions involved. The lines of division between these topics can not be sharply drawn; each involves consideration from several points of view and thus comes within the province of several studies. The economical and legal questions are to be settled by the intending investor and his advisors; the amount of land and the amount of water available for use upon it are to be determined by engineers; the meteorological student may in pursuit of his researches find himself involved in the discussion of any or all of these topics, but his special province is the hyetophysics as affected by the determining facts of na- titl I'e. As a matter of course the chief importance of the papers under con- sideration consists in their precise and able review of the climatological conditions affecting and controlling aridity. It is therefore of impor- tance to present as briefly as possible the salient factors in such reviews. Lieut. Glassford discusses Arizona, New Mexico, and California. Prac- tically also, the State last named indicates the chief elements of the problem of aridity in connection with Western Nevada, and the eastern portions of Oregon and Washington. To begin with Arizona then, Lieut. Glassford says, with the special agent in charge of the irrigation inquiry and all other authority on the subject, that the study of hyetophysics, or of the original search for the causes of climatic laws and effects, must be the first one made. The farmer, the investor, the engineers appreciate the existence of the rich alluvial bottom land, and of the fertile areas embraced by the table or mesa portions of the topography. The reclaimability of these areas is * THE CIIMATIC FACTORS IN ARIZONA. 59 Within their province, but in order to work most intelligently they must be in possession of the data. Mr. Glassford states with force that— The origin of every grain of humus in the lower rivers is to be found on the jagged mountain peaks, on the bare plateaus, and in the eroded cañons of the central and 11orthern portions of the Territory; the origin of every drop of water that flows to waste upon the shoals of the Gulf of California, of every inch of water that by wise forethought has been applied to the moistening of a soil, so rich as to need no rein- forcement of artificial fertilizers, must be sought in the winter and summer rains, in the lingering mountain cap of snow, and in the destructive suddenness of the so- called cloudburst. These are the elements of the problem, which must be presented briefly and suc- cinctly in order that it shall be clearly appreciated from the outset, that: (1) The causes which have produced the alluvial bottom lands are of continual and présent operation, and are to be counted on to restore all waste, whether it be the molecular loss of soil washed away as detritus or the chemical waste of soil de- pauperated by the growth of crops. (2) That these causes must be accepted as constant factors, not to be altered or avoided, but whose actions may be diverted to channels which shall aid rather than retard the enterprise of human industry. It is unnecessary to present the review of physical geography which follows, further than to say that Arizona “presents the problem of rain catchment, water storage, and economical distribution, together with notable reclaimability of the land to be irrigated, in terms of almost ideal simplicity.” The trend or axis of the mountain system is well defined and distinct. It runs mainly from northwest to southeast. In the subsidiary range the same axial trend is apparent, and the whole formation indicates the controlling forces which affect the aqueous conditions of the atmosphere, pointing directly to the Southern Pacific Ocean, its currents and winds. Mr. Glassford says: In passing it is well to note an important result of this uniformity of the moun- tain axis carried out constantly over more than 500 miles, and one which will receive more extended consideration in its proper connection, and that is that the prevalent moisture-bearing wind is from the southwest, at right angles to the broad side of the mountains, and thus encounters the maximum bluff surface. In other words, the passage of the Tainy winds across Arizona is by no means an easy gliding over an in- clined plane, but the laborious ascent of a flight of steps. - He makes use of a striking comparison by presenting the main for- mation as “the continental V.” This begins in Arizona at an altitude of 3,000 feet, and is not one merely “ of contours and rock masses.” The line of 3,000 feet “marks with equal distinctness an important difference in the soil, an astonishing difference in climatic features, and so great a difference in commercial and economical value that it at once suggests the idea that nature has here balanced means with end. The partition is unequal southwest of the dividing line, roughly speaking. One-third of the Territory lies below the level of 3,000 feet. Northeast of the same line two-thirds of the Territory is a lofty plateau. The plan has the fertile soil and the minimum of rain. The plateau receives abundant rain upon its rocky surface and retains almost none of it. The plain is the garden. The plateau is the reservoir of water and the storehouse of life for the soil.” In the area thus indicated, “save a small number of exceptional in- stances, whose acreage is inconsiderable in comparison, the plain thus defined contains the lands economically available for reclamation.” More than half the Territory “is measured above the 5,000-foot con- tour,” and forms in general what is known to geographers as the Colo- rado Plateau. To the eastern extremity thereof, and within New Mex- ico—that is, the plateau or table land of the Raton Mountains—there is in progress a remarkable development of irrigation, the success of which, º 60 IRRIGATION. already quite well determined, may indicate the possibility, even proba- bility, of extending the area of irrigable reclaimability over a vast region heretofore wholly given up to sparse cattle grazing and sheep husbandry. At any rate there is reason to hope for an association of arable and pastoral industries through both open water storage and phreatic supply, by which small areas cultivated for grain, roots, and forage may sustain larger ones brought under fence and use for stock breeding and raising purposes; so that cattle farms rather than ranches will be the order of the near future. - The river systems of Arizona are two. North of its great-divide is the Colorado, approximately controlling one-half of the Territory. It has but a small number of affluents, which however are sufficient to carry off the scanty rainfall. South of the great divide is found the more important watershed (from an irrigation point) of the Gila and its trib- utaries. Of the plateau divide it is said: “North of it the rivers flow for the most part in deeply-eroded caſions. South of it are level valleys and basins which it is clear have in recent geologic time contained immense inland seas of the order of Lake Bonneville, or the similar region im- mediately to the north.” One difficulty in the study of “precipitation phenomena” in Arizona, as well as elsewhere in our mountain region, arises from the fact that the stations for meteorological observations are for the most part in Valleys and cañons. The heavy rains occur on the high altitudes. While in the lower Gila and Salt River valleys the annual precipita- tion seldom exceeds 7 or 8 inches, and is often much less, it is a matter of constant observation by the traveler that the proplateaus, the table land, the mountain slopes, and the overtowering summits and peaks may be black with storm and every arroyo or channel be filled with a torren- tial flow. “Nor,” says Mr. Glassford, “is this confined to the mere sight of showers which go unmeasured. During the winter the most casual observer of the streams sees periods of high water amounting at times to turbulent flood, which are so little to be accounted for by the record that the conclusion is irresistible that existing records in- dicate only a fraction of the actual precipitation which can be relied upon for water storage, and that these data represent perhaps the mini- mum quantity of the rainfall. Yet, despite this known disproportion of the recorded and actual efficient rainfall, it has,” says Mr. Glassford, “ been shown that the measured amounts are sufficient to supply water for the irrigation of much more land than the acreage known to be available.” This last statement is of value as contrasting with another made in a bulletin of the United States Census to the effect that with 65,821 acres (the area given as cultivated by irrigation in the fiscal year 1889–90) there is no more available water “in sight” for the extension of the area of cultivation. The amount of land “ under ditch” at the same period is given as follows: Acres. By the Governor of Arizona --------------------------------------------- 587, 460 By Mr. F. H. Newell, U. S. Geological Survey.----------...-- - - - - - - - - - - - - - 455,000 By United States Senate Irrigation Committee report------- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 529, 200 Or an average of.-------------------------------------------------- 523,887 Mr. Glassford's statement, it will be observed, is that the “measured amounts” of water—and therefore “in sight”—“are sufficient to Sup- ply water for the irrigation of much more land than the average known to be available.” It must be borne in mind that Mr. Glassford's “meas- THE RAIN-MAKERS AND THE DISTRIBUTORS. 61 ured amounts” of available rainfall does not embrace the “storm waters,” the storage of which is the objective point of the agent's limitative remarks in the census bulletin referred to. Mention is made of this difference of view because the same factors exist over all of the arid region in greater or less degree, as Mr. Glassford points out in the paper on Arizona to which reference is now called. The necessity of providing for distinct, definite, and continued weather observations in high altitudes is emphasized by the conclusions presented by the weather service experts. No greater service can now be rendered the practical consideration of reclamation by irrigation than the establish- ment of mountain observatories and the inauguration of climatological investigation, having specially in view the cosmical laws affecting our Cordilleran water supply. The division of Arizona into “plain, proplateau, and plateau” serves also to mark the division into two essentially “variant systems of isolayetal curves.” The curves of the physical system are the lines also of precipitation and its changes. Both reproduce “the characterizing axial inflection of the mountain mass.” The plain has no great elevation or high ranges. Hence its rainfall is not within, to any large degree, the corrective effects required by the unmeasured fall upon higher alti- tudes, in other portions of the territory. Speaking of the Colorado Basin region around Fort Mojave, Mr. Glassford says: Upon this low plain the rain records approximate the absolute minimum of the world. It is from the reports of early travelers in this region, as rainless as the Saharas or the central plains of Australia, that has sprung the common belief that Arizona was agriculturally worthless because of its aridity. Hunters and trappers in search of game, emigrants wearily accepting the desert as the hard path leading to the promised fatness of California, prospectors seeking placers and pockets, had neither time nor inclination to think of aught but the means of protection against the Indians. They found their road lying over sandy plains, where springs were, far away and where the sky was seldom clouded with rain. Carelessly they called the land a desert, carelessly their hasty decision spread, and now this prejudice, founded on ignorance and faulty observation, yields but slowly to the argument of facts. The pro-plateau and plateau sections are associated together in Mr. Glassford's review. The “extensive” high lands thereof exercise the largest influence as “rain-makers.” With one exception, too, “the isohyetal curves tend to follow the axial inflection ” of the mass. “With sufficiently remarkable regularity the curves of annual rainfall, amounting to more than 10 inches, fall quite to the south of the great divide, and thus indicate for the Gila watershed a considerable superi- ority of water supply over the Colorado system.” - These curves “also draw in water” the division between plain and plateau. The curve of 15 inches is to the southeast and embraces the region drained by the Santa Cruz and San Pedro rivers. The 20-inch curve is also located in southern and central Arizona. The highest curve shows a fall of 25 inches, and “accords with the roots of the San Francisco Mountain’’ in the northwest. The seasonal relations of the rainfall are of marked importance. Mr. Glassford says: - Arizona has two plainly marked rainy seasons, a fact which largely balances the relatively small precipitation. In this, as in every particular of the study of pre- cipitation in the Territory, it should be noted that the physical features are such as to lead all rain precipitation down the steep monntain side, everywhere approximat- ing perpendicularity with such rapidity that the surface which receives the rain is little benefited thereby, and the valleys are almost instantly affected. The season of winter rains begins in December with a marked absence of precision in definition, but at the other eud in February its termination may be predicted within narrow limits. The precipitation during this season is neither so great nor so much to be relied upon as the rains of summer, yet it serves a regulating purpose, 62 IRRIGATION. +, whose direct influence upon the climate and the more particularly hydraulic features now under discussion is persistent for months after the definite conclusion of the season which produced it. The precipitation at this season is both heavy and gen- eral while it lasts. The season presents a series of weather types which have been the subject of some study in connection with their annual and secular appearance. upon the Pacific coast. In brief, the storms are of the sort conventionally known as cyclonic or low barometric areas, between which are interpolated anticyclonic areas marked by extreme cloudlessness and slight humidity. As in the case of the seasonal rains of California, so in Arizona, the variability of the winter rains in amount and frequency is in the ratio of the intensity and recurrence of barometric disturbances. To this characteristic feature is due the intermittent effect of the rainfall, which gives the streams both high and low water during the rainy season. To such an ex- tent is this tendency carried that in time of drought some of the streams become mere rills, and even disappear altogether, either because of total failure of the source of supply or because the water has sought underground channels beneath the great deposits of detritus, sand, and silt which have washed into the beds of the streams on account of the rapidity of passage of rain water to a distinctly lower level over mountain sides of notably steep pitch. Despite the fact that the amount of rain precipitated during the three winter months is measurably less than in summer, it never fails to flood the streams. The reason for this has already been indicated in the sharpness of the contours of alti- tude. The low temperature which prevails upon the plateau during this season also tends to magnify this result. The soil of the mountails, naturally little pervious, is made still more impermeable by the freezing of rains upon it, so that succeeding rains fall upon glare ice and are hurried to the valleys with a minimum of absorp- tion by the soil. Much of the precipitation of the winter rainy season occurs in the form of snow, which is retained upon the spot where it falls. Succeeding falls add to this mal.tle of stored water until it is by no means unusual to find it on the mountains all the way from 3 to 7 feet deep. It thus appears that the total winter precipita- tion is naturally resolved into two components, of which one, the rain precipitation, has an immediate though evanescent effect upon the streams, while the other, the snow precipitation, exerts an influence more permanent in proportion as it is less immediate. This mantle of snow is in fact a great storage reservoir with neither dam nor dike, and automatic in its regulation of supply to the causes which avail in producing demand. It remains upon the plateaus of high altitude upon which it has fallen for months after the definite conclusion of the rainy season, and is frequently observed to persist until nearly the beginning of July. Its gradual melting serves to keep a quantum of water in all the streams throughout the dry season almost to the beginning of the summer rains. The summer rains come in July, August, and September, being somewhat sharply defined from the preceding dry season, but shading so indeterminately toward the beginning of the winter rains that it becomes quite proper to say that, while Arizona has two rainy seasons, it has but one dry season. Although there is no positive delimitation of time between the rains of summer and those of winter, there is to be noted a differentiation of character. The rains of winter are caused by the prox- imity of approach of great storms in low-pressure areas which form a part of the storm system of the country at large. The rains of summer are local in character and directly traceable to mountain influences, with a distinguishing peculiarity which should be noted for future study. In general the amount of rainfall is great- est in districts toward the point from which the prevailing wind blows; in Arizona. the greatest pluvial effort is registered on the leeward side of ranges. A noteworthy feature of the climatology of the Territory is, that when the last snow disappears upon the mountain summits the summer rains commence. So constant and so well appreciated is this relation that the oldest settlers, and the Indians before them º been in the habit of calculating the coming of the rains in accordance there- with. It has been noted that the summer rains are of local character; they appear some- what upon the plain, but their maximum amount and intensity is displayed upon the plateau. While their total amount is considerably in excess of the sum of the win- ter rains, the amount of any individual precipitation is uniformly less than any one precipitation of winter, and the excess is made to appear through the sum of a long series of precipitations, which are of almost daily occurrence upon the mountain summits. They rarely have any great extent, but their intensity is so remarkable a feature as to warrant particular consideration. The fact that showers are observed almost every afternoon upon the mountain sum- mits, and most uniformly only in the afternoon, points directly to this cause, which may be briefly discussed. A well-established law of atmospheric temperature is that it decreases with the elevation, a law whose operation is easily seen upon snow-clad mountains, where the snow line gradually rises with the increasing heat of summer. During the persistence of the snow the actual decrease in temperature on the moun- * EvAPORATION, VELOCITY OF WIND, AND TEMPERATURE. 63 tain sides # nearly equal to the theoretical decrease with elevation. The white snow surface by its reflection of incident solar heat tends to keep the mountain mass at a low temperature, and possibly such a surface absorbs no more heat than air of the same elevation; at best its coefficient of alysorption is small. Thence it results that above the line of actually persistent snow the vertical isotherms may be conceived to differ but slightly over the plateau and over the extensive summits. With the final obliteration of the snow a marked change occurs. The rock surface now exposed absorbs heat and speedily converts the mountains into a radiant body of conical form. The strata of air cut by this cone of radiation and strata lying above it become at once disturbed, convection is instituted, and as the influence spreads over a consider- able area, great amounts of air are in a short time lifted to a great height, and in the resulting operations of expansion, cooling and condensation, the upper currents dis- tribute the rain over the plateau and particularly to leeward. By parity of demon- stration, the same principles may be shown to account for the diurnal periodicity of these summer rains. s From the foregoing considerations it appears that the rainfall of Arizona, computed on the basis of the present records, whose inaccuracy is known to be subtractive, is more than sufficient to irrigate the reclaimable soil, great as its extent is known to be. The miximum rainfall of any of the years for which records have been kept is not so great as to burden the usual engineering appliances for handling it, and the possi- bility of cloud-bursts simply necessitates the construction of stronger retaining works and the maintenance of emergency wasteweirs. The great question to be considered by the engineer in connection with each stream is its hydraulic potential, the maxi- mum amount of water available at the close of the period of minimum supply. That this is sufficient for all his uses is clear from the observations of the meteorologists, of which a summary sketch has here been presented. Two other factors of importance are treated. These are “eyapora- tion” and the “mechanical equivalent of wind power.” The Monthly Weather Review for September, 1888 (p. 235), is referred to as “the first definite step” towards studying evaporation as “an essential cli- matographic datum.” Mr. Glassford states (Irrigation and Water Storage in Arid Region, p. 307) that— In general it may be said that the amount of evaporation depends on the dryness of the air, the velocity of the wind, the temperature of the evaporating water, the extent of the evaporating surface, and, other things being equal, varies inversely as the barometric pressure. It is possible also that the amount of evaporation may be reduced by the height of the banks of the reservoir, or, what amounts to the same thing, the lowering of the water level. Instrumental records were carefully taken at a number of stations in this country between July, 1837, and July, 1888. Four of these stations were in Arizona, and the records of these posts are here presented as they appear in the Monthly Review. They serve to indicate what must be the evaporation from storage reservoirs, since, even though they do not give the actual evaporation from every square inch of water surface (and this is uncertain, it is neither asserted nor denied), yet they sup- ply a proportional scale for the comparison of reservoirs within the same or different atmidometric curves: 1888. 1887. Station. Year. Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May. |June. July. Aug. ||Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec. Fort Apache . . . . . . 2, 6 || 3. 0 || 3. 6 || 6.8 || 9, 4 || 9, 1 || 7. 1 || 6, 7 || 5. 3 || 5.2 || 4, 1 || 2, 6 || 65. 5 Fort Grant ........] 5.2 || 4, 8 || 6.4 9.2 | 10.2 | 13.8 12.4 10.5 | 9.0 7.9 || 7.2 || 4.6 || 101 2 Prescott. ---------. 1. 4 || 2.8 || 3. 6 || 5.4 6. 2 8. 1 || 6.6 | 6.5 || 4. 7 || 4.9 || 3. 6 || 2.2 56.0 Yuma ------------- 4, 4 || 5.2 6, 6 || 9, 6 9.6 || 12.6 || 11. 0 || 10.2 8. 2 8.2 5. 5 || 4, 6 || 95.7 Arizona is, therefore, entirely above the line of 50 per cent; one-half is above that of 90 per cent, and one area therein reaches above the maximum of evaporation in the United States, which is 100 inches. * - The greatest amount of evaporation occurs in the plain, which is the region where irrigation is destined to be applied, and the curves of high evaporation include nearly all the projected reservoirs. Yet, on the other hand, it should be noted that the enormous amount of evaporation within the 100-inch curve will scarcely affect the economic features, because in the San Simon and Sulphur Springs valleys, over which this curve is drawn with close restrictions, present indications point to irriga- tion by utilizing the subterranean flow of waters which are below the reach of evapo- rating influences. (P. 307.) 64 * IRRIGATION. . * .* In relation to wind power, Mr. Glassford has the following para- graph : Enormous power goes to waste all over the land in the wind which blows and is not utilized. The question is one which has engaged the attention of mechanicians, who recognize the power latent and find their difficulty, not in rendering it imme- diately efficient, but in conserving its energy. For irrigating purposes in Arizona this difficulty needs no consideration; it is sufficient to raise water into a tank or reservoir whence it may be drawn as needed. The wind may not be constant, but its direction is immaterial, and the force which will operate a modern wind motor is very small. Such application of power is very clearly indicated for the fertile val- leys of the southeastern corner of the Territory, where abundant streams underlie the soil and may be reached by wells not more than 20 feet deep. The conclusions reached, then, as to the subjects under considera- tion, are: - (1) Twice each year there occurs sufficient aqueous precipitation in Arizona to re- claim every acre of land worthy of such reclamation. (2) The coefficient of evaporation, though absolutely high, is relatively so small in comparison with the total fluid contents of the actual and projected storage basins that it may be economically disregarded as a vanishing quantity. (3) A measureless amount of foot-pounds of available power is daily going to waste in the winds which blow over the land. This power, rendered efficient by wind motors, will suffice to utilize the large subterranean rivers which are known to under- lie large areas of rich land. THE SALT RIVER WALLEY. At present this is the principal irrigated area of Arizona, and obtains its water supply from the Salt River, which heads in New Mexico, 350 to 400 miles to the northeast of Phoenix. The Werde River and a great num- ber of creeks are tributaries to this stream. The Werde heads in the San Francisco Mountains. The entire drainage area is snow-fed. The Salt River Valley main canals are about 300 miles in length, vary from 15 feet on bottom to 36, and are from 3 to 74 feet deep. There are nearly 5,000 miles of laterals. There are no reservoirs in the valley and but one dam, that at the head of the Arizona Canal, which is 945 feet long and raises the water 8 feet. The area under ditch is 300,000, of which 145,000 are cultivated, at a first cost for water of $10 and an annual water rental of $1 per acre. To clear the land will cost $2 per acre, and to put in grass or alfalfa $5 an acre additional. The irriga- tion constructions cost from $5.50 to $6 per acre, which cost to the user of water is included in his royalty. The probable average cost to the owners of ditches for annual maintenance and repairs is 60 to 70 cents per acre. Wheat, barley, alfalfa, Sorghum, sugar cane, peaches, apri- cots, prunes, pears, figs, grapes, nectarines, oranges, and lemons, and all staple vegetables are grown all the year through. The average yield is given at the following figures: Per acre, Per acre. Wheat. - - - - - - - - - - pounds. 1,700 to 1,900 || Alfalfa. ........ gº tº º º tº e º 'º º sº º & º ºs º gº gº tons - 8 Barley - - - - - - - - - - - - - do - - - 2,200 to 2,500 | Sorghum... -- - - - - - -...- - - - - - - . . . do .. 30 The raisin area yielded in 1891 7 to 10 tons of grapes per acre from vines three years old from the cutting. In other parts of the Territory there are important works constructed, and others are contemplated or under way. The Florence Canal covers 60,000 to 75,000 acres. A canal is now being located from a reservoir at the mouth of Camp Creek, where it enters the Verde, 50 miles north- west of Phoenix, and additional storage for the same canal is contem- plated at Deadman Cañon, on same river. It will skirt the McDowell tuottelu pºntºpiuſ pro reaſ atro 'Lsvº H.Laos º Nixooºi ºxºTtv A. xawvnoſt v Nozia v ſvw.nx avas xatºry A wriae) oraeſ ao Laevae TESTIMONY OF ARIZONA IRRIGATORS AND CANAL OWNERS. 65 Mountains, covering a valley of 200,000 acres, bounded on the east by the McDowell Mountains, north by the foothills lying to the northeast of Cave Creek, and on the south by the foothills lying about 8 miles north of Salt River and to the west of Cave Creek. A storage reservoir is proposed to distribute the waters of Cave Creek, and a similar project is reported in process of construction on the Agua Fria. Here a dam 1,100 feet long is building across the caſion, from which water will be directed in a southeasterly direction, crossing the Southern Pacific Railroad at Gila Bend, for the irrigation of 300,000 acres. The Walnut dam on the E[assayampa is to be rebuilt. There are several canals proposed along the Gila, which will cover a great deal of land between Agua Fria dam and the junction with the Colorado. The activity about Yuma is remarkable, and that section promises to grow in prominence for its semitropical productions. One interesting enterprise, which is preparing to irrigate by means of water pumped from the Colorado, will be watched with interest. During the personal investigation of irrigation in the Salt River Valley, in June, 1891, the special agent was waited upon by a commit- tee of the principal citizens and irrigators, among whom Were Hon. N. O. Murphy, acting governor; T. E. Ferrish, ex-commissioner of irriga- tion; Hon. Chas. D. Poston, ex-Delegate to Congress; Mr. Lincoln Fowler, C. E. W. A. McGuinnis, Mr. Wormser, H. H. Logan, of the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce, and others, who desired to present facts concerning the state of irrigation in the Salt River Valley. They com- plained vehemently of statements officially made to the effect that only 65,821 acres were under irrigation in the Territory, and 35,212 acres in Maricopa County. The answers to the special agent's questions were taken down by Mr. M. A. Downing, his assistant, and are here given. It is only necessary to say further that the answers were all fully can- vassed by the gentlemen present, and in most cases are the results of full discussion. How many irrigation canals are there in the Salt River Valley? Mr. Fowl.ER. In the Salt River Valley there are on the north side of the river the Arizona Canal, the Consolidated, which includes the Grand, and Maricopa, Salt River Valley, and Cross Cut canals, and the Dutch Ditch. All are under one management and form an interlock- ing system. Farther down the river, on the north side, are the Griffin, Farmers', and St. John's canals under independent management. On the south side of the river the canals are the Highland, the Mesa City Canal, the Utah Ditch, the Tempe Canal, the San Francisco, the Mar- monier or French, and the Broadway ditches. The canals on the south side of the river are owned in common by the proprietors of the lands irrigated, but the Mesa City Canal is the only one incorporated by the irrigators. These ditches have numerous extensions and branches, and irrigate wide areas. What is the acreage under these south-side ditches Mr. WURMSER. That can not be given just now, but under the High- land there were eight sections or 5,120 acres cultivated during 1890; the Mesa City Ditch cultivates 8,000 acres. The farms under this ditch. are all small, It is owned by the Mormons, and they call 10 acres a farm. The Highland Ditch was taken out to cover land taken up under the desert-land act, and the farms are all large. There are none less than 160 acres. The Utah Ditch irrigates a little over 3,000 acres. These farms are also small, about 10 acres. The Tempe Canal waters S. Ex, 41—5 66 IRRIGATION. 10,000 acres; its full capacity is 12,000 acres. The average size of farm under this ditch is from 160 acres to a segtion, except that there are some newcomers who raise fruit on plats of about 20 acres each, which might amount to two or three sections. I should say, taking this into account, there are 12,000 acres under cultivation. The San Francisco has 10,000 acres of land under it and carries 5,600 inches of water; there were in 1890 about 4,000 acres cultivated. The French or Marmo- nier Ditch cultivates 4 sections of desert land, 2,560 acres; and besides this there are 400 acres divided into other small farms. This will make 33,120 acres irrigated and cultivated on the south side of the river dur- ing 1890, under the farmer-owned canals. Mr. FOWLER. Under the Arizona Canal, on the north side, there were, according to the figures of three years ago, 43,000 acres under cultiva- tion; this has increased to a great extent, and in 1890 there was more than that amount cultivated under that canal. There are between 39,000 and 40,000 acres cultivated under other of the canals belonging to the consolidated system, which figures, added to those already given, will make a total of about 116,120 acres cultivated by irrigation in the Salt River Valley, exclusive of the land under the Farmers' and St. John's canals in the lower part of this valley. The estimate of cultivation in the Salt River Valley made by the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce is 125,000 acres. This takes into consideration the increased cultivation under the Arizona Canal systems, and is very accurate up to date. Mr. LOGAN. We complain of official statements that the maximum amount of land that can be irrigated by the present method of supply has been reached, and that without high altitude storage of water no further advance can be made. There is no storage of water at the pres- ent time in the Salt River Valley. Any man who makes the first state- ment has certainly not seen the country. There is a project for storage, the possibilities of which are very great. But the water in sight will irrigate in the Salt River Valley 300,000 acres. There were in Maricopa County 309,000 acres under canal on the 30th of June, 1890; of that amount there was actually cultivated 45,000 acres in barley, 45,000 in alfalfa, 15,000 in wheat, 5,000 in fruit trees and vines, and 15,000 acres in miscellaneous crops, vegetables, and sugar corn, that make 122,000 acres. There is a large acreage in excess of that not mentioned, most of it being in pasture. Is it made available by the application of water? Mr. LOGAN. Yes, sir; I think the pastural area would amount to 30,000 acres. There are a great many fields that are irrigated only once or twice, making too small a crop to cut, but still leaving good pastur- age. I know my estimate is conservative. I have gone over it several times with great care, and think I am absolutely under the actual fig- ures. Officials should exercise the greatest care in making statements such as are contained in the bulletin to which I refer. They often do great harm to the Communities affected. Then you say there is 135,000 acres of land under cultivation and use by irrigation and that amount was cultivated on the 30th of June, 1890 % Mr. LOGAN. Yes, sir; but only 125,000 acres was in a state of fair cul- tivation. Some of our barley, for instance, is in “volunteer; ” that is, not seeded, in but coming up from last year's crop. It receives only one watering generally, possibly two, and produces only about one-third of a crop, which cuts down materially our average of production. There are more acres under cultivation in the Salt River Valley than are re- PRODUCTION IN GRAIN AND FRUIT WITH LAND WALUES. 67 ported in Bulletin 35. Any man can be convinced, without the neces- sity of an enumeration, that there are more than 65,821 acres irrigated in Arizona, and I can introduce you, if necessary, to more than 327 irrigators in Maricopa County. The statements that you are controverting assets that the county of Maricopa had at date of enumeration 327 irrigators, a total irrigated of area 35,212 acres, and that the average size of the farms is 108 acres, with an average value of products of $9.26 per acre. Will Mr. Logan please tell me whether these figures are correct 3 Mr. Log AN. Well, there are cultivated to barley 45,000 acres, which, according to the best statistics obtainable from the thrashers, yielded an average of 1,000 pounds to the acre and 48 pounds to the bushel. That is the average of the whole acreage. I have not the slightest doubt 10,000 acres of barley ran 2,500 pounds to the acre, probably 10,000 acres more gave 1,500 to 1,600 pounds, and the balance went light for the reasons I have given. The average was, however, 1,000 pounds to the acre. Alfalfa produces here under fair cultivation and good irrigation 8 tons to the acre. The average would be 4 tons to the acre, at a minimum value per ton of $4. I believe $3.50 per ton is the lowest it ever reached. In 1890 the average was $4.50. There were in 1890, June 30, 45,000 acres in alfalfa. Of wheat there were 15,000 acres at the same time. I do not know what is the yield of wheat. Do you Mr. Fowler ? Mr. FOWLER. About 120 pounds to the acre, Mr. LOGAN. There has been less poor farming in wheat than in bar- ley. Wheat is worth about $1.25 per cwt. or 75 cents a bushel. We had fruit for exportation or sale in limited quantities. Probably not over 900 acres of the 5,000 acres planted in fruit in this valley is bear- ing. I will estimate the value of the first crop at $100 per acre, and think that will be quite conservative. Mr. WURMSER. It pays more than that. A man here sold and shipped from 4 acres of peaches enough to net $550 clear of all expenses. Arizona is credited by the census viticultural bulletin with having in the whole Territory 1,000 acres of bearing vines, producing 3 tons of grapes per acre, at $16.50 per ton. Mr. LOGAN. There never were any grapes sold in this country for less than 1 cent per pound. I was offered only yesterday 14 cents per pound and that is the lowest ever offered. That would make $30 per ton. Three tons per acre is a fair average. I will say, however, that the major part of the vineyards are not in a good state of cultivation. I see that Arizona is put at the head or as high as as any other State or Territory in the amount of grape product per acre, and that is cor- rect. With vines in approximately good bearing, however, I think 4 tons would be the average, but taking it as a whole I think the figures are about right on that point. Grape cultivation in this Territory is mainly confined to Maricopa County; that is, we have nine-tenths of the area. The value of the plant and land, I notice, is put down at $75,000, but the 5,000 acres of fruit in the valley to-day are worth an average of $100 per acre and upward. Mr. FOWLER. One vineyard sold for $200 an acre. There were about a hundred acres; 80 acres in fruit and 20 acres in alfalfa. Two leading ranches have 200 acres each, 100 acres on both being in figs. The re- turns for 1890 give the value of the crops as $9.26 per acre in Maricopa County. Mr. LOGAN. I should think that was below the real figures. A good farmer will get for his barley about $25 per acre, and his alfalfa about 68 IRRIGATION. $35 and $40; taking good and bad, one with another, I should think $16 would be very low. In wheat I should say $15. Vegetables are almost all raised by Chinamen, and they do not tell what they get, but I know it goes into high figures; I should think from $600 to $700 per acre. So, taking all kinds of cultivation into consideration, $35 per acre would be a low estimate for the product of irrigated land here. All of these present, with the exception of Mr. Poston, were, at the date of testifying, practical irrigators, who raised crops. They all said that no one ever took the figures of their farms. Besides, many of them own or are connected with irrigation ditches. They all stated that no request was ever received by them for the figures or statistics thereof. A further statement is that “the acreage under cultivation may be regarded as approaching the maximum possible with the present supply and methods of use.” So far as Maricopa County is concerned, is that correct? Mr. LOGAN. I do not think it has a shadow of truth. The man who made it never investigated, because we have not one but Several canals here capable of irrigating all the land he mentions as now irrigated. I can speak with absolute certainty on that. It is only an opinion and the opinion is wrong. He also gives the limit of cultivation in Arizona at 65,000 acres. The area capable of being irrigated from existing sup. ply works will exceed 2,000,000 acres. In the Salt and Gila valleys I believe there is upward of 1,000,000 acres of land that will come under cultivation from the water in sight. Mr. MCGUINNISS. I think it will be a great deal more than that. Mr. FowlF.R.. I believe the acreage will go away beyond 2,000,000 ACTéS. You would all agree, then, that 1,000,000 acres would be a moderate estimate of the amount of land that could be reclaimed by the water in sight at this time? Mr. FowlER. People who build canals for profit, and have money to invest, have constructed ditches in this valley alone for 300,000 acres, and a further area in the rest of the Territory. These canals are based on the idea of profit. - Mr. LOGAN. The canal system of Maricopa County has cost up- ward of $2,000,000, probably $2,500,000. From the ditches now con- structed we have a supply for 300,000 acres of land, and with further economy it can be made to serve much more. As the land comes under cultivation from year to year a smaller amount of water suffices, and the surplus not needed for the old land leaves water for the new, so that it is apparent how we expect to irrigate more than 300,000 with the present construction and supply. In 1889 we irrigated as late as the last of September; in 1890, in March and the last of August. Fifty inches of water will irrigate 80 acres of land, that is 50 inches for 45 days. Now the supply of the river furnishes the greatest abun- dance during the months of April and June, and by May the irrigation of any moment is complete. Then the alfalfa needs little or no water during the irrigating season, as the best authorities here agree that abundant winter irrigation is the best method. There are a number of alfalfa fields. Now, I believe that the land north of Phoenix will sim- ply be watered once, and that during winter, allowing seepage to do the rest. Ten years ago the land would have been entirely barren in 60 days without irrigation, and I believe now with one winter irrigation it would produce as many pounds of valuable food as other tracts at present do with summer irrigation. - THE VALUE OF IRRIGATED LAND AND ITS INCREASE. 69 Did you have any difficulty in June, 1890, as to distribution of your water supply? Mr. LOGAN. Our water supply during 1890 was in the hands of a water commissioner, and I think there was no loss of crops. There could have been no dispute during 1890 over this matter in this county, which embraces the great majority of the land under corporation ir- rigation, because the companies had to obey the irrigation commis. sioner, who divided the water. The cost of water is put at $5.75 per acre, and I should think that that was a fair statement. * Wººters are being taken to increase the water supply of Maricopa County by storage # , Mr. LOGAN. Practically none. There is no effort being made at storage. It is a matter of grave doubt if the reservoir system here is a practical thing. Mr. Logan continued his interesting testimony, which is presented in a condensed form as follows: - There is no appreciable difference in the value of cultivated and un- cultivated land under the various ditches except there be some valu- able improvements in the way of fencing, etc. The value of land not under ditches amounts to nothing at all. There is no cultivation at all except by irrigation. The general value of land may be estimated at $25 per acre, with water. It is generally considered that land which is tilled, cleared, prepared, ditched, and planted is worth $45 per acre. It is supposed that $25 is bed rock, divided in this way: That $10 is the price of the ditch per acre, $10 the price of the improvement, clearing, etc., and $5 the profit to the investor. Our water system is in good condition, the progress of the country is receiving very fair assistance at the present time, and in the very near future we will make very considerable growth. I presume that of the 5,000 acres in fruit 1,500 or 2,000 acres were planted during 1890. We feel now that railroad communication to the north is possible, if not assured, and we shall have before the end of 1892 10,000 acres in fruit, and the traffic managers assure us that ample transportation will be furnished. There are 700 acres in oranges now. This country will raise peaches, pears, figs, Oranges, olives, and almonds. A large majority of our grape acreage is in raisin grapes, and we have reason to believe that this climate will produce superior products in both grapes and raisins. There is no difference in the soil or insects, and a very little alkali is seen along the river bottoms. The water is good for agricultural purposes. It carries an unequaled chemical fer- tilizer. As to the filling of the land by irrigation and the increase thereby: I came to Phoenix eight years ago. The alfalfa grower told me then that you had to irrigate but once or twice, and seldom three times, per season. Those who irrigate once do it in the winter. We have a good many wells for domestic use in the walley. The experience of the well-diggers is that they find water at from 17 to 25 feet from the sur- face. It does not all seem to be on the same level. There is apparently an inexhaustible supply at points near the surface. Then at other points they have to go deeper; for instance, at the city waterworks the well is 45 feet deep. As you get back towards the foothills the depth increases, and at points you have to go as deep as 35 feet. That difference in the depths of wells is not due entirely to the altitude of surface. For instance, it is a little deeper to water on Cave Creek than on New River. I think in Cave Creek it runs from 70 to 140 feet, if it is under the canals. The depth in the neighborhood of Phoenix is from 12 to 20 feet. On the other side of the river the depth at Tempe is 5 © 70 -- IRRIGATION. * or 6 feet, and it runs down to 50 feet. The supply of water for domes- tic and farm purposes is inexhaustible. The use of natural wells for garden or orchard irrigation is limited. .* Mr. T. E. Farrish (ex-Commissioner of Immigration for the Terri- tory), made a statement in relation to statistics forwarded to Wash- ington by himself and his son, formerly employed as an assistant hy- drographer in the United States Geological Survey. Among these were the amount of land under cultivation in Arizona. It was given by counties and districts. By request Mr. Farrish forwarded a table of persons owning ditches, with the acreage under them, also acres cultivated. “In that statement I aggregated,” Mr. Farrish said, “over 400,000 acres. By an official report I am referring to, the total acreage culti- vated is given at 65,821 acres. In a report made in 1889, to the Senate Special Committee on Irrigation, I estimated the amount cultivated in Maricopa County alone, at three times the figures published officially for 1890. As covered by our present canals in this county, there are, accord- ing to my estimate, 267,000 acres. My son, Mr.William A. Farrish, was asked for a census report on the county lands irrigated during the fiscal year 1889–90. His report was 165,000 acres. The total as officially published for Maricopa County is but 35,212 acres. I also notice clear discrepancies in other counties, in all of which I gave the estimate for each of the ditches. In Apache, I estimated 67,000 acres; in Cochise, 23,000; in Graham County I think it was over 13,000; in Pima, 6,000; and in Pinal, 5,000 acres. In Yavapai I do not remember the exact figures, but now estimate the area at 10,000 acres. In my estimate of the reclaimable land and the possibilities of irrigation I held that there could be reclaimed in this county alone about 3,000,000 acres. This, of course, was considering all possibilities of future storage. “I think my estimate of cultivation by means of water in sight was 1,500,000 acres, with a proper administration of the present supply, and with a successful storage system there could be reclaimed 10,000,000 acres in the whole Territory. In my report for the United States Sen- ate Committee on Irrigation I put the acreage under ditch at 556,560 acres; land requiring no water entered and occupied at 100,000. The number of acres of irrigated land cultivated in 1889 I put at 256,900 acres.” Hon. N. O. Murphy, acting governor of Arizona, submitted the follow- ing statement in writing: “There are under the canal system of the Salt River Valley 300,000 acres, and the canals now constructing will cover 50,000 acres more. There are in the Salt River Valley susceptible of irrigation by the extension of the canals from 150,000 to 200,000 more acres. In the Aqua Fria bottoms there are 20,000 more acres, with a possible 30,000, that may be reclaimed by the extension of the canals. In the New River lands, lying northwest of Phoenix, some 30,000 acres will come under cultivation from the proposed reservoir system now contemplated, making an acreage near Phoenix of 600,000 acres. “There were planted during April, 1890, the following crops: Acres. Barley, including “Volunteer’-------------------------------------------- 45,000 Wheat-------------------------------------------------------------------- 10,000 Alfalfa-------------------------------------------------------------------- 45, 000 Orchards and vineyards planted in 1890 and prior.... --...... ------...----. 3,000 Orchards and vineyards planted in 1891---------...---------...------------- 2,000 Oranges, including plantation of 1891. ------------------------------------- 700 Sorghum sugar came, “Volunteer” hay, etc ----------...--------. -----. ------ 15,000 120,700 * - § + - &D .CROPS AND THEIR VALUES IN SALT RIVER WALLEY. 71 “The yield of crops per acre with good cultivation is— Barley----------------------------------------------------- pounds-- 2,250 Wheat ------------------------------------------------------- do.... 1,600 to 1,900 Alfalfa---------------------- tº sº º sº sº tº dº ſº º ºs º gº sº tº sº º ºs º is º sº me tº tº crops per year-. 5 “Orchards and vineyards are young and products can hardly be stated. The total yield of barley was, in April, 1890, 65,000,000 pounds; of wheat 15,000,000 pounds. - “A large proportion of this is in ‘volunteer,” which must always be considered.” - The Chamber of Commerce sent this office the following statement: PHOENIX, ARIZ., November 19, 1891. DEAR SIR: Your favor to the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce, dated November 9, is before me with the request that I give the data asked for: Grain, 58,500,000 pounds --------------. ------------------------------ $731,250.00 Alfalfa hay, 263,000,000 pounds. ------------------------------------ * - 526,000.00 Grain hay, 5,000,000 pounds ---------------------------------. -------- 25,000.00 Alfalfa pasture, rented for fattening range cattle brought in from the mountains, 25,000 head, at $3 a head.--...----...---...-------------. 75,000.00 Dried fruit, 1,000,000 pounds. -----------------------------...----. .... 50,000.00 Promiscuous products, such as sorghum, sugar cane, and small fruits. . . . 20,000.00 “P 1,427,250.00 Respectfully yours, H. H. LOGAN, Member Chamber of Commerce. T. J. WooD, Secretary. RICHARD J. HINTON, Special Agent U. S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C. Mr. F. D. Trott, Phoenix, stated that four years ago ba was in the employ of the Arizona Canal, and there was then more than 40,000 acres under cultivation in the Salt River Valley system of irrigation, which includes the Arizona and Consolidated canals, and that amount has at least doubled. I am sure it is much more than that. There is no quar- rel between the corporations and the people. The great majority of the land in Arizona is under the community ditch system, and there could be no trouble. All our water is distributed by a commissioner. The books of the secretary of the Mesa City Canal Company, exhibited to the agent, show that 223 persons hold shares in that ditch. The total number of shares is 400. Some of the shareholders sublet their water rights, and there are upwards of 300 irrigators under this ditch alone, and a little over 8,000 acres are irrigated. & Herbert M. Wilson, C. E., member of the American Society of Civil Engineers and geographer in the U. S. Geological Survey, stated in a paper read before the society in August, 1891, that the Salt River has flood waters in sight each and every year of from 10,000 to 20,000 sec- ond-feet; that the largest recorded flood reached 300,000 second-feet; while the lowest summer flood is placed at 500 second-feet. The Ari- zona Canal commands 77,000 acres of irrigable land and the Grand and Consolidated canals, under the same ownership, serves 73,000 acres, making 150,000 acres in all, with more than sufficient water in sight every year for the irrigation of about 1,000,000 acres. This is not a matter of storage except as far as conserving the spring floods are concerned. It is not a matter of going into the mountains at high alti- tudes and storing the possible storm waters there, but of open flowing water, coming annually, and only requiring competent engineering skill sº- 72 IRRIGATION. * and capital to enable it all to be conserved for use in the valley. Mr. Wilson's statement has this importance, that he is, at present, the Geological Survey’s expert for all hydraulic engineering possibilities in the arid region. - * The admirable works constructed and operated on the north side of the Salt River by the Arizona Company are justly commended in Mr. Wilson's paper. The personal examination made in the summer of 1891, and the personal knowledge of the special agent in charge, dating back to 1877, justifies the statement that the Salt River Valley in Ari- Zona is exceedingly well equipped with irrigation works, well adminis- tered, has an abundance of water in sight, and is possessed of a semi- tropical climate and a fertile soil that makes all plant life luxuriant in growth and production. UNIDERGROUND WATERS IN ARTZONA. Messrs. H. H. Logan and Lincoln Fowler, of Phoenix, two of the most observant and intelligent irrigation organizers in Arizona, in response to questions from the irrigation inquiry, present the following state- mentS. Mr. Logan writes: I have studied central and southern Arizona with a great deal of interest for the e past eight years, have crossed over almost all of its valleys and mountain ranges, and have examined the districts where the formation changed and contact veins appeared, with a growing interest during all this time. My observation has led me to believe that a large part of central, southern, and western Arizona is in an artesian belt, taking in the district lying east of the Colorado and north of the Gila and Salt riv- ©TS. Arizona, draining as she does all the country lying between the Rio Grande and Colorado rivers—a country enormous in extent (some 600 miles square), much of it being high elevations covered with large bodies of snow during the winter months— and all of these waters passing out of this belt through the channels of the Salt and Gila rivers, shows a surface drainage during the summer months of much less than 1 per cent. I find in many localities under both rivers, within a radius of 100 miles, Springs cropping out from the mountains, flowing in many instances several inches of water that are beyond any question artesian in their nature. Take the Caliente Hot Springs on the Gila River, in the western part of Maricopa County, that flow some 500 or 600 inches of water, then follow the water granite formation through any. of these mountains at high elevations, and frequently on the tops of ridges where the drainage would be almost entirely away from the surface, are springs of water, usually found in the chimney of water granite. Take the mountains lying south of the Gila : about 12 miles southwest from Phoenix, there are springs along the sides of the mountains that flow small trickling streams of water that is forced up through the seams in the rock. You take it to the north of Phoenix: in the McDowell Mountains, at an elevation of fully 3,000 feet, very close to the summit of the mountains, is an artesian spring that flows some 3 inches of water; it follows up the slate formation that crosses northwest and southeast. At Old Camp McDowell, Mr. Andrews, while there running the pumping station, drilled with 14-inch Water pipe some 400 feet in the bed of the Werde River; he struck there some three flows of water that raised some 35 feet above the surface of the ground. The well was not tubed, and had passed through very considerable stratas of quicksand, the main deposit being coarse gravel; no rock was struck. The well uncased, simply plugged at the top, raises water some 25 feet, and has flowed a small stream for the last year. The water is very soft and exceedingly pure. This well at McDowell is some 10 miles northeast of the spring in the McDowell Mountains and to the north of this slate formation spoken of as crossing at the spring. Between Phoenix and the Werde River, at different points, are springs showing the same character of water. Such indications by the way of seepage, etc., are shown on both sides of the Matazal Mountains at frequent points, but almost universally in water granite. Some 16 miles west of north of Phoenix is what is known as the Beechum well, which, I think, is about 145 feet to water. Lying east of Beechum well, some mile and a half or 2 miles distant, is a sandstone mountain. No moisture was reached in the well until the rock, the shelf of this mountain, was reached. When the rock was uncovered, water running, apparently under pressure, at least that made a noise suf- THE PHREATIC WATER SUPPLIES OF ARIZONA. 73 ficiently to greatly intimidate the workmen, was heard. The well was not curbed, but was built through a general cemented gravel down to within 5 or 6 feet of the bottom or this rock; it was there curbed and some 3 feet of rock blasted out, when the water rose immediately to the top of the curbing, and has been perpetual for some years, and came in in such quantities that the tools that were used in the last work are still in the bottom of the well. Take the valley of Cave Creek its entire length, and it is unquestionably in an ar- tesian belt, and probably the same may be said of a large part of New River. The indications point strongly to there being an underpressure, draining, as Cave Creek does, quite a large belt of mountainous country, none of which reaches surface or any possible bed-rock surface drainage for the last 20 miles of its length. Mr. Lincoln Fowler accompanied the following paper with a Land Office map, on which by numbers is indicated the section he is consid- ering. As it is not desirable to reproduce this, the effort is made to in- dicate the localities in letterpress. Mr. Fowler says: Arizona is overdrained in the region of the high plateaus of the north, by the cañon of the Colorado and its lesser tributaries, to such extent that the probability of water being secured from the underflow by artesian wells is very slight. This con- dition will apply approximately to the northern third of the Territory. The eastern boundary of Arizona follows substantially the watershed of the continent, and at a point slightly north of the center, extending east and west, is the culmination of the plateaus, which are perhaps in reality the southern end of the Sierra Nevada range of California and Nevada. From this crest across Central Arizona, extending south- ward, are many lesser mountains and hills, and at the southeastern corner of the Territory these ranges extend continuously into Mexico, cut across by the Gila River, in a deep and tortuous caſion, draining from that part the San Simon, Sulphur Spring, and San Pedro valleys. (The region suggested in the foregoing paragraph by Mr. Fowler, fol- lows on the plateau lines down to and east of the Mogollon range and thence by way of the Chiricahuas and other detached ranges south- ward into Mexico. Another segment which begins at the southern base of the Francisco Mountain, where the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad crosses the plateau, moves southeasterly along the slope of the Mogol- lon range into the broad valley or plains south of the Gila River. These valleys and plains are well known as endowed with a large phreatic water supply, lying very near the surface.) In the San Simon Valley [continues Mr. Fowler] there would seem to be excellent opportunities for artesian wells, as numerous rivulets disappear after leaving the foothills, and many wells are had by cattlemen at depths of from 40 to 80 feet. -- The Sulphur Spring Valley takes its name from a group of sulphur springs near the center, and a number of other springs are found at the edge of the plain. There have been a number of artesian borings made, and in several a very good flow of water obtained. A curious circumstance occurred at the time of the severe earth- quake of the 3d of May, 1887, when numerous fissures were opened in this valley, from many of which issued running water, thereby proving the existence of under- ground channels. Another sight then took place, of the cowboys and ranchmen of that section locating, within an hour, on the principal springs for stock ranges, thus availing themselvés of the beneficence of Providence at once, regardless of continued tremors. This point was about 100 miles from the center of seismic disturbance, which was in Northern Sonora. Some of the earthquake-developed springs have continued permanently, but most of the smaller ones dried up after a short flow. This valley, some 30 miles wide and 60 miles long, is drained southward into Mexico by the San Pedro River, and thereafter this river turns again into Arizona and runs northward through a narrow valley or cañon to the Gila. The valley of the San Pedro is so slight in width that the river water will probably more than suffice for its develop- ment; and it seems unlikely that any expenditure will be made to test the question of artesian flow. (The central development of springs mentioned by Mr. Fowler is found on the southeast portion of the Caluiro range, at Tres Alamos, and north of Benson on the Southern Pacific Railroad.) Extending from the Sonora line northward, at about the center of Southern Ari- zona, is the valley of the Santa Cruz. This stream, rising in high mountains, drains a large area of country with but a trifling surface flow, and for a considerable dis- * 74 IRRIGATION. ance between Tucson and the Gila River, into which it empties, lias no surface channel, and in time of flood forms a wide flow through the brush of the plains. There are, however, several places along the underground channel of 75 miles or more, where stockmen and the Southern Pacific Railroad have sunk wells and found uniformly a very good supply of water at moderate depths. So far as the writer knows, no one has ever sunk a cased well on this channel for testing the strength of the flow or if sufficient pressure might be had to cause an actual flow to the surface as artesian water. This would surely be a promising field, for a valley of fertile land, as over one hundred miles in length, awaits the successful issue of such a test. (The Santa Cruz Walley contains, within from Nogales, on the So- nora line, to Maricopa, near the Gila River, several important settle- ments and the city of Tucson, the largest in the Territory. There are now over 5,000 acres under cultivation in the drainage basin of the Santa Cruz, while ditches have been constructed to serve about 30,000 acres. There is no reason to doubt that the subterranean flow of the river may be reached and utilized. The number of dug and driven wells already in operation at thriving railroad points, such as Tucson and Casa Grande, are in evidence. Projects are under way looking to retaining the stream flow above by means of bed-road dams, etc., but even then a large supply will find a subterranean course.) Mr. Fowler calls attention to phreatic water supplies found on the Papagoria, an extensive volcanic plain or table-land with a few isolated ranges lying west of the Santa Cruz, south of the Gila, and east of the Lower Colorado. He says: There are in the Quizota Valley and at other points in the vicinity of the Ajo cop- per mines along the southern border, promising localities of fertile land, needing only water for reclamation, which in the absence of surface flow, except that of torrents, much must be supplied by artesian flow, if at all. Along the Gila Valley the waters seem to be nearly or quite brought to the surface at many points by the bed rock, which from its character and stratification would hardly admit of the belief that any useful purpose would be served by borings, except on the last 100 miles of its course. In Southwestern Arizona, but generally to the north of the Gila, the drainage of a large district east of the Colorado from Cullens Valley passes through a defile in the Harqua Hala Mountains and at a lower point through a range of hills is again within a few feet of the surface with indications of a large flow. Between these two points and south of the Harqua Hala Mountains is a very fine tract of excellent land 25 by 50 miles in extent at least, and there would seem to be every reason to expect that artesian flows of water might be had at different points. This would be a great prize to be gained, more than 500,000 acres of land suited to the orange and vine only lacking water. From this valley to the Gila River there is a fine extent of country equal in every way, except size, to the last and overlying the same channel of underflow. The valley of the Hassayampa, for more than 40 miles, is an admirable field for artesian development, presenting an area of over 200,000 acres, and wholly untried for flowing water, although the configuration of the valley is such that the large underflow which must pass should certainly produce successful results. Again, in the valley of the Agua Fria, there are evidences of very similar condi- tions to those of the Hassayampa, with, perhaps, a larger drainage. The valley is of somewhat less extent. ... No tests have been made, except that near the lower end of the valley, surface wells 40 to 60 feet deep will show a rise of several feet when the covering of the water strata is broken, though no artesian borings have been made. (The whole area referred to in the foregoing paragraph lies south and west of the famous Salt River Valley at Phoenix to the Colorado River and south to the Gila. It embraces a number of small but fertile drainage basins, small valleys in which some farming is in progress. It is a section of the Territory in which considerable mining is being done, and wherein larger developments are certain to come whenever accessibility to supplies can be assured. The utilization of phreatic waters will materially advance these conditions.) Says Mr. Fowler: In the Rio Verde Valley a small bore was made at Fort McDowell, aloout 8 miles from the junction with the Salt River, into which the Rio Verde empties. At a depth - - PHREAric WATERs IN ARIzoNA. WELLs. At Casa GRANDE. p- THE SUBTERRANEAN COURSE OF THE SANTA CRUZ RIVER, 75 of 276 feet a flow was found, but on account of the small size of the pipe, 1% inches, only a little water was obtained. This might be increased by using larger bores, and the valley is equally promising for a considerable distance. At a place near Pinal two or three small flows were struck at depths of about 100 feet, and in the valley of 250,000 acres lying below, between the Salt and Gila rivers, no one has ever tried for artesian water. In Arizona between five and six millions of arable land await the husbandman, who is ready when the fertilizing touch of water is to be had; and almost the whole of that vast area is well adapted to oranges, figs, or the choicest vines. With more than a thousand acres of orange orchards scattered in Salt River Walley about Phoenix, and many times that of raisin and wine vineyards and the finest fig orchards in the West, we may hope for great results. The artesian wells in the Verde and Sulphur Spring valleys and the Pinal region certainly give assurance that we can expect flowing wells to be had at many points on the known underflow channels yet undeveloped by borings. The most important of the subterranean stream flows (though not the only one in the Territory) is that of the Santa Cruz River. It is so pe. culiar and significant in character as to warrant a description of its feat- ures. It rises, then, in the southeasterly corner of Pima County, Ariz., about 20 miles north of the Sonora State line, Mexico, and courses nearly due south, crossing the Arizona line into Sonora. Some 18 miles, makes an elbow and reënters Arizona not far from Nogales on the Mexican frontier. The course, then, of the river is northwest to Cala- basas and Tubac, and thence nearly due north to Tucson ; from that point its course is northwesterly to a junction with the Gila River near the Maricopa Wells. The river is in some respects a phenomenal wa- ter course, being at times a stream from a few feet to a quarter of a mile wide with a depth of but a few feet to sufficient to float the largest Mississippi River steamboat. The contour of the watershed of the main stream and its branches is very irregular, and the drainage area may be roughly estimated at 7,500 square miles. From its source to Tubac the stream is quite large and shows a dry season surface flow varying from 2 to 10,000 inches. From Tubac to San Xavier del Bac (Papago Reservation) most of the water course is subterraneous, and thence to Point of Mountain, 18 miles below Tucson, the flow alternately appears and disappears. From Point of Mountain to the junction with the Gila River it practically dis- appears and is an underground river, its course in many places and for many miles being traced by a belt growth of mesquite trees from 500 to 2,000 feet wide. The hydrographic physical features of the valley are little understood. Underlying the valley is an almost continuous body of coarse gravel, through which water percolates to an unknown depth. It has been tested at Tucson to a depth of 52 feet, all in this water-bearing material, and an estimate approximately made covered a width of from 1,000 to 4,000 feet, and to the depth tested, allowing only one-tenth of the area for water, percolation would bring some 370,000 irrigating inches every twenty-four hours. Add to this the enormous quantity that could be stored in great catchment reservoirs from two rainy seasons—winter and summer—and the possibilities can be better seen of the importance of this region. Another extensive drainage supply could be taken from the Pantano cienego region, known as the Rietta Creek, 22 miles easterly of Tucson, a branch falling into the Santa Cruz, about 6 miles below Tucson. To the casual observer pass- ing through this country upon the railroad it has the appearance of being a worthless, more than semi-desert, region. By proper treatment and intelligent engineering skill it would soon compare in crops and food products with other accepted sections of great richness and impor- tance in the variety and abundance of its products. - 76 IRRIGATION. As to other evidence, Capt. W. P. Williams says that with a Worth- ington pump he gets 200 inches of water within 1 mile of Maricopa. Capt. Henry Arey, of Maricopa Station, said: In order to get parties interested in land around Maricopa Station, I had a well sunk at a cost up to date of $5,000. The plant is a Worthington pump and reservoir with a capacity of 2,000,000 gallons. The well is eunk in what is supposed to be the lost bed of the Santa Cruz. It is 58 feet to bed rock, and there are 13 feet of water in the well. Two acres were put in late last year, but the pump was not ready until March— too late for this crop. My opinion is that the Santa Cruz flows along the bed rock; , and that while $2.50 per inch is charged for water from the ditch I can pump it from the river for $1.25. By drifting out from the well chamber into the bed of the Santa §§ can at least double my supply and perhaps do better. The Well can not be cut Off. The Southern Pacific is digging another well in the neighborhood and gets water at a depth of 45 to 50 feet. They also think the water comes from the Santa Cruz. The strata gone through are red loam, sand, then a cement that had to be blasted through for 16 to 17 feet, then loose gravel in the bed of the Santa Cruz for a distance of 30 feet, and then down to bed rock. The water chamber of the well is 10 by 10 feet, and the river flows right through it from northeast to southwest. An hydrographic study of the Santa Cruz Valley, especially that portion from the Sonora line to Point of Mountains, a distance of some 90 miles, leads to the conclusion that by developing and husbanding the underflow of this great drainage basin the greater part of the arable area within these boundaries could be irrigated. The Valley from Nogales to Tucson is a rich soft loam, capable of producing a great variety of agricultural products and fruit. At San Xavier a rock barrier has been thrown across it by volcanic action, producing a narrowed gorge, where a catchment dam could be built to bed rock and impound an immense body of water. This place is known as the Punta de Agua (place of water). Thousands of acres of fine land could be successfully irrigated from this great natural reservoir. The site of this dam is on the Papago Indian Reservation, and the contour overflow lines would fall partiy into the reservation and partly outside. This importnt a location can not be used until action is taken to free the site from connection with the reser- vation. The Indians make very little use of the water, and have allowed the fine farms below it on the reservation to lapse into a wild growth of weeds and disuse. Turned to civilized uses it would be of vast ben- efit to Tucson and furnish water to a great number of settlers. ANSWERS FROM CORRESPONDENTS. The following summaries are made from replies received to circulars sent by this office: APACHE COUNTY. Snowflake (post-office)—Jesse N. Smith (October 5, 1891): Water supply, Silver Creek. Large supply winter months. Small supply in growing Sea,SOI! - Irrigation Works—Four main ditches, aggregating 15 miles in length, about 7 feet on top, 5 feet on bottom, one main headgate for each ditch. “Two reservoirs, area three-quarters of a mile and 2 miles.” Cost of ditches per mile, about $500. Cost of reservoirs, $1,500 and $2,500 respectively. Average cost per acre of irrigation works, ditches, etc., about $12. Average cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation by irrigation, about $10. Average cost per acre for annual maintenance and repairs, about $2. Staple products under irrigation, and average value per acre, wheat, $24; corn, $20; oats, $20; alfalfa $30; potatoes $40. Area under ditch, 3,000 acres. Area under cultivation, 2,300 acres. Raising WATER FRoºt A Lost Riven. WELL with WorthingtoN PUMP in BED of UNDERGROUND Rio SANTA CRUz. NEAR MARicopA, ARIzoNA. IRRIGATION DATA FROM ARIZONA count[Es. 77 COCHISE COUNTY. *: - [Data compiled from or report made by the board of county supervisors to a United States Senate Special Committee on Irrigation, in 1889. Area of county, 6,972 square miles. Three principal valleys are mentioned, viz, San Simon, Sulphur Spring, and San Pedro.] San Simon Valley (in eastern portion of county)—watered by San Simon Creek, which has a drainage area of 144 square miles. “Soil of valley in many places being Sandy, this stream runs underground, and comes to the surface at points only where the clay bed or bed rock comes near the surface, at which points an abun- dance of water is shown; greater part of valley could be irrigated and made very productive could these waters be utilized; ” but little irrigation in valley; only about 2 miles of ditches; not exceeding 300 acres in cultivation ; susceptible of . cultivation, 6,000 acres. (The first artesian well obtained in Arizona was in this valley, in 1882, of which there are now quite a number.) Sulphur Spring Valley (through central portion of county) lies between several ranges of mountains on its east and west sides; drains an area 30 miles wide and 90 miles long. “The waters of this valley flow southerly into Mexico, and form the headwaters of the Sonora River. Waters of this valley also flow under- ground, forming an abundant supply but a few feet from the surface. Not over 4 miles of ditches in valley; about 2,000 acres under cultivation in valley and foothills adjacent ; susceptible of cultivation by irrigation, 200,000 acres. San Pedro Valley (in western portion of county) lies between ranges of mountains, and is watered by San Pedro River, which rises in Mexico and flows northerly through this county and empties into Gila River in Pima County; river has a watershed in this county of 25 miles in width by 80 miles in length, and a total watershed (including that in Mexico) of 2,700 square miles, the waters from all of which pass through this county. This valley also has “a large underground current,” rising to the surface at intervals, as in the other valleys; valley quite thickly settled ; about 40 miles of ditches; all main ditches supplied from main stream of river, by means of brush and earth dams usually (sometimes by dams , made by sacks of sand) diverting water into ditches. Dams washed away by every flood. Lands under cultivation, 6,000 acres; susceptible of cultivation by irrigation, 50,000 acres. (The lower part of this valley presents a promising field for the development of an artesian supply for irrigation.) There are many large springs in the county which might be utilized to irrigate orchards and vineyards in the foothills and higher table lands. Some of them are now used by means of ditches to irrigate vegetable gardens and orchards, and some by means of pipes are utilized for the watering of stock. Certain reservoir sites are designated by the board and their construction recommended. (Great progress has been made since the date of this report throughout the county.) GRAHAM COUNTY. Safford (post-office), E. D. Tuttle (September 27, 1891): Water supply: Gila River, stream large in spring but small in July and August ; large underground stream, the river sinking and rising to surface at intervals of a mile or thereabouts where dams are made and canals taken out. Works: Between the Narrows (8 miles east of Solomonville) and Fort Thomas (38 miles west) there are 20 canals, averaging 8 feet wide on bottom, 10 to 12 feet on top, “with average depth after reaching surface of 3 feet in the soil;” length from 2 to 8 miles with average grade of 4 feet per mile. Each canal has head and waste gate, with simple distributing gates for each farm. Canals all dug and maintained by owners of land irrigated. The laterals are easily and cheaply made. Lands have a generally even and gradual slope. The dams are only tem- porary. Area º: ditch, 50,000 acres, approximately. Area under cultivation, 15,000 acres. Cost per mile of ditches, $500, average; cost of water to user per acre, $2.50; no rental of water. Average cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation under irrigation : Bottom lands along Gila River, from 1 to 2 miles in width, and auxiliary lateral valleys are covered with mesquite and sagebrush; cost of clearing this about $5. Cost of annual maintenance and repairs: About 30 per cent of first cost of canal. This cost is largely out of proportion to the first cost of the canals, etc., on account of the floods* tear out the headworks, carry away the dams, and fill canals with silt or mud. 78 IRRIGATION. Staple products under irrigation: Alfalfa, corn, wheat, barley, oats, sorghum, potatoes, beans, etc. (alfalfa is the principal forage crop, giving five cuttings per year, and giving pasturage all winter). Average value of product per acre: Alfalfa, $20 to $25, gross; small grain and corn, about $15. MARICOPA. COUNTY, Phoenix (post-office), H. H. Logan (September, 1891): Salt River Valley (600,000 acres): Water supply, Salt River. Works: Ten main canals (about 300 miles); from 15 feet to 36 feet on bottom; carry- ing from 3 to 73 feet of water; laterals, over 5,000 miles; no reservoirs; only 1 dam on Salt River which is 945 feet long, raising the water 8 feet; 10 headgates. Area under these 10 canals, 300,000 acres; under cultivation, 145,000 acres. Average cost per acre in the past for irrigation works, probably $5.50 to $6. Average cost per acre in the past for annual maintenance and repairs, 60 to 75 cents. Average cost per acre in the past for preparing land for cultivation under irrigation: For clearing, bordering, and ditching, about $2; for putting it into grass, about $5 additional. Cost of water supply to user per acre, average $10; annual rental, $1. Staple products under irrigation: Wheat, barley, alfalfa, sorghum, sugar cane, apri- cot, peach, prune, pear, fig, grape, nectarine, orange, and lemon ; all staple vegeta- bles grown during the entire year. s Average yield per acre: Wheat, 1,700 to 1,900 pounds; barley, 2,200 to 2,500 pounds; alfalfa, 8 tons; sorghum, 30 tons. No reliable data of fruit yield, except the raisin grape, 7 to 10 tons per acre on 3-year-old vines. Phoenix (post-office), Lincoln Fowler (September, 1891): Grand, Maricopa, and Salt River Valley canals: Water supply, Salt River; capacity, from 350 cubic feet per second, upward. Works: Grand Canal, 24 by 4 feet, 35 miles long; Maricopa and Salt River Valley canals, joint head, 24 by 4 feet ; ditches 50 miles long. Headgates: Grand Canal, 100; Maricopa and Salt River Valley canals, 75. Area under ditch, 50,000 acres; under cultivation, 30,000 acres. Cost per mile of canals, etc., $500 to $10,000. Average cost per acre for irrigation works: Canals, ditches, etc., $10. Average cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation under irrigation, $2.50. Average cost per acre for annual maintenance and repairs, $1.25. Cost of water supply to user per acre, $10. - Products under irrigation: Alfalfa, wheat, barley, oranges, grapes, peaches, and other fruit. *; value of product per acre, from $15 to $250 (wheat and barley, $20; alfalfa, 30). * Tempe (post-office), E. G. Frankenberg (October 17, 1891): Tempe Canal system : Water supply, Salt river; supply insufficient in summer. Irrigation works: Water diverted by two brush and rock dams, tightened with sand. and gravel, by one into an old channel of river, by other into canal proper. Main canal 1% miles long, 28 feet on bottom, 40 feet on top ; two branches 5 and 8 miles long; also southern extension 23 miles. (Laterals not included in above.) One main head gate ; also one at head of each branch ; two waste gates and ditches returning water to river. Area under ditch, 25,000; under cultivation, 22,000 acres. Cost per mile of works, main canal, $25,000; first branch, $1,000; second branch, $800; southern extension, first section, $1,375; second section, $750; third section, $500; fourth section, $350. Average cost per acre for ditches, etc.: For main canal and branches, $2.75 to $3; for laterals and distributing ditches, $1 to $3. Average cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation under irrigation : For grain º g, from $2.50 to $3; for alfalfa grazing land, $3 to $5; for fruit culture, $5 to 15. Average cost per acre for annual maintenance and repairs: Main canal and branches about 50 cents; laterals, etc., 25 to 75 cents. Chief products under irrigation at present, wheat, barley and alfalfa. In the near future fruit culture will be the principal occupation of the land owner; as the climate and soil of this valley are especially adapted to the growing of oranges raisins, peaches, apricots, figs, nectarines, dates, plums, pears, etc. Average yield of product per acre: Wheat, 1,500 to 2,000 pounds; barley, 2,000 to 2,500 pounds; alfalfa, 3 to 8 tons can be cut monthly. [Mr. Frankenberg states that he gathered 9 tons of peaches per acre; 500 pounds of raisins per acre from 2-year-old vines; 6,400 pounds of almonds per acre; 8 tons of wine grapes per acre, from 8-year-old vines. I IRRIGATION DATA FROM ARIZONA COUNTIES. 79 * Mesa City (post-office), C. I. Robson (October, 1891) : Water supply, Salt River; when river is full 8,000 inches are used; present supply, 2,000 inches (October, 1891). º Works: 10 miles main canal; 23 feet on bottom; bank slope, one to one; no reser- voir; dam one-half mile long; average height, 5 feet ; one main head gate; one waste gate or overflow. Area under ditch, 8,000 acres; under cultivation, 4,000 acres. Cost of main canal per mile, $5,600. Average cost per acre per canal, etc., $7. Average cost per acre for annual maintenance and repairs, $1.50. Average cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation by irrigation, $2.50 (average) No rental of water; water users are owners of works, etc. Staple product under irrigation, grain, hay (alfalfa), and fruit. Average yield of product per acre: Grain, 1,500 pounds; alfalfa, 5 tons; value of fruit yield per acre, $50. * MOHAVE COUNTY. i. M. Funston (Kingman post-office), and W. G. Blakeley (Mineral Park post- office). About 80 miles south of Kingman there are irrigation ditches (probably 20 miles), none exceeding a mile in length; mostly crude and small; owned by farmers; water supply, Sandy River and spring. In vicinity of Mineral Park “no land is cultivated except little garden spots, watered by small springs or wells on premises; mining chief industry.” Area under ditch in county, about 1,000 acres. Area under cultivation in county, about 800 acres. -- “Very little produce raised, but cereals, fruits, and vegetables could be successfully grown with proper irrigation facilities.” PIMA COUNTY. W. A. Hartt (18 miles south of Tucson): *º +. Reports water from well located in Santa Cruz Valley; well 4 by 4 feet, raised 60 feet by compound pumping engines; continual capacity, 2,500 gallons per minute. Works: 3 miles main ditch, 4 feet on botton, 12 feet on top, 3 feet deep; about 15 miles laterals. One reservoir (storage), capacity 200,000,000 gallons; supplied by surface or flood waters. One distributing reservoir, 7,000,000 gallons; other works, one pulsometer pump ; capacity, 1,000 gallons. Area under ditch, 1,920. Area under cultivation, 600 acres. PINAL COUNTY. Kenilworth (post-office), Thomas W. Graham (October 14, 1881): Water supply: Gila River, through Florence Canal. Plenty of water in river, but poorly constructed canal. Works: Canal 40 miles long, 18 feet wide on bottom, all dirt work. One reservoir, area 1,800 acres; will hold 4 feet of water. Head gate destroyed by flood last February ; not rebuilt by company. Area under ditch by this system (Florence Canal), 100,000 acres. Area under cultivation by this system (Florence Canal), 10,000 acres. Cost of water to user per acre, $8 (water right, this system). Annual rental cost $1.25 per acre. Average cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation under irrigation $5 to $10 (high or mesa land costs less than river-bottom lands on account of less growth to be removed or cleared). Chief products under irrigation : Alfalfa, barley, wheat, apricots, grapes, and figs. Average yield per acre: Alfalfa, 4 tons; wheat and barley, 1,500 pounds. [Mr. G. states that he is unable to estimate the cost of works, ditches, etc., or maintenance and repairs; this can only be obtained from company.] YUMA COUNTY. Chrystoval (post-office), O. F. Thornton, president South Gila Canal Company (September 26, 1891): Water supply, Gila River (near Oatmans Flat, Maricopa County). Works, 22% miles of ditch, 12 feet on bottom, 20 feet on top (to be used as lateral after completion of canal); one head gate; no reservoirs. r # " 80 IRRIGATION. - Area under ditch, 18,000 acres (when main canal is completed there will be 130,000 acres). Area under cultivation, owing to floods last season, and this being a new country, very little land cultivated. Cost per mile of canal, $2,000. Average cost per acre for canals, etc., $5 to $10. Average cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation under irrigation, $5 to $25. Average cost per aere for annual maintenance and repairs, not less than 25 cents. Cost of water supply to user per acre, $1.50. Products, wheat, barley, Egyptian corn, alfalfa, Sorghum, beans, etc. Estimated value of product per acre, $25. Mohawk (post-office), George W. Norton (September 25, 1891): Mohawk Canal water supply, Gila River at Texas Hill; capacity of canal, 10,000 inches. Works, 33 miles canal, 14 feet on bottom for 8 miles, slope 2 to 1; remaining distance, 10 feet on bottom, slope 2 to 1; one head gate ; no other works. Cost of canal, $150,000. Area under ditch, 30,000 acres; under cultivation, 10,000 acres, Average cost per acre for irrigation works, ditches, etc., about $10. Average cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation under irrigation, about $20. Average cost per acre for annual maintenance and repairs, about $5. Cost of water supply to user per acre, $10; annual rental cost, $1.25 to $2.50. Chief products under irrigation, vineyards, wheat, barley, alfalfa, etc. [Country too new to estimate average yield or value of product.] Palomas (post-office), A. E. Martin, president Farmers’ Irrigating Canal Com- pany (September 28, 1891): Water supply, Gila River; 5,340 miner's inches for canal. Works, 18 miles canal; first 6 miles 10 feet on bottom, 19 feet on top, 3 feet deep ; second 6 miles 6 feet on bottom, 15 feet on top, 3 feet deep ; last 6 miles 4 feet OTl lºſton, 13 feet on top, 3 feet deep; one head gate; no reservoir or other WOI ES. Area under ditch, 4,800 acres; under cultivation, 590 acres. Average cost per mile of canal, etc., $1,611.11. Average cost per acre of canal, etc., $6.04. Average cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation under irrigation, $1.87. Average cost per acre for annual maintenance and repairs, 91% cents. Products under irrigation, wheat, barley, corn, sorghum, alfalfa, and garden vege- tables. Average yield of product per acre: Wheat, 50 bushels; barley, 55 bushels. Two crops per year are raised. Wheat and barley first. Then corn and sorghum. Yuma (post-office), F. S. Ingalls (September, 1891): Water supply, Colorado River. Works, steam pump, 6,000 gallons per minute ; 3 miles of ditch, 14 feet wide on top, 10 feet on bottom ; no reservoir or other works. Area under ditch, 3,000 acres; under cultivation, none at present. Cost per mile of works, ditch, etc., not to exceed $300. Average cost per acre of irrigation works, ditches, etc., about $5. Average cost per acre for annual maintenance and repairs, nominal. Average cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation under irrigation: Clearing, $2.50; leveling and ditching, $25. *J Cost of water supply to user per acre and rental cost, not yet fixed. Products, no data. visuomarrvo ºsataon y so I lv uavhowo apsvuo uºmivorniſ CAL IF OR NIA. In dealing with the climatic conditions of California, and (so far as related thereto) of Nevada, as connected with irrigation, Lieut. Glass- ford, Signal Corps, U. S. Army, now in the Weather Service, Depart- ment of Agriculture, has presented in the report ordered by Congress, an interesting theory of climatology which has much to recommend it to consideration. Examination testifies to the accuracy of the statement that “two influences dominate the climate of California, radically dis- similar in every particular, combining in ever-varying forces to produce the resultant which is recorded by observers of the weather. One is the Sea tending always to charge the air with moisture, the other is the mountain mass tending always to discharge the moisture from the air. The combination of these two activities in varying proportions is responsible for the variation in the amount of precipitation.” It is necessary of course to consider both of these influences. The topographical factor comes first. The chief mountain formation of the two States includes “the maximum extension in latitude of the Cordil- leran system.” The “characteristic orographic feature” of the region is the Sierra Nevada, and it is also “the predominant” climatic instru- ment, both for California, to which it gives the rain, and for “Nevada, from which it withholds” the same. The Sierra Nevada itself is about 600 miles from north to south. The northern extension of the range, the Cascade Mountains in Oregon and Washington, have a lineal extension of nearly 700 miles. The culminating center of the Sierra Nevada is Mount Whitney, towering 14,898 feet above the sea, in the San Joaquin Valley. The general elevation is carried from that mount northward for over 100 miles at about 11,000 feet. Southward it descends to about 8,000 feet. Lake Tahoe, to the north, is just below the 9,000 feet con- tour, and beyond that, after the Central Pacific Railroad crosses at about 7,000 feet, the range rises again to Shasta, with a general eleva- tion of about 8,500 feet. Below the San Bernardino Ränge the Cacco- pah Range breaks down in the Colorado Desert to an altitude of about 5,000 feet. The western slopes of the Sierra are scored with deep and precipitous cañons, and are marked as they descend into the deep trough- like Valleys of the San Joaquin and Sacramento, with a wide area of rugged foothills. The total length of this portion is 400 miles, varying in width from 40 to 70 miles, where the western rim is made of the Coast Range. It is said— The eastern limit is fixed with considerable precision of definition at a practically constant distance from the western limit of the Sierras, the expansions are uniformly huade by encroachments upon the sea. The system comprises a multitude of subor- dinate ranges, some large and some small. * * * The general trend of the sub- ...” as of the system at large is with a tendency toward parallelism with the CO3 Sü. +. The parallelism with the greater Sierra Range is complete. The northern and southern extremities of the Coast Range unite or swing in upon the great valley. S. Ex. 41—6 ** 81 82 . -IRRIGATION. And so enter upon the waster mass and elevation, to the north at Shasta and to the south in Kern County. Geological conditions alone indicate the primary diver- gencies of the two systems. Below the Tehacapi Range, it is not quite possible to distinguish, except as to the San Bernardino Range, whether the broken formations are to be classified with the Sierra or the Coast Range. Nevada may be described generally as within the Great Basin region. The western section of course lies more directly under such climatic influences as rise from the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada. For the purposes of cultivation by irrigation the great interior valley for- mation of California is the most important. With the certain growth of the district system, insuring as it does security for investment and safety for water control and administration, the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys are to become more rapidly the acme centers of irrigation industry. Elsewhere in the Golden State, special locali- ties, each perhaps limited in area, but most valuable for special crops and products, will occupy a large share of public interest, but the valley or plain which lies between the Sierra Nevada and the Coast Range, east and west, and the Shasta and Tehacapi cross ranges north and south, will be the dominant agricultural region; as in part for vines and desiduous fruits, it will also be the center of horticultural and viticul- tural activities. - ** Between the great mountain walls indicated, this vast troughlike plain has a length of about 450 miles and maintains the average breadth of 40 miles, taking in the lower foothills so far as they are available for agriculture, and thus contain some 18,000 square miles or 11,520,000 acres. The only breach in its mountain wall is at San Francisco, mid- way of its length, and at the water level this gap is less than a mile wide. The vastness and majesty of the mountain formation is no more significant than its simplicity. The nature and character of the “ oceanic factor” in the Pacific coast climatology is equally as well marked by these two massive and cosmical features. The Pacific, which is the largest mass of oceanic waters, is also the least subject to dis- turbance or perturbations. Mr. Glassford says: Its conditions are constant over large areas, its currents both of wind and water are drawn in broad sweeping curves in which extent of space and time of passage serve to override all mere local or temporary modifications. Thus it is enabled to present almost the ideal problem of oceanic circulation and to array upon the cli- mate of California, and in a modified degree upon that of Nevada, a few simple in- . fluences which become involved and difficult of study only through the continental disturbances. That part of the Pacific Ocean which is related to the California coast stretches westward for nearly 100 degrees of longitude, with its farther horizon above the Chinese Sea, and its northern and Southern extrem- ities at the Aleutian and Philippine Islands, respectively. No land mass borders on the southern rim of this oceanic plain, while at the north are found the peninsula of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands, yet the meteorological distinction between the North and South Pacific is clearly defined at both borders. For its effect on our climate— It exists at the thirtieth parallel of north latitude. Below this bounding line is the region of the northeast trade wind and the west drift of the equatorial current and these two serve sufficiently to bound in wind and water the great basin above. It is a basin within these limits, a rough ellipse having a major axis of 100 degrees of longitude and a minor axis of 25 degrees of latitude. It has its char- acteristic system of circulation both of atmosphere and sea. The strongly indi- vidualized ocean current of the region is the Kuro Siwo. Developed from the cumu- lative progress of the equatorial drift and directed by the alteration in the plain of the sea, bottom and the trend of the Asiatic coast this warm stream moves across the whole northern Pacific. Occurring in a broader sea it shows several important dif- ferences from the Gulf Stream, it has a slower motion, its warmth is not so strongly contrasted with the water through which it flows, and the wind blowing counter to its course frequently avails to deflect it or even check it entirely. Whether or no this current reaches the Californian coast is still a pmatter of discussion among physicists, But “the winds upon this THE PACIFIC ocFAN PLANE AND PASSAGE WINDs. 83. basin are of the system of the passage winds which are developed upon the surface of the, earth by the descent from high altitudes of upper currents. In general these winds vary with the latitude from southwest westerly to northwest. It should be noted that these winds begin to appear about the parallel of 30 degrees north and that at first they are practically dry winds, but presenting all the best conditions for absorption.” - Mr. Glassford's review of what he technically terms “passag winds,” in connection with Pacific oceanic influences, demands careful study. The phenomena he presents make a very important segment of those which control the arid conditions of all our Cordilleran areas. The local use on the coast of the term “trade wind” is deprecated by the Weather Service writer as both misleading and too narrow. He says: These passage winds have a clear sweep across many thousands of miles of sea, and in all this course they incur no resistance save such as is caused by convective friction due to varying amounts of pressure within their mass. But the moment they ceased to flow over the sea and begin their course over the continental mass they are subject to violent perturbations and present all the features of turbulent motion, its irregular and rapid changes of pressure, its rapid expansion, its sudden alterations of the saturation constants, and variations of temperature. These perturbations • must be examined in the light of mountain influence in general. The wind drawn in from sea by the general circulation of the aimosphere may be taken to have in suspension the maximum amount of moisture, and * * * to ap- proximate the saturation amount theoretically to be expected in air of a given pres- sure and at a given temperature. * * * Variations in pressure and temperature caused by possible distant commotions of the atmospheric envelope may change these amounts. Advancing upon the land the air current immediately , encounters per- turbing influences * * : * such as friction upon uneven surfaces, convection caused by radiation from irregularly heated bodies, and vortex motion within the Stream. These are liable without regard to surfaces. There are also per- turbations due to planes which are at a considerable angle with the horizon, and in addition there are the development of pressure by transformation of the impact of the air current upon the elevating plane, the loss of temperature by elevation, the alteration of pressure, and the expansion due to fibe same cause and the great diminution in the amount of water which may be held suspended. “There is further to be taken into the count the variation of the mountain influence, due to alterations in its radiation of heat. This variation is sea- sonal. It is due largely to the existence and the melting away of snow bodies. In the first place “the disturbances are at their minimum and so is the precipitation.” With the melting of the snow the exposed mountain surface becomes absorbent, and therefore an active radiating agent. “The air current becoming violently involved, is suddenly drawn to great height by updrafts.” Then its excess of moisture is ‘wrung out” by ensuing expansion. When this sets in on the Sierra Nevada it is dependent upon the sun's southerly movement with such local modifying forces as may be ascertained. The great valley is one of the primary disturbers in the passage of the air cur- rents over the Coast Range from the ocean to the Sierra Nevada. An aërial column moving horizontally against a vertical barrier, that is, a mountain mass, would naturally divide right and left when it had reached and commenced its movement along the face of the barrier. In this way the great valley obtains the circulatory air currents which is one of its special features. These eddies and whirls pro- duced by the impact with the mountain slopes and summits largely distribute precipitation, making a windward fall, That to the leeward 84 - ~ IRRIGATION. of the range is determined by the rise of the currents and their pas- sage over the ridges. In other words, according to Mr. Glassford: On the weather side of a high mountain rangé the moisture is largely precipitated before the elevation of the summit is reached and thus there is absolutely little left to drift over on the leeward side. The second fact is that the Small amount of rain which is condensed at altitudes sufficiently high to allow it to drift past the condens- ing summit is subjected to influences which have a tendency to still further reduce its amount as to falls. * * * The Pacific Ocean “passage winds,” before being drawn to the sur- face at about the thirtieth parallel of longitude, have held their course in extreme upper atmospheric conditions, where “excessive cold and tenuity have served to remove their vast humidity,” so that when they come to the ocean's surface they are practically desiccated. The mois- ture they then receive comes from the ocean itself. Mr. Glassford says: The sea is warm and in the best condition for giving off moisture, the wind is most receptive and the amount of humidity which it will assume is mainly conditioned by the distance through which it passes over water surface. In the region where the wind prevails with southwestern inclination this distance may be easily determined and will serve as a means of comparing the average amount of moisture received by places on the Pacific coast. * The theoretical consideration presented by the Weather Service writer, is that a dry wind will assume a certain proportion of moisture from every mile of water surface traversed.” Though an efficient general rule, it is, like all meteorological conditions, liable to be affected by local and temporary factors. Still, the records of annual precipitation show that the general principle stated exercises a steady influence. The local and temporary are naturally obliterated in long-time charts, while the general and secular remain as the marked results of the North Pacific passage wind. Mr. Glassford tabulates five coast stations, San Diego and San Francisco, in California, Westport, Columbia Bar, and Tatoosh to the north. Their latitude and relations are, respectively, 33 degrees N., 252; 38 degrees, 672; 40 degrees, 846; 46 degrees, 1,350; 48 de- grees, 1,524. The “humid constitution ” of the winds are given. For San Diego, annual rainfall measured 10.26 inches; San Francisco, 23.80; Westport, 37.84; Columbia Bar, 67.68; Tatoosh, 94.42. There is an ex- cess between the measured and “theoretical” rainfall, that is, the amount as estimated by the traveled space of the passage wind; (ex- cluding San Diego), as follows: 3.49 inches, 3.36, 12.69, 32.45. The incre- ment is observed to be progressive with increase in northern latitude. The fact is of considerable significance, but the materials for determin- ing its causes are very Scanty. But [continues the expert] one thing is certainly known because universally ob- served, and that is, that within the zone of the passage winds across the great ocean the wind hauls westerly in close ratio to the latitude. The wind which moves the rain upon the northern Pacific coast is then not rigidly a southwest wind, it blows from nearer west, traverses more water, absorbs more moisture, and precipitates more rain, and this is a factor of progressive increment to the north and capable of pro- ducing an influence of perturbation. * * * "-- The curves from 55-inch to 90-inch are all defined in the extreme northern section. The 55-inch affects portions of Shasta to Sierra County and then crosses westward, entering the sea to the north of Mendocino. The 60-inch curve enters by way of the Klamath Wal- ley from Oregon and passes out at Trinidad Head. The highest curve, 90, is directly caused by the presence of Shasta, and with those of 82 and 87 affects the areas just below the mountain and passes out to the sea about Crescent City, on the coast. As Mr. Glassford expresses it, INFLUENCE OF THE SIERRAS ON PRECIPITATION. 85 from these summaries “it will appear that the least rainfall is upon the Colorado Desert in extreme southeastern California, and the greatest is correspondingly extreme in the northwest; that Nevada, the Great Wal- ley, and the southern coast are the regions of insufficient rain ; that the fall increases progressively with height upon the Sierra Nevada, less distinctly so upon the Coast Ranges, and upon the northern coast the increase is more with latitude than altitude.” One notable phenomena needs referring to. It is evident that the powerful Cordilleran influ- ence, which, as “guide planes” for aqueous atmospheric currents, must so powerfully affect precipitation and distribution, are yet without effect at certain maximum periods. This is notably true of California. The Weather-service writer says: . The only explanation possible is that the air thus elevated is too dry to precipitate moisture; that its absolute humidity is so low that when the mountain has cast it up to the greatest height within its chimney of convective influence, when it has reached the lowest temperature, the lowest pressure and the highest degree of expansion, the humidity is still below the saturation point predicated on those factors, and no pre- cipitation can occur nor even a cloud form, and those who, from the parched and baking valleys, look toward the shining Sierras, know that the white cap is snow, not cloud. This influence, then, is permanent ; the change is in the moisture of the air. Yet as there is equal permanence in the power of dry air passing over leagues of sea. to absorb moisture, it is not supposable that this natural force is extinct during cer- tain months of the year and efficient during certain other months, for nature does not thus sport with her fixed laws. It is clear that the moist winds and the desiccative mountains do not come together; thus some cause in nature intervenes to keep them apart during the dry summer of the Pacific slope and the more immediate region of the Great Basin. As to the nature of this cause, Mr. Glassford offers the following: Four points are found to be correlated in a mutual influence upon the climate of the continent, three are always apparent, the fourth is sometimes indefinite in either ocean or the regions north and south, where no meteorological stations are situated. These four points are two areas of low barometer. Their positions relative to one * another and to the earth beneath determine the climatic conditions of any periods, be it day, week, month, or year. In one group of positions of these four points the storms have an easy sweep to bring rain across the country, in another group of posi- tions every obstacle is put in the path of storms. These groupings are defined as to “high” and “low” barometers in the annexed concise descriptive paragraph: Over every point of earth stands an air column of uncertain height. The weight of this column of air is registered by the barometer, and from the weight an idea is obtained of the height. A high reading of the barometer at the earth is the surface. indication of a high air mass overhead. By grouping these surface indications it is possible to form an idea of the upper of the air with high peaks and ridges over the areas of high barometer on the earth and valleys and depressions corresponding to the areas of low barometer. In effect a barometric high indicates a atmospheric mountain, the steepness of whose slope is exhibited by the close or diffuse assemblage of lines of equal pressure, and the barometric low as surely indicates an atmospheric currents which always seek the line of least resistance and therefore must flow in at- mospheric depressions. The leeward side of such an air mountain must then be a pº of security against the storms, a region of clear weather, and such it is found to be. The general movement of the storms is known to be easterly; if the valleys extend east and west the storm has a free passage and converts none of its force by beating against obstacles; it carries its severity to all parts of its course. But: revolve the axis of the atmospheric convolutions through 90°, place the ridges of high elevation in a north and South direction, and therefore athwart the storm track, the storm is held back by the height, it must follow valleys to the north and to the south until it can find a gentle slope over which it may pass on its eastward course, but shorn of much of its power by the attempt to overcome the restraining conditions. The two continental “highs” indicated by this writer are placed in March, one over the valleys of the Missouri and Red River (north) northwardly to Manitoba, and the other on the Pacific coast, from 86 - IRRIGA TION. about Cape Mendocino south Wald. The two “lows” are found, on resting on the extreme northwestern coast, the other drawn upon the southern part of the Great Basin, covering most of Nevada and Utah and considerable adjacent areas of Arizona, New Mexico, and the west- ern slopes of Colorado. In April the Missouri high is outlined upon the whole central valley. The Pacific one is strongly accentuated on the coast line. The lows are to the north broadly outlined upon Mon- tana and adjacent British America; to the south it is restricted nar- rowly to the lower section of the Great Basin and down the Colorado Valley. Once assumed, these remain “fairly permanent for several months; ” for even when some transient barometric disturbances occur, conditions are rapidly resumed. “The harmonic vibrations are confined to the swinging in and out” at the east and north, under the influence of “the eastern high.” In May, this has moved over the Appalachian heights. In June, it swings back upon the central valley and the accompanying low “is found across Montana, North Dakota, and Minnesota.” The July movement carries the “high "still farther east, resting upon the south Appalachian range and their regional coast line of Atlantic and Gulf. Again in August it is carried back into the lower central valley and loses its type character. At this time the North Pacific “high” begins to encroach upon the land. The eastern pendulum has ceased its movement. That now spreads out along the whole Atlantic coast. . The northern “low” is again seen over Manitoba. The southern ap- pears to be restricted to the Colorado Valley. The Pacific “high" in September is seen to overlie Washington and Oregon, with adjacent portions of California and Idaho. There is little change in October, except a “drawing together of the two highs.” The low remains for September and October—north over Manitoba, south over the lower Colorado. The Pacific “high” is further inland and the eastern is drawn over the whole Mississippi Valley. The four forces are again in “expectant ’’ poise. November discloses the waiting movement. “The climatic constants have been moved in longitude; they are eastward by 20 degrees of arc. Upon the Pacific coast the “high,” which began to creep upon the land in August by almost imperceptible movements, now rests upon the Great Basin, and extends over southern Idaho and northwestern Colorado. The “concomitant lows appear north and south upon the Pacific coast, on western Washington and northwest Oregon, and on southern California, respectively.” Thus far has been seen a season of typical movement followed by a brief transitional rest, to be succeeded by a second type equally cos- mical and permanent. November conditions endure to January ; the “high persists upon the Great Basin; the low on the Pacific remains permanent in western Washington; the second low on the Pacific has a progressive eastward motion of slow rate.” The February change is only in the Pacific Southern “low,” which has definitely moved eastward to the Colorado Valley. March rounds out the year. The “low” just named has moved over the Southern section of the Great Basin. The eastern “high,” which has been quiescent, moves west as far as the Mis- souri Valley, and the high that has rested over the Great Basin recurs to the Pacific coast. It is these recurrent operations that condition the whole climatic phenomena. The summers upon the Pacific coast and the Great Valley are alike defined by the two high barometrical areas. The Pacific winter is defined by a “high,” in the Great Basin, and two “lows” upon the coast prevailing from November to March, a period of five months. The summer type is that of most persistent drought, the two transition periods, September and October and March, are mixed, PERMANENT CLIMATIC CONDITIONS ON THE COAST. S7 rainy or dry, according to conditions just preceding, and the winter type is that of the greatest rain fall. The economic effects of these conditions are of the utmost impor- tance to both ordinary and irrigation agriculturist. With the flow of mountain streams and river valleys in the region of Cordilleran topog- raphy the hydraulic inquirer is most directly concerned. So also with the practicability of storage of storm waters, or their recovery as phreatic and artesian flows. The broad factors indicated in the pre- ceeding summary of the most important and comprehensive review of Our permanent continental climatic conditions yet prepared, are three: The pelagic or ocean currents, bearing a vast aqueous flow to the Pa. cific coast; the great mountain formations against which these aqueous currents precipitate themselves, and finally, the barometric conditions that permanently arise and recur as a result of altitude and latitude, making seasonal distinction and producing dynamic forces which in- increase or decrease the effects produced by the static conditions of mountain planes and elevations. Certain broad and economic outlines are naturally projected by such a sweeping study. They can only be indicated at this place as guiding points for further inquiry. The pre- cipitation which falls upon the earth is either carried off and down by surface channels which have been eroded through preceeding currents or it leaks into the earth itself, to reappear below as springs, and rise when tapped as artesian flows, or to come again to the surface when intervening stratum are opened or removed so that by gravity or lift- ing by mechanical means there may be assumed and obtained a res- toration of rainfall that has been stored phreatically as it fell from clouds to earth surfaces. Of the precipitation, then, there is loss by sinkage, seepage, and imbibition, or by evaporation. The latter is with- out recovery; the other may, as indicated, be restored to the uses of man, at least to a large degree. Evaporation in California, as elsewhere, is a matter of importance in examining the availability of precipitation for purposes of reclamation and cultivation. The provisional curves constructed from the observa- tions already made indicate the neighborhood of Owens Lake, Ingo County, as showing the maximum curve of loss; that is, 100 inches. The 90-inch curve enters the State as a narrow loop at Yuma and is drawn along the eastern base of the Sierra Nevada until it recurves southeast- ward just above Owens Lake, and reënters Arizona across the Nevada plateau at Mojave. The 80-inch curve follows very closely the pre- ceding one, projecting northward in Nevada as far as Winnemucca. The 70-inch curve follows the southeast mountain flanks and the south- east deserts of Nevada, and at Lake Tahoe swings northeasterly into eastern Oregon. The 60-inch and 70-inch curves belong to the great Valley and are drawn upon the southern coast range along its extreme length till it passes north. The 40-inch curve follows and parallels the range and coast lines. These factors bring the discussion to direct consideration of climate and weather. The two controlling superficial factors of ocean winds and massive mountain barriers give for California and Nevada, “a climate which differs from that of any district within this country and which, practically constant as a whole, displays equally constant differences between the several natural districts into which the region is divided.” There is also to be considered the fact that as a whole the region has its own distinctive climate, which is thus described by Mr. Glassford: The distinguishing characteristic of the climate of the region" is that varieties of weather endure practically unaltered for days at a time, and even when supplanted by others return again and again, and on each such recurrence are symmetrical with their 88 IRRIGATION. former appearance, even when they are not practically identical. In this regard there is a wide variation from the conditions which obtain elsewhere in the United States. Nor is this the only difference. Another notable one is that the storms of the Pacific are with comparative infrequency traced across into the Central Valley º the Atlantic slopes. Another is that storm frequency increases rapidly towards the north. The storms referred to are seldom felt below Cape Mendicino on the coast, while bringing rain to the San Joaquin Valley and as far south as San Luis Obispo. The southern part is untouched except by a “low” sometimes briefly developed in Sonora, New Mexico. Light showers occur from San Francisco northward, when there is a low shallow area over the North Pacific in the latitude of and not far from Washington. This rain seldom passes south of San Francisco. Low pressure then over Oregon and Washington results in rains over northern California when however a high area rests upon the two northern States. Quoting Mr. Glassford, we find that: The low type is permanent over Southern California. * * * A diffused and mod- erate “high " on the southwest coast is accompanied by an unusually low tempera- ture. During this condition rains fall in the Los Angeles region and southern por- tions of the great valley. A considerable general fall occurs with a retaining “high" barometer on the southwest coast and heavy gales, hail and thunder storms may re- sult. Local rainfalls are marked by a moderate “low” continued for several days and below the normal “over a large area.” Mr. Glassford continues: The dry season shows little variation from beginning to end. Rain is almost en- tirely absent and the light showers which sometimes occur on the Washington coast only rarely drop down upon a limited district of the California coast. Another fea- ture of the season is the development and persistence of marked intensity of the “high” in Oregon accompanied with a corresponding fixity of a slight low area over southern California, creating the characteristic northerly winds which blow down the great valley. A study of the rain curves shown in California as well as Nevada is one of great interest. Mr. Glassford puts the line of arid demarcation at 20 inches of annual precipitation, an estimate which this office accepts as reasonable. The Whole of Nevada below its Sierra summits is within the Great Basin region and below the 20-inch curve. It is affected by a 5-inch curve which crosses the Mojave Desert and extends over the 3,000-foot plateau of Western Nevada as far east as to include the Car- son and Humboldt lakes. This curve in a narrow belt also crosses northeast Nevada and penetrates Utah to the extreme northwest of Salt Lake. A 10-inch curve peculiar to the Great Basin enters from the east, between latitude 37 and 38 and moves westerly across Nevada to a point beyond Pyramid Lake, where it turns southwest and moves until it is lost under the influence of the Colorado Desert dessication. I quote: In eastern Nevada, a narrow loop of 15 inches clings to the north and south valleys of the White Pine ranges from Pioche to Fort Halleck. The general 15-inch curve of the Great Basin enters upon the northern border at Fort McDermitt, sweeps eastward to include Tuscarora, and then swinging sharply back along the upper edge of the basin parallels the 10-inch curve of the same system upon the eastern Sierra face as far as the heights which break away above the Tehachpi Pass. It then descends the Sierra slopes and enters the great valley to be lost on its lower plane. The lowest rain curve (3-inch) in California enters at Yuma and controls the Colorado Desert. The 5-inch curve follows the river on its eastern edge, passing northward to the Mojave Desert, re- entering it at Daggett and curving southward again to the river at the Needles; thence it enters Nevada as already stated, extending northeast to the Humboldt. The 10-inch curve and less appears in the lower portion of the San THE SEVERAI, RAINFALL CURVES OF CALIFORNIA. 89 Joaquin Valley, again along the San Diego coast, the Upper Santa Ana Valley, and at the junction of the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers. The 15-inch curve which enters from the Great Basin rises along the heights which break away to the east of the Tehachepe range, in south- ern California, enters the great valley, and at once seeks the lower con- tours, coming out into the level plains at Fresno. To the north it marks the controlling influence of Merced, Stanislaus, and San Joaquin coun- ties, going north to the slough region of Sacramento, Solano, and Contra Costa counties, and then climbs slowly south and to the West of Lake Tulare, where it marks the line of dry currents from the San Joaquin Valley and the desiccated one from the Colorado Desert. The 15-inch curve is marked also upon the eastern slope of the Coast Range, along the 1,000-foot contour of the Santa Ana, and sweeps around the 10-inch curve. It is also seen in Salinas Valley and San Benito County, as well as in the Sacramento Valley, Colusa County. The 25-inch curve enters from Oregon about the center of the northern boundary and moves east and southeast to Sisikiyou, Shasta, Plumas, and Lassen counties and beyond as far as the head of Kern River. Returning north it follows the foothills, seeking and modifying the lower level curves, until Red Bluff in the north is reached; thence it recurves, taking the Sacramento Valley southward, round the Sonoma Valley, and into the Bay of San Francisco. The neighborhoods of Ukiah and the Upper Russian River are under its influence also. It runs southward along the Coast Range heights, reaching Mount Julian, where the rise is up- ward to 35 inches. From there the general curve of 25 moves ‘across Ventura County. It affects the coast from San Benito to Mount Ham- ilton, has a place on the southern portion of the San Francisco penin- sula, and over portions of the bay region in Contra Costa and Alameda counties. The 30-inch curve follows, but above, the general direction along the higher Sierra of the preceding one. Its southward limit is the head of Kings River, where it turns north, along a lower alignment being drawn into the Sacramento Valley as it moves north. At Shasta it recurves and moves along the inner slopes of the Coast Range south- ward to San Pablo Bay, passing out to sea at Mount Tamalpais. All of the remaining curves are confined as to influence to northern Cali- fornia. The 35-inch is mainly confined to the vicinity of Redding. Higher curves follow alignments, showing higher latitude and low altitude, thus proving their entire dependence for regulation upon the ocean currents of the north Pacific, as already mentioned in this sum- mary. The 40-inch and the 45-inch curves are found aligned along the headwaters of the Tuolumne and Stanislaus rivers, passing westward up the Trinity and through Round Valley, leaving the land south of Cape Mendocino. The rapid increase at certain seasons in the flow of the rivers named is due to the large precipitation shown. This is a matter of grave importance, as it insures the permanence of great irri- gation supply which has hardly been drawn upon. The water storage of the important Turlock and Modesto districts is directly related, it will be seen, to the 40-inch and 45-inch curves, which, as precipitation in either rain or snow, feed the notable mountain river at whose debouch- ing caſion mouth the storage dams of the two districts named are now in process of construction. The irrigation districts in Colusa County are also endowed with secure sources of supply. It is quite a reason- able estimate, then, to regard the mountain streams of central and northern California as capable of furnishing water sufficient to irrigate four or five times the number of acres now under such cultivation in the Golden State. 90 IRRIGATION. California presents the oldest as well as the best example of farm- ing by irrigation within the United States, as it does the most fascinat- ing of physical conditions. The Franciscan Fathers partially systema- tized irrigation a century ago, and when their semi-municipal control of the Indians was absorbed by the Mexican Government, followed as it was by the American conquest, the art (relegated to the care of the Indians and Mexican land grantees), was practically ignored. During the American settlement incident to the gold excitement ag- riculture had little place. The necessity of a permanent food supply for the growing population was soon brought to the front, however. But the wide-stretching acres of the great wheat ranches alone yielded profit, and there were many reasons for this, because, while production was limited to staples giving small returns, $1 an acre with an indiffer- ent culture on a 10,000 or 20,000 acre ranch represented a greater profit than $5 or $10 per acre to the small but careful farmer. An early report of the State Agricultural Society says: We have within the geographical limits of California over 100,000,000 acres of land, of which less than one two-hundredth part is under cultivation. A system of crop culture that afforded the product of only 500,000 acres of poorly tilled land (1862) for the support of more than that number of persons could not stand. According to Engineer William Ham Hall, in 1852 a band of Mormons from Salt Lake took possession in San Bernardino of some old mission works, bought a Mexican rancho there and commenced irrigation, which was probably the first noteworthy effort made by other than Mexicans; in 1856 Some Missourians diverted water from the Kern River in that county; in 1858 the water of the Cache Creek in the Sacramento Valley was taken out, and in 1859 a little water for irrigation was developed from Kern River. With so little of the arable lands irrigated and such large tracts sowed to broadcast crops, the introduction of a system whose very essence is intensive cultivation was a difficult and dis- heartening process. The employment of unskilled labor on an irrigated tract counts the loss of from 30 to 50 per cent of the crop. The land requires constant care and the crops the utmost watchfulness. In an irrigated region the small farm seems to be a logical sequence of the system. Besides this, under Spanish-Mexican law, water for irrigation is held to be subject to beneficial servitudes, or it might be expressed “to run with the land.” The mining settlement gave shape to the agri- cultural control of water for cultivation, and prior appropriation was the rule almost wholly among those who farmed and made homes. The stockmen, the sheep rancher, and the speculative landowners were commonly advocates, on the other hand, of riparian rights. This did not become a marked issue until irrigation and colony life grew into a vigorous economic factor. But the whole plan of prior appropriation, though generally supported by the court, was a shiftless affair. No rule for its government was laid down ; no supervision was provided for or enforced. The legal requirements were simply that the claimant of water for irrigation should post a notice of appropriation at the point of diversion and within sixty days thereafter begin the construction of his works. Usually a copy of the claim was filed at the county Seat, but no State or municipal inspection or measurement was provided, nor were the records properly preserved. The claims were generally couched in very indefinite terms, being worded by the farmers and cor- porations immediately interested. The development under this loose administration and acquisition of water rights was very slow, capital WATER FOR APPROPRIATOR, NOT FOR THE LAND. 91 was wary, and the peculiar feature of this indefinite period, down to the adoption of the irrigation district system is, that progress was greatest in those regions presenting greatest natural obstacles, as in the difficult Southern counties rather than in more favored basin plains, OWing to the greater security of absolute proof of prior appropriation and beneficial use. In early irrigation the object was to get water to particular tracts owned by the appropriator, and not to put it on the most available land, which in most instances was more convenient to the head gate of the canal. For example, in the San Joaquin Valley four large canals now pass within 2 miles of Centerville, in Fresno County, at equal elevation and commanding the same territory, the waters of which are directed to unrelated tracts of land. One canal of greater capacity than all four Combined would command a larger and more compact territory at much less cost. In 1870, the real development of the water resources of Cali- fornia began. The Commission authorized by Congress, under a reso- lution of Senator Stewart, of Nevada, in 1868-’69, to investigate the San Joaquin Valley, endeavored to prove that there was a permanent and sufficient water supply to be found there for the irrigation of large areas. That report, as well as actual cultivation, showed that the rich soil of Valley and plains were among the best lands in the world for extensive and diversified agriculture. Under a notice claiming “right to construct a ditch 10 feet wide, 14 foot deep, or to a volume of water of 2,160 inches,” posted July 5, 1865, the Centerville Canal and Irriga- tion Company, in 1868 and 1869, built an irrigation canal, using Cen- terville slough, one of the channels of King River, thence south and west to Burns Slough, another natural channel, which was utilized, and thence to the lands served in the vicinity of Centerville, on August 5, 1869. The water right of this ditch was enlarged under a location of J. B. Sween, “from the margin of said river (King's) 10 feet wide at bottom and 2 feet deep under a 4-inch pressure.” In 1870, M. J. Church and A. Y. Easterby entered upon the Fresno Canal and Irrigation Com- pany’s project to appropriate at the head of Sweens Ditch, “water to be taken from King River at the upper end of Sweens Ditch, 20 feet at bottom and 30 feet on top, and 4 feet deep.” In 1874, this company acquired all the rights of the Centerville and Sween Canals. The Fresno Canal and Irrigation Company was the first illustration of irriga- tion on a large scale in the United States, being a short period in advance of the famous irrigation colony at Greeley, Colo. Many vicissitudes marked its early history. Messrs. Church & Easterby becoming involved in financial difficulties the canal passed under control of the Nevada Bank, but it failed to pay dividends and after a time was sold back to Mr. Church, and since then has remained under the manage- ment of the company of which he is president. When the waters of this canal were first poured over the land the soil was powdery and dry to a depth of 50 to 90 feet, and absorbed water like a sponge. In order to get the water to run a full head was allowed to flow into the ditch for a short distance; it was then shut off and permitted to settle and de- posit its load of silt. The bed of the canal would thus present a smooth, glassy appearance, and before the film of sediment cracked in the Sun a new flood was let down to the next dry section. The sediment thus formed had the tendency to puddle the bed of the canal. Before noticing more fully the irrigation in this region, a glance at the topography will help to better understand the subsequent develop- ment. The San Joaquin Valley is a vast intramountain plain, extend- *. 92 IRRIGATION. ing north from the Tehachepe Range to the junction of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, and east and west is walled in by the Sierra Nevada and coast ranges. The San Joaquin River carries off its drain- age. It comes out of Sierra midway in the valley, picking up at Las Juntas the surface flow from Kern, Tule, Keweah, and King rivers. All head in the eastern range and debouch on the plains, resembling the skeletons of four leaves laid side by side, the stems in each case being the main or caſion stream and the delta being the frame of the leaf. In the southern end of the valley enormous precipitation is poured down from the Sierra without forming a permanent water way. Tulare, Buena Vista, Kern, and Goose lakes are the only evidences of this vast flow, but even they have no constant outlet towards the San Joaquin River, other than a series of swamps and tule beds. The soil before irrigation was dry below the reach of suction pumps. The east- ern side of the valley is well watered, but on the western or coast range side there is scarcely a stream perennially flowing into the San Joaquin Basin; certainly not a single one below the junction of that river and the Merced. The irrigation has naturally been on the east- ern side of the valley. Some effort is now being made on the western side. Twenty-five years ago the San Joaquin Valley was only known as a dreary stage in the journey to the mines of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Bakersfield, Visalia, Fresno, and Merced were simply ham- lets. The canals that have filled the land with plenty were only dreams of students and visionaries. The Stockmen held Supreme control over the foothills and plains, and their opposition to irrigation was violent. The success which followed the introduction of irrigation into the San Joaquin Valley stimulated exertion elsewhere, and the practice was improved on in the six southern counties, which latter, owing to the large profits on their products, have become the best-known irrigated region in the United States. The open canals have been often described, and that need not be reiterated. It is necessary, however, to dwell briefly upon one peculiar feature of irrigation in the San Joaquin Val- ley, viz, the lifting of the water table, or plane, towards the surface. In this region the canals are all constructed for the avowed purpose of allowing seepage into the soil through their banks. The result is that lands on which from $5 to $20 per acre have been paid for the right to use water are now filled to saturation. Drainage is often needed to carry off the constantly increasing soil water. As yet this destruction of the land has not been very general, but it must be reckoned on within the near future. The only danger is that the land may degen- erate into a swamp. Engineer Wm. Ham. Hall, in a paper read before the American Society of Civil Engineers, says: I saw in 1877 enough water, by actual measurement of flow, put on 20 acres of land to cover it 18 feet deep. in one season, could it all have been retained upon it. It simply soaked into the ground or flowed out under the great plain. Taking cross sections of this country, north and South, east and west, I found that where the depth to soil water had, before irrigation, been about 80 feet, it was then 20, 30, 40, or 60 and more feet down to it. The soil water stood under the plain in the form of a mountain, the slope running down 40 to 50 feet in a few miles on the west and north. On the south and southwest the surface of this water mountain was much more steep. In the Kern River country we have a somewhat similar phenomenon. Irrigation, in the upper portion of the Kern delta, affects the water in the wells 6 or 8 miſes away. As I remember, the effect is felt at the rate of about a mile a day; that is to say, when water is used in irrigating the upper portion of the delta, or of Kern Island, as it is called, the wells commence to rise a mile away in twenty-four hours, and five miles away in perhaps five days. It is claimed that the more water in the soil the better it is for the irrigator, as it is not only preserved without loss by evaporation, but WATER FOR APPROPRIATOR, NOT FOR THE LAND. 93 tends to more constantly feed the rivers, whose flow during the dry season has greatly increased since the introduction of irrigation. Mr. J. P. Vincent, of Fresno, Cal., speaking to the special agent on this point, said: The fruit area of Fresno County is increasing, and will continue until all available lands are put under cultivation. In the early days we said we had 7,000 acres of irrigable land, and outside of that nothing; but now we have 7,000 acres that are drained in order to raise crops. For the old vines we use very little water, but for the new ones we use very large quantities, as the desire is to saturate our lands. The vineyards are extending principally towards the foothills. Wherever we put water we plant crops, but we are extending towards the foothills, because the soil is heavier and freer from alkali. The best part of our wheat is raised in that direction. If we used our water at the proper time we could irrigate even more land than we now do. Our supply is sufficient for all purposes, and we have not yet considered the question of storage. In winter we can flood our land 4 feet deep, and thereby save irrigation in the low-water season of summer. Our object is to fill the land, and instead of having it 60 feet below surface, we want the water plane to be from 6 to 8 feet only. In the vicinity of Fresno, northeast to the Enterprise Colony, the water plane has risen to within 30 feet of the surface. In some places it is less. Along the lines of the canals there has beeh without exception a general rise. This has enabled us to extend constantly the area of planting from a surface supply, originally con- sidered very inadequate. There has been quite an extensive increase in the planting of vines and trees during the winter and spring of 1890–91. J. C. Shepard also described the method of using seepage water for subirrigation. The duty of water is now supposed to be 1 cmbic foot per second to 160 acres of Iand, but if you take into account the amount of land planted to vineyards and orchards, not watered at all on the surface, but made fruitful through seepage subirrigation, it will be somewhat more. These lands receive their water, by percolation, from the ditches under which they lie. There is an impression that we run a ditch around a thousand acres or so and allow it to seep up, but this is not so. We run the water right on the land wherever we irrigate at all; the nonirrigated only receives moisture from the seepage of the wet lands or from the ditches. The greater part of the country east of Fresno, between here and Kings River, where vineyards have been planted, is not irrigated at all. Some of these vineyards have never been irrigated, and there are no ditches on them. The only water they get besides rainfall is through the seepage of the main ditch. The country falls to the south and west, and the surface water has risen from a depth below the reach of suction pumps near enough now to the surface to supply the roots plant. The effect of this seepage is very noticeable, because the country is full of depressions, which have filled with water and are covered with tules. This is seen for a distance of 25 miles or more south and west from Fresno. Farming in this region is now carried on under much more favorable conditions than when our colony life began. Water for stock is more easily obtained, and while the ground water has not risen high enough for grain, still many crops are greatly benefited, among which is alfalfa. It grows in many in- stances without surface watering. The following tables of water loss from canals were made by Mr. C. E. Grunsky, ex-assistant State engineer of California, during his offi- cial investigation of the region under consideration. These tables, with other valuable material in part incorporated in this report, have been received from Mr. Grunsky for use by the office of irrigation in- quiry. The abolition of the State engineer's office has prevented the further prosecution of these important observations: * * --- 94 IRRIGATION. Loss of water from the Kings River and Fresno Canal. [Measurements by C. E. Grunsky, assistant State engineer.] Dis- Discharge tºween - tance (cu. ft per sec.). | cuº. º: Name of canal or ditch and locality. Mºr - ..per sec.). €30 O e tº Main Di- Por canal. canal. verted. Total. mile. Miles. R. R. & F. C., one-half mile below head ............. --...--. 0. 50 133,83 . . . . . . . . \ Burns Ditch ------------------------------------------------- 1.00 |--------. 0.25 Hansen Ditch ---------------------------------------------. . 4.00 I.- ....... 3.23 Fanshaw Creek (wastage).---------------------------------. . 8.00 |......... 0.30 || || Ditch on south side.----------------------------------------. 8.00 I.--...... 4.05 || $ 43. 36 3, 77 Ditch on south side. ----------------------------------------. 9.00 ! . . . . . . . . . 0.05 || K. R. & F.C. at Hawkins Weir....... . e º sº e º ºs ºs sº tº as we gº tº we s sº º ºs is me & sº a 9.00 | *78. 18 | . . . . . . . . i Wastage ----------------------------------------------------|--------|--------- 0.15 || Ditch on south side------------------------------------------ 11. 50 |... . . . . . . 2.04 J E. C. & F.C. in Red Bank Creek flume --------------------- 12. 00 80. 40 l. - - - - - - - Dog Creek (Wastage).--------------------------------- gº º ſº a s & 13.25 -------.. 0.15 | Ditch on north side. ----------------------------------------. 16.00 l...... . . . 3.36 | }. 16.50 3, 48 Eggers Ditch.----------. ----------------------------------- 16. 75 l. . . . . . . . . 4.67 || K. R. & F.C. at Eggers Weir.------------------------. ------. 16. 75 55. 72 . . . . . . . . J K. R. & F.C. west line of section 17-------------------...--- 17, 7 *49, 56 | . . . . . . . . * Ditch south side. ------------------------------------------ 17.80 - - - - - . . . 3.08 Scand. Col. Ditch -------------------. : - - - - - - - - - - - - - * * * * is e º is s 18. 25 1. ----. . . . 3. 86 R. & F. C. at upper Scand. Col. Weir. -------------------. . 18. 25 | *36.74 |. - - - - - - - Col. Ditch ------------------------------------------- 18, 35 | ---...... 1.46 Col. Ditch ------------------------------------------- 18, 50 l......... 2.42 Col. Ditch--------------------------------------------| 18.60 -------.. 1, 00 Col. Ditch ----------------------- ... º ºs º gº sº e sº-º an as sº º sº sº º ºs º ºs ºs e 18.70 | . . . . . . . . . 2. 39 $ 4, 44 1, 25 Col. Ditch ------------------- : - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 18. 80 | . . . . . . . . 14. 50 R. R. & F.C., Lower Scand. Col. Weir------------------..... 19.00 | *21. 51 . . . . . . Big Creek (wastage) ---------------------------------------- 19, 25 ||--------. 1. 50 Wastage - - - - - - - - - - ----------------------------------------|--------|- - - - - - - - - 0.20 Ditch on north side ----------------------------------------. 19.75 - - - - - - - -. 0.43 Cooper & Helm Ditch. ------------------------------------. 20. 25 . . . . . . . . 8. 71 K. R. &. F. C. at Cooper Weir. ------ -----------------------. 20, 30 11.73 |-------. J *Approximate. L088 of water from the Fresno Canal. e º Loss between Dis- Discharge tati tance (cu. ft. per sec.). Sta.LIOIlS Name of canal or ditch and locality. below p ) (cu. ft.per sec.). "| head of º e Main Di- f Per canal. canal. verted. Total. mile. Miles. Fresco Canal at Road Bridge ---------------...--........... 1.25 || 381.00 | . . . . . . . . l Centerville Branch. ----------------------------------------. l. 75 --------. 17.80 || Lone Tree Branch. - - - - - - - - - - * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * = as sº a s 3.25 1. --...... 69. 39 | }. 95, 51 8.49 Ditch on south side ------------------------------------...--. 5.00 l......... 0. 50 Limbaugh Dam Ditch----------. * - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 12.50 l. --...--. 58. 72 Presno Canal at Limbaugh Dam..... --..................... 12.50 | 139. 08 . . . . . . . . . • Briggs Canal.----------------------------------------------. 14.00 |........ 0, 30 Eisen Canal.------------------------------------------------ 14.00 I. --...--. 14. 09 Fresno Canal at Hobler Dam ........----------------....... 14.00 | *107.88 - - - - - - - - 5, 20 0. T4 Easterly Ditch. ------------------------------------, -------. 17.25 !---..... . 5. 60 * * • * Malters Ditch (North) -------------------------------------. 19.00 l. - - - - - -.. 6. 30 Malters Ditch (Central). -----------------------------------. 19.00 ! ---...--.. 1. 69 Washington Col. Branch_--...----------------------------... 19, 50 sº tº sº. 45.50 Fresno Canal at head of Wash, Col. Branch ................ 19.50 60. 40 l..... :-- Fresno Colony Canal---------------------------------------. 23. 50 ! . . . . . . --. 14.15 3. 81 0.95 North Central Col. Canal. ------..... ſº tº ºs s is et tº ſº s tº gº tº as ºs º º gº sº tº tº tº tº s = 23. 50 28. 16 || 13. 88 * & Main Central Col. Canal------------------------------------. 23, 50 28.16 1. - - - - - .. * Approximate. THE WRIGHT LAND AND IRRIGATION CONDITIONS. Loss of water from the Cénterville and Kingsburg Canal. 95 I)is. Discharge, cu. | Loss between tance ft. per sec. stations. Name of canal or ditch, and location. below -- head of Main T)i- Total Per canal. I canal. verted. otal. mile. Miles. C. & K. canal, # mile below head.--------------------------. 0. 50 | 346.00 |...... . . Ditch on West side ------------------------------------------ 5, 50 - - - - - - - - - 5. 06 }*. 94 | 15. 63 Do ---------------------------------------------------. 5, 75 - - - - - - - - - 4, 00 C. & K. Canal at Wier, in sec. 23.-------------------...----- 6.00 251.00 ! . . . . . . . . Garfield Canal ---------------------------------------------- 7.00 - - - - - - - - - 26, 65 ! 52.35 | 52.35 C. & K. Canal at Wier, in sec. 26 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - . . . . . . 7, 00 172.00 |...... . * The loss by evaporation on the Fresno Canal, throughout its 244 miles of main canal, as arrived at by the same authority, from observations extending from 1881 to 1885, was equal to a continuous flow from the ditch of 2.8 cubic feet per second for the total length. The humus or vegetable mold of which the soil of the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley is composed, in connection with its arid climate, has a tendency to “bloom "out in alkali, a prevalent form being what is known as black alkali. Underdrainage, however, is the natural correct- ive of alkali eruptions on the soil, and a local system of irrigation drain- age must therefore be adopted. It is certain that with care the alkali will quickly cease to be a source of uneasiness. Irrigation must in the very nature of the art be the result of associated effort. The first large canal, as already described, was taken out by a private corpora- tion, and the water contracts of this company, with its irrigators, called for a pro rata share of the water in the ditch. This clause was soon taken advantage of for the formation of colonies, by which a body of persons desirous of enjoying the advantages of associated effort or- ganized for mutual assistance in the building of ditches, etc. The loca- tions these bodies made are among the most prosperous in California. As an illustration, in the San Joaquin Valley land values have ad- vanced from less than $5 per acre for land without water to $200 and $250 for land with water. In southern California and all the citrus regions the price of watered land is double that of San Joaquin areas. Speculation in land and water rights aimed till recently to make the lat- ter a personal franchise rather than an easement of the land. The right of prior appropriation was pushed to the uttermost, and in the conflict that ensued from 1870 to 1885 the courts were burdened with the suits of water-users, water-owners, and those between rival companies of owners. Such was the state of affairs at the time of the introduction and passage of the first Wright irrigation district law. The several laws, so known, are an effort to give the highest legal sanction to the permanent union of the land and water, but at the same time to recog- nize every other existing right and equity. The question with the peo- ple interested was the method of union. It was common sentiment that Some such course was necessary, but the ways and means were the vital question. At an interview between the special agent in charge and Mr. C. C. Wright, the author of the present district laws, and Mr. Nance, the president of the California State Association of Irrigation Districts, Mr. Wright expressed himself as follows: - I was elected to the legislature for the express purpose of advocating some meas- ure providing for the municipal control of water for irrigation. In devising plans it occurred to me that the best method whereby the people could organize, and when organized would have power to assess and collect money for the purpose of construct- 96 IRRIGATION. ing works by the ordinary process of levy and collection, was the proper thing, and that a local government based on the familiar lines of county government and officers, differing in no respect from such an organization, except in the object to be attained, would accomplish our purpose without chance of failure. . So, this district law was formed with the object in view that there might be created a special government for the one purpose of developing and administering the irrigation water for the benefit of the people. The idea was to organize a local government for this purpose and the single object of providing works and paying for their construction; and it seemed to me best to adopt a somewhat more limited municipal organization than that of the counties, or a municipal organization for one purpose only. There was nothing new or novel in that plan. The district when effected is the same as a county. It has its board of directors as the county has, its board of supervisors, and assessor, treas- urer, and all other officers necessary, within its municipality, whose duties within the district correspond to the duties of similar officers in counties. The proper county officials are empowered to provide for the construction of any needed work, such as a jail, court-house, bridge, road, etc., and to do it by direct assessment; but if the cost is too great for that method, by an issue of properly authorized bonds. It is just the same with an irrigation district. The board of directors were given the same general power to construct a system of irrigation works as is given to a county. Then, as to the method of community association or election in a district, I thought again that the mode of forming municipal bodies in this State should be followed. The legislature can select a municipality or district by direct act, but there must first be a petition from a certain number of freeholders; and then there should be an ex- amination by a board of supervisors, who could employ engineers, etc., to report upon the formation of the district, and they should have every facility afforded them to make a thorough and exhaustive examination into the propriety of forming the district. When satisfied as to this they should be authorized to fix the boundaries and propose to the people whether the district should be so organized; and after such a proposition has been made with sufficient notice, if the vote of the people showed two-thirds in favor of forming the district, then that vote should operate as the act or fact which should result in the formation of the said district. First. The formation is provided for the same as other corporations in the State. Second. When the district is formed the plan is to be carried out on the lines simi- lar to those upon which county government is laid down. Third. The plan for raising money is the same as that of a county. The board of supervisors make assessments to construct a work, and, just so, the directors make an assessment and submit it to a vote of the people for an irrigation ditch or reservoir; they make specifications and advertise for bids under the system of competitive bid- ding, and award the work to the lowest bidder. Another thing is that if the district should be compelled to issue bonds when the amount needed be too large for direct assessments, a proposition to vote bonds may be submitted; if that prove insufficient another proposition may be submitted and a second issue voted, but the directors are empowered by law to levy a direct assess- ment and complete the work. This power is granted in order that the work may not be commenced and then allowed to remain unfinished. As to the obstacles to setting these districts on their feet, the only important one has been the lack of confidence in the bonds. They are a new security. Everybody acknowledges that the decisions of the Supreme Court have set at rest all legal ques- tions involved ; but yet it has not done away with the feeling that these are new and unproved securities. Capitalists are slow to take them. There has been some oppo- sition of a pronounced character from the large land-owners who have a notion that they owned not only the land, but the water and the people also, and they will an- tagonize any attempt on the part of the people whereby they may become entitled to any part of the water. . The large land-owners want the water themselves, and they do not want cultivated lands brought in competition with their own. As to the ques- tion of taxing lands because their value is increased by the irrigating ditches, I think that is best handled by our System of assessment and equalization, which is the same as the county plan, and I have studied that plan a great deal. There is nothing in the law to prevent all lands being assessed at the same figure. It might all be as- sessed at $50, for in such cases the land, is supposed to be intrinsically of the same value. Then the board of directors, sitting as a board of equalization, will finally set- tle the question, and poorer land be assessed at its proper value. If, on the other hand, you make a cast-iron rule that the poor acre would have to pay as much as the good acre, it would be wrong, but the equalization makes that all right. There is no reason why the system should fail because the assessments are equal; and experi- ence has shown that there is no reason why a district may not carry on a complex system of irrigation. The canals and their administration is as natural to the district as the building and management of highways is to the country. As to the public or government lands within the district area, I think it would be LESSENING WATER COST ANT) INCREASING SECURITY. 97 the proper thing for Congress to pass an act making them liable for cost of district works. The holder of such lands must take them subject to a lien for the improve- ments. I know that there are many people who have delayed taking out their pat- ents in order to escape paying water assessments. As it is, we have gone ahead and entered the assessments, and when the owner of such lands wants water for them he will have to make some equitable arrangement in regard to the expense of the works and other details. On the mere basis of benefit to the pilblic lands Congress ought to authorize a thorough investigation into the district system, the feasibility of its op- eration, source of supply, character of soils, and character of security it offers for in- vestments. This would serve to promote irrigation interests all over the country. Mr. Nance declared that: The great effect of the district system will be to lessen the cost of water to the user at least one-half. In the Alta district of Fresno and Tułare counties the ex- pense of furnishing water, including interest on the entire debt of $410,000, will not exceed 25 cents per acre for the past year. [Mr. C. C. Wright has more recently stated at 40 cents.] Under the old system it was $5 per acre royalty or franchise and $1 per annum for rental. It had been as low as 50 cents, but it was raised to $1. There are no royalties or franchises under the district system. The only cost during the first ten years of the existence of the district is that of interest on bonds, main- tenance, and administration. You do not begin the formation of a sinking fund for the payment of the principal of the bonds until after ten years. After ten years you begin to pay back the principal. You might consider it in this way: In the Alta district the amount of money to be expended during the whole period of twenty years, including interest and principal of bonds, is $5.19 per acre. If you consider that as a royalty you will get at the cost of a district system to the irrigators, with the exception that you do not have to pay the royalty in a lump sum, but spread out over a period of twenty years, during which time your land has been yielding a re- turn, and after the bonded debt is wiped out the expense of running will only be 7 or 8 cents per acre. Mr. J. C. Shepard, of Fresno, in speaking of the district system, said: The Wright law is a long step toward the proper method of irrigation. It may not be perfect, but it will be very hard to get a law that would be better. Under it the people, or rather the water users, become the owners and controllers of the water, the works, and the administration thereof, paying of course for such capital as they use in the construction of works, the title of water becomes finally vested in the title of the land. This system supersedes and does away with the litigation caused by the conflicting claims of riparian owners and prior appropriators, and the general impres- sion is that it will work out well. As to the question of cost of the system, it is not thought that any man who compares the cost under the district system with that under a corporation will find the results unfavorable to the Wright law. The large landowners have undoubtedly objected to the formation of irrigation districts because they would have to pay taxes on their land. This fact is apparent in the Alta district, where the large owner says the taxes are so heavy he can not afford to keep them up, and consequently he is seeking to dispose of the land in small parcels. It is either being sold out or the owner is letting people have it to plant on shares. Actual settlement and cultivation have increased the value of this land to $250 per acre. The large landowners have not paid a cent to bring about that in- crease, but under the district laws they would have to bear their equal share. An- other obstacle besides the hostility of such landowners has been in cases like the Selma district, where there are three systems of canals, and it can not be agreed what is to be paid for them. This dispute has resulted in defeating the bond issue proposed. This hindrance has been caused by the ditch systems themselves. The law of course provides for the power of condemnation, but as yet we have not exercised it. I do not think this district will soon vote its bonds, because the directors of the canal companies want the directors of the district to make terms with them and to give a certain amount for their canals, which the district people refuse. Then the ditch owners started in to defeat the bonds and did it. The general effect of the system when tried-is to greatly lessen the cost of water to the irrigators, and when the districts are more unified the cost of administration will be much more reduced ; besides this the intense public opinion and watchfulness aroused will be a check on the slightest unnecessary expense. The views of Hon. J. P. Vincent, of Fresno, who was chairman of the committee on irrigation of the California assembly, during the discus- sion and passage of the first Wright law, are presented in this connection: As to the application of the Wright system, I would state that it is much more diffi- cult to apply it to a country like this where systems have grown up, than to a country S. Ex, 41 7 98 * * IRRIGATION. where there is no irrigation at all. You see in this section, with our numerous sys tems and farmers under them, many of whom are stockholders in the canals, we are interested in the success of the present methods. If the present canals had only have been larger we could have irrigated much more land with less expense per acre. One of the great advantages of the Wright system is that it makes each man pay his share both of constructing and operating the canal. Now, in our experience we find that one man will not take and pay for water because his land is so situated that he will get his supply from his neighbor's seepage. We have a great many such unen. At the time the first Wright law was passed I was chairman of the irrigation com- mittee of the California legislature. My idea was that we should form “water dis- tricts,” which should own all the water of a stream irrespective of the construction of the canals. For instance, if a man owned 1,000 acres and there was only one-tenth enough water to irrigate it, he could only irrigate 100 acres. The idea was this, that every acre irrigable by King River, say, had a right to water. The result would be there would be about four times the amount of canal construction and there would be four or five times as much water taken out at the high stages and not so much needed at the low stage, and in that way the country would soon be filled with water and but little would be needed. The greatest objection to the Wright law is that public works cost more than pri- vate works. Now, in the Tuolumne County, I think the Wright system is excellent, for unless some huge corporation should construct that Modesto and Turlock dam it would never be constructed. It is better therefore to have a district corporation for such a purpose than a private one. My idea was that every acre of land had its just right to water in a proportionate share. Then the people would construct canals, and even if the water was not sufficient to irrigate all the land it is better that way than that a few men shall have it all. I want every man to have some. More than that, when one man irrigates his land he benefits all his neighbors. If you will take a cross section of a ditch and the eountry under it you will see that the water seeps away until it strikes the next ditch, thereby benefiting every man under the canal, whether he pays for water or not. Mr. Vincent was asked if the disposition of the wested rights, or the usages growing out of the present system of canals that have taken water in Fresno County, is the chief practical obstacle to the formation of districts under the Wright law in and around Fresno; were the peo- ple here satisfied and did not want to experiment any further? - In reply, Mr. Vincent said : That is about the fact, but the idea I had was this: In sections where there are no canals established the Wright system is the best, because every man under it will pay his proportion of expense from the beginning and receive all the benefit. In sections such as Fresno where the people have rights under the canals, I think a water district would be better than an irrigation district—that is, all the land should be formed into a water district and then the people should purchase the vested rights now exist- ing. The principal object of the Wright laws now seems to be the construction of irrigation works. In Fresno, for instance, it would not be necessary to construct irrigation works, because we have a system already; but if we could purchase all the water rights it would be better. I was not able to get my bill signed by the gov- ernor after it passed the legislature of 1887. My idea was that the water in a water district should belong pro rata to the land irrigated. The tendency of such a system would be to make water common prop- erty. The man now who is nearest the head of the ditch can get more water than he needs, and if he dost buy it he gets it in various other ways. There is, in the opinion of many, but one honest man on each canal, and he is the last man that gets water. This system has been thought wasteful, but in this particular region we do not find so much fault with waste, as we want water to seep and fill the land. After the passage of the irrigation district law Mr. Wright immedi- ately interested himself in the formation of the Turlock district, which was the first formed under the law. The agitation of the question among the Turlock people led to the formation of the Modesto district. No better example of the flexibility of the system could be offered than these two districts. They are under separate management, but have united to build a great dam on the Tuolumne River, each bearing its proportionate share of expenses and adjusting all interests in the dam on a fair and equitable basis. THE TURLOCK WORKS AND THEIR CHARACTER. 99 The following engineering review of the works was obtained by the special agent from Mr. C. E. Grunsky, C. E., during his investigation of Californian irrigation in 1891: The Turlock irrigation district embraces within its boundaries 176,100 acres of the east side San Joaquin Valley plains. The district lies principally in Stanislaus County, only a small portion of it extending into Merced County. Tuolumne River forms its northern boundary and the Merced River lies at its southern limit. Its soils may be briefly de- Scribed as Sandy loams of great depth, excellent quality, and well adapted for irrigation. The rainfall throughout the district averages about 10 inches. The district in its present nonirrigated condition is a vast wheat field. By careful tillage the soil has been forced to yield cereals enough to be barely remunerative. Where water has been raised from Wells by mills or horse power an occasional acre of orchard or vine- yard emphasizes its productiveness. The surface of the ground is smooth and its slope quite uniform. Distributary canals throughout the district will therefore be located in most cases on land lines running from north to south or from east to West. The rivers between which the district lies have their sources in the high Sierra Nevada. The Merced River flows through the celebrated Yosemite Valley; the Tuo- lumne through the Hitch Hitchy. The former at Merced Falls, where it breaks from the mountain and enters upon its course across the east side plain of the San Joaquin Valley, lies in a secondary valley, being flanked by broad bottom lands from which bluffs rise 40 to 100 feet and more to the general surface of the east side plain of the main valley. The foothills of the Sierra Nevada gradually retreat from the river and have occasional spurs which protrude to the bluff overlooking the bot- tom lands. wº Similar to the Merced River is the Tuolumne, but the projecting spurs of the foothills hug it more closely and follow it far out into the main valley. At Lagrange, just above which settlement the river breaks forth from a rock-bound narrow gorge or cañon, the area of the in oun- tain drainage basin Óf this river is 1,480 square miles. The elevation of the river at that point is about 200 feet above the ocean and that of the highest lands in the district, at a point about 13 miles further west, is about the same. Tuolumne River is the natural source of supply for this district; and that it will afford ample water is evident by the following table of flow in second feet, prepared in the office of the State engineer in 1885: Year. Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May. June. July. Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec. 1878------------|-------|-------|------. * * * * * * * : * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * : * * = * * * : * = e s m = s. * * * * * * : * is s ºf º- 65 65 1879.----------- 478 1,876 2,797 4,456 5,086 7,061 1, 977 18:8 39 30 101 903 1880. ----------- 4.09 625 832 7, 141 10, 371 14,075 7, 618 1,233 134. 56 35 | 1,095 1881------------ 2,884 6, 755 2,879 6, 260 | 7, 274 5, 225 1,996 391 125 || 130 193 620 1882-----------. 620 573 2, 164 3, 543 7, 461 8,046 2, 745 574 225 873 570 327 1883. ----------- 654 490 1, 310 3, 270 8, 180 6, 540 j 1, 635 490 327 262 327 27 1884.----------- 410 490 6, 540 || 7, 360 7, 360 8, 180 6, 540 1,635 327 245 ------|------ The capacity of the main canal as reported by the engineer of the dis- trict is 1,500 cubic feet per second. The duty of water (gross) expected of water in the district is 118 acres per second foot, on the basin of canal capacity. Although the lands to be irrigated are in part at least quite sandy, the duty of water is expected to be very low. A canal of some- What smaller capacity would have been ample to supply the needs of 100 - - IRRIGATION. the district; but a reduction in capacity would not have caused an equal reduction in cost of works, and as some one has said, the land owners in the district will be better satisfied with too much water than too lit- tle. Soon after its organization the district employed George Manuel as chief engineer, and on his estimate of probable cost the necessary, issue of bonds was placed at $600,000. Little opposition to the scheme was manifested and the bonds were voted. After the necessary legal proceedings the laws under which the district was organized were de- cided to be constitutional by the supreme court of the State and the bond issue was then declared valid. On specifications prepared by Engineer Manuel, the construction of works commenced in March, 1890, and was carried forward to the com- pletion of about 18 miles of main canal excavation. tructures Such as drops, flumes, and waste gates have not yet been constructed. The work inaugurated under Mr. Manuel's direction has been carried forward by his successor, E. H. Barton, the present district engineer. Original plans were improved upon as opportunity offered, and after long deliberations and many conferences with the Modesto district directors, which also looked to Tuolumne River as a source of supply, it was finally agreed by the board of directors of the two districts to construct a joint daim across the river at the mouth of its cañon, just above La Grange, on the “French Bar,” immortalized by Bret Harte. - Plans from district engineers were called. It was agreed that the engineer whose plans were accepted should have charge of the construc- tion. Subject to these terms the plans of Luther Wagoner were adopted, after having been pronounced the most acceptable by Col. G. H. Men- dall, Engineer Corps, U. S. Army. Before the construction of the dam commenced Mr. Wagoner resigned as chief engineer of the Modesto district, and his plans for the dam are now being carried out under Mr. Barton's direction. The La Grange dam is constructed on the weir or overfall type. It will have a height of 105 feet, and extreme floods will sweep over its crest with a depth of about 16 feet. Its crest length will be 310 feet, the width of its crest 20 feet, the upstream face will be nearly vertical, the downstream face the shape of a pointed arch, each of the sides of which is formed of two contrasted curves. The overfall- ing water will drop 98 feet into a basin at the toe of the dam, 15 feet deep, formed by means of a secondary weir having a maximum height of 20 feet and placed across the river 200 feet below the main dam. The width of the secondary weir will be 13 feet on top and its crest length will be 120 feet. The material is to be rubble masonry bedded in cement and concrete. About 32,000 cubic yards of masonry will be required. The contract for its construction has been let at $10.39 per cubic yard, but this price does not include cement, which is to be fur- nished by the districts. Its total cost will be about $400,000. The dam will be the highest of its type in the world. tº The division of water for the Turlock Canal will be accomplished by means of a tunnel 560 feet long, 12 feet wide at the base, with vertical sides rising 5 feet to the spring of the arch, which will be semicircular with a radius of 6 feet. This diverting tunnel will have its head about 50 feet above the dam, and the flow of water through it will be con- trolled by means of the gates at its lower end, where the water in ex- cess of that required for the canal, will be turned through waste gates back into the river. For a distance of over a mile below the head gate the canal winds along a steep slaty hillside, and the depth of water proposed is 10 feet. Its bed width is 20 feet, and its lower bank will be composed of dry laid roºk...retaining walls, having a thickness of 18 , inches and inclosing a putſcºte-core of earth 12 feet thick. At the lower º © . O º G -- ** a s uopmonum suo， jo ssaooad uſ tuup wolºq asuſ nurod tuoj tºwae ºutunion）, din ſºuploºi visuoarivo ſuoruusi (1 Noluvºntul ou sºciolae uºv xooºtºunů,'w wſi olsaciolae dixw xi ootaen, L THE FLOODS OF TUOILUMNE RIVER, 101 end of this hillside work in slate the canal crosses Snake Ravine. The crossing is effected by closing the ravine by means of a dam and turn- ing the canal up the ravine a distance of nearly 1,000 feet, thence out through a cut 800 feet long, constructed principally by the hydrau- lic process. Below this cut the canal waters will occupy old mining pits for a dis- tance of over 2,000 feet, and will then flow through another cut in rock for 860 feet, into Dry Creek. The channel of this creek will be utilized for a mile and a quarter, being diverted by means of a flume, and thence Westward, piercing three foothill spurs in tunnels, none of which re- Quire lining. Below the last tunnel a gulch is crossed above a dam having a maximum height of 40 feet, and the canal enters another cut 3,300 feet long. Peasley Creek will be crossed to a flume 20 feet wide With a water way 7 feet in depth. The canal below Peasley has dimen- sions adapted to a variety of material into which it is cut, being gener- ally intended to carry water 7; feet deep on a fall of 1 foot per mile. At the end of the main canal, which has a total length of about 18 miles, the water reaches the lands of the district and will be distributed by means of five laterals whose aggregate length will be 80 miles. They will carry water 5 feet in depth and will have bottom widths of 30 feet. Their fall is to be 2 feet per mile. In addition to these five principal branches distributaries to the extent of about 180 miles in aggregate length are to be constructed by the district. The sale of the original bond issue will not yield sufficient capital to complete the construction of the entire system of works, and an additional issue of about the same amount as originally voted is contemplated. The plans for the important work on the dam have been well matured. It still remains an open question, however, whether the work would not be safer if artificial channels had been constructed past one or both of the ends of the structure, with long spill-ways dropping over the natural face of the cañon wall below the dam, rather than to permit the flood flow of the river to sweep over its downstream face. This flood at times exceeds 120,000 cubic feet per second. The enormous pressure belong- ing to such a flood flow is the basis of the not unfriendly criticism of engineers who have examined this work. The observations made in the summer of 1891 seem to fully justify the caution expressed in the sug- gestion. The importance and magnitude of this great dam also empha- sizes the need of thorough supervision by municipal and State authority of all such structures, so that, in advance of work to be done, reason- able decisions may be reached as to the means and methods of security to be employed and completed. The Modesto, which is associated with the Turlock in the construction of the division works on the Tuolumne, occupies a position between the Stanislaus River on the north and the Tuolumne River on the south similar to that of the Turlock district between the Tuolumne and the Merced. As originally organized the district embraced within its boun- daries 108,000 acres. Based on the engineers’ examinations and report, which were not made until an estimate of the cost of the works was required, it was decided to cut from the district boundaries about 30,000 acres of lands in the northeastern portion which had too great an eleva- tion to permit a water supply for the entire district to be secured at the small expense hoped for. The following extracts are from the report of C. E. Grunsky and refer to the district as originally established: - Two sources of water supply to be examined were Tuolumne River, which flows south of the district; Stanislaus River, which is north ºf it. Each of these rivers has a large volume of flow in the spring and early sumſfer-months. Both are compara- e i e & © gº tº 102 IRRIGATION. tively small streams during the late summer and autumn months. The Stanislatts at Oakdale drains an area of 1,051 square miles; the Tuolumne at Roberts Ferry an area of 1,501 Square miles. Taking the years from 1879 to 1884 inclusive, as a basis, the greatest average monthly flow of the Tuolumne River occurs in June, and for that period equaled 8,188 cubić feet per second ; the smallest average monthly flow was in September, and equaled 196 cubic feet per second. From September there is a gradual increase of flow till the middle of June. During the same years the greatest average monthly flow of the Stanislaus River was in May, and amounted to 5,290 cu- bic feet of water per second. The smallest average monthly flows of the Stanislaus River occurred in September, and equaled 127 cubic feet per second, there being a gradual increase of flow from September to the latter part of May. Based on the experience of irrigators in different parts of California, it is safe to estimate, as fully satisfying all demands of irrigators in this district (wherein sandy soils predominate and the average rainfall is about 93 inches), that not to exceed 1 cubic foot of water per second will be required for each 160 acres of land from March to June, inclusive; not to exceed 1 cubic foot of water per second for each 400 acres will be required from July to September; not to exceed 1 cubic foot of water per second for each 640 acres from October to December, and not to exceed 1 cubic foot per second for each 1,280 acres during January and February. Water supplied at this rate would be sufficient to cover every acre of ground in the district 14 feet deep from March to June, 9 inches deep in the next three months, and 2 feet 8 inches deep in the course of the whole year. To supply water at the maximum rate above indi- cated, the main canal must have a capacity of 675 cubic feet per second. Stanislaus River may be relied upon to furnish this amount of water, though there will be occasional months (during the season when water is least in demand) when the full amount desired can not be obtained. For the six months from February to July inclusive its average flow is more than four times the amount noted above as desirable. Tuolumne River ranks equally as high as a source of water supply for this district. It has a more extended watershed and a somewhat greater flow. But it is to be re- membered in connection with this river that the requirements of Turlock irrigation district will be united to those of Modesto district. As the former has an area nearly twice as great as the latter, there should be available for both together about 2,000 cubic feet of water per second from March to June, 800 from July to Septem- ber, 500 from October to December, and 250 in January and February. The river has an average flow adequate to meet this demand, but during the months of least demand for water there will be times when the river will afford less water than de- sirable (though by no means necessary for successful irrigation), particularly when some allowance has been made for riparian owners. It was found that the highest land in the district is near its northeast corner, and that to accomplish its irrigation the actual elevation of water must be 30 feet higher than that of water at the caſion mouth of the Tuolumne River, about 200 miles above La Grange. The low-water plane about 2 miles above Knights Ferry, on the Stan- islaus River, is barely higher than the highest ground of the district. The former of these points lies 21 miles in the district line from the northeast corner of the district; the latter is 11 miles distant. It was found impracticable to carry water on the river- side of the hills along the north bank of the Tuolumne and hold the same high enough to cover these high lands. Nor is it practicable to carry water to the south side of the Tuolumne and hold the same high enough. It is however feasible to direct water from the Tuolumne River into Dry Creek and thence by means of a small ditch to carry some of the diverted water to the highest lands of the district, while the main volume is permitted to flow in Dry Creek, a distance of 24 miles to the district lands. It is equally feasible to direct water from the Stanislaus River at a point about 2 miles above Knights Ferry at the lower end of Twomile Bar, and to carry it thence in a direct course to Buena Vista, thence across the gravel flat below Buena Vista to Wildcat Creek, in a flume across Wildcat Creek to Wildcat Ridge, along the face of this range of hills about one half mile, thence through the same in a short tunnel to Haskell Creek channel. From Haskell Creek the water can be diverted sufficiently high to cross a divide about three-quarters of a mile south of the Lancaster place, whence the water would command nearly all of Dry Creek Valley. From that point the route of the main branch of canal to the district would be along the gentle sloping hillsides. Water brought into the district along this route would be high enough for all its irrigable lands. - At the lower end of the Twomile Bar, where the diversion of water from Stanislaus River must be made, there is an excellent site for a dam, and material for its con- struction is convenient and abundant. It will be necessary to raise the Water Sur- face at that point about 90 feet from extreme low water to the level of the water surface in the canal, in order to make it possible to keep the canal on the ground fa- vorable for canal building. The probable cost for works for irrigating the whoke district from Stanislaus River wºystimated at $644,750 (not including right of way). fMPORTANCE OF TURLOCK AND MODESTO DISTRICT. 103 Referring to the question of irrigating the district by means of a canal from Tuolumne River, Mr. Grunsky says: It is less expensive to direct water from the Tuolumne River at or near the cañon mouth by means of a high dam than it will be to direct it at some point further up stream by means of a low dam and carry it in an expensive canal along the cañon wall. Dry Creek Valley at its head has an elevation of 130 feet greater than that of natural low water at the caſion mouth of the Tuolumne River. It will be necessary to raise water about 140 feet at that point to afford the necessary fall for a canal from the river to the creek. This project would have involved the construction of three tunnels 2,800, 1,500, and 600 feet long, respectively, and the cost of the whole works, including distributaries throughout the district, was estimated at $1,118,000. After mature deliberation a bond issue sufficient to carry out the Stanislaus project was decided upon, and the bonds were voted to the extent of $800,000; but it was also decided that the in- terests of the land owners throughout the greater portion of the dis- trict could best be conserved by amending the district boundaties and excluding the high northeastern portion thereof. This was done, and the highest points in the district are now about 70 feet Iower than at the time when engineer Grunsky made his surveys. After additional surveys for the amended district were made by P. Y. Baker and F. G. Brooks it was finally decided to unite with the Tur- lock district, and to construct a joint diverting dam across Tuolumne River at the mouth of its caſion just above La Grange. The plans for this dam, devised by Luther Wagener, engineer for Modesto district, were accepted and its construction has been commenced. This has already been sufficiently described. It is now proposed to construct the main canal along the foothills and on the flats upon the north side of Tuolumne River, a location which was not feasible before district boundaries were changed. The canal work will be very expensive near its head, but comparatively inexpen- sive after it has crossed the broken country within 5 miles of its head. The lands of the district are for the most part sandy or sandy loams, but little of the heavier clayey soil near the base of the Sierra Nevada foothills being included within the district boundaries. The general land surface of the district is smooth; the slope is from east to west and ranges from a little less than 5 to about 10 feet per mile. Nearly all the land is devoted to the cultivation of cereals. The plains in their original condition were treeless. The lands of the district will be well adapted for intensive farming as soon as water is made available. The district has an area of 81,500 acres and extends from near the eastern edge of the San Joaquin Valley westward to the lowlands adjacent to the San Joaquin River. These systems have been particularized somewhat at length, so that intending irrigators and others interested may obtain a reasonable idea of the methods required for the organization of district admin- istration and the work of construction under the important irrigation and water code of California. In the counties lying outside the great basin of the San Joaquin and Sacramento the seepage or the filling of the ground with water will play but a small part. The rivers are small and rapid in course, and the increase of the areas of irrigation by the water in sight must be accomplished by economical distribution. In many places in the South- ern counties where irrigation has been practiced for a long series of years the soil has not been wet all the way down, and a cubic foot of water irrigates no more land to-day than when the ditches were first 104 IRRIGATION. taken out. This condition has necessitated the adoption of pipe lines and cemented ditch systems. The great profit accruiug from the culture of the citrus fruits, and the tropical abundance in which the more deli. cate vegetables are produced, have given the irrigators in the Southern Counties ample means to pay for the expensive works rendered neces- sary. The costly works of the Turlock and Modesto irrigation dis- tricts, pro-rated to the acres, serve to make a lien per acre of but $9.81 in the Modesto, and $3.40 in the Turlock district. This is explainable by the fact that the two canals will irrigate more than 550,000 acres. While the five districts in San Bernardino County—Alexandro, Citrus, Belt, East Riverside, Grapeland, and Rialto—have been bonded at an average of $53.94 per acre for their water service, and but 58,787 acres are to be irrigated. The Sweetwater dam, in San Diego County, is an example of the great energy, skill, and money that have been put into the develop- ment of a water supply. This work has been previously described. The Bear Valley system, a short history of which was given in the Progress Report of 1890, is here again described because of the more accurate data obtained. The work now constructed and projected will eventually bring about 450,000 acres under intense cultivation. The credit of projecting this vast work belongs to Mr. Frank E. Brown, C. E., of Redlands, and the skill and daring with which his designs have been executed have developed the highest type of systematic irrigation on this continent. It is greatly to be regretted that the lim- ited means and time at command prevent the production of a relief profile map of the catchment and irrigated areas involved. It will be seen that the Bear Valley reservoir is only a part of the great plan which Mr. Brown is carrying out. The bold structure at that point as at present standing is, however, worthy of particular and especial men- tion because of the fierce criticism aroused by its projection and subse- Quent construction. The office of Irrigation Inquiry has made a special examination of this Work. The structural character of the cross section of this dam has often been severely condemned, and while its duplication could not be recommended, the principle involved by it—that of the upstream arch dam for the formation of reservoirs on sites where the basin narrows into a rock bound gorge, is to be credited with great resisting power. The character of the abutments must however be carefully examined and tested, as the slightest fault at the point where the dam keys into the natural formation may prove fatal. In the Bear Valley structure the natural advantages for a work of this character can bardly be im- proved upon. At the point where the present dam is located the basin of the Bear Valley narrows until the cañon is almost closed, and the rocky sides of the mountain spurs descend precipitously. A bird’s-eye view of the mouth of this reservoir would present an appearance like that of a bladder with a short section of the neck attached turning back on itself. At the turn of this outlet, with its arch force straight into the confined water, is placed the dam. The spillway is entirely separated from the dam, and is blasted out of a spur of live rock into which the dam is keyed. Owing to the peculiar nature of the gorge, unless the precipitation upon the catchment area should become too heavy for the spillway of 24 feet wide and 28 feet deep, the dam could never be subjected to an unusual pressure. This dam will soon complete its eighth year, and in the opinion of the engineer whose repu- tation is involved can be disturbed by nothing short of an earthquake. Whether a stronger constructed cross section would withstand such a TEIE BEAR WALLEY AND RELATED RESERVOIRS. 105 force need not be discussed. The new dam will however be subject to no censure for want of resistance to either gravity or static inertia, as the dimensions given will show. The same bold intellect that created the Bear Valley dam is at work on the no less notable project of a sys- tem of reservoirs, including those of the White Water and San Jacinto. The first will make it possible to practically distribute water that falls on one side of the San Bernardino Range upon the other slope. The areas to which this water will be distributed lie in two counties, San Bernardino and San Diego; and those acquainted with the region will be struck at once with the simplicity of the design and the vast con- ception of engineering forces brought into play. The Bear Valley Com- pany, while developing the greatest system of bydraulic works in con- nection with American irrigation, is also to be commended for equal foresight in its readiness to conform to the expressed wishes of the peo- ple and laws of the State. It was probably the first corporation in California to encourage the formation of the irrigation districts within the area commanded by its pipe lines and ditches, and the same broad conceptions that have marked its engineering department are followed in its dealings with the users of water. The Bear Valley Land and Water Company was organized in the summer of 1883, and a force of men immediately put to work. About 250 cubic yards of masonry were placed in the foundations of the dam that fall before the snow and ice of winter compelled an abandonment of the work for the season. Early in the spring of 1884 the work was resumed and pushed vigorously throughout the summer and fall, the dam being completed as it now stands in November of that year. The location is in the San Bernardino Mountains, sbout 18 miles air line northeast of Redlands, and 6,400 feet above sea level. The structure is of granite rubble in Portland cement, mortar resting on a foundation of solid granite in place. It is curved in plan, having a radius of 335 feet measured to the lower face, which is vertical. It is 64 feet high from the bed rock to the top of the coping and has a length of 250 feet on the crest. The back or side next the water batters from a thickness at the top of 3 feet 2 inches to a thickness of 8 feet 6 inches at a depth of 48 feet; at this point an offset on either side increases the thickness to 12 feet, and from here down a batter on either side increases the thickness to 20 feet at the bottom. This dam backs the water 5 miles up the valley, and covers 1,859 acres at an average depth of 144 feet. The cost of the dam was about $120,000; this cost being greatly augmented by the fact that the cement and supplies had to be hauled by wagon a distance of 100 miles over a mountainous road. The catchment basin has an area of about 77 square miles, and the average rainfall for the last seven years has been about 53 inches per annum. In the year 1890, the Bear Valley and Alessandro Development Com- pany was formed, owning 21,000 acres of land in the Alessandro Val- ley and a controlling interest in the Bear Valley Land and Water Company. Later these two companies were consolidated and reorgan- ized as the Bear Valley Irrigation Company. The latter company now owns all the property, rights, and franchises formerly held by the other two, and in addition has acquired by purchase various other reservoir sites and water rights, including the right to the entire flow of White- water River, Mission Creek, Snow Creek, and the Santa Ana River, and the surplus winter waters of Mill Creek. Heretofore the irrigating power of all these Štreams has been limited to the extent of their ca- pacity for supplying water by their natural flow in the dry summer 106 IRRIGATION. months, and still further reduced by the wasteful methods formerly in Vogue, of conveying the water in open ditches, running sometimes for miles through the loose sand and bowlders of the river washes, and losing a Very large percentage of their waters by seepage and evaporation. It is the design of this corporation to not only greatly increase the irrigating power of these streams by constructing better and more per- manent forms of conduits, but also to augment the summer flow by running tunnels to bed rock from the sandy beds of the stream, thus intercepting the underflow and conveying it to the surface, also by con- Structing great reservoirs to impound the surplus winter water. To this end many miles of the main and lateral canals have been paved and cemented; over 120 miles of steel, vitrified clay, and cement pipes ranging in bore from 30 inches to 6 inches have been laid; over 2,000 feet of tunnel has been run in the bed of the Santa Ana River, and as many more feet bored through the rocks; plans have been made and Work begun on a new and higher dam at Bear Valley which will mul- tiply the present storage capacity many fold; and various other reser- voir sites have been purchased. Among the latter is a reservoir site On the Santa Ana River at an elevation of 4,500 feet, which will im- pound about 12,000 acre feet of water; another in the San Jacinto Val- ley, which will hold about 120,000 acre feet; and still another in the Potrero Valley, which will contain about 30,000 acre feet. Work is now in progress on all these various sites excepting the Potrero, which has not yet been started. These reservoirs will be pushed to completion in the order in which it is expected that the demand for irrigating water will occur, holding the stored water several years ahead of the probable demand. First in order is the new Bear Valley dam, the foundation of which is riow being prepared immediately below the present dam. Plans had been prepared to build this dam to a height of 129 feet from bed rock to the Water line, which will raise the level of the lake 67 feet above present high water, backing the water 12 miles up the valley, and in- creasing the storage capacity to 461,650 acre feet. Owing to changed Conditions brought about by acquiring new reservoir sites at lower lev- els which will answer the purpose of conserving a larger proportion of the surplus winter water at a less expense, and reduce the length and cost of canals necessary for conveying the water, it has been decided to stop this dam at a height of 89 feet from bed rock for an indefinite period. This will raise the level of the present lake 27 feet, backing the water a distance of 7 miles, and submerging 3,300 acres to an aver- age depth of 29 feet, thus storing 95,700 acre feet. This, with the 12,000 acre feet to be impounded by the auxiliary dam in the Santa Ana Cañon, will in all probability be an ample supply for all available lands lying between the level of the head gates of the canals in the Santa Ana Cañon and the level of the great storage reservoir in the San Jacinto Valley. Next comes the dam in the Santa Ana Caſion; this will be of stone, 175 feet high and about 300 feet long. A tunnel, 750 feet long, through solid granite and large enough to carry the ordinary flow of the river, is nearly completed for the purpose of acting as an outlet for this res- ervoir, and for diverting the stream while the dam is being constructed. As soon as the tunnel is ready, active work will be commenced on the dam itself. y The reservoir site in the San Jacinto Valley is a depression in the midst of a rich alluvial plain, where the San Jacinto River broadens out, forming at high water a considerable lake or laguna, as such bodies METHODS OF ADMINISTRATION ADOPTED. 107 of water are locally called. The outlet to this lake is a narrow opening less than 1,500 feet in width, passing between two low ranges of moun- tains, and it is at this point that the dam will be constructed. A large number of borings have been taken at the proposed site of the structure showing the substrata to consist of alternating layers of clay, sand, and gravel to a depth of 60 feet from the surface. This dam will sub- merge 9,300 acres to an average depth of 12 feet, thus storing 116,000 acre feet of water. Artesian wells flowing water under a considerable pressure have been found in the region of this lake, and although they will not be relied upon as a means of filling the reservoir, yet it is ex- pected that they will go very far toward compensating for the inevi- table loss by seepage and evaporation. This great reservoir is to be filled during the flush winter and spring months, partly by the San Jacinto River and partly by the White- water, a mountain stream, which will be diverted at a point about 30 miles distant and conveyed to the reservoir partly in pipes and partly in Open paved and cemented canal. These works will have carrying capacity of 15,000 miner's inches, or very nearly two-thirds of that of the new Croton Aqueduct. Later another aqueduct turning the sur- plus waters of the Santa Ana River and Mill Creek into the same res- ervoir will be constructed. The Potrero Reservoir proposed is not yet. begun, but it is probable that a stone dam impounding about 30,000 acre feet will be constructed at that point. Originally in the distribution of water, the Bear Valley Land and Water Company adopted the method of issuing certificates per acre entitling the holder to the right of using one-seventh of a miner's inch of water perpetually; these certificates were transferable, and were supposed to represent water sufficient to irrigate one acre of land. Of these, 7,200 were issued to the stockholders in lieu of dividends; two certificates to each share of stock. They are liable for an annual assessment or tax for the purpose of maintaining, repairing, or recon- structing the canals through which the water flows. The present Bear Valley Irrigation Company has adopted a some- what different method of distribution, having issued 100,000 certificates entitled “Class B" acre water-right certificates. Each certificate en- titles the holder to 1 acre foot or 43,560 cubic feet of water each year, and the holder of each certificate pays to the company an annual rental of $2.78. Under these certificates and within certain prescribed maxi- mum limits the owner may accumulate the water so as to use more in the dry summer season and less in the winter. Of these agre water- right certificates 51,000 have been sold to the Alessandro irrigation district; 16,000 sold and 5,000 more contracted to the Perris district, and 8,000 have been contracted for by the Elsinore district. The water is conveyed by the Bear Valley Company to some point agreed upon, generally within the irrigation district, and there taken charge of by the district authorities. The form of conduits vary according to conditions, nature of country traversed, and character of service required. For the country about Redlands, Crafton, Highlands, and North San Bernardino, a region of great beauty and fertility, having a considerable population, open canals of a trapezoidal cross section, paved and cemented on the bottom and sides, are used, the paving being of granite bowlders from 6 to 10 inches in diameter, and the mortar composed of Portland cement and sand, costing when laid in place about 13 cents per square foot of surface covered. Where possible, these canals follow the contour of the coun- try, on grades varying according to the capacity of the canal, so as to 108 * [RRIGATION. give the water the velocity of from 2 to 5 feet per second, it being found by experience that with velocities much below 2 feet per second the channel will become obstructed with aquatic vegetable growths, and with Velocities greater than 5 feet per second the erosion will be so great as to seriously injure the cemented bottom of the channel. Pipes and wooden flumes are used where necessary when crossing depressions. A wooden flume in the Santa Ana Caſion has been re- placed with a wooden pipe 48 inches in diameter inside. This pipe is 2,000 feet long, and is built up in place with staves of California redwood and banded with hoops of round iron five-eigths and three-fourths in- ches in diameter. The hoops are spaced according to the pressure to which the pipe is subjected ; the lowest point in the depression being about 45 feet below the hydraulic grade line, the hoops at this point being three-fourths inch round iron, spaced 7 inches apart. The top of the entry end of this pipe is level with the bottom of the delivery end, so that no matter how little water is running, the pipe will always be full. The entry end of the pipe starts from the bottom of the vertical penstock or forebay, which gives the water the necessary head for forcing it through the pipe. The present capacity of the pipe is about 4,000 miner's inches. When, in future years, it becomes necessary to force a larger amount through the pipe, the water will be delivered in the fore- bay at a higher level, thus giving the pipe the additional head required. The staves of the pipe are 2% inches in thickness, being taken out of 3 by 6 inch timber, and machine dressed to the true curve inside and out. This pipe has been in use for several months and so far has proven entirely satisfactory. It rests on redwood sleepers placed transversely 10 feet apart and about 1 foot above the surface of the ground. The entire cost, exclusive of grading, was $3.63 per foot. Another notable pipe is the one leading the water from Mill Creek to the Alessandro irrigation district. This pipe is made of riveted steel and is 10 miles long. The first 2 miles is 28 inches in diameter and the balance is 24. The sheets vary in thickness from No. 14 to No. 0 by the Birmingham wire gauge, the thickness increasing according to the pressure to which the pipe is subjected. The lowest depression on this pipe line is 400 feet below the hydraulic grade line. Blow-off gates are provided at all depressions, and automatic air valves at all summits. The capacity of this pipe is about 1,000 miner's inches. The total cost of the line complete, including cost of 4,000 feet of tunnel, was $210,462. There is also a few miles of cement pipe ranging in size from 6 to 30 inches. For the most part they are composed of Portland cement and sand in the proportion of 1 part of the former to 4 of the latter. They vary in thickness of shell from 1 to 2% inches, accord- ing to the size. They are made by a hand machne in 2-foot lengths and are seasoned in the air twelve days before laying, being kept sprinkled with water all the time. The joints are put together in the trenches with strong cement mor- tar, thus forming a continuous pipe. This kind of pipe, though largely used in the past, has not proved entirely satisfactory. A better class of pipe is the ordinary Salt glazed vitrified clay sewer pipe, and of this kind the company have already laid over 32 miles in sizes ranging from 6-inch up to 24-inch. By doing a careful job of laying, this pipe can be placed under heads of 20 to 30 feet safely. In cases where it is neces- sary to subject the pipes to greater pressure, as for instance, where orchards are planted on rolling land or'hillsides steel or iron pipes are used. In such cases, if the hills are very steep, they are terraced; if the slope is more moderate the trees are planted around the hills on OPINIONS OF THE OLDEST IRRIGATION EXPERTS. # 109 contours having a fall of 2 or 3 inches from tree to tree. At irrigating times furrows having a uniform fall are run around the hillsides above the rows of trees, and these furrows are supplied with water from hy- drants tapped into the main pressure pipes which follow the higher ridges of land. All canals, conduits, and pipe lines are under the im- mediate care of division superintendents, called by the Spanish name, Zanjeros. & A person wishing to irrigate his land gives notice to the proper zan- jero three days in advance, stating the quantity he requires, and the water is delivered to him through a pipe and hydrant, and is measured over a weir at the highest point of his land. From here it is usually conveyed in small wooden flumes or cemented brick ditches, and de- livered to the heads of the irrigating furrows through holes in the sides of the flume or brick ditch. The same parties also own the surplus carrying capacity of the North and South Fork canals, taken out of the Santa Ana River at its points of emergence from the caſion. The North Fork will be extended west- ward to cover about 10,000 acres in the Muscupiake Ranche, near the city of San Bernardino; and the South Fork will furnish water for the irrigation of the Lagonia and Sunnyside settlements in the eastern por- tion of the San Bernardino Valley. One result of the course followed by the management is the gradual replacing or abandonment of the old ditches made by the Mexican or early American settler. This change may be regretted by the lover of the picturesque, for their course is marked by the verdure of trees and indicated by luxuriant undergrowth, but they are exceedingly wasteful, often failing in supply when most needed. The new policy guarantees each user the amount he claims from the older ditch. He claims but often fails to receive. Mr. L. M. Holt, the editor of the Orange Belt Redlands, Cal., is a very close observer of the progress of irrigation in California. He has been identified with the growth of the system almost from its birth, and his opinions are of great value. The following interview giving the history and application of irrigation in the southern section with the special agent will be found valuable in connection with the district system. The application of the principle of the Wright law as dis- cussed by Mr. Holt opens large avenues for successful investment and great opportunities for popular development of homes. He says: The old style or old school of irrigation practiced in the coast valleys in this State is nearly exhausted. The original bringing out of water here was in crude open ditches when it could be brought out of the running streams and put on the lands within the river valleys, when it could be gotten out the cheapest and was not ap- plied to the mesas at all. It was not until 1872 at Riverside that any attempt was made to irrigate the mesa lands. In 1875, the original Pomona Canal was organized on the basis of the ownership of the water by the users of it, a share of stock to go with each acre of land. I was secretary of that colony. That was followed by the Redlands Company, the Eti- wanda Company and the San Antonio Canal to irrigate Ontario. In 1884, the River- side people pulled out to fight the old company, bought them out and organized on the same plan. In 1880, there was only considered to be enough water to irrigate 10,000 acres of land in San Bernardino County. In 1890, with improved methods for the storage and development of water, the area has increased until it is now esti- mated that 140,000 acres can be irrigated. Up to 1880, the open ditch was the only system, and from that until 1890 there were other methods. We commenced cement- ing the canals to save seepage, and adopted flumes and pipe lines; and instead of distributing the water in ditches in southern California it is done now almost en- tirely by cemented, vitrified, wooden, or steel pipes. Redlands was the first to take up the pipe system, then came Ontario. When we got all of the strealms utilized there came the proposition to use more water. It could only be done in three ways, by artesian wells, tapping the underflow, or by storage. Ontario was the first to adopt the artesian system, The Gage system adjoining old Riverside was the next one, 110 IRRIGATION. They depend entirely upon artesian water. These are the only two places that have adopted artesian systems to utilize water on the mesas, that is, taking the water from the moist lands out on the mesas. The water here on the mesa is found only in the cienagas. In 1882, Frank E. Brown, of Redlands, had to have some water for his set- tlement, and I suggested to him to use the underflow of the Santa Ana River, and that was the first time the utilization of the underflow was broached. I knew there was an underflow, and I was satisfied that there was a bed rock under the stream and that this bed rock was bolding the artesian flow below ; and if the bed rock was not too deep you could develop this lost water of the rivers. Another proposition was that the further up the stream you went the more, water you found in a given area. He adopted the plan and is now gradually completing his tunnel and getting a considerable supply. The next year I suggested the same thing to George Chaffey for his canal, and took him up to Brown's tunnel, which had 40 inches of water in it developed from a bowlder formation in which you would not think there was any water. That tunnel is now up to bed rock, and they are drifting out from the upper end to let the water in from above. Q. Now, your acquaintance with this mountain region is very intimate, and I should like to know your idea as to the possibility of extending or developing its underflow. As progress goes on, there must be unquestionably many small settlements in the val- leys here that would get no water from the surface that might be reclaimed from phreatic sources. What is your view 3 Mr. HOLT. There is no question that a tunnel up into any of the mountain cañons will develop water; but the cost of it is so great that it will not pay to do much of that work so long as you can get a good supply from a storage systemſ. In 1883, we began the adoption, and in 1884 the first reservoir was completed in Bear Valley. It was an experiment for six years. People did not have confidence in it; and under the laws of the State, as we had them at that time, there was no practical way of placing water on the land ; and if it had not been for the passage of the Wright law the storage system could not have been adopted with any degree of success, and the Bear Valley enterprise would have been a practical failure. That company has au- thorized the issue of what they call “acre water-right certificates,” each water right calls for an acre-foot of water during the season, or for a supply sufficient for an acre of land. In this way the water is wholesaled to the district. In the way water is used in California an acre-foot of water will supply an inch to 8 acres during the Summer months and will give all the water that is needed for the balance of the year on the basis that about one-half of the entire supply is called for in June, July, and August, and only one-fourth during the months from November to April, and the other one-fourth during the other three months. On these lines an acre-foot of water will give 1 inch to 8 acres, and all acre water rights are on that basis. They sell acre water rights to a district. The district can buy as many as they want. They can buy 1 inch to 8 acres or 1 to 4, just as they please, or often more. It was thus that the organization of districts made it possible to make this wholesale storage and commerce possible. But in the management of distribution the Teservoir people have no existence; the district takes what water it wants and distributes it to satisfy itself. The Bear Valley, having secured its legal rights of appropriation and storage, is necessarily in harmonious relations with water districts. There is no likelihood of an attack on the company. The people of the small districts look upon it as their friend; that is, they can get water cheaper that way than to try to store it themselves. Under the system, then, it is calculated that they will irrigate from 400,000 to 500,000 acres of land in San Bernardino and San Diego counties. - Q. The organization of the Bear Valley and other enterprises, with accompanying colony methods of land settlement and cultivation under them, appears to me to have carried the irrigation areas onto higher altitudes; that is, it comes up into these intra- mountain valleys and affords, as I see it, a very extended possibility of reclamation. ** system similar to the Bear Valley be applied to the Antelope Valley, for exam- ple Mr. HOLT. The trouble there is the rainfall areas. The rainfall in the moun- tains is about five times What is in the valleys; and therefore 100,000 acres of Valley land will not get more moisture than 20,000 acres of mountain land. The aver- age fall in Bear Valley has been 60 inches. Last winter there were 31 inches of rain- fall in forty-eight hours, and the water raised in the dam 2 feet in twenty-four hours over that immense lake, notwithstanding the fact that at the outlet, 24 feet wide and 28 feet deep, the water was running out all the time. The water supply in this section for the future must be gotten almost entirely by storage reservoirs in the mountains. A storage reservoir within a valley watershed is of no account in this country. One reason of that is the simaller loss in the mountains. There is less evaporation and larger rainfall, and you can save a large percentage of it. Q. Taking generally the situation of irrigation as a matter of peace and order on one side, of business security for the investor and user on the other, and also of future visuositivo ºxun moſo oxidiaevaeigiºſ Nys （holiq Nacio º'taets trīO rio „ºvrºvºz. ,, VALUE OF THE DISTRICT AND STORAGE PLANS. 111 development, what has been the effect of the passage of the Wright laws, taking first Southern California and then the whole State, as you know it? Mr. Holt. It has had the tendency to settle all disputed water claims and to de- velop our water resources very rapidly. We have at the present time (June, 1891) about thirty districts in the State. There have been a few others that have tried to organize or organized illegally, but there are about thirty districts in all. They have voted about $13,000,000 in bonds. There have been about $4,000,000 of these bonds sold either for cash or traded for water-right certificates, and in the history of the State there has never been anything like the development of the last four years. The supreme court has decided the system constitutional and stood by the districts in every way. The financial public is beginning to appreciate the value of such securities, and money can readily be had to carry on the work. Mr. Adolph Wood, of the Arrowhead Reservoir Company, told me that if it had not been for the pas- sage of the Wright laws his company would never have thought of putting its money into a reservoir system. Q. Has the effect of the district system as applied to water and water-works owner- ship and the settlement of legal questions been such as to content capital with the profitable repayment of its money invested, and to get rid of the idea of its controlling the works and the water for all time 3 Mr. Holt. Yes, sir; the old feeling of antagonism has vanished to a certain extent. The districts recognize the fact that it is impossible for the people to go into large propositions of reservoir storage, because one system may be large enough to supply several districts; and if a district can have a certain armount of water delivered properly they can afford to pay a certain amount of money instead of keeping up the existence of a reservoir large enough to furnish other districts. Then, information has tended to remove all the former quarrels, disturbances, and disputes that existed between the corporation and the users of water. This is one of the principal effects. It is a recognized fact that these districts can exercise the right of eminent domain and condemn water if it can not be obtained otherwise ; and after a district is once organized the canal companies do not stand out to litigate, but take any good price. The bonds are considered sound. The only question with the companies now is how many they can get. Riverside is practically a community effort, in the sense of that term, because the stock is centered among the owners of the land; and the same is true of Etiwanda; but at Etiwanda they are discussing the proposition of putting the community stock into an irrigation district. At Etiwanda there are some con- flicting interests that can better be settled by a district than by the owners of com- munity stock. The original projectors had a contract by which they had the right to develop water for fifteen years, and that contract is about to expire. They had the right to measure the water on the 15th day of August and call for more stock on account of any water developed ; and they are rather anxious to crowd that proposi- tion by taking the measurements in wet years. Q. In watching the operations upon the western half of the arid region have you ever thought of the possibility of extending the dustrict system over the public lands therein by the coöperation of the State, Territory, and United States ? Mr. HOLT. I have thought of that and it has occurred to me as being about the only way that the question could be practically reached. Some modification of our State law would perhaps have to be made in order to make the system fit well with somewhat different conditions. *. The proposed Arrowhead reservoir system in San Bernardino is an- other notable water-storage proposition. It is the outgrowth of the peculiar situation of southern California, and has received its direct stimulus, according to the engineer's statement, from the adoption of the Wright laws. The watershed lies north of the San Bernardino Mountains, embraces about 75,000 acres, includes Deep Creek and the East and West forks of the Mohave River. There are to be four res- ervoirs linked together and above one another, so that if one breaks its flood will be emptied into the others. The highest reservoir is located in what is known as Little Bear Valley. That basin empties into the Deep Creek Reservoir. The Little Bear Valley is connected with the Deep Creek watershed by a canal which starts at the mouth of Hol- comb Valley, and, winding around, intercepts the tributaries of Deep Creek. This canal is 17 miles long, and its water is conveyed in a northeast direction into Grass Valley. From there the canal is contin. ued southwesterly into Houston Valley, and from thence the water is con- ducted into Seeleys Valley, at which point the water is taken into a tunnel 112 * IRRIGATION. about a mile through the mountains that empties into Cañon Diablo. The Arrowhead watershed begins on the divide between Bear Valley and Lit- tle Bear Valley. There is an estimated annual rainfall of about 60 inches, and besides this there are large cienegas and enormous springs empty- ing into the catchment basins. The altitude of the catchment basins varies from 4,800 to 8,300 feet above sea level. The irrigable area begins at the mouth of Cañon Diablo, where the mouth debouches into the valley lands. Five engineering parties were in the field in July, 1891, and a road 17 miles long had been constructed into the mountains. It is claimed that all the country lying in the direction of the Riverside settlement and between them and the Arrowhead may be irrigated from the reservoirs proposed. This company has been organized for the special purpose of selling water to irrigation districts. And this determination indicates an understanding of the Sagacious policy first pursued in southern California by the Bear Valley Company and its astute directory. The vital question in the future of irrigation cultivation, so far as the fruit-growing sections of California south of the Tehacapi Range is concerned, is bound up in the matter of storage. No more profit- able investment can be found there than the control of a good catch: ment area, with appropriate storage sites for holding and conserving the precipitation thereon. It is not difficult, then, to perceive the force of the testimony given the office of irrigation inquiry, to the effect that such investments are made more secure as well as more profitable by reason of the adoption and enforcement of the laws providing for the organization of irrigation districts, for the distribution and manage- ment of water. The Bear Valley managers were emphatic in testify- ing to the special agent that they could not successfully carry on their great enterprises by dealing directly with individual users of water. Hence they have, as business men, done all that is possible to facilitate the organization of districts to be supplied from their storage system, recently increased, it is reported, by appropriations to cover 200,000 additional cubic inches of water. The individual irrigator is too often inclined to litigation. He is always complaining. With the district ſºuthorities the storage company claim to be able to deal on the plane of public interest. This, at least, is their testimony. In its degree it is a remarkable tribute to the value of the Wright laws. But it pre- sents another feature which operators in and organizers of storage works will have to take into consideration; that is, the fact that the district system is the logical outcome of the social economic necessity which, wherever irrigation is the essential need of cultivation, must make it tend rapidly to the policy of public control, ownership, and management of water and works needed in any community for the maintenance of agricultural security. The Wright district system in California provides for the public control of storage areas and works as much as it does for distribution and management. This is logically em- braced within the laws, but as a practical fact it has so far escaped its operations. As the land laws of the United States permit the appropria- tion of water for beneficial use on the public domain, the majority of stor. age areas and sites are being taken up. In California a still larger number of appropriations were under the control of Spanish and Mexican land grants. But the power to direct the disposition and use of water for beneficial purposes remains with the State. It has been exercised most wisely in the matter of irrigation district organization. The question is sure arise whether or not the State will exercise its powers of sover- eignty and eminent domain at Some not distant day, so as to transfer CHARACTER OF THE NEW IRRIGATION DISTRICTS. 113 by law, amicable purchase, or legal condemnation, the great storage reservoir systems that now exist or that will be made ready for operation. It is quite certain if it is ever done it will be on grounds of the highest public needs and upon full compensation for all investments. Such possible action is in the logic of the situation. In the meanwhile there are large returns awaiting enterprise in this direction and a certain Continuance of profit in the bond income that would follow a transfer to State or district. During the next two years in California there will be added to the area reclaimed in this State, by works now in process of construction, more than 2,500,000 acres of land. This great advance has been the result, primarily, of the passage of the Wright laws. The opposition, So bitterly pressed, to the operation of this statute has had one valuable consequence. The bankers and moneyed interests of the State deter- mined last summer with the assistance of J. W. Nance, president of the State association of irrigation districts, to make a close examination into the physical, engineering, and business problems and conditions of the districts, together with a statement of the legal status of each. Messrs. Wilson & Wilson have been retained to report on the legal problems involved, and Mr. Wm. Ham. Hall, ex-State engineer of Cali- fornia, has charge of the economic and business side of the investiga- tion. The work, so far as completed, has been ably done. Only three districts, however, have been examined and reported on, i. e., the Central, the Perris, and Alessandro irrigation districts, These reports have been made respectively on July 25, August 15, and October 1, 1891. The matters examined and reported on include the physical data of each district, its adaptability to and necessity of irrigation, water sup- ply, duty and delivery, works, cost, district valuation, and bonded in- debtedness, present and future financial condition and outlook, irriga- tion bonds, rights of way, contract rates, cost of irrigation, character and condition of the work and its probable effect, together with a re- port on all litigation, and the tenor of local sentiment for or against the works and projects of each district. All these points are carefully and ably considered. In the report on the Central district, discussing the necessity of irrigation therein, Mr. Hall makes the following inter- esting comparison : The valley of the Po, in Italy—the classic land of irrigation—although it is most copiously watered by nature's methods and processes, is, also, artificially irrigated more freely and fully than it is proposed to irrigate in any district of this compara- tively very dry California. The Italian valley, in form and in size, is almost the counterpart of our Sacramento. It receives on the average, according to special lo- cality, from 22 to 35 inches of precipitation annually, as against local annual aver- ages of 14 to 21 in our Sacramento Valley. And yet in that special region in the val- ley of the Po, embracing a great extent of country, where the rainfall averages about 30 inches per year, and is much better distributed through the months than with us, irrigation is practiced to that extent and intensity that the cubic foot of water per second serves only 60 to 70 acres of land, while the same volume of flow is expected in California to meet all demands on at least two or three times as great an acreage. But that Italian irrigation serves to support 200 or 300 people per square mile; and though rainfall is so copious and well distributed, the artificial applica- tion of water is just as necessary to the support of that population as it would be to the support of 20 to 30 people, even, to the square mile on one of our driest and least productive plains. Without irrigation, about the same proportion of both popula- tions would have to emigrate or die. Discussing the supply and duty of water, the report proceeds: There is an abundance of water to spare in the Sacramento River to supply the Central irrigation district canal to the utmost capacity now projected, namely, some- thing less than 750 cubic feet per second. S, Ex. 41 8 114 - IRRIGATION There are no other canals diverting from this source, except some insignificantly small ditches. There are no other works in course of construction, or claims to water likely to interfere with that of Central irrigation district. This supply, at the rate of 1 cubic foot for 150 acres is amply sufficient for the class of cultivation likely to be practiced in the district. The area of the district is 156,550 acres, which, minus 10,000 taken up with public and private rights of way, will afford 146,550 acres that may be actually cultivated every year. The value of land with and without irrigation in the Central district is repored: It is generally considered that wheat-raising, as a business on fair to best lands, when conducted systematically in large tracts in the region of this district, justifies land values of $30 to $50 per acre. If we were to judge these land values from the rates per acre thus far paid for right of way for the main canal of this district, even allowing largely for the element of damages to the other acres of the tracts crossed, by reason of the presence of the canal, we would be led to fix upon valuation mate- rially in excess of the above. * In my opinion, the farming lands alone in this district (rated as a savings bank would rate property in California, in considering it as security for a loan), are worth on the average $30 per acre, or, say, $4,500,000. It is not necessary for the purposes of this report to try to make any estimate of, or express any opinion on present values of other district property. If irrigation is introduced and well administered, and the farmers profit by it as fully as they should, and demonstrate their ability to, and intention of so profiting, within five years after water distribution commences in this district, its farming lands, by that time being extensively planted to fruit and sown in alfalfa, should, in the light of abundant experience in this State, be worth, as mortgage securities, $9,000,000. Be it remembered that every acre of the district would have a water right attached to it, and that the annual cost of irrigation would be the expense of administration, maintenance, and interest on bonded debt; and that each acre would have its cash value reduced, by reason of that debt to the extent of its share of it. The total assessed valuation of property in the district is now $2,720,770. In my opinion it is altogether within limits to assume that as soon as irrigation is brought to command the lands of this district, its taxable property may be valued, as such valuations are here made for tax assessment, at $3,000,000; and that if irrigation is extended with any reasonable degree of progression, as compared to rates of advance made under similar conditions elsewhere in California, an additional $250,000 of val- uation per year, on the average, might be added to the roll for each following year, until the bonds can have been paid off. The report estimated the total cost of this improvement at $12.50 per acre, payable in installments scattered through twenty years, which expenditure will enhance the value of the land, at present market rates, $30 per acre and also allow the full use of a greatly augmented business profit for fifteen years of the twenty years. The works are described as simple but comprehensive in character, and well adapted to the popular needs. In the report on the Perris district the location and surroundings are accurately described. The detail of the organization and the inclusion and exclusion of certain lands not originally included in its boundaries is set forth. The necessity of and adaptability of the land to irrigation is admitted. In the present instance, it happens that the lands embraced within the district to be reported are not altogether unproductive without irri. gation; inded, considerable portions of them have been cultivated in cereals for seven or eight years. In the more favorable seasons these have produced good crops, and have so far paid as wheat-growing lands; their marketable value for this purpose has ranged from $10 to $20 per acre. Moreover, Wines and deciduous fruit trees start well and While young thrive on these lands; they only fail later in life, when the fruiting function exhausts the available moisture of the soil. The plain on which this district lies falls short of being practically a fertile region A WATER. RIGHT AND DELIVERY CONTRACT. 115 because of one failing; and that is, the want of sufficient moisture at the right time to mature crops. It is doubtful whether, by the very best appliances and most perfect system, wheat-raising ever could here be made to support in comfort even its sparse population. This southern country has been, and will again be subject to series of very dry years. The wheat-growing prac- tice on the San Jacinto plains has not yet passed through these. It commenced since such seasons have been experienced. Anticipation and hope of irrigation, though, have kept a population along from year to year, and during the past year, when this hope seemed to be ap- proaching realization, there has been a very noticeable incoming of people. The supply of this district comes from the Bear Valley reservoir, and the following is a copy of the contract between the parties: WATER RIGHT AND DELIVERY CONTRACT, This agreement, made this 20th day of January, 1891, between the Perris Irrigation District of San Diego and San Bernardino counties, Cal., a corporation, the party of the first part, and the Bear Valley Irrigation Company, a corporation, having its principal place of business at Redlands, San Bernardino County, Cal, the party of the second part, Witnesseth : That in consideration of the mutual covenants herein contained, the parties hereto agree as follows: The party of the second part hereby agrees to and does hereby sell to the party of the first part 16,000 of its class B acre water-right certificates, authorized by its board of directors by a resolution regularly passed on the 8th day of January, 1891, a copy of which resolution is hereto attached, marked Exhibit A, and made a part hereof, for the sum of $240,000 of the first irrigation bonds of said Perris district, bearing interest from January 1, 1891,” at 6 per cent per annum, payable semiannually on the 1st days of July and January ; said 16,000 certificates to be delivered to the Perris Valley Bank at Perris, Cal., as soon as the same are lithographed and signed by the proper officers; to be held as collateral security for the payment of the irrigation bonds now authorized by said Perris Irri- gation District, and including the said $240,000 in bonds to be paid for said 16,000 certificates, together with interest as the same matures. The said party of the second part agrees to deliver to the party of the first part the water called for by said 16,000 certificates, as follows: The water called for by 800 of said certificates shal be delivered on the 1st day of April, 1891, as follows: The water called for by 266 of said certificates shall be delivered at the point marked A on the map of the Perris Valley, showing the boundaries of the Perris Irrigation District, hereto attached, and marked Exhibit 1, and made a part hereof; the water called for by 534 of said certificates shall be delivered at the point marked B on the said map marked Exhibit 1. The water called for by 2,000 of said certificates shall be delivered on the 1st day of April, 1892, as follows: The water called for by 733 of said certificates shall be delivered at the point marked A on said Exhibit 1; the water called for by 1,467 of said certificates shall be delivered at the point marked D on Exhibit 1. The water called for by 2,000 of said certificates shall be delivered on the 1st day of April, 1893, as follows: The water called for by 666 of said certificates shall be de- livered at the point marked A on said Exhibit 1 ; the water called for by 1,334 of said certificates shall be delivered at the point marked D on said Exhibit 1. The water called for by 2,000 of said certificates shall be delivered on the 1st day of April, 1894, as follows: The water called for by 666 of said certificates shall be de- livered at the point marked A on said Exhibit 1 ; the water called for by 1,334 of said certificates shall be delivered at the point marked D on said Exhibit 1. The water called for by 2,000 of said certificates shall be delivered on the 1st day of April, 1895, as follows: The water called for by 666 of said certificates shall be de- livered at the point marked A on said Exhibit 1; the water called for by 1,334 of said certificates shall be delivered at the point marked D on said Exhibit 1. The water called for by 7,000 of said certificates shall be delivered on or after the 1st day of April, 1896, and on or before the 1st day of April, 1899, as the directors of the said Perris District, may hereafter determine, and at the point. A the water called * This was subsequently changed to July 1, and the coupons for first six months' interest were cut and returned. 116 IRRIGATION. for by one-third of said certificates, and at the point D the water called for by two- thirds of said certificates. The party of the second part further agrees that it will sell to the party of the first part 4,000 * more of its said class B acre water-right certificates for $60,000 of the first irrigation bonds of the said Perris Irrigation District, provided the said party of the first part shall elect to purchase said 4,000 additional certificates on or before the 1st day of July, 1891. Said 4,000 certificates to be delivered to the Perris Valley Bank, at Perris, Cal., as collateral security for the payment of the irrigation bonds now au- thorized by said district, and the interest as the same matures, and will deliver the water called for by said additional 4,000 certificates on or after April 1, 1896, and on or before April 1, 1899, as the directors of said Perris Irrigation District may here- after determine; the water called for by one-third of said certificates shall be deliv- ered at the point marked A on said Exhibit 1; the water called for by two-thirds of said certificates shall be delivered at the point marked D on said Exhibit 1. The party of the second part further agrees that the sum provided to be paid on the 1st days of April and October in the said certificates shall commence as follows: On 800 of said certificates on the 1st day of April, 1891; on 2,200 of said certificates on the 1st day of April, 1892; on 2,000 of said certificates on the 1st day of April, 1893; on 2,000 of said certificates on the 1st day of April, 1894; on 2,000 of said certifi- cates on the 1st day of April, 1895; and the remainder of said certificates on the 1st day of April of each year, on the number of certificates represented by the water called for by the directors of said Perris Irrigation District, as hereinbefore speci- fied between the 1st day of April, 1896, and the 1st day of April, 1899, and in any event hºpayment to commence on the balance of said certificates on the 1st day of April, 1899. The party of the first part hereby agrees to pay the party of the second part the sums called for by said certificates as herein before specified in accordance with the . terms of the said certificates. A copy of said Class B acre water-right certificate is hereto attached, and marked Exhibit 2, and made a part hereof, and all the stipula- tions and agreements therein contained are hereby assented and agreed to by said party of the first part. The party of the first part also agrees to pay the party of the second part $60,000 in its first irrigation bonds, for said additional 4,000 Class B acre water-right certifi- cates, on or before the 1st day of July, if it shall elect to purchase said additional 4,000 certificates, and in the event of its purchase of said additional 4,000 certificates it will pay the sums called for on the 1st days of April and October on the number of certificates represented by the water called for by the directors of said district as hereinbefore provided. - And the party of the first part further agrees, that the said 16,000 Class B acre water-right certificates, and said additional 4,000 Class B acre water-right certifi- cates, if the same shall be purchased as hereinbefore specified, shall be deposited with the Perris Valley Bank, Perris, Cal., as collateral security for the payment of the irrigation bonds now authorized by said district, together with the interest on the same as the same matures. The party of the first part further agrees that the point of delivery of the water called for in the year 1891, at point marked B on said Exhibit 1, may after the year 1891 be changed to the point marked D on Exhibit 1. And the party of the first part also agrees that it will construct, at its own expense, a steel pipe from the point B to the point C, as shown on Exhibit 1, of capacity sufficient to carry 150 inches of water, and from the point C to the point D of a capacity sufficient to carry 100 inches of water, and that the party of the second part shall have the right to flow through said pipe from the point B to the point C 50 inches of water, and that after the water hereinbefore specified to be delivered at the pcint marked B shall have been changed in its delivery to the point marked D, the steel pipe hereinbefore agreed to be con- structed by the party of the first part shall belong to and become the property of the party of the second part. It is understood and agreed that a sufficient part of the water to be delivered at the point A shall be at an elevation to cover the elevated lands on the east side of the San Jacinto River in said district, taking the elevation of the NE. corner of Sec. 25, T. 4 S., R. 3 W. as the highest elevation at which water is to be delivered, and provided that the elevation at said point of delivery shall only be sufficient to meet the requirements of said elevated lands, the lower to take at lower elevations. And it is further agreed, that if in the future the party of the second part desires to change the point of delivery of water for said elevated lands, it shall have the option so to do ; providing it shall not cause the party of the first part any extra expense to take such water flom such changed point of delivery. * There is a supplemental agreement of recent date on this point, referred to in the report, IMPROVEMENTS AND vaLUEs To BE MADE By IRRIGATION. 117 It is understood and agreed that the elevation or pressure of the point D shall be 1,650 feet. 'in witness whereof the parties hereto have caused this agreement to be executed in duplicate the day and year first above written, in pursuance of resolution, passed by their respective directors, authorizing the execution of this agreement. PERRIs IRRIGATION DISTRICT, [SEAL.] J. W. NANCE, President. H. A. PLIMPTON, Secretary. - DEAR WALLEY IRRIGATION COMPANY., [SEAL.] AMMON P. KITCHING, Vice-President. FRED E. HoTCHKIss, Secretary. The farming area available is reported at 21,300 acres; the total area of the district is 22,800 acres. The district will receive its supply through two main lines following a high line on either side of the valley occupied. The west side has the Only System under construction, and it will cost altogether $157,438. The complete works for the district, including a town service system and water right, will cost $710,000, and, deducting the discount on the sale of bonds, will require an issue of $750,000 in bonds. The value of the land before the district formation was only from $10 to $20 per acre. The present selling value of the bare land is $50 to $75, subject to dis- trict assessments; while in a short time the unplanted land will bring $100. The following table, compiled by the engineer for the purpose of making an estimate of the debt-paying ability of the district, will show whether or not the district system will pay as a commercial in- vestment on the part of those who buy the land and make farms, or- chards, homes, and towns thereon. Yalºº" | value in ten | value in irrigation €3.I’8 twenty years COID HT © Il C62S. years. y years. Farming lands --------------------------------------------- $2,000, 000 $4,000, 000 $6,000,000 Improvements -------------------------------------------- 100,000 1,000, 000 2,000, 000 Town property and improvements. ----------...----------- 150, 000 500,000 1,000, 000 Total ------------------------------------------------ 2,250,000 5,500,000 9, 000, 000 The total cost of the enterprise per acre of the entire district will be about $31.10, payable in instalments running over twenty years. A comparison of these figures with the well known cost of water rights from private corporations must, in the opinion of this office, success- fully refute the charge that an administration of irrigation by the com- munity of irrigators increases the cost of the work. In the Alessandro district the report goes back to a consideration of the irrigation conducted therein by the Spanish Mission priests; and notes that in this tract the “waters of irrigation were community prop- erty from the start, and lands were apportioned to the settlers.” The district lies in the San Jacinto Valley and practically resembles the Perris district in all physical features. The water supply of this dis- trict is also from the same source—the Bear Valley reservoir. The Alessandro district is in the undisputed zone of irrigation in southern Cali- fornia, and there are no equally large areas of land materially better ad pated in sur- face and soils to cultivations of high class and by irrigation methods suited thereto. 118 ÍRRIGATION. Its agreement for water with the Bear Valley Irrigation Company is similar to that of the Alessandro district with the same company. The contract provides for the purchase of (acre) water right certificates and the delivery of water as follows: Number of & Number of Number of * Time of commencement certificates.| acres. cubic inches. June 1, 1891 ------------------------------------------------------ 4,000 2, 000 500 pr. 1– 1892.--------------------------------------------------------. 6,000 3,000 750 1893------------------------------------------------- tº e º ºs º º is tº e 6, 000 3,000 750 1894---------------------------------------------------------. 6, C00 3, 000 750 1893.--------------------------------------------------------. 6,000 3, 000 750 1896.--------------------------------------------------------. 6,000 3,000 750 1897---------------------------------------------------------. 6,000 3,000 750 1898---------------------------------------------------------. 6,000 3,000 750 1899.-------------------------------------------------------- 5,000 2,500 625 Total ------------------------------------------------------ 51,000 25, 500 6, 375 The Alessandro irrigation district is practically an adjunct of the Bear Valley Irrigation Company’s business, and is an exponent of its prudence in dealing with present conditions. Attention is called to tle fact that the very best private methods applied to the irrigation district system has made no material difference in the cost per acre of the works projected. Alessandro is bonded at $30 per acre. The engineer says: The Alessandro district bonds having been issued to the extent of $765,000 for water delivered (distribution works thrown in, as it were), there is, as security for the loan contemplated by the law, property now assessed on a valuation of $2,436,036; of which $2,396,819 is the rated value of the farming lands. In my opinion these lands are now actually worth $3,000,000 as a minimum safe valuation. The pros- pective values are as follows: When irri- - In t I t gºliº. "..." |COODIn 611C08. Farming lands--------------------------------------------------. $3,000, 060 $6,000, 000 $9,000, 000 Improvements --------------------------------------------------. 50, 000 | 1, 500,000 3,000, 000 Town property and improvements.---------...-----------------. 200,000 600,000 1, 200,000 Total.------------------------------------------------------- 3,350,000 | 8, 100,000 || 13, 200,000 Continuing under the head of cost of irrigation, the report continues: If we assume, as is not unlikely to be the case, that main works for the full serv- ice, pro rata, of Alessandro district will cost the Bear Valley Irrigation Company as much as $17 per acre of the district area, the cost of this irrigation system, in- cluding the distributary works at $18 per acre, as already reported, when looked at merely from the engineering standpoint, will have been $35 per acre. Taking lands worth certainly less than $20 per acre without water, and making them worth, immediately, really $150 per acre, works for the purpose might be regarded as cheap at much more than the above possible cost. The original land owner in this district will ultimately have paid for works and water rights, in purchase of land and in payment of bonds, $48 per acre, that is, $18 as part of land and cost, and $30 for water and delivery, interest not included. -- There has been no litigation or adverse public sentiment in either the Perris or the Alessandro districts. In closing this brief review of the work of Mr. Hall, it is only neces. sary to say that the figures presented are not always given in the same CEMENT Hypnant AND Flume Distributing WATER on small FRurt FARM. REDLANDs, CALIFornia. COMPARATIVE COST OF DIFFERENT DISTRICTS. 119 relation presented by the author, for the reason that our purpose in their use is to a great extent different. Mr. Hall's work, viewed as the verdict of a valuation expert, is extremely well done. The seperate district projects are always indorsed, but under the lens of his scrutiny a pale reflection of doubt seems to be cast on the enabling law or principle of the system. The following extract from the Ales- sandro report will illustrate this : No such complete and perfect works of distribution as those going into Alessandro district ever would have been attempted but for the unification of the speculative advantage to be gained by them. These works are put in to sell the lands at high figures, and they will do it, in fact are doing it. There was no division of opinion on the question of building them, no community to be consulted, no vote to be had. The speculative company builds them, and gives them to the district. The pur- chasers of land, the settlers, pay for them in advanced land prices. The better works enhance actual values much more than the cost difference over ordinary construction. And, moreover, system and economy of construction keep cost much below that probable under community management. The other large land owners take the cue. The improvement becomes complete in the district. A specially desirable and thrifty class of settlers is thus drawn in, and district success is assured. The propositions laid down in this paragraph are, in the light of recent events at least, admissible of argument. The character of the works in the Turlock and Modesto districts are in their way as thorough and able as the constructions referred to by Mr. Hall. Indeed, if the great areas to be reclaimed are considered (more than 550,000 acres of land), they are less costly and more important in a beneficial sense. In northern California the conditions affecting irrigation have been very complex. The provision in the appropriation act of October, 1889, which reserved all irrigable land from settlement, has exercised, it is claimed on all hands, a very prejudicial influence on progress in this region. Mr. C. C. Hutchinson, of Susanville, Lassen County, a well- known western pioneer, is fully acquainted with the conditions of irri- gation and intimately identified with its progress. He made a special trip to Reno, Nev., to advise with the special agent in charge of the irri- gation inquiry, and, in discussing the region under consideration, said: I have had a great deal of experience in the settlement of this western region, and these mountain valleys in northern California are unquestionably adaptable to a series of prosperous agricultural settlements. These valleys are backed by mountains cov- ered with timber and full of mines, which, when opened, must attract favorable atten- tion. It is a very healthy region. The climate, take the year together, is consider- ably more equable and agreeable than that of Indian Territory or Arkansas. The development of northern California and Nevada is simply a question of irrigation. The first effect of the act of October, 1889, was to retard all work that had been commenced in new irrigation enterprises, and especially in Lassen County (in which I am interested) east of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and in all northeastern Cali- fornia. At the date of the passage of that act, water was already stored for the irrigation of 10,000 acres of land ; but the effect of the law was to prevent pur- chasers from taking any of these Government lands, and our hands were thus tied for more than a year, until the relief given by the Fifty-first Congress, when parties immediately began to come in from Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa, and take these desert lands. This United States survey pyoposed for irrigation purposes could have designated and reserved storage sites, and indicated the proper methods of canal distribution, without having to withhold from settlement all the lands that could be irrigated. If the power of reservation had been applied to the lands that could not be irrigated, or were above the reach of ditch water, it would have been sensible, for that would have afforded permanent water sheds for the irrigable areas, and wonld have also included the reservoir sites. This whole Sierra region is full of natural reservoir sites adjacent to, but separate and distinct from, the streams themselves. The proper position for a reservoir is not across the mouth of the natural stream bed, but in basins that may be fed by the stream without building a dam across its flow. A large amount of the dirt placed in dams has been washed out because of the unsafe method of making reservoirs in the beds of these mountain streams. Lassen and Modoc counties have an area of reclaimable land of about 1,000,000 acres, which is a conservative estimate. In general terms this land will produce 120 - IRRIGATION. anything that can be grown in the northern half of the United States. We have mild winters, and there never has been a tree injured by winter cold, although we have had some killed by early or late frost. The oldest irrigation enterprise in Lassen County is that known as the “Eagle Lake Land and Irrigation Company.” The body of water which it is proposed to tap by means of a tunnel covers a surface area of 2,800 acres. It will give in depth an irrigation supply of three acre feet, and is an engineering proposition of perfect feasibility, provided the capital is available to construct the tunnel. During the past fall considerable activity has been shown and the company report the work well under way. Considerable rivalry exists between the Lassen pro- jects, but they are all worthy of consideration. Accusations relative to dealings with desert-land entries circulate freely, but this office was not charged with an inquiry into such matter. The hydraulic projects as designed to serve reclamation purposes are within its province and among these that of Eagle Lake, Lassen County, is worthy of consider- ation. The Honey Lake Valley Land and Water Company, of which Mr. Grunsky is consulting engineer, is interested also in reclamation within this County. It proposes to impound water to irrigate the land lying to the east of Honey Lake, by means of a dam in Long Valley of the following dimensions: Feet. Feet. Extreme height - - - - - - - - tº dº tº gº tº tº gº & º ºs º ºs 96 | Length of base, about - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 200 Width of base, about --------------. 500 | Length at height of 85 feet - - - - - ---- 740 Width of top, about ... ---...-- - - - - - - - 20 | Length at height of 96 feet - - - - - - - - -. 950 This will raise the water to a height of 90 feet above the present bed of the stream, or within 6 feet of the crest of the dam, and the water surface of the reservoir will have an area of about 1,081 acres with an average depth above the outlet gates of 30.4 feet, thus giving an available capacity in round numbers of 1,431,164,000 cubic feet, or 10,733,700,000 gallons, being about 100,000,000 cubic feet greater than that of the Bear Valley reservoir, in San Bernardino County, and nearly twice that of the Sweet Water, in San Diego County, two of the prin- cipal irrigation reservoirs in the country. The three reservoirs in this region are at a general altitude of 4,100 feet. Observations of the evaporation from the Honey Lake reservoir during last July was 2 inches over the surface of the lake. Taking the experience of the Bear Valley people as a guide, it may safely be as- serted that the loss by evaporation in this region will be compensated by the natural inflow of the summer. The estimated duty of water for this reservoir is 1 cubic foot per second for 300 acres during the irrigation season of one hundred days. The consulting engineer, Mr. Grunsky, whose experience and knowl- edge on this question is the result of almost exceptional opportunities of study, supports these opinions by the following statistics: Redlands, San Bernardino County, uses 1 inch to 6 acres. Rialto, San Bernardino County, uses 1 inch to 7 acres. Etiwanda, San Bernardino County, uses 1 inch to 8 acres. Cucamongo, San Bernardino County, uses from 1 inch to 8 to 1 inch to 10 3,OTES, Ontario, San Bernardino County, uses 1 inch to 10 acres. Pomona, Ilos Angeles County, uses 1 inch to 10 acres. Santa Ana, Orange County, uses 1 inch to 16 acres. San Diego Land and Town Company (Sweetwater), San Diego County, uses 1 inch to 10 acres. On the Ganges Canal, India, 1 inch to 6.6 acres is used. On the Jumna Canal, India, from 1 inch to 5.5 to 1 inch to 6.1 acres is used, At Valencia, Spain, 1 inch to 6.5 acres is used. - IRRIGATION AMONG THE SIERRA COUNTIES. 121 The consulting engineer estimates the cost of these works as fol- lows: Dam, 428,500 cubic yards earth, at 123 cents.... -------...... ----...-------. $53,562 Excavation for foundation, trench, 30,000 yards, at 124 cents ---...----...--- 3,750 Outlet works— Brick, 255 M, per M at ---------------------------------------- $5.00 Cement per Mat.--------------------------------------------- 5. 00 Lime per M at ------------------------------------------------ 2.00 Mason per M at .---------------------------------------------- 5. 00 Helpers per M at---------------------------------. ------------ 1. 00 Board per Mat.----------------------------------------------- 1. 00 - s” 19. UO 4,845 Gates and placing same.------------------------------------------ 1,000 Waste-way and drop to creek -----------------------,------------ 1, 450 64, 607 Canals and ditches: 2% miles, 10 feet bottom, 44 feet water at $2,750 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - sº e º is sº as a $6,875 8 miles, 12 feet bottom, 3 feet water at $400. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 3,200 2 miles, 10 feet bottom, 3 feet water at $325 ... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 650 11% miles, 10 feet bottom, 2 feet water at $220 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 2, 530 28 miles, 7 feet bottom, 2 feet water at $160 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . tº sº tº dº º ºs º is tº º me tº 4,480 57 miles, 4 feet bottom, 1 foot 9 inches water at $55 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 3, 135 20, 870 100 feet flume at $2 --------------------------------------------------- 2,000 - 22,870 Tools, buildings, etc. .... ----...--- * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 12,075 99, 552 Temporary wasteway, 80 to 100 M feet lumber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,000 Incidentals --------------------------------------------------------- 5,000 7,000 º sºmsºmºmºsº 106, 552 . Deduct value of plant.---------------------------------------------------- 5, U00 Total cost of works----------------------------------------- -------- 101,552 The above estimate contemplates the purchase by the company of all teams, machinery, etc., that will be required in constructing the dam, which will prove the most economical method, insomuch as it calls for a smaller outlay than would be necessary in the event of hiring teams, and when the work is completed there will be left on hand a working plant. - The soil is a dark sandy loam of great depth and richness and retains moisture well. When irrigated it produces apples, pears, prunes, plums, currants, in fact, all the hardier fruits in great abundance and of supe- rior quality. All kinds of vegetables, hops, corn, alfalfa, and nearly all forage plants do well and yield heavily. Among the fruits, the apples attain special excellence, and command the highest market prices. In Lassen County a duty of 1 inch to 5, 8, and in one instance as high as 11 acres has been attained. The proof by practice of this high duty of water will greatly simplify irrigation conditions in northern California. Irrigation by means of stored water is always a very costly method, but if the able engineers who are in charge of this project demonstrate that 1 cubic second foot of water will irrigate 300 acres of ordinary farm 122 IRRIGATION. land under favorable conditions it will bring stored water within the purchase of the farmer who depends for his subsistence on the growth of the less remunerative crops, such as are expected to be raised in this region. The three projects now under way in Lassen County expect to deal principally with irrigation districts and are so shaping their ad- ministrative policy. - The three storage companies operating in Lassen County propose to deal directly with irrigation districts in the disposition of their water. The royalty cost of water under the Eagle Lake plan will be $5 per acre; the annual cost about $1 per acre. The growth of irrigation is further illustrated by the efforts of private parties to control the Chowchilla River. Water is now being impounded to irrigate about 40,000 acres on the Sharon estate. A dam 100 feet high, of uncoursed rubble masonry, 780 feet on the crest and 68 feet on the base of the upstream arch type, of radius at the center of 1,146 feet, grad- dually diminishing to 736 at the abutments, thus broadening the base on which it abuts against the hillsides, is thrown across the river at a favorable point in the cañon. Wasteways on either side of the dam of 15,000 second feet combined discharge are provided. It has a uniform batter of 1 in 25 feet below the first 10 feet. The crest, without count- ing the parapet, is 10 feet thick. Two outlets, excavated on either side of the dam in the solid rock, 20 feet above the base, in which steel pipes will be laid in cement, are provided ; and in addition to these there will be another sluice laid 10 feet deep, in rock 6 feet above the bottom of the dam, in which a steel pipe will also be laid in cement. At an elevation of 420 feet above sea level 42,000 acre feet will be stored. The flood discharge of the Chowchilla is 1,500 second feet. The stream bed is used as a canal for 23 miles, and water is di- verted to the irrigation ditch 33 miles long and of 300 second feet capac- ity by a weir overflow dam into a natural depression in a ledge of rock, which will be used as a part of the canal. This diversion weir is of masonry, 12 feet in maximum height and 400 feet along the crest. It is the purpose of the Sharon estate to hold the 42,000 acres irrigated in One ranch. The Folsom Dam, built by the State of California by the use of con- vict labor, having been in process of construction for several years, was completed within the past year. It is a solid granite structure, 92 feet high, 65 feet thick at base and 20 feet at top, provided with a movable shutter or weir on top 6 feet high, to be raised by powerful hydraulic jacks operated by water power. The stone was quarried from the banks. Mr. Humbert was the engineer. The dam was constructed principally to develop water power for the penitentiary, but it having been shown that 500,000 acres of land may be irrigated from this source, the structure will probably find its most profitable use as a diversion weir to water the adjacent lands. The Gage system of artesian wells and canals at Riverside has been referred to in former reports. A new system known as the Whittier ditch, modeled on the Gage plan, has been started near Whittier, 14 miles from Los Angeles. The conduit is 10 miles long, partly lined with cement and partly a covered wooden flume. Its construction is some- what unique, and the Supply is purely artesian, located in the upper San Gabriel Valley and near the foothills. The supply comes from very irregular strata, mostly sand and gravel, but no rock has been found by any of the drills. The first well sunk showed the following stratum: ºvisaeo arivo ºsnivºinu, uw ºntwerowo nºw warnivo xa noursi crºw vºorwinni * WHAT IS SAID BY THE IRRIGATIONISTS. 123 Feet Feet, Sand to --------------------------- 10 Clay to . . . . . .---- º sº sº ºne ºr e º ºs º ºs e º e º e º 'º 118 Coarse gravel to ------------------ 20 Gravel to ------------------. ------ 120 Clay to --------------------------- 23 Clay to --------------------------- 121 Sand to -----...---. * - - - - sº e º ºs e º 'º - - - - 53 Sand and gravel to - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 128 Clay to --------------------------- 56 Clay to --------------------------. 131 Gravel to ------------------------- 100 | Sand and gravel to. ---------...----. 168 Clay to --------------------------- 110% Clay to . .------------------------- 179 Coarse gravel to... ----...-----...----- 116; Sand and gravel to. -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - 200 This is the deepest boring. Although these wells are sunk within 100 feet of each other, no two wells show the same strata. There are fourteen in all, with 7-inch bores. The pressure has not been measured, but a flow of 3 inches above the pipe from all is steady and constant. In , utilizing this water the pipe is brought up into a closed box casing, and from there emptied into a closed wooden ditch which conducts the Water to the cement ditches for distribution. At the date of examina- tion no system of distribution had been provided, for the company was engaged in developing their water Supply. It may be generally as. sumed that this system can be developed throughout the San Gabriel Valley and in valleys of similar local conditions. Already 400 miners' inches of water have been obtained, and it is expected that 1,000 inches of water will be ready for irrigation next year. The great value of water in southern California, while it has made storage possible with profit to the irrigator, has also stimulated a close inquiry into the extent and capacity of the phreatic supply that may be developed from the cienegas, the lost flows of streams, or the underflow of others, and from shallow drainage under pressure or deeper artesian sources. Besides the wells at Whittier the engineer of this scheme is running a drift tunnel into the bed rock, and is meeting with such suc- cess as to promise ample reward. The land to be irrigated by this water has heretofore been range land for cattle and sheep. ANSWERS FROM CORRESPONDENTS. The following summaries are made from replies received to circulars sent by this office: FRESNO COUNTY. Firebaugh (post-office), J. W. Schmitz (October, 1891): Water supply: For Poso Farm, from “San Joaquin and Kings River Canal and Irri- gation Co.;” for Eastside (Chowchilla and Riverside canals), San Joaquin River. Works: Poso ditch, 16 feet on bottom, 20 feet on top; Chow chilla canal, 25 feet on bottom, 34 feet on top ; Riverside Canal, 30 feet on botton, 39 feet on top. Head gates, Poso Farm, 1 ; Eastside, 3. Cost per mile: Poso Canal, $400; Chowchilla, $2,440; Riverside, $800. Average yield per acre: Alfalfa, 6 tons; grain, 15 bushels. Average cost per acre for annual maintenance and repairs, $1. Average cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation under irrigation : For grain, $8; for alfalfa, $7.50; for grass land, $2. Area under ditch : Poso Farm, 4,800 acres; Eastside, 10,500 acres. * Area under cultivation: Poso Farm, 4,200 acres (one-sixth in grain, balance alfalfa); Eastside, 4,500 acres (200 acres in grain, balance in alfalfa). Fresno (post-office), J. S. Dove (October 16, 1891): Has 140 acres under cultivation. Water supply, from a canal company that obtains lts supply from Kings River, Cost of water supply per acre, 62% cents. Cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation under irrigation : “Some of the lands, not level or smooth, cost from $10 to $20 per acre to prepare for irrigation.” Chief products under irrigation: Raisin and wine grapes, oranges, apricots, peaches, pears, etc.; alfalfa. Walue of product per acre: “Sold his raisin grapes on the vines for $18 per ton— netted $700 per acre (3-year old vines); alfalfa (within 5 miles of town), $40 to $50 per acre. Six crops cut in the season by Some of his neighbors.” 124 IRRIGATION. Fresno (post-office), Wm. McWhorter, secretary, “Sunset Irrigation District.” Water supply: Kings River, “supply 5,000 cubic feet from April 1 to June 1.” Works: Main canal 110 miles proposed (works not yet constructed). Estimated cost (section 1), 13 miles, $850,000; (section 2) 50 miles, $100,000; (section 3) 47 miles $47,000. Area to be covered: 360,000 acres. Interest on bonds and current expenses this year: 3 mills per cent. Fresno (post-office), J. C. Shepherd (September, 11, 1891): Fowler switch canal: Source of supply, Kings River; supply from January to August ; river runs low in August, and other canals have prior rights. Works: 30 miles main canal; 40 feet on bottom, 80 feet on top, 5 feet deep; two head gates; one waste gate; no reservoirs. Area under ditch : 250,000 acres (portion of same land may be also covered by other ditches). Cost per mile: $5,500. Average cost per acre of irrigation works: Ditches, etc., $5. - Average cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation under irrigation, $12.50. Average cost per acre for annual maintenance and repairs, 25 cents. Staple products under irrigation: Apricots, peaches, grapes, and alfalfa. Average value of product per acre: Fruit, $75; alfalfa, $50 (vines have not yet reached full bearing.) Madera (post-office), Thomas E. Hughes (October, 1891): “Madera Canal and Irrigation Company;”—water supply, Fresno River, and a branch of San Joaquin River turned into it. Canal taken out after river reaches the plain or level lands. * Works: 100 miles canals; 30 to 40 feet on bottom ; 50 to 75 feet on top. One dam in mountains on branch of San Joaquin River; and one brush dam at head of canal; 150 to 200 distributing head gates throughout the system. One reservoir Contemplated. Area under ditch: 20,000 acres (under system at present); under cultivation, 13,000 à, CTOS. Cost per mile : $50 to $100 (after reaching the plains). Estimated cost of reservoir, about $100,000. Cost of water supply to user per acre, $1. Annual rental cost, $1. Average cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation under irrigation: About two-thirds of the land between San Joaquin and Kings rivers cost from $2.50 to $10; one-third, from $10 to $30 to prepare for irrigation. Cost per acre for annual maintenance and repairs: About $100 for 640 acres. Estimated value of product per acre: Raisin grapes, $50 to $200; alfalfa, $50 to $100 (grain on same land, $10 to $25); tree fruits, $50 to $200. [“. It is estimated that in Fresno County between the San Joaquin and Kings rivers, 575,000 acres are now irrigated or are affected by irrigation. About 75,000 acres of land, mainly in grapes, fruit, and alfalfa has, for the last four to six years, needed no surface irrigation on account of the lands having been sufficiently subirrigated by the general seepage from the canals. Twelve years ago surface water could be found only at a depth of 50 to 60 feet; it is found now at a depth of 4 to 7 feet.”] KERN COUNTY. Bakersfield (post-office), J. W. Thompson (October, 1891); has 40 acres under irri- gation. Water supply through Calloway Canai from Kern River; water brought by a lateral ditch 5 miles long, 20 feet wide ; head gates of ditch, 3 (one at canal head of ditch, two on farm). - Cost per mile of lateral ditch, $500. Cost of water supply to user per acre, $1.50. Average cost per acre of irrigation works: Ditches, $2.50. Average cost per acre for annual maintenance and repairs, 10 cents. Average cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation under irrigation, $3. Staple products under irrigation : Raisins, peaches, pears, prunes, plums, apricots, nectarines, figs, etc.; alfalfa, hay, live stock, barley, wheat, potatoes, and garden vegetables of all kinds. Estimated value of annual product per acre, $100. Area under Calloway Canal, 200,000 acres; under cultivation, 45,000 acres. In reply to circulars and other sources, the following general data, relative to this county, have been compiled : Works—During 1891 about 100 miles of canals have been constructed. Over 1,000 miles were previously in operation. The new canals are large and important. The Kern Walley Water Company's canal is 125 feet wide at top and 22 miles in FROM FRUIT COLONIES OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA. 125 length. It carries 6,000 cubic feet of water per second. The Kern and Tulare irrigation district have made surveys for a new canal to irrigate 150,000 acres of land. The “78” Canal Company, just incorporated, will build, during 1892, a canal to irrigate 150,000 acres, known as the “Weed Patch,” at a cost of $750,000. Of new land 3,000 acres were set out during 1891, to fruit trees and grape vines. LASSEN COUNTY. E. R. Dodge, a director of “Eagle Lake Land and Irrigation Co.” (September, 1891); reports work in progress on a cut into Eagle Lake (2,800 acres), which will give 3 acre feet for irrigation purposes: Estimated cost of water supply to user per acre, $5; annual rental cost, $1. Los ANGELEs county. Azusa (post-office), W. R. Powell (October 1891): Local water supply (1st) San Gabriel River, (#33 of the first 1,700 inches of the river- water surplus goes to other Systems); (2d) a mountain streanu. Works: Loose dam made yearly ; 900-foot tunnel; open ditch to carry 1,000 inches; about 150 gates. - Area under ditch, 4,000 acres; ander cultivation 3,000 acres. Average cost per acre for first-class works in locality, $15. Average cost per acre for annual maintenance and repairs, $1 (to include pay for water tender). Products: Oranges, lemons, Strawberries, etc.; alfafa, potatoes, etc. Average value of product per acre, $50 to $700. Downey (post-office), T. J. Kerns (October 3, 1891): Average cost per acre in his neighborhood, for preparing land for cultivation under irrigation: Plowing, $2; harrowing, 50 cents (soil is a rich, sandy loam easily cultivated). Cost per acre for irrigation works, ditches, etc.: About $1 in the immediate vicini- ty; on the mesa and foothills is more, in some places reaching $20. The ditches generally are easily constructed. Average cost per acre for annual maintenance and repairs: 20 to 25 cents per acre will clean ditches twice yearly. Products under irrigation : Corn, barley, alfalfa, sugar cane, sugar beets, sweet and Irish potatoes, and all vegetables, oranges, lemons, figs, and all deciduous fruits, English walnuts, etc. Average yield and value of same: Alfalfa, cut 6 times yearly, 1 to 2 tons per acre each cutting; sells in the shock at $7 per ton; corn, 45 to 100 bushels, selling at $1.45 per 100 pounds. Los Angeles (post-office), J. W. Potts (October 3, 1891): Water supply, Los Angeles River: Area irrigated from it about 15,000 acres; ſlow or river in the fall (before the winter rains) about 75 cubic feet per second. Water and works (including 2 reservoirs) owned by city ; cost of works, about $30 per acre for lands irrigated ; water sold at $2.50 per day for a “head” of 100 miner's inches; general duty of water, 1 miner's inch for 10 acres (steady flow). Esti- mated irrigable capacity of river, if winter supply was properly stored in res- ervoirs, 150,000 acres. Average cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation under irrigation (plowing, etc.), $2.50. Staple products under irrigation : Oranges, lemons, grapes, peaches, pears, etc. (every- thing suitable to the climate). [Corn is generally raised in the wet lands supplied by underground seepage; wheat and barley by means of winter rains; fruits do well on the foothills without irriga- tion. I • ' Average value of products per acre: Oranges, $500 to $1,000; lemons, $1,000 to $1,500; peaches, pears, apples, $200 to $500; (two or three crops of different pro- ducts are raised yearly.) Los Angeles (post-office), F. A. Atwater (October, 1891): Farm at Clearwater on “California Coöperative Tract.” Two years ago had from 2,500 to 3,000 acres under ditch; 1,000 acres cultivated by means of 3 to 4 miles of ditch, 4 feet on bottom; 10 to 15 feet on top ; supplied from New River ; course of river has clanged and ditch of no use. Only irrigation in that locality now by means of fifteen or twenty artesian wells, from 140 to 350 feet deep, costing from $150 to $500 each ; about 300 acres irrigated. Cost per mile for preparing land for cultivation under irrigation, $2.50 to $3. 126 IRRIGATION. Staple products under irrigation : Corn, potatoes, onions, and alfalfa. Estimated value of product per acre, $20. Pasadena (post-office), M. H. Weight (October 3, 1891): City of Pasadena and adjoining lands directly tributary to it, comprise about 14,000 acres; about 7,000 acres in orchard and vineyard; city about 2 miles square, 1,600 acres of which is in orange, lemon, and deciduous fruit trees. Water supply: Springs about 3 miles north of city in Sierra Madre Mountains; by means of iron pipe lines, to cemented reservoirs, thence distributed through same kind of pipe, ranging in diameter from 1 to 10 inches. Capacity of springs: They furnish at present not less than 350 miner's inches per sec- ond, continuous flow; a much larger supply is being developed by means of tun- neling and by constructing a submerged dam to utilize the large supply of water from the springs which now sinks into the sands; new system of reservoirs cno templated. The pipe lines are being continually improved, extended, and enlarged. C. H. Richardson, C. C. Thompson, T. S. C. Lowe, among others of Pasadena, testify as to— Acreage in fruit in Pasadena proper, South Pasadena, and adjacent foothills, about 8 square miles, or 5,100 acres. Of this area 1,600 are planted to orange tres (budded), over five years old; 800 acres are in seedlings and about 150 acres are in bearing trees less than five years old, making in all for oranges at least 2,500 acres. In deciduous fruit trees there are 1,600 acres, 12 acres in walnuts, 20 in olives, and an acreage sufficient for 1,000 lemon trees. All are irrigated, Product and value in oranges from $200 to $400 met per acre in 1891. On a 50-acre orchard adjacent to Pasadena the net profit in green fruit for last season was $9,000, or $180 per acre. Dried fruit would have made larger returns. San Gabriel (post-office), A. Scott Chapman (October 5, 1891): Water supply: Artesian wells; area irrigated, 150 acres. Well, 400 feet deep; dirt reservoir, 8 feet deep, 120 feet diameter. Cost of well and reservoir, $1,500; cost of reservoir, $215. Will supply 60 acres ($25 per acre). Cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation, $10 (clearing land of brush). Total cost per acre for well, reservoir, etc., and preparing land, $35. Staple products under irrigation : Oranges, lemons, walnuts, vegetables. Average yield per acre: Oranges, 400 boxes; walnuts, 4,000 pounds. Whittier (post-office), A. L. Reed (September, 1891): Water supply: Artesian wells and springs; 14 artesian wells, 80 to 200 feet deep, develop 4} cubic feet per second ; springs develop 3} cubic feet per second. Works (not yet completed): 11 miles main conduit (cement and concrete); bottom width for 9 miles, 4 feet; top, 6 feet ; depth, 3 feet 4 inches; for 2 miles, bottom width 3 feet 4 inches, same depth. Head gates, 1 set (of 2); waste gates, 2; waste- gates with sand boxes, 2. Flumes, 6,200 feet (wooden, on piles and trestle). Systellſ not yet in working order. MERCED COUNTY. [Data for this county, compiled from various sources in answer to circulars, is espe- cially interesting in its bearing upon the organization of fruit-growing colonies. There are now fifteen in the county, and the briefed particulars are as follows:] Area. Area Area. * Area Name. s Of planted. Name. of planted. colony. colony. Acres. A cres. Acres. Acres. *} 11 Archer--------------------------. 320 80 || Livingston -----------...--------. 320 Ashe. ---------------------------- 900 | . . . . . . . . Mitchell.------------------------ 280 120 British --------------------------. 5, 840 100 " Rialto.-------------------------. 320 |- - - - - - -. Bubach -------------------------. 1, 280 510 | Rotterdam ...-------...----------. 3, 190 1,500 Deane --------------------------- 6,020 320 Towne. ------------------------. 960 70 Dos Palos.----------------------. 6,000 6,000 . Yosemite. --------...... --...----- 640 260 El Capitan ----------------------- 1, 920 185 | - -º-º-º- | Total.......... = e as e º s = * * * * * * 22, 200 || 9, 280 }} Honitos . . . . . . . . .---------- * * * * * * * 210 25 --- - - ------ Nearly all of the planted area reported is laid down in fruit—almonds, apricots, berries, nuts, olives, peaches, pears, plums, prunes, and raisin grapes. In addition to the foregoing about 1,400 other acres have been planted in fruits. Fº IRRIGATION IN SEVERAL CALIFORNIA. COUNTIES. 127 The Merced Canal and Irrigation Company represent $3,000,000 of capitalization. The main canal is 50 miles in length; principal source of supply is the Merced River. The canal carries 4,000 cubic feet per second. There are two tunnels on route, with a total length of 8,500 feet. An open reservoir is known as Lake Yo- semite. Its cost has been $2,000,000. The chief source of supply is the Merced - River, fed by mountain snows. J. L. Dickinson, of Los Banos: Water supply from San Joaquin and Kings River. Canals of large size, parallel to each other, 50 to 70 miles in length. Farms and orchards supplied by small distributories from main ditches. Cost to user, $2.50 per acre; preparation of land, from $2 to $5; for irrigation, from $1 to $2; annual rates, not to exceed 15 cents per acre. s ORANGE COUNTY. E. E. Edwards, Orange (post-office), September 22, 1891: Water supply: Santa Ana River; flow sufficient for 36,000 acres. Works: Open ditches and flumes; main ditch supplying neighborhood, 20 to 26 feet on top, 10 to 14 feet on bottom; in all, 123 miles of ditches, etc. Three head gates; built in 1877. Artesian wells: 250 flowing in county, used for domestic and stock purposes. Use for irrigation just beginning in some neighborhoods. Cost of main ditch from $800 to $7,000 per mile; average cost per acre, $17.50; an- nual cost to use for same, $6.60; cost per acre of repairs, etc., 50 cents. Acreage served: Under ditch, 36,000 acres; under cultivation, 30,000. PLACER COUNTY. Jonas J. Morrison, Loomis : Water supply is from South Yuba and Bear rivers, fed in the Sierra Nevada by snow and mountain springs. This is a foothills region, and all is under ditch. Our ditch (the South Yuba) carries 2,000 miner's inches, and usually fails us in July and August because the ditch is not large enough; supply is sufficient if latter was remedied. Cost : We purchase from owner of main ditch at rate of 45 cents per miner's inch per annum. A miner’s incl irrigates, with us, according to soils, from 5 to 10 acres. Annual maintenance is $1 per acre. - Cost of clearing land is about (for general farming) $20 per acre; for orchard clear- ing, trees, and planting. Area: In this section 10,000 acres are under ditch ; 4,000 under cultivation. Products: Chiefly all varieties of deciduous fruits. SACRAMENTO COUNTY. tº Secretary of Natoma Water and Mining Company, Folsom (post-office): Water supply is south fork of American River. Works are a canal with capacity of 42 cubic feet per second, 17 miles of main, and 25 of small or lateral ditches. Cost of per mile from $200 to $500. Cost of preparing land for cultivation, $5 to $50 per acre; the same for irrigation works per acre; of annual repairs and maintenance, from $2 to $10. Charge to consumer (royalty), $5 per acre, Acres under ditch, 20,000; under cultivation, 1,200 acres. Products: Table and wine grape, deciduous fruits, and vegetables. SAN BENITO COUNTY. George T. Elliott, Hollister (October, 1891): Water supply: San Benito River and artesian wells; latter unlimited in supply. Works: 50 miles of ditches, besides wells, reservoir of 30 acres; dam 120 feet long, 10 feet high; 50 head gates. Two systems in use, 10 miles apart. Cost of main ditch, $1,000 per mile; reservoir, $5,000; of wells from $150 to $1,000 each. Acreage served: Under ditch, 10,600; under cultivation, 3,000 acres. Cost of irrigation, $5 per acre; annual rental, $4 per acre; cost of repair, $1. S AN BE ENARDINO COUNTY. [Data from several sources give the horticultural growth for the past year.] There were planted of citrus trees, 9,454; of deciduous, 3,274; of vines, 2,808; a total of 15,486. The largest number planted by any one colony or settlement was 128 v - IRRIGATION. at Riverside, 4,000 citrus trees. Redlands planted 1,200 of such trees, and 150 deciduous. At Alessandro, the new settlement under Bear Walley service, there were 1,100 citrus and 1,000 deciduous trees, with 100, vines planted. Highland, Ontario, and South Riverside were next in extent of planting. The fruit acreage of the county is reported at 41,440, an increase for one year's planting of 20,437 .# or nearly as much as was previously cultivated for fruit. The division is a/S IOI 10 WS - Acres, Acres. Orange ------------------------- 22,871 | Apple --------------------------- 250 Lemon -------------------------- 1,800 | Olive --------------------------- 240 Peach--------------------------- 3,874 || Nuts ---------------------------- 250 Apricot ------------------------- 2,000 | Vines --------------------------. 8,688 Pear ---------------------------- 577 - Prune-------------------------. 550 Total --------------------- 41,440 Fig ---------------------------- s 340 F. C. Finkle, C. E., San Bernardino, states cost of preparing citrus orchard land at from $100 to $200; for other trees and vines, $50; for alfalfa, $10 per acre. Cost of irrigation works, from $10 to $20 per acre. Production is stated: Oranges and lemons, 300 boxes; deciduous fruits, 5 tons; raisins, 100 boxes; alfalfa, 4 tons per 3.CI'ê. Robinson J. Jones, San Bernardino (post-office), September 24, 1891: Water supply at Etiwanda is from two caſion streams, averaging 287.3 miner's inches. It has been as high as 502 inches. Works consists of two flumes, connecting with and discharging into reservoir, Ten miles of fluming, Reservoir 20 feet cement box, fitted with eight distributing lines. Timber dams in cañons divert water into flumes. Concrete pipes, with standpipes at every 10 acres, are used for distributing supply. Pressure is gained by a 10-foot fall in each 660 feet. Acreage served and under cultivation, 1,100 acres. Cost of water per annum to users, 75 cents per acre. Estimated cost of main irriga- tion works, $10 per acre. Orchard service borne by farmer. Products: Fruits and vegetables, chiefly oranges, raisins, and lemons. Average re- turn per acre, $125. Solomon Neumann, Messina (post-office), (September 25, 1891), Highland, and East Highland: Cost of preparation has been $75 per acre. West Highland cost is not over $20 per acre. These areas form what is known locally as the Highland district. Cost of works, about $100 per acre; annual cost, about 75 cents for same to user. A creage: Under ditch, 6,000; under cultivation, 2,000 acres. Products: Fruits, the profits of which per acre will be from $800 to $100, according to varieties and age of treese E. M. Hatch and H. H. Morgan (the latter is president of San Antonio Water Com- pany), Ontario (post-office), September, 1891: Water supply: San Antonio Canon, creek and tunnel. Works and their character: Tunnel half a mile and cement ditch one-half mile in length; 62 miles of cement piping underground; one head gate; main pipe, 3 feet in diameter. Pipes cost for laterals al out $1,200 per mile. Cost: Preparing land about $20 per acre (Mr. Hatch says from $20 to $100); cement ditch for 10 acres, Mr. Hatch states, will cost $175. Cost of water per acre is not less than $100; annual cost to user about 75 cents per acre. Acreage served : Under water, 4,500; under cultivation, 3,000 acres. Messrs. Theodore C. Clark (general manager Bear Valley Company), F. G. Ferand, H. W. Allen, H. H. Sinclair (secretary South Fork Ditch Company), T. L. Lyon, C. J. Monson, and E. G. Judson write from Redlands (September and October, 1891): Water supply: Santa Ana River and Bear Valley reservoir. Area served: Under Crofton system, 3,000 acres under ditch and 1,800 under cultiva- tion. Under all systems, served by Bear Valley, etc. : Under ditch about 18,000 acres, under cultivation about 13,000; contracts, when all are served, will bring 34,000 acres under ditch. Several other districts are served by the same system. Cost of preparing land, from $10 to $40—latter for fruit; some rate cost as high as $50. Cost of irrigation is variously estimated at from $15 to $40 per acre; probably $30 will be a fair estimate; annual rental is from $1.50 to $6 per acre; water royalty is rated from $30 to $75 per acre. - Return per acre averages: Deciduous fruits, $125 per acre ; oranges, according to age of trees, from $100 to $800 met; alfalfa, 6 to 10 per year, $8 per ton. EXTENT OF TEIE FAMOUS RIVERSIDE SYSTEMS. 129 *i à sºning Redland (post-office), for Palm Valley Water Company (September 9 g Water supply: Whitewater and reservoir. Cost of works: Main stone ditch of 10 miles, $1.4 per acre; private ditch (stone) or lateral flumes, $12 per acre. Annual cost, about $1 per acre. Area served: Under works, 3,000 acres, reclaimed from upper part of Colorado desert; under cultivation, 500 acres. Products: All early fruits and fine vegetables, oranges, figs, grapes, dates, etc., all do well. All mature very early. W. A. Coyrell, secretary Riverside Water Company (September 26, 1891): Water ºp's : Santa Ana River, Warm Creek, and artesian wells ; 80 cubic feet per Se COIl Ci. Cost of preparing for cultivation, land being level, $20 per acre. Cost of irrigation: Works and water rights, $60 per acre; annual maintenance, $6 per acre. Works, nature of: 40 miles of flume; 9 miles canal; 100 miles of lateral ditches, flume, stone and iron pipes; three head gates; two tunnels 3,380 feet long, 8 feet wide, 6 feet high; 10,400 feet of flume, 4 feet deep, 8 feet wide. Cost of works: Main canal, from $1,000 to $10,000 per mile ; of tunnels, $5 per lineal * foot. In all other estimates make total cost $750,000. Under ditch, 12,000 acres; under cultivation, about 7,000. Annual product per acre (estimated): For citrus fruits, $500; for raisins, $100; for alfalfa, $20 per acre. Products: All semi-tropical fruits, grain, alfalfa, fine vegetables. George Dole, Riverside, (September 25, 1891): Area under ditch, 17,675; under cultivation, 8,000 acres. Cost of preparation and water for cultivation, $50 per acre. A. H. Naftzger (president East Riverside Water Company), Riverside (post-office), F. C. Finkle, C. E., San Bernardino (post-office): Water supply: Chiefly artesian wells, sufficient for 10,000 acres; present supply, 6 cubic feet per second. Cost of preparing land, $25 per acre. Cost of water, $75 per acre; annual rental, $2 per acre. Works, nature of: Iron pipe line, 24 inch; 27 head gates; 16 miles of ditches; 3 of main ditch ; pipe line cost $12,000; ditch, $2,000 per mile. Under ditch, 3,000 acres; under cultivation, 500 acres. Products: Oranges and lemons; trees not yet bearing. The Riverside Water Company has 24,000 shares, at a par value of $10, or an original capitalization of $240,000. Each landowner in the 10,000 acres to be served took two shares at the time of organization, balance being held for purchasers of unimproved land. When fully sold each acre will be represented by two shares, transferable only with the land. The users are thus at all times the owners of the works. Each irrigator is entitled to all the water he needs, the regular rates, therefore, being fixed by the board of city trustees. The courts have sustained the issue of stock to unimproved land. Cost of works is reported at $900,000; cost per annum, $6 per acre. Artesian water under pressure is supplied for domes- tic purposes. The Gage system, for the supply of Arlington Heights and other additions to the original Riverside, consists of 12,000 acres in two equal tracts, served by 38 artesian wells, whose supply is derived from the underflow of the upper Santa Ana River. These wells are sunk to various depths of from 150 to 500 feet. The water flows into the Santa Ana River, and thence through a canal, which is filled by a diverting dam. There are three other land companies which have con- structed reservoirs and pipe systems, at a cost of $100,000. The Gage works and lands have been sold for $1,000,000 to a company. Acreage “under water" in the valley of which Riverside is the center is as follows: Riverside, 10,000 acres; Gage canal, 15,000; South Riverside, 6,000; North River- side canal, 7,500; Vivienda pipe line, 5,000; Rincon ditch, 4,000; a total of 47,500 3,OI’éS. F. C. Finkle, San Bernardino, engineer Jarupa system (January, 1892): Water supply: Santa Ana River and cienegas (wet subsoil); 30 cubic feet per second at present. Works: Main canals, 18 miles; small reservoirs for distributary purposes; 74 head gates; 200 miles of laterals; subcanal into cienegas 1 mile, 5 to 20 feet deep. Cost of: drainage, cut or sub-canal, $30,000; earth canal, $11,000; cemented ditch, $3,600; flume and trestlework, $10,000—in all, $54,600. S. Ex. 41 9 130 - IRRIGATION. Area served: Under ditch, 10,000 acres; under cultivation, 3,000. Cost ºf supply, $50 per acre; annual rental, $2 per acre. SAN DIEGO COUNTY. D. Goechenauer, San Diego (post-office), 1891: Fruit-tree planting during 1891 has been on an extensive scale. Of citrus and decid- uous trees about 900,000 have been planted during the year. The fruit bearers for 1892 will not be less than 500,000 trees, an increase of 200,000 for the past year. During 1891, out of San Diego city there were shipped 2,820,000 pounds of raisins, or about 142 cars, as against 88 cars last year. There were 66 carloads in 1890 from the San Diego Bay section. Of this total, Spring Valley and El Cajon furnished 12 carloads, and Sweetwater, Paradise, and Tia Juana valleys furnished 42 carloads. The other 10 cars were raised in Jamul, Lyons Valley, Otay, National Rancho, and other tributary valleys. - SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY. J. D. Huffman, Lodi (October 13, 1891): Water supply: The Mokelumne River. Works: Main canal, the Woodbridge, at present 12 miles in length; large dam across the river, made of piles and timber, of which 500,000 feet have been used. Piles have been driven from 13 to 28 feet ; crest of dam 6 feet below low-water mark. There are 22 gates, by closing which the canal can be flooded. The dam, which is on the weir or overflow principle, will permit the high water to flow over its crest ; the channel is 200 feet in width. Area to be served is now 50,000 acres, but it is expected that canal and reservoir will serve 170,000 acres. S()N OMA COUNTY. H. J. Schroobeda, Petaluma (October, 1891): All irrigation is chiefly from wells, and confined to fruits and gardens. There are 5 miles of ditches. Cost per acre estimated at $20; total cost of such works $24,000 in my neighborhood. Under irrigation here, 45 acres. Water plane, 10 feet below surface; water costs about $20 per month. Product is rated at $250 per acre. º - - TUIARF COUNTYe N. W. Motheial, Hanford (October, 1891): Water supply: Rings River. - Ditches serving neighborhood are the People's, Last Chance, Lake Side, Lower Kings River, and Mussel Slough. People's Ditch is 25 miles in length, 40 feet at bottom, 5 deep, and falls 1 foot to the mile. These ditches cover 125,000 acres. Ground is level no timber; ditching cheap ; preparing land easy. Cost, $1 per acre; with ditch, $1.50; annual maintenance, 50 cents per acre ; cost per mile, in all about $3,500. One dam in river, cost $7,000; one head gate. Under cultivation (People's Ditch), 25,000 acres. Crops: Corn, wheat, alfalfa, de- ciduous fruits of all kinds; some citrus orchards in sheltered places. P. Y. Baker, director in Alta irrigation district (Tulare and Fresno counties), Tulare (September 22, 1891): Water supply: Kings River, mountain stream fed from higher Sierras; carries 30,000 cubic feet per second during season from May to August. Works: Canal 100 feet on bottom, 18-inch fall, slope 3 to 1, 5 feet of water; numer- ous laterals; 1 main head gate; 628 farm gates. Cost of main canal, $1,200 per mile. System has cost district $3.75 per acre in 6 per cent twenty-year bonds. Area under ditch, 130,000 acres; under cultivation, 124,000. Organized under dis- trict law. Cost of water : 42 cents per acre per annum. Cost of cultivation : Meadow and fruit land, $10 per acre. Product per acre: $25 to $40 in value. Crops raised: Wheat, oats, barley, corn, potatoes, vegetables, raisins, prunes, peaches, apples, nectarines, oranges, lemons, olives, apricots, pears. wine grapes, alfalfa, blue grass, nuts of all kinds. George H. Weaver, secretary “Alta” district, Dunbar (September, 1892): Water supply: Kings River. District organized under Wright laws. CALIFORNIA IRRIGATION AND PRODUCTION. 131 Works: Head gate; dam; 25 miles of main ditch; many more of laterals; one reservoir of 100 acres; 1 head gate. Cost per mile, $600. Area under cultivation, probably 40,000 acres. Cost of supply to user by tax levy, 38% cents. Under district system tax levy is 80 cents on $100 of valuation; interest, 20 cents; maintenance, 13 cents; adminis- tration, 53 cents per acre. Cost to user before district formed was: royalty, $5 per acre; annual rental, $1 per ‘acre. E. A. May, secretary Poplar Irrigation Company, Tulare (October, 1892): Cost of preparing, $9 per acre, under favorable circumstances; with ditches for irri- gation, $15 per acre. Cost of water to user, from 50 cents to $1 per acre per annum. Area cultivated by Poplar Ditch, 1,400 acres. **. Products : Chiefly alfalfa, hay, vegetables, fruits, raisin grapes. Yield: Fruit, from $100 to 250 per acre; vegetables, from $200 to $300. VENTURA COUNTY. W. W. Blanchard, Santa Paula: No regular irrigation. :y Small ditches and wells are used for irrigating gardens, orchards, and alfalfa ; but chiefly for stock and domestic purposes. Citrus fruits are irrigated. YUBA COUNTY. J. McFarlane, secretary Brown Walley irrigation district, Brown Valley (post-office), October, 1891: Water supply: North or main fork of Yuba River; abundant at all seasons. About 43,000 “under ditch ;” cultivated; no reply. Irrigation works are under construction: Main ditch of about 20 miles; 7 miles of flume; ditch 5 by 7 and 23 feet deep ; main dam across river: base, 100 feet ; top, 150; height, 26 feet ; cross-section, 26 by 40; double head gate; branch ditch, 5 by 7, 2} deep; iron piping, 1,600 feet, to convey water across a creek. Cost of dam by contract, $8,500; flumes and ditches, $72,000. E. A. Forbes, Yuba City (post-office), Sutter County (September 22, 1891), writes of the Brown Valley district, Yuba County : Water supply: North Yuba River, 30,000 miner's inches. Works : 8 miles of flume, 20 miles of main canal, 22 miles of distributing ditches; 3,300 feet of 30-inch iron pipe; one dam 26 feet high (in river), 140 feet across, 40 feet base, peeled spruce logs, inside perpendicular, 2 screw head gates, one sus- pension bridge. Cost: Ditch, $1,500 per mile, average; fluming, $1 per foot; piping, $3; bridge, $6.50; dam, $7,500. Area, under Hitch, 44,000 acres; under cultivation now, 3,500 acres; 35,000 can be irrigated. Cost to user: About $3 per acre when laterals are all completed ; maintenance an- nually, 20 to 30 cents per acre. Cost of prepating land, $5 per acre; add irrigation cost, $8 per acre. Annual product per acre: My estimate is, strawberries, $900 per acre; blackberries, $500; oranges, $700 to $1,000; peaches, $250 to $350; wheat, $10 to $25 or $30. The place is no good except for stock-raising, aud small crops of hay without Water; with water it is a bonanza. C 0 L 0 R A D 0. Irrigation in the Centennial State continues to make serious and steady progress. It is developing in many different directions, es- pecially in the matter of storage, but the chief growth has been, in the judgment of this office, in the way of reclaiming many comparatively small areas, in the extension and betterment of neighborhood sys- tems of distribution, in the increase of local storage efforts, in the de- velopment of supplies from springs, undersheet, or drainage sources, of bed-rock dams, wells, artesian or otherwise, in the better knowledge or practice of economy in the use of water, in the increase of fruit culture, and generally of smaller farms and intensive cultivation. Coupled with the active and intelligent interest displayed in irrigation legislation and administration the progress of Colorado is quite satisfactory. The fifth biennial report of the State engineer, J. P. Maxwell, for 1889–90, is the latest authoritative statement of the administrative con- ditions of irrigation. The following table has been prepared therefrom : * [Condensed from State Engineer's Report, 1888–'90.] Division, District.|*...] § |Ditches. |Mileage. Cubic feet. No. 1 -------------------------......... tº dº tº º ºs º sº wº 1. 4 12,687, 128 11 || 124 2 12 39, 584, 332 31 || 236.50 3 11 | 192,336, 426 62 351. 14 4 8 343, 132, 944 14 || 176 5 6 || 304, 491, 232 65 244 6 19 || 369, 416,960 67 258 7 73 262,955, 271 59 || 255, 63 8 15 1,648, 465, 308 132 267 9 28 1,929, 236, 0.27 22 65. 25 23 5 3, 643, 517,407 228 912 46 1 1, 119, 208 88 332 47 l. ------- * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 158 || 482 64 1. --..... w is a s tº es s sº se e g is sº sº. 1() 98 65 |-------|------------ - - - - 3 12 No. 2.------------------------------...--------. 10 30 | 120,673,455 127 508 11 7 260,792, 156 122 || 488 12 10 226,781, 600 48 85 13 --------|---------------. 27 | 108 14 || 39 1,470,211, 538 16 64 15 2 ---------------. 46 88.50 16 2 | 1, 546,632, 250 191 || 764 17 8 ---------------. 9 : 305 18 J--------|- gº & sº sº º is ºn me • * * * 4 16 19 l 13,454, 000 29 || 116 49 --------|---------------. 4 16 66 --------|---------------. 4 8 67 --------|---------------. 27 | 108 No. 3.----------------------------------------. 20 l. ------. 1,000, 000 54 216 21 -------|---------------- 69 164. 50 22 2 160,000, 000 62 | 160 25 1. 64,000,000 200 312 26 --------|---------------. 36 | 1.44 27 3 109,000 8 32 35 2 20, 700 11 46 20 l-----------------------. 3 12 No. 4.-----------------------...--------------- 30 l. -------|---------------. 7 2 32 I.-------|---------------. 1 4 83 '--------|---------------- 7 28 voorvaorio： 'warriva svs svx av ºrvºvo otivuotoo ºwn'ſ） i 'ox * THE ENGINEER STATISTICS OF COLORADO. 133 I)ivision. District. ". ‘. Ditches. | Mileage. Cutic feet. No. 5 ------------------------------------------ 28 --------|---------------- 36 - - - ------ 37 1 3,750,000 140 560 38 7 2, 273,000 43 100. 90 39 17 27, 795, 000 13 24, 50 40 22 501, 388, 682 74 86, 38 41 5 24, 175, 800 70 280 42 10 75, 551, 209 85 226, 32 45 3 11, 200,000 67 87 50 l. -------|---------------- 3 12 51 - - - - - - - ---------------- 6 24 52 --------|---------------- 10 40 53 1 318, 655 19 76 59 |--------|---------------. 11 44 60 1 266, 666 3 12 61 | 2 || 304, 300,000 1. 4 63 |--------|---------------- 4 16 68 || -------|---------------. 1 No. 6 -----------------------------------------. 43 4 6, 802, 783 87 133. 55 44 I.-------|---------------- 19 76 54 --------|---------------. 3 12 57 1 |.--------------. 26 104 58 2 1, 465, 120 84 336 11. 60 360 | 13, 569, 903, 857 3, 267 9, 793, 17 The state engineer's report shows for 1890 a total of . Individual ditches for which decrees of water have been issued and filed in . the engineer's office, 1890. -------------------------------------------- 1,673 Filed from 1837 to 1890. -----------------------------------------------. 2,040 Total ------------------------------------------------------------ 4,311 Total mileage of ditches as far as constructed, 1890...... . . . . . . . . . --- .... 11, 032.90 Total area under ditch, 1890. ----------------------------------. -------. 4,082, 738 But the total acreage irrigated reported by the water commissioners for thirty-four districts was only as follows for 1890 : Acres. In alfalfa--------------------------------------------------------------- 161,854 In cultivated grasses---------------------------------------------------- 42, 592 In natural grasses ----------------- *------ º ºn e º sm e º e º sº sº e º 'º - e º ºs e ºs e º ºs º is tº sº - e = 389, 430 In other crops from ditches. -------------------------------------------- 437, 147 In seepage Water from ditches------------------------------------------- 18,546 Total reported ---------------------------------------------------- 1,053,304 No report of the orchard, small-fruit, garden, and vegetable areas within the State is given. It is certainly not less than 60,000 acres. There are many small irrigations which escape attention and are not reported because they are in sections where no appointment of water commissioners has been made. The small-area irrigation is on the in. crease. It is not too much, therefore, to estimate the area of irrigation in 1890 at 1,700,000 acres, and for the year 1891 an increase of 100,000 acres, or 1,800,000 irrigated and cultivated acres. Engineer Maxwell estimates that for 1890 there were irrigated from stored water within the area of water division No. 1–that is, the valley of the South Platte—about 100,000 acres. He says (p. 17 State Engi- neer's Report): The stored waters being used in connection with that running in ditches renders it impracticable to determine accurately the acreage irrigated therefrom, but the figures are given as close approximations - Colorado is, evidently, now entering upon an area of reservoir construction, the necessity for which has become apparent wherever there is a deficient water supply during the irrigating season, and as there is an element of danger connected with such improvements, all possible safeguards should be provided against such disasters as have occurred in other sections of the country within the past few years. 134 IRRIGATION. An important discussion is given as to the duty of water. The state engineer says (pp. 46–49: The waters of the eastern slope being very closely appropriated and the means of diversion provided, it is not of so much importance to determine the present duty of water for future canal development as to realize its maximum duty for the better cultivation of lands already under ditch. Whatever service water may perform at this time, we know that service can be increased by eliminating many of the sources of waste apparent on every side. The varied conditions of soil and surface preclude the possibilily of a uniform standard, but there are local causes for a diversified duty, even where the lands are not appreciably different. Water rights vested on a basis of the low duty assigned to water ten years ago have, in instances, deteriorated lands and reduced their productiveness by a surfeit in application, while on adjoining lands, through an enforced economy, a higher duty, better condition of the soil, and greater productiveness have resulted. Unskilled labor has a penalty of 25 to 50 per cent attached to it in the application of water, and unfortunately this class is too prevalent in the irrigating fields, in many cases no other being obtainable. An abundant water supply tends to carelessness in its application and consequent waste. Where liberal and old water rights are provided it is frequently the prac- tice to turn the water upon the land and permit it to run without change or atten- tion throughout the night, and sometimes during the day, a large volume of the water soaking into the soil without benefit to the crop. º # * * 35 # it. The duplication of ditches is another fruitful source of waste, reducing the duty of the volume of water, as indicated by the gauging stations in the caſions. - The paralleling of ditches at inconsiderable distances apart, the upper one of which could be made to answer the purposes of all with marked economy in water, as well as a large saving in capital, is also indicated as a great cause of waste. Too little attention has also been given to the proper preparation of the surface to facilitate the rapid spreading of the water. This is principally the result of too large individual ownership of land, rendering it impracticable to give close supervision and secure careful preparation of the land. The best results will be obtained from . small proprietory rights in land and a consequent higher state of cultivation. The ownerships of the cultivated lands of the State should be multiplied by ten and the population increased to that extent. We are enabled to give some general results as to the service water has performed in some of the older districts of the State, for the two years last past, based upon the gaugings of the several streams at the caſions and the areas under cultivation, as reported by the water commissioners. Tabulated 8tatement of water duty on streams indicated for 1889 and 1890. [Report of State Engineer of Colorado.] Mean dis Equival fall Total | D charge from quivalent Rainfa ota uty Streams gauged. May 20 to * in depth during pe- depth per cubic Sept.20, per Over area. riod. over area. foot. secoud. - 8 Cubic feet. 4; 9 Feet. 8 60 Acres. 1889. 735. 97 139,222 1. 17 . 682 1. 8 189, 168 Cache La Poudre........ 1890 770. 51 139, 222 1. 254 jº º ºf e 1889 214. 53 91, 037 . 579 | No data- - - - - - - - - - -. 424.35 Big Thompson.---------. : 1890. 425. 42 89, 790 1. 192 | No data -- |....... --- 211. 06 St. Vrai 1889 215.46 94, 0.13 . 563 . 532 1. 095 436. 33 • V Talil - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 1830 284. 238 94, 365 • 739 ------------|---------. 332. 69 South Bould er and Q1889 461. 97 77, 682 1.406 ------------|---------. 168. 15 Boulder Creek......... } 1800 419. 33 76,682 1.34 ------------|---------- 182. ; * 1889. 60. 40 10, 173 1.40 l.-----------|---------- 168.4 Bear Creek ---...--------. : 1890. 33. 98 8, 112 1.03 ------------|---------- 239, 02 The review of the State, after these general statements, has been con- fined to an examination of certain sections showing special growth in reclamation by irrigation, with features that require particular atten- tion, and which were personally investigated during the journey of the special agent in charge in the summer of 1891. The story of the Union Colony’s “Community Ditch No. 2” is one of great interest to all who REPORT OF MESSRs. DownING AND CARPENTER. 135 are engaged in the work of cultivation by means of irrigation and to those who are investing in canal enterprises. It illustrates what may be done by association. One of its most marked features is the almost entire absence of litigation. This fact, combined with the economy of service, makes “Community Ditch No. 2” one of the most noticeable irrigation enterprises in the United States. All the statements have been personally verified by an examination of accounts and by the tes- timony of those operating under the ditch. This work was carefully performed by Mr. M. A. Downing, under direction of the special agent. The San Luis Valley report illustrates the magnitude and character of large canal enterprises, as well as the remarkable development there of artesian wells and other phreatic supply. The engineering char- acter of the Upper Arkansas Valley works are notable, and the meth- ods of water administration are worthy of note. In addition there are summaries of information replies received by this office, as well as ob. tained by personal investigation. Prof. Louis G. Carpenter, of the State Agricultural College, has dur- ing the year published an interesting report on the artesian wells of Colorado in which he gives a clear and concise account of the interest- ing development of such supplies. Prof. Carpenter's ability and ex- perience adds value to his figures and deductions. He says: The conditions for the existence of an artesian well basin are that there should be some source of water supply higher than the location of the well, and that there should be a porous stratum which is confined by impervious strata, both above and below. This strata must be continuous. In general the water should have no means of escape lower than the point where the well is, but when the distance to an outlet is consid- erable the friction in the intervening distance may be more than sufficient to make up for the difference in level. The pervious stratum may consist of any material which will allow water to pass through it, but most commonly it consists of sand or sandstone. The more open and porous this stratum is, the more abundant will be the flow with any given pressure. No rocks are perfectly impervious, but thickness will compensate to a great extent for a slight porosity, The confining stratum gen- erally consists of clay or shale. §4 - hiº *:::::H. : .#7% - - º:Sāºš: 77% / % /// # % Ž The region where artesian wells are found is generally spoken of as an artesian basin, largely because the typical form of such a region is a genuine basin, with the rim higher than the center. A section of the Denver basin is of this form. The fig- ure may represent an exaggerated section of such a basin, with a porous strata out- cropping at B, D, C, and A. Any where lower than the line A K flowing wells might be expected if the strata are continuous, but as we reach K, or some point nearer B," it will be found that water comes ou!y to the surface, and still higher it may fail to reach the surface. It is also evident that while at P flowing water will not be ob- tained from the upper stratum, by going deeper it may be secured, because the out- crop of the stratum which furnishes it is higher. “The figure also shows why the pressure is generally greater as the depth is greater. This fact has given rise to a popular belief that if one only goes deep enough flow- ing water will surely be obtained. . Unless the proper conditions are present this is not true, and it is useless to expend money in that hope. “The supply of water which comes from a well, or series of wells, is never unlim- ited, though it may be very large, as in the wells of Dakota, or in some of those in 136 IRRIGATION. the San Luis Valley. Its limit is set by the amount which is supplied to or absorbed by the water-bearing stratum, from water which falls on or flows over the edges of the strata. Where the strata reach the surface at a small angle the area exposed to absorption or to rainfall is much greater, and the case is more favorable than where the angle is great. The capacity of the wells is limited by the amount these edges can absorb, or to the supply which may fall upon them. The edges may be covered by surface soil, or may be less pervious, in which case the conditions are less favorable for a large supply. If the number of wells is increased largely in any basin, there generally arise indications of a limitation of the supply in the effect of one well upon another, or on the general flow. When such a point is reached it is time that some consideration be given to the conditions, for the value of such a supply can not be overestimated. Its value becomes greater with the increase of population. When many wells are put down in a small area, the decrease, which is generally noticeable, may not indicate that the general supply is overdrawn, but that the local supply is— that is, the water flows from the wells faster than the supplying strata furnish it.” On the value of water in connection with an artesian supply Mr. Car- penter gives the price of water right per 80 acres in the older sections of Colorado as “rarely less than $1,200 * * * Such a right gener- ally means 1.44 cubic feet per second.” The cost of a water right “would be about $780 per second-foot, but based on the amount actu- ally received it would probably be four times that.” He gives an in- stance of the purchase of drainage water on the Cache la Poudre Canal No. 2 at the rate of $3,000 per second foot. Prof. Carpenter says: If water has reached such value in a community not more than twenty years old, and that, too, where tropical fruits or the large returns of a more torrid climate can not be expected, it may well suggest that before many years it may pay to expend sums for the development of supplies which would not now be thought of, and it im- presses the economic importance of conserving such supplies as we have and of util- izing them to the fullest extent. One advantage in the artesian wells is in their continuous flow, as in the case of the drainage water above mentioned. In most streams of the State the water is high for a short time only during the season, and during July and August it becomes scanty, so that late crops often suffer in consequence. The surplus water of June runs to waste. . Where the flow is uniform throughout the season, a duty of some three or four times that used as the basis of water rights in Colorado may be ex- pected. The flow from many of the wells is small, so small that the owners think it is of no use in irrigation, and therefore allow the water to run to waste. In other countries a stream no larger than a pencil is highly prized. In Sicily, for example, water is measured by an orifice or pipe known by a term equivalent to a “goose quill.” The same is the case in the Island of Madeira. Throughout Asiatic countries, and especially in China and Japan, the utmost care is taken in economizing the smallest stream. Mr. Carpenter continues: The stream alone could effect no irrigation of consequence, but by running into a small reservoir it can be stored, and then a large head used for a short time. The greater effectiveness of a large head is well known in Colorado. In a similar way the water from many of the wells, which now runs uselessly away, could be made to per- form a service which would be considerable in the aggregate. Some are already be- ing utilized in this way to a greater or less extent, but generally without storing. The cost of sinking generally increases more rapidly than the depth, so that except in exceptional cases, such as extremely easy boring, as in the San Luis Valley, or great supplies of water, as in Dakota, it will not pay to attempt deep wells for irri- gation purposes. The temperature increases with the depth, which is an advantage if the water is to be immediately applied ; but the water is also more mineralized, which is a disadvantage or not, according to the character of the solids present. On the several basins in Colorado, the professor gives his conclusions as follows: The wells of the Denver basin have been put down almost exclusively for domestic water. There has been comparatively little thought given to their use for irrigation; nevertheless many of the wells are irrigating areas of from 1 to 10 acres. Nearly all THE SAN LUIS WALLEY WELLS, 137 those in the country are used to irrigate gardens. Some are used for the raising of fish. The cost of the well, taken with the small amount of water obtained as a rule, prevents many being sunk for irrigation. # # gº * * #. # The uniform appearance of the valley (Rio Grande), as well as the conditions which have made it an artesian basin, is due to the fact that in former geological times it was an immense lake, forined by the damuming of the Rio Grande by the large mass of basalt in the lower end of the valley, and which is probably also the cause of the abrupt bending of the Conejos and other rivers to the north. In consequence of the late formation, the characteristics are fairly uniform over the whole area, though there is much variability, as is to be expected, in the thickness and number of the strata. Near the ancient bed of the Rio Grande there is especially great variation; elsewhere there is great uniformity over considerable distances. The water is found every where, so far as learned, above the rock, which, in the western part of the basin, is comparatively near the surface, but at Alamosa is not found in the well which is 1,000 feet deep. The wells are sunk so easily and rapidly that few records are kept of the strata passed through, but the following, taken by J. M. Chritton, in T.39 N., R. 9 E., is typical of the whole district. * * { Thick- .x tº tº Strata. ... Depth. Flow. Feet. Feet. Park, sandy loam ---------------------------------------------------- 7 7 Coarse sand and gravel. ---------------------------------------------. 13 20 Fine light-yellow sand ----------------------------------------------. 22 42 Yellow impervious clay --------------------------------...----------- 18 60 Blue clay or soft slate ------------------------------------------------ 98 158 4 Black Sand -----------------------------------------------------. e is sº * * I 159 | Small flow. Blue clay------------------------------------------------------------. 4 163 Fine black sand ----------------------------------------------------. 3 166 | Fine flow. łue clay------------------------------------------------------------. 45 21] Fine black sand -----------------------------------------------------. 12 223 Flow. Blue clay------------------------------------------------------------. 53 276 Black sand; flow so strong that with our pump we could not go deeper. The cost of the small wells flowing from 5 to 25 gallons per minute through a 2-inch pipe is as a rule from $25 to $75. Irrigation was not Specially considered when wells were first sunk. Mr. Carpenter con- tinues: Where the flows are large they are used to some extent, and sometimes small res- ervoirs have been built for storage. The 3-inch well of Espinosa, already mentioned, is said to irrigate some 100 acres of hay land. J. M. Chritton writes that he was irri- gating 16 acres in 1889 from one well. L. W. Smith, a few miles west of Alamosa, irrigated 40 acres of crops, consisting of oats, wheat, barley, rye and potatoes, from two 3-inch wells, in 1889, and stated that he intended to farm 100 acres during the present season by using a reservoir of 14 acres. Several wells in the vicinity of Espi- nosa furnish water for irrigation. The supply of water from the river is not yet fully used, so there is not so much in- ducement to consider means of using water in the quantities furnished by most of the wells, but with the closer settlement of the valley there is no doubt they will be of considerable importance in the aggregate. The water furnished by the Bucher deep well at Alamosa exceeds one cubic foot per second, and the cost was $2,700, so that, if water should reach the value it has in the older farming communities, such a well might be considered a good investment. The necessity of knowing the limit of supply is strongly presented. The best practical test is the observation of the pressure, and that “de- pends principally on the beight of the water level above the point where the test is made.” Mr. Carpenter states of the San Luis Valley, that— The source of the supply for the wells is to be found at no great distance in the streams from the mountains which pour their waters into the sands of the western part of the valley, and to a lesser extent from the streams of the eastern side. These have gradually raised a delta of sand where they enter the plain higher than the basin proper and consisting of a coarser débris which has been brought down. Farther out in the valley the beds of clay begin. All of the smaller streams are en- tirely lost in these beds of débris, as the map shows. Of those which do not disap- 138 IRRIGATION. pear it would be interesting to know whether there is any marked diminution of their volume in passing over this absorbing area. The watershed of the smaller streams from the west, which entirely disappear, is some 460 Square miles of the Saguache and San Luis creeks, about 1,300. The amount brought into the valley by means of these streams is unknown, but the ratio it bears to the area of the watershed will be approximately the same as in the case of the Rio Grande. The discharge of the Rio Grande, as measured at Del Norte, corresponds to a depth of 12 inches very nearly over the whole watershed. Assuming the same depth as the amount flowing off from the smaller streams, their total flow would average about 330 cubic feet per second. An unknown amount comes from the San Luis and Saguache creeks and from the mountains of the east. If we assume that this may be as much more, as seems a reasonable estimate, the total amount available would be some 600 cubic feet per second. Taking all these sources into consideration it seems safe to conclude that while the supply will most likely exceed 600 feet per second it is not apt to reach 1,500. The average flow of the present wells in the valley may be taken as 25 gallons per minute, whence their combined flow is in the neighborhood of 110 cubic feet per second. It is probable therefore that the number of wells may be increased until the flow is six times as great, but not likely that it may become fifteen times as great. Assuming the smaller amount as the amount of water eventually available, if it were all used s in irrigation it might irrigate at seventy acres to the second foot some 42,000 acres, and if used with storage three or four times as much. COOPERATIVE IRRIGATION IN COLORADO. The Union Colony of Colorado was the earliest organized effort to farm by irrigation. Before its organization there had been no irrigation in the United States worthy of the name, unless at a few points in California and among the Mormon farmers of Utah. The name “Union Colony,” the suggestion of Mr. John Leavy, expresses fully the purpose of the founders. In 1870, under the leadership of N. C. Meeker, the colonists founded Greeley and coöperated to accomplish the difficult task of irri- gating from one source 25,000 acres of land. Each farmer was to own his own land in fee simple, but the irrigation canal was to be the prop- erty of the community. The land selected for this experiment lies on the banks of the Cache la Poudre, which rises in the snowy range of the Rockies and after a precipitous course of 30 or 40 miles debouches on the plains, where the fall is from 10 to 15 feet to the mile. At the outset four canals, forming a system, were projected, but for various reasons all but No. 2 and No. 3, as they are now called, were abandoned. No. 2 canal is a community ditch, owned and operated by the farmers and is probably the most economically managed canal in the United States. The circular of the Union Colony promised the farmers who took lands that: Land is to be furnished with water for irrigation. The colony digs the ditches and each member of the colony is liable to an assessment for keeping the same in repair. It is estimated that the ditches for irrigating the lands of the colony as stated [it was then proposed to irrigate about 60,000 acres] will cost about $20,000, for which there is money in the treasury. This promise was not redeemed by the colony, and the expense of the final construction of the ditches was far in excess of the amount originally appropriated out of the funds contributed by the colonists. The history of No. 2 Ditch is the only part of the story of the Gree. ley colony that is important in this report. It takes its water out of the Cache la Poudre River, 17 miles west of Greeley. The first work was done on it in the fall of 1870 and the spring of 1871, but it was then only a small affair. As originally constructed it was 26 miles long, with a fall of 3 to 4 feet per mile, 10 feet wide on bottom for the first 5 miles, 9 feet wide for the second 5 miles, and diminished in the same proportion throughout its length. It carries about 24 feet of 'OGIVAJO， JOÃO “Agirişisi （iſ) i,v sol N vº | Ciºłu,v :) i ri și 1 :) Nu x'1，1，1,1$ § 1 v Nv,) risi HJ,0 H,I,IAA ºz. “ON HI, „LI (I AL. Na WINO）) THE COMMUNITY DITCH AT GREELEY. 139 water. The cost amounted to $27,000, and only 2,000 acres were par- tially irrigated. The situation of the colony at the close of 1871 was very critical. Instead of four ditches and an irrigated area of 60,000 acres the farmers were confined to about 2,000 acres of partially watered land. At this time, besides the No. 2 Canal, No. 3, a small town ditch, furnished a little water. Water rights in No. 2 had been sold for 320 80-acre tracts. To meet the difficulty two assessments, amounting to 35 cents an acre in all, were levied on all lands to be watered by No. 2, which realized about $7,960. This sum was paid by the farmers them. selves, independent of the liability of the colony organization. The colony, out of the funds received from the sale of its colony member- ship certificates, made up the balance of the cost of the first enlarge- ment. This work was completed before the close of 1872. There are no records from which to ascertain the cost of this enlargement, but, assuming that it cost as much as either of the other two subsequent enlargements, it must have been in the neighborhood of $20,000. In 1877 the canal was enlarged for the third and last time, and from that time forward has furnished sufficient water for all the water rights, or 320 cubic feet per second. In 1878 the organization known as the Union Colony of Colorado turned over all the rights in the canal to the farmers under it, who organized and incorporated as the “Cache la Poudre Irrigation Com- pany,” and since that date have managed the canal by a board of directors. The question of the cost of the No. 2 Ditch is much mooted, and it is only by analysis that the same can be ascertained. Union Colony expended the first cost, $27,000, out of the colony funds. To provide for the first enlargement the farmers assessed themselves 35 cents per acre, making in all $7,960. This being insufficient, Union Colony, as such, contributed $12,040 additional, making in all for that enlargement $20,000. The colony thus paid for the ditch, before its interest ceased, $39,040. The minutes of assessments since 1885, the earliest record in the office of the secretary of the Cache la Poudre Irrigation Company, are as follows: - Assess- ments per Total Year. water Ot ºl, right (80 amount. acres) of 1885.-------------------------------------------------------------------------- $20 $6,400 1880 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 14 4,480 1887.-------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12 3,840 1888--------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9 2,880 1889.-------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9 2,880 1890--------------------------------------------------------------------------- 16 5, 120 1891------ - ----------------------------------.*------------------------------ 16 5, 120 as sº º & as º an ºn s is 30,720 $ During the seven years mentioned this would be an average annual assessment of $13.72 per water right for 80 acres, or 17 rºw cents per acre. The officers of the present company, the secretary of the colony, Henry T. West, and all the original colonists agree that the expenses for the thirteen years previous to 1885 would average no higher. There- fore up to 1885 the cost of the ditch to the farmers would be $57,075.20; cost to colony organization, $39,040; cost of maintenance since 1885 of $30,720, which would make a total cost of $126,835.20. The item of $39,040, as explained above, is $27,000, first cost of ditch, and $12,040, estimated amount contributed by the colony organization in addition 140 IRRIGATION. to the farmers' assessment, to pay for the first enlargement. The Gree- ley No. 2 Ditch has therefore cost the owner of each 80-acre water right during twenty years a total of $396.36, or $4.95 per acre. The legal name of the company now operating this canal is the Cache le Poudre Irrigation Company. The stock is divided into 2,600 shares. It is supposed that a sbare will irrigate 10 acres. The original 80-acre water right given the colonist represents eight shares of stock. The new company was formed in 1878, but the use of the water had all been disposed of by the Union Colony, and all that passed to the com- pany was the administration. In the river bottom there are about 1,800 acres under this ditch that need constant drainage instead of irrigation in consequence of the soil filling up by seepage. Five years ago the North Side lateral was made, and the shares above spoken of transferred to that ditch, thus saving the water by putting it on new land. The pres- ent value of an 80-acre water right in this canal is estimated by the owners at more than $2,000, according to the latest sale made by Henry Williams, one of the original colonists. The present value of the ditch . is therefore $640,000. A 40-acre tract of land with water for 80 acres was sold by the colony in 1870 for $150. * > . The canal is 36 miles long, 32 feet wide on bottom, slope of banks 1 to 1, and fall 3 feet to the mile. This fall is entirely too great, and the bulk of the expense of maintenance since 1878 has been caused by the expensive “checks” or board dams made necesary owing to the con- stant erosion of the canal bed. Of the 25,600 acres under No. 2 Ditch 6 per cent of the same, or 4,400 acres, is filled up by seepage, and the farmers, when possible, apply this water to other lands. This seepage water will come to the surface in low spots clear from the ditch to the river wherever hardpan crops out. Besides this there are several small lakes formed by turning in surplus water from the canals and seepage. The annual crop division of this 25,600 acres is approximately as follows: Potatoes, 5,000 acres, yielding an average of 100 sacks to the acre, 110 pounds to the sack, at an average price last year of $1.35 per hun- dred-weight. Wheat, 6,000 acres, yielding 30 bushels per acre, at $1.32 per hun- dred-weight. Alfalfa, 6,000 acres, yielding 3 tons per acre, at from $5 to $6 perton. Barley, oats, and corn, 4,000 acres, yielding 35 bushels per acre, at corn, $1.15 to $1.60; oats, $1.25 to $2; barley, $1.40 per hundred- weight, and the balance of the land is divided into vegetable and gar- den land. This shows an average value of product of $50.10 per acre on the staples named. -- It will be interesting to contrast No. 2 Canal, as built by the Union Colony, with the Larimer and Weld Canal, built by a corporation, which is practically along the line of No. 1 Canal, projected by the colonists, but never taken out. Col. E. S. Nettleton was the engineer of both. The diteh built by the Union Colony, and since maintained by the farmers, has cost for construction and maintenance, during twenty years, $126,835.20, or $3,459 per mile. The Larimer and Weld cost $3,000 per mile for original construction, or $156,000 as first cost of its 52 miles of length. A water right in the latter ditch sold for $15 per acre, or $1,400 for an 80-acre tract. The annual rental is $10 for 80 acres, or 124 cents per acre. If the Larimer and Weld Canal had been in use for twenty years the expenses for water to an irrigator would have been $1,600; that is, $20 per acre, or $1 per acre per year. Under No. 2 it has been shown that the expense of building and main- taining a ditch for twenty years is $396.36 per annum for 80 acres, * FIRSTIRRigation Colony IN ARud AMERica. View of GREELEy, CoLoRado, 1870. LITIGATION IN DIFFERENT COMPANIES. 141 or $4.95 per acre, or 24+ cents yearly per acre. This sum includes cost of building, enlarging, improving, and maintaining. The Larimer and Weld Canal is 28 feet on bottom, 6 feet deep, and 14 to 1 slope of banks, making the canal 46 feet wide at the water line. When first constructed the work was better than that of No. 2, but the enlarge- ... ment and repairs of the latter have made it at least the equal of the Larimer and Weld. Another feature to be considered is that there has been no litigation of any consequence under the community ditch, while under the Weld and Larimer it has been frequent. Law proceedings on No. 2 have only been of a character designed to settle questions of appropriation. In June, 1891, there was an important decision affecting the corporation canal. The water contracts with the users of its water provide that the corporation shall not attempt to sell water for use in excess of its ap- propriation, and that the canal shall be turned over to the irrigators when all the rights are sold. The canal is only entitled to the surplus flow of the Cache la Poudre after No. 2 and No. 3 have been satisfied. In dry seasons it is alleged, therefore, that there is not sufficient water to supply the Larimer and Weld irrigators, and therefore the people sought to enjoin the company from selling any further rights based on the supply in sight, setting forth that there was not water enough for the present users. The court held that the corporation could sell water rights up to the full carrying capacity of the canal, and that the supply could not be taken into consideration as a basis of estimat- ing the number of water rights that might be sold under the restrictive clause of the contract. Among themselves owners in No. 2 have had no litigation. - On No. 2 ditch, where each water right is entitled to one three hun- dred-twentieth pal t of the flow of the ditch, such litigation is impossible; but the irrigators having the right to determine where and when their water shall be delivered, a custom has grown up by which two or three water-right owners will consolidate their supply during dry seasons and use the combined flow in rotation, thus affording ample water to the users for rapid irrigation during the dryest seasons. No. 3 canal, projected by Union Colony, was begun in 1870, and com- pleted by three enlargements in 1871, 1872, 1873. The original cost was $6,333, but the enlargements, dams, improvements, and maintenance during the past twenty years, have increased the cost to about $25. Its water is used for the irrigation of the city of Greeley, and surround- ing gardens. No large tracts are cultivated under it. An original colony certificate, costing $150, entitled the holder to water from this ditch for his house lot and a piece of ground not to exceed 10 acres. It is still owned by the irrigators and is run similarly to No. 2. The great fault in the early construction of these canals was the persistent attempt to keep the canals “in the ground.” They zigzagged along the notched bluffs in sharp angles and all fluming and filling was avoided. The fall' of 3 to 4 feet per mile was also great. Two thirds of the expense of maintaining and improving these canals has gone to straighten the channels and check the too rapid flow of water in order to save the banks. TESTIMONY OF IRRIGATIONISTS, An illustration of the first irrigation is to be seen in the experience of Henry Devotea, an original colonist, who states that : I came to Greeley with $2,000 and lost it in three years because I did not know how to run my ditches. I tried to do it by my eye, and to get my water up hill. Some of the men in those days tried to run water across a swag without diking. After 142 IRRIGATION. this experience I bought a level and ran my ditches properly. A good deal of conceit was taken out of me by that three years' experience. I afterwards learned it was a great deal better to have a proper survey made. My best crop of wheat has been 3,200 bushels from 100 acres, and my lowest average about 15 bushels per acre. The reason of that low yield was that I planted wheat after wheat for several years; this depleted the land. Crops must be alternated to get good yields. Alfalfa always improves land, acting as a fertilizer and breaking the subsoil. My best yield of potatoes was 250 bushels or 137 sacks per acre, but I have gone as low as 75 bushels per acre. I kept the average of my crop from 1873 to 1880; during that time I had but one total failure from causes I have described. The average yield was 20% bush- els of wheat to the acre. In good years it will run 27 and 30 bushels. It must be remembered in making these averages that I had some old wheaf land in every crop, and that runs the figures down. When the crops are rotated the average should be 30 bushels. - When I first came here we had to go 130 feet to get 3 feet of water in a well. Now I have a well 51 feet deep with 30 feet of water. We strike sandstone and slight seaums of coal, but the water will stand on the average at 10 feef from the surface. The water level is now within 5 feet of the surface in many places, and in some low spots during irrigating season it will come within 10 inches of the surface. My crop for 1890, minus seed, was sold for $4,500, costing to raise $800; my 100 acres returned me, then, a net profit of $37 per acre. Mr. Devotea lives under community ditch No. 2, and was one of the constructors thereof. Dr. GULEMUS LAW, a gentleman who has given much study to irriga- tion in and around Greeley, said that the early mistake in Community Ditch No. 2, aside from its want of capacity to carry water, was its Crooked course, and consequently it cut out on one side and silted on the other at every turn. But, in a very few years practical experience taught that we could get a great deal more water through a straight ditch than a crooked one; that it was better to go through a ridge than around it, and to dike across a depression. Another fault was that the ditch was constructed at too great a slope per mile. A ditch of 3 or 4 feet per mile will cut. Two or 24 feet is ample, and the ditch should be of sufficient size to get the benefit of the pressure of the water. The grade should not vary because if it is greater at one point than another it will cut and silt. If it is relatively straight and of an even grade and made smooth one will not have much trouble with silting; but if it is 23 feet in one place and 4 feet in another it will cut and silt. Land to be valuable for agricultural purposes must have a substan- tial subsoil under it. Sand and gravel substratum requires an enor- mous quantity of water to irrigate. Dr. Law was of opinion that if the land around Greeley was properly prepared and sufficient seed used, the yield would be increased 50 per cent; at present the plowing was too shallow. Every foot of land in- tended for potatoes should be subsoiled in order to get best results. And the reason that potatoes do so well on alfalfa land is simply that the Subsoil is thoroughly broken by alfalfa roots. An experiment on a square rod of land properly prepared for potatoes yielded at the rate of 578 bushels per acre. E. H. BENTON, a very successful horticulturist, under the No. 2 canal, asserts that there is a strip of country running 20 miles east of the mountains and 150 miles along the range not favorable to fruit, because there are a great many still days, during which the weather will get quite warm as early as February or March, and then turn suddenly cold after the sap has started. The soil is, however, good for apples and plums. If laths were woven together with wire and placed around the tree in the shape of a box, this would be overcome. His plan is to grow low crops, such as beans, cucumbers, beets, Squashes, melons, and orchards, and then mulch the trees, and do it With manure so that the frost shall not touch the roots, and leave that THE ORIGINAL COLORADO IRRIGATION. 143 on until the 1st of May. Raspberries and strawberries in the orchard have a very good effect upon the trees. Another thing is to irrigate as late as possible, into November, even if the water freezes in the ditches; then mulch to prevent frost. Last year he raised 75 sacks of potatoes in his orchard. Cabbage would do well, but no grain should be put in under any circumstances. The trees should be deeply set, about 6 inches deeper than in the nursery. An important essential in tree planting is that every root should be trimmed smooth, so that when they are planted new roots will spring out immediately. If you put a tree in with mangled and split roots none will start. It is a sine qua non that every root should be trimmed with a knife. Alfalfa is the crowned king in this region; a crop of it turned under will do more for the land than any other fertilizer. The Ben Davis is the best apple for this region. The Wolbridge and Wealthy also do well. M. J. BOGARTY came with the colony, and thinks the duty of water has doubled. On large farms one-half an inch will do what an inch would hardly do formerly, but a man must have the opportunity to practice economy. For instance, an 80-acre water right is supposed to be a cubic foot per second, but half that amount is now sufficient provided there is no waste. Last year his crop was: Thirty acres of potatoes at 75 sacks to the acre, at $1.40 per sack. ... ----. $2,370.00 Fifty acres of wheat averaged 41 bushels, at $1.33 per cwt.----...--...----- 1,635.90 - 5,005.90 an average from two staples of a little over $62.50 per acre gross at an expense as follows: Water right --------------------------------------------------------------- $16.00 Hired help (one man for seven months and board) ........ -----...------ ---. 315.00 Threshing (5 cents per bushel) ---------------------------------------. ----- 102.50 Taxes --------------------------------------------------------------------- 55.00 Sacks and twine ----------------------------------------------------------- 155. 00 Three horses at 50 cents per day-------------------------------------------- 175. 00 818, 50 The total expense of farming on irrigated land is therefore only slightly over $10 per acre. The cost of application of the water is in- cluded in the cost of hired labor. The system that offers $50 net profit from potato and wheat land should be carefully studied by every farmer. C. O. JENNINGS in 1887 paid $37.50 per acre for 80 acres. He has 25 acres in potatoes, 35 acres in wheat, 8 in alfalfa, and about 12 in trees. Last year's crop was 325 sacks of wheat, worth $1.46 per sack; 1,200 sacks of potatoes at $1.60 per sack; and 24 tons of alfalfa, which he fed to stock. The return therefore from two field crops, 60 acres, was $2,394.50, or an average of $39.90 per acre. His estimate of cost on a 6-acre tract is as follows: Wheat: Potatoes: Putting in ------------------ $3.50 Breaking (not alfalfa) ... ---. $9.00 Price of seed ---------------. 5. 40 Seed ------------------------ 27. 00 Irrigating twice------------- 4, 00 Irrigating (three times) ..... 6. 00 Cutting. -------------------- 7. 50 Sacking, digging, and hauling, Stacking -------------------- 2. 50 at the rate of 50 sacks per Threshing------------------ 10.02 acre, at 25 cents per sack -- 81.00 32.92 123. 00 Cost per acre-------------- 5. 48 Cost per acre-------------- 20. 50 He has five very thrifty cherry trees, but has never sold any fruit. 144 IRRIGATION. D. H. GALE farms sec. 9, R. 65, T. 6. On the east side of his farm in Lone Tree Creek there is enough seepage water flowing to irrigate 80 acres. Previous to the introduction of irrigation this creek was dry except in flood time. Six miles above his place where it is too high for Neepage there is no water yet. At Fort Collins the Cache la Poudre will be dry, and 26 miles below that place there will be water enough to fill a ditch carrying 25 cubic feo", per second, the water all coming from seepage. In this connection, Mr. J. C. Swann, who bored a well on ex-Gov. Eatºu's place, half a mile north of Eaton and about 9 miles north of Greeley, on N. E. # of sec. 36, R. 66, T. 7, stated that at 23 feet below the surface is a stratum of gravel 65 feet thick, of which one-half the cubic contenfs is water. An actual test shows that a cubic foot of the stratum yields one-half a cubic foot of water. Before the construction of the Larimer and Weld canal this gravel was dry. Mr. Gale continuing said that on his place exclusive of stock he raised 300 acres of alfalfa, 45 acres of potatoes, 93 acres of wheat, and 30 acres of oats. His expense of cultivation was about $3,000 and he cleared gross $11,000. The first cutting of 25 acres of alfalfa meas- ured 90 tons in the stack. He has eight water rights from Larimer and Weld. - H. C. WATSON, president of the Greeley Mercantile Company, gave the following statistics of crop shipments during 1890: Two thousand five hundred carloads of potatoes, averaging 400 bushels to the car, making 1,000,000 bushels, were shipped from this depot. This crop was raised under No. 2, Larimer and Weld and Loveland and Greeley ditches. My books show an average of 25 bushels of wheat to the acre. One hundred and fifty carloads of cabbage were shipped, at an average price of 60 cents per cwt. Two acres of cabbage on the Loveland and Greeley ditch sold for $325,92. This was not in a garden. Had it been under garden culture the yield would have been from 20 to 40 per cent higher. Mr. Solomon, of Denver, rented, for a proportionate share of the crop, 160 acres, of which 110 acres were cultivated. His crop rent was $693, representing one-third of the corn and one-fourth of the potatoes. This was a small crop. JOHN LEAVY is a horticulturist, and selected an acre tract as his allotment from the Union Colony, asserting that “1 acre of ground is all a man can properly cultivate as a gardener.” The open-ditch system is the best for garden irrigation; flooding is bad for it puddles the land. The great trouble with most irrigation is the use of too much water; one-fourth the amount used in many in- stances judiciously applied would produce better results. Irrigation is best practiced under intense sunshine. The rule should be to water thoroughly, when you do irrigate, but do So as seldom as possible because water lowers the temperature. A lit- tle personal experience is the only guide when to apply water. In 1885, a cauliflower raised on Leavy’s place, took the prize at Peter Henderson’s exhibition. It weighed 11% pounds, when trimmed. He also exhibited another of 10; pounds. Cauliflower should average 75 per cent of the crop weight of cabbage. A piece of ground that will produce 40,000 pounds of cabbage should yield 30,000 pounds of trimmed cau. liflower. The Erford variety seems to prosper best in this locality. Celery requires a still higher cultivation than any of the above, but we can raise here and in similar climates in the arid region as fine celery as anywhere on earth. It is essentially an aquatic or marsh plant, and about the only one you can not injure by excessive irrigation, and a very safe crop for the inexperienced irrigator. It wants plenty of water. The best method is a modified form of the old system of drainage, （0581 ſoorvatorio:O ‘vººraani： “Noraevaerahi wa Nºorſivo FARM PRODUCTION UNDER WATER. 145 An open shallow drain, 5 inches deep, is first constructed on the level on which is put a coat of well fermented manure to the depth of 2 inches. This manure should be thoroughly incorporated with the soil, and then you place your plants out at the usual distance apart, which is perhaps from 6 to 7 inches. Then you have only a trench of 3 inches, which gives you the advantage of (1) Flowing plenty of water on it. (2) Excessive irrigation does not injure it as it is a marsh plant. (3) It facilitates “earthing up.” (4) By the month of September the celery roots are 2 feet out from the stalk. By this modified trench system with the plants set out on the single- row plan which is best adapted for horse culture, 18,000 to 20,000 heads of matured celery should be grown. The rows should be 4 feet apart, and the plants in any single row not to exceed 6 inches. Beets of the mangel-wurzel variety thrive here very well and should yield from 20 to 30 tons per acre. Onions should be raised by trans- planting, and the ground should not be prepared but a day or two before you are going to plant. Over 1,500 bushels and often as high as 2,000 bushels can be raised by that plan and a proper attention to irrigation. In all crops it is not broad acreage, but labor, that tells upon the yield. The experienced cultivator will get more out of his garden than the broadcast farmer. Peas and beaus do remarkably well and 30 bushels to the acre is the average here for the white beans. Radishes and all the root crops will do well. Strawberries should be irrigated through the rows, and should yield according to the cultivation from 2,000 to 5,000 quarts. At a meeting of the board of directors of the Cache la Poudre Irri- gation Company, at which were present S. A. Bradfield, H. M. Wil- liams, J. S. Newell, O. H. Adams, Henry Devotea, and George M. Jacobs, the following statistics of expenses on an 80-acre tract were given as the agreement of all after discussion: Hired help on an 80-acre tract.--------------------------------------------- $320.00 Potatoes cost per sack ----------------------------------------------------- . 20 Threshing ---------------------------------------------------------------- . 05 Water tax main ditch, 1891------------------------------------------------ 16.00 Lateral tax --------------------------------------------------------------- 12.00 Per acre yield under No. 2.-Forty-five thousand pounds of cabbage per acre have been raised by unskilled men on bottom lands, around Greeley, but any man who raises less than 45,000 to 55,000 pounds of cabbage is no gardener. PAYMENTS MADE BY ORIGINAL COLONISTS. Each of the Union colonists paid $150 to the colony funds, $5 of which was in the nature of an initiation fee, intended to cover the ex- penses of the locating committee. For this payment of $150 each indi- vidual was entitled to a selection of land as laid out by the officers of the colony. 1. A block, or a 5-acre lot immediately adjoining the town, with Water in perpetuity. - 2. A 10-acre tract a little farther away, or a 20-acre tract still farther away, or 40 acres at the extreme limit of the colony. The latter was the largest amount of land, with water, that the colony gave in satisfac- tion of a certificate. Those who desired larger amounts of land availed themselves of the contract made by the Union Colony with the Denver Facific Railway and Telegraph Company, and their lands were com- monly called railroad lands, or they filed on Government lands under the S. Ex. 41—10 146 IRRIGATION. homestead or prečmption laws. To the latter class the Union Colony granted the right of water for 80 acres of land, inclusive of the land taken from the colony. THE PHREATIC SUPPLY. The first well in Greeley was dug at the intersection of main and Monroe streets, and water was struck at 22 or 23 feet in a gravel stratum. The second well was dug by Henry T. West, on a lot in the second block to the south, and water obtained at 25 feet. In each case there was about 3 feet of water. After the irrigation season of 1871, in the fall, instead of 3 feet of water there was 12 feet in both wells, and the Water had become hard. For ten years past the water has not been potable, but has increased in depth to 19 feet. In connection with this fact, eight or nine years ago the cellars in the western and souhwestern parts of the city began to fill with water, necessitating the building of a drainage sewer along the main street. It is an open-jointed pipe-sewer about 2,000 feet long, with brick chambers for manholes, carrying 400 feet. On the 10th day of May, 1891, when this sewer was examined by the agent of the Department, there was more than sufficient water running to afford a water right for 80 acres, or about a cubit foot per second. J. C. Swann, of Swann Bros., artesian-well borers, states that— The record of the Loveland well at Loveland is 30 feet of surface formation above bed rock, composed principally of gravel filled with water. The bêd rock is blue slate and sandstone, the slate of great thickness and the sandstone less. At 150 feet we found a vein of brackish water in sandstone which rises to within 60 feet of the surface. Below that no water was encountered until the depth of 1,365 feet. At this point the true artesian stratum is reached. It is a close-jointed sandstone, 30 feet thick. Below it no further sandstone is reached until the 1,600-foot level, when there is another strata of close-grained sandstone 5 feet thick, containing petroleum in small quantities. * Below this point, 2,400 feet below the surface, it is sandy shale devoid of water. The test-well drilled in Lincoln Park, Greeley, to a total depth of 2,140 feet, is about as follows: 32 feet soil and gravel to the first bed rock, the lower 24 feet of this stratum being filled with sheet water in about the proportion of one-half gravel to one-half water. Before irrigation the bed was dry to a depth of 27 feet. This gravel bed is universal in the valleys of the Poudre and South Platte, varying from 1 to 5 or 6 miles wide in most places to 10 miles at the greatest width at a point near Stirling. On the South Platte, at any point north of Denver to Stirling, Colo., it is a fair es- timate to say that the Saturated gravel will average 40 feet deep, and throughout the entire distance would not be less than 3% miles wide. This body of gravel has always been saturated. It is a fair presumption to say that this represents a lake of water having an average depth of 20 feet and covering a territory of the dimensions above named, or 462 square miles. The source of this supply is the water that sinks from the surface flow of the South Platte. The same is true of the Poudre Walley within the limits of its extent. This valley is one continuous bed of shale to a depth of 1,165 feet, overlaid with soil and gravel, and with a substratum of 30 feet of close-grained gray sandstone, the source of arte- sian water; but the flow only amounted in the test well at Lincoln Park to 35 gal- lons per hour, which has now entirely ceased, and pumping has been resorted to on this and other wells. Below that to a depth of 2,140 feet shale is encountered all the way devoid of water. This is the deepest drilling in the Poudre Valley. Six other wells have been drilled to the water-bearing stratum in Greeley. There are nine wells, all told, in this basin, of which the one at Loveland and the one at Evans still continue to flow, but even they are not true hydrostatic flows. In surface irrigation for general field crops there is no doubt but that it requires six times as much water in spreading it over the land as the wants of the crops re- Quire. This is true in a general way of all field crops except corn and potatoes. We have but three calendar months here free from frost—June, July, and August, From the time frost ceases in May until it returns in September will be about one hundred and twenty days. Therefore what seems to be our misfortune, namely, our aridity and our intense sunshine, is all that makes this country inhabitable. Our cereals and other crops are largely composed of carbon, to produce a pound of which, in the shape of a growing plant, calls for the expenditure of heat energy sufficient · Kaſſa.A sesu exļuv laddn ºtſ! uſ uoņ88Ļlu! Jo ssº.130.Id aqq Jo uoſqe IqsnȚII *OCI VRHO^IOO ‘.XJLN nOO OÀI GIJLO JHO SÝT V NIVO ©H HJL •ș\ſ\\ «/!\ \\ \!}， WȘIŅ \|||}\\Ñ \\$ \'';}}\\ *S %Ņ&\\\\\ §§§ §§%y0 O 0 � \，\! „\\|((\\|||/）'|}will， � � $? .**\};*„||||/� % （№"№， º? & \\à y Annº3AVous3w/7*（?© �$ �� �^ A �} }，Ģ ��--★ � \，\!}\，, 3^§§%% $}§§%%%%% Ч§%2 ޺§§ſą*> Sð§§Źź* • •*ae ANĒĒwºuvan znogv №., Ȩ̀§&/5/1/…/Sb/s）;~ ~ ~） ��sawſ/7 378 va șşbae) №.§§&º ±Ņ• • ** • • • • • „...„ ſae,、_-~^^Wų * • • • • „ 2.???\\}\\aeazw7o --~~~„№, 4ê)*ae¿?ŠìŹ-øſQ（&#Ę， }%ýŹWºÈS„főjű3@fiosção �>-ºr，«•ñi† %ºÈSL-**5ק 9çº //�.- * *. O ¿?&→ *,• �... • *39 }©----+4� autozwºw @----~~~ átºmowo$ „ • *„ •*<！»$ � � �� —~~~~–a–==| * WATER AND WORKS IN ARKANSAS WALLEY. 147 to raise the temperature of 14,500-pounds of water 19 F. scale. . The intensity of our sunshine and the almost constantly cloudless condition of our skies enables growing crops to be matured in much less time than in a humid climate. This is the explana- tion of our growing and maturing general crops here at all, and the explanation of the value of irrigation in an arid climate over farming in a humid climate. My own opinion is that materially better methods of distribution will come into play, and that water will continue to increase its value as an economic factor until it will never be wasted as now in Seeleys Lake and elsewhere in this region; but that com- bined efforts will more and more increase the duty of water even to the adoption of a system somewhat similar to the Paris street-sprinkling plan. - Irrigation as now practiced is crude, and the waste of water enormous, but its scar- city and its constantly increasing value will lead to better conservation. The gen- eral use of perforated pipes will probably be the first step. IN THE ARKANSAS WALLEY. In illustration of the lessons this work of coöperative farmers have afforded to irrigation organizers in Colorado, the following account of a commercial enterprise will be read with interest: The Colorado Land and Water Company are engaged on works that promise the reclamation of a large proportion of the Arkansas River Valley and plains lying east of Pueblo. Already a considerable acre- age is under high cultivation, and the special fruit and vegetable crops that are raised at Rocky Ford and other points along the line of these canals have become quite famous for quantity and quality. The enterprise has attracted investigation, not only because of its magnitude and the success obtained in opening a large area to cultiva- tion, but because of construction characteristics, especially by way of open plains reservoirs. These are more numerous than on any other canal system in the State, and, as a result, the storage facilities obtained are very large. Reservoir No. 1 covers, when filled, nearly 700 acres, and 16 feet can be drawn off. Reservoir No. 2, when filled, covers 2,100 acres, and 14 feet can be drawn off. Reservoir No. 3, when filled, covers 21,000 acres, and 40 feet can be drawn off. Reservoir No. 4, when filled, covers 5,600 acres, and 22 feet can be drawn off. The first two of these reservoirs are in Otero County, and Nos. 3 and 4 in Kiowa County. The total acreage covered is 29,500, and the average depth is over 20 feet. The original survey of this canal was made about 1885 by H. R. Hol- brook, C. E., of Pueblo, for a company called the Pueblo Land and Canal Company. This survey covered the ground occupied by the pres- ent canal, and located the large reservoirs at the eastern terminus. Of the present ditch. E. S. Nettleton (chief engineer of the Artesian and Underflow Investigation), after examination, stated that the largest reservoir would irrigate, when filled, 200,000 acres of land. The Colorado Land and Canal Company was afterwards organized by Colorado Springs parties, who re-surveyed the line of canal and did some construction work in April, 1889. Early in June, 1890, this pres- ent company bought out the interests of the Colorado Springs people, and continued the work of construction actively, completing the canal to its present terminus at the crossing of the Missouri Pacific Railroad, east of Horse Creek, a distance of about 74 miles. The headgate is on the north side of the Arkansas River in the NE. # NE. #, sec. 10, T. 21 S., R. 62 W., in Pueblo County, Colo., 426 feet east from the section line. The canal is 30 feet wide on the bottom, not less than 8 feet deep, with side slope of 1 to 1 foot and a fall of .056 feet per mile, except for the first and second miles, which are 4.22 for the first and 2.64 for second. The computed carrying capacity with 7 feet of water running is 756.28 cubic feet per second. At the intersection of 148 - IRRIGATION. * JBoom Creek there is a waste way 40 feet wide constructed to the river. The first flume, 700 feet long, is 12 miles from the headgate over Kram- mer Creek. The creek bed is shifting sand, ordinarily dry on the sur- face but yet draining 50 miles of country. This flume affords passage jfor storm water under the canal. It rests on oak-pile bents or supports for the flume, 16 feet apart, 7 : and 8 piles to the bent, capped with 12 by 12-inch timbers and braced against lateral pressure of wind or flood water. The floor joists, are 6 by 12 inches and 16 feet long, set at 24 feet from center to center, cov- ered with 2-inch plank laid transverse to joints. The side posts of the flume are 6 by 8 inches, 9 feet long, well braced against heavy timbers resting on the projecting ends of the bents, and are lined inside with 2-inch planks to a height of 8 feet. Automatic waste gates are set in the South side of the flume, of a combined width of 32 feet; shut-off gates are also put across the flume just below the waste gates, by which the water can be entirely directed from canal in case of accident to banks. Two hundred and fifty thou- Sand feet of Mexican timber have been used. The inside width of head gates is 38 feet 5 inches, and inside length 73 feet 6 inches. There are twelve check gates averaging about 2 feet 7 inches, and 8 feet 4 inches high. In connection with these head gates there is also a waste or spill way with thirteen gates. These are a little wider and the same height as the check gates, and in connection with the waste way there are gates that can be opened from the north to carry off the flood waters of Haines Creek at that point. These gates, opening to the north, are six in number and are about 2 feet wide and 4 feet high, and have proven a great success. The controlling gates are raised 12 inches above the canal floor So as to allow the sand to scour out through the waste gates. This feature, combined with fall for the - first mile of 4.22 feet, keeps the channel well scoured out. The canal is divided into 100-feet stations and all flumes are con- structed substantially as in the foregoing description. This company completed the canal under contract with the State of Colorado, from which it has bought and leased the alternate half sections of State land lying under the line of the canal. Title has so far been obtained, by work done, to 72,000 acres, that is 36,000 acres purchased and 36,000 acres leased. Under this contract the State retains ownership to one- half of the entire tract of land, which is leased to this company at a nominal figure, and will eventually realize the difference between the value of raw and cultivated land. The company is compelled to apply water on all of this leased land in order to make good their title and the State agrees that in any future lease or sale to other parties the water shall be treated as an improvement to the land, the same as fencing, building, or other improvements are, as provided for by law. In disposing of the purchased lands an equal amount of leased land is given each purchaser at a very small rental and the improvements made thereon are to be purchased by any subsequent lessee or vendee at their full value. The intention is to run the canal all the year round when safe to do so, storing the water of the Arkansas River in the basins. This can be done in large canals, as the water continues to run under the ice without disturbing the banks. The unused waters of the Arkansas River flowing to waste in the fall, winter, and spring, will be stored when not needed for irrigation, and also all flood water. The prevailing rule is for canals to “shut down" in winter, so as to prevent breaks. In this way the waters of the area served are of course allowed to run to waste. WINTER STORAGE AND DELIVERY. f49 The Arkansas system proposes the opposite course. There is very little artificial embankment on our reservoirs, and the Cost not much com. pared with the magnitude of the scheme and the results obtained. The cost of the entire canal together with land purchased and leased has been: Cost of canal now built.------------------------------------------------- $376,000 Cost of reservoirs and extension of canal into them with necessary laterals cut from the canal, estimated at ---------------------------------------- 124,000. - 500,000 Cost of 36,000 acres of purchased land ------------------------------------ 90,000 Cost of 36,000 acres of leased land---------------------------------------- 10,000 600,000 The canals with its resevoirs, will fully irrigate 300,000 acres, which figure, it is claimed, by economy of service, may be materially increased. The service of water is generally 1.44 cubic feet per second for 80 acres. This corporation has adopted 1.08 cubic feet, which, according to the best authorities, is sufficient for Colorado lands; in fact the ten- dency is to restrict the amount to 1 cubic foot for 80 acres. The use of water is restricted to 100 days’ continuous delivery or the irrigation season, which is fixed by the contracts to begin April 15 and end September 30. This service is an innovation, as the rule has been to fix the period of continuous delivery “as during the irrigation season,” which under Colorado statutes begins April 1 and ends November 1. The motive in the decrease of forty-five days is to prevent waste. Practically the delivery is not continuous, as no man can use water every day. In northern Colorado, where the finest grapes have been raised, the crop seems to be in direct ratio to the scarcity of water. That a much less amount of water is required has been established by experience there so that the secret of success is using the water at the proper time. The ditch and reservoir system, while under the same management, are under different companies and any one desirous can exchange his water ; for instance if a man uses but sixty of his one hundred days he may run his unused water into the reservoirs and thus get credit for water outside of the irrigation season. A water right costs $10 per acre or $800 per 80-acre water right, and an annual rental never to exceed $16 per water right for maintenance and repairs, or 20. cents per acre per annum. This is about the rate on community ditch, No. 2, at Greeley, and is based upon the experience of that enterprise., Besides the Colorado Land and Water Company Canal, also known as the Bob Creek Canal, the Lake and the Great Arkansas Valley - canals take water out of the Arkansas River on the north. The High- line, Otero, and Catlin canals and the Oxford and Rocky Ford ditches. distribute the water on the south. The staple crops are wheat, corn, and alfalfa. There is a considerable area in orange orchards, and acres . are devoted to melons, yielding large returns. The area of reclaimed land in Colorado, while being sensibly increased by the completion of " such large canals as the Otero and Colorado, is making equal, if not so . apparent, progress in the reclamation of small areas; on the Big Sandy, for instance. * During February and March, 1890, there was a dam thrown across . Big Sandy Creek, on the Kansas division of the Union Pacific Rail- way, near Lake station, about 93 miles from Denver. The structure . was 1,100 feet long, 72 feet wide on the bottom, 16 feet on top, and 12 : feet high. A ditch therefrom was 6 feet deep and 60 feet wide on the . bottom, carrying water to a reservoir about 1 mile distant. The dam. 150 IRRIGATION. I - , ~ * x - re- - - * - - = r # * * º - r º-- - } * " - F- - - * * - - • ' ' --> * - - - • *- y - - t - - - , , – . . r . . .-- : . - . Fy T. broke away on the 11th day of August, 1890, but will be repaired under better construction. The volume of water during that flood was 5 feet deep and 640 feet wide. The reservoir will contain 968 acres, at an average depth of 12 feet, and will irrigate from flood water alone 17,500 acres of land. The underflow may also be utilized to irrigate as much more. The water-bearing sand, from which the underflow is gath- ered at no point more than 12 feet below the surface, is 14 miles wide and of unknown depth. The general plan of the works is as follows: - - º p Aig Szz, %. , 1,... ºf-7 • - º 32°42'ez. mile 25/ce. -- ily cul Adil or ;º#.ſlow. f The Howard Ditch, on Box Elder Creek, about 35 miles east of Den- ver, cost $400, develops 204 cubic inches of water, or more than 6 cubic feet per second. Over 300 acres are now cultivated from it. If prop- erly developed 15,000 acres could be irrigated from this source. The Gusbueck Ditch and Reservoir, 70 miles southeast of Denver, in Elbert County, cost $600, it develops 200 cubic inches of water, and irrigates 300 acres of land. At Agate, on the Kansas and Pacific Rail- road, the drainage of 45,000 acres during a rain of 30 minutes filled a reservoir of 158 acres, 18 feet deep over the central 60 acres. Seventy acres of the land irrigated from the reservoir produced more than 200 tons of millet and Sugar corn. * * , Torrential rains occur invariably in July and August, doing the least good to the crops. These storms amount to more than half the rainfall, and pass over the land with but little if any percolation wherever the natural grasses remain. Whenever any considerable bare spot occurs the ground after rain will be moist for 15 or 20 feet below the surface. Wherever there is grass the rain will not sink more than 6 inches. These instances afford an idea of the facility of reclaiming small tracts, which in the aggregate would amount to 30 per cent of the land that IRRIGATION WORKS IN SAN LUIS WALLEY. 151 can be reclaimed in Eastern Colorado. In a line west from Agate, towards Denver, there are 70,000 acres that might cheaply be reclaimed from the drainage of the divide between the Arkansas and Platte I'l WeI’S. Mr. H. P. Holbrook, civil engineer of Pueblo, Colo., is of opinion that not one-tenth part of the high-water flow of the Arkansas River is utilized. The numerous canals and ditches will remedy this to some extent, having the effect of storage reservoirs. They also fill the ground with water, which slowly percolating back to the river preserves a more equal flow throughout the year. The irrigated land thus acts as a res- ervoir in which is preserved for future use all the water not lost in the first evaporation and the nourishment of the crops, IN THE SAN LUIS WALLEY. A mountain park, the lowest level of which is 7,000 feet above tide- water, 200 miles long by an average of 40 wide, embracing in its area the arable portion of Rio Grande, Saguache, Costilla, and Conejos counties, is known as San Luis Park or Valley. It is walled in by the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and the main range of the Rockies. On the east the Sierra Blanca and the Spanish Peaks rise at the highest point to 14,464 feet above the sea, and on the west towers the Continental Divide. An enormous drainage is precipitated from the snowy ranges through some twenty-three water courses, while many small streams start into the valley whose flow is quickly absorbed by the arid soil. They are either lost to sight, form quagmires or cienagas. The Rio Grande River enters from the west, running east to about the center and then south to the outlet of the park. It forms the principal source of supply for the large canals. The bed of the Rio Grande is now almost along the highest ground or divide of the valley, and its waters may be taken out with little difficulty to the lands on both sides of the river. The geologic evidence is however apparent that at one time this river turned north in the form of a huge horseshoe, and ran through the trough of the valley. Agriculture by irrigation in San Luis Val- ley is carried on under the Mexican, Mormon, and American plans. The first is unimportant, and the second only of small area, principally around La Jara. - There are more than five hundred ditches, large and small, in the val- ley, the principal of which are the Empire, San Louis, Rio Grande, and Monte Vista. The Empire is the oldest of the large canals, and when all possibilities are taken into consideration, may irrigate 300,000 acres. On August 11, 1891, one hundred and sixty-four water rights had been sold to individual farmers, each of which will irrigate 80 acres. The canal is 80 feet wide on the bottom, with a slope of sides of 3 feet hori- zontal to 1 foot vertical, and 6 feet deep, with a fall varying from 20 inches to 23 feet per mile, according to the character of the soil. This canal takes water to the land on the south side of the Rio Grande. It is 40 miles long, has eight main laterals of an average bottom width of 10 feet and an aggregate length of 100 miles. The San Luis is the next large canal, and it is 40 feet on the bottom, with a slope of sides of 14 feet horizontal to 1 foot vertical, with a 5-foot berme or embank- ment on each side, 6 feet deep, with a fall of 23 feet to the mile. When first constructed the solid lines in the above cut represent the appearance of the ditch and berme ; the dotted lines the appearance and size of the ditch after a few years' use and the sharp contours left by 152 - - IRRIGATION. the excavation have been worn away. The main canal is only 5 miles long, and it then divides into two laterals each 15 miles long, 20 feet bottom width, 4 feet deep, of similar construction to the main ditch, but with a fall of 5 feet to the mile. The duty of this canal is estimated at 100,000 acres. + These two large canals are part of the great system of irrigation known in Colorado as the Henry canals, and were organized and built under the supervision of Mr. T. C. Henry, C. E. The companies con- trol in the San Luis Valley, by purchase and lease from the State of Colorado, 155,000 acres of land on both sides of the river. This is held from the State on condition of improvement by irrigation. * The Del Norte or Hio Grande Canal was the next taken out of the river. It has an 80-foot bottom, 2 to 1 foot slope of sides, 6 feet deep, and 5 feet fall per mile. There are 80 miles of main ditch, and 100 miles of main laterals, which will irrigate 300,000 acres. Mr. Walter H. Graves was the engineer. The Monte Vista Canal is 40 feet on bot- tom, 5 feet deep, 2 to 1 slope, and 24 feet fall to the mile. It is 40 miles long and has 60 miles of main lateral, with about 200 miles of distrib- uting laterals, and will irrigate 150,000 acres. On the first of June, 1891, twenty-five 80-acre water rights under the Monte Vista, and one hundred and eleven 80-acre rights under the Rio Grande Canal had been sold to in- dividuals. These canals are owned by the Travelers' Insurance Company. Besides the water rights sold to irrigators the company cultivates under these ditches, 23,560 acres of land in eight farms, of an average size of 2,945 acres, and varying from 7,640 to 160 acres. Under the Henry canals about twice this amount of land is cultivated in four farms, the largest of which is the Empire farm of 19,000 acres. The bulk of cultivation on these immense tracts is done by machinery, and the yields are not so large as on the smaller farms individually owned. The cultivators' live in bunk houses, or shanties, and the scene on one of these corpo- ration farms is very different from that presented in the greater part of the irrigated region, where each oasis of reclaimed land is orna- mented by the tasteful homes and beautiful foliage of the door yards of the farmers. The corporations offer the settler the improved land with a permanent water right, at prices varying from $15 to $35 per acre. This farming is the direct growth of the law of Colorado, which requires the owners of lands purchased from the State not only to build the ditches to cover them with water, but to actually cultivate either themselves or by their agents all the land purchased or leased before an absolute title is effected. * In many parts of the San Luis Valley, since irrigation has been widely practiced, large areas of land from which crops are raised re- ceive their water by means of what is locally termed “sub-irrigation.” The subsoil under these tracts is a stiff adobe, easily and quickly sat- urated with water, but very slow to transmit it. This brings the water table very near the surface in Some places, and no water is applied to the surface at all. In other areas small farm laterals are run along the highest part of the land to be irrigated, and the water will seep for ºw, SUAN W. sº £2. &y —/WA. ZZZ — SAN LUIS WALLEY STATISTICS OF ARTESIAN SYSTEM. 153 1,000 feet, giving ample sustenance to the crop. Sub-irrigation is cheap and lands susceptible to its influence are among the most valuable of the San Luis Valley. - THE SAN LUIS ARTESIAN WELLS. There are now about 3,700 flowing artesian wells in the San Luis Val- ley, but of these only three are deep wells of large bore. Two are 6-inch wells at Alamosa and the other is an 8-inch bore at Moffat. A corre- spondent describes the last-named well as spouting a “stream like a stovepipe, 10 feet high, without a break.” This well was struck since the investigation made by this office, and the above is not known to be a fact. The two 6-inch wells at Alamosa flow about 8 inches above the 6-inch bore, but if confined to 2 inches will throw a stream 45 feet high. The strata encountered in all wells is generally— Soil------------------------------------------------------------------ 3 to 6 feet Sand and gravel, alternate layers-------------------------------------- 20 to 50 feet Blue clay and sand, alternate layers ---------------------------------- to Water Besides these wells mentioned there are in the valley about 25 wells of from 3 to 4 inch bore and not more than 800 feet deep, generally about 700 feet. Only about 10 per cent of the total number of wells penetrate to a depth of 700 feet, and barely 15 per cent go down 400 feet. No rock strata has been encountered, but the clay is of a very hard, close texture, the grain of which is so fine that it can be bitten through with the teeth without detecting the slightest grit. The sand is, however, very sharp. The best flow, except in the instances of the three deep wells named is from a stratum at about 150 to 350 feet deep. The accompanying map of the artesian basin and the old course of the Rio Grande River was made by the departmental agent during his examination of this valley last May. The exterior boundaries of the artesian basin vary but the slightest degree, at one or two points, from the line laid down by Prof. Louis G. Carpenter in a map accom- panying one of his latest reports. The professor's map, however, pre- sents none of the lines of the subsidiary basins and is not as full in other respects. The artesian area of the San Luis Valley is divided into five distinct minor basins as set forth on the map, which is so full as to need no further illumination. The north line of basin No. 2 is the valley di- vide; lateral No. 2 of the San Luis Canal is along this ridge. Just across the river in basin No. 3; the stratum seems to make a huge dip, and it is with the greatest difficulty that a well can be maintained on account of the quicksand. Artesian wells are little used for irrigation at pres- ent, because only a part of the land capable of irrigation by the water in sight from the various sources of surface supply has been cultivated. The Alamosa “town well,” as reported by City Surveyor and Engineer Jones, is the principal source of supply for the 30 miles of irrigating ditches within the corporate limits of Alamosa. One of the factors to be considered in the study of the San Luis artesian basins is the vast underflow of the Rio Grande. During the low stages of the water the six large canals taking water from that river between 1)el Norte and Alamosa throw solid sack dams across the river at their headgates. At each dam every drop of surface water in the river is stopped and diverted into the ditch, leaving the river bed dry just beyond the dam. Within a quarter of a mile, however, the river begins to fill again from the bottom and sides, and although in the short stretch of river men- tioned it is dammed six times, at Alamosa there is more Water in the 154 IRRIGATION. river at the lowest stage than was the case before the canals were taken out and the water diverted. The soil and the climate of the San Luis are eminently fitted for the cultivation of all the root crops, and the hardy fruits and berries pros- per. In the upper part of Saguache County, at the northern part of the Valley, some fine apples were gathered by Mrs. A. L. Lyons from two year-old trees; and from a plot of ground 50 by 70 feet, planted to red currants, Mr. Bonner sold 488 quarts of fruit worth $71.40, or at the rate of $900 per acre. Crab trees will bear the first year after planting, and yield good crops the second ; natural grasses cover nearly the entire valley, and comprise gramma, bunch, buffalo, wild redtop, blue joint, wire grass, wild millet, and dozens of other varieties. The land, with irrigation, produces oats, 60 to 80 bushels per acre; wheat, 35 to 50 bush- els per acre; barley, 40 to 60 bushels per acre; peas, 30 to 50 bushels per acre; potatoes, 100 to 400 bushels per acre. All hardy vegetables do well; hay from 1 to 3 tons per acre; hops are a natural product and yield abundantly. Prices of grain at nearest markets range from $1 to $2 per hundredweight; potatoes, from 75 cents to $1.25; hay, from $10 to $15 per ton, baled. Michael White, assessor of Saguache County, gives the following as his experience of farming by irrigation in the San Luis Valley: & Wheat----------------------------------------------------- bushels per acre -- 30 Oats ----------------------------------------------------------------- O - - 35 Barley ---------------------------------------------------------------- do - - - - 40 Pease.---------------------------------------------------------------- do - - - - 40 Potatoes -----------------------------... • * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * do - - - - 175 Grasses: * Alfalfa (two cuttings).--------------------------- sm tº gº tº gº ºg sº tº gº º tons per acre - 4% Native grass ------------------------------------------------------- do - - - - 1% The yields for some of the crops, it will be moted, are very high for . averages, but under reasonably good farming experienced men may greatly increase these figures. Under the four canals mentioned, 69,000 acres of land are cultivated by the ditch companies, and 41,760 acres by the owners of water rights, making a total of 110,760 acres. • Small canals from the Rio Grande River, Sagauche, Trenchara, Alamosa, and San Luis creeks, and other small streams, afford water for about 165,000 acres more, all under close cultivation and in the hands of small farmers. There are about 610,000 acres under ditch in the San Luis Valley, and 1,100 miles of main canal. It may be said, however, that the possible area of cultivation is equal to the arable extent of the basin. The level valley floor seldom needs further preparation for farming than grubbing out the natural growth, which may be generally done by deep plowing. The land is worn as even as the bed of a long-used reservoir from which the water has been allowed to drain. No serious trouble is experienced from alkali, and when adequate population seek homes on its fertile acres, it is well within the bounds to say that the soil alone will support a large popu- lation. The great trouble in farming heretofore in this region is that the stockmen, desirous of reserving winter forage for their herds, have systematically opposed agricultural settlement. The problem of Con- trol of the valley has, however, been solved, and the rapid construction of railroads assures the steady growth and prosperous life of the Com- munities within this region. IRRigation. By SEEPAGE, SAN Luis WALLEy, CoLoRADo. WHAT INDIVIDUAL IRRIGATIONISTS HAVE TO SAY. 155 ANSWERS FROM CORRESPONDFNTS. The following summaries are made from replies received to circulars sent by this office: ARAPAHOE COUNTY. J. A. Clough, Denver (October, 1891): . Total area in State under canals, about 5,000,000 acres. Under cultivation under the smaller and older canals, 75 per cent; under the newer and larger canals, 25 per cent. Average cost per acre of irrigation works, canals, etc.: For the larger canals, from $6.25 to $8; for the smaller canals, from $8 to $12. Cost per acre for annual maintenance and repairs for smaller canals, about 40 cents; for larger canals, from 15 to 25 cents. Average cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation by irrigation: Breaking, $2; removing sagebrush, 50 cents; farm laterals, 25 cents. Staple products under irrigation : Wheat, oats, barley, millet, potatoes (and in the smaller valleys), corn—in the order of their acreage; also clover, timothy, and alfalfa hay, and peaches, apples, pears, plums, apricots, and all small fruit yield abundantly. t Yield per acre: Wheat, 25 bushels; oats, 45 bushels; barley, 35 bushels; potatoes, 150 bushels; pears, 25 bushels; corn, 30 bushels; clover and timothy, 2% tons; alfalfa, 5 tons. Denver (post-office), W. E. Alexander (secretary, etc., Denver Land and Water Stor- age Company), October, 1891 : Water supply, Cherry Creek. (Running stream with spring and fall floods.) Area under ditch, 40,000 to 50,000 acres. Area under cultivation, 3,000 acres, now being plowed and prepared for cultivation under irrigation. & Irrigation works, 32 miles main canal; 18 feet wide on bottom; 3 feet through cut; 40 miles main laterals; 4 feet wide at bottom. Masonry dam, 68 feet high, 635 feet long, 83 feet wide at center. One subreservoir, earthen embankment; area, 69% acres; 30 feet deep. (Three others projected. Cost: Main reservoir, subreservoirs, and canals have cost $439,000 to date, and $75,000 to $100,000 more will be expended. Averagé cost per acre ſor preparing land for cultivation under irrigation, from $2 to $5. Average cost per acre of irrigation works, ditches, etc., from $5 to $15. Average cost per acre for annual maintenance and repair, 50 cents to $1.50. Annual rental cost for water, $2 per acre. Products: Potatoes, alfalfa, and all garden truck. Soil especially adapted to growth - of apples, pears, plums, prunes, grapes, and berries, etc. Estimated value of products per acre, from $250 to $600. Denver (post-office), C. J. Combs (October, 1891): Has 153 acres under ditch and cultivation; takes his water supply from “Rocky Mountain ditch” by means of one-quarter mile of small private ditch or lateral. [Rocky Mountain ditch takes its supply from Clear Creek, near Golden, Jeffer- son County. Its length is about 15 miles. Width, top. 12 feet; bottom, 10 feet. Area under this ditch, 5,000 acres; capacity, about 5,000 inches. Rate of use of water averages 1 inch per acre, costing from $1.25 to $2 per inch. Cost of main- tenance and repairs per acre per annum, about $2.50. J Products, small fruits and orchards. (Farther from city, grain and alfalfa.) Value of small fruits per acre, from $200 to $1,000, gross. º Denver (post-office), Thomas B. Croke (September, 1891) : Has prepared and placed under cultivation by irrigation 1,600 acres, (by building the lateral ditches and reservoirs), at a cost of $18,000, the reservoirs costing $16,000 of this sum. r Cost of water rights and laterals (when main ditch was first built) was an average of $10 per acre. Cost of annual maintenance and repairs per acre, not to exceed 50 cents. Area under ditch in neighborhood,50,000 acres. Area under cultivation in neighborhood, 12,000 acres. Principal products: Wheat, oats, barley, corn (of short season varieties), potatoes, alfalfa, clover, timothy, and all garden products; also all kinds of fruits (ex- cept tropical). is own crops have averaged $10 per acre met for four past years; good hay land will average about the same. 156 IRRIGATION. BOTULDER COUNTY. Hygiene (post-office), James Ackerman (October, 1891): Cost of preparing 80-acre tracts of land for cultivation by irrigation (breaking, $300; lateral ditches, $25; fencing, $150), $475, - r Cost per acre of irrigation works, ditches, etc., about $10. Cost per acre for annual maintenance and repairs, about 50 cents. Area under ditch, 90 per cent of neighborhood lands. Staple products: All kinds of small grain and vegetables, all kinds of fruit (except peach and apricots). § Average value of product per acre: Grain, $15; fruit, $100. Langford (post-office), C. E. Barber (Setember, 1891): Cost per acre of preparing land for cultivation by irrigation, $5. Cost per acre of irrigation works, ditches, etc.: For a 10-mile ditch carrying 5,000 inches of water, covering 4,000 acres, $40,000 or $10 per acre (average of four ditches in neighborhood). - 4. Cost per acre of annual maintenance and repairs, 10 cents (on a 10-mile ditch). Chief products (by irrigation) and yield per acre: Wheat, 20 bushels; oats, 40 bushels); corn, 30 bushels; alfalfa, 8 tons. Grazing land is not irrigated. CHAFFEE COUNTY. Riverside (post-office), George Leonhardy (September, 1891): Has 550 “acres under ditch;” 166 acres under cultivation. Water supply, Arkansas River, has two ditches (supplying 400 miner's inches). Com- bined length, 5 miles; width at bottom, 4 and 6 feet; top, 6 and 8 feet; head gates, 2. Cost per mile of ditches, etc., $2,500. Cost per acre of ditches, etc., $15. Cost of water to user per acre, $10. Annual rental per acre, $2. Cost of annual maintenance and repairs per acre, 50 cents. Cost of preparing land for irrigation (fencing and clearing), $2 to $15. Area, under ditch in neighborhood, 1,500 acres. Area under cultivation in neighborhood, 500 acres. Chief products (under irrigation): Wheat, oats, barley, rye, potatoes, peas, turnips. Value of annual crops, $20 per acre. • CONEJOS, COSTILLA, RIO GRANDE, AND SAGUACHE COUNTIES. R. C. Nisbet (Dawkins, Pueblo County, December 10, 1891) writes of the San Luis Valley as follows: Main water supply, Rio Grande River, its tributaries and artesian wells. Area under ditch, 2,000,000 acres. Area under cultivation, 100,000 acres. “The Rio Grande system covers the above-named four counties, an area of about 60 miles square. There are twenty-six streams flowing into San Luis Valley and but one flowing out, hence the large artesian supply.” Irrigation works, about 4,000 miles of ditches; seven large canals; largest 60 feet wide on bottom ; other six are 40 feet wide on bottom ; about five hundred ditches, large and small, with separate head gates. There are “hundreds” of artesian wells; no reservoirs. Cost of ditches and wells: Ditches, from 10 cents to 12 cents per yard, land level. Artesian wells cost from 25 cents to 60 cents per foot, including pipe (not over 2 inches). Cost per acre of ditches, “taking all the land covered by the ditches, $1.50 to $2 per acre would construct them.” * Average cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation through irrigation : About one-half the land is prairie, requiring merely plowing; other half sagebrush, greasewood, or chico, costing for clearing, etc., from $1 to $1.50. : Average cost per acre for maintenance and repairs, from 20 to 30 cents. 4}. THE works, water, AND PRODUCTION. 157 Cost of water supply to user, $500 for 80-acre tract (perpetual water right). Annual rental cost, $1 per acre. Staple products and average annual yield per acre: Wheat, 25 to 30 bushels; oats and barley, 40 to 50 bushels; potatoes, 175 to 200 bushels. CONEJOS COUNTY. Alameda (post-office), L. W. Smith (October 3, 1891): Whole township (except three ranches having artesian supply) served by Empire Canal, with supply from Rio Grande del Norte River; 30 miles canals or ditches; width at top 60 feet, botttom 40 feet; two head gates. Cost of irrigation per acre, with supply from river by canals or ditches, $8.00. Cost of irrigation per acre, with supply from artesian sources (with reservoirs, etc.) 7.50. Cost of annual maintenance and repairs, per acre 20 cents. Chief products (by irrigation) and yield per acre: Wheat (30 bushels), oats (50 bush- els), barley (40 bushels), potatoes (250 bushels), alfalfa, and vegetables. [Mr. Smith has 160 acres under cultivation by means of artesian irrigation; states that artesian supply is easily obtained, etc.; cheapest and most permanent ; that canal and ditch supply is good for only four months in the year. Two other large ranches have artesian Wells, but no data of same is given.] COSTILLA. COUNTY. San Luis (post-office), E. C. Van Diest (October, 1891): Water supply, Rio Grande River, Sangre de Cristo, Ute, Trinchora, Culebra, and Cas- tilla Creeks. Area under ditch, 100,000 acres; area under cultivation, 65,000 acres. Irrigation works (mileage and size of canals and ditches not given): One reservoir (not completed), storage capacity over 127 acres (27 to 30 million cubic feet); dam 1,300 feet long; height, 18 feet. Cost per acre: Large canals, $1.00 to $1.60; smaller farm ditches, 75 gents to $1.00. Cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation by irrigation: Grubbiſhg (sage brush) $1.30; plowing, $2.15; subsidiary ditches, $1.00–$4,45; fencing (wire), $1.60. Cost per acre for maintenance and repairs, per annum : Large canals and ditches, 70 cents to $1.00; small canal and ditches, 25 cents to $1.00. Products and yield per acre: Oats (25 bushels), wheat (22 bushels), barley (24 bush- els), hay (1 ton), peas, Mexican beans, potatoes, alfalfa (limited), upland hay. EL PASO COUNTY. Colorado City (post-office), A. Z. Sheldon (September, 1891): Water supply, Fontaine qui, Bouille River, and tributaries, South Platte, Four-Mile Creek, Big Sandy Creek, Horse Creek, Rule Creek, West Creek, Trout Creek, etc. Works, 220 miles main ditches; varying from 12 to 18 feet wide at top and 2 to 4 feet on bottom ; seventy-five reservoirs, with areas of from 1 acre to 80 acres; head gates, about fifty (about fifty main ditches, each supposed to have a head gate). Cost of reservoirs, from $300 to $25,000. Cost of ditches per mile, from $300 to $1,000 (approximately). Cost of ditches, etc., per acre, about $5 (approximately). Cost of preparing land for cultivation by irrigation (plowing), $2.50 per acre. Cost for annual maintenance and repairs per acre, about 30 cents. Area under ditch, 20,000 acres. Area under cultivation, 12,000 acres. Staple products and annual yield per acre: Wheat, 25 bushels; oats, 40 bushels; corn, 50 bushels; barley, rye, potatoes, 200 bushels; hay, 13 tons; cabbage and other vegetables, fruits of temperate zone, and grasses. FREMONT COUNTY. Cañon City (post-office), Ute Park improvement Company (September, 1891), land probably near Beaver Creek (post-office): Area under ditch, 3,500 acres; water supply, Beaver Creek. º Irrigation works, 7 iniles main canal; width, 8 feet top, 6 feet bottom ; 2 feet deep; grade of 2 inclues to 100 feet ; capacity, 60 cubic feet per second; 10 miles laterals; reservoir covers 117 acres; dam, 40 feet at greatest height ; one head gate (under construction). º 158 IRRIGATION. Cost of main canal per mile, about $1,000. Cost of reservoirs, about $10,000. Cost of water supply to user, per acre, $10; permanent right. Value of land without water supply, not worth occupying. Value of land with water supply, $100 per acre. Products under irrigation: Apples, pears, peaches, apricots, alfalfa, potatoes and all fruits and vegetables of the temperate zone. (Land, etc., fitted for the growth of wheat, oats, barley, rye, etc., but fruits, etc., considered most valuable crops.) Alfalfa is cut three to four times a year, and yields as high as 5 to 7 tons per acro per annum; worth $6 per ton. An artesian well struck in vicinity, flowing 3 cubic feet per second. Cañon City (post-office), Thomas S. Wells (October, 1891) : System includes 5 miles of ordinary canals on each side of Arkansas River (10 miles); each canal 12 feet wide; two head gates; area under ditch about 4,000 acres; area under cultivation, 2,500 acres. Cost per mile of works about $1,200. Cost per acre of works, $3 for main, $1 for laterals. Cost per acre for maintenance and repairs, 80 cents to $1. Cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation by irrigation, same as breaking ordi- mary prairie, merely plowing. Cost per acre of water to user: Ditch owned by land owners. Staple products under system: Fruit, garden stuff, and alfalfa. Value of products: Fruit and garden yields $150 per acre ; alfalfa produces about 5 tons per acre ; value, $45 per acre. GARFIELD AND PITKIN COUNTIES. J. C. Kennedy, C. E. (secretary and general manager Thompson Irrigation Land and Water Supply Company, of Steamboat Springs, Routt County): Water supply, north and middle forks Thompson Creek; supply, perennial; capacity, 80 cubic feet per second. Works, two ditches, 17 and 18 miles in length ; the 17-mile ditch uses for 7 miles the natural channel of a small stream, Edgerton Creek; width 12 feet at top, 8 feet at bottom, 2 feet deep, increasing in size as new streams are tapped ; 10 or more reservoirs; 17 head gates on both ditches (size of dams, etc., not given). Area under ditch, 11,000 acres; under cultivation, 200 acres. Cost per mile of ditches about $600; cost of water supply per acre, $4 (estimated). Cost of preparation of land for cultivation by irrigation, $6 per acre. Average cost per acre of irrigation works, $4. Products: Wheat, oats, rye, barley, potatoes, and other vegetables, alfalfa, etc. 3. KIOWA County. A11ington (post-office), J. W. Parker, secretary, Sand Arroyo and Triple Lake Canal Company (September, 1891). Area under ditch by this system, 1,300 acres. - # Water supply, Sand Arroyo Creek; irrigation works (in progress), 4 miles mair, canal; 7 miles laterals ; three reservoirs (areas 40 acres, 69 acres, and 71 acres); main canal, 10 feet wide, 2 to 5 feet deep; outlets of reservoirs, 12 feet wide (top), 4 feet (bottom), 7 feet deep. Cost of canals (or ditches) per mile, $75 to $150. Cost of preparing land for cultivation by irrigation, $3.50 per acre. Cost of water per year, $1 per acre. Cost of water, perpetual water right, $7 per acre. * Cost of annual maintenance and repairs, 25 cents per acre. Products and annual yield of same: Wheat, 15 bushels; oats, 35 bushels; corn, 25 bushels; rye, 25 bushels; Sorghum, 5 tons; potatoes, sweet, 50 bushels; Irish, 75 bushels; vines of all kinds grow well. It is proposed to cultivate 200 acres next season, irrigated by this system. LAS ANIMAS COUNTY. Downing (post-office), S. W. De Busk; Trinidad (post-office), F. D. Wright (data for county generally): Principal water supply: Las Animas or Purgatoire River. Area under ditch, 51,562 acres; under cultivation, 30,020 acres. At least 50,000 acres more could be served by aid of storage works. - THE DITCHES AND water of Two Count[Es. 159 Irrigation works: 95 main ditches, about 300 miles total length; 10 larger ditches are from 8 to 15 miles long, 14 feet wide at top, 10 feet at bottom, 2% feet deep; other ditches from 2 to 4 miles long, 5 to 6 feet wide at bottom, 2 feet deep ; 2 reservoirs, area of one, 80 acres, area of other unknown ; head gates, 95 (one to each main ditch). Cost of ditches per mile, from $10 to $100. Average cost per acre for irrigation works: Ditches, etc., $1 to $10. Average cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation under irrigation, from $2.50 to $10 (mere plowing of prairie land cost $2.50 per acre; clearing land having growth of wild plum, locust, or cottonwood has cost $10 per acre). Average cost per acre for annual maintenance and repairs, about $1. . Products and yield per acre: Alfalfa, 4 or 5 tons; blue stem, 1 ton; oats, 40 to 80 bushels; oats are generally cut and cured as hay; corn, 25 to 40 bushels; wheat, 30 bushels; barley, rye, sorghum, vegetables do well ; beans average 40 bushels; apples, grapes, and garden truck. LA PLATA COUNTY. Durango (post-office), J. B. Harper (November, 1891): Water supply, Florida River; area under ditch, 6,500 acres; under cultivation, 1,800 3,0I'68. - Irrigation works, open ditch on contour line; length of main ditch, 10 miles; width, top, 104 feet; bottom, 6 feet; 3 feet deep; one headgate; no reservoirs; 250 feet flume ; 8 feet wide ; 4 feet deep. Cost per mile of works, $1,900 (for main ditch). Cost of water supply to user per acre, $10. Cost of preparing land for cultivation through irrigation, per acre: Sagebrush land, $7; oak land, $50; pine and cedar, $20. Average cost per acre of irrigation works, ditches, etc., about $10, as first cost. (This depends upon the amount of land furnished from one ditch.) - Cost per acre of annual maintenance and repairs, 75 cents. Products: Wheat, oats, and alfalfa. Estimated annual product per acre : Wheat, 20 bushels; oats, 45 bushels; alfalfa, 3% tons (but yield increases with age). f LAIRIMER COUNTY. Berthoud (post-office), S. W. Cole (September, 1891): “Home supply ditch;” water supply, Big Thompson Creek (which rises at the foot of Long's Peak; fed by snows of mountain and foothills; the supply is ample at the first of the season and thousands of inches are wasted; later, water is much needed). - Area under ditch, 20,000 acres; under cultivation, 18,000 acres. Irrigation works: Ditch, 20 miles long; width, 20 feet at top, 16 feet at bottom, for 15 miles, thence smaller; one stone dam at head of ditch 60 feet long, 50 feet high; one large earth dam, one-half mile long; one earth dam, one-quarter mile long ; two reservoirs, each covering 400 acres; three large bulkheads; 115 small headgates. (Many farmers have private reservoirs with areas from 10 to 30 acres, 10 to 20 feet deep.) One long wooden flume about 2,000 feet. Cost of works: Main ditch per mile, $4,000; 2 reservoirs ($20,000 each), $40,000; total cost (20-mile ditch, $80,000; reservoirs, $40,000), $120,000. Cost of water supply to user per acre, $4; cost for maintenance and repairs per acre, 10 cents. Average cost per acre for preparing land for irrigation: Plowing or breaking, $3; fencing (3 wire close posts), $1; surveying and making ditches inside of fence, 15 CentS. Cost of 2 miles of main lateral ditch per acre, 90 cents. Products under irrigation : Wheat (mostly). next oats, barley, corn, potatoes, alfalfa (many acres). (For few last years nearly every farmer has started an orchard.) Estimated values of product per acre, $14; forage, $12. Fort Collins (post-office), A. N. Hoag (September, 1891): “Dry Creek Ditch,” water supply, Cache la Poudre River. [An old ditch established by farmers who claim what water they need, or 50.92 eubic feet per second ; average amount for three hundred days in 1891 was 25 cubic feet per second. There are twenty-four shares in ditch, worth $1,000 per share. Works: Bºne. main ditch; width at hottom, 12 feet at upper and 7 feet at lower end ; one dam; two headgates; one weir. Cost per mile, main ditch, $2,000. 160 . IRRIGATION. *- - * * , «. - - * * > . . . . i . . . * , f 2 x . . ;-- -, - ...,' Average cost per acre of works, about $20; average cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation (under irrigation): Breaking, $3; laterals, $1.50; fencing, $2; total, $6.50. Ave: * per acre for maintenance and repairing per annum, $1 (including lat- €1°3,18). Cost of water supply per share, $1,000; annual cost for repairs, per share, $25. Area under ditch, 2,600 acres; under cultivation, 2,300 acres. Staple products under irrigation: Cereals, alfalfa, native hay, vegetables of all kinds, and fruit. Value of product per acre: From $20 to $300 (fruit); alfalfa from $20 to $40. LA RIMER AND WELD COUNTIES. * Hon. B. H. Eaton, Greeley, Weld County, Larimer and Weld Canal: Water supply, Cache la Poudre River (mountain stream); area under ditch, 40,000 acres; under cultivation, 34,000 acres; irrigation works, 52 miles; canal, 28 feet wide on bottom, 6 feet deep, with slope of 14 to 1 foot : two large reservoirs (being constructed) with aggregate depth of 23 feet over 650 acres; many smaller (private) reservoirs; one main headgate; 90 lateral headgates. Cost of canal per mile, $3,000. O cº; reservoirs (two being constructed by the 500 water-right holders), $75,000 to 100,000. Cost of water supply to user per acre (perpetual water right), $15. Cost per annum for maintenance and repairs, $10 for 80-acre tract, or 12# cents per 3,0ſ e. Cost for preparation of land for cultivation (plowing), $2 per acre. Staple products: Wheat (averaging 30 bushels per acre), oats, barley, alfalfa, pota- toes, ca obages, onions, etc. MESA COUNTY. Grand Junction (post-office), C. W. Steele (October, 1891): Water supply, Grand and Gunnison rivers and small streams. Area under ditch, 48,000: Grand Valley, 40,000; elsewhere in county, 8,000 acres. Area under cultivation, 15,000 acres. Works: Grand River system, two large canals or ditches, one headgate; Gunnison River, water wheels, other works, three pumping plants, to serve 2,400 acres; ditches from smaller streams. Mileage and size of canals: 75 miles; largest, 50 feet wide on top, 38 feet on bottom ; next largest, 24 feet on bottom. Cost per mile, main canals, $7,500. Cost of water supply to user per acre, $10. Annual rental cost $2.80 per inch. (Owners of water rights or royalty pay assess- ments of from 12% cents to 87% cents per acre per annum.) Average cost per acre of annual maintenance and repairs, 20 cents. Average cost per acre of irrigation works, ditches, etc., $10 (from Grand and Gunni- son rivers; less from smaller streams). - Staple products under irrigation : Wheat, oats, corn, alfalfa, fruits, potatoes, and other vegetables in variety. Grand Junction (post-office), J. Clayton Nichols and Messrs. Crawford & Miller (October, 1891): Grand River Canal or ditch: Water supply, Grand River (abundant supply). Area “under ditch,” from 34,000 to 45,000 acres; under cultivation, from 15,000 to 18,000 acres. Irrigation works: Canal, 52 miles; 38 miles main canal ; width, 50 feet on top, 30 feet on bottom (40 feet at headgate); one headgate; no reservoirs or other works. Cost per mile of canal, about $6,000. cº, § water supply to user, per acre, from $10 to $16; annual rental cost, $1 to • 4 O. * Average cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation under irrigation, $2.50 to $3. Average cost per acre for annual maintenance and repairs, 12% cents to 623 cents. Average cost of irrigation works, from $5 to $16. Staple products under irrigation : All kinds of semitropical fruits (especially peaches, pears, apples, apricots, nectarines, grapes, and almonds); also oats, wheat, corn, potatoes, and alfalfa. s - w Estimated value of product per acre, $15 to $25 (for oats, etc., and alfalfa); $300 to $500 for fruits. “This valley is celebrated for its apples, peaches, pears, grapes, apricots, almonds, nectarines,” etc. - * MESA AND MONTROSE COUNTIES. 161 Grand Junction (post-office), D. C. Hawthorne (October, 1891): “Crawford Ranch;” has a private ditch; water supply, Rapid Creek (a mountain stream heading in the Great Mesa Mountain). Works: Ditch, 1+ miles in length; width at top, 4 feet; at bottom, 24 feet; one stone dam ; one headgate (cheap). Area under ditch, 100 acres ; under cultivation, 60 acres (orchard and vineyard). Cost of ditch (13 miles), $1,000; cost of annual maintenance and repairs, about $60. Proºf;§ Nothing growſ, but fruits (except for family use); orchard set out spring O º Grand Junction (post-office), Mrs. Kate Harlow (October, 1891): Has private ditch; water supply, Rapid Creek (which heads in Grand Mesa Moun- tain and empties into Grand River on her place); creek has a fall of 5,000 feet in the 6 miles of its length. Nature of works: Ditch about one-half mile long, 3 feet wide; one headgate; also simple stone dam ; no other works. f - Cost of ditch, about $1,800; area under ditch, 80 acres; under cultivation, 35 acres. Cost of maintenance and repairs per year, about $200. Products: “Nothing but fruit and vegetables; country is new.” Grand Junction (post-office), Messrs. Miller & Wallace (October 19, 1891): Have private ditch; water supply, Wallace Creek (which heads in Battlement Mesa Mountain); average flow, 4 cubic feet per second. - Area under ditch, 640 acres; under cultivation, 320 acres. Works, # mile of ditch, 18 inches on bottom, 3 feet on top, 18 inches deep, grade + inch per rod; one headgate 3 feet wide (no reservoir). Cost of entire ditch, $750 (about). Average cost per acre of ditches, etc., $5. Cost of water supply to user per acre, $2.25. Average cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation under irrigation, $8 (sage- brush land under this ditch). Average cost for land in Grand Valley around Grand Junction, about $2.50. Cost per acre for annual maintenance and repairs, from 10 cents to 25 cents. Products under irrigation: Alfalfa, wheat, oats, barley, potatoes. Estimated value of annual product, $15 per acre; irrigated grazing land, $1.50 per acre. Altitude of Wallace Creek, 6,000 feet. Whitewater (post-office), John Goldsby (October, 1891): Has private ditch covering 75 acres; water supply, East Creek (which empties into Gunnison River); ditch 1 mile in length, 6 feet wide at top, 24 feet at bottom, claims 100 inches water; one reservoir dam 200 feet long, 7 feet high. Cost of ditch, $350; cost of reservoir (dam, etc.), $450; annual repairs, etc., per annum, $1. Cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation under irrigation $40 (land, so-called “bottom land, * covered with heavy growth of willow, etc., requiring labor and money to “grub” out). * 4. Staple products: Fruits of various kinds, alfalfa, wheat, oats, corn, and other small grall) S, * Annual product per acre: wheat, 30 bushels; corn, 40 bushels; oats, 75 bushels. MONTROSE COUNTY. Montrose (post-office); Judge John C. Bell (October, 1891); general data (esti- mated) for Montrose County. Principal source of water supply, Uncompahgre River; area under ditch, 200,000 3,0I'éS. Irrigation works, about 200 miles of large and small canals and ditches; no reser- voirs; head gates numerous, costing from a small amount up to $5,000. Cost of canals, ditches, etc., per mile, widely varying; probably from $100 to $2,000. Preparing land for cultivation by irrigation. [Most of the county is mesa land, with no wild growth but white sage, easily plowed up; some exceptional cases, where cost would be $50 per acre to prepare.] º Cost of water to user per acre, $3.25; annual rental cost, $1.25. - Cost of annual maintenance and repairs on minor ditches, merely nominal; on large canals, considerable, but varying greatly; no estimate. Products: Wheat, oats, barley, rye, alfalfa, clover, timothy, and all kinds of vege- tables and fruits. (Is a great fruit and alfalfa county, and with present prices fruit pays better than anything; alfalfa next in value.) S. Ex. 41—11 162 - IRRIGATION. - Yield of wheat per acre, 25 bushels, worth 80 cents per 100 pounds; oats, 60 bushels, worth $1.25 per 100 pounds. OTERO COUNTY. Rocky Ford (post-office); Messrs. C. G. Ament & Co. (September, 1891): Water supply, Arkansas River. Irrigation works. , Canal 80 miles in length; width, 20 feet wide on bottom, 24 feet wide at top (at the head), 8 feet wide at lower end . of canal; one head gate; no reservoirs. Area under ditch, 35,000 acres. Area under cultivation, 5,000 acres. Cost per mile of canal, $1,500. - Cost per acre for annual maintenance and repairs, 10 cents to 25 cents (on actual amount of water purchased). - Cost of irrigation works per acre for 160-acre tracts (all under cultivation). Water right, $1,200; laterals and head-gate, $100. (Farmers do not generally buy enough water to cover their whole farms.) Cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation by irrigation: Breaking wild land, $1.75 per acre; for grazing, 25 cents per acre for laterals. Cost of water supply to user, $10 per acre (perpetual water right). Products and yield (of same) per acre: Wheat (25 bushels), oats (35 bushels), corn (30 bushels), beans (20 bushels) alfalfa, hay), 6 tons; seed (5 bushels), sweet pota- toes, melons, and all “truck.” raised extensively. Catlin (post-office); Robert McLain (October 25, 1891): Water supply, Arkansas River; area under ditch, 15,000 acres. Area under cultivation, 13,000 acres. Irrigation works: - Large canal, length 35 miles; width, top, 30 to 38 feet; bottom, 20 feet. One dam across river (308 feet long, 16 feet wide), of lumber and piles. One head gate; no reservoirs. Cost per mile of works, about $1,800. Cost of water supply per acre, $10. (Perpetual water right.) Cost of preparation of land for cultivation (per acre), by irrigation, $2.50. Cost of preparation of land for grazing (per acre) by irrigation, $1 (grass). Cost of maintenance and repairs per annum, per acre, about 15 cents. Annual rental cost of water, $1.50 per acre (when sold by the year). Staple products (and yield per acre) under irrigation: Wheat (25 to 40 bushels), oats (30 to 60 bushels), corn (25 to 40 bushels), hay (3 tons), alfalfa, beans, sweet pota- toes, and other vegetables. La Junta (post-office); C. R. McBride (October 5, 1891): Arkansas Valley Canal, supply, Arkansas River (north side). length of canal, 120 miles; width, 60 feet at top ; 30 feet bottom (at headgate); 2 reservoirs. Head gates, 100; area under ditch, 165,000 acres: under cultivation, 32,000 acres. Cost per mile : Ditches, $3,000; cost of reservoirs, etc., $5,000. Average cost per acre of irrigation works, $5.50. t Average cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation by irrigation, $6. Average cost per acre for maintenance and repairs per annum, 15 cents. Cost of water supply to users per acre, $12.50. Annual rental cost per acre, $1.50. Products under irrigation and yield of same per acre: Alfalfa (4 tons), wheat (25 bushels), corn (30 bushels), oats (50 bushes), barley (30 bushels). Vegetables and fruits grow to perfection. - * , La Junta (post-office); J. H. Nelson (October, 1891), chief engineer Colorado Irriga- tion Canal Company: * Irrigation Works, Otero Canal; Water supply, Arkansas River (south sine; canal 105 miles long ; width top, 32 feet; bottom, 20 feet; five flumes; two head- gates ; one waste gate; no reservoirs. Average cost per mile of works, $3,000; average cost per acre, $5.50. Average cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation: Plowing, $1.75; laterals, 5 cents ($2.25); fencing, $1. Average cost per acre for maintenance and repairs, 15 cents. Average cost of water to user per acre, $10 (water right). Area under ditch, 74,000 acres; under cultivation, 18,000 acres. - Products (under irrigation) and yield per acre per annum : Alfalfa (4 to 5 tons), wheat (24 bushels), oats (4 to 5 bushels), corn (30 bushels), rye (; 20 bushels) clover (3 tons), timothy (2 tons), berries, grapes, and other fruits and vegetable. sºy wATER suPPLY, COST AND PRODUCTION. 163 PROWERS county. Lamar (post-office); Santa Fe Land and Canal Company (November 21, 1891): Source of supply, the Arkansas River. Canal being constructed to be 65 miles long; width on top, 26 feet; on bottom, 16 feet; depth, 5 feet ; number of head gates, 3; cost per mile (average) $500; cost of works per acre, $7.50; cost of water supply to user per acre, $10 (water rights). - Cost of maintenance and repairs per annum per acre, 15 cents. Cost of preparing land for irrigation, $2.40; plowing, $2; harrowing, 40 cents, per 3,CT6, Area under ditch, 30,000. Staple products (under irrigation): Alfalfa, wheat, oats, millet, vegetables and melons. * Estimated annual product per acre: Alfalfa, 8 tons; wheat, 40 bushels; oats, 25 bushels. Lamar (post-office); D. E. Cooper, secretary Bed Rock Mutual Ditch Company (October 30, 1891): Water supply, Arkansas River. Area under ditch, 4,500 acres. Area under cultivation, 1,060 acres. Length of canal, 11 miles; width at top, 12 feet; at bottom, 8 feet; 3 feet fall per mile. Two head gates; no reservoirs. Cost per mile of ditches, $450. g Cost of water supply to user per acre, $4.60 (perpetual right to user). Cost of preparing land for cultivation under irrigation per acre, $3. Cost per acre of annual maintenance and repairs, 15 cents. Products under irrigation: Wheat, oats, barley, rye, alfalfa, potatoes, corn and fruits. Value of annual product per acre, $18. Circular addressed to “Secretary Kansas Loan and Trust Company” was returned with data and signed as follows: “T. B. Sweet, president Irrigation Land Company, Topeka, Kansas.” Water supply, Arkansas River (near Lamar, Prowers County, Colo.). Irrigation works: Dam across river (no data), and 50 miles canal or ditches, 26 feet wide on top, 20 feet on bottom (being three canals brought together 2 miles east of Lamar); three head gates and some flume work (no data). Cost of works per mile (including all works on ditches, head gates included), $2,000. Cost of works per acre, $4 to $5. - Cost of water supply per acre to user (perpetual water right), $10. Cost of preparation of land for cultivation by irrigation, $3. Cost of preparation of land for grazing, native grasses, not over 50 cents. Cost of maintenance and repairs, per acre, annually, 15 to 25 cents. Principal products and annual product per acre: Wheat (30 bushels), oats (40 bush- els), rye (30 bushels), barley (40 bushels), corn (50 bushels), alfalfa (4 to 5 tons), sweet potatoes (100 bushels), melons, etc. > Area under cultivation, 5,000 acres. Area under ditch, 25,000 acres. PUEBLO COUNTY. Pueblo (post-office); R. Rosenberg, superintendent Bessemer Ditch Company (Oc- tober, 1891). Water supply, Arkansas River. Area under ditch, 30,000 acres; area under cultivation, 7,500 acres. s Irrigation works: Mileage of ditches, 42 miles. Main canal: Width at top, 22 feet ; at bottom, 6 feet ; depth, 8 feet. Ten reservoirs projected. One reservoir con- structed with capacity of 38,000,000 cubic feet; height of dam, 18 feet; one masonry head-gate; one siphon, 4,500 feet in length, 5 feet diameteºr (under St. Charles River). - Cost per mile of main ditch, $11,000; average cost per acre of laterals, $1.25. Cost per acre for annual maintenance and repairs, 62 cents. . Cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation by irrigation, $2.50. Staple products under irrigation—alfalfa, vegetables, grain, and maize. Estimated annual product per acre: Alfalfa, 7 tons; grain, 30 bushels. 164 IRRIGATION. County statistics compiled from answers to office circulars, are from the following residents of said county: H. R. Holbrook, L. W. Smith, T. H. Brandenberg, H.T. Wan Keuren, C. H. Small & Co., T. H. S. Schooley, Geo. Bell, Bardon Sweet, John Norris, C. H. Stickney, Ward Rill, Davis & McDaniel, Chas. Kretschmer, Wm. Meredith. Estimated area in county under ditch, 300,000 acres. Estimated area in county under cultivation, 100,000 acres. (In immediate vicinity of Pueblo City, probably 60,000 acres under ditch.) Water supply, Arkansas River: Estººd average cost per acre of irrigation works in county, main ditches, etc., 1. (Near the mountains, foothills, etc., where arroyas are found, bridges frequent, and the river banks are high, average is probably $25 per acre; on level lands, not far above river level, probably from $5 to $10 per acre.) Average cost of water per acre, $10 (perpetual water right). Average cost of preparing land for cultivation (by irrigation) about $3.50. (Plowing from $1.25 to $2.50; laterals, $1.25 to $1.50.) Average cost for annual maintenance and repairs per acre, from 25 cents to $3. Staple products under irrigation: Wheat, oats, rye, corn, barley, alfalfa, timothy, millet, blue-stem hay, potatoes, celery, sugar beets, beans, cabbage, onions, and other vegetables; apples, peaches, pears, plums, grapes, melons, and all fruits of the temperate zone. Average annual product per acre: Wheat, 20 to 30 bushels; oats, 30 to 40 bushels; corn, 40 bushels; grain generally, 20 to 40 bushels; alfalfa, 4 to 8 tons. Average value of product per acre: Grain crops, from $20 to $30; fruit, $150; mel- §. $50 to $100; apples, from $100 to $200 ; garden truck, $250; alfalfa, $20 to 60. …- Average revenue from all crops, with proper cultivation and plenty of water, from $20 to $30 per acre. ROUTT COUNTY. Craig (post-office), C. E. Baker (October 21, 1891). Water supply, Snake, Bear, and Elk rivers and tributaries, (“furnishing more wa- ter than can be utilized.”) Irrigation Works, 150 miles of main canals or ditches, 6 reservoirs, covering from 3 to 25 acres. - Cost per mile of ditches, about $200. Cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation by irrigation, average $4. Cost per acre for annual maintenance and repairs, about 50 cents. Cost per acre of irrigation works, ditches, etc, from $1.25 (near the mountains) to from $3 to $10 (where stream has less fall). Products and yield per acre, under irrigation: Wheat, 30 bushels; oats, 40 bushels; potatoes, (300 bushels) and hay. th Steamboat Springs, (posto-ffice), J. C. Kennedy, C. E. (December, 1891.) Altitude, 6.700 feet. º His homestead tract has about 100 acres under two ditches taking water out of Fish Creek; 20 acres under cultivation this (the first) year; cost per acre, about $1. “In water district No. 58 (of which he was referee this season) about 60 per cent of the water users have water rights adjudicated. Duty allowed, 1 cubic foot per sec- ond to every 60 acres. Amount of water appropriated in district 316 cubic feet per second. Total mileage of ditches, 120 miles (mostly small ones) area under ditch, about 19,000 acres, about 50 per cent of which is now irrigated.” - I D A H 0. Located between latitude 420 and 490 north and longitude 1119 and 117.10° west of Greenwich, Idaho embraces an area of 86,294square miles, or 55,228,160 acres. It is bounded on the north by the British Posses- sions and Montana, east by Montana and Wyoming, south by Utah and Wyoming, and west by Oregon and Washington. The extreme length, north and south, of its western boundary is 485 miles, while on the east along Wyoming it is but 140 miles. Its breadth is about 50 miles in the north and northeast to 300 miles in the south. The nar- row portion of the Territory running between Montana on the east and southeast and Oregon and Washington on the west is known as the Panhandle. It is a region of high altitude, with large plateau and table-land areas, having numerous mountain lakes and a higher degree of humidity than any other portion of the arid region between 100° and 1260 of west longitude. The remaining portions of the State consist of mountain and table lands, with an average elevation of from 2,000 to 5,000 feet above sea level. This great mountain plateau is broken by numerous depressed valleys, which form channels for some considerable streams. It is crossed also by short mountain ranges or Spurs, having peaks that rise above the level, with perpetual snow. The whole area therefore is one of a great water-bearing capacity and contains many important rivers and scores of deep, placid lakes. The principal of these are: Alturas, Bear, Cliff, Coeur d'Alène, Dry, Grays, Great Pay- ette, Henry, Hot, Kanikau, Lincoln, Loon, North, Pend d'Oreille, Red, IFish, Swan, and Yule. The entire lake area of Idaho covers about 600,000 acres. The Pend d'Oreille is 120 miles long and from 5 to 10 miles wide. The Coeur d'Alène is 36 miles in length and from 3 to 5 miles wide. The Kanikau is 20 miles long and 10 miles wide. These lakes and numerous others are all of them located in regions bounded by picturesque mountain ranges and having great beauty of position and scenery, which is sure in time to make them the cause of admira- tion by thousands of tourists. - The rivers of Idaho are all of them important and some are navigable for a considerable length. Among the most important are the Salmon, Snake, Boisé, Clearwater, Kootenai, Payette, Weiser, the Clark Fork of the Great Columbia, with the Coeur d'Alène and St. Joseph Rivers, all of them of great size. The three latter are as large as the Ohio at Wheeling and each of them is navigable for several hundred miles. The Snake River is over 1,000 miles in length within and on the borders of the State of Idaho, and is also navigable for about 200 miles. The others named are more important in size and volume than the Susque- hanna and smaller streams in the East. With these there are hundreds of tributaries, nearly all of them having swift, clear, and somewhat pre- cipitous currents, furnishing hydraulic power to an almost illimitable capacity. The storage of water is a problem of ready solution in the State of Idaho. It will require only careful engineering and thorough construction for Safety in the forming of reservoirs and in the making - 165 166 IRRIGATION. * 3. | 3. of channels for distribution. The Snake River is one of the most re- markable streams in character for its length, formation of channel, its volcanic features, and for the second greatest cataract and rapids upon the North American Continent, Shoshone and American Falls being among the wonders of nature in volume and picturesqueness of scenery. The basin of the Snake within the boundaries of Idaho forms an almost unbroken bed of lava and basaltic rocks for 50 miles in width and throughout its entire length. The river, as cut through by this enor- mous volcanic area and vast cañon, varies in depth from 100 to 1,000 feet. The streams that empty from the north into the Snake form some distance below the Shoshone and American Falls. The larger portion of this remarkable basin must remain a barren Waste, so far as agriculture is concerned, though the sage brush that covers much of its surface indicates considerable fertility. The deep valleys contain a large proportion of arable land, and the foothills surrounding the basins are plenteously covered with gramma and bench grass, thus affording excellent pasturage. The extreme upper and lower portions of the Snake basin may be reclaimed for agricultural purposes by means of irrigation. The river itself will unquestionably become the great source of storage water for the reclamation of southern Idaho. The Saw Tooth Mountains and other extensions of the Bitter Root Bange appear to form a climatic division. On the east side thereof, Idaho belongs to the arid area ; on the west, the climate is almost humid enough to do away with irrigation altogether. It is probable that a considerable proportion of the famous Camas Prairie of the Salmon and Clark's Fork basins will be brought under cultivation; chiefly by the aid of large surface irrigation works, which are now projected. The Bitter Root Range, with its extension, the Coeur d'Alène, forms on the northwest a continuation of the Rocky Mountain range proper, and makes a northern termination of the continental divide within the United States. The fall of rain and snow upon this mountain divide is very considerable; but both to the east and west the valleys and table lands receive but little precipitation, and agriculture will not be found successful therein without the aid of irrigation. South of the Snake River, beginning on the east, will be found the important hydro- graphic basin of the Bear River and Lake. Next in importance there- to are those of the Raft River, the Salmon Fall River, and the lower portion of the Bruneau, which takes its rise in northern Nevada, numer. ous branches and forks of the Owyhee, which also rise in northern Nevada and belong, hydrographically speaking, as does the Bruneau, to the drainage basins of that State. The climatology of Idaho presents remarkably favorable features for a mountain region. In the eastern and southern portions of the State the annual precipitation is about ten inches. The snow on the moun- tain and table lands, which comprise about four-fifths of the State, will accumulate during the winter to an average of six packed acre-feet or about four acre-feet of water. On the Saw Tooth Range and other higher mountain summits twice this average is reported or estimated to fall. Hurricanes and tornadoes are altogether unknown. The influences of the Japanese current (Kuro Shiwa) is felt to a considerable extent within a large portion of western and southern Idaho. The tempera- ture of the winds blowing from the Northwest, which is the main cur- rent observed in Idaho, is, of course, greatly affected by the influences of this warm current. As these winds pour inward, laden with mois- ture and warmth, they strike the bald and precipitous high altitudes of the Bitter Root and Rocky Mountain ranges, and are thereby deflected, ––s * . TN/[ _A IE’ ~s SHOWING LOCATION OF CANALS / IN T II F. UPPER SNAKE RIVER BASIN, AUC UST, 189 O. Scale: 8 miles to the inch. Bingham ("ounty, I(laho. > AGRICULTURE By IRRIGATION IN IDAHO. 167 depositing their moisture along the western slopes and base of the mountains, carrying their warmth if not their humidity to any great extent into the southern portion of the State. The forest area of Idaho was estimated by witnesses before the Senate Committee on Irrigation at 9,000,000 acres. Mr. Fernow, chief of the forestry division of the Department of Agriculture, estimates the area of timber land at 5,849,600 acres. Maj. Powell, in his testimony before the Senate com- mittee, gives Idaho only 1,177,600 acres of both firewood and mer- chantable timber. His estimate is evidently as much too small as the estimate of the first witnesses is too large. The estimate of the chief of forestry is more correct. The lake or northern region of Idaho shows by far the heaviest timber or tree growth. The lake region lies chiefly within the counties of Idaho, Latah, Nez Perce, Shoshone, and Kootenai, and, with the exception of the western portion, none of this territory can be classified as arid. It may properly for irrigation purposes be termed sub-humid. - e The agricultural lands of Idaho are estimated to embrace about 16,000,000 acres, of which at least 11,000,000 are of an arid character and require an artificial application of water by irrigation works to make them productive. In the new State thirteen of the eighteen counties are entirely within the arid belt. Probably one-tenthof the remaining five will require irrigation also. The soil may be divided into alkali; the rich warm loams of plain and plateau; that of the valleys andmountain slopes. The alkalized area is less in extent for Idaho, in proportion to its extent, than is found in any other mountain region. The greasewood and Sagebrush grow abundantly thereon. The major portion of it so lies, that by means of irrigation it can be thoroughly reclaimed. The moun- . tain and foothills soil, especially in the wooded section, is of a deep black loam of rich vegetable mold. The table, mesa, and plateau areas are covered with a soil highly mineralized, compounded of vol- canic and granite detritus, and possessing all the elements necessary for the successful growth of the cereals. The valley lands contain a sandy soil, friable, warm, easily drained as well as irrigated, and show- ing a remarkable adaptability for the smaller grains, the temperate fruits, and all vegetable and garden products. It is of good depth, in- variably superimposed on a gravelly strata, with a grade that facili- tates easy working. The elevation of these valleys is usually less than 5,000 feet above sea level. Their fertility is greatly aided by the preva- lence of the Chinook or Pacific winds. All of the cereals and vegeta- bles which are raised north of the cotton belt grade can be raised in Idaho; even tobacco and cotton have been grown in the lower val- leys. They are not likely, however, to prove a certain crop. For fruit growing, Southern and western Idaho is becoming one of the most val- uable portions of the arid region. The mountain basin or valley in which Boise is located, for example, presented before the Senate com- mittee in August, 1889, a remarkable array of apples, plums, peaches, pears, and other fruits of the temperate zone. In size, quality, and quantity, the exhibit was of an almost astonishing character. Irrigation has already obtained a large foothold in Idaho. In the southeastern portion thereof, embracing the counties of Bear Lake, Bingham, Cassia, and Oneida, the Mormon settlers have covered a con- siderable area with their minutely divided farms and their numerous and primary form of ditches. Westward of their settlements the ditch systems grow larger, though in total areas the surface of land served is not as extensive. The governor of Idaho Territory, in his last report for 1889 (made before admission into the Union), presented the follow- ing table, carefully prepared from reports prepared for the Senate Com- 168 IRRIGATION. mittee on Irrigation, under the direction of the governor and surveyor- general of the Territory: Areas (ap- *. sº Area irri- || Land ir- || Land re- proximate): #. gable. rigated. | claimed. Sq. miles. Alcres. Acres. Per cent, Per cent. Ada----------------------------------------- 2, 42 60,000 900,000 6.25 62 Alturas ------------------------------------ 2, 100 14,500 268,000 5. 13 21 Pear Lake --------------------------------- 1,300 21, 500 40,000 35. 5 74 Pingham------------------------------------ 12,364 284,750 2, 503, 500 10.5 35. 5 Boise --------------------------------------. , 024 83, 500 262,000 24, 18. Cassia -------------------------------------- 5, 100 82,000 655,000 ll. 1 22.5 Custer -------------------------------------- 4, 350 24,000 446,000 5. 1 16, 7 *illmore ----------------------------------- 2,700 10,000 230,000 4.2 14. emhi -------------------------------------. 4, 300 10,000 600,000 1. 64 22.2 Pogan -------------------------------------- 5, 200 50,000 | 1, 250,000 2, 6 39. Oneida ------------------------------------. 2, 600 38,800 148,000 20.8 11, 2 Owyhee ------------------------------------ 7,812 21,300 248, 500 8. 42. Washington -------------------------------- 2,900 40,000 500,000 7.4 29. 56, 174 740,350 | 8,051,000 9. 2 24. Other testimony taken by that committee gives the total of irrigated acres at 715,500, and the mileage of ditches at 13,011. It is reasonably estimated that since then about 50,000 additional acres have been brought under ditch, of which one-fourth is now being cultivated. The total cost of the irrigation works now constructed in Idaho is not less than $2,250,000.* In the southwestern portion of Idaho, and in the valleys of the Snake and Salmon, great ditch systems are in process of construction, the cost of which will not be less than $1,500,000. They will add an addi- tional 250,000 to 300,000 acres to the area under water. The following reservoirs are now in use for the storage and supply of water for town purposes, obtained from springs or other phreatic waters: County. Town. No. Capacity. Pingham ------------------------ Pocatello. ------------|... --. Tanks supplied by springs; 500,000 gallons. Logan--------------------------- Bellevue----- º as sº as is sº sº as sº ! | Dam and impounding reservoir. Alturas ------------------------- Hailey---------------- 1 250,000 gallons. 0 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Retchum ------------. 1 || 100,000 gallons. Oneida -------------------------. Weston Creek-----... 1 | Dam and impounding reservoir. For irrigation purposes, the county reports made to the Senate Com- mittee on Irrigation, including sites and estimates for storage reser- Voirs, made estimates as follows: Estimated County. No. COSt. Rear Lake--------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8 $38,500. Cassia ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9 550,000 Oneida ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2 4,000 Mew irrigation works in process of construction are being carried on under the direction and capital of New York and Salt Lake City parties. The Alturas Land Irrigation Company, projected in Utah, designs to construct a dam across the Snake River to flood canals for the purpose of irrigating land on both sides thereof, in Cassia and Logan Counties. It is stated that this work will serve when completed 500,000 acres of the most valuable fruit, cereal, and vegetable land. The land to be thus served is not now Worth the prečmption price of $1.25 per acre. *See answers to correspondents at close of Idaho for U. S. Census figures. g § § i $ * | § § ! § § *. J .* 4 º **-º-... as}º ſº, - S$2. ~ >{~#| S-Q i i # *; º § == 3 s P.c: a T : ::= |work be. Work | Water |*** Name of canal. B ; #. #. --> à # gun in—finished— * . . . . Owned by— 5 ° “t: | g ::, E 3, £ use"— |###5 C #3 #3 || 3:5. 3.53% H Q Q 5.3: F. : E! 3 < | < | #4 | < ze == Rexburg ---------- $1,000 ($2.00 ($4.00 || $8,000 || Mar., '83 June, '83 || May, '83 5,000 | Corporation. Westfield - - - - - - - -. 200 2.00 4.00 || 3,000 — '85 May, '88 May, '88 2,500 | Private par- ties. Fall *. find Te- 500 | 1.50 || 3.00 |........ July, '89 — '90 ---------- 50,000 | Corporation. to Il Canal. º Teton ------------- 300 2.00 4.00 5,000 | – '83 — '83 June, '83 || 5,000 Do. St. Anthony------- 800 1.50 3.00 | 12,000 || July, 83 May, '89 — '89 20,000 Do. - C # n solidated | 1,000 | 1.50 3.00 6,000 || Oct., '88 – '99 || May, '90 5,000 Pºte par- 3. I’Iſle I’8. a 162S, Cºllºw and I.------|------|------|-------. Sept., '88 ----------|---------- 50,000 || Corporation. 005 Hill 18. Idaho ------------- 75,000 ||------|------ 75,000 June, '89 -— '90 — '90 100,000 Do. Porter ------------ 50,000 ||------|------ 25,000 || — '85 — '86 — '86 10,000 Do. La Helle.---------. 000 || 2.00 || 4.00 15,000 June, '87 | U n * — '88 25,000 JDo. - - is he Farmer's Friend --|3,000 || 2.00 4.00 10,000 | — '87 June, '90 Aug., '88 - - - - - - - I}o. *ś, º: * 50,000 || 3.00 6.00 75,000 — '80 — , — '80 -------. IDo. OW UI'60ſ. * Claim recorded in Blackfoot. NOTE.-In addition to these canals the following works in Bingham County are under way in part belonging to the extensive system devised for storing and distributing the head waters of the Snake River. They are: Upper and Lower Liman canals, from south fork of Snake River, having a length of 14 miles (7 each); length of first section, 7 miles; width at bottom, 12 feet ; grade per mile, 5 feet. Three canals (Texas Slough, Salem, Woodmansee) from Teton River; two of 10 miles each in first section, 20 feet in width, one of 27% and the other 5 feet grade, the third canal having length of 3 miles, a width of 20 feet, and a grade of 23 feet. Four canals from Falls River (Fall River, Anderson, Kern, and McBee), one of 12 miles, first section, 20 feet deep and 10-inch grade per mile; three having 3 miles, estimated, with 6 feet for one and 10 feet depth of the other two, and a grade of 23 feet per mile. Three canals from Henry's Fork (Birch, Egin, and Mason), one of 6 miles, one of 15, and one of 3; having width of 15, 26 and 8 feet; two having grades of 23 and one of 76.10. One from Leigh's Creek (Buckner Ridge) with 6 miles length, 12 feet width, and 10 feet grade per mile. Canon Creek and canal, 16 miles, 12 feet width, 5% grade per mile. Number of canals as reported --------------------------------------------------------------- 28 Mileage of canals as reported.--------------------------------------------------------------- 3, 22.1% Total cost of twelve canals.------------------------------------------------------------------ $295,000 Total cost of twelve canals as reported, in cash (balance in labor at from $1.50 to $3 per day, according to Mormon usage).------------------------------------------J - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - $185,000 Amount of water claimed— + In miner's inches per second as reported ------------------------------------------------ . 322, 500 Cubic feet ----- * * * * * * * * * * * * *e is sº is sº * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 6, 450 In gallons--------------------------------------------- tº º ºn sº * > * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 41, 573.5 Q 172 IRRIGATION. . r Bingham County, Idaho, 1890–Continued. re: * , || 333 || 3 || 3 || 3 || 3 º .* g :35 | # 5g = * | 3 ºf Legal name of corporation or 's : gä ºf $º # 5 § s: | * : association. 5* * #5 a Fº 3 & 3 | P- .# §§ ſº ## sº | # ###| | | * | # * © r: º: * @ q) O O 2. C/2 p3 ſh- Cº JRexburg Irrigation Canal Co......|Directors §º: i 2,000 800 | Company. $10.00 $10.00 €10 (1 0. In and water - master. Westfield Canal Co.----------..... .... do ...! W º 0 I’ 12 12 I----------- 250, 00 || 250. 00 Ida Stør. Fall River and Teton Canal Co....l....do ...l....do..... 2,000 | 1,000 || Company. 10.00 | 10.00 Teton Canal Co ------------------. ----do ---|----do -----|--------|--------|-----------|--------|-------- St. Anthony Canal Co - ... ------... ----do ---|----do -----|--------|--------|----------- 50, 00 50.00 Consolidated Farmers Canal Co. --|----do ---|----do -----|--------|--------|-----------|--------|-------- cº Hollow and Foothill Canal |.... do ...|.... do ----. 2,500 500 Company. 30.00 30. 00 0. Idaho Canal Co---------------...--. ----do ---|--- do ----- 5, 000 || 5,000 ||----------. 100, 00 || 100. 00 Porter Canal Co-...----------------. ----do ---|----do -------------|--------|-----------|--------|-------- La Belle Irrigating Co ---------... ----do ---|----do ----- 12, 500 || 4,000 || Company 5. 00 5. 00 Farmer's Friend Canal Co-...-...--...--.do ---|----do -----|--------|--------|-----------|--------|-------- JEagle Rock and Willow Creek Ca- |.... do ...|.... do ..... 4,000 || 4,000 ||----....... 25. 00 25.00 nal Co. - Total shares as reported. ----|----------|-----------. 28,012 || 14, 312 |-----------|--------|-------- º tº tº gº H . º <> p; KD $ºw tº, CŞ dº up GD º *={ p=s Sº #| || 3 ##| *# | 3 | #5 | ##| || 3.3 | #5 - S ? -- © ºd E # * = § E #TE : ; Legal name of corporation or £º +2 #7 •r: # = | 3 #3 || 3 * : 5 § 2: 3 association. §§ 3:# † : B. : ##| || 3:g': c; 3 .E & 5 * 3 : 3 o'E tº 5 º,53 § 3. 5 ce & cºrº-3 § { | # = 3 *g 33 | # 3 | #33 § - £: UD $1.25 || $4.00 5,000 2, 000 400 3.11C0. Westfield Canal Co. ----------- 200 | 20.00 - - - - - -...-. 1. 25 4.00 2,400 600 200 Fall River and Teton Canal Co- 10 5.50 ---------- . 50 4.00 40,000 || 5,000 1,000 Teton Canal Co.---------------|--------|--------|---------- * * * * * * * : * * * * * * * * 2,000 | 1,500 300 St. Anthony Canal Co- - - - - - - - - - 10 5.00 ---------. 1. 50 4.00 30,000 5,000 1,500 Consolidated Farmers Canal Col.-------|--------|-----...--* } - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 5,000 2,000 500 Cedar EIollow and Foothill Ca- * 10 --------|----------|--------|-------- 125,000 --------|-------- nal Co. # Idaho Canal Co ---------------- 10 --------|---------|--------|-------- 100,000 | Few. -- ...----- Porter Canal Co ---------------|--------|--------|----------|--------|-------- 5,000 510 200 La Belle Irrigating Co......... 2 • 50 Cash.------------------- 4,000 800 200 Farmers' Friend Canal Co.. --...------- tº º ſº me tº º sº a ºn tº 4s sº gº ºs º gº tº gº e sº e º ºn, sº - ~ i • * * * * * * = . 15,000 || 3, 100 500 Bagle Rock and Willow Creek 5 • 75 ---------. 00 4,00 25,000 || 10,000 4,000 Canal Co. Total --------------------|--------|--------|----------|--------|-------. 358, 400 22, 570 8,800 RECLAMATION POSSIBILITIES IN IDAHO. 173. Bingham County, Idaho, 1890–Continued. § Legal name of corpora- tion or association. : i ; : : i : # | : | : Acres. Acres. Acres. Acres. Rexburg Irrigation Ca- 150 | 1,000 400 50 Apr. 20 || Oct. From A. S. Anderson, I nal Co. Kaintuck, Aug. 30, 1890. Westfield Canal Co...... 20 300 70 10 Apr. 20 Oct. 1 Do. Fall River and Teton Ca- 1, 000 || 2,500 400 100 Apr. 20 || Oct. 1 | From A. S. Anderson, nal Co. Kaintuck, Aug. 28, 1890. Teton Canal Co-- - - - - - -. 100 900 140 60 Apr. 20 || Oct. 1 Do. St. Anthony Canal Co - - - 100 | 1,000 1,400 100 Apr. 20 || Oct. 1 Do. Consolidated Farmers 400 | 1,000 80 20 Apr. 20 | Oct. 1 Do. Canal Co. - Cedar Hollow and Foot-1-------|-------|-------|-------|----------|---------- From E. P. Henry, Eagle. hill Canal Co. Rock, Aug. 31, 1890; - not completed. Idaho Canal Co----------|--------------|---------------------------------- From Joseph A. Clark, i Eagle Rock. Aug. 30, 1890. Porter Canal Co...... --. 200 | 200 100 10 | May 1 Sept. 15 1Do. Ta Belle Irrigating Co. --| 200 300 90 10 | May 1 | Sept. 15 | From W. H. B. Crow, Ea- & - gle Rock, Aug. 29, 1890. Fºers Friend Canal 200 2,000 300 100 May 1 | Sept. 15 Do. O. Eagle Rock and Willow 1, 500 || 4,000 500 ------- May 1 || Sept. 15 From Joseph A. Clark, reek Canal Co. fºe Rock, Aug. 30, - 1890. Total -------------- 3, 820 |13, 200 3,480 || 460 ----------|---------- Boise County.—The total area irrigated or under ditch is 83,500 acres. It is claimed that 26,200 acres can be reclaimed by the supply of water in sight. There are in the county 20 ditches; total length, 60 miles. Cache County.—Has under ditch and irrigated 82,000 acres; estimated as irrigable, from the valuable water supply, if stored, 655,000 acres. There are 298 farm canals and ditches, with a total length of 299 miles, a remarkable illustration of the small farm system of the Mormon pop- ulation. Custer County.—Has 24,000 acres irrigated and under ditch, and claims 446,000 acres as reclaimable. The ditches are all small and in- dividual in character. JElmore County.—There are 10,000 acres under ditch and irrigated; 230,000 acres can be reclaimed and served by the water supplies of the county. In this county there are 50 ditches with a total length of 25 miles. Idaho County.—Irrigation is not generally used. Some small ditches for both farm and manufacturing purposes have been constructed. There are a considerable number of bored and driven wells within the county. They are used chiefly for stock and domestic purposes. The valley land, it is claimed, does not need irrigation. On the opposite side of the river, in Washington, water is raised by centrifugal pumps and distributed for irrigation purposes over the land, similar to those in use in Idaho County. - Rootenai County.—Is one of the northern sections of the Panhandle region. Very little irrigation is practiced in the southern portion of the county; it is considered unnecessary. The granite nature of the soil, however, precludes ditch construction to any great extent. It will ' probably be supplied by underflow sources. Latah County.—Also belongs to the semihumid area of Idaho. The only irrigation practiced here at present is that involved in the use of 174. **. IRRIGATION. artesian Water for lawns, orchards, and garden purposes. There are probably between 100 and 200 low-pressure wells in the county, show- ing the possibility of obtaining a much larger supply. Lemhi County.—Has 10,000 acres underditch and irrigated. It claims 600,000 acres as irrigable. The ditch surface is confined at present to the valley lands of the Lemhi, Salmon, and the small lateral tributaries thereof. The length is 300 miles in 250 ditches. Logan County.—Hasreported 50,000 acres under ditch or irrigated, and claims 1,250,000 acres as reclaimable. The chief source of supply are the two Wood Rivers. The mileage of ditches in connection there with is about 120; 140 miles of ditches have been constructed on the famous Ramas Prairie, which, with similar full systems, will make 300 miles in all. - - Mez Perces.—There is only one ditch reported in this county, and the use of the water for irrigation is only incidental. A considerable supply can be obtained from phreatic sources. Oneida County.—Reported 38,800 acres under ditch or irrigated, with 148,000 acres that can be reclaimed. Storage reservoirs are claimed as necessary for this region. A large canal project to carry water from the Bear River in Bingham County is also under consideration. There are 65 ditches, with a length of 100 miles. Owyhee Oownty.—Reported 21,300 acres in process of irrigation and under ditch, with a reclaimable area of 248,500 acres. There are 66 ditches of 153 miles in length within the county. Washington County.—Reported 40,000 acres as under ditch or irri- gated, and claims 500,000 acres as irrigable. The Weiser River sup- plies 270 farm ditches and one county ditch of 12 miles in length. There are 5 important canals in the neighborhood of the Weiser with a length of 40 miles, and its tributaries of about 80 miles. Its slopes cover nearly 15,000 acres. This is a great fruit region. Each eccupied and culti- wated homestead will have 5 acres devoted to fruit. The total length of Washington ditches will be not less than 290 miles. The future of the State of Idaho, from an irrigation standpoint, is among the brightest within the arid domain. Its prospects warrant all the efforts that are being made, and its citizens are proving themselves among the most enterprising in this direction of the entire Northwest. Of districts and enterprises in the State under the most active de- velopment during 1891, some reference is given, which while it does not cover all that deserves Inotice, presents those of which the office of irri- gation inquiry has some definite data. * The Idaho Falls Canal is situated in Bingham County, Idaho, taken out of the Snake River, 22 miles northeast of Idaho Falls, is built in a southwesterly direction, extending to the Blackfoot River, making the canal 45 miles in length. The canal is 40 feet on the bottom. 3 feet deep, 2 feet slope, berme banks 3 feet, top banks 5, capacity 455 cubic feet per second. The first branch leaves the main canal 13 miles from head gate, and is 12 feet wide on the bottom, 2 feet deep, with a capacity of 140 cubic feet per second. The main ditch is completed 8 miles from head gate; first branch is completed 5 miles, with 26 miles of farm later- als; proof has been made on some 14,000 acres tributary to this first branch. The second branch will leave main canal 11 miles from head gate, and be 38 miles long, 16 feet on the bottom, 3 feet deep, 2 feet slope, berme banks 3 feet. Land tributary to main ditch and laterals, 57,000 acres. A large construction force has been constantly employed, and the managers expect to have their system completed in June, 1892. The Great Western Canal system, comprising two canals, is in the systEMS IN. SOUTHEAST IDAHO. -> 175 same county, and is owned and operated by a construction company so named, with headquarters in Chicago. This system has a capacity of 640 cubic feet of water per second, and will furnish water for irrigat- ing 115,000 acres of land. These two canals, one called the Great Western and the other Portef ditch. The former takes its water from the west bank of the Snake River, opposite Bear Island, 11 miles north of Idaho Falls, has head gate of solid masonry 100 feet wide, 71- foot openings for water, with foundation in the rock bottom of the river. A large dam is thrown across the river 14 miles below the head gate, raising the water to the surface. Directly above the dam is placed the second head gate that controls the water in the canal, con- sisting of eight gates 6 feet wide and 7 feet deep. This canal is 40 feet wide on the bottom with a capacity of 450 cubic feet per second; its total length south and west down the valley will be 58 miles. The Por- ter ditch takes its water from the Snake River, 2% miles north of Idaho Falls, has a strong wooden head gate, is 25 feet wide on the bottom and has a capacity of 190 feet per second. It has been in use for five years, and main canal is 8 miles long with 30 miles of branches. The total number miles of completed ditches are: Main, 20 miles; branches, 40 miles; of farm laterals, 50 miles; delivering water in 1891, on 8,000 acres of land. It is intended to complete the system by October, 1892. One of the most notable of the new irrigation systems now in prog- ress is that under the management of the “Boise City and Nampa Irri- gation, Land and Lumber Company,” whose source of supply is the Boise River, the water for which is taken some distance below the dam of the Idaho Canal Company at a point 5 miles above Boise. The initial point of the extensive system now growing was made in the pur- chase of the “Ridenbaugh ditch,” 9 miles long, and carrying a small volume of water taken from the Boise River, 5 miles above Boise. This, with the rights, was sold to the Idaho Central Canal and Land Com- pany, who, considering it a poor investment, disposed of it to its pres- ent owners, who, eighteen months ago, organized under the name of the Boise and Nampa Irrigation, Land and Lumber Company, with a cap- ital of $1,000,000. Taking this ditch as a basis, the system within a year has been extended into one of 100 miles of main and 153 miles of lateral ditches, which, with a chain of ten lakes and reservoirs for stor- age, completely cover the Boise and Deer Flat valleys, together with all the intervening table-lands. Without the construction of a dam at its point of diversion (which frequently involves an outlay of $100,000) the water comes from the Boise at the rate of 33 feet per second, in a canal 45 feet wide at the top, 22 at the bottom, and 6 feet deep, taking a third of the river's volume at low water. The main ditch is 12 miles long, two branches going through the Boise Valley, each 25 miles in length, and one, the Nampa branch, extending 41 miles through the Deer Flat Valley. There was a good deal of practical skill and sagacity displayed in the selection of the point at which the water is tapped. The old ditch has been enlarged and extended, while new highland canals of con- siderable size have been constructed along the ridges, so as to insure every advantage of gravity, and, what is still more important, to war- rant the utilization of a number of natural lake beds and depressions along the canal routes which, at comparatively moderate cost, can be utilized for reservoirs. Two of such basins are in operation; one at Nampa, the point of railroad junction on the Oregon Short Line with the branch road to Boise, 18 miles distant; the other is 3 miles dis- tant from Nampa. One of the proposed lakes will serve 30,000 acres, and the others cover areas of from 5,000 to 15,000 acres each. The 176 IRRIGATION. engineering importance of this enterprise is found in the adoption of this plan of open tableland reservoirs. The section under the Nampa system is even more favorably located for such a purpose than that of northeast New Mexico, to which refer. ences have elsewhere been made. On the whole the climate is more genial, while the whole of the Boise Valley is under control of the “Chinook” or warm winter winds of the Pacific northwest. Without attempt to proclaim any theories or advocate a special system, the per- Sonal observation and close study of the special agent in charge leads distinctly to the conclusion that American enterprise is developing in connection with such irrigation works as those already operated on the Maxwell Grant, in New Mexico, the system under organization and con- struction at Nampa and in the Boise Valley, and the very boldly de- vised and executed works along the Bear River, in North Utah (Cache County), with others that are projected, methods of utilizing natural conditions for water storage, conservation and management that are practically new in character and promise large results in both safety and service, as well as in the great economy of construction and admin- istration they will achieve. Mountain and high altitude channel stor- age holds great danger within their lines; storage of the table-land character under review can, with reasonable strength of embankments, be readily made safe, while the advantages for service, etc., are very much greater. There would necessarily be under such a system, as that of the Nampa Company, a much less degree of construction cost attached to river, caſion, or mountain reservoir system, requiring heavy masonry or earth and rubble dams, and there must also be provided a costly system of service ways, head gates, flumes, etc., capable of resisting flood tendencies. The economy of the table-land system of reservoirs appears to be in the fact that the mountain streams and sources by which they are to be supplied can be conducted to the reservoirs, one ... on the open plain at a comparatively small cost, and with works of a simple character. The silt carried down may be handled easier and cheaper if necessary by means of settling basins, from which the cleared water can be drawn to other reservoirs. Again, the need of obtaining a sufficient fall of gravity pressure compels the adoption of high ridge lines, and consequently brings a larger area “under ditch” and earlier reclamation. All of these points are well exemplified in the Nampa system, which will bear close study by irrigation organizers and con- structors. Another point as to this section is seen in the possibility of easy drainage. Much of the area to be served by the system is under- laid at a short depth from the alluvial surface by a larger of hard vol- canic tufa, from a few inches to a couple of feet in thickness. In the making of their canals the company have often been obliged to blast through this thin strata. It was pointed out that its existence indicated the possibility of great economy of water and the early need of syste- matic drainage. The surface soil will quickly fill up, and the surplus will run off swiftly. The contours of the principal area to be served are such (except the Deer Flat section, which is open mesa or plains- land having an easy fall to the west) as to insure the collection of drain- age waters, and their return to the irrigation channels at a small cost and by means of low-lying open ditches in which the drainage can readily be collected. The Boise and Fayette valleys are excellent fruit-growing sections; probably second only to the coast counties of California below San Francisco Bay for the production of prunes. The soil of these valleys is a decomposed lava, and very rich in all the requirements of vigorous plant life. All the breals, clover, timothy, and alfalfa, and nearly all ——ºn. -- ** HORTICULTURAL PossIBILITIES AND ACTIVITY. 177 kinds of temperate fruits, like apples, pears, peaches, prunes, as well as all the smaller fruits are grown abundantly here, and roots grow to per- fection. Watermelons attain prodigious size, and the right conditions exist for the successful culture of the hop vine. Farms and orchards in the Boise and Fayette valleys and on Deer Flat are in proof of the remarkably productive power of Southwest Idaho, and in all reasonable probability of the adjacent sections of eastern Oregon. With the Missoula and Bitter Root valleys in Mon- tana, and the Walla Walla and other sections of eastern Washington, the whole of southwest Idaho will become a region of great horticultural importance. The Nampa Company served during 1891 about 13,000 acres, of which nearly 10,000 are under the old Ridenbaugh ditch. In 1892, this service will be nearly or quite double in extent. * The increase in horticultural activity in this section is shown by the statement made to the special agent that one nursery firm had sold within the year 80,000 trees, prunes, pears, plums, etc. On every hand the evidences of activity were visible and the movement along the north- west routes surpasses in activity and extent even that of the Southwest. As land is held at more moderate rates and there are still large areas of public land to be settled upon, the general immigration shows a younger and hardier class, one to whom “climate” has not been a paramount condition. - There are a large number of other enterprises in Idaho, showing the active interest felt in agricultural reclamation there. Among these is an enterprise of importance, which is to derive its support from the Snake River. The lands to be irrigated are located in Logan and Cassia counties, in the central and southern part of the State, and its con- struction will add a new and large area to the field of irrigation, for it would surely be followed by other efforts. The river dam, by which the needed water is to be diverted, is built at Mendoca, Idaho, near the rail- road crossing and just above the point where begins the great lava bed, . through which the Snake River for so long a distance cuts a turbulent pathway. The main ditch is to be 45 miles in length, and 85,000 acres lie on the north side of the river and 15,000 acres on the South side. The- significant engineering point in this work is the fall of the river, which is 7 feet per mile above the dam and 30 below it. The proposed canal begins at the dam site at an elevation of 37 feet below low-water line, and follows the rim of the lava bed all the way to Starr Ferry. The amount of land that can be irrigated on the south side will increase in the ratio of 1,000 acres to every 1 foot in the height of the dam. In order to secure this increase, the south side canal will have to be moved to higher lines than they are now run upon. On the north side of the river nothing will be gained by increasing the height of the dam, for here the lava shuts off all the increase; a 30-foot dam covers all the land below the rim of the lava. The variation between high and low water is about 12 feet. The length of the dam between the abutments is 527 feet. The apron will be built in 12 by 12 timbers. The cost of the dam is $133,150, and the canal on the north side is 32 miles long to the point where it enters the river again. On the south side it will be 12 miles long, and three-quarters of this will be excavated through lava. The ditch is 40 feet wide and 10 feet deep at the dam. The cost is esti- mated as follows: Canal.--------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - e s = • = $215,000 Dam.----------------------------------------- - * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 133, 150 348, 150 Engineer expenses -------------------------------------------------------- 56,000 S. Ex. 41—12 ** - 178 * *-*. * . IRRIGATION. In addition to the 100,000 acres to be irrigated, there are, under the projected canals, 225,000 acres that only require a cut of a mile and a half through the mountains to irrigate. ANSWERS FROM CORRESPONDENTS. The following data has been compiled from answers to circulars re- ceived by this office: ADA. COUNTY. Caldwell (post-office), Howard Sebree (September, 1891): Has cleared and improved farm of 300 acres, irrigated by water from a canal 23 miles long, with capacity of 20,000 cubic inches to serve 20,000 acres; estimates cost per acre of clearing and preparing sage-brush land for irrigation and cultivation at $3 (his system does not require plowing). One dollar and fifty cents per cubic inch is the average rental of water per annum. One half of a cubic inch per acre is sufficient after land is once irrigated. Perpetual water rights are assessed 25 cents per cubic inch for annual repairs. Products successfully raised by irrigation and yield per acre of same: Wheat, 30 to 50 bushels; corn, 40 bushels; oats, 40 to 80 bushels; all other small grain; apples, peaches, pears, prunes, plums, cherries, and other fruits, etc. Falks Store (post-office), Edson Bishop (September, 1891): Water supply: Payette River. Irrigation works: Ten miles main ditch; numerous laterals; main ditch 8 feet wide on bottom, 14 feet wide on top. One main headgaté; about thirty small ones; five waste gates. Cost per mile of ditches: Main, $1,000; laterals, $200. Cost per acre from $3 to $10. Cost per acre for annual maintenance and repairs, $1 to $2. Average cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation by irrigation: For sage-brush land, to clear, grub, level, and seed it down, nearly $20. Cost of water supply to user per acre, $2 (annual rental, $2). Area under ditch, 2,000 acres; under cultivation, 200 acres. Chief products: Wheat, oats, hay, sugar cane, hops, fruit, potatoes, beets, etc. Average annual yield per acre: Wheat, 20 bushels; oats, 50 bushels; hay, 5 tons; po- tatoes,100 to 250 bushels; all other crops not produced sufficiently to estimate. Boise City (post-office), A. D. Foote (September, 1891): Idaho Mining and Irrigation Company (system not completed, but it is proposed to include storage of about 250,000 acre-feet of water; one canal (Phillis) com- pleted; others only partially); water supply, Boise River. Area under ditch, 25,000 acres; under cultivation, 2,000 acres. Mileage and size of ditches, 55 miles; 24 feet at top, 12 feet at bottom, 6 feet deep; grade, 2 feet per mile; one head gate ; reservoirs not yet built. Cost per mile of ditch, $3,000; average cost per acre, $4. Average cost per acre for annual maintenance and repairs, $2 (including interest on cost of works). Average cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation under irrigation: Clearing, $2; plowing, $2; fencing, $1; ditches on land, $1; total, $6.50. Cost of water supply to user per acre, $2.50; annual rental cost, $2.50. Chief products: Hay, cereals, potatoes, and fruit. Value of annual product per acre, $25. Boise City (post-office), Joseph Perrault (September, 1891): Water supply: Walling Canal, Boise River; appropriation, 100,000 inches; oldest water right on river built in 1864. Works: 7 miles main canal; first mile, 60 feet on top, 50 feet on bottom ; other 6 miles, 10 feet on bottom, 15 feet on top ; 2 head gates. Area under ditch, Boise City and 2,000 acres of land outside, all of which is under cultivation (extension proposed to reach 50,000 acres). r Cost per mile of ditch, about $7,000; cost per acre, about $5. Average § per acre for preparing land for cultivation under irrigation, $5; graz- ing, $2.50. A" Average cost per acre for annual maintenance and repairs, about $1. Average cost per acre of water supply to user, $4. Annual rental, for lots 50 feet by 122 feet, $5 per season. Staple products under irrigation, wheat, rye, oats, barley, corn, potatoes, alfalfa, timothy, clover, apples, pears, plums, prunes, peaches, and small fruits. STATISTICAL PROOFS OF RECLAMATION. 179 Average annual yield per acre: Wheat, 40 bushels; rye, 25 bushels; oats, 50 bush- els; corn, 60 bushels; potatoes, 400 bushels; alfalfa, 6 tons; timothy, 2 tons; clover, 6 tons. Nampa (post-office) J. M. Jones (September, 1891): Boise City and Nampa Irrigation, Land, and Lumber Company. Water supply, Boise River; area under ditch, 100,000 to 150,000-acres; under cultiva- tion, 10,000 acres (first year after completion of canal). Irrigation works: Total mileage of ditches, 250; 103 miles of main ditches; at head gate, 22 feet at bottom ; 38 feet wide at water level; 3 main ditches; 16 feet wide on bottom ; 4 main head gates. * Number and area of reservoirs: 5 reservoirs—(No. 1) 15 acres ; (No. 2) 120 acres, 16 feet average depth, dam 420 feet; (No. 3) 50 acres, average depth 9 feet, dam 600 feet; (No. 4) 320 acres, average 16 feet deep, dam 400 feet (this lake is 2 miles long); (No. 5) 230 acres, 12 feet deep, dam 200 feet long. Cost per mile of ditches: Main ditch, $4,000; laterals, $200 to $2,000; cost of reser- voirs, etc., $20,000; cost per acre for farm laterals, 50 cents. 3. Average cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation : For clearing sage brush, $3; plowing, $1.50. Average cost per acre for maintenance and repairs, 15 cents (with perpetual water right); annual rental per acre per annum, $1.50 (without water right). Products under irrigation: Wheat, oats, barley, rye, alfalfa, clover, timothy, pota- toes, and other vegetables—apples, pears, prunes, peaches, plums, quinces, ber- ries, etc. Aveº yield of products per acre: Wheat, 25 bushels; oats, 50 bushels; barley, 40 ushels. Payette (post-office), The Payette Nursery and Fruit Farm (per W. G. Whitney, De- cember 9, 1891): $ Water supply, Payette River; irrigation works in neighborhood. Three ditches: (1st) Settlers’ Ditch, 16 feet wide on bottom, 20 feet top, 7 miles long; (2d) Stevenson Ditch, 8 feet bottom, 12 feet top, 15 miles long; (3d) Lower Pay- ette Ditch, 12 feet bottom, 16 feet top, 8 miles long. A head gate for each ditch; no dams on rivers; several new ditches under construction ; cost per mile, about $3,000 (cost depends upon the size of ditch and nature of soil, etc.). Area under ditch, 80,000 acres; under cultivation, 10,000 acres. Cost of water supply to user per acre, $1.50; annual rental cost, $1. Average cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation (under irrigation), $10. Average &bst per acre for ditches, etc., $1. Average cost per acre for annual maintenance and repairs, about 25 cents. Products under irrigation and yield per acre: Alfalfa, 9 tons; clover, 8 tons; wheat, 48 bushels; oats, 80 bushels; potatoes, 500 bushels. All kinds of fruits yield abundantly. Average value of product per acre, $40 net profit. Payette (post-office), A. B. Moss & Bro. and Payette Valley Bank (September, 1891): Lower Payette Ditch (appropriation, 100,000 inches). Water supply, Payette River; area under ditch, 8,000 acres; under cultivation, 4,000 to 5,000 acres. Works: Eight miles of main ditch, 12 feet on bottom, 20 feet on top, 4 feet deep. (Proposed extension of 13 miles.) Two main headgates, 40 lateral gates; no other works. Cost per mile of main ditch, about $2,000; average cost per acre for main ditch, $2; for laterals, $1; cost per acre for annual maintenance and repairs, $1. Average cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation under irrigation, $10. Cost of water supply to user per acre, $1. (All users of water own shares in ditch.) Chief products under irrigation : Hay, fruits, grain, and vegetables. *:::,ºlue of products per acre: Hay, $30; fruits, $300; grain, $25; vegeta- eS, 0. Nampa (post-office), James A. McGee, president of board of trade (January 20, 1892), in an address to the board, stated as follows: The enterprises we have started have been the means of increasing the value of over 200,000 acres of land between Boise and Snake River from $1.25 to at least $10 per acre without water, and on an average of at least $25 with water; or from a value of $250,000 to $2,000,000 without water, and to a value of $5,000,000 with water. The assessed value of the whole county has been increased 200 per cent. BINGHAM COUNTY. Blackfoot (post-office), D. M. Cappo (September, 1891): Corbett Slough Ditch. Water supply, Snake River. Area under ditch, 5,000 acres; under cultivation, 3,000 acres. - - 180 - IRRIGATION. Works: Twelve miles of main ditch. Capacity, 7,000 inches. Size, 22 feet at top, 14 feet at bottom, at its head, and lessens gradually to 6 feet at the terminus. No reservoirs. Two headgates. Laterals or private ditches taken out along the whole length of main ditch. - º - Cost of ditch per mile, about $350; cost per acre, about $1.50. Average cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation under irrigation, from $5 to $15; for grazing, about half of this. Cost per acre for annual maintenance and repairs, about 10 cents. Cost per acre of water supply to user, $2. - Chief products: Hay, grain, potatoes, and other vegetables, fruit of various kinds, melons, etc. Value of products per acre: Estimates that “crops costing $5 to $8 per acre will bring from $20 to $25 per acre.” [Area under cultivation under this ditch will be doubled next year. I L. E. Hall (Salt Lake City, Utah), “President Idaho Canal Company :” ... Water supply, Snake River. Area under ditch, 25,000 acres (estimated); under cul- tivation, 1,000 acres. Irrigation works: Twelve miles main canal, 40 feet on bottom ; two branches, 23 miles and 7 miles long, 30 feet each on bottom. Loose rock dam at headgate, 15 rods long, 3 feet high. One main headgate composed of 7 separate gates, each 8 feet wide, giving 56 feet space for opening for water; headgate of solid masonry laid in cement, rock piers; 6 waste gates; 6 large culverts under canal; other works, flumes, bridges, etc. - Cost per mile of canal: Main line, $5,000; branches, $1,500. Cost of headgate, $6,000; culverts, $4,000; waste gates, $2,000; bridges, $3,000; right of way, $5,000. Canal not completed. Cost, given as far as constructed. Average cost per acre of works, ditches, etc., $5. Average cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation under irrigation, $5. Average cost for annual maintenance and repairs, 75 cents. Cost of water supply to user per acre, “not determined; 124 cents at present.” Annual rental cost, 75 cents at present. Chief products: Wheat, oats, barley, hay, and potatoes. LData for county generally, compiled from answered circulars sent to Senator F. C. Dubois, Martin Patrie, T. J. Smith, and others. I Water supply, Snake and Blackfoot rivers and tributaries. Area under ditch, variously reported; generally estimated that 75 per cent of agri- cultural area of county is under ditches or canals either constructed or in prog- ress of construction, and about 40 per cent under cultivation. Irrigation works: Three large canals under construction, Market Eake and Butte Canal, Idaho Canal, and Great Western Canal; from 75 to 150 miles main canal from 25 to 50 feet on bottom; very many smaller or private ditches; 8 headgates (main), smaller ones numberless. Cost per mile of canals or ditches, from $200 to $10,000; cost per acre, from $3 to $8. Average cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation under irrigation, about $6. Cost per acre for annual maintenance and repairs, about 25 cents to 75 cents. Cost per acre of water supply to user, from $3 to $8; annual rental cost, from 25 cents to $1 per acre. Chief products: Wheat, oats, barley, some corn, alfalfa, timothy, potatoes, prunes, pears, apples, cherries, strawberries, and all small fruits. Average annual yield per acre: Wheat, 25 to 35 bushels; oats, 40 to 50 bushels; pota- toes, 200 to 300 bushels; alfalfa, 5 tons; timothy, 2 tons. Eagle Rock (post-office), John F. Shelley, Secretary and treasurer, Eagle Rock Wil- low Creek Water Company (November, 1891): Water supply, Snake River. Area under ditch about 40,000 acres; under cultivation, about 10,000 acres. - Irrigation works: 50 miles main canals and laterals, two main canals, 20 feet and 30 feet on bottom, respectively; two headgates in river. Total cost of canal, etc., $100,000; annual rental cost of water, 50 cents per acre. Average cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation under irrigation, $5; for irrigation works, ditches, etc., $4; for annual maintenance and repairs, about 50 Cent8. Chief products: Wheat, oats, alfalfa, timothy and blue grass hay, potatoes, and other vegetables. Yield per acre: Grain, about 40 bushels; potatoes, about 300 bushels. Idaho Falls (post-office), secretary Great Western Canal Company: Water supply, Snake River, main channel. Area under ditch, 50,000; under culti- vation, perhaps 500 acres. i DEVELOPMENT OF A WATER SUPPLY. 181 Irrigation works: 50 miles ditch, 30 feet on bottom (except for the first mile from the head, which is 40 feet), 45 feet at top ; two headgates; no reservoirs or dams. Cost per mile of ditch, about $3,000; cost per acre, about $3. Average cost per acre for preparation of land for cultivation under irrigation, about $5; cost for annual maintenance and repairs per acre, about 25 cents. Products: Wheat, rye, oats, barley, potatoes, timothy, and alfalfa. Estimated value of annual product per acre, $20 net. CASSIA COUNTY. Basin (post-office), A. B. Roberts (September 19, 1891): Has 960 acres under ditch 500 acres under cultivation. - Water supply, Willow Creek; capacity, 300 inches (mountain stream, fed by melted SIlow ). Irriº works, 2 miles of ditch, 2 feet wide at bottom ; 1 headgate (to guard against floods); a distributing gate; “ditches in neighborhood generally made by plowing a few furrows, then running a V-shaped scraper through it.” Cost per mile of ditch, $2.50; average cost per acre, 8 to 10 cents; average cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation (under irrigation), about $2 (including leveling); for grazing no irrigation is used. Cost of water supply to user per acre, 5 cents; annual repairs, $1 (on whole ditch). Staple products and yield per acre: Alfalfa, 6 tons (2 tons for each cutting); wheat, 30 bushels; oats, 35 bushels; barley, 35 bushels; potatoes, 250 bushels. Water service estimated at less than 10 inches for 100 acres. The waters of all the small brooks and springs is appropriated; dams and reservoirs needed for irri- gation on a proper scale. - [The Spring Basin Water Company, of this vicinity, have 4,500 acres under ditch, about 1,000 acres under cultivation; cost for annual repairs not more than $20; for distribution, $150 annually—wages of water master.] Thatcher (post-office), George Chapin (September, 1891): Water supply, Goose Creek; capacity, June 1, 7,000 inches; September 1, 1,000 inches; area under ditch, 1,000 acres; under cultivation, 360 acres. Irrigation works, main canal, 14 miles long; average width, 8 feet; depth, 3 feet; fall, 7 feet per mile ; capacity, 1,000 inches; headgates, 1 for main canal and 1 for each lateral ; no other works. Average cost per mile of main canal, $100. Average cost per acre of irrigation works, ditches, etc., in vicinity, $1. Average cost per acre for annual maintenance and repairs, 25 cents. Average cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation under irrigation, $3. Average cost per acre of water to user, 50 cents (per annum). Staple products: Wheat, oats, barley, rye, potatoes, and all garden vegetables raised in Northern States, alfalfa and timothy hay, large and small fruit. Average product per acre: Wheat, 30 bushels; oats, 45 bushels; barley, 40 bushels; rye, 25 bushels; potatoes, 250 bushels; alfalfa, 6 tons; timothy, 3 tons. * ELMORE COUNTY. Mountain House (post-office), C. P. Oliver (September, 1891): Water supply for irrigation is pure spring water coming out of granite formation; no extended system of irrigation in neighborhood; ditches from spring, which carries about 160 inches water; 3 headgates; has 100 acres under ditch : 60 acres under cultivation ; area under ditch by other neighborhood systems, 300 3. CT68, Average cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation (under irrigation), $10. Average cost per acre for preparing land for grazing (under cultivation), $5. Average cost per acre ſor irrigation works, ditches, etc., $7.50 (for large tracts.) Average cost per acre for annual maintenance and repairs, about $1. Staple products: Hay, grain, vegetables, and all kind of fruit raised outside of tropi- cal climate. Bstimated yield per acre and value: Hay, 6 tons; grain, 60 bushels; potatoes, 400 bushels; fruit yield worth about $150 per acre (except peaches, which are worth much more). - gº [Geo. P. Hall (of Mountain House, this county) states that “this vicinity is a good field for developing artesian water.”] 182 _ – IRRIGATION. I.OGAN COUNTY. Bellevue (post-office), John Hailey (September, 1891). Has 100 acres under cultivation with irrigation ; about 2,000 acres under ditch in - neighborhood. Average cost for preparing land for cultivation under irrigation: For clearing land i. growth of sage brush, willows, etc., about $5 per acre; fencing, 50 cents per rod. Average cost per acre for irrigation works, ditches, etc., about $5. Average cost per acre for annual maintenance and repairs, $1.50. Staple products: Wheat, oats, barley, alfalfa, timothy, and native grasses, potatoes, cabbage, and other garden vegetables in common use. - Yield per acre and value of same: Wheat, 25 bushels, 75 cents per bushel; oats, 35 bushels, 50 cents per bushel; barley, 30 bushels, 60 cents per bushel; potatoes, 150 bushels, 40 cents per bushel; alfalfa, 4 tons, $5 per ton; timothy, 2 tons, $8 per ton; native grasses, 1 ton, $6. OWYHEE COUNTY. Silver City (post-office), L. J. Pritchard (September 19, 1891): Water supply of neighborhood, creeks having generally an abundance of water until June or July each year. Irrigation works: Ditches averaging 1 mile in length, 2 feet wide on bottom, depth varying, but running as much as 9 feet deep; dams about 5 feet high ; head gates for each ditch and lateral; all ditches, etc., owned by water users. (No reser- & voirs.) Cost per mile of ditches, about $120; cost of dams, about $30. Cost of water supply to user per acre, $5. Average cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation under irrigation: For clear- ing land of sagebrush, greasewood, etc., $4; plowing, leveling, etc., $6; total, $10. Average cost per acre of ditches, etc., about $5. Average cost per acre for annual maintenance and repairs, about $1.50. Products, yield per acre, and value: Wheat, 30 bushels; barley, 40 bushels; oats, 45 bushels; hay (principally alfalfa), 7 tons; vegetables, and fruit; average value of crop per acre at preseat prices, about $30. Average area under each ditch, 60 acres; under cultivation, 30 acres. WASHINGTON COUNTY. Weiser (post-office), T. C. Galloway (September, 1891): Water supply: Weiser River, abundant supply in early spring months; fails gener- erally by July 1 each year. Irrigation works: Canal (or ditch) 17 miles in length; width, 16 feet on bottom at upper end, 5 feet at lower end; dam, 4 feet high ; 2 head gates, 7 waste gates, 1 flush gate, 4 flumes, each 100 feet long; capacity of ditch (1891) 3,000 inches; 40 per cent lost by seepage, etc. Cost per mile of irrigation works, $2,000 (not yet completed). Average cost per acre of works, ditches, etc., from $1 to $10. Average cost per acre of preparing land for cultivation (under irrigation): For clear- ing out sagebrush, etc., $2; plowing, $2; leveling, $6. - - Average cost per acre for annual maintenance and repairs, about $1. Area under ditch by this or neighborhood system, 5,000 acres; under cultivation, 2,000 acres. Chief products: Wheat, corn, oats, barley, alfalfa, sorghum, potatoes, beans, and other vegetables and fruits. Yield per acre: Grain, about 30 bushels; hay, 1 to 5 tons; potatoes, 300 to 400 bushels; beans, 500 bushels, IWater sold for $1 per acre under this system.] CEN SUS FIGURES FOR STATE. The United States Census Office (Bulletin 157) reports for this State (Mr. F. H. Newell) as follows for the year 1889: . Number of counties------------------------------------------------------- 18 Number of irrigators------------------------------------------------------ 4, 323 Total acreage irregated and in crops.---------------, ---------------------- 217,005 Average size of farms in acres--------------------------------------------- 50 Average value of products per acres. -----------------...--- * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * $12.93 M O N T A N A. This State lies between the meridians 104 to 116 degrees of longitude west from Greenwich, and the parallels of north latitude 45 degrees, 15 minutes to 49 degrees. Its average breadth is 275 miles and its greatest length by northeast and southwest is 540 miles. . It contains 143,776 square miles or 92,016,000 acres of land. It is bounded on the north by British America, on the east by North and South Dakota, on the west by Idaho, and on the south by Wyoming and Idaho. In area, Montana is the third largest State in the Union, being surpassed in extent only by Texas and California. One-third of its extent con- sists of high mountain ranges which form the northern portion of the Rocky Mountains, and in which lie the sources of the Missouri River system. The western slope of these ranges is marked by large tribu- taries of the Columbia flowing to the Pacific Ocean. Approaching Montana from the eastward the land gradually rises about 8 feet to the mile, until Livingstone, in the center of the State and at the eastern base of the Belt Mountains, is reached. The average altitude of the State is not over 3,000 feet. The higher ranges will rise from 6,000 to 7,000 feet above sea level, and the loftiest peak in the State obtains an altitude of 11,000 feet. Montana is among the best watered States on the continent, its river system being of the largest order, comprising the Upper Missouri basin formed by the confluence of the Gallatin, Madison, and Jefferson rivers, all rising in the higher ranges of the northern Rockies. The Upper Missouri has a course of 500 miles within the limits of the State. The Yellowstone, its principal tributary, has a similar course and carries a body of water equal to that of the leading stream. On the north, the chief feeders of the Missouri are the Milk, the Marias, and the Sun rivers, and on the south, the Yellowstone and Musselshell. The principal trib- utaries of the Yellowstone are the Powder, Elk, and Big Horn rivers. West of the Rockies the drainage runs into the Clark fork of the Co- lumbia. In the extreme northwest the Kootenai and the Bitter Root drain that important section, making two of the most valuable valley regions in the State. Numerous other tributaries are confluent on either side of the range with these larger streams. Everywhere they form fer- tile valleys, broad mesas, and high table or plateau areas, making of Mon- tana one of the most important pastoral regions. Though the streams and rivers are numerous, the hydrography of Montana is very simple in character. On the east it is all comprised in the Missouri basin, and on the west in that of the Columbia. There are many mountain lakes and basins, which must form at no distant day available reservoirs for the great storage supplies that will be required in the reclamation of some 20,000,000 or 25,000,000 acres of arable land. The hydrology of Montana is such as to warrant the statement that a larger proportion of its great area can be brought under irrigation, and made to produce in abundance all the grains, grasses, fruits, and vegetables of the tem. perate zone than is the case with any other section of the arid region, 183 184 . . IRRIGATION. ~ y, The largest mountain lake is known as the Flathead, a beautiful body of water, 30 miles long by 10 wide. The chief characteristic of Montana in regard to climate is its dry and bracing atmosphere. Like all arid regions, the temperature is better than its latitude would indicate. Towards the northwest the lowering of the mountain ranges admit of the passage of the famous “Chinook” Wind, bringing in its passage from the Pacific the warm breath of the Japanese current. Heavy snows very often disappear in one night under the influence of the “chinook.” The thermometer's range is about the same in winter as that of northern Iowa and Wisconsin, but the weather is much more endurable, and the average is warmer. The Summer heat, though warm, is never excessive, and the nights are al- Ways cool. The sheltered mountain valleys in summer and Winter are more endurable than the open plains, especially to the eastward. The low range mountains which permit the passage over their summits of the moisture-laden winds of the Pacific Ocean act as condensers, so that their summits in winter are laden with heavy snows, and in summer gather rain, with the full force of the eastward-moving moisture. A considerable proportion of Montana, especially in the north, is claimed to be semihumid in character, owing to the early summer rains, but even there the benefits of irrigation in making positive security for agriculture is fully acknowledged, and large enterprises of that char. acter are under way. In the central and southern portions of the State, as well as eastward through the great open valleys of the Yellowstone and Upper Missouri, irrigation is a direct necessity. Its application in- sures crops, according to the testimony before the Senate Committee, of from three to ten times in value, in quality, and in quantity, of prod- ucts of same character raised in the central and eastern States. The higher mountain region is well timbered, and when going west- ward, the trees belong chiefly to the Pacific coast varieties and the evergreen family. They are usually of a great size and valuable for merchantable lumber. On the eastern slopes, while the trees in the timber belt grow to a great height and density, the trunks are not usually large. Several varieties of the pine comprise the great body of this timber. Along the Missouri and the Yellowstone, with their prin- cipal tributaries, are found large amounts of cottonwood, box elder, and ash. The table and bench lands are treeless. The timbered area. is estimated at about 36,000 square miles. The soils of Montana are generally of the best quality, largely formed of the mountain débris, being both granitic and volcanic in character. They range from heavy clay to light sand, but consist principally of a dark or chocolate-colored loam. The best soil is found on the mesa or bench land just above the Valleys and rising to the base of the moun- tain ranges. Probably no better wheat land exists on the continent than these same mountain plains. Wheat has been cultivated for twenty years past, yielding from 30 to 40 bushels per acre, and showing no diminution. The grain is always heavy and the yield is astonishing. In the Gallatin Valley, where farming has been carried on for the longest period, 40 bushels to the acre has been a usual crop since settlement began. In the Little Belt 3asin oats are raised weighing 45 pounds to the bushel and producing 85 bushels to the a CI'{}. In the valley of the Yellowstone at Glendive, Miles City, and Bil- lings, it was stated, in testimony taken by the Senate committee, that from Livingstone to the mouth of the Yellowstone the valley area alone embraces 765,000 acres of reclaimable land. Corn will produce 30 *. PHYSICAL CONDITIONS FOR MOUNTAIN IRRIGATION. 185 bushels to the acre; wheat, 45 to 50; potatoes, 450 bushels; alfalfa grows 6 tons to the acre yearly ; and that all the small berries and fruit trees of the temperate zone can be grown successfully. With irri- gation all crops would be secure, and their yield largely increased. With a proper storage system it is assumed, and on reasonable grounds, that about 8,000,000 acres of bench lands could be reclaimed by means of high-line ditches. The general feeling in eastern Montana is favor- able to that form of irrigation enterprise. Nearly the whole of the higher table lands can be made available for the cultivation of root crops and of forage plants, thereby instiring a rapid change from cattle ranch to cattle farm. The Gallatin Valley has been cultivated for more than twenty years, producing large crops continually. The testimony shows that an average crop per acre of potatoes would be 400 bushels; of oats, from 30 to 60 bushels; of wheat, 40 bushels; of barley, from 50 to 100 bushels, or an average of 75 to the acre. This is the result of irrigation. Without irrigation the yield is two-thirds less per acre. Irrigation begins in the last of May or the first of June. In this val- ley the irrigation enterprises have heretofore been of the ordinary com- munity character, projected and constructed by the farmers themselves. Large enterprises are now under way, which will probably greatly in- crease the acreage under ditch and rapidly advance the economy of water use. In the Judith Basin, the Teton and Sun River valleys, a considerable area has been brought under cultivation. The bench lands of the two rivers are from 400 to 500 feet above the valley bottom, and it has a slope towards the Missouri of 100 feet in 6 miles. The soil is warm, with sand enough in it for fertility; underlaid with gravel so as to insure good subsoil drainage; the frosts on these lands are never early in the fall or late in the spring. The blue-joint grass, peculiar to Montana since population went in and cultivation begun, grows abun- dantly there and makes the finest hay in the State. Mr. H. M. Wilson, engineer of the U. S. Geological Survey, estimates that there are 700,000 acres of excellent land that can be readily reclaimed. Thirty- five to 40 bushels of wheat are produced to the acre; also, 4 tons of blue-joint hay and 3 of timothy can be raised to the acre. Fruits and berries grow rapidly and well. The Society of Civil Engineers in a report to the Senate committee, declared that 1,000,000 acres or but one-ninetieth part of the State is now irrigated and cultivated. The possible area of reclamation was estimated at 20,000,000 acres. The area reclaimable without a system of general storage would not exceed 3,000,000 acres. Such a system of storage in their opinion can not be constructed without the aid of State or national government. The high table lands having a general altitude of 3,000 feet are largely reclaimable; but the problem of water storage and dis- tribution for such lands involves great expenditure and a high degree of engineering skill and enterprise. * The underflow and artesian water problems have heretofore attracted but little attention in Montana. Such wells as have been bored in the Yellowstone Valley are of considerable depth and their pressure and flow are not great, but everywhere may be found at moderate depths a supply of negative artesian water, rising nearly or quite to the sur- face, and even now forming a valuable supply for stock and domestic purposes. The enormous volume of precipitation that falls upon the ranges of Montana does not all, it is evident, find its way through the surface channels to the great Mississippi Valley and thence into the Gulf. The indications all point to a considerable absorption of this pre- 186 *} IRRIGATION. cipitation by the earth itself. This phreatic supply will on further investigation be found both large and accessible. Messrs. W. W. De Lacy and W. C. Childs have given interesting statements from the standpoint of underground supply. Mr. De Lacy said that where gravel was found underlying the surface coil there was a great tendency of the mountain streams to disappear as they reached the bench lands. He said : A great many of our streams are running dry alternately; that is to say, there will be a stream of water for a mile or two, then it will sink, and then it will reappear. When that is the case, they are generally on a loose gravel bed. I think the reason of that is the water percolates through the gravel and disappears, and then for some reason comes up again. * The water is generally found at bed rock, and its depth from the surface differs with the depth of the bed rock. In a great many of the streams that are apparently dry I think that reservoirs could be built by sinking a dam down to bed rock. Frequently you will see a stream that is in a little cañon of Fº 100 yards or so, and the stream may be dried up at either end of it, though aving water above. I think if a well were put down to bed rock the water would be forced up and there would be a reservoir, and a very convenient one. Mr. Childs, of Helena, is a farmer on a large scale and of recognized ability. In the sections where cultivation was claimed to be successful without irrigation, he has said that water would be found within a foot or two of the surface. “In my belief,” said Mr. Childs, “if you dig 7 feet anywhere you will find standing water. Such water is found on the bench lands. It seems to be a sheet of water underlying the whole bench land area. It does not rise when tapped, but appears to remain at the same level continuously.” Mr. Childs described the manner in which he utilized a natural spring by boring immediately behind its outflow, thus increasing the same. The natural flow was about 5 inches of water. On sinking the bore to the depth of 160 feet he has obtained a flow of 200 gallons per minute. A 3-inch pipe was put in and the flow continues at 13 inches above the ground. Mr. Childs declared that he knew it to be true that flowing water could be found beneath the beds of so-called dry streams. At the time of the committee's visit he was engaged in digging a bed-rock drain in a channel 2,000 feet above the stream that supplies his ditch. The evidence showed there had been a loss of water by sinking of 25 miners' inches. From the results then achieved he expected to obtain a flow of 150 inches of bed-rock water, a supply fully as great as that of the normal surface flow. In Mr. Childs's opinion, then, this is true generally of mountain streams. Ar Mr. G. C. Swallow, inspector of mines, described a stream in the Ju- dith Mountains known as the “Dry Wolf.” In a portion of its course it flows 500 and for several miles 800 miners' inches of water. This water then disappears. Mr. Swallow believes that it could be restored to the surface by means of a bed-rock dam. Evidence could be multi- plied on this point, but it is not necessary as the general topography is abundant proof of the probability of finding phreatic waters all over the State of Montana, and at a reasonable depth below the surface. It remains true, however, that the storage-reservoir system will finally be the one on which Montana must largely depend. Of the sixteen counties in the State of Montana nearly all of them have considerable areas of land that could be made available by irriga- tion for agriculture. Dawson County, in the extreme northeast, having an area of 25,650 square miles, with but 50,000 acres now under culti- YELLOWSTONE WALLEY AND RECLAMABILITY. 187 vation, claims the possible reclamation, by means of water in sight, of some 4,000,000 acres. The county is watered both by the Upper Mis- souri and Yellowstone River systems. The latter stream passes through the Southeast corner of the county, and most of the cultivated area lies in the walley thereof. At Glendive there are four ditch systems having about 60,000 acres under them. There are five wells in the vicinity of Glendive of considerable depths, the water of which rises nearly to the surface; it is then raised by windmills and used for stock and domestic purposes. It is estimated that 4,000,000 acres can be reclaimed in this county. North of the Yellowstone Valley there is no cultivation, except small patches for ranch purposes, until you reach the Milk River Valley. The Upper Missouri flows generally within cañons from Fort Benton, until it leaves the State at Fort Buford. The Milk River Valley, now being opened by railroads, is considered to be an excellent agricultural region. Water is obtainable from the streams and by means of underflow, the water plane being but a few feet below the surface. Accurate data as to the mileage of irrigating ditch is not obtainable, because in most cases they are simply small farm works of which no record is made. . The Glendive works are supplied by water from Spring, Cane, and Fox creeks, and of the four irrigation works begun in that vicinity the main canal is 44 miles in length, with 5 miles of lateral ditches, four dams, four head gates and two weirs. Its cost was $2,500. Many springs are utilized for garden irrigation. Custer County, south of Dawson, and occupying the balance of the plains section of Montana, has an area of 32,300 square miles. It con- tains, also, the Crow Indian and Cheyenne reservations. Considerable activity in irrigation is seen in the neighborhood of Miles City. Nearly 100 miles of main canal are in operation, divided among some thirty differ- ent systems. The lateral or farm canals will have a length of 125 miles. There are thirty-five to forty dams, and the same number of head gates. One ditch, 20 miles in length, cost $100,000. The total cost of irriga- tion works is estimated at over $200,000, serving about 100,000 acres of land. On the Tongue River a canal has been constructed serving 16,000 acres of land at a cost of $60,000. Two steam pumps have been erected at Miles City, on the banks of the Yellowstone, and are now used to lift and distribute water for irrigation purposes. The crops raised are principally hay, oats, corn, potatoes, and garden vegetables. The largest area is laid down to grass and the making of hay. The cost of service is $1 per acre. Irrigated land ranges in value from $35 to $50 per acre, unimproved land, without water, from $5 to $7. Small berries and fruit trees grow well, and several score acres are now under cultivation. The valley of the Yellowstone within this county com- prises at least 400,000 acres of reclaimable land. With the bench-lands and table-lands 3,000,000 acres can be put under ditch and cultivated. The area of reclaimable land within the Crow Reservation, which is also in this county, is estimated at 1,500,000 acres. This is watered by the Yellowstone and its southern branches. There are twenty-four artesian wells within a radius of 15 miles of Miles City. Their depths range from 150 to 500 feet with bores of from 14 to 3 inches. They flow above the surface with considerable pressure. About 300 acres are now irri- gated by the water of these wells in parcels of from 2 to 25 acres each. Water can be found without flow at a depth of about 50 feet, and it is easily obtainable upon the mesa or bench lands. Over 100 wells of this character are in operation within the same radius as the artesian wells referred to. Windmills are used for pumping purposes. A con- siderable quantity of the water from both classes of wells is used for 188 IRRIGATION. -- - hay lands, but the main use is for domestic and stock purposes. The first artesian well was sunk in 1884 and still flows with undiminished pressure. Springs are largely utilized for garden and grass land. Yellowstone County, to the north of the river, has an area of 2,390 square miles. It is estimated that 500,000 acres can be supplied from the Yellowstone and Musselshell. The bench land between the two streams lies from 200 to 300 feet above the valley, and the fall to the eastward is such as to render the taking out of water by high-line canals a work of easy engineering. In 1889 there were five large enterprises under way, with a length of 70 miles. The area then irrigated was about 20,000 acres. One of the ditches has been extended 17 miles and is now 27 miles in length. By another work, 25 miles in length, 50,000 acres were under ditch in 1890. Water can be obtained at from 15 to 20 feet below the surface, and stock is generally supplied by such wells. The soil of this county is quite rich, and the levels are such as to render it easily irrigated by gravity. Nothing can be grown without irriga- tion, and water is needed wherever crops are raised. Wheat yields from 25 to 40 bushels per acre, oats from 50 to 70, and potatoes from 300 to 400 bushels. Choteau County, in the extreme northern part of the State, and em- bracing the head waters of the Upper Missouri and Milk rivers, is now developing a considerable area of irrigated land by means of canals supplied by the Teton and Sun rivers. Fifty thousand acres are now estimated as under ditch and cultivation, and 5,000,000 is given as the limit of the reclaimable land. The valley of the Milk River, in the ex- treme north, forms a valuable body of agricultural land. It has been advertised widely as cultivatable without irrigation, but settlers who have gone on do not find that to be the fact. Indeed it can not be too clearly borne in mind that within the arid region all land to be fit for cultivation must have access to water either by artificial application or from natural Subirrigation sources. Throughout this region, wherever necessity has compelled experiment, phreatic waters have been reached at a depth of from 5 to 20 feet below the surface. The principal irrigation enterprise in the Southern part of Choteau County, and in connection with Cascade County, is the Sun River Canal and its branches. This is located at its head in Choteau County, and is expected to furnish an irrigation supply for 276,480 acres lying between the Teton and Sun rivers, north and South, and the Missouri and Rocky Mountains, east and west. In illustration of the farming value of northern Montana the following statement is given: R. P. Menefee, a prominent farmer, reports in 1889 the sowing of 5,665 pounds of wheat and the thrashing out of 5,515 bushels, weighing 209,580 pounds, or very nearly 37 pounds harvested to each pound sown. In 1890 Mr. Menefee reported 5,600 pounds of oats sown, the harvest yielding, when thrashed, 5,318 bushels, or 186,130 pounds; that is not quite 37 pounds return to each pound sown. The works in progress in the section of which Great Falls is the business center show the irrigation demands of a region so far north. The Teton Canal is 18 feet wide at bottom, 25 feet at top, carrying 4 feet of water, has its source at the base of the mountains, on the north fork of Sun River, and runs east over high prairie land between the two streams. The completed Teton Canal branch is fed by that river, 2 miles from base of the Rocky Mountains. It runs east through a plateau known as Teton Lake Basin, thence 6 miles to head of Big Muddy Creek, using it as a water bed for several miles, thence by a lat- eral ditch 25 miles long, with twenty sublaterals covering over 40 miles in length, supplying a large tract from Choteau to Sun River, west of Great Falls in Cascade County. RECLAMATION IN NORTHEAST MONTANA. 189, Probably the most important branch is that being constructed in the latter county, having Benton Lake for a reservoir. This is 7 miles long and from 3 to 5 miles wide, and contains a great body of water. An abundant supply is insured, as the unfailing Teton River can through the canal so named be easily turned into the lake. This is tapped by a cut 14 miles long, and 45 feet deep; 500 feet of this cut was “sluiced” out in one week by means of a 40-horse power engine, pumping 500 gallons per minute. From the mouth of this cut two canals are being constructed, 20 miles of which are now dug, and which when completed will be 40 miles in length and be feeders for over 60 miles of lateral ditches; all will be completed for irrigation next season. Cascade County, lying south of the center of Choteau County, shows great activity in irrigation, as will be seen by the works in progress there. Its area is 2,570 square miles. There is under ditch and irrigated some 50,000 acres. The reclaimable area is estimated at 600,000 acres. Over 100 miles of main ditch are now in Operation in the county. This county is a point of great interest, Owing to the appearance, in the neigh- borhood of Great Falls, of huge outcroppings of the Dakota sandstone. The foothills of the Rocky Mountains trend to the northwest and through- out Cascade and Choteau Counties are from 8° to 10° of longitude farther west than is elsewhere the case along the whole range. The appear- ance of the Dakota sandstone outcroppings at Great Falls is regarded by Department geologists as a positive proof of the conclusion which they have reached, that the vast artesian basin of the Dakotas and eastern Montana is supplied mainly by the drainage of the Rocky Moun- tains. The measurements made in 1891 by Chief Engineer Edwin S. Nettleton, of streams and springs above Great Falls, and of the river below them, show a great loss of flow between the two points, clearly illustrating the disappearance of a large Surface Supply by absorption in the sandstone at this point. Canals now constructed have cost $500,000, and, including laterals, have a length of nearly 500 miles. The following are some of the lead- ing works: Cascade Land Company, main ditch, 45 miles, 12 to 16 feet wide at top, carries 3,000 miner's inches, and will irrigate 3,000 acres. Sun River works, 12 miles long, cost $2,000 per mile, carries 3,000 inches, and irrigates 3,000 acres. The Crown Butte Canal, 26 miles in length, cost $3,000 per mile, carries 25,000 inches, will irrigate 210,000 acres, and has one reservoir, costing $25,000. Chestnut Valley ditch is 12 miles in length, and carries 15,000 inches. There are two other ditches, one 5 and the other 7 miles long, and several score of small farm and neighborhood and farm ditches. Three large projects are now under survey and are to be constructed during 1892. Fergus and Meagher Counties in the central and eastern part of the State embrace large areas of cultivatable land, the waters for whose reclamation will be supplied from the tributaries of the Upper Missouri and the Musselshell. Fergus County has an area of 7,415 square miles; Meagher County, one of 1,760 square miles. It is claimed that 150,000 acres are now under fence and ditch in Fergus County and 30,000 acres in Meagher. The famous Judith Basin lies within the borders of Fergus County. It is a region of excellent agricultural capacity. No large irrigation enterprise is found in either county. The ditches are mainly Small affairs taken out by individual farmers from the many mountain streams that abound therein. The reclaimable area is put at 2,000,000 3.CI'êS. Park County, to the south of Meagher and north of the Yellowstone National Park, has an area of 4,740 square miles. About 15,000 acres º, - ... • * .* - - ,190 IRRIGATION. : . are under fence and ditch, cultivated by means of irrigation. The sur- face of the county is mountainous. The principal industry is mining. The Yellowstone Valley contains the largest proportion of irrigable lands, and there are numerous small valleys that can be brought under irrigation. It is claimed that 500,000 acres can be so utilized. Gallatin County is now the most important agricultural region in Montana. Over 100,000 acres are under ditch and cultivated. Water therefor is supplied by the East and West Gallatin rivers, Middle Creek and its branches, on the east, and from the west by the Madison and Jefferson rivers. Gallatin Valley is well cultivated. Irrigation works are usually small, having been constructed by individual farmers. Several large canals are now in process of construction, and the facili- ties for distribution will be greatly extended during 1891. The East and West Gallatin canal, 25 miles in length, carries 8,000 miners' inches. The Middle Creek ditch carries 2,000 miners' inches. Other canals now in construction are taking water from the West Gallatin and Madison rivers. Underground water is obtainable by wells at no great depth. It is estimated that 400,000 acres will be reclaimed. The cost of irri- gation is about $1 per acre annually. The foothills of the mountains surrounding the Gallatin Valley will afford an excellent locality for the cultivation of the fruits of the temperate zone. Bozeman and the region around it have been under continuous cultivation for nearly thirty years, and the grain and root crops continue now as heavy as when the land was first cultivated. The most important irrigation area within the borders of Montana is that embraced within the Gallatin Valley, of which Bozeman on the Northern Pacific Railroad, is the thriving center. Mr. C. A. Gregory, a former citizen of Chicago, who has had considerable irrigation experi- ence in New Mexico and is now resident in the Gallatin Valley, sends the office of irrigation inquiry in response to questions sent him, quite a full statement of irrigation conditions here. Mr. Gregory's intelli- gence, his knowledge and personal reliability in such matters is known to the special agent in charge, and there is no hesitation in presenting here what Mr. Gregory says under date of December 10, 1891: You ask many questions and the details of these would require months of investi- gation to answer quite accurately. I will give you an honest summary, the result of observation and inquiry, and mainly in the order of your inquiry. I do not spare pains to answer you. I despair to give you perfect figures, but I will at least avoid the error of overstatement, even to gratify the pride of this valley, rich enough and prosperous enough as it is, when fairly stated. The mileage of private farm ditches in the Gallatin Valley, i.e., the cultivable por- tion of Gallatin County, Mont., it would be exceedingly difficult to give. Some at- tempt, however, must be made in order that a stranger to the situation may form a tolerably correct idea of the extent of irrigation in this locality. Hundreds of miles of private farm ditches exist. These come out of some twenty or more creeks and streams, including the East Gallatin River, a small feeder to the West Gallatin, which latter is a strong mountain stream of heavy fall to the mile and of large capacity of flowage, elsewhere stated; so that portions of more than a dozen townships are supplied, more or less, with irrigation facilities, and some thoroughly. This valley may be roughly said to be four townships wide by five townships long, mainly sloping, with undulations from south to north, with counter slopes from the circumference; everywhere surrounded by mountainous country, which is indented with deep cuts or eaſions on the easterly and southerly borders, from which issue permanently-flowing streams. From all these streams, except the West Gallatin River, every drop of water is conducted into small and large private farm ditches, and utilized for irrigation. From the West Gallatin River, also, many ditches are taken for farm use; and from this river alone are taken out the three large canals owned by incorporated companies, hamed in order of time of construction, the West Gallatin Canal Company, the West Gallatin Irrigation Company, and the Excelsior Canal Company, elsewhere further described. By far the greater part of the water of this river runs to waste. It is many times in its flowage the volume of all the water taken into its tapping ditches. Rocky CANoN TREstLE AND FLume. THE GALLATIN WALLEy, Montana. There are no reservoirs of water in this valley from which conserved waters are drawn. Up the Bozeman Cañon there is Mystic Lake, some 14 miles from Bozeman, some 2,000 feet in height above this valley, where a dam 22 feet high is now being built to hold backwater, to be run down the natural channel of great and rapid fall, and then to be drawn off into ditches for foothill and bench land irrigation. The ca- pacity of this pond may be understood from its size, about 1 mile long by one-half mile wide, and great depth may be secured. The only land companies are the Manhattan Malting Company and the West Gal- latin Irrigation Company, the latter constructing a large canal to supply water mainly to its own lands and grantees of its land, and still owning some 25,000 acres; the former owning 160 acres in town-site at Manhattan and some 10,000 acres for its own farming purposes, mainly for the cultivation of barley. The West Gallatin Canal Company’s ditch is 20 miles long, cost said to be about $60,000; built about three years ago; taken out of the east side of the West Gallatin River, well up to the cañon ; carries about 8,000 inches, it is said; built with inex- pensive headgate and wing sieve dam of no great cost. The Excelsior Canal Company’s ditch is 12 miles long; built in 1890–91; cost about $40,000, as estimated, and built by syndicate of farm owners under it, supplying water to its stockholders only; carries about 8,000 inches, it is stated; built with slight structure of headgate and no dam. . The largest and most costly canal is that of the West Gallatin Irrigation Company, constructed 1890–91, and at present some 24 miles in length, on a high line to cover bench lands; taken out of the west side of the West Gallatin River; still in process of extension in length. In this connection it is not important to state the area cultivated under these canals separately. Under the two first-named canals the total capacity of the ditches is. required for the ground under them, and such land is already mostly in cultivation; under the last-named ditch the lands are mainly new and unbroken, and are just brought into such relation to water as to be cultivable. There lie under this ditch, as it may be extended, 60,000 acres, being more than the ditch has capacity to supply with water. With caution held out that an estimate must be considered something of a guess, we should say that under great and little ditches there are about 50,000 acres in cul- tivation. The auditor's report for Montana for 1890 gives the number of ranches in Gallatin County at 460, and the acreage in ranches in Gatlatin County as 127,684 acres, and the ranches fenced as 115,374 acres. No scrutiny is made in these returns into the number of acres plowed. The acreage and the number of ranches have in- creased considerably since such figures were made up, and these figures are re- turns for assessment purposes only, and include railroad lands cultivated or unculti- wated in the county. Much of such lands may not be cultivated. Such return is no index of what area is cultivated; let us go, therefore, to crop returns. The crop returns in auditor's report are not to be relied upon as coming up to the magnitude of area or yield per acre. We know individually of one tract of 1,200 acres now in cultivation, not embraced in 1890 year returns; we know of sev- eral tracts of 100 acres and upwards recently brought under the plow, not in such estimates. Fifty thousand acres are assumed as proximately the area in cultivation. We may see if this is tolerably correct by crop return. If you allow an average of 50 bushels to the acre in all kinds of grain, we shall have 2,500,000 bushels of grain, so that I think 50,000 acres a high acreage to state as cultivated, wheat, barley, and oats being the main crops; then consider the hay ranches worked upon, and not the natural grass ranches, and the vegetable and small fruit crops, and we may assume a yield of $1,250,000 in value. There are 35 thrashing machines here. These may be estimated as thrashing 60,000 bushels each on the average—certainly this is high enough to state it. This gives 2,100,000 bushels. The average price of the three staples I place at an assumed figure, which I am advised is fair, and from this I get $1,250,000 as a year’s yield in value. Any discrep- j * this result is certainly made up by considering hay and vegetables as in- CIUlO1601. I furnish you a map of the Gallatin valley, and on it. I place the three large canals and some of the lesser canal and marginal ditches, etc. To mark all the ditches would be to run out tortuous lines from every creek and river as thick as branches and their twigs from the main stem of a tree. A great fertile expanse, gridironed with circumfluent lines of ditches, bright and golden in harvest time with grain, and hay meadows in green for relief, and after harvest thick with stubble as a plush car- pet is with its short, upreared filaments, is not an overdrawn picture of this valley. Barley is great in yield and supreme in quality here; oats triumph in weight and measure to the acre, and wheat yield is as high in average as in any known region. You ask for the price of water. Water is not retailed here, but the price as under- stood by the canal companies is $2 per statutory inch as measured in accordance with the statutes of Montana—a poor method of measurement. This is a reasonable price. THE GALLATIN VALLEY AND ITS GROWTH. 191 -# * * " .. 2 * ~ * . . . -, - . . . * ... is - * -> *… m. 192 IRRIGATION. The Gallatin valley is not alone the oldest cultivated valley, but it has been irrigated to a considerable degree. The average yield for a number of years (not less than twelve or fifteen) is as follows, and that, too, without any other fertilizer except Water: e Wheat, per acre------------------------------------------------ bushels... 35 tº 60 Oats, per acre----------------------------------------------------- do - - - - 50 tº 90 Rye, per acre------------------------------------------------------ do - - - - 40 to 60 Barley, per acre --------------------------------------------------- do - - - - 35 to 60 Potatoes, per acre------------------------------------------------- do - - - -300 to 500 Hay, per acre ----------------------------------------------------- tons. - 2 to 3 The annexed table refers to production during 1890, and will bear examination: Jr. & Name of farmer. Nº. Crop. $º Yºlºper S. B. Cope ---------------------------------------. 63 Wheat, bushels ....... 401 || - 63; Richard Blum ----------------------------------. 32 -----. do --------------- 137; 43% E. A. Selleck ------------------------------------- 8 l------ do --------------- 398; 50 Rev. Mr. Bird ------------------------------------ 10 l.----. do --------------- 450 45 D. A. Kughen ----------------------------------. 47% ||------ do --------------. 2, 517; 53 Howell & Etheridge ---...------------------------- 160 l. - - - - - do --------------. 6, 950 43% J. A. Howes-------------------------------------- 180 - - - - - - do -- - - --. .* * * * * * * * 6, 270 35 John Wilcox -----------------------------------. 7 | Oats, bushels -...----- 4, 100 42 L. W. Ours--------------------------------------- 25 1. ----- do -------------- 1, 926 77 F. Endres. --------------------------------------- 30 | Barley, bushels ....... 1,760 383 C. Bressier. -------------------------------------- 40 | Timothy, tons ..... --. 65 1#. John Hanson ------------------------------------ 1} | Potatoes, bushels ..... 400 266; Charles Anceny --------------------------------- 150 | Alfalfa, tons ---...---- 650 4% Madison County, to the north of Brigham, in Idaho, with Gallatin, is the oldest-settled section of the new State. Irrigation is an abso- lute necessity for agriculture. The area of the county is 5,440 square miles. There are about 100,000 acres now under ditch, of which about one-third is cultivated to cereals and roots. Half a million acres, it is estimated, can be reclaimed. The water supplies are furnished by the Madison, Jefferson, and Ruby rivers. No large works have yet been constructed, all the ditches being small farin affairs. A great many mining ditches have been utilized for irrigation purposes in this county as well as those to the north of it lying within the Rockies. Jefferson County, to the north of Madison, contains 2,000 square miles. The reclaimable area is estimated at 250,000 acres, and 25,000 acres are now under ditch and fence. The county is watered by Prick- ley Pear, McClellan, Beaver, Crow, and Hot Springs creeks, north and east, and by Boulder, White Tailed Deer, and Pipestone creeks on the south. Two ditches in Crow Valley have a capacity of 870 miners' inches. The area of land irrigated could be increased threefold by the supply of water now in sight, with due care of water and by proper works. In illustration of the value of irrigation in this high, mountain region, a report of the Boulder Valley Ditch, Milling, and Stock Com- pany, organized 1875, shows that the enterprise began with one set- tler and 240 acres. There are now 1,000 settlers cultivating 4,800 acres. Before settlement the Value of lands was $2.50 per acre. Its present value, improved with water supply, is $300; unimproved, $50 to $75 per acre. Land has no selling Value without water. The duty of wa- ter is stated to be as low as 5 miners' inches per acre. The costis $1.25 per annum. The crops grown are. Wheat, oats, barley, potatoes, cab- bage, and other vegetables. Production per acre under irrigation is fully double that in the humid States. - Lewis and Clarke County, centrally located in the mountains, has vaevu. No 1， "xºrtiv A sıvırıyae) ºswaer,o wa Noluvoiului THE NORTHWEST PORTION OF MONTANA. 193 considerable irrigable area, with about 50,000 acres inclosed and under ditch and cultivation. There is estimated to be in the basins of Prickly Pear, Ten Mile, Seven Mile, and Sun rivers, with their tributaries, a large area of arable land that needs water to make it waluable. The entire area of the county is 1,769 square miles, of which 627 are valley and mesa land. Ditches take up all of the water flow from Seven Mile and Silver Creek. From the natural flow, 6 per cent of the Prickly Pear basin can be irrigated. There are thousands of acres in the Sun River basin, within this county, which could be reclaimed, if water was found and stored. Four per cent of this area is now under ditch. In Prickly Pear Valley, 6,000 acres are now cultivated. The Helena Ditch in this valley has a capacity of 1,000 miners' inches. Florence Canal, 23 miles long and nearly finished, irrigates about 15,000 acres. Another canal supplies 2,000 miners' inches. The Flat Creek Canal is 4% miles long. The entire length of irrigation ditches in the county is about 100 miles. Silver Bow County, 760 square miles in area and 5,000 feet above sea level, is devoted almost entirely to mining. It is rugged and mountainous. It is estimated that 40,000 acres could be reclaimed. The area under cultivation is small. Irrigated land is assessed at $100 per ačre and sells at $150; nonirrigated sells at $5 per acre. There are many mining ditches in the Silver Bow Basin, which furnish water for small areas of arable land and could supply more. Some discussion' has been had in this county over the practicability of obtaining artesian water. Under present knowledge the judgment is generally against its availability. Beyond the range are found the two counties of Beaver Head and Missoula, occupying the north and south portion of the western flanks of the continental divide and receiving the benefit of the warm and moisture-laden passage winds from the North Pacific Ocean. The plants and timber of the North Pacific slope are found in this section of Mon- tana. The trees are large and of the varieties known to the Pacific northwest. The precipitation is considerable and, but for the summer failure, would be sufficient for most agricultural needs. The southwest county, Beaver Head, has an area of 3,740 square miles. In 1889 and 1890 from 80,000 to 90,000 acres of meadow land were inclosed for flood- ing purposes. This area could be increased to 250,000. Beaver Head County is watered by Big Hole and Beaver Head Rivers, with their principal branches, Grasshopper, Rattlesnake, and Red Rock Creeks. The valleys are low and narrow and the Soil is alkaline in character. The bench or mesa lands are of prime quality, the soil being of rich loam, which when irrigated produces with great abundance. The arti- ficial application of water is absolutely necessary. There were in 1889 three organized irrigation companies taking water from the Beaver Head IRiver, and a large number of small farm and private ditches. Some activity has been manifested in 1890 looking to improved facilities and larger irrigation works. Missoula County, the extreme northwest section of Montana, with an area of 9,580 square miles, embraces a large proportion of the best fruit land within the State. It will be the richest horticultural section. In 1889, 150,000 acres were reported as inclosed, under ditch, or culti- wated. The total reclaimable area is estimated as 600,000 acres, but it is probably very much larger if water can be found for the service thereof. The streams by which the county is drained and served are branches of the Columbia system. The Bitter Root Walley, 35 miles in length and about 12 wide, with an average elevation of 3,000 feet, is S. Ex. 41—13 194 . IRRIGATION. admirably adapted for fruit culture. This is shown by the orchard re- gion around Missoula City. The west side of this valley is well watered . . by mountain streams. The east side presents the appearance of an unbroken table land, cut by very few water courses, and requiring for its reclamation the storage of water. The entire valley contains a large area of first-rate arable lands. The orchards seen at Missoula in the early fall of the year when the fruit is ripe make a scene worth travel- ing many miles to witness. Universally the trees are so heavily laden as to require large props to sustain the weight of the ripening fruit on their branches. Fine agricultural Iands are found in the valleys of the Missoula, Hell Gate, Flathead, Blackfoot, and other streams. The Flathead Indians have for many generations raised fine crops, and under the instructions of the Jesuit priests, who have been their teachers, are among the best farmers of their race. The Bitter Root Valley land re- quires, it is claimed, 1 inch of water per acre, running continuously for a few days at a time, and for two or three times during the growing season. On the West side of the Bitter Root there are a large number of small farm ditches, estimated at a total of 50 miles in length. Some twenty larger ditches have a mileage of 75 miles. They carry from 200 to 300 inches of water. With an improved irrigation system and greater economy of water nearly a million acres might be reclaimed, one-fourth of which would be valuable fruit land. Wheat produces 20 to 60 bush- els, oats 30 to 110, pease 20 to 80, and corn 40 to 50 bushels per acre. Potatoes will average 350 bushels, and grow so large that they weigh from 3 to 43 pounds each. All vegetables and fruits of the temperate zone grow here in the utmost luxuriance. Recent irrigation enterprises in Montana are the Fort Belknap enter- prises by which, in connection with two others, 73 miles of ditches will be in part constructed. The area to be reclaimed will not be less than 20,000 acres; a ditch irrigating 5,000 acres between the South Mocassin and Judith rivers, in Fergus County, has been completed and is now in operation. The ditch is 16 feet wide on top, 12 feet on the bottom, and 30 inches deep, and between 8 and 9 miles in length. It taps Warm Springs Creek a short distance below the Horsehoe Bar ranch, and crosses a number of coulees, necessitating the construction of wooden fluming, which, at a distance, resembles a narrow-gauge rail- road. - In the Smith River Valley a considerable storage reservoir has been created by the damming up of Lake Creek by private parties, who have secured thereby water sufficient for the irrigation of several thousand acres. These enterprises are referred to because they are typical of a large number in progress over the arid region, details of which have not been obtained, but of which enough is known to warrant the con- viction that apart from the larger corporation progress, the progress of reclamation works is now as rapid as desirable. The promise of Montana as an irrigable region is of the greatest sig- nificance and value. The estimate presented by its Society of Civil Engineers of 20,000,000 reclaimable acres is under rather than over the mark. A great deal has got to be learned as to the area of service and the economy of use in the waters that will make the lands fertile. Its two leading industries, mining and stock raising, have sometimes been esteemed as indifferent to the growth of farming and the advantages of irrigation. All this is rapidly changing and great progress may be looked for in Montana. ^ THE PHYSICAL DATA FOR MONTANA. 195 ANswers FROM correspondents. The following data has been compiled from answers received to cir- culars sent by this office: CASCADE COUNTY. Great Falls (post-office), Robbins and McFarland (October, 1891): Average cost per acre in vicinity for preparing land for cultivation under irriga- tion, $7. Average cost per acre of irrigation works, ditches, etc., $4. Average cost per acre for annual maintenance and repairs, 25 cents. Products: Wheat, oats, potatoes, and hay. Aveº yield per acre: Wheat, 30 bushels; oats, 50 bushels; potatoes, 200 bushels; ay, 1 ton. --- Great Falls (post-office), N. T. Porter (September, 1891): Cascade Land Company: Water supply, Teton River; area under ditch, 20,000 acres. Irrigation works: About 50 miles ditch, 16 feet wide on bottom; 1 reservoir; dam 500 feet long, 20 feet high ; 3 head-gates. Cost per mile of ditch, about $2,000. Cost of works per acre, $10. - Cost per acre for preparation of land for cultivation (under irrigation), about $10. Cost per acre for annual maintenance and repairs, 75 cents. Cost of water supply to user per acre, $10 (no annual rental of water by this com- any). Priº products: Hay mostly ; oats, potatoes, barley, wheat. CHOTEAU COUNTY. Chinook (post-office), T. C. Burns (September, 1891): Water supply: Milk River ditch : Capacity, 30,000 miner's inches; main ditch 3 miles long, 14 feet deep at upper end, 24 feet wide at bottom, 36 feet at top, gradually becoming shallower until reaching the end of 3 miles, where it is 4 feet deep, 28 feet on top, with the same width on bottom (24 feet) ; at this poinſ, water is divided into two branch ditches, each 16 feet wide, 3 feet deep (2 feet below surface and banks above); length 4 and 5 miles; no reservoirs or dams; 1 head gate 24 feet wide, 50 feet long, 8 feet deep, planked and covered. . Cost of main ditch, $14,000; 16-foot branches, about $550 per mile. - Average cost of preparing land for cultivation (under irrigation), $4.50 per acre (for breaking land, harrowing, and rolling). - Average cost of ditches in grain fields, from 6 to 10 cents per rod. Cost for maintenance and repairs, Small. Cost of water supply to user per acre, 75 cents. Area under ditch, 32 sections; under cultivation, 800 acres grain, 3,000 acres in hay; (will be much greater next year. This year is first time water was used). Products and yield per acre: Oats, 80 bushels; wheat, 50 bushels; barley, 46 to 55 bushels; potatoes, 250 to 450 bushels; wild hay, after first year, 1 to 2 tons; gar- den stuff and vegetables, etc. . From 2,000 to 2,500 tons of hay cut in this valley on irrigated land; no other kind cut. [Mr. Burns irrigated the past season 550 acres; eleven of his neighbors irrigated from 800 to 900 acres of hay land. No hay was cut except from irrigated land. The seed oats used by Mr. Burns and his neighbors was grown either in Dakota, Minne- sota, or Iowa, and weighs 24 to 30 pounds to the bushel. Oats raised from that seed, under irrigation, averages 39 to 42 pounds per bushel. Mr. Burns ha§ completed two ditches 4% and 5% miles long, respectively, and intends to extend the 44-mile one across the north fork of Milk River (in a flume 120 feet long) to the valley lands, 2 by 7 miles in extent.] - DEER LODGE COUNTY. Phillipsburg (post-office), Frank D. Brown (September 19, 1891): Flint Creek Valley (about 30 miles long, 2 to 4 miles wide). Main water supply, Flint Creek, a tributary of Deer Lodge River. Area under ditch, 14,000 acres. Area under cultivation, 7,000 acres. Irrigation works: Open ditches, each ditch owned by one ranch, generally from 1 to 4 miles, 26 by 35 feet; Ino reservoirs or other works. 196 - IRRIGATION. Cost per mile of ditch, about $55 for size above indicated. Average cost per acre for preparing land for eultivation under irrigation about $5 (includes land tilled and crops in); no preparation needed for grazing; natural grasses depended on. Average cost per acre of irrigation works, ditches, etc., not exceeding $5. Average cost per acre for annual maintenance and repairs, about 25 cents. Broducts: Hay; also oats and wheat, used generally for fodder; yield from 1 to 2% tons per acre. GALLATIN COUNTY. Bozeman (post-office), Charles A. Gregory (December, 1891): West Gallatin Irrigation Company: Water supply, West Gallatin River (west side). Irrigation works: Twenty-four miles canal (built over a rough and hilly country, over gulches and along sidehills, much of it in gravel and rock); first 1,300 feet is 24 feet on bottom, thence to the twenty-third mile is narrowed to 14 feeton bot- tom, the narrowest point at 23+ miles from head is 14 feet on bottom, grade rºo to 100 feet or 3 feet to a mile, except first 1,300 feet which has a fall of 24 feet in the 1,300 feet, or over 10 feet per mile ; slopes, 1 to 1, except in solid rock, which is 4 to 1; banks, 5 to 8 feet high above bottom of canal and are 25 to 45 wide at base; head gate, 24 feet wide, with 5 gates 10 by 12 and 8 by 12 (timbers); bottom of head gate 4 feet below water surface at low water; flumes, 2,722 feet, built of square timbers and 2-inch plank; flumes from 42 to 1,200 feet long, with waste gates; tunnel, 241 feet long, 5 by 12 feet, with fall ſº to 100 feet, timbered at each end, but mostly solid rock. Capacity of canal: Will now carry 4 feet water or 10,695 miner's inches of water. Cost of canal, so far, $90,000; system still owns about 25,000 acres of land. Area under ditch : The lands covered by this canal are mainly new and unbroken ; there lie under it (as it may be extended by works in progress) 60,000 acres, being more than the canal has capacity to serve with water. Area under cultivation in valley, about 50,000 acres. Cost of water, $2 per statutory inch per year (Montana statutes). Products: Wheat, oats, barley, timothy hay, wild hay, fruits, and vegetables. Estimated value of products (prices paid in 1890): Average oats, $1.50 per 100 pounds; average barley, $1.15 per 100 pounds; soft wheat, 75 cents per bushel; hard wheat, 85 cents per bushel ; No. 1 timothy hay, about $1.4 per ton; wild hay, $2 or $2.50 less than timothy (oats sometimes as high as $2 or $2.10; barley to $1.55 per 100 pounds; hay from $14 to $20). [Mr. Gregory also mentions two other large canals in the county, the West Galla- tin, 20 miles long, supply taken out of east side of West Gallatin River, capacity 8,000 inches, inexpensive head gate and wing-sieve dam, cost $60,000, built three years ago, total capacity of canal required for the land under it which is mostly all under cultivation; and the Excelsior canal, 12 miles long, cost $40,000, built by farmers and land owners underit, supplies only stockholders; carries about 8,000 inches, all supply required by lands now cultivated under it. There are innumerable farm and other small ditches—hundreds of miles of them—taken out of the many streams flowing from the mountains which surround Gallatin valley.] MADISON COUNTY. Virginia City (post-office); Henry Elling (September, 1891): Average cost per acre in his vicinity for preparing land for cultivation under irriga- tion, from $5 to $20. Average cost per acre of irrigation works: Ditches, etc., from $2 to $10. Average cost per acre for annual maintenance and repairs, 50 cents to $4. Staple products of region under irrigation: Wheat, oats, barley, potatoes, and hay. Average yield per acre : Wheat, 30 bushels; oats, 40 bushels; hay, from 1 to 5 tons. MEAGHER COUNTY. White Sulphur Springs (post-office); W. H. Sutherlin (September 19, 1891): Has 320 acres under cultivation by irrigation: Water supply, Smith River (mountain spring-fed stream); all ditches in neighborhood owned by land owners; gener- ally open ditches, with lumber flumes where needed across deep ravines; no reservoirs. - Cost of ditches, etc., per mile, from $120 to $300 (his own ditch cost $240 per mile); cost per acre, about 40 cents. - THE PERSONAL AND OFFICIAL ROSTERs. . . 197. Average cost per acre for annual maintenance and repairs, 123 cents. Cost of water supply to user per acre, $8.60. - Area under ditch (in Smith River Walley), 11,000 acres (above the cañon). Products under irrigation : Wheat, oats, barley, alfalfa, timothy, blue joint, clover, potatoes, beets, turnips, cabbage, and most varieties of vegetables. Aveº, annual yield per acre: Wheat, 42 bushels; oats, 51 bushels; potatoes, 320. ushels. MISSOULA. COUNTY. Caſion Ditch Company (to be completed May 1, 1892): “ Ditch to be taken out “a mile above foot of Blackfoot River; contract calls for ditch 13% feet wide on top, 63 feet at bottom, 3% feet deep, 73 miles long; cost, $30,000; to irrigate all South Missoula.” PARK COUNTY. Livingston (post-office); George J. Allen (September, 1891): Water supply: A mountain stream carrying from 500 to 700 inches of water. Irrigation works: 12 miles of ditch (“about 6 miles through an old channel ditch 6 feet wide, 2 feet deep ’’), one main headgate and one for each ranch served. Cost of works: First cost, $200. - Cost per acre of ditches, etc.: “Near mountain stream from 10 to 25 cents, but ditch taken out of a river, $5 to $10.” Cost for annual maintenance and repairs: Twenty-five dollars per year will cover all expense under this ditch. Area served by ditch : Nine hundred and sixty acres. Area under cultivation : The whole 960 acres plowed and in grass. - Products in neighborhood and yield per acre: Wheat, 15 to 50 bushels; oats, 30 to 90 bushels; barley, 15 to 50 bushels; potatoes, 100 to 500 bushels; fruits and vegetables. - CEN SUS FIGURES FOR STATE. The United States Census Office (Bulletin 153) reports for this State (Mr. F. H. Newell) as follows for the enumeration year 1889–90: Number of counties------------------------------------------------------- 16 Number of irrigators ----------------------------------------------------- 3,706 Total acreage irrigated, and in crops.-------------------------------------- 350,582 Average size of each farm in acres---------------------------------------- 95 N E W M EX I C 0. Quoting the words of the monograph on New Mexico, which forms part of a report by the United States Signal Service, on “climatology, irriga- tion, and water storage in the arid region,” it is to be said that the logical Sèquence of Such inquiry can be summed up, as showing that—“Agricul- ture depends on irrigation, irrigation depends on the rivers, the rivers depend on the clouds whose attenuated humidity is made to appear as rain and snow by the influences largely controlled by the altitude and configuration of the mountains.” The determining causes then, are to be found “in geographical physics.” The mountains both supply and direct the rivers. In New Mexico the Rockies lose their continental individuality, and southward from Pikes Peak, but chiefly within the land of “Poco Tiempo,” this great range becomes a series of semi-de- tached masses and sinks into rolling formations, spreading out as slop- ing mesa or table-land, though still of high altitude. Below Marshall Pass in Colorado, the Continental range divides—one portion entering New Mexico to the southeast, the other swings to the southwest. This portion forms a watershed between the Rio Grande and the Rio San Juan, making an important part of the basin and plateau hydrography of the Rio Colorado system. Between these divisions of the Continental range is the superb basin valley or dessicated lake bed known as the San Luis Park. From the western portion thereof rises the Rio Grande Bravo del Norte and through which it flows, making almost a direct course east and west by a little north and south, until it turns directly Southward, forcing its way through the Raton range, a part of east- ern limb of the Rockies. This section preserves more fully the char- acteristics of the great range and it is locally known as the Sangre del Cristo, Taos, Raton, and Santa Fe ranges. The Raton, which is the extreme eastern section, forms a plateau or table-land with a general elevation from 7,000 to 4,000 feet. At the latter altitude it descends 1,000 feet or more and almost precipitously into the valley of the Upper Pecos, which flows through and divides the eastern portion of New Mexico. As a water storer the Raton range, fed also from the higher altitudes of Taos and Sangre del Cristo, is destined to play an impor- tant part in the reclamation of an area of great extent, fine climate, fine possibilities for agriculture, and of striking topography and pic- turesqueness. The Rio Grande Basin, below the San Luis Valley, is dominated on its east side by the Taos and Santa Fe ranges, rapidly breaking away into the detached elevations and mesa known as the Oscuro, Sierra San Andreas, Organ, and Sacramento mountains. On the western side the formations take the name of Datil, San Francisco, and Mogollon ranges, till reaching and passing the Upper Gila they fade away into the Sierra Madres in Old Mexico, forming the Chiricalıua Mountains in southeast Arizona. - New Mexico, as a whole, can be regarded as a broken plain of 5,000 feet elevation, controlled by two systems of higher altitude, marked by several smaller ranges on its eastern and southern faces, with one large 198 'ooixºlſ wae N. "I'lºaeso， siyºn soo） 01:1 |- （ ） THE CONFIGURATION OF NEW MEXICO. 199 bisecting river channel cut through its center from north to south, and having another marking in a similar manner about two-thirds of its eastern half. The result of this mountain topography is to divide the region as by walls, separating it into different areas or chambers, each having different relations to hydrology and climate. Three-fourths of New Mexico then has an average elevation of 5,000 feet. In the south- ern portion it is less, generally 4,000 feet, and at three points in the Rio Grande up to Fort Thorn, along the Canadian to Fort Bascom, and the Pecos Valley up to Roswell and above, the altitude runs down to 3,000, and in the last named area to about 2,000 feet above sea level. Two range systems rise from the general level to the height of over 7,000 feet each. They are grouped, says Lieut. Glassford, “like a wall against the western boundary or form a dependent projection on the northern line, thus accentuating the Southeastern facing of the system. ” From this general mountain altitude many summits rise 2,000 feet or more and there are peaks which lift their precipitous slopes and bald, deeply scored faces, to an altitude of from 10,000 to 12,000 feet. Their cli- matic purpose is to extract moisture from the atmosphere for the ben- efit of the lower levels; they do more than this, for the rain carries away the disintegrating rock to enrich the plateau and the valley be- neath.” So far then as climatic influences are concerned, these topo. graphic statements show that “for the rest the country is mesa of . even surface despite its great elevation ; it is nearly level table-land, whose depressions and elevations are but slight, presenting to the lower plateau a characteristically bluff face. Such a surface, looking to leeward, can oppose but little resistance to the moisture-bearing wind as it passes over it; it must pass the wind and its freight along to con- dense upon the mountains. Arizona faces the prevailing humid wind and opposes to it a flight of steps; New Mexico is almost entirely on the leeward side of the mountain ranges and exposes a minimum of bluff surface to the wind. Hence arise different climatic conditions, and their study is thus,” says Mr. Glassford, “intermingled with the correlation of the mountain systems.” tº The several drainage basins are marked by the great divides which characterize the peculiar parietal formations of New Mexico. The Coa. tinental Range is first and forms the southwest watershed between the two oceans. It enters the Territory in Rio Arriba County and passes into Mexico along the Sierra de las Animas. It contains two large basins, the San Juan and the Gila, and the small one made by the Zuñi drainage. There are ten peaks within its borders, ranging in elevation from the Animas, at 6,105 feet, to the Jamez, at 11,260 feet. The second divide approaches the meridian at middle of the territory. Its northern ridge is found along the Sangre del Cristo Range, until it finally sinks in the high mesa below Santa Fé. It then forms a high plateau across the Gallinas to the Sierra Blanca, and disappears in Texas by way of the Sacramento Range. It contains eight outlying peaks, ranging in altitude from the Franklin, at 6,890, to the Tucha, at 13,150 feet. The western shed may be related as the Pacific and the eastern as the Atlantic divide. Geologically speaking, there are within the area, four distinctly marked epochs. They are the Archean, entering from Colorado; then follows the palaeozoic and mesozoic periods. The cretaceous covers most of the lower surface and outlying areas. “There occurred four distinctly marked upheavals of eruptive rock at wide intervals. As conditioned by these general characteristics the rivers of the Territory are few.” The river systems of New Mexico, then, are the San Juan to the northwest, the Gila to the 200 IRRIGATION. Southwest; the Rio Grande through the central basin from north to South, the Canadian in the north from northwest to southeast, and the Pecos from north to south in the section lying east of the mountain ranges that easterly border the Rio Grande. In this division there is to the east a subdiversion, marked about the latitude of Las Vegas. East and north of this line “the waters drain through the Canadian, the Cimarron, and the Arkansas into the Mississippi; south of the line the Pecos drains the rainfall across western Texas into the Rio Grande.” Two very important systems of irrigation are found within these drainage basins. In Colfax County to the north, supplied by the head- waters of the Canadian, the owners of the Maxwell grant, with other landholders, are carrying forward an extensive system of open storage and distributing works, by which about 75,000 acres of table-land are being brought “under ditch " and some 6,000 acres of which are already under cultivation. Besides these enterprises in the mountain table-land and under the waters of the Canadian there are a number of local irrigations in prog- ress for orchards and farms in Colfax and Mora counties. Some of these are of value to the student as illustrating the altitudes at which fine fruit may be successfully grown and good grain and forage fields be sown and harvested. Mr. S. W. Dorsey, one of the largest land-owners and ranchmen whose home residence, Chino Springs, Colfax County, with an altitude of over 8,000 feet, has its fruit trees, berries, and vege- table garden supplied by water through a half-inch pipe from a little but constant phreatic flow obtained by an opening made in the side of a bluff at the back of the dwelling and out-buildings, is engaged in con- structing reservoirs on the table-land for the purpose of storing local rainfall and storm waters. In the counties of Lincoln, Chaves, and Eddy (also San Miguel), formed out of the Pecos basins, there are two extensive systems of water storage, distribution, and cultivation by means of irrigation now in progress. One of these, in Eddy and Chaves counties, has irrigation works constructed to irrigate nearly 300,000 acres. Artesian waters have also been obtained at Roswell, and large promises of an important supply are found in several directions. The southwest basin or the Upper Gila is small and not more than 50 miles in width. Like that of the San Juan Basin in the northwest, it belongs climatologically to the Pacific group. There is a growing ac- tivity in the San Juan Basin. From there directly southward the areas of possible reclamation or present cultivation are small. There will be an increase in this direction of small areas at favorable points as farmers and settlers comprehend more clearly the conditions under which a drainage Supply may be tapped, dug out, bored for, and recov- ered for use in cultivation. In the Upper Gila Basin the rainfall is commonly sufficient to make a success of the ranchers' rude but profit- able “dry” farming. This drainage basin is therefore removed from the discussion of irrigation as in- fluenced by climate, but its bounding ranges remain as one of the important and far-reaching factors of the climatic problem of the Territory. (P. 320, Signal Service Report.) The central basin, that of the Rio Grande, forms not only the princi- pal pathway north and South, but it is also the chief seat of population at present. Its waters are mainly from the snows of the Continental Divide within the borders of Colorado, though replenished by the local precipitation of its subsidiary basins. The tributaries are numerous in its upper course, but after leaving the Taos Cañon they become less frequent; in fact it has, below the point at which the Santa Fé and Gal- | THE RAINFALL OF THIS TERRITORY. 201 isteo pour in their torrential flow, no confluents of any magnitude. The oldest irrigations within the United States are to be found within this Valley, unless exception be made of the phreatic cultivation, whose evidences are to be traced in connection with the ruined Pueblo towns of the Rio Chella, etc., and in the Salt River Valley, Arizona. The 18 Indian pueblos now existing in New Mexico are sustained as to cul- tivation by the Rio Grande's hydrological conditions, and they long antedate the present Mexican farmers. The oldest of the latter settle- ments is undoubtedly that in the Mesilla Valley, the rich soil of which has been in constant cultivation under irrigation by them the past three centuries. Portions of the Santa-Fé Valley above settlements at Al- buquerque and in San Bernalillo counties are next in order, and later Still are the farming communities of Conejos and . Costilla counties in Colorado. The hyetophysics of New Mexico will be more readily comprehended after this summary of its topographic conditions. Lieut. Glassford SayS: *. The Pacific Ocean is the reservoir of Arizona. Its evaporated waters are carried by the prevalent southwest winds over plateau systems which gradually increase in altitude and every such step opposes its maximum condensing surface to the charac- teristic wind. The culmination is reached in the system of lofty ranges which over- top the highest plateau. . From this local action of condensation differentiating the circulatory inspiration of continental lows which move east of the Rocky Mountains there arise two systems of precipitation which present a noteworthy difference in character. The winter rains are diffuse as regards the area of territory affected; they are moderate in force; they are interrupted by the anticyclonic types of high barom- eter and cloudless skies, which are distinctive of the Pacific coast weather; they are in unmistakable correlation with the systematic climate of the country. The summer rains are different ; in extent they are concentrated; they are uniformly local and attributable to local influences; they are characteristically of great violence, which often seems to justify the mistaken appellation of cloud-bursts. One other point needs to be held in mind, and that is that the records show in reality only the minimum fall of rain, since observers’ stations are mainly in the valleys where their gauges make no record of heavy rains which are in sight upon the surrounding moun- tains. That the rainfall of New Mexico is but a continuation of the Arizona system, a projection of Pacific humidity across a congeries of condensing mountain bodies the ratio of whose efficiency is geometrical, will appear from a study of the phenomena here presented. For convenience in support of this proposition the records of rain- fall will be presented under the two titles of winter and summer rains, which the period of their occurrence most naturally suggests, a distinction which, provisionally assumed for convenience, will be found clearly proved step by step as the argument proceeds. (Irrigation and Water Supply in the Arid Regions, p. 321.) • The winter rains in New Mexico are to a considerable extent of the Pacific type, though they are to more or less extent obscured by their long inland movement. Their tendency is to diffusion; hence a certain loss. The climatic conditions of the Rocky Mountains affect them seriously, especially as to “the march of extensive areas of low barom- eter,” which are deflected to the north by the impact of the range, and thereby cause their movement toward the Atlantic. They differ also from the Arizona season in being divided “by longer and shorter periods of high barometer.” The winter precipitation is expected by December in Arizona. In New Mexico it does mot begin as a rule till the earlier days of January. The basins directly under l'acific influences are in line with the isohyetal or rain curves of Arizona. In January the general aver- age of the Territory conforms to the law already indicated, and in Febru- ary, when these seasonal curves begin to break “down into scattered local areas,” the conditions have become markedly strong in New Mexico. By April the winterrains are definitely ended. But in the eastern or Atlan- tic divide section, an area of considerable precipitation remains. This 202 IRRIGATION. follows the high summits of the Sangre del Cristo until it sinks into the table-land or mesa of 4,000 feet, thence it tends southeasterly across the Pecos head-waters region as far as Gallinas Spring, whence it sharply curves to the north and extends over the Raton Range. The winter rains in the nomenclature of the meteorologist are marked by isohyetal curves of from 7 inches to 1 inch of precipitation. These curves are out- side the mountain lines. The 5-inch curve is associated with the Ari- Zona rains, and, with that of 4 inch, belongs to the Gila Basin and the head waters of the Colorado Chiquito. A curve as high as 17 inches appears on the mountains of this area. The 6 and 7 inch curves are found about the high levels of the Sierra Blanca, and the 5-inch curve related to them runs northward along the westward wall of the Pecos Valley as far as Colorado, just west of the upper Canadian. A curve of 2 inches is drawn across the plains of the Mimbres as far east as the Mesilla Valley, and thence it deflects southeasterly into the Pecos. The 3-inch follows the Mimbres lines until it reaches the Rio Grande Valley. It is then drawn sharply northwards to Socorro, where it ex- pands to include Laguna and Albuquerque, whence it again deflects Southwards until it reaches the Organ Mountains. These curves indi- cate the diffusive and diverting influence of the topography on the aqueous currents borne to New Mexico from the South Pacific Ocean across Arizona. - The summer rains are otherwise influenced, for the highest or 11-inch curve appears upon the levels west of the Canadian River and on the Cañon course of the Pecos. In some parts of its progress the curve reaches the 15 inch, which includes Las Vegas and Fort Union. Two segments south of these points draw close together at Luna and then expand further to the south, reaching the 14-inch curve at Fort Stan- ton. The lower summer curves are found in the sections most favorably affected by the winter rains. The minimum curve of 4 inches is found in the southwest. An adjacent one of 5 to 6 inch crosses the Gila Valley, skirting the Mimbres plains (Deming and northward) and passes out into the lower Rio Grande Valley. There are high curves of from 8 to 15 inches along the Continental Divide summits. The seasonal precipitation drawn in from Arizona along the San Francisco Valley gains a systematic curve of 7 inches, running over the mountains until it reaches the Rio Grande at Fort Seldon, and thereby favorably affects the Mesilla Valley. It is then drawn northward along the western wall as far as Embuda, and thence deflects southward, finally passing into Texas. sº These statements illustrate the radical distinction in type of the winter and summer rains. The author of the New Mexico monograph utilized here says: In Winter that humid winds are drawn “across the region under discussion by the influence of low areas over regions near Or remote. In the Summer the winds rush from all sides towards the heated mountain masses, and the precipitation resulting therefrom is distinctly local " (p. 324). In winter, what are termed “ the continental lows” hang long upon the Rockies or are swept eastward “ with vary- ing velocity.” This type “is a simple one and well characteristic cli- matic group.” It is thus described: - Step by step the humid winds are drawn over graduated plateaus and extrusive summits, and at each higher step discharge so much of their moisture as is a surplus- age over the saturation amount of atmosphere of a given tenuity at a given temper- ature. There is nothing violent in these systematic drafts of humid air from the sea toward the continental cyclones; the air is chilled by the seasonal causes which make the winter climate; the earth surfaces soon become largely covered with snow and their radiating influence is thus mechanically obliterated; the air lies in practically *. * MOUNTAIN TEMPERATURE AND SNOWFALL. 203. even strata of uniform temperature. The humid wind is drawn along these ruling conditions; on every plateau it discharges down to the point of Saturation ; the dimi- nution in absolute amount of moisture is constant and large ; by the time it over- lies the Rio Grande trough its last available moisture has been condensed by the heights of the Continental Divide and sifts down to the leeward. Practically desic- cated the current reaches the summits of the eastern or Atlantic divide; it has but little rain to deposit for the immediate agricultural benefit of the plains; such pre- cipitation as is induced appears as snow which forms a storage reservoir whose sup- ply is constantly utilized until July. Therefore are the winter rains confined in the main to the western member (p. 324). The summer winds or “temporales” are from atmospheric strata, drawn from the sea over land surfaces, under the influences “of me- chanically directing guide planes,” at sea level and mean temperature “calm air is in a position to take up and hold in suspension moisture up to the point of saturation.” As a result of change of higher position and of temperature, the point of saturation is also changed; there is more moisture than the aërial gases can hold and precipitation follows. Another factor is that of radiation. If topographical surfaces are heated by the suns rays, the aqueous currents as they rise and pass are immediately affected. This factor is the dominant one in relation to the “temporales.” Lieut. Glassford says: * When the elevating plane over which the air is drawn is covered with snow, this factor is in its lowest terms. Snow reflects the incident solar heat back to the air through which it has just been transmitted, and as the air is highly diathermanous it is very little affected by this original and reflex passage of heat, which further- more is near its minimum during the season when precipitation takes the form of snow. Though an excellent reflector of heat, snow is also a notably poor radiator, and forms a screen which prevents in a large measure the diffusion of the heat which the mountain mass has collected by absorption and stored during a warmer season. It therefore appears that the temperature of the surface of a snow-clad surface of elevation differs but little from the absolute temperature of air normal at the same elevation. Over a region governed by such an elevation it is most likely that the superterranean planes of temperature and saturation are evenly distributed. In such case the induced air body raised by the guide plane of the mountain slope into suc- cessive planes will move continuously and with the least disturbance, and will lose of its humidity only such a minimum amount as will suffice to reduce it to the sat- uration point of each successive plane, and thus will carry its maximum to be pre- cipitated on distant regions in its appointed course. With the vanishing of this screen of snow the conditions proportionally alter. The surface of elevation, with its soil and rock masses, ceases to reflect the incident heat ray of the sun, but absorbs much of it. At the same time it radiates the heat which it receives, currents are formed in the surrounding air, and the mountain be- comes a focus of activity, about which are currents rushing rapidly skyward and a lateral indraft to supply the place of the air withdrawn by this action of convection. The air passing the snow-clad mountain is raised to the minimum elevation which will enable it to pass beyond; its precipitation is the minimum, its reserve is avail- able for higher ranges. The air, influenced by the radiating mountain mass, is forced to the highest elevation which the upward current can reach, as is shown by its fre- quent precipitation as hail ; it is subjected to the greatest change of pressure and temperature; its excess moisture and consequent precipitation reaches the maximum ; it is almost desiccated, and on even higher ranges beyond can cause no precipitation. All these theoretical features are observed in the New Mexican rains (pp. 24, 25). From June to September the effects of this phenomenon may be seen practically illustrated. In June the ranges are still snow clad, though vanishing. There is the minimum of discharge as a result, with vague diffusion over large areas. In July the snow is swiftly disappearing, and humidity is restored to the air, while the rain becomes general to the leeward of the mountain. There is but little difference in precipita- tion for August. In the western field the humidity is passed “rapidly to very high altitudes and makes a high precipitation upon the imme- diate region.” In other words, in that portion which belongs to the Pacific climatic influences, the summer rains are adaptable for storage use, and not for immediate terrane distribution. The eastern section, 204 IRRIGATION. or Atlantic divide, on the other hand becomes a focal ridge of “great radiation and intense activity of convection.” The largest precipita- tion them is in the two months of July and August. In September the “temporales” disappear, for the - two mountain masses are fully developed as ridges of radiation and convection, the available humidity has been almost exhausted, and although the condensation takes place at high altitudes yet the general air temperature is so much elevated that the practical effect of height on temperature is considerably lessened. The rainfall is materially less; it appears as indefinite areas of slight intensity, and thus the tem- porales disappear (p. 326). Evaporation observations, Mr. Glassford says, authorizes the draw- ing of provisional curves over portions of New Mexico, of from 70 to 90 inches of annual loss. The lowest curve corresponds with the Sangre de Cristo and Pecos-Canadian section; that is the north end portion. The 80-inch curve sweeps in across the southeast portion, where it sharply recurves and goes westward to the Gila Basin. The highest curve affects the whole of the southern section of the Territory. Accord- ing to the weather-service paper, New Mexico formations are directly related to phreatic supplies. The writer quoted accepts the term “underflow” first used by Mr. J. W. Gregory, of Kansas, and since brought into special use by this office during the “Artesian and Under- flow Investigation ” as the one best adapted to express the nature of the Subterrane or drainage water supplies which were reasonably con- jectured as existing when our inquiries began, and for the use of which ample proof has already been obtained. With Mr. Glassford this office agrees that it— Must be rigidly stated and strictly understood that in the present state of knowledge no competent evidence exists to prove that this underground water supply partakes in any sort of the nature of a stream sufficiently to authorize the use of the word flow. In individual instances a flow may be proved in continuation of the above- ground flow of the lost rivers characteristic of the region, but that the general body of underground water has any such progression is certainly not proven. No general claim for sub-flow has ever been made. Only in assured cases, subject to demonstration, would it be allowable. But that all phreatic waters have a propulsive or directive movement, however slow, is in my judgment a demonstrated fact. The evidence is ample and extends over many years and different lands. The existence then of phreatic waters in New Mexico is already established. In the annual report on Internal Commerce, for 1888, published for the Bureau of Statistics, U. S. Treasury, there is among others a valuable paper on this Territory giving by towns and villages the location and character of earth waters utilized as springs, wells, etc., for town and farm purposes. The number is surprisingly large. Artesian Water has al- ready been reached a few miles below Springer, where the Raton table- land begins to decend into the upper Pecos wall, and at Roswell, in the lower Pecos Valley, where a number of flowing wells are now in operation. At Eddy two wells are being drilled with good prospects of success. This is a region of heavy springs, and to the eastward of the Pecos rising water is obtainable in all directions and at moderate depths by dug wells. At Deming and the neighborhood nearly 100 such wells are in operation. The lifting power employed is that of the windmill. On the Journado del Muerto several tubular wells are a mod- erate success. South of Galisteo Creek, on the Florida plains, and in Manzano Valley, as well as in the Pecos Velley, such waters have been found. The extensive intra-mountain plain or valley, lying to the east of the Organs and between that range and the Guadalupe, is without a single surface stream or spring. Yet there is little doubt that it is ex- THE PHREATIC SUPPLY OF NEW MEXICO. 205 tensively supplied with underflow or phreatic waters, and there is reason to believe, as the existence of old ruins in the upper portion shows, that it must once have been watered by flowing streams, having large por- tions subjected to irrigation by the same prehistoric race that have left their industrial evidences elsewhere in the Southwest. As these under- flow waters are obtained, the question of power becomes one of impor- tance. Mr. Glassford recommends the utilization of the wind by means of mills and gives the following table (page 327): Hourly wind movement. Stations. Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May. |June. July. Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. | Dec. Santa Fe ---------------. 7.1 7.2 6, 9 || 8.0 7. 6 6.5 6.0 | 5.4 5. 1 || 5.9 6. 2 5.8 Dl Paso.-----------------.] 4.9 || 5.6 5.8 || 6.6 6, 3 5. 7 4. 7 || 4.8 4.5 ! 4.3 || 4.5 4.8 IRRIGATION COMPANIES. According to the latest report of the governor, the following have been incorporated since September 1, 1890 : The Pope Land and Irrigation Company. Locality : East side of Pecos River, in Eddy County and Texas. Apache Valley Irrigation Company. Locality: Apache Valley, Colfax County. The San Mateo Irrigation Company. Locality: San Mateo River. The Rio Grande Land and Irrigation Company. Locality: East side of Rio Grande, in Sierra and Donna Ana counties. The Sacramento Irrigation Company. Locality: Sacramento River. Mimbres and Deming Ditch and Pipe Line Company. Locality: Mimbres River, Grant County. The Puerto de Luna Ditch and Colonization Company. Locality: Pecos River, San Miguel County. Bosque Redondo Irrigation Company. Locality : Pecos River, San Miguel an Chaves counties. - Rio Grande Interstate Land and Improvement Company. Locality: East side Rio Grande, from 200 yards below Earlham Bridge to south boundary of Refugio Grant, about 18 miles. The Felix Land and Water Company. Locality: Rio Felix, Lincoln and Chaves counties, -- The Mimbres and Deming Canal Company. Locality: Mimbres River, Grant County. The Tijeras Water Company. Locality: Tijaers Cañon, Bernalillo County. The La Plata Ditch Company. Locality : La Plata River, San Juan County. The ºr Fe Irrigation Company. Locality: South side Rio Santa Fe, Santa Fe Oulmty. + IR,RIGATION PROGRESS. The future of the Territory of New Mexico largely depends upon the increase of its cultivated area through irrigation. The great systems now in process of construction and enlargement on the Pecos, Nimbres, and the Maxwell grant, illustrate the rapidity with which the art is progressing. These systems are elsewhere described. In San Juan County, according to Mr. J. G. Kello, there are approx- imately 200 miles of main ditches, covering about 24,000 acres of land. About 175 miles of these are owned and operated by the farmers them- selves, and are partnership ditches and not incorporated. This length of ditches is all under Operation. There are also from 40 to 50 miles of uncompleted ditches. It is estimated that it requires at least one cubic second foot to irrigate 160 acres of land in San Juan County. The average cost of water throughout this county is abont 75 cents per 3.CI’8. In Santa Fé County during the past year, 1891, irrigation activity has been very marked, and as a result 600,000 pounds of apples and 206 IRRIGATION. - . ~ gº." pounds of other fruits, raised by irrigation, were shipped from anta Fé. Mr. Arthur Boyle, one of the best horticulturists in that locality, fur. nished the following information: His orchard of 6 acres was planted in 1886, and bore its first full crop in 1888. Apples, peaches, and nectar- ines flourished; raspberries, with the exception of the cuspid, stand the winter cold without protection; other berries mature earlier than in the neighboring States and Territories, and enjoy a noncompetitive market for about three weeks. Land, with water, fit for fruit near Santa Fé is worth $100 to $150 per acre. The same land well planted will command $1,500 per acre and upward. In 1888 Mr. Boyle made an experimental shipment of peaches from Santa Fé to a merchant in Den- ver, with whom he was unacquainted, and received a telegraphic order for all he could send. This was because the fruit was not only of a high grade but was on the market three weeks before the California crop. Last year he sold $2,700 worth of fruit from his 6 acres. The style of irrigation is the old Mexican acequia, and there are about 700 users of water in Santa Fé. Under the law no man can vote for mayor domo acequia unless he is an actual irrigator. The poll books of precincts Nos. 3 and 4 show that over 300 persons voted at the last election in 1890. In the following precincts the people depend entirely upon irrigation for a livelihood: Santa Cruz, Espanola, Chi- mayo, Nambe, Pojoaque, San Ildefonso, Tesuque, Upper and Lower Santa Fé, Agua Fria, Bajada, and Galiesteo. These will average 55 votes in each precinct, or about 660 irrigators. There are 17 irrigation precincts in Santa Fé, and nine-tenths of the irrigation is carried on by the native resident New Mexicans. Wheat yields 30 to 40 bushels to the acre, at a general average of 75 cents per bushel. The cost of production would be about 15 per cent of the gross value. Alfalfa averages 24 tons to the acre, and for the last three years has sold for $95 per acre, gross. It costs about 10 per cent to cultivate. Fruit will yield an average of profit of $250 to $1,500 per acre. As high as $800 worth of apples alone have been sold from 1 acre near Santa Fe. The number of acres under cultivation in Santa Fé County is not large, owing to the scarcity of water and rainfall. The possibilities of redeeming large tracts by the construction of reservoirs and ditches are, however, shown to be great, as reported to this office by Mr. Hartman, C. E. The sections now under cultivation by irrigation are in the Rio Grande Valley or along the bottoms of creeks; but as the latter sink on reaching the lowlands, or as soon as they reach the cretaceous forma- tions, an immense amount of water is allowed to run to waste during the spring by the absence of suitable provisions for its storage. The soil is excellent, and produces large crops of the best quality when irri- gated. Valleys and caſions in the mountains or close to their base have a heavy silt. All of the streams in the county emanate from the Santa Fé range, flowing westward into the Rio Grande. These water courses, from north to south, are the Canada Chimayo, Nambe, Tesugue, Santa Fé Creek, heading at Baldy and Lake Peaks, respectively, and Galisteo Creek, rising with its two heads, Apache and Canoncito creeks, near the summit of the southern end of the Santa Fé range. Their waters are derived from Snow, rain, and Springs of the mountains, in Archæn rocks, flowing hence through carboniferous beds, finally reaching the cretaceous formations (Santa Fé marls) which fill the valley between the mountain range and the Rio Grande, superlaid nearer the latter by sheets of basalt thrown out from the Tetilla. ‘oorxar， wae N ºſa） vi. Nys Nr. Nºorſtvº Lºtyniv 1\! tºuw biſniſ THE IRRIGABLE AREAS OF SANTA Fá county. 207 Santa Fé County has an area of about 2,159 square miles, or 1,381,760 acres, of which 603,040 acres are covered by Mexican grants. Of these about tº per cent are strictly agricultural, i. e., irrigated, used without ºn, or are easily put under ditch. They may be classified as OILOWS : g Acres. Irrigated.In gable. 1. In Rio Grande Valley.----------------------------------------------- 13, 120 4, 500 8, 620 2. In Chimayo Valley ... ------------...-------------------------- * * * * * * * * * * * 1, 280 640 640 3. In Nambe Creek Valley --------------------------------------------. 2,880 800 2,080 4. In Tesuque Creek Valley. ------------------------------------------. 3, 520. 1, 520 2,000 5. In Santa Fé Creek Valley: (a) From waterworks reservoir to Aqua Fria, 8 miles -----...------. 8, 320 5,760 2, 560 (b) Ceeneza and Ceeneguilla------------------- ... s is is dº sº s ºs e º º ºs e s e s is e º ºs s 2,560 960 1,600 (c) Vicinity of Penos Ranch --------------------------------------- 320 120 200 6. In Galisteo Creek Valley: (a) In Apache Creek Valley .-------------------------------------- 1,420 140 1, 280 (b) In Cánoncito Creek Valley .....-------------------------------- 480 180 300 (C) On Long Grant Valley------------------------------------------ 2, 400 200 2, 200 (d) At Casa, Colo--------------------------------------------------. 1, 920 920 1, 000 (e) In Galisteo Creek Valley to Cerrillas .....-----........... -----. 3, 360 400 2,960 (f) In San Cristoval Arroyo Valley ---...----------...--...--...----. 2,080 800 1, 280 (g) In El Chorra Valley -------------------------------------------. 1, 920 360 1,760 (h). In San Marcus Arroyo Valley - - - - ---...--...--...--......----...--. 1, 120 160 960 7. In Cañados Facundo, Ortiz, and Galleyos.......... ---...------------. 1, 380 680 700 Total.------------------------------------------------------------ 48,080 17,940 30, 140 The 17,940 acres now under cultivation and irrigation have their water conducted to them by a system of ditches (acequias madre) and their laterals, with a length of not more than 33 miles. The general forma- tion of the country is very favorable in its natural slopes. The area of land which may be cultivated for the raising of crops without irrigation is 18,540 acres. These lands are situated on the Pecos Mesa, in the vicinity of Glorieta, on the upper portions of Arroyo San Marcos, and the various openings from the mountain sides into the plains on the east and west. Bottom lands can be made available by the construction of dam stor- * for reservoirs to the extent of 12,354 acres. They are on the Santa Fé Plains. Acres 1. Valley of the Arroyo de los Chamisos --------------------------...-------- 2,880 2. Valley of the Arroyo Hondo --------------------------------------------- 3,560 3. Valley of Cañada de los Ranchos ---------------------------------------- 1,600 4. Valley of Cañada de los Minos.------------------------------------------ 934 5. Valley of Cañada Aocha------------------------------------------------ 1,660 6. Valley of Arroyo San Marcos -------------------------------------------- 1,720 Total.---------------------------------------------------------------- I2, 354 This is upland available by the construction of small dams to the extent of 20,840 acres. There may be located (1) on the Santa Fé Plains, surrounding an abandoned artesian well location, 5,200 acres; (2) in basin worn out by the Arroyo San Cristobal and Arroyo La Iara, south of Galisteo, 5,640; total, 10,840 acres. Santa Fé Creek runs about 3,326,000 cubic feet of water every twenty- four hours during February, March, and April of each year, giving a sufficient quantity to irrigate 80 acres per day, or 8,000 acres in, say, one hundred days. This amount now runs to waste. The quantity of water during May and June is somewhat less, but generally sufficient to irri- gate the land now under cultivation. The water of the rainy season, July and August, is also used for the same purpose. All the water of the remaining five months, September to February, which is calculated 208 r IRRIGATION. to amount to about 250,000,000 cubic feet, would, if stored, be sufficient to irrigate about 6,000 acres more; or, in other words, there is sufficient . water in Santa Fé Creek to irrigate 20,000 acres if properly handled. Nambe Creek runs about three-quarters of the quantity of Santa Fé Creek. Tesuque Creek, after the junction of its several heads, about the same as Santa Fé Creek. Galisteo Creek about one-half of Santa Fé Creek to within 23 miles of Lamy. Arroyo of San Cristobal runs about one-third of Santa Fé Creek. Nambe, Tesuque, and Santa Fé Creek carry their water as long as they run through archaean and carboniferous formations, and the heads of Galisteo (Apache and Canoncito Creeks) while passing over the Archaean, which is superlaid directly, at its base, by Dakota formations. All become intermittent on reaching the Cretaceous or Galisteo beds, respectively. By building dams across the creek beds at intervals of several miles all the water could be retained and made use of to irri- gate large tracts of lands now lying idle. The heads of arroyos and cañadas, on the Santa Fé Plains, afford opportunities for building reser- voirs. In the southwestern part of the country, where the cañadas open eastward from the mountain slopes on the West, dams for reser- voirs are easily constructed. Water can be obtained in the apparently dry creek bed of the Galisteo at a depth from 15 to 20 feet. IRIRIGATION ON THE RATON TABLE-LANDS. The table-lands of the Raton Range have several times been referred to. That portion under what is known in New Mexico as the Maxwell grant is the seat of an irrigation enterprise of a most important char- acter. The altitude, topography, hydrography, and climatic conditions all unite in giving prominence, from both an engineering and economic standpoint, to the irrigation works, administration, and cultivation that are in progress in northeastern New Mexico. The special agent made a close personal examination of the area and hydraulic system in the early summer of 1891. Impressed with the belief that the success of the systems in operation upon the Maxwell grant would demonstrate the possibility of an arable reclamation of many million acres of high table and plateau lands, several days were given to the inquiry and over 100 miles of driving was done at an elevation between 6,400 and 8,000 feet. The conclusions reached are given in a condensed state- ment of the notes made at the time. There are two ditch systems un- der the Maxwell operations and one other under the control of Mr. Springer. The source of supply is found in the snow-fed head waters of the Canadian and Cimarron rivers and in the local precipitation of the foothills and table-lands. The Springer Ditch (Maxwell) system contains about 22,000 acres under ditch. There is one large reservoir called Springer Lake, situ. ated at 5 miles from Springer, with a capacity of 5,000 acre-feet of water; besides there are also several smaller lakes and one settling basin. The smaller lakes together have a storage capacity of, between them, 1,000 and 1,200 acre-feet of water. There are 55 miles of main ditches and large distributories or laterals. The water for this system is obtained from the Cimarron and Ponil rivers, and the head gate is situated at the junction of these rivers. It is not yet possible to esti- mate with accuracy the average flow per year of these streams, for the first gauging station was only established on the Cimarron in 1890. The grade of the main ditch is about 54 feet per mile. It is 20 feet Raton Table Lawn Rºsenvons. View from Saltpeter Rock, Taos Range, Colfax County, New Mexico. TABLE LAND RESERVOIRS IN NORTHEAST NEW MEXICO. 209 wide at the bottom and about 4 feet deep. There is no question of the water supply made being equal to all wants. If all the land were sold under the Springer system, any demand for water would have been sat- isfied. As to the Vermejo system, there can be irrigated at present 30,000 acres, and that, too, without further extension of the system by building additional reservoirs. The reservoirs and their capacity are as follows: Acre-feet. Acre-feet. Lake 1-------------------------- 200 | Lake 13------------------------- 1,700 Lake 2 (Laguna Madre). -- - - - - - - 2, 100 | Lake 15.------------------------ 200 Lake 4-------------------------- 300 Lake 16-----. ------------------- 200 Lake 5-------------------------- 1,000 | Lake 20------...----------------- 300 Lake 7 and 8.------------------- 11,000 &= - Lake 10------. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 200 Total.---------------------- 20, 200 Lake 12 (Oyster Lake) ---------- 3,000 Besides these there are several depressions, which can be utilized by making deeper cuts and building embankments around them, if at any time the system should be increased. There are about 50 miles of main canals and main laterals of same depth and width as those of the Springer system. The Vermejo system may be extended to the north and east. Below the present head gate, about 4 miles lower down the river, an additional ditch is being built, which, tapping the Vermejo River, will receive an additional flow on account of several springs ris- ing thereabouts, between the present head gate and the ditch now build- ing. This is called the low-line ditch, and will cover an additional area of 7,000 acres, at a total expense of $7,000, including a rather expen- sive iron flume, a late invention of a Denver patentee. It is proposed, in the event of conditions warranting it, to make an addition to the system by going higher up into the caſion, with a view to the possi- bility of dry seasons. To increase the amount of water, it is proposed to build a storage reservoir about 15 miles above the Vermejo head gate in the mountainous part of the river; the plans are already made, the location chosen and surveyed. Owing to the amount of water now available, this project is postponed to another year. Such storage res- ervoir would be located at the junction of the Caliente and Vermejo rivers and would have a capacity of 5,000 acre feet; the expense of this construction may be estimated at $50,000; and the reservoir could be filled repeatedly during food seasons every year. It is also designed to construct a reservoir covering 3,500 acres to col- lect the waters from the Cieniguilla and Cimarron rivers at the head of Cimarron cañon, about 30 miles northwest of the present head gate of the Springer system. This reservoir, which has been surveyed, would irrigate 160,000 acres; the proposed dam would be 140 feet high, 100 feet long on the bottom, and 275 feet on top. It will contain 312,000 cubic yards of material. It would irrigate a great deal of land which can not at present be covered by either the Vermejo or Springer sys- tem. Besides this, there are other projects surveyed: First, to collect the flood waters of the Van Bremmer, Serososo, and Ponil rivers into a series of natural lakes, each of which will hold a large quantity of water, with a dam to be built around them ; second, a project to collect the waters gathered through the heavy floods which every year occur in Crow Creek Cañon. This, however, would be rather expensive and would not cover more than 3,000 acres. A third plan is to collect the waters that come down Raton Arroyo and the Chica Rica Creek and its various branches, and from the melting snows which come down from the Bartlett and Chica River mesas. This proposed system is located east and southeast of Raton, near the eastern boundary of the Maxwell S. Ex. 41—14 210. - IRRIGATION. - land grant, and would cover 12,000 acres, which are located partly on Government land outside of the Maxwell grant. The waters of the grant belong to the hydrographic basin of the Cana- dian River, that is, to its head waters; the Cimarron is only a branch of the Canadian. As to altitude, the proposed storage basin on the Vermejo River would be located at about 7,200 feet, and that at the head of the Cimarron at 8,100 feet. The area of irrigable table-land on and between the two existing ditch systems is about 75,000 acres in ex- tent. The whole area which could be embraced in the different schemes for irrigation, now built and to be built, would be nearly 200,000 acres. The area at present under ditch is 52,000 acres, and there is in cultiva- tion at this time under the Springer Ditch about 2,000 acres, under the Vermejo about 4,000 acres. There are also a number of private ditches on the open table-land at the same altitude. Their area of service it is difficult to estimate. These ditches are taken from the Cimarron, Ponil, Van Bremmer, Vermejo, and Red rivers on the New Mexico portion of the grant, but the amount of bottom land now under cultivation on these different creeks will aggregate about 30,000 acres. These are culti- vated by different settlers, who have either bought or leased from the grant owners. There are in all about 300 families, or a population of 2,000 persons, not including the mountain and caſion farm lands. It embraces only the first and second bottoms on the rivers as far as they extend into the mountains, up to their head waters and down to the foothills. There are a number of other settlers in the Moreno Valley, Ponil, Van Bremmer, and Vermejo parks; but these chiefly depend on the rain which falls there abundantly at different times of the year. The total population of the Maxwell grant, including mines, dif. ferent towns, farmers, etc., will now be about 7,000 persons. The total area under ditch is over 80,000 acres. The climate, except in the high mountains, is mild for nearly every month of the year. Fine weather extends as far as the end of Decem- ber, and only in January are there a few cold days. Rain falls abun- dantly in April and May, followed by the dry month of June; rain starts again in the months of July and August, thus affording as a rule the very best opportunity for good crops. During the winter the snow- fall is moderate, but abundant enough to Saturate the soil and give an opportunity for early plowing. Fall plowing has become the rule. The temperature is mild ; the nights are cool even after the warmest days, and the heat in summer is never oppressive. The table-land alti- tude where the irrigating systems are located varies from 6,000 to 6,500 feet, while in the mountains where crops are raised it varies from 6,200 to 8,400 feet. At the latter altitude rains are abundant. The following statistics of rainfall and temperature during the year 1890 are taken from observations made by a weather station which is located at the head gate of the Vermejo Ditch, the altitude of which is of about 6,400 feet: - Rain and snow fall for 1890. Inches. Inches January --------------------------------- 0.00 || August ---------------------------------. 2. 12 February -------------------------------- 0.00 || September------------------------------- 0.95 March ----------------------------------- 0.90 || October ---------------------------------- , 0.41 April ------------------------------------ 4, 67 || November .------------------------------ 0.37 May ------------------------------------- 1. 30 || December-------------------------------- 0. 52 June ------------------------------------ 0.46 sº--sºmsºme July ------------------------------------- 3. 75 Total for year. -------...----------- 15.45 • THE SPRINGER AND VERMEJO IRRIGATION WORKS. 211 Temperature. Average | Maxi- || Mini- Month. height. mum. || mum. January------------------------------------------------------------------ 36. 72 66 2 February----------------------------------------------------------------. 39.26 76 2 March-------------------------------------------------------------------- 41.31 72 3 April--------------------------------------------------------------------- 52. 00 74 16 May-------------------------------------------------------------------- 63. 57 83 41 June --------------------------------------------------------------------. 72.71. 91 46 July---------------------------------------------------------------------- 71.01 88 47 August.-----------------------------------------------------------------. 66. 90 90 45 September---------------------------------------------------------------- 61. 72 84 35 October------------------------------------------------------------------- 54, 23 79 20 November---------------------------------------------------------------. 42, 22 79 13 December ---------------------------------------------------------------. 36. 44 62 6 For the year-------------------------------------------------------. 53. 17 91 2 With regard to the July and August rains, a graphical presentation of the daily mean discharge in cubic feet per second of the Vermejo River for the seasons of 1889 and 1890, will illustrate their character. The floods of the Vermejo, as a rule, never begin before July. In 1889 there was a severe flood on the 11th of July, but there have been only exceptionally small floods for the same month in 1890. In 1889 there were no floods of any importance after the one on the 11th of July, but the next year there was a series of five floods, extending through the months of July, August, and as late as September; the one in Septem- ber being the most important. It is therefore very difficult to draw a conclusion as to the amount of flood water that can be counted on in a certain month in the year on the Vermejo River. Summer observations have been made on the Cimarron or Springer system, but while the fall of the Vermejo River is 50 feet per mile, the fall of the Cimarron is not over 30 feet. The consequence is that the floods or the Cimarron River are not so heavy, as a rule, as those on the Vermejo ; at the same time the floods on the Cimarron River, which derives its waters from much lower mountains than the Vermejo, are much earlier than on the Ver- mejo River, and mostly occur in May and June. It may be stated that while the snows on the Cimarron begin to melt and the waters of that river begin to come down as early as the month of March, they can not be counted on, for the waters do not come down the Vermejo earlier than the latter part of April and often not before the beginning of May. At the same time the flow from the Vermejo River lasts much longer than that from the Cimarron River, on account of the higher altitude of the mountains and the larger amount of snows on them. As a mat- ter of fact, one season balances the other in the seasonal result. These observations extend for a period of about five years. There is no doubt . felt of the ability to handle the flood waters and to store them in the open reservoirs now constructed, or to be constructed in 1891–1892, there having been such an immense quantity of snow in the mountains that all the reservoirs are brimful of melted snow. But by the time the summer floods come down a good deal of this storage water will have been used. It will always be necessary to gather in all the flood water that can be Secured and store it in reservoirs. / The actual original cost of constructing the Springer and Vermejo ditch systems, including all the embankments, flumes, drops, headgates, ditches, and other works, has been as to the Vermejo system complete but $1.80 per acre; including recent improvements and extensions of lakes and embankments not planned at first, the Vermejo system has now cost $69,000, or $2.30 per acre of irrigable land. This appears in 212 IRRIGATION. the annual report of the company. The Springer system cost $70,000, or $3.18 per acre of irrigable land. That includes the construction of an embankment along the largest reservoir of 4,400 feet in length and 26 feet high at the highest point, covering a lake surface of 475 acres, containing 219,000,000 cubic feet of water and 130,000 cubic yards of material in embankment. This embankment has cost $26,000 and is included in the total cost. All of the work has been done under con- tract and by hand; ditching machinery has not been used. The aver- age cost of labor for man and team per day may be stated at from $3 to $4. The earthwork was let out by public tender. From 8 to 12 cents per cubic yard for prairie work and light shale was paid. The lands under these systems, including perpetual water rights, sell at present (1891) at from $20 to $25 per acre; $12.50 per acre was the first price. Party buying land with perpetual water right reserves for each 80 acres 1.44 cubic feet of water per second flowing over a weir, during the irrigating season, which is from the 1st of April to the 1st of No. vember, a period of seven months. The contract made with settlers states that the company has the right, after having sold all lands called for by the water supply, to turn over the ditch system to the owners of the land, provided the latter shall have paid in full for all rights. The company reserves to the com- munity at large who are buying these lands the pro rata common and joint use of the reservoirs and lakes, which means that it does not allow them to irrigate by laterals direct from reservoirs to their individual lands, these reservoirs being considered as feeders of the whole system, to which nobody has a particular right but in which everybody has an undivided interest. At the same time the right is reserved of extending the system even after control has passed out of present hands, in case the water supply should prove to be so abundant that it can, by an ex- tension, be made to irrigate an additional quantity of land. The effect of such a system is this: First. That at the close of the period of land sale the ditches and works become the property of the owners of the land, with the reservation as stated in regard to surplus water which may be available in addition to the water supply set aside for the actual purchasers—the estimate mutually agreed upon on the Vermejo system, for instance, being that it will irrigate 30,000 acres; second, that no direct contact is permitted with reservoirs, but they are to be held as common property and feeders of the entire system; third, that if by filling up of the land, economy in the use of water, and an in- crease over the present calculation of the capacity of the storage basins a surplus of water is found, the right to increase the area of land to be covered by it is retained, provided the amount of water per 80 acres is . supplied for which the agreement calls; the understanding being that if it be found the system will supply at any time an amount of water larger than may be needed by the 30,000 or 22,000 acres under each system, the right of claiming this surplus is to be reserved. The transfer of water rights is limited by the amount called for by the con- tract. It will be apparent that if the system as now existing is large enough to supply everyone under it before all the sod has been broken and all the lands have been brought under cultivation and under irriga- tion, there will be an excess of water available after all the lands have been, say, two or three years under cultivation and under irrigation. The agreement stands good as to the individual for the amount stated in the contract, except as provided in article eight of the water agreements, which states that if the volume of water prove insufficient from drought or from any other cause beyond control, #- RATON SOILS AND WATERS, AND THE ACRES SOLD. 213 the company shall not be liable for any shortness of supply occasioned thereby, but shall have the right to distribute the water pro rata to the holders of the land. If, by economizing his water, the individual land- owner obtains therefrom the means of increasing his area of cultivation, that is his advantage and nobody else's, and the constructions by indi- viduals of reservoirs on their land to gather flood water is strongly en- couraged. In any event, if the present system shall be found to hold more water than is now calculated upon, the advantage of that calcu- lation exceeding the amount given to each landowner under the con- tract will belong to the company. The limit, therefore, to the individual landowner is the amount stated in the contract, and the amount stated in the contracts will become the property of the community ditch owners, and no more. In regard to evaporation and seepage, it is found that the seepage in the natural lakes or reservoirs is quite insignificant; that, in fact, after the first year the lake bottoms are as tight as a pot. As to evaporation, experience leads to the idea that reports thereof are greatly exaggerated. Last year, at the end of October, there was, for instance, ten feet of water in Laguna Madre; the sun was quite powerful in that month, as well as in November, and even in the beginning of December; and after irrigating several hundred acres for plowing in the fall and spring, it was found that the water in Laguna Madre had only decreased one foot by the 1st of March. While there may be considerable evaporation in a hotter climate and a lower altitude, as in Mexico, Utah, or southern California, it is not of any importance, comparatively speaking, in an altitude of between 5,800 and 6,400 feet. Mr. L. S. Preston, engineer, proposes to make a systematic record of both the percolation or seepage and evaporation, as far as practicable. This gentleman is now keeping a record, twice a day, of the depth of waterin all the lakes and the amount of water used for irrigation, and also of the amount of water that comes in at the head gate. The difference, of course, between the last two amounts will give the loss by percolation and evaporation. Percolation or seep- age is, of course, a matter depending largely on the porosity of the soil. The bottoms of the reservoirs on the two systems are practically the same. It is a hard adobe clay that bears water, and after having been soaked becomes non-porous. The depth of the stratum that lies beneath has not yet been ascertained. The effect of water upon this adobe is to fill it up and make it non-porous, so that the bed becomes a stiff water- bearing bottom. In support of the opinion that the seepage is very small is the fact that in 1891 foundations were dug for a new dam to the outlet ditch at Laguna Madre. The bottom of the trench for the - foundation was dug to a depth of 20 feet below the surface of the water in the lake and not over 50 feet away from the edge of the lake. It was 18 feet after the surface of the water was reached before any percolation into this trench was observed, so that the water had not penetrated more than 2 feet. This occurred on the Vermejo system, and shows that the clay must have retained water most effectually. It makes a hardpan that can not be penetrated. No depth has been found to the alluvial soil. No wells have been bored, and 30 feet is as far as has been pene- trated. Fifteen thousand acres have been sold up to date under the Vermejo ditch system, and under the Springer ditch system 5,000 acres. Of land in the foothills and mountain regions, some portions of which are to be irrigated from adjacent rivers and others are under the natural rainfall, under the present administration 53,000 acres have been sold in all. 214 - IRRIGATION. * It is claimed by the manager, Mr. Pels, that the object in building these ditch systems was not only to sell the lands off rapidly, but to di- vide them in small holdings sufficient to support and make a good living for a family, with a view of increasing the population there as much as possible by an influx of good, thrifty settlers who would make good citi- zens. The experience has been that people, as a rule, in taking Govern- ment lands or in buying from private parties, buy more land than they can bandle, and are just ready for a mortgage when they have to make a second payment, having no available means after they have done the work of farming, fencing, building houses and barns, etc. This has grad- ually and as far as possible led to a restriction of the amount of land to be bought by each individual. The consequence has been that deduct- ing the Maxwell Land Grant farm, the average now owned by each set- tler's family on the Vermejo and Springer ditch systems will not exceed 80 acres. Lately it is found that the purchasers are reduced to 60 acres or less, which will give a good living to a family, and that several of the larger holders resell part of their lands. The board of trustees have made it a rule not to sell any tracts, whether on the irrigated systems or in the mountains, exceeding 320 acres to any one bona fide settler, except for establishing colonies, and have also made it a rule to exclude sales to speculators, and they limit themselves exclusively to sales to bona fide farmers. The limit per capita for farmers in this altitude and under these conditions varies. It is thought that a family can, as stated above, make a good living and become very well to do by cultivating an area not exceeding 60 acres. He can do with even less if he has the means of raising fruit only. At the same time the case is different where a man buys lands in the mountains along the streams. It has been the rule to sell at least half a mile across the stream, the buyer thus taking in, say, about one-fifth of irrigable land and four- fifths of hill land, which latter can only be used for grazing. The con- sequence is that people fence in these and use the hills to a great ex- tent for raising some cattle, which industry, of course, has to be limited to a few milch cows on a 60-acre tract in the irrigated systems. This applies directly to the cultivation of the soil for crops and general farm- ing purposes, not to the question of a timber or grass claim. Timber tracts are not sold and efforts are being made to preserve the timber at the heads of streams, to Secure always an ample water supply below. In this system there are practically three qualities of land: The table- land that lies open under the ditches, present and prospective; the high foothills, lands that consist mainly of more or less narrow valleys and the foothills just above them; and then the higher mountain land, which includes a portion of the stream and Cañon region, has some timber, and which is largely a cattle range. It is preferable, as a matter of economic growth and social life, that all the arable lands should be settled in small portions, and efforts are being made with that end in view. From general observation as to the land cultivated by irrigation it is thought to be more desirable to have small than large holdings. As a rule there is more made by cultivating intensively under irrigation of small parcels than there would be by cul- tivating large farms under the same system. Farming does not pay where a family has bought land and has to apply for outside help and borrow money in order to secure the means of cultivation. This does not apply to farming on a large and systematic scale as is done on the Max- well farm under the Vermejo Ditch. A thousand acres have here been broken, of which 600 are in alfalfa, an expense which undoubtedly gives first-class returns, but which, on account of the heavy outlay for seed, pre- s NECESSITY OF LOCAL AND FARM STORAGE. . 215 paring the soil, and ditching, can not be incurred by many individuals. Allowing the existence of large landholders with abundance of capital in one portion of the locality such as this, and then allowing for a considerable number of persons of moderate means and industrious habits and intel- ligence, and comparing the two systems as to the cultivation of the soil and the results thereof, and looking at it abstractly as to whether a number of small holdings are a large holding with large capital should be preferred, it is believed that the result would be, if other conditions were favorable, that the financial results of ten farms each of 60 acres, compared with one farm of 600 acres, however ably conducted, will show after a few years a decided advantage in favor of the ten farms. Expe- rience in this matter, not only here but also in Holland, gives the con- viction that small holdings of land only are conducive to a maximum of prosperity. Besides, the primary object has been to induce the set- tlement of as large a number of good, hard-working, law-abiding citizens as possible. The policy adopted of having the ditches and reservoirs become the property of the community when the water rights thereunder are all sold is the result of deliberate judgment that the ownership and ad- ministration are best in the hands of the landowners; this plan has also been followed to a large extent in Colorado. On several of the farms that are now being cultivated there are in- dividual reservoirs. This is a matter that is to be encouraged as much as possible. Not only on these ditch systems, but farmers also who are located on the bottom lands near the rivers, have been informed by the manager of the company that its surveyor has been instructed to lo- cate, free of expense to them, sites for them to build reservoirs on their lands. The object of this is to encourage them to make use of and gather all the flood water they possibly can, so as to drain at other times on the resources of the ditches as little as possible, and conse- quently to reserve to the community at large, in dry seasons and at times when there are no floods, the greatest amount of water that will run into the ditches. The concession is even contemplated of reducing the price of land to such parties as are willing to go to the expense of building small reservoirs on the lands they buy. These reservoirs will be filled by laterals built by the farmers, and which connect with the main ditch laterals or canals, and it is simply a matter of knowing in time when the floods arrive so as to open all the gates at the different laterals; and of that all are always advised in time by a telephonic system, which connects the head gate with the residence of the ditch superintendent and with other points of the system. These small individual reservoirs are encouraged, then, first as a means of holding the actual surplus of the farm laterals, and second all such sur- plus as may suddenly arise from floods or storms. The efficiency is doubtful, however, of any ditch system having no reservoirs and there- fore not able to store and gather all the flood water and surplus of river water or of rains or cloud-bursts; only a storage system can supply its farm lands as well during the dry months as in the months during which the snow melts and the ditches run full. Attention should be called to the possible value of these small farm ponds or lakes in the course of two or three years. It will be found that, properly located upon the farm with a view to its natural condition and drainage, they will receive back from the soil a large amount of the water put into it for the purposes of irrigation, after it has fed the plant life; that they will be kept with water in them from the natural return to the center, such as a reservoir 216 IRRIGATION. will make, of the water unconsumed by the plant life, applied to the Surface for irrigation purposes. There are some very remarkable facts that come to light on that subject, and it will be worth while to observe what is suggested in regard to it incidentally; that the use of water adds to the conservation of water; that the use of water in irrigation increases the supply of water from the earth itself. As a natural con- Sequence, if we have a proper reservoir, the unused water will also be drained into that reservoir after it has been applied on the surface, and it will be the ranchman next below who will get the benefit of this. This will be done by gravity, but very often that gravity will be suf. ficient, even in 80 acres, to make an impression on the reservoir of that 80 acres. The products that do admirably well, grow profusely, and are paying crops on these ditch systems are all kinds of fruit trees, except, of course, the tropical and semitropical varieties, besides alfalfa, wheat, barley, oats, millet, Sorghum, and all kinds of garden produce. A trial is being made of the culture of the sugar beet, and it is hoped that the quantity and quality of the saccharine matter may be satisfactory. On the Max- well farm 350 acres of alfalfa was planted a year and a half ago, from which 1,000 tons will be cut this year; 250 acres more of alfalfa was sown this spring, which had a beautiful stand. In fact all the products of the temperate zone grow here in abundance. Magnificent apple, pear, prune, plum, cherry, peach, and apricot trees grow on Dawson's and Montgomery's ranches on the Lower Vermejo. All fruit trees do very well here. Their product has a fine flavor, nowhere excelled, and thousands and tens of thousands are now planted on this difch system. Wheat never brings less than 30 bushels per acre, barley 60 bushels per acre, etc. All grain here is very heavy, especially oats, which always weighs from 40 to 45 pounds per bushel. All other grains yield in proportion. For raising hay this country is unexcelled, as the hay- ing season is always accompanied by dry, warm weather. Alfalfa, timothy, and clover are raised in large quantities and yield enormously. Alfalfa gives three or four crops a year, producing from 14 to 24 tons per acre at every cutting. Potatoes, beets, turnips, parsnips, onions, . ºges grow abundantly, and are of large size and remarkably D162 ilä, VOI’. WIEWS OF MIR. PELS AS TO WATER, ADMINISTRATION. In conversation with General Manager Pels, of the Maxwell grant, he expressed opinions on the administration of irrigation interests which have the Weight of extensive personal observation and ex- perience in such matters. Mr. Pels resided for several years in the Dutch East Indies, has visited India, China, and Japan, and is familiar with irrigation conditions both there and in California. What he says, then, is interesting and comes with considerable force: The system of incorporation known as the irrigation district system, which has grown up in California, has not been operated here. A great legal and litigious trouble arose there on the question of riparian rights and the rights of prior appro- priators. Of this the manager of these systems is aware, but was uninformed of the fact that all of these troubles have been settled by a system of municipal or district incorporation under a system of laws. Under these laws the irrigators in any common district, being citizens as well as land owners and irrigators, have the right to form themselves into a municipal body, with power to bond, to hold property, to levy rates and taxes, to pay interest on bonds, to condemn property, to purchase property, and to construct works. The laws on irrigation in Colorado are well known in New Mexico, because they are likely to be adopted sooner or later in this Territory, where there is no legislation worth speaking of on water; but the peculiar system in Cali- kº. 3% AN IRRIGATION EXHIBIT PROPOSED. 217 fornia has not been studied here. There is in New Mexico only the natural property right and the prior appropriation principle. The laws in New Mexico seem to be rather vague, but there has never been any trouble or litigation in that respect. California has adopted a system of thirty-two districts. This system has at once, within five years, stopped all litigation about riparian or prior appropriation or com- munity rights by creating a new community interest. It simply says that the people of a community may form themselves into a district; they then find out the system of irrigation which will best serve the area of which that district is composed; they have then the power to absorb the private ditches and the corporate ditches, and they issue bonds to cover the cost of these ; these bonds run twenty-one years and pay 10 per cent interest and the district becomes the owner, as a community, of the water, of course. It becomes the actual working owner of water and the works. It makes regulations and levies rates, and these rates are by law as applicable to those living within the area who do not use the water as to those who do; it being decided by the courts that the minority of monusers are benefited to a sufficient degree to warrant the compelling of the paying of rates and the bearing of their portion of the burden of maintaining the district. Now, the effect of that has been to stop all liti- gation, and the effect is also to bring the larger capitalists, after some disputes, into harmony with the users of the water and to make them see that it is better to take the bonds and get the benefit and get rid of the works than it would be to hold them. Now, a principle of the same kind has been adopted, without any dispute between the landowner, water-user, and the corporation ; and the same result has been reached in New Mexico, without the necessity of law, as that to which the Califor- nia irrigators are coming to under the elaborate system of districts they have adopted. A water district has been practically established by which the community will some time own their own water works. And the limitations thereon are only those that increase the value of that community’s interest. Mr. Pels also expressed a desire to assist in making a presentation of irrigation systems at the Columbian World’s Fair in 1893, by having photographs taken of both the ditch systems under his management, giving a comprehensive bird’s-eye view of as much as possible of each system. The Agricultural Department will be supplied, he says, in time, with specimens of all the products raised under them, and with such other information as may be required, if timely notification be given. From time to time data relating to the progress of evolution in northeastern New Mexico as to the increase of the area of irriga- tion, the production and nature of Works, and general Statements that will show the progress of the cultivation of the soil in this region oy irrigation will be furnished to the office of irrigation inquiry. THE MEXICAN SYSTEM-FR UIT CULTURE IN THE MESSILA VALLEY. The soil is all alluvial and is made up of silted mountain detritus. The products are the hardier fruits, such as peaches, pears, apples, etc. IFigs may be raised, but not sufficiently to be valuable for commerce. Wheat, under fairly good cultivation, according to Prof. Hiram Hadley, of the agricultural college, averages 40 bushels to the acre, and oats are cut three times during the year from one sowing. The experiments with sugar cane show that this portion of New Mexico is one of the best known regions for its culture. Sugar beets will also thrive. From Rincon to El Paso the Rio Grande Valley is one of the finest of corn regions. All vegetables do well, and the gardeners have the advantage of putting products on the market three weeks in advance of the main crop. Asparagus grows wild when once started. This valley is the home of the grape, the Mission variety being the favorite. Near Las Cruces there are vineyards fifty years old that show no sign of wearing out. The average yield of Mission grapes is 10,000 pounds per acre. The Muscat, Alexander, Tokay, and Rose of Peru varieties are also planted and do well. Grapes from this region are on the market two weeks earlier than the California pick. Alfalfa yields an average of 4 - 218 $: IRRIGATION. tons per acre, averaging about 1 ton per cutting, but 2 tons per acre have been cut at once. Irrigation at the present time is carried on under the crude Mexican Community System, but the native population seem ready to adopt more advanced methods and to turn their rude acequias into large canals, provided only that their hereditary rights in the water are rec- ognized and protected. Don Jacinto Armijo, probate judge of Donna Ana County, speaking for the native irrigators, desires that the ditches should be taken out by improved machinery and not by manual labor, and further declares that the people are seeking to prepare their land after the method practiced by the agricultural college at Las Cruces, and that since the establishment of that institution a general and very material improvement has been observed among the Mexican irriga- tors. He thinks that if the supply of water were regulated by a just corporation, assuring to the people their rights to water, or the whole placed in the hands of a system like the California irrigation districts, instead of the present community method, the people would readily accept the situation and turn over their present ownership to the better administration of a larger autonomy. The great obstacle to such an arrangement would be the opposition of the small irrigators, who, having no money to maintain their ditches, pay for their water by manual labor. These would not favor any change of system, except On the most absolute assurance of security. It is easier, he says, for these small farmers to pay ten days’ labor than $5 as a tax. The dis- trict System would meet their wants. The records of the acequias under the mayor domo's shows the follow- ing acreage in Donna Ana County that received water during the year ended June 30, 1890, and that the same was cultivated by 810 irrigators, three-fourths of whom, or 620 persons, are Mexicans: Las Cruces, 120 terrenos of 50 acres each. -----------------------...----------- 6,000 Donna Ana, 50 terrenos of 100 acres each.----------...---------------------. 5,000 Messila, 200 terrenos of 52 acres each ---...--------. . . . . .-------...--------- 10, 400 St. Thomas and San Miguel, 40 terrenos of 50 acres each . . . -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 2,000 La Mesa," 100 terrenos of 40 acres each -------...----...--------...---------. 4,000 Chamberino, 40 terrenos of 50 acres each . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .----...--...-. 2,000 La Union, 80 terrenos of 50 acres each ---..... . . . . . ... ..... ----...-...--...-- 4,000 33,400 At Colorado and Santa. Theresa and from Rincon south toward Donna Ana’there are 2,000 more acres. In Toulerosa, including Three Rivers, there are 2,000 acres, thus making a total of 40,400 acres watered in Donna Ana, of which over 90 percent was actually cultivated during the year ended June 30, 1890. This estimate is very conservative and somewhat below the actual figures of cultivation by irrigation in this county. Land entitled to water in this region is too valuable to lie idle ; besides, if a few large ranchers of 4 to 2 terrenos of iand be ex- cluded, the average size of the farms in Donna Ana County will be about 20 acres, all of which are intensely cultivated. Col. Albert J. Fountain, a well-known lawyer, and a gentleman who has made a very close study of old and modern New Mexican life, says: The district system of irrigation as practised in California is the only innovation that the people would be likely to tolerate on the present method of community ownership of water. Their right of water runs with the land under the Mexican law ; and while the system is cumbersome, yet it insures the people their water; any system that makes them pay money for what God has furnished is incomprehen- †. Originally La Mesa had but 50 terrenos of 40 acres each or 2,000 acres. à. MESILLA VALLEY PROJECTS AND CONDITIONs. 219 sible to them. They are willing to work to build ditches and develop water, but refuse to be taxed a cent in money. If they could be brought to understand that a better system would provide their water, preserving to them all vested rights, little objection would be offered. The old Spanish dictum was that the water owed a bene- ficial servitude to the land, and that the sovereignty of the Government over the water was for the purpose of assuring the service. Any system, whether it be a mu- nicipal or private corporation that seeks authority at the hands of the native people of this Territory to exercise direct or indirect control over water, conflicts with the hereditary idea of sovereign governmental ownership in water for the benefit of . the community of landowners. Then, again, the people fear a clash between the old legalities guaranteed to the native population by treaty and any new authority that may be created. The system now generally proposed is about as follows: We have 120 terrenos or 6,000 acres of land under cultivation in and around Las Cruces, divided among 300 or 400 persons, some of whom own 5 acres, some 100 acres or more. Under the present plan each one of these persons is required to contribute, either in labor or money, a sufficient amount pro rata to keep up the assessment for repairs. The proposition is that all of these people—and there can be no corporation unless it be unanimous—that all these people surrender their water right to certain persons, whom they shall elect as their directors, receiving in return a certain amount of stock pro rata for these rights in lieu of their present direct ownership. The amount of stock each would own would be taxed a proportionate amount to keep up the acequia. Suppose I own 5 acres, and it is put into the stock fund as $500 worth of stock. I would be required to pay i per cent in order to keep up the ace- quia. The capitalization being $100 per acre, that would be $5 per annum, and $6,000 from the whole amount of land. This sum would of course be in money, and that is the great objection. The ordinary native is willing to contribute three or . four days’ labor per year, but he is very loath to pay even the smallest sum of money in lieu of that labor, because his ancestors always had their water by labor, and he can not see why he should pay for what he considers his by vested right. The objec- tion is to the method of administration and not to the merits of the proposition. Another difficulty is that this scheme does not recommend itself to the English- speaking promoters of irrigation enterprises or capitalists. The people would be the only beneficiaries by this plan, gaining thereby the power to turn 6,000 days’ labor . into, say, $6,000, and from this fund through their district supervisors or commis- sioners, purchase proper machinery, and thus lower the future cost of irrigation, besides having their work better done. Another proposition is to take out a large ditch by private enterprise, starting some miles from the present head gate. This is to furnish water at a low rate to all who surrender their water to the ditch company. The people look on this with suspicion. However, it may be said that if these people take out their ditch with- out interfering with anybody else, it would be a great advantage to irrigation in this region ; and it is a practical proposition, especially if they adapt their canal to the irrigation of the mesa lands. The Procita grant of 13,000 acres, just below here on the mesa, offers a very good opportunity for the investment of private capital in such a canal, and the people would offer no interference whatever. There is also a very large acreage of new land outside of their grant on which the capitalist may expend his energy to his commercial profit and the great advantage of local irriga- tion. The main street of Las Cruces is 20 feet above the highest ditch line, but be- tween the town and the foothills lies a wide acreage unequalled for the production of the wine and raisin grape. Every acre of this land is worth $50, and the proposition to water it is feasible; therefore, when the ditch men come to the present owners of Water rights to negotiate for their ownership, it creates suspicion in the minds of the people. * †. In connection with the statistics presented lately by the Census Office in its bulle- tin on “Irrigation in New Mexico,” I would like to say, and desire to be quoted, that I do not know or care where the office got its figures, they are wrong and a grave injustice to our people. The number of irrigators in this county, according to the records of election of the mayor domos, at which no one can vote unless he is an actual irrigator, for the election prior to June 30, 1890, was 810; and there are 40,000 acres in all cultivated. It is too much to say that 10 per cent of this land is uncul- tivated or not irrigated. Land with a water right is too valuable. As to size of farms I want to say that the largest irrigator is the “townsite company,” that irri- gates 600 acres. There are not a great many tracts larger than 40 acres and the aver- age extent of an irrigated farm will be about 20 acres. As to crop values per acre, I want to say that alfalfa will bring $80 to the acre. Wheat and corn are low in aver- age, about $20 per acre. Corn will bring $36, and grapes at 2 cents per pound will net $200 per acre. An acre of grapes or 700 vines averaging 20 pounds to the vine will at 2 cents a pound pay $280. The finer varieties, such as the Muskat and Tokay, will average per year $300 per acre. Two years ago I know they brought $600 per 220 - IRRIGATION. acre. These are facts and presented to enforce my estimate $200 per acre for grapes. Alfalfa, on June 30, 1890, was worth $15 per cured bale. In the early spring it was worth $20, and $9.50 was the lowest price paid during the year considered. These figures will hold good throughout the Messila Valley. * The Mesilla Valley, as dominated by the Organ Mountains, is believed to be underlaid with phreatic water. Considered in connection with the the surface supply, this will largely supplement the acreage now under cultivation. Dr. Alphonse Petin, of Las Cruces, in discussing the move- ment of the underflow in this valley, says that on his place, about 14 mile out of Las Cruces, he dug a test hole 14 feet deep and 6 feet wide. At 12 feet 6 inches very coarse, black volcanic sand was found and on reaching 14 feet excavation could not be continued without planking because the water ran through the stratum so readily. He said: I then tried the experiment of dropping a piece of paper on the north of the hole and it floated to the south side in 2 minutes and 45 seconds. I repeated that experi- ment for two days until the hole caved in and noticed that the float crossed the 6- foot space more quickly on the second day by about 15 seconds, or in 2 minutes and 30 seconds. These experiments were carefully timed. This hole was not sunk in the river bed, but in a branch that went round a mound of sand. On the mesa there are different flows of this sheet water, as can be seen in working for driven wells. The shallowest depth at which water is found, according to local experience, is 12 feet, and the deep- est that is known of is 72 feet and 74 feet, but generally after a depth of 60 feet is reached the water rises to within 2 or 3 feet of the surface. There have been no observation of precipitations on the Organ Moun- tains and no means of estimating the rainfall. However, 18 feet of water has risen in a dry arroyo from a cloud-burst, so that the precipi- tation must be immense. The plain or valley to the east of the Organ Mountains is entirely riverless, and has but a few springs. Near the white gypsum sand the water is very bad. This interval is over 50 miles wide with large de- posits of gypsum, and in the white sand water can be found often at 2 feet. The evidence of a lost river is very apparent. The water near the surface in these beds is nearly as saline as Salt Lake, but the Water from the black sand is pure and potable. The eruption that caused the disturbance here is about 700 years old. If a proper administrative or legislative policy were adopted plenty of water could be developed from the underflow to reclaim large areas of this country for pastoral pur- poses, at least. If this land, on which water would be very expensive for irrigation, was leased for pasture, sufficient water could be devel- oped to support the stock. For instance, a stockman formed a tank on the plains, about 40 acres in extent, which has 12 feet of water in the Center. In the Mesilla Valley when cultivation has continued for a long time soil water is found most often at 10 feet below the surface, and a drive well will always have constant water at 26 feet. When you drive a pipe the first water is reached at about 10 or 14 feet in black, volcanic sand; then a very hard stratum for about 8 feet, below which an im- mense supply of water is found. Wells have also gone down 70 or 80 feet, developing fine soft water, which rises in the well. Mr. S. B. Newcomb, of Las Cruces, also very familiar with this val- ley, states that long experience justified the assertion that the perma- nency of this water was assured, and the supply apparently inexhausti- ble. On the majority of the farms the acequia water was used for do- mestic purposes, there being no better water if you clarify it, as it is the melted mountain Snow. Jº ‘oorwalu wa N. Naeusvahu, nos ºsooaei 01：1 （1：1） w sowi ≠ v√∞ √≠ v√∂√∞ √∞lu√∞i√1 CONDITIONS OF SOUTHEASTERN NEW MEXICO. 221 THE PECOS VALLEY. The chief engineer of the artesian and underflow investigation, in his final report, very fully covers the characteristics of a large section opening up under the construction of irrigation Works, which promises to furnish very rapidly desirable homes for a considerable body of peo- ple. It is a valley of large extent, great fertility of soil, exceedingly picturesque and in its upper portion promises to become one of the won- derlands of the world ; with an excellent climate, in the very center of the beet-sugar belt, and so sheltered as to have the advantage of a spring two weeks earlier even than the southern coast and San Joa- quin counties of California. The water supply is abundant, the current of the Pecos being about 4 miles per hour with a flow at low stage of 1,000 second-feet. The works already constructed, or in process of rapid completion, are designed to serve at least 260,000 acres, and are so planned as to provide for a considerable extension. The area in New Mexico may readily be increased to 700,000 acres. The organizers of this enterprise have also constructed a valley railroad of 80 miles in length and built up, among other important improvements, a handsome town. The Pecos Valley and works was made the subject of critical study by the special agent during his tour of inquiry in the summer of 1891. The works required are on a large scale and the construction has evidently been thorough and Workmanlike. The northern canal is taken out at a point on the Hondo River near Roswell, N. Mex., the water at the intake of the canal being raised 15 feet by a frame dam resting on a foundation of closely-driven piles be- tween which is carefully-tamped broken rock. The frame dam is 30 feet wide and 116 feet long, connecting at either end with earthen banks, riprapped. with from 2 to 3 feet of rock. The canal is constructed (September) a distance of 26 miles, 30 feet wide on bottom, 7 feet deep, side slopes of 1% to 1; it has a fall of 12 inches per mile, and carries at its full capacity 6 feet of water. The maximum discharge is 561 cubic feet per second. In connection with the main capal there are thus far constructed 50 miles of lateral ditches from 4 to 10 feet wide on bottom and . 2 feet deep. The northern canal as completed will water 44,000 square acres and under the proposed extension 58,000 square acres more, making a total acreage on the northern canal when completed of 102,000. The dam of the southern canal is located about 6 miles north of the town of Eddy, at a point where the Pecos River has cut its course through Solid limestone formation, giving an exceptionally favorable site. The dam is constructed of a loose or broken rock fill or embank- ment 1,130 feet long, 50 feet high at the deepest place, and rests on solid rock foundation the entire distance across its base. The back or down stream slope of the rock fill is 1 to 1, that of the upstream slope being one-half to 1, and carefully laid by hand. The front of the rock embankment is faced with sacked earth, gravel, boughs, and loose earth until the water front has assumed a slope of 3 to 1, this being finally riprapped with 18 inches of broken rock. The crown of dam is 24 feet wide. Near the eastern end of the dam is the scour gate, 4 by 8 feet in the clear, and built of masonry. Spillways to carry off flood waters have been blasted out of the solid rock near both ends of the dam, one being 13 feet by 210 feet, and the other 250 feet by 5 feet. The outlet is a cut 30 feet wide, 25 feet deep, and cut through the sold rock on the easterly side of the river, with gates about midway to regulate 222 - IRRIGATION. the flow of water. On the west side of the river and reservoir the limestone ridge curves around to the north and toward the river above; and some 400 yards from the center of the dam a broad cut has been made across it, 5 feet below the level of the crest of the dam, for the escape of surplus water in case of sudden rise, which water will flow down a ravine back of the solid rock ridge and reënter the river half a mile below. On the east side the ridge broadens out northward and has been cut in two by the river until a vertical cliff of considerable height has been formed. Against this cliff the force of the flow for 2 miles above comes squarely, and being broken by the solid hill, turns toward the dam a few hundred feet below. The lake or reser- voir formed by the dam is 7 miles long, 1% miles wide, and holds about 1,000,000,000 cubic feet of water, enough to supply the ditch with a full head for nearly one month. When filled it gives a head of water 20 feet above the bottom of the cut through which the main canal is fed, and 13 feet above the feed gates when open. There are three canals, two on the east side of the river. The Hager- man has its head dam 15 miles below Eddy, a large storage reservoir on its course, forming an extensive lake 14 miles long and one-half mile wide with an average depth of 25 feet. The main canal is to be ex- tended to a total length of 25 miles, crossing by a flume to the west side of the Pecos, at a point about midway between Black River and the Delaware, and continuing southward across the last-named stream to the Texas line. A third canal is under way below the Territorial line. Other operations are in progress in Chaves County, and from part of the reclamation of the Pecos Valley by irrigation. Under date of September 12, 1891, Charles B. Eddy, of Eddy, N. Mex., wrote the office of Irrigation Inquiry as follows: In regard to the acreage put into agriculture and fruit-growing I can not give very * data, as the country is developing very fast, and any statement would lose It'S V3, Illè. I will say, however, that we have at present deeded over 25,000 acres of water to actual owners of land. These are bona fide payers of our water rental, and addi- tional water rental is being taken every day. Our canal was not completed so as to furnish water until early this year, and consequently the showing as to the crops can not be a very large one for the past year, but settlers are everywhere up and down the valley clearing, grubbing and plowing their land, and thousands of acres of new lands will be sown this fall so as to produce crops early next spring. Owing to the delay in getting the canal in shape to deliver water, no effort was made to in- duce immigration until about the 1st of last March, when a small organization was started for that purpose. Since that date over 3,000 inquiries have been received from parties all over the county who wish to make a change of home. Settlers are now daily coming in, and from all the information received the Southwestern coun- try will certainly receive a very large immigration this fall and winter, of which the Pecos Valley will get a good share. - From responsible parties at the same point the following statements relative to the growth exhibited there by means of cultivation under irrigation have been received. As the Pecos Valley is a new field and one of great importance, these illustrations of successful growth are glven : For instance, Thomas Stokes, of Eddy, N. Mex., raised during the summer of 1891 11 tons of sorghum (hay) on less than 2 acres of new ground, which product he sold at $15 a ton, the cash yield being over $83 an acre. Julian Smith, of Lookout, Eddy County, N. Mex., sold during 1891, during the past nine months, over $300 worth of garden produce from half an acre of ground, and has 400 pounds of potatoes left. R. M. Gilbert, whose address is Seven Rivers, Eddy County, planted in the spring of 1891 1 acre in potatoes, and gave them no fur- |- ºsvººl, ºvisno， sooº, 1 ºxi'ſ vººrtva usaw "iv svo aerºsoſ, 1 zawaeno so uno xooae --wº. - * ſº - -* * * - RAPID PRODUCTION UNDER IRRIGATION. 223 ther attention whatever except to irrigate them occasionally during the summer. When he dug them the yield was over 7,000 pounds. They sold at 2 cents a pound, so that the cash yield from this 1 acre was over $200. Mr. Gilbert stated that he can raise twice this quantity of pota- toes to the acre with proper cultivation. W. W. Paul, of Lower Penasco, N. Mex., raised 211 bushels of oats on 24 acres of ground. Oats are selling here for 70 cents a bushel. Cash yield, $67 an acre. G. W. Blankenship, of Eddy, sowed 12 acres of rye on September 18, 1890; cut in May, 1891; sowed millet on the same ground and cut two crops, the last on September 12, 1891, mak- ing three crops within the twelve months. The total product in cash yielded $64 an acre. John W. Poe, of Roswell, cut 600 tons of alfalfa from 110 acres. This, valued at $15 a ton, was $9,000; cash yield per acre, $80. Maynard Sharpe, of Eddy, sold $75 worth of water- melons from one-eighth of an acre of ground. An acre at this rate would have yielded $600. He raised a second crop on the same ground, but being pressed for help did not market any of it. L. M. Holt, of Eddy County, raised 114 tons of sorghum on 13 acres, and 450 tons of alfalfa on 90 acres. The alfalfa would be sold at $15 a ton, making a return of $112.50 an acre. C. W. Greene, jr., and Sam Hughes, of Eddy, raised sugar beets that have yielded 19 and 63 tons to the acre, respectively. Samples have been analyzed at the Agricultural Department, and Prof. H. W. Wiley, the chemist, estimates the probable yield of Sugar from an acre of such beets at 2,000 pounds and 8,400 pounds, respectively. Negotiations are now in progress for the building of a beet-sugar factory at Eddy. The security to stock-raising which the development of water sup- plies, under irrigation enterprise, has produced, is illustrated by the fact that over 500,000 pounds of wool have been shipped from Eddy since June, 1891. It is estimated that more than 1,000,000 pounds will be shipped in the following year. George Blankenship and Edward Scroggins, of Eddy, have raised fine fields of cotton during the season of 1891. Many of the stalks bore 60 to 90 bolls each. Such results can be obtained only under irrigation ; they are impossible in any por- tion of the rain belt. The following table shows growth made by various fruit trees, shade trees, grapevines, etc., during the past summer: Name and address of grower. Tree or vine. Growth. - I't. Im. Witt Bros., Eddy, N. Mex----------------------------------. Raisin grape ---------...-----. 16 9 Do ---------------------------------------------------- Apple---------------------.. 4 9 Do ---------------------------------------------------- Pear -----------------------. 4 8 Do ---------------------------------------------------. Plum------------------------ 5 9% Do ---------------------------------------------------- Cherry ---------------------. 1 9 Do ---------------------------------------------------- Crab apple -----------------. 1 8% Do --------------------------------------------------- Mulberry ------------------. l 8 F. G. Campbell, Eddy, N. Mex ----------...------------------ Black locust -----------..... 8 7 G. W. Blankenship, Eddy, N. Mex. ----------...----- - - - - - - - Apple.---------------------- 3 11 O - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Apricot --------------------. 5 8 Do ---------------------------------------------------- Peach. --------------------.. 3 9 Do.--------------------------------------------------- Box elder ------------------. 6 1 Do ---------------------------------------------------- Mulberry -----------------.. 7 8 Do ---------------------------------------------------- Lombardy poplar .---------- 6 2 Do ---------------------------------------------------- Castor bean. --------------.. 8 4 James Hogg, Seven Rivers-----------------...-------------. Peach. ---------------------- 7 2 0 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Cottonwood. ---------------. 16 3 R. M. Gilbert, Seven Rivers --------------------------------. Osage orange---------------. 14. 7 Do ---------------------------------------------------. Native willow ..... --....... 16 5 Do ---------------------------------------------------- Pecan. ---------------------- 6 2 Do ---------------------------------------------------- Black walnut - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 4 11 190 --------------------------------------------------- uſil - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 8 1 Do ---------------------------------------------------- Mulberry ------------------- 6 4. 224 . . IRRIGATION. Witt Brothers have several cottonwoods 9 years old that are 62 to 64 inches in circumference, and over 60 feet high. Mr. Hogg has a peach tree 3 years old from the seed that is 33 inches in diameter and 17 feet 5 inches high. He has a cottonwood that is 4 years old that is 28 inches in circumference. Mr. Gilbert has a pecan tree 6 years old that is 24 inches in circumference, and 22 feet high. He has a black walnut tree 3 years old, from the seed, that is 12 inches in circum- ference, 11 feet 10 inches high, and that bore several walnuts this year. Maynard Sharpe, of Eddy, has two peach trees 2 years old from the seed, that bore and matured seven peaches this year. He has one ap- ple tree 2 years old from the seed that bore three apples the past season. These facts and figures have been compiled with great care, and the measurements are absolutely correct, as correspondence with any of the parties will make apparent. - UNDER FLOW WORKS. The Mimbres River heads in the Black range in the northeastern part of Grant County, N. Mex., and flows in a southerly direction. During the flood season its waters flow to a point some 10 or 12 miles south- easterly from Deming a distance of about 90 miles from its source be- fore sinking, but during the dryer portions of the year they disappear in an underground channel at a point about 40 miles from its source. The lands proposed to be irrigated are a portion of an extensive plain extending from the proposed reservoir sites for 60 miles south to the Mexican border. This plain is transversed by three lines of railroad, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, the Southern Pacific, the Deming, Silver City and Pacific, and a proposed line now partially graded to connect Deming with important Mexican points on the south. This tract is considered to be the only agricultural land that can be made available from the Rio Grande on the east to the Rio Gila on the west, a distance of 200 miles. This enterprise and another one of a similar character in the same Section are important as experiments, and for that reason the following account is given. According to Mr. L. Clapp, jr., of Las Cruces, the civil engineer in charge of the enterprise: - * The flow of the stream was found to be 90 cubic feet per second, by measurement taken on March 14, 1891; about five weeks later it was found to be the same ; on another visit in May it was estimated at one-half, and I believe that a fair estimate of the average discharge of the river at the point selected would be 90 cubic feet per second, exclusive of flood waters. This would give an annual discharge of 2,838,240,000 cubic feet. The river bottom proper is here 900 feet wide. It shows indications of being frequently flooded from 1 to 3 feet deep. Mr. Clark says he was informed that the bottom is covered about one month on an average during each year. Assuming that this only holds good for twenty days, there will be a discharge of 5,184,000,000 cubic feet to be added to the normal total given, making 8,022,240,000 cubic feet as total annual dis- charge of the surface flow. The indications for a large underflow are exceptionally good. The lower Mimbres is believed to be an underground river; in that case the surface water is only the surplus appearing after the underground channel is surcharged. Soundings taken across the valley at King's ranch show the bed rock to be from 8 to 12 feet below the surface; lying on the bed rock a layer of course gravel and bowlders from 2 to 4 feet in thickness are found, then sand and gravel from 3 to 4 feet '068] uſ pºļuae ſu IIe søer）, ‘oorxº IV wae N. ×citrºſ aevºs trºvho ao nºv aowaonisaſi TAPPING A SUBTERRANEAN STREAM. 225 and surface soil from 4 to 6 feet in thickness. The average depth of bed rock from the surface is 11 feet, and the average depth of this water, bearing stratum is 7 feet. At a width of 4,000 feet Mr. Clark estimates a cross sectional area of 28,000 square feet. Assmming this to be 20 per cent water, we have 5,600 square feet cross sectional area of the underground stream; and a flow of 1-100 foot per second would give a discharge of 56 cubic feet per second, or 1,766,016,000 cubic feet per annum; this added to the quantity previously estimated would give a total annual discharge from all sources of 9,788,256,000 cubic feet, or 224,710 acre-feet. The drainage area of the Mimbres River from its sources to the point selected for the proposed work is at least 500 square miles, and the average annual rainfall at Fort Bayard in the foothills of the Black Range is 21 inches. But the rainfall in the mountains at the source of the river is considerably more than this. Going down the valley it decreases until at Deming, on the plains, an average of but 10 inches is recorded. Mr. Clark therefore assumes 20 inches as a fair average for that portion of the valley tributary to the system. “Drainage ditches,” says Mr. Clark, “show a small but constant flow, and with this result from the surface of the water-bearing strata there are the strongest reasons for believing that the result to be ex- pected from a bed-rock dam, bringing all the water to the surface, will be equal to or much greater than the estimate made.” Again, the large number of wells scattered the whole length of the valley and on the plains on either side, especially at Deming and in its vicinity, show a large body of water to be present near the surface, something very unusual on similar plains in the arid regions. The wells at Deming average about 40 feet in depth and up to date seem inexhaustible, showing no difference in volume during different seasons of the year or different years, indicating a constant and uniform flow. ANSWERS FROM CORRESPONDENTS. The following data have been compiled from answers received to cir- culars sent by this office: DONNA ANA COUNTY. Las Cruces (post-office), Dr. Alphonse Petin and A. E. Blount (October, 1891): Average cost per acre in vicinity for preparing land for cultivation under irrigation, from $4,50 to $25; in the valley, where mesquite grows, $7; on the mesa, $4.50. Average cost per acre for irrigation works, ditches, etc.: On level lands, from 50 cents to $2; from $1 to $2.50 on rolling land. Cost per acre for annual maintenance and repairs, 25 cents to $1. tº Area under ditch, 21,000 acres; Las Cruces, 7,000 acres; Donna Ana and Messilla, 14,000 acres. A. E. Blount reports 90 acres under his own or neighborhood sys- term. Products: Alfalfa, fruits, grapes, wheat, oats, corn, barley, and vegetables. Value of product per acre: Cereals and alfalfa, net, $20 to $25; crops separate from grazing or forage, $15 to $20. GRANT COUNTY. Deming (post-office), R. S. Coryell (September, 1891): All irrigation in neighborhood done by means of water raised by means of windmills from wells averaging 50 feet deep, and each irrigating an average of 1 acre, the general product being either fruits or vegetables. . . Average cost per acre for preparing such land for cultivation, $5. Average cost per acre for maintenance and repairs, $1. Average value of such product per acre, $100 to $250, S. Ex. 41—15 226 IRRIGATION. L. Clapp, jr., C. E., of Las Cruces (September, 1891): Lands along the Rio Mimbres, southwest section, especially adapted to fruit grow- ing, which is also the best paying product. Local systems of irrigation are of poor construction, apportionment of water inaccurate, and its use extremely wasteful. The main problem is one of storage, covering 2,000 acres, with esti- mated storage capacity of 40,000 acre-feet of water; there are also in vicinity two arroyas available for storage of about 6,500 acre-feet, giving a total storage capacity of 46,500 acre-feet. Storage is needed for supply only for certain months, and by proper regulation of distribution and use the net irrigating capacity would be 60,000 acre feet, after deducting 25 per cent for seeppage and evapora- tion and 10 per cent for the time when only a partial supply is drawn. -- Estimated cost of the works necessary would make the cost per acre-foot of water $6.45, or not to exceed $7. This would not be excessive, as similar lands, 75 miles east, with water rights, are valued at $50 to $125 per acre. - [The project reported by Mr. Clapp as in process of development seeks to utilize the Rio Mimbres at the point to the north of Deming, where the river disappears from the surface. It is estimated that by reaching bed rock and constructing an earth and rock dam a reservoir can be constructed. I SAN JUAN COUNTY. Bloomfield (post-office), Lewis R. E. Paulin (September 17, 1891): “San Juan South Side Canal Company ”: Water supply, San Juan River; unlimited supply. wojº miles main ditch ; 10 feet on bottom, 14 feet on top, decreasing as water is drawn out; two head gates; two overflow gates ; a number of underflow gates (for sluicing out sand). No reservoirs or dams. Cost of main ditch, about $13,000. Area under ditch, 4,100 acres tillable land; other rough land, 1,300 acres. Area under cultivation, 440 acres. f Cost of water supply to user per acre, $15. Annual rental cost, $1.50 per acre. Farmington (post-office), William Locke (September, 1891): Water supply: Las Animas River. Works: 6 miles main ditch; 7 feet on botton; no reservoirs or dauns. Cost per mile of ditches, about $400. Area under ditch, 1,140 acres. Area under cultivation, 600 acres. Cost of water supply to user per year, $4. [No artesian wells in locality; all irrigation done by ditches from streams.] Farmington (post-office), C. H. McHenry (September, 1891): Chief water supply: Las Animas River; length of main branch, 110 miles; average fall, 25 feet per mile; average width, 100 yards. Mileage of ditches: About 100 miles of ditches taken out of Las Animas River; main ditches, top 6 feet, bottom 4 feet; no reservoirs or dams. Average cost per mile of ditches, about $500. Area under ditch, about 320 acres for each mile of ditch. Area under cultivation, about 160 acres for each mile of ditch. Cost of water supply to user per acre, $1; annual rental cost, $1. SAN MIGUEL COUNTY. Las Vegas (post-office), J. A. La Rue (September 24, 1891): Water ºy Mountain streams (subject to floods; at lowest stage from 500 to 600 inches). Works; 13 miles main ditches, 2 feet on bottom, 4 feet on top; laterals fully as many miles; small rock dams, which are frequently destroyed by the floods; no head gates or reservoirs. + Area under ditch, about 5,000 acres; under cultivation, 500 acres (not more than one- half the area under ditch fit for cultivation). Average cost per acre for irrigation works in neighborhood, from $2.50 to $4 (works generally crude and unstable). Average cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation by irrigation: Experience of writer in irrigation confined to narrow valley of mountain stream where the area of arable land is small compared to the area under ditch; cost him $5 per acre to level and irrigate his land. * UNITED STATES CENSUs IRRIGATION FIGURES. 227 Cost per acre for annual maintenance and repairs in locality, $1 to $1.50. Chief products under irrigation: Principally alfalfa, some corn, and vegetables. Yield of alfalfa per acre, 3 tons. Las Vegas (post-office), The New Mexico Land and Irrigation Company. Water supply: Canadian River Irrigation Works; about 15 miles ditches, varying sizes, commencing about 20 by 15 by 4. One dam 100 feet long, 15 feet high, one head gate. Area under ditch, 3,000 to 4,000 acres. Under cultivation, 500 acres. (Company has prepared for cultivation by irrigation about 1,500 acres of bottom lands heavily covered with sacaton, at a cost of about $1 per º clearing.) Estimated cost of works, ditches, etc., per acre under this system, $10. Products: Alfalfa, corn, sorghum, and oats. [Company has in view the construction of several other irrigation plants (the Angostura plant already constructed); also propose construction of several surface- water reservoirs, to irrigate from 300 to 1,000 acres each, and inclose map, etc., of their works.] Las Vegas (post-office), E. F. Hobart (Santa Fé), engineer (U.S. surveyor-general); Gallinas Canal, Water Storage and Irrigation Company (September 8, 1891). Water supply, 1,000 inches from Gallinas River (at Las Vegas Hot Springs). Works: Dam 5 feet high, 100 feet long; 6 miles ditches 2} feet deep, 5 feet wide at bottom; fall 6 feet per mile; one reservoir, area 30 acres, formed by embankment 15 feet high, one-half mile long. Cost per mile of ditch, $400 (6 miles, $2,400); cost of reservoir, etc., $2,600; total, 5,000 .* Area under ditch, 5,000 acres; under cultivation, 500 acres. Cost of water supply to uses per acre, $10. Also, Onawa Canal Company (Las Vegas), E. F. Hobart, engineer. Average cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation, $5 (breaking, $3.50; fencing, 1.50). Average cost per acre for irrigation works, ditches, etc., $2 to $5. 4 & “ “ “ “ maintenance and repairs, $1 * Staple products, at Santa Fe, all fruits of temperate zone. Staple products, at Las Vegas, all grain, etc., of temperate zone. Value of products per acre: Fruit, $400; grain, etc., $40. Census Bulletin No. 60, F. H. Newell, special agent, gives the following statistics: Number of farms----------------------------------------------------------- 4, 174 Number of farms irrigated.----------------------------- tº ſº tº e º is a s e º 'º is e º sº as us an es sº 3,085 Average size of farms irrigated (acres). ------------------------------------- 30 Average annual value of products -----------------------------------------. $12.80 Irrigated area (total) in acres ---------------------------------------------- 91,745 NOTE.-Dona Ana County, 275 irrigators; 11,051 acres irrigated; 130 acres average size of farms; $8.82 average value of irrigated product. Santa Fé County, 123 irri- gators; 1,358 acres irrigated; 11 acres average size of farms; $14.22 average value of irrigated product. * N E W A D A. This State occupies an elevated plateau in the northwestern portion of the Great Basin, bounded on the west by the Sierra Nevada Moun- tains, and on the east by the Wasatch range and the Salt Lake Basin. It has an altitude above sea level of from 800 feet, at its southeast boun- dary on the Colorado River, to nearly 7,000 feet at its northern boun- dary, averaging about 4,000 feet. It is traversed in a northerly and Southerly direction by high parallel ranges of mountains, some attain- ing to the height of nearly 12,000 feet above sea level. These are sep- arated by valleys varying in width from 5 to 25 miles. Some of the Valleys are broad depressions or sinks, which, during wet seasons, are partially overrun by water and form shallow lakes. During the sum- Imer Season these become dry and seem to be alkali flats and desert Wastes; they are, however, valuable for their deposits of mineral salts, etC. Its boundaries commence at the northwest corner of Utah Territory, and the southern line of Idaho at the intersection of the thirty-seventh degree of longitude west from Washington (1140 3' 0.57° west from Greenwich), and in latitude 420 north ; thence running west along the Southern line of Idaho and Oregon to longitude 43° west from Wash- ington (1200 3' 0.57° west from Greenwich); thence south along the eastern line of California to latitude 390 north, which falls in the south- eastern part of Lake Tahoe; thence southeasterly along the California line to the point of intersection with the Colorado River, in latitude 350 north, and opposite Fort Mojave; thence north and easterly up the center of the Colorado River to its intersection with the thirty-seventh degree of longitude west from Washington, which is the western line of Utah Territory; thence north along the said western line of Utah Territory to the place of beginning, containing within the said above- described boundaries 112,090 square miles, or 71,737,600 acres. An approximate classification of this area gives the following divisions: [From State Surveyor-General's Report, 1890. ) Acres. Water area-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1,081,600 Forestry.*---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2,000,000 Grazing------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 30,000,000. Agricultural landsf.----------------------------------------------------------------------- 20, 000, 000 Mineral lands. ------------------------ - - - - - - - -; - -, -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 15,000,000 Saline, borax, niter and sulphur deposits, alkali flats and deserts.--. -------...------------. 3, 656,000 Total.------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 71, 737,600 * Compiled from the report of Commissioner General Land Office for 1887. f The agricultural areas may be subdivided as follows: Irrigable lands, about 6,000,000 acres; non- irrigable lands, about 14,000,000 acres. ... * 228 WATER STORAGE AND DISTRIBUTION DISTRICTS. 229 The State surveyor-general says of the climate that the State— lies in a belt that contains all temperatures, from that required to grow cotton and cane to that necessary to the hardening of oak or ash. Through all sections there prevails that dryness of atmosphere peculiar to this region. In the absence of dews and mois- ture malaria does not exist in this clear, dry atmosphere. The days are mild and pleasant; the sunshine, so clear and bright, gives cheerfulness everywhere. The nights are cool and invigorating; never sultry or close. On account of the lack of humidity, the extremes of heat and cold are not so perceptible as in moist climates. No heat is oppressive in any part of the State. Summer evenings are always cool and pleasant, and serve as a tonic for the following day. In winter the mercury falls at times to zero, and in some localities much below, but with all that the winters are never severe, and many days—at times, months—are like spring. Light thunder showers occur in the summer months, leaving a delightful, cool, and refreshing at- mosphere. º In a recent report (1891) the State board of trade says: Land in Nevada that can be reached by water is certain to produce a good crop. Whatever grows here grows to the limit of quality: There is no rust on the straw nor weevil in the wheat. Apples and potatoes grow to perfection, while grapes, plums, pears, and all kinds of small fruits do as well here as anywhere. At New Orleans and other great fairs, wheat from a Nevada ranch and potatoes from a Carson River farm were awarded a first premium, and a dozen varieties of apples were awarded prizes. Nevada honey has taken the first prize at the California and Ohio State fairs, at the Mechanics' fair in San Francisco, and every- where it has ever been shown. Tobacco and cabbages from Glendale also won premiums at New Orleans. Wherever there has been careful cultivation there has been successful farming. Last year, from 40 acres of ground which had been sagebrush land there was cleared $3,750, and nothing was planted but wheat, pota- toes, and hay. With water for irrigating, the ground keeps on raising hay all sum- mer and never fails to raise three crops and pasture for fall feed. Last year Mr. George Alt, of Glendale, put 15 acres of his ranch in vegetables. He raised off half of it 130 tons of potatoes, which sold for 1% cents per pound readily. On one-half an acre he got $700 worth of celery. One acre in cauliflower paid $1,000, and those who used it said it was as good as the best they ever saw. He sold 40 tons of cabbage at 1+ cents per pound, from 1% acres, besides other things, such as turnips, beets, etc., that the land produced. Mr. Alt says he knows, by the orders he had, that he could have sold a thousand tons of produce if he had had it. A close average of the yield of alfalfa for several years past would be 4 tons to the acre, worth from $4 to $7 per ton, according to accessibility to market; of potatoes 8 tons, worth $20 a ton; of wheat 20 bushels, worth $1.05 per bushel; of barley 35 bushels, worth 85 cents per bushel; of oats 50 bushels to the acre at 60 cents per bushel. The governor, surveyor-general, and secretary of state, and other well-informed citizens of Nevada state that a great change has taken place in the sentiment of the people of that State as to irrigation dur- ing the past two years. The district or storage law is somewhat imper- fect but very simple in its provisions. All that is required is to get a petition signed by two-thirds of the resident taxpayers, and to have the lines of the district marked. It is practically based on the California laws, and the districts formed will maintain a municipal organization. The people elect the commissioners by ballot, who decide what type of works shall be erected, while the electors reserve the power to vote bonds. The officers elected devise the plans for the control. Rates are levied upon the users of the water to pay the bonds and interest. The State legislature was necessarily unable to consider the question of tax- ing the users of the water on the public lands; and a bill was there- fore introduced in the United States Congress, which it is to be hoped will become a law, to allow the settlers on public lands to be held liable for water taxes in irrigation districts. This would, according to the State officers, wonderfully improve the situation in Nevada. If it were law to-day there would be no difficulty in organizing the districts, because the organization of the latter would bring settlers. There is little agricultural land held in Nevada under the homestead law, but the lands they are now seeking to irrigate are held by private individ- uals under purchase from the State. 230 IRRIGATION. The Humboldt Valley has the largest area of land capable of irriga- tion. The Truckee and Carson rivers are of course the most easily available streams, and possibly the Walker. The Carson system is the most available because there is always water enough in the river to irrigate all the cultivatable area. There are about 751,000 acres that can be irrigated in the Carson Valley, and about 90,000 in the Truckee. There are already some considerable areas reclaimed in both valleys, with high cultivation at some points. In the Carson Valley there are two reservoir sites owned by Mr. Newlands, who is willing to turn them over to the State or the irrigation districts. These two are in Douglas County; there are two or three others in Washoe County, one in Churchill County, and one in Lyon County. On the Carson is, first, the proposed Long Valley dam; next, the middle reservoir and lower reservoirs. It is also proposed to irrigate from Tahoe and Donner lakes. At the headwaters of the Little Hum- boldt there are some fine sites. The area fit for irrigation in the Truckee would be readily made available upon the organization of an irrigation district. Since the visit to Carson by the special agent this has been done. An organization has been authorized and the State Board of Trade has appointed a member to supervise the proceedings. The pending proposition was to embrace as many towns as possible in order to get the largest amount of taxable property in the district, so as to make the bonds more marketable. Mr. Newlands has proposed that the principal part of the State public lands be appropriated for the benefit of the districts. These are selected from the Government lands donated under special act in favor of Nevada. There is no considerable area of other public lands that are now available for irrigation districts except in the neighborhood of Wadsworth. The Humboldt basin is divided into several districts. There are sixty-three basins on the Truckee, Carson, and Humboldt, and in northern Nevada on the Owy- hee River and its tributaries there are many more. It is perfectly feasible to reclaim all the arable lands on the Owyhee. In the south- ern and central portions of the State there is no great amount of water outside the Colorado River, but there are numerous small streams whose flow can be conserved; besides which there are many springs and a number of standing bodies of water, such as that in the Smoky Hill Valley. No bonds have as yet been authorized or offered. The amendment of the constitution has been advocated so as to allow the school funds to be used as a guaranty of interest on the bonds. That school fund now amounts to $1,100,000. This proposition, said the governor, should be adopted for the reason that if the State is worthless what is the use of an idle school fund, and if these securities are worth anything why not loan on our own funds. If it is undertaken to invest this fund in the bonds of other States it is found that the rate of interest is very low, and nobody desires to borrow very largely, while the districts pre- sent an opportunity of enterprise considered perfectly safe, and they are willing to pay large interest. It is greatly to be wished that the power existed to invest this school fund in the irrigation districts. Pastoral lands in the State are owned by a few parties in large tracts, they having got possession of it through indirect conveyances from the State. In writing of crops for irrigation in Nevada there are a great many things to be considered—market, transportation, etc., all cut a large figure. Grain and potatoes can be produced better than is possible any- where else, and they can be raised with a limited amount of water. All ºvervae ºhlwowsovae ‘Noluvºrwur wae ſasnsı gibvs aethu wosi， scitar） varivativ WHAT MAY BE DONE IN AGRICULTURAL NEWADA. 231 the root crops, cabbage, onions, etc., can be raised in abundant quanti- ties. Nevada has early and late frosts, which are against it in fruit, but does not affect grain or root crops. In the Southern part of the State cotton can be raised, also tobacco, sugar; in fact, Nye County produces practically the same crops as San Bernardino County, Cal. The temperature is even warmer than in San Bernardino. The development of these crops by irrigation would greatly stimulate mining interests, and at the same time cheapen the necessities of the miners. It would at once create large products and a home market. This fact seems to be overlooked by almost everybody. They say, What is the use of raising grain when there is no market # In Nevada irri- gation would create its own market by the mining development that must follow irrigation, in that way creating the very best of market. The State surveyor-general discusses the subject of interstate waters in this Wise: As to water that rises in one State and flows into one or many other States—it is my opinion that under present law it will almost be impossible to prevent collision between the States. It would be a clean cut fight between them, and to a certain ex- tent would be the same as an international problem. The United States is the only party who can effect a just division of the waters, both national and international, between the different irrigation interests. It is the history of all irrigation litigation that the man highest up the stream has the best chance to use the water. R. L. Fulton, of Reno, Nev., secretary of the State Board of Trade, one of the best informed as well as conservative citizens of that State, reports to the office of the irrigation inquiry in relation to the organi- zation of an irrigation district in the Truckee Valley, as follows: - The proposed Trucksee River district is to extend from the State line between Cali- fornia and Nevada to the east end of the valley, and will embrace, of taxable prop- erty, $4,000,000. The present purpose is to issue bonds sufficient to secure the ownership, in the district, of such of the storage sites in the Sierra Nevadas as can now be obtained, but not to immediately make use of them. The sentiment prevails that the ownership should be secured now rather than to leave it to a time when their value may be enhanced by the pressure of population and the needs of the peo- ple. On the west, at a high altitude, there is one of the great snowfalls of the world, and on the east stretches a large area of very productive land. To bring these two together is the problem with which western Nevada has to deal. Fortu- nately, many places in the high Sierras are to be found quite well adapted to the storage of water. First, we have Lake Tahoe, an inland sea, lying at an altitude of over 6,200 feet, with a surface of 190 square miles. From this flows the Truckee River, through an outlet, where a dam could be constructed for a few hundred dollais, by which all the water can be stored that will ever be required. Under present arrangements Lake Tahoe is used by a company engaged in lumbering; the stored water made servant to them first, afterwards coming down to the farmers in an incidental way. The dis- trict can not obtain control of this at present, but probably will at some future day. Second in importance to this is Donner Lake, which lies in a depression of about 6,000 feet altitude, with a water-shed capable of filling it to a height of 20 feet every spring. It is 3 miles long and half a mile wide, and the outlet has been lowered 4 feet; so when filled the reservoir represents a depth of 24 feet of water, capable of flowing a stream equal to 10,000 miner's inches. With these there will be no danger of a drought on all the land at present under cultivation in the Truckee meadows. It is one of the sites which is open to purchase, and will be covered by the operations of the district when put into practice. Independence and Webber lakes are valuable storage sites used at present by lum- ber companies in their operations, but not embraced in the present plan of the Truckee district. In addition to these lakes there are a number of grassy flats now used as mountain dairies, from a few hundred to a few thousand acres in extent. Most of them have narrow outlets, through which living streams of water run. The most important of these are Sardine Valley, Henness Pass Valley, and Wheeler Wal- ley. Water can be stored in all these to great advantage, and the district will un- doubtedly desire to control them and hold them for future use. These future reservoirs, having a dam already constructed to a height of 12 feet, and a canal to a depth of 4 feet, can be secured by the district at an outlay of less than $70,000. It is not proposed to build canals to carry water to apply directly to 232 .4 *. IRRIGATION. : sº the land. This work, the people think, can be safely entrusted to private enter- prise. The storage is held to be a proper public charge, as it will add to develop- ment. The district bonds will draw 6 per cent interest, and will be based upon the entire taxable property in the district, which will aggregate up to nearly $4,000,000. On the Carson River a district embracing the whole basin is being organized, with a taxable property of $5,000,000. The facilities there are not so great as on the Truckee, but after the water is stored it will prove far more useful. Streams therein lie more nearly on a level with the surrounding country, so that long and expensive canals are not necessary. The land is very rich and stretches away in level valleys free from rock and alkali, Many hundreds of thousands of acres could be reclaimed at a nominal cost. A series of valleys extend from one end of the river to the other, and the water will be used over and over again. The Carson River has half a dozen mills where hundreds of stamps are engaged in crushing ores from the Comstock mines. Upon the supply of water in the Carson, therefore, depends the prosperity of Virginia City, Gold Hill, and Silver City. When the water is too low to turn the wheels the production of ore must cease and large numbers of men lie idle until the streams rise again. This can be obviated by the construction of a dam at Long Wal- ley, where the water will be used first on a rich and fertile region lying in Douglas County, Nev. As it winds back into the stream it will maintain a regular sup- ply to go through the mill wheel, after which it can be used in Lyon and Churchill counties for crops. Near the town of Carson another reservoir site can be made use of, and still below one in Churchill County is available; but it is thought that the Long Valley reservoir will be the only one needed until there is a larger increase in the population of western Nevada. The district will probably be bonded for $200,000 at first, which will secure the ownership of most of the land with these reservoir sites and construct the Long Valley dam. The interest on this will be about $12,000 a year, making a tax of more than 2% mills on the dollar; so that a man paying on $10,000 taxable property would not have to bear an increase of more than $25 a year. This will be nothing in comparison with the benefits that he would TëCCIW 8. On the Walker River there is abundant land and ample facilities for storage, which must be in demand in the near future. The Humboldt River furnishes one of the greatest opportunities in America for irri- gation enterprise. It is 300 miles in length, running through rich lands, and with its tributaries offering a hundred sites for reservoirs. Districts are talked of, and will, no doubt, be formed soon. At a State irrigation convention held in Carson, statements of interest relative to the irrigation work and possibilities of Nevada were made, from which extracts may properly be given. Hon. Wm. M. Stewart said: The limit of agriculture in this State will soon be reached unless the water at- tainable for that purpose can be stored, economized, and equitably distributed. There must be unity of action in the storage and distribution of water. Private ownership of water rights among a large number of persons is wasteful and expensive. Many small ditches lead to a great waste by evaporation and seepage, and make large annual expenditures necessary to keep them in repair. No individual can afford to construct expensive storage reservoirs for the benefit of the public, and what is everybody’s business is generally neglected by all. - The difficulty of determining the respective rights of numerous claimants to a stream where questions of priority of right and the extent of the appropriation is involved is very great. A person desiring to irrigate land may come to the conclu- sion that there is ample surplus water unclaimed in a stream for his purposes, but when he has constructed a ditch lie invariably finds himself in dispute or litigation as soon as the stream runs low or is decreased in volume by drought. If an irrigator attempts to enlarge the supply of water by storage he immediately finds himself in dispute with prior water claimants on the stream as to whether the water flowing down to his ditch is the natural flow or an addition to such natural flow occasioned by storage. Litigation naturally follows. The result is that at least nine-tenths of the water runs to waste which might be utilized to irrigate. I know of no instance where the water for irrigation has been well economized where there were numerous claimants to the water acting independently of each other. The most satisfactory plan ever adopted, where there is a community of farmers to be supplied from a common source, is the formation of a municipal corporation to own the water and distribute the same among the irrigators. - Mr. Stewart further stated the difference between the California dis- trict law and that of Nevada, as follows: The Wright law provides for the purchase or condemnation of all water rights and other property necessary for the use of the district. Our law provides for the ADJUSTMENT OF NEWADA WATER RIGHTS. 233 purchase of all property necessary for the district, including water rights, and the condemnation of rights of way and reservoir sites, except existing water rights. As the law now stands, the question is whether immediate action shall be taken look- ing to economy in the use of water and the extension of agriculture in this State, or whether the whole subject shall be indefinitely postponed. Irrigation districts are not new. They exist in almost every country where irriga- tion is practiced, and must exist if the water is to be economized and the largest pos- sible extent of the available land utilized by irrigation. The four principal rivers of this State furnish ample water to irrigate sufficient land to support a population of from half a million to a million of inhabitants. Take the Truckee River as an ex- ample. , Would it be an unreasonable estimate to say that sufficient water could be stored for use when needed to irrigate half a million of acres of land, which is now the amount irrigated in all Utah # The Truckee Valley and the valleys immedi- ately north, which are equal in fertility to the Truckee Valley itself, comprise about 150,000 acres. By extending the district to include the region about and beyond Wadsworth within the flow of the waters of the Truckee, it would take in a very large area of land susceptible of irrigation. With 150,000 acres of land, all to be irrigated and cultivated, and the town of Reno as a basis for taxation, would there be any dif- ficulty in negotiating long-time bonds at 5 per cent per annum interest to the extent of from one to two millions of dollars? Two millions would involve the payment of $100,000 per annum in interest at that rate. What could be accomplished with that amount of money, and how could the rights necessary for the formation of the district be acquired? There is but one way to accomplish this desirable end under existing law. If all the owners of water rights on the river would fix a price upon such rights, at which they would sell them to the district and receive their water from high-line canals free of charge, except the nec- essary taxation to pay interest on the bonds and the cost of repairs of the water Works, the success of the enterprise would be assured. There could be no doubt that the necessary rights to give the district the use of the lakes as reservoirs could be acquired by purchase as fast as needed, and that the landholders would fix a maxi- mum price upon their lands, with easy conditions of payment, so that the entire dis- trict could be speedily placed in the hands and ownership of actual settlers. The owners of water rights on the Truckee could safely enter into such an arrangement; because if only 150,000 acres of arable land were at first included in the district, there would be ample water for all, and no farmer need have the slightest apprehen- Sion of a deficient supply. After it was ascertained by actual experiment that more land could be irrigated, the district could be extended and more taxpayers included. Mr. Stewart then proposed the appointment of a committee of water- right owners, with the view of consulting other such owners and arrang- ing a basis of sale of the same to the proposed districts, so that all may thereafter— Take water in common with their neighbors, to be distributed by a municipal cor- poration. If that is practicable, you do not want any law of condemnation. You do not want to enforce it either, and it will be a voluntary act. If the persons owning the water rights will sell them for a reasonable sum, then the public can maintain and utilize them and distribute the water. The public must have them, but you can not take them away. It is a right they have acquired and it is recognized by law. The water will be under one management and will not be wasted. Litigation would never stop as long as individuals owned the water rights, because it is so necessary to know how much water they are entitled to take. If you store the water, there would be constant litigation to know how much water you are entitled to take re- sulting from your storage and hjw much resulting from the natural flow. To make this a success the water must belong to the public. There has never been a success- ful operation, where the greatest possible amount of land was cultivated, without the water belonging to the public. They found this necessary in California, and you will find it necessary here. You can not afford to have the water wasted in numerous ditches. You want to have it put upon the greatest possible amount of land. Mr. Francis G. Newlands, in the course of a lengthy address, said: The Humboldt River spreads almost from the eastern boundary of the State to the western, running from east to west, its waters falling into Humboldt Lake, called the Sink of the Humboldt—wrongly so called, because of the popular idea that once prevailed that the waters which flowed from the Humboldt into this lake sank into the bowels of the earth. As a matter of fact, they are drunk up by the sun. The Humboldt flows with a full current until the middle of June or July. Farm- ers, however, hesitate to extend the irrigable area, because they are assured by ex- perience that in June or July the flow of the river will be scanty and that their crops will not come to maturity, particularly the second and third crops of alfalfa. Hence irrigation on that river is limited. 234 2. IRRigation. Now, what have we to do? Simply to store and keep the water which comes down into Humboldt Lake at the various forks of the river—North Fork, Boulder Creek, Little Humboldt, and other sources of the Humboldt, and perhaps in reservoirs along the line of the river itself, where sites have been surveyed—to keep the surplus water there until it is required in June and July, and then let it down the river to be taken out by the irrigators. If efficieut measures are adopted for the storage of the water in the storage sites that have already been ascertained, the Humboldt River is capa- ble of reclaiming at least 500,000 acres, and probably even 1,000,000 acres. A former United States surveyor-general, C. W. Irish, C. E., ad- dressed a letter to the State convention, from which the following ex- Cerpts are made: In round numbers, the surface of the State can be divided into 50,000 square miles. of mountains and mountainous lands, 41,000 square miles of naked deserts and water surface combined, and 21,000 square miles of agricultural lands. Of the last, about 400,000 acres will be found in the foothills and caſions of the mountain ranges, 780,000 acres within easy reach of the water needed for its cultivation, and the remainder, 11,220,000 acres, so situated, or at so great distances from the water needed for its cultivation, as to call for capital aggregated in the hands of incorporated companies for its improvement. * * * - I very much doubt if the State has now 70,000 acres under the plow. It may have more than this quantity of land said to be cultivated, but a large share of it is simply watered to cause a larger growth of the natural grasses found growing upon it. We bave an abundant water supply, which I am convinced is fully sufficient to put every acre of our now dry and useless agricultural lands under improvement. * * * We should foster three classes of wealth-producers—farmers, stock-raisers, and miners—with the accompanying trades and callings needful to the wants of these three leading classes. We must do this, for the reason that our State presents in an abundance the natural resources upon which the classes stated thrive, and, in my opinion, it will paralyze our efforts to prosper the State if we ignore any one of the three classes named. The agricultural lands should be placed in suitable quantities in the hands of only those who will occupy and improve them, and the water, justly subdivided, should be made an appurtenance of the land it vivifies. The mineral lands should be reserved for the discovery by and use of the miner, who will occupy and de- velop the metal-bearing veins. The timber should be placed at the disposal of the miner and farmer, in quantities suitable to their needs, and the mountain ranges should be subdivided by tracing across them the township lines, but not subdividing the townships, setting the same number of corners for the marking of the interior lines of each township as are used to mark out a section, thus rendering it an easy matter to subdivide such surveyed townships. The mountain lands so surveyed should then be sold or leased (with proper reservation of water rights and storage of it in favor of the adjacent farming lands, and also of the minerals and timber which they contain or produce) to those who will take them and properly use them for stock raising or grazing pur- OSCS, + - p It will cost not less than five and a half millions of dollars to survey the mountain lands of Nevada under the system as now practiced by the United States, while by the plan I have proposed it will only cost about three-quarters of a million of dollars. The cost per township by my plan of surveys, and all other expenses attendant, would be about $650, and such township should be sold to actual users in wholes, halves, and quarters for $1,000 per township. The sale of all classes of lands I have named to be made only to actual and imme- diate users, with no alienation of title by the purchaser, until complete improvement of the land sold to him, saving and excepting the timber and grazing lands, which should be required to be put to immediate use. The price of all the lands in Nevada. to those who will take and improve them should be reduced much below what it is now. It costs the United States only from 2 to 5 cents an acre to acquire, survey, and sell the lands which have cost the purchaser $1.25 an acre. I am sure that 780,000 acres of Nevada’s lands can be brought under cultivation through individual effort alone at a cost not to exceed that which improved the wild lands of the Mississippi Valley, which was, on an average, $5.65 per acre for fencing, breaking up the sod, planting, and building to fit the claim for an abiding place. The remainder of Nevada's lands can only, in my opinion, be brought under culti- vation through the united work of the organized colonies, or by the aid of capital in the hands of incorporated companies. - .” The climate and soil of Nevada can produce all of the crops and fruits raised in the United States from Southern California around through Texas and the Southern States north of the Red River of Dakota. * • THE AREA ACTUALLY UNDER CULTIVATION. 235 Bulletin 163, United States Census Office (F. H. Newell, special agent), gives the following data as the enumerators' figures for the “census year ending May 31, 1890.” Number of farms.--------------------------------------------------------- 1,341 Number of farms irrigated.------------------------------------------------ 1, 167 Average size of farms irrigated ------------------------------------- a CI'êS - - 192 Average annual value of products ...----------...----------------. per acre-- $12.92 Irrigated area (total) in acres --------------------------------------------- 224,403 [NOTE.-The area in crops other than forage is estimated at about one-tenth of the whole, or 22,440 acres. It is also estimated that there were 280,000 acres irrigated for pasturage purposes.] According to these figures, Nevada, with a population of 45,761 (see Census returns 1890), would have had of crops other than forage over four-fifths of an acre per capita. With forage crops the irrigable acres Would have been within a small fraction of 5 acres for each individ- ual in actual cultivation, while, adding the “alleged” pasturage irriga- tion, the amount per head would have been over 11 acres. The following table of grain and other cultivated areas is made from the sworn returns of the several county assessors for the year 1890, as given in the State Surveyor-General's Report for 1889 and 1890: * Acres. Churchill----------------------------------------------------------------- 1,018 Douglass ----------------------------------------------------------------- 3,474 Eleho ------------------------------------------------------ tº º is sº tº sº e º ºs º ºs º º ºs 6,961 Esmeralda.--------------------------------------------------------------- 232 Eureka ------------------------------------------------------------------ 1,427 Humboldt ---------------------------------------- ----------------------- 5,012 Lander ------------------------------------------------------------------- 3,048 Lincoln ------------------------------------------------------------------ 2,250 Lyon--------------------------------------------------------------------- 2,265 Nye ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1, 574 Ormsby -----------------------------------------------------------, ------ 740 Washoe ------------------------------------------------------------------ 3,074 White Pine--------------------------------------------------------------- 1, 280 Total. -------------------------------------------------------------- 32, 355 Orchards (estimated) -- . .------------------------------------------------- 5, 012 Vines and small fruits (estimated). ---------------------------------------. 9,500 Total cultivated, other than grasses -----------...--------------------. 46,867 Separating all the crops given by the assessors from the hay crop in acres and tons, the following table is the result: § Acres Acres Acres Counties. inclosed. cultivated. in hay. Churchill -------------------------------------------------------- 44,225 12, 136 8, 727 Douglass.------------------------------------- -------------------- 30,000 20,000 12,000 Elcho -------------------------------------------------------------- 231,600 54, 361 47, 400 RBmeralda --------------------------------------------------------- 6,000 4,000 2,500 Eureka ------------------------------------------------------------ 142, 125 19, 540 18, 000 Humboldt---------------------------------------------------------. 200,000 5,000 5,000 Lander------------------------------------------------------------ 60, 643 4, 500 6,000 Lincoln ... • ------------------------------------------------------- 11,046 3,831 3,703 T-von--------------------------------------------------------------- 34,000 8,000 12,480 ye - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 16,035 10, 132 932 Ormsby ------------------------------------------------------------ 5, 016 2,019 200 Story--------------------------------------------------------------- 550 550 800 Washoe------------------------------------------------------------ 45,637 8,810 18, 620 White Pine -------------------------------------------------------- 15,000 10,000 7,000 Total.--------------------------------------------------------- 641,899 162,879 143,362 The assessor's figures will necessarily prove to be the more correct. Some explanation is necessary for a clearer understanding of these figures than would be given by a study without knowledge of condi- 236 . . IRRIGATION. Asº tions. In the first place the county assessment returns will give a crop return (other than grass or forage) of over one-third more than the bulletin figures allow. That makes no provision for the orchard, wine, and fruit area. The assessors give the number of trees, vines, etc., and allowing the usual space for each, the acreage is readily obtained. Al- together the total is nearly double the bulletin figures in cultivation other than for forage crops. In the next place the same authority gives as cultivated in all crops a total of 61,585 acres less than the cen- Sus—very nearly one-third of the alleged area of 224,403. Again, the distinction made in crops is inadmissible in a fair understanding of the process and growth of reclamation from aridity by means of irrigation. Forage crops like alfalfa, timothy, clover, or other grasses, which are cured into hay and sold upon the markets, direct or as cattle, is as much a product of irrigation cultivation as oranges, sugar beets, grain, or any other special product. Area irrigated without planting or work- ing, and simply for pasturage purposes, may be left out of all estimates. ANSWERS FROM CORRESPONDENTS. The following data have been compiled from answers received to cir- culars sent by this office : LANDER COUNTY. Battle Mountain (post-office), George W. Crune (September, 1891): No irrigation systems in neighborhood and little land cultivated ; water supply, Hum- boldt River and other mountain streams fed by the melted snows. Supply copious in spring, but scarce later; storage facilities very much needed; Government aid suggested; has a garden irrigated by an artesian well; water from small streams utilized in spring by settlers by very small ditches; small parcels of land near the mountains thus irrigated. About 25 miles above him on the river three or four dams have been built and ditches taken out, but settlers below have taken the matter into the courts. WHITE PINE COUNTY. Cleveland (post-office), A. C. Cleveland (September, 1891): N cºod water supply, mountain streams and springs; capacity about 5,000 1D C ſleS. Irrigation works, about 13 miles of ditches of various sizes; no reservoirs or other works of much consequence. * Cost per mile of ditches, about $150 for larger ones. Average cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation under irrigation, $5. Average cost per acre for annual maintenance and repairs, about 30 cents. Area in neighborhood covered by ditches, 4,200 acres (in grass and crops). Products: Alfalfa, wheat, oats, barley, potatoes, etc. Average yield per acre, about 2,000 pounds (not less). CHURCHILL COUNTY. Stillwater (post-office), Charles Kaiser (September, 1891): Main water supply : Carson River, fed by snows of the Sierras (river runs for 75 miles through county); about 120 miles of individual ditches; no reservoirs; cost of ditches per mile, about $50; cost of water per acre per annum, about $1.50 (including maintenance and repairs). Average º acre for preparing land for eultivation under irrigation, $10; for grazing, $4. Area under irrigation at present, about 40,000 acres (water sufficient, with proper storage, to irrigate 150,000 acres). - Area covered by his own system, about 10,000 acres. Chief products: Wheat, barley, oats, alfalfa, etc., and potatoes. Average yield per acre: Wheat and barley, 1 ton; alfalfa, 4 tons (two cuttings); wild hay, 13 tons. St. Clair (post-office), Lem Allen (September, 1891): Water supply: Carson River, water scarce in August. THE AREA ACTUALLY UNDER CULTIVATION. 237. Irrigation works: Three ditches; average length, 3 miles; 6 feet on bottom, 8-feet on top; capacity, about 500 inches each; 3 dams, 4 feet high, from 100 to 140 feet long ; 3 head gates; no reservoirs. Cost per mile of ditches, $60; cost of dams, etc., $200. Average cost per acre for works, ditches, etc., about $1.50. Average cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation under irrigation from $5 to $10; for grazing, about 50 cents. Average cost per acre for maintenance and repairs per annum, about 50 cents Cost of water supply to user per acre, $1.50 per season ; no annual rental Area under ditch, 2,800 acres; under cultivation, 1,200 acres. Chief products: Barley, wheat, oats, alfalfa, potatoes, and fruit. Average value of crop per acre, from $8 to $14, of E G ON. The entire State lies between the forty-second and forty-sixth paral. lels of north latitude, and between 1160 40' and 1240 45' of longitude west from Greenwich ; from north to south the distance is 275 miles, and from east to west nearly 350 miles. It contains 95,274 square miles, and in all 60,976,000 acres of land. The northern boundary line, for two-thirds of its length, is made by the Columbia River; the western boundary line by the Pacific Ocean, and the eastern by the State of Idaho. That portion of the State which may be classified as arid and semiarid lies east of the Cascade Range, a continuation of the Sierra Nevada, which bisects the State from north to south, leaving the west- ern slope and sea plane to occupy one-third thereof. The climate of that one-third is naturally humid and almost as much so as that of the British Isles. Crops, grass, and trees, with the exception of the moun- tain timber, bear a strong resemblance to the verdant fields of England. East of the Cascades the territory is divided into fourteen counties, the majority of which are very large. The northern portion may be con- sidered as semi-humid in character, being watered by large streams, the Columbia and its tributaries, the Des Chutes, John Days, and Umatilla rivers. The Snake River, turning northward near Boise, Idaho, forms for more than half the State the eastern boundary. The highest ranges of the Idaho panhandle region, with the Blue Mountains in Oregon, make the northeastern section quite a broken country, whose foothills, however, are favorable for the cultivation of fruit. This re- gion will probably develop a considerable supply of underground water both drift and artesian in character. The Southeastern and central portions of eastern Oregon is composed chiefly of moderately elevated plains, admirably adapted at present to pastoral purposes. The western portion of this section is a broken mountainous country, quite arid in character, with a few streams and some mountain lakes, filled by spurs of the Cascade Range, and hav- ing a rugged drainage area. The Des Chutes River, running, with its forks, north, is a deep, precipitous stream without much valley land, and the Klamath, in the extreme southwestern section of eastern Ore- gon, embrace with the Crooked River running east and west the prin- cipal water courses of the eastern Cascade region. Malheur and Harney lakes, practically one body of water, though named differently, form the central drainage basin of Harney County. Lake County, far- ther to the southwest, has a number of similar bodies of water; among them are Albert, Summer, and Warner lakes, in the center; Silver and Goose lakes, to the north and south. They are to a large extent shallow in depth, fed by the broken spurs of the Sierra and Cascade ranges, and considerably alkalized. Klamath, Lake, Harney, Crook, and Grant counties, with a considerable portion of Baker and Malheur counties, form the more arid region of eastern Oregon. Upper and Lower Elamath and Klamath Marsh, in the county of that name, form large bodies of water admirably adapted for storage purposes. The northern portion of Lake County, as well as a considerable part of Southwestern 238 IRRIGATION ACTIVITY IN EASTERN OREGON. 239 Harney and the southern and western portions of Malheur County, com- prise a series of high table-lands, without water, and having a scant Supply of grass. The principal irrigation works now in existence in Oregon are found in Klamath, Baker, Union, and Umatilla counties. Mr. William H. Hall, formerly State engineer of California and ex stupervising engineer of the United States Irrigation Survey, has been engaged during the past year as consulting engineer for large irrigation projects. In addition to a small number of works and the acreage they are now prepared to serve, there are, according to Mr. Hall, six large irrigation enterprises under way in eastern Oregon. There are ten or twelve others projected, considered by him to be entirely feasible. The Northern Pacific Railroad Com- pany, the owner of an enormous area of land, a considerable portion of which must be irrigated in order to become valuable, has taken great interest and will sustain some of the projects of which Mr. Hall has been speaking. Along the Snake Valley, upon the Oregon side of the upper part of Malheur and the eastern part of Baker counties, some irrigation is in progress by means of water lifted from the river with pumping machinery. Considerable success has attended these efforts, and it is quite certain that for surface irrigation there is no more eco- nomical process than that of lifting from large streams like the Snake and Columbia rivers bodies of water sufficient to fertilize their bench lands. The irrigation engineers of India are strongly in favor, as a matter of economy, of the use of water by the lifting process. The cattle and sheep raising interests of eastern Oregon, as well as that of mining, remain as yet indifferent to the progress of irrigation. The same apathy prevails in a large degree as that which twenty years ago characterized the few people residing in the San Joaquin Valley. The land for grazing purposes is scarcely worth the Government price; with irrigation it will unquestionably be worth from $40 to $60 per acre. As Soon as the water is brought into juxtaposition with the land cultiva- tion begins. Each one of the projects mentioned by Engineer Hall will, according to his estimate, reclaim from 50,000 to 100,000 acres of land, or, in all, 1,250,000 acres. A moderate statement from other sources of the reclaimable land in eastern Oregon places the total at 3,000,000, considerably less, in the judgment of others whose opinions are of value, than the facts warrant. Mr. Hall's estimate for works is of a costly character, involving an outlay of about $12,000,000. Information from the State Chamber of Commerce at Portland estimates that there are approximately 3,000,000 acres of land within the State, located in Wasco, Grant, Umatilla, Baker, and Malheur counties, that could be easily irrigated from the waters of the Snake and Umatilla rivers, Har- ney Lake, and numerous creeks found there. Mr. S. B. Willey writes: I can learn of nothing in the way of any estimate ever having been made of the cost of ditches for irrigating land in any of these sections, but should consider that the cost would not be very great, owing to the large volume of water that could be tapped and the fact that the natural fall of the streams is in the direction of the land required to irrigate. Small patches of land in Umatilla County along the Columbia. River which have been irrigated simply by means of hose show a luxuriant growth of grass, trees, and small fruits; peaches, grapes, etc., have grown very abundantly. Through the Chamber of Commerce also, the following letter from C. E. Foster, C. E., of Baker City, Oregon, has been received: Irrigation in Eastern Oregon is progressive; although no comprehensive system for the reclamation of large areas has yet been matured, still individual farmers wherever practicable are extending their ditches to cover larger acreage and distrib- ute water more economically, as their experience has proven that artificial irrigation doubles and trebles the quantity of their crops. As a rule in this vicinity every 240 IRRIGATION. farmer utilizes all the water available for irrigation purposes, and the chief trouble lies in the fact that the water supply is limited. As the country fills up with agri- culturists the quantity of water for each individual grows less; hence irrigation is made a study by the farmer, to the end that he may so apply the water at his com- mand as to realize the best possible results. It is a conservative estimate to state that 100 miles of ditches have been constructed in Union, Baker, Grant, and Malheur counties during the past year by individual farmers. As additional evidence of the increasing interest taken in irrigation in eastern Oregon it may be stated that during the past season various companies have been or- ganized for the purpose of constructing reservoirs on an extensive scale and to build canals of sufficient capacity to reclaim many thousand acres of desert lands. One of these companies has located a reservoir site on Powder River in Sumter Valley (Baker County), 20 miles southwesterly from Baker City. This reservoir will cover 1,400 acres of land with an average depth of 30 feet of water. Preliminary surveys “ of the main canal and distributing branches have been made and the engineers are now in the field. This system when completed will afford irrigation to a large por- tion of the Powder River Valley with the country immediately east thereof, and is intended to supply water sufficient to reclaim 75,000 acres. Another enterprise of similar nature, having for its object the irrigation of 5,000 acres in and adjacent to Eagle Valley in Union County, has been undertaken, and surveys for the canal are Ilo W being made. The water supply for this enterprise is to be furnished by Eagle Creek. A movement is being made in Umatilla County to utilize the waters of the Uma- tilla River and reclaim a large tract of land situated near the base of the Blue Mountains. The canal for this purpose will have a carrying capacity of 25,000 inches. The owners of the Eldorado Ditch, situated in the southern part of Baker and the northern part of Malheur counties, which was originally constructed for mining pur- poses at a cost of $400,000, have taken the initiative steps to use a portion of their water for irrigation. To this end lands have been bought and located and addi- tional lines of ditch have been surveyed. This scheme will reclaim from 5,000 to 8,000 acres. The Malheur River has been dry at its mouth during the past season because of the various ditches tapping it. The principal ditches taking water from this river are the Nevada Company's ditch, 20 miles long, 2 by 8 feet; the Frohman ditch, 6 miles long, 2 by 6 feet; the McLaughlin ditch, 4 miles long, 2 by 3 feet; the Thomp- son ditch, 3 miles long, 2 by 4 feet, and the L. F. Company’s ditches, one 3 miles and one 14 miles in length ; capacity, 2,000 inches. The Owyhee River has not been utilized to any considerable extent and possesses all the features necessary for an extensive plant for irrigation; large tracts of fine soil lie adjacent to the river and to Snake River, and 50,000 acres could be covered with a canal 25 miles in length. Reservoirs for the storage of the surplus water of springtime must be constructed in this country before the agricultural capabilities of eastern Oregon are developed; as most of the streams have already been appropriated and the water supply is in- sufficient, it becomes a matter of necessity that such reservoirs be constructed. Engineer Hall describes the Powder River Valley irrigation plan as designed to secure the irrigation of 90,000 acres of land. A dam 137 feet high is to be completed across the river, making a back-water stor- age over an area of 16,000 acres. At least 60,000 acres of the proposed land to be reclaimed is entirely worthless without some such water sup- ply. A contract of $2 per acre as a water rate is being asked by the company engaged in this enterprise. Baker County has, adjacent to Baker City, one irrigation canal served by a storage reservoir, the cost of which is given at $60,000. In the Powder River Valley there are 10 artesian wells reported in operation, 4 of which supply Baker City with water for town and domestic purposes. No details are accessible as to their depth, strata, Volume, or pressure. In Klamath County, the south- west section of eastern Oregon, irrigation works are reported, the main canals of which have a length of 32 miles. The cost of these works is stated at $32,000 and the acreage served at 30,000. The source of the water supply is the Upper Klamath Lake. It is estimated that the waters of the Upper and Lower Lakes, so named, can be utilized and so distributed as to serve 200,000 acres. The crops grown on the landirri- gated are wheat, rye, oats and barley, alfalfa, potatoes, and timothy grass. During the past season 2,000,000 bushels of grain were raised, PHREATIC SUPPLIES AND THEIR UTILIZATION. 241 being over 60 bushels per acre. The selling value of irrigated land is from $15 to $20 per acre; nonirrigated, the Government price is $1.25. Umatilla County reports that not less than 300,000 acres, now valua- ble only for pasturage, could be made to yield, with irrigation, excellent crops. This land, situated in the bench or mesa formations of the river valleys, has already been occupied, farmed, and abandoned, because of the insecurity arising from insufficient rainfall. The sources of water supply in Umatilla County, besides the Columbia River on its north- west border, are the Umatilla River, the Mackay, Burch, Butler, and other creeks. The Blue Range, running from north to south with an east and west trend, forms on the eastern edge of the county a natural water-gathering area, the effect of which is seen in the numerous bored wells that are to be found among the foothills and small valleys thereof. A company has been organized to utilize the Umatilla River supply. It is expected that at least 67,000 acres can be reclaimed thereby. No valuable site for a reservoir is found on the river, and therefore the flow only can be made available. The small streams are, however, all of them capable of being impounded in storage basins, so that the entire supply that now largely sinks into the ground can be, it is claimed, made useful. The area of irrigated land is quite small as yet, Small patches along the river being only so served. There are many bored wells in the county, used generally for stock and domestic purposes. No trial of any extent has been made as to fruit. Wheat and other cereals average 25 bushels to the acre, and the yield can easily be doubled by means of irrigation. Morrow County, with 161,908 arable acres, located to the west of Uma- tilla, is largely served as to water by means of its phreatic and sub- irrigation supplies. The irrigation practiced is quite limited, the supply being usually from small creeks. A large number of shallow wells have been bored or dug and the water is generally used for stock and domes- tic purposes. At Heppner, the county seat, an artesian well is being sunk. Its present depth is 650 feet, but as yet no flow has been ob- tained. Water was struck with a temperature of 65 degrees, very pure and apparently inexhaustible—evidently a drift or underflow supply that does not rise to the surface. It is proposed to sink a deeper well and, if possible, reach artesian waters. The following paragraph is from a letter to the Department, sent by Hon. W. H. Bejers, United States surveyor-general of Oregon: There is a vast territory of bench lands along the Columbia River, from the Blue Mountains on the east to the Cascades on the west, that might be greatly benefited by irrigation. From the north boundary of Crook County to the south boundary of the State, are many valleys of fine soil; also high plateaus of good agricultural lands which are now only “desert” from the fact that they are not supplied with water. Much of the Crooked River and Ocho valleys are uearly worthless on account of the scarcity of water. The ‘‘Desert” between Crooked River and Silver Lake is only so named because no water is found in that region. The same might be said of all the county east and south to the State line. A vast amount of it may never be reclaimed, and yet there are many acres of fine lands, and if there were only enough water a crop could be secured. Around nearly all the lakes in southeastern Oregon are a great number of acres of good level lands, with fine soil, that need to be properly irrigated. Some of these lands are eaten up with alkalies, but about Clear, Summer, Goose, Klamath, Harney, and Warner lakes there are large bodies of good land. There is a small lake some 15 miles east of Warner, in the southeast part of the State that must have nearly two townships of fine land, all worthless now from a lack of irrigation. My idea is that these high lands would require artesian wells, while the low lands in most cases might be irrigated by the waters of the lake. The table lands between the Blue Mountains and the Columbia would also be a fine locality in which to experiment for artesian waters. Wheat is the staple agricultural product of eastern Oregon. Its Quality has made it famous in the grain markets. The yield averages S. Ex. 41—16 242 IRRIGATION. from 25 to 30 bushels per acre, and often exceeds 40 bushels. In 1887 not less than 300,000 tons, or 10,000,000 bushels, were offered for sale. Of this total the country east of the Cascades yielded 200,000 tons. The amount has been largely increased since that date. Irrigation will easily double the products of the same area. East of the Cascade Range the soil is of a dark loam of great depth, composed of alluvial deposits and decomposed lava. Overlying a clay subsoil, and rests upon a deep basaltic formation. This soil is pecul- iarly adapted to wheat-growing. All the mineral salts which are neces- sary to the perfect growth of the cereals are abundant, reproducing themselves constantly as the gradual processes of decomposition in this soil of volcanic origin proceed. The clods are easily broken by the plow, and the ground quickly crumbles on exposure to the atmosphere. In southeastern Oregon, notably in Malheur and Snake River valleys, the soils are much like those of the northeastern Oregon region, but there is less moisture. Except in a very small proportion of this region, irrigation is necessary to successful agriculture. The climate east of the Cascades generally gives a temperature higher in summer and lower in winter than that west of the range. The win- ters, though short, are sometimes severe, and the Summers are almost entirely arid. The average amount of rainfall throughout eastern Ore- gon will not exceed 15 inches per annum. The upper part of the State and the section of the valley of the Columbia River make a funnel by which the influence of the Japanese current is strongly felt, bringing in winter what is known as the “chinook” wind, which greatly modifies the temperature over the larger portion of the eastern section. The thermometer ordinarily indicates 90° as the highest summer tempera- ture, and 100 above zero as the lowest for winter. In the highest valleys, among the mountains, the winters are also short and rather severe. Snow seldom falls before Christmas, and sometimes lies from four to six weeks, but usually disappears in a few days. In the north- ern and eastern counties spring begins in February with warm, pleasant weather, and lasts until the middle of May. The average temperature is 529. Autumn weather, in October and November, is generally good; there are often frosts by night, but the days are usually warm and bright. The season is marked by showers, and also by thunderstorms in some localities. The mercury ranges between 559 and 709. The annual rainfall does not average more than 20 inches, but south of Powder River it is not more than 15 inches, increasing gradually to the north. At Camps Watson and Grant, in the central plateau region, an average of 14 inches per annum is shown. Camp Harney, at a greater elevation, gives less than 9 inches. The Dalles, Wasco County, at 350 feet elevation, gives for a period of thirteen years an average of 21.06 inches; for the summer months, 2.10; for the winter, 13.56. Umatilla County, in the northeastern portion of the State, gives an annual mean of 9.81 inches; 1.66 for the summer months, and 4.78 for the win- ter ones. Fort Klamath, in the southwest, at an elevation of 4,200 feet, shows a mean annual temperature of 43.29; for summer, of 57.20; for winter, of 30.6°. Its precipitation gives a mean annual average of 21.60 inches; for summer, of 1.90; for winter, of 13.72. Lakeview, in the same section, at an elevation of 4,850 feet, gives a mean tempera- ture of 47.10; for summer, of 64.69; for winter, of 33.59. Its records show a precipitation of 18.98 inches annually; for summer, of 3.08; for winter, of 6.79. Linkville, at an elevation of 4,250 feet, presents a mean annual temperature of 48.59; for summer, of 63.39; for winter, of 35.30. Rain and snow fall of 17.85 inches annually; for summer, a fall of 1.87; 243 for winter, one of 7.77 inches. The southwestern section, then, of east- ern Oregon will give in temperature a mean of 45.90; in precipitation a mean of 19.72 inches, and of elevation 4,525 feet. La Grande, the county seat of Union County, in the northeastern portion of Oregon, has an elevation of 2,784 feet; its mean precipitation is 24.55; for summer it is 2.66 inches; for winter it is 15.81. d These figures, especially as to the summer and winter precipitation, place eastern Oregon as to climatology in direct relations with the arid region west of the western slopes of the Rocky Mountains, that is, from Utah to the Coast Range. East of the Rockies and within the irriga- ble valleys, basins, parks, and bench lands thereof, the annual precipita- tion, divided into three periods of four months each, will give the smallest precipitation for the months of January, February, March, April, and the largest during May, June, July and August. In the growing and ripening months West of the Rockies, the records show an almost exact reversion, the least precipitation being in the four growing months and the heaviest in the first four of the year. By precipitation is meant, of course, measured inches of water. The chief cause of this notable difference is found, in all probability, in the relative severity of the win- ter of each division. It is one that must be borne in mind when con- sidering irrigation problems. In volume 4 of the testimony taken by the Senate Special Committee on Irrigation, the following table gives, on the authority of J. W. Steele, the amount of land irrigated and under ditch within the boundaries of eastern Oregon: OREGON CLIMATOLOGY AND RECLAMATION. e Acres Acres un- g Acres Acres un- Counties. irrigated. der ditch. Counties. irrigated. der ditch. Baker-------------------- 5,000 10,000 || Malheur ----...--------. 40,000 60,000 Crook.------------------. 8,000 8,000 || Morrow ----------------. 6,000 18, 500 Gilliam------------------- 3,000 5,000 || Umatilla.---------...--. 5,000 7,000 Grant -------------------. 10,000 10,000 || Union.------------------ 5,000 8,000 Harney ------------------ 20, 000 20, 000 || Wallowa. ----...--------. 7,000 10,000 Klamath ----------------. 5,000 30, 000 Lake. -------------------- 5,000 5,000 Total.--------------. 109,000 191,500 This table bears the date of June 27, 1889, and was presented by Di- rector Powell, of the U. S. Geological Survey. More recent investiga- tion establishes the fact that not over 75,000 acres, instead of 191,500, were under ditch in the whole of eastern Oregon, and not over one-half of that acreage was cultivated. A reasonable estimate will increase the area cultivated to date to 45,000 acres, and that under ditch and valu- able for irrigation at 100,000 acres. This is a liberal statement. The Umatilla Valley during 1891 has been the seat of considerable activity. Six Companies are operating therein, and disputes have arisen requiring suits to settle the question of priorities. These, how- ever, are understood to be of a friendly character, for the purpose of enabling the larger corporation to settle all controversies, and so ena- ble it to dispose of its bonds. Another suit for the same purpose will decide the constitutionality of recent irrigation legislation and will set- tle the rights of riparian owners. The humidity of western Oregon renders acceptable therein the English common law on water; in east- ern Oregon, however, that of the public control for beneficial uses, as is the case in all arid regions, must control. Pumping for the irriga- tion of orchards is being extensively practiced along the Columbia River. In the Snake Valley, both in Idaho and eastern Oregon, the current wheels, as they are termed, which have long been in use for 244 - * IRRIGATION. lifting water onto the placers for mining purposes, are now being util- ized for raising water to be used in irrigation. They are large wooden wheels from 12 to 24 feet in diameter, along the flanges or wings of which are ranged wooden buckets, so hung as to dip and bring up the water to be emptied into a flume or conduit, by which it is conducted into distributing ditches, or in some cases into tanks or reservoirs. The wheels hang in a strong gallows frame, and are moved by the cur- rent. It is reported that 500 cubic feet per diem can be lifted with ease. At Baker City and in the valley of Tongue River, the use and extension of irrigation is steadily increasing; on McKay Creek, at Pen- dleton, the irrigation works are steadily progressing. They are of con- siderable magnitude. The construction of the reservoir requires com- paratively little labor and expense, as three natural walls exist. When the dam is built a lake will be created 22 feet deep and covering an area of 170 acres, with a capacity of 900,000,000 gallons. There will be a supply of water easily sufficient, it is claimed, to irrigate 25,000 acres. The same active workers who direct Boise and Nampa system, in southwest Idaho, are interested in the Pendleton reclamation work. There is good reason to expect the finding in this section of a fair sup- ply of artesian water and a moderate pressure. ANSWERS FROM CORRESPONDENTS. The following data has been compiled from answers to circulars re- ceived by this office: HARVEY COUNTY, Burns (post-office), Mrs. M. E. Dalton (November 22, 1891): Linder cultivation, 160 acres; area “under ditch’’ in vicinity, 3,000 acres. Water supply: Silvies River, fed by springs and mountain snows; valley 75 miles long, 50 miles wide; mostly sagebrush land, worthless without irrigation ; water sufficient to irrigate all land in valley annually wasted; dam at cañon needed; works (in progress), dam 25 feet from bank to bank ; depth of water, 6 feet; headgates and other gates being built, 10; ditches, 6 miles in length, 14 feet wide at top (sloping to bottom); depth, 2 feet. Flumes (probable cost of), $100. Cost of ditches per mile, $100. Cost of maintenance and repairs, 15 cents per acre. Annual cost of water, 33% cents per acre. Products: Hay and grain; product per acre, hay, 13 tons; wheat per acre, 50 bushels; oats and barley, 75 bushels per acre. ECLA MATH COUNTY. Linkville (post-office), G. W. Smith (October 17, 1891): Water supply: Big Klamath and Little Klamath lakes (big lake, 37 miles long by 8 miles wide; little lake, 15 miles long by 6 miles wide). Irrigation works: Two ditches (one from each lake), each about 12 miles long; ditch from big lake carries 1,000 inches water; ditch from littie lake about 2,500 inches; one headgate for each ditch; several flumes. Cost per mile of ditches: Big lake ditch, about $1,000. Cost of water to user, $4 per inch ; about same per acre. Linkville (post-office), J.T. Henley, president Klamath Falls Irrigation Company: Source of water supply: Big Klamath Lake, supplied by 3 or 4 small rivers; supply continuous and abundant; “outlet to lake is Link River, which carries about 100,000 inches at low tide.” Irrigation works: Ditch 16 miles in length; width, 12 feet at bottom, 16 feet at top; reservation projected. *. DATA FROM oregon IRRIGATIONISTs. 245 Area under ditch, 100,000 acres; under cultivation, 1,200 to 1,500 acres; using water, cost of ditches, etc., per mile, about $1,250. Average cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation under irrigation, about $7 (in vicinity of this ditch). Average cost per acre for maintenance and repairs, per acre, about $1.50. Cost of water supply to user, $4 per miner's inch per season. Products: Wheat, rye, oats, barley, potatoes, and most hardy vegetables; also alfalfa, timothy, redtop, red clover, and all grasses. UMATILLA COUNTY. Pendleton (post-office), secretary Blue Mountain Irrigation and Improvement Com- pany (September, 1891): Source of water supply: McKay Creek (stream has flow of 45 cubic feet per second; drainage area, 135,000 acres, all wooded). Irrigation works (construction commenced September 26, 1891): 58 miles ditches, 15 feet on bottom, 27 feet top (main ditch); one reservoir, area 170 acres; average depth, 22 feet on 50-foot level; dam 280 feet on bottom, 520 feet on top (length); five headgates (it is also proposed to supply city for domestic uses). Cost per mile, ditches, $2,800 (estimated); cost of dam, $70,000 (estimated). Annual rental cost of water per acre, $3. Area under ditch, 30,000 acres. Area under cultivation, 10,000 acres. Pendleton (post-office), E. J. Horton, McKay Creek Irrigation Company (Septem ber 23, 1891): - Water supply: McKay Creek (a mountain stream with capacity of about 2,000 miner's inches). Irrigation works: Six and one-fourth miles ditch, 5 feet at bottom, 8 feet at top; two dams 5 feet high, 60 feet long; two headgates; no reservoirs. Cost per mile of works, $300; average cost per acre, $3. Average cost per acre for preparing land for cultivation under irrigation, about $5; for annual maintenances and repairs, 25 cents. Cost of water supply to user per acre, $1; annual rental, $3. Area under ditch, 1,500 acres; under cultivation, none. - Products of neighborhood under irrigation: Wheat, corn, alfalfa, timothy, fruits, and vegetables of temperate climate. Average yield per acre; Wheat, 50 bushels; corn, 60 bushels; alfalfa, 10 tons; tim- othy, 4 tons; beets or carrots, 60 tons. WALLOWA COUNTY. Wallowa (post-office), J. F. Johnson: Source of water supply: Wallowa River, average width, about 75 feet; depth, 18 inches; has fall of 100 feet per mile ; banks about 3 feet high. Irrigation works : About 1 mile of ditch, 6 feet at top, 3 feet bottom ; brush dams (no reservoirs). Cost per mile of ditches, $50; cost of brush dain, $50, complete. Average cost per acre of works, ditches, etc., 50 cents. Cost per acre for annual maintenance and repairs, about 5 cents. Area under ditch, 800 acres; under cultivation, 200 acres; 600 acres in grass, hay, timothy, redtop, clover, or native grasses; 200 acres in wheat, oats, and rye. -Yield of products per acre: Wheat, 30 bushels; oats, 50 bushels; rye, 2 tons; timothy, 24 tons; redtop, 3 tons. UT A H . The chain of mountain ranges known as the Wasatch extend from about the center of the northern boundary to the extreme southwest corner, where they leave the Territory. Near the latitude of Salt Lake City the Uintah, a more lofty and rugged range than even the Wasatch, starts off about due east. From this range, again, in the latitude of Utah Lake, and 40 miles east thereof, the Coal Range ex- tends in a line parallel with the Wasatch for about 160 miles, until near Panguitch Lake, where the broad rolling summits of the Coal Range merge into the more precipitous peaks of the Wasatch. The Uintah, the Coal Range, and the southwestern exterision of the Wasatch wall, in that portion of Utah originally included in the Great Basin, form the series of mountains which make the central Utah divide and con- trol the drainage areas of the Territory. North of the junction with the Coal Range, the Wasatch Range forms no part of the rim of the Great Basin, although its lofty peaks gather no small portion of the water needed to reclaim the Great Salt Basin. The bulk of the population and cultivation in Utah is centered around Great Salt Lake, in the counties of Cache, Boxelder, Weber, Davis, Salt Lake, Utah, and Tooele, which form that portion of the basin at present extensively irrigated. The Jordan (considering the Provo River as its head) Weber, and Bear rivers, are now the principal sources of irrigation. They rise near to: gether in the Uintah Mountains, pierce the Wasatch Range at widely separated points, and empty into Great Salt Lake, contributing the majority of its visible inflow. But besides the drainage of these three rivers, from the Escalante Desert in the extreme south to the northern boundary every drop of water that falls on the high surrounding mountains drains through the salinas and desert plains toward the Great Salt Lake. The heavy precipitation upon the Coal Range and the Wasatches pours in torrents into the bowl of the Great Basin, Quickly sinks into the deep wash Soil and disappears from sight. As we approach the lowest depression, known as the Great Salt Lake Des- ert, all signs of water are lost. Therefore, dividing Utah into two great parts, it will be seen that the eastern and southeastern sections drain through the Rio Colorado system to the Gulf of California, while the western and northern portions have no apparent outlet. In the former, no matter how intricate the meanderings, the streams rising on the eastern flanks of the ranges named contribute a portion of their flow to the great Colorado River, while on the other side of the divide not a single stream carries its flood to the sea, and with four exceptions, viz, the Jordan, Weber, Bear, and Sevier rivers, none flow more than a few miles beyond the base of the mountains. The summits of the sur- rounding peaks are usually covered with snow and the water precipi- tated therefrom must find its final visible resting place in Great Salt Lake, the remnant of that vast geological lake, known as the Great Basin. 246 A COMMERCIAL EDITOR-WATER SUPPLY. 247 A very important factor in Utah irrigation would be a settlement of questions connected with the precipitation of the western flanks of the Wasatch Range. These valley lands are more accessible to market than the balance of Utah, and when we consider that one cubic foot of water per second or 646,520 gallons per day, flowing continuously during the irrigation season will irrigate an average of 100 acres of land, it becomes of the utmost value to comprehend the source of sup- ply; and in this connection the experience and knowledge of H. L. A. º editor of the Salt Lake Journal of Commerce, is of material Vâlûlé 3 g I believe our present water supply in Salt Lake Valley, and in similar tracts, could be doubled from sources that are now invisible—at least doubled, and certainly along the Western flank of the Wasatch Mountains, and in many of their valleys I know that there is an abundance of water to be had, which if developed is sufficient to cul- tivate every acre. I want to say this, however, that seeing as years go by, that so much more is accomplished than was once thought possible, it is difficult to estimate the future possibilities. Such an estimate would sound Utopian. This statement only includes what may be done from water in sight and the known phreatic supply. I have not considered the limit of irrigation by storage of artesian and surface flow- ing water to have been reached; on the contrary I believe the desert portion of Utah will become more and more circumscribed, and, perhaps, some day be wiped out from these supplies as the principal source. Speaking on the question of storage I may say that I am very familiar with the Wasatch Mountains, and I know that near the heads of all these caſions there are natural reservoirs. In the Wasatch Mountains, within 20 miles of Salt Lake City, nearly every cañon has at its head an Alpine lake varying in size from a few hundred yards to a mile and a half across. These have evidently been formed by glacial moraines damming up the cañon, making a stronger reservoir than human hands can construct, and larger too. Many of these are very deep, and their outlets are the initial points for the cañon streams. A great deal could be done by heightening these natural dams and thereby increasing the capacity of the natural reservoir. I believe they could be made to hold twice their present capacity. Any attempt to create reservoirs in the cañons other than at these points would be puny in compar- ISOIT, It must not be forgotten that at these points of natural storage the evaporation is at a minimum on account of the altitude. There are many others of these alpine lake sites which are now dry, having given way or been worn through at some points. A little work would make them as good reservoirs as those remaining. My first statement as to the possibilities of reclamation of arid land was made without taking these natural reservoirs into account. Referring to the ultimate re- clamation of the desert lands of Utah, I think it will be accomplished primarily by means of the development of water by artesian and driven wells, which will permit the cultivation of limited tracts whereon these wells are secured. Alfalfa and other deep-root crops will be planted at such points, and, in my opinion, will exert a cap- ilary influence on the earth to a depth great enough to reach the water-bearing stra- tum. This vegetation will also shade the earth and perhaps have a local effect in preventing the drying of the soil, and effecting a change on the lower strata of the atmosphere. As an example of this effect I would refer to the western half of the Salt Lake Valley in the neighborhood of Salt Lake City, which a few years ago was considered worthless for agricultural purposes, because the first attempts at farming were extremely unsatisfactory and disappointing—the ground seemed to require so much moisture, and the crops literally burned up. Until recent years it was consid- ered a desert country and it was not expected that it would ever be peopled. Now, that is what I would call the eastern flank of the Oquirrhs in the Salt Lake Valley. As land, however poor, in the immediate neighborhood of the city is higher priced, the people made extra struggles to secure a living from this arid district. They planted alfalfa in large tracts, and this not only redeemed the quality of the land, but seemed to have made the whole district more moist ; and when water was found to be obtainable by means of driven wells, each of which would furnish sufficient water for the cultivation of a tract of 5 acres, the land became valuable, is now largely settled, and is looked upon as a productive region many miles in extent. Artesian wells in Salt Lake Walley were first used for irrigation about seven years ago, and since that time have increased the area of cultivation from 25 to 35 per cent. It is to be remembered, however, that in the large area of agricultural land in Utah, only a limited portion has yet tried to develop artesian water. In Emigration Cañon, within 4 miles of Temple Block, the city corporation took the caſion stream and flumed it for a short distance so as not to interfere with its flow by subsequent work. At the point flumed it was estimated that an underground 248 -- IRRIGATION. supply could be developed, and the city dug a trench about 100 feet long and 40 feet deep, projecting the sides with plank with open joints strongly braced. The trench was filled 30 feet deep, and this new supply is drawn off through a 12-inch iron pipe to the city at the rate of 1,250,000 gallons a day. Within 100 feet of this source an- other long open trench was dug which yields 1,000,000 gallons per day, and this sup- ply is wholly supplementary to that which formerly made the cañon stream. This water is used for city purposes, but it seems to me a big hint to all agriculturists. In Provo Valley and Krammer Valley I think the same amount of water supply can be obtained. I am also satisfied that every acre of land in the Duchesne Valley can be cultivated from a similar source, and all the arable lands from Strawberry Valley to Book Cliffs could be reclaimed, and the San Pete Walley, also. The Cache Valley, also, has enough of water. All the eastern side of Box Elder Valley, probably Rush Valley, and most likely Fowl Valley can be reclaimed. Sevier Valley is also capa- ble of reclamation, although there nothing has been done. A belt of extremely rich country, 25 to 75 miles wide, almost the entire length of the Territory, may get sufficient water from the western flank of the Wasatch Range, and can be reclaimed. Every acre that is not watered in the regions named I be- lieve could be from the surface and underflow of the mountains. There are also many valleys in the middle and southeastern part of the Territory which are not sufficiently watered, but which could be with more or less work, These statements are made on intimate knowledge of this Territory, gained from ºl observation and conversation with hundreds of farmers from the regions R18,1][1601. If you will take the Emigration Cañon work as a basis you will see that I am not overestimating the areas. I feel now that it would be better to go for the underground supply. It is the quickest method. While there have been very few thoughtful attempts to develop the underground supplies, I know of some instances that have been very successful; but the point I would emphasize is that as a general proposition (and they always have exceptions), a caſion will yield a large supply of water all the year round ; at the lowest stage the smallest will yield 1,000,000 gallons daily. Sometimes you will find a dry cañon and one right adjoining full of water. It seems that the water is diverted in some cases from the cañons. I know of many caſions that have within a few miles of the base copious springs, which flow a short distance and sink. They are evidently the natural outpouring of the water after it has gone underground at high altitudes. This underflow could, unquestionably, be tapped, and if reached at bed rock could be brought down to irrigate the bench lands which are very fertile. I am of course speaking of caſions of the Wasatch Range, which are unique in that they have no parallel range of foothills. On the western flanks the precipitation that falls on the summits sinks into the ‘earth as there are no rivers to carry off the waters of the rain and snow. The drain- age therefore must be towards the cañon, as the water would naturally follow the mountain lines till it finds a place with more or less appearance of a channel. I think some of the driest caſions that abut on this valley have at their heads the greatest amount of snow, and are consequently drainage troughs of that vast amount of water. Take for instance the cañon next south of Little Cottonwood Cañon—little or no water goes over the surface and if any goes underground it is wasted, yet at the head of that cañon is an enormous snow basin. The snow lies there always to the depth of many feet; where the water goes to we do not know, but in all probability it follows down the course of the cañon. These caſions are filled with detritus into which the water, that you would naturally expect to flow on the surface, disappears. I feel sure that an inclined tunnel would be sure to find an immense amount of water in all the cañons, I feel satisfied that there is more water beneath the surface than above. About 17 miles south of Provo is one of these dry caſions, called Springville Cañon, very rocky, precipitous, and dry. It looks as if it should yield a copious stream. It is, however, dry while out in the valley is a stream that emerges right from the bank. In other words, through the underflow gravity a considerable stream makes its appearance. When the emerging flow soon becomes a stream, you feel that there is the point where the water line reaches an impervious stratum, and by it is forced to the surface. The same phenomenon is repeated a number of times along the base of the range. Right along in the mountains east of Utah Lake there is unquestionably an abundance of water of which I have already spoken. It also suggests itself to me that under the surface of both Utah Lake and Great Salt Lake, there emerge many heavy streams of fresh water. I do not think these lakes are by any means supplied by the water we see going into them. Now, take the range here at Pleasant Grove, the mountain is very steep and high, with an almost perpendicular rift ; there is no watershed, but a heavy stream comes down. The conditions seem to be reversed, but there is no doubt that this water comes from the other side of the range, miles away, right through the mountain. The NATURE OF THE WATER-BEARING SUB-STRATUM. Q 249 line of the summit is just like a man's knuckles, and the summit is between 3,000 and 4,000 feet above the stream. Yet that water comes right through that mountain and out into the valley. Further south than Utah Lake, on the line of the Union Pacific Railway, in the Sevier Valley, in Midland County, in the neighborhood of Deseret, I believe that water can be developed here by the artesian process. But the further you get from the range the deeper you will have to go. My experience is that no man can take it upon himself to say that there is any tract that can not be cultivated. We have done so much in reclaiming the desert that it is hard to say that any tract can not be reclaimed. When the underground water is developed and all possible storage availed of I feel certain that the small acreage now called “reclaimable" will be greatly in- creased. Suppose we bring water from the mountains and irrigate the first bench, and run a channel along its base, we get water enough from seepage to irrigate an- other tract. The topography offers us the opportunity to utilize water over and over a gºal Il. *. the benches we come to hardpan at about two feet. This land is, however, on a heavy slope and drains itself. Then below that you generally find another stratum with water. This hardpan is calcareous in character. It is a gravel that has become saturated with running water and puddled. Away from the benches in the valley bottom you generally find a-wash, but it is very hard to predict the nature of the substratum; sometimes you find 20 feet of pebbles. In planting trees on the benches you have to penetrate the hardpan if you wish the trees to thrive. The highest bench does not seem to be the best. There is a mid- dle mesa, or bench—the first bench as we call it—that is the best land in the valley. The next bench is very gravelly, but is suitable for some crops. As to crops to be raised by irrigation in Utah, I should put wheat and potatoes first, and alfalfa is among the very best. We have had yields of 4 tons of grapes to the acre, and 1,200 bushels of carrots per care. We took the American Agriculturist prizes for wheat, and one of the prizes for the best yield of potatoes. The west- ern flank of the Wasatch comes in for the glory of fruit-raising. In Cache Valley they raise some fruits, but can not compete with us. In the Sevier Valley they try to raise figs, but have not made much of a success. They seem to be cut off from the effect of the California climate by the range. On the Virgin River they can raise oranges. The sugar beet here grows to a great size. We show a constant increase in the annual area of cultivation. - The Government should begin by a very thorough investigation and report upon the whole region to find out the controlling facts. The people living here have demon- strated that irrigation means high cultivation; that we can make an acre of land yield more than an Eastern farmer does. When we get water for our land we are not sub- ject to the caprice of the climate. Forty acres here will support a family as well as 160 acres in Missouri and Illinois, and the Western family will be better supported. In this Territory 8 and 10 acres in staple crops support families. It gives them enough to eat and enough to wear and a sufficient education. My brother told me that for every day's work he put on a 40-acre farm he got $10 a day in return, year in and year out. Mr. Doremus, city engineer of Salt Lake City, also presents inter- ºr esting data. He says: In this valley, in the older irrigated regions, the subsoil will be cemented so hard that a plow can not penetrate it. At the head of First South street is an excavation made for the city supply. They turned Parley's Creek into the trench and it ran a week without a drop coming to the surface below its line. In constructing sewers and laying water pipes the city engineers find a great deal of trouble from water running under the city with quite a velocity, moving at such a rate that it will wash out cement from the joints of pipes. The water standing in the trenches, roiled and muddy from the operations of the workmen, will clear thoroughly during the noon hour. At the head of Cottonwood Cañon there are ample facilitics for storing water, be- cause there it is a bed of hard granite free from fissures. At the head of Big Cotton- wood theré are sixteen natural lakes; but probably not more than three or four out of the sixteen would afford means of storing water. Of course, storage would bring up the complicated question of division with the present ditches. This stored water could of course be flumed or taken through another channel. Irrigation affects the artesian wells and other earth supplies more than the local rainfall. This is shown by the fact that just as soon as irrigation begins the flow of the wells is increased. There is most probably a fissure of geologic fault surrounding the Salt Lake artesian basin. No water comes direct from the mountains into the basin. Often if a man sinks a well a very little lower than one of his neighbors this older and shallower well will cease to flow. 250 . " IRRIGATION. . . . The data furnished by Mr. Culmer as to work at Emigration Cañon is correct. In fact, the experiment has been so successful that there is now proposed a bedrock drift at that point. { $.5 Sº §§ Sº º §§ ſº M tara! Slope oflºt Sartº f tº * 2:22-22sed. y” & 9 0 º zz Underflow works, Emigration Cañon. This bedrock drift had not been located but it was confidently expected to afford unlimited supplies of water. The recent returns to the committee on statistics of the Irrigation Congress which met September 15, 1891, at Salt Lake City show an average waste of 70 per cent of the water used. During the season of 1890, 333,404 acres were actually watered. It is therefore certain that twice that area or 665,808 acres might have been irrigated with the same amount of water had reasonable economy been exercised in dis- tribution and application. Less than one-third of the water actually used under proper conditions would have produced the harvest of 1890. During the same season there were under ditch 735,226 acres. A sum- ing that the same proportions would apply to the acreage commanded by the canals it is plain that the present appropriation of water in Utah will irrigate all but 833,548 acres of the total estimated area of 2,304,000 . acres in Utah. The water in sight and available in Utah is not by any means all appropriated, there being numerous areas large and small in the territory that have sufficient water, but no population or market for its utilization. With due regard to the assertion made on the authority of an official engineer, that only 263,000 acres were irrigated in Utah in 1890, and that that area is about the utmost that can be cultivated without recourse to high mountain storage, the office of irrigation in- quiry believes from data in its possession as a reasonable proposition that there is water sufficient, with economic use, to irrigate every acre in Utah upon which it can be made to flow. PROBLEMS OF WATER SUPPLY AND SERVICE. 251 This problem is threefold: (a) The economic use by the best known methods of the present sur- face supply. (b) The development of the immense seepage that flows underground through the cañons and the valleys, and which will continue with or without storage. * (c) Storage by dams through the utilization of high altitude lakes, formed in the glacial moraines at favorable spots both in the cañons and on the plateaus. In considering the future development of irrigation in Utah 1t must be remembered that the inflow of Great Salt Lake is 7,500 cubic feet per second, sufficient without storage to irrigate 750,000 acres of land. Only a fraction of this amount, however, is at present cultivated. The Water is carried to segregated tracts of land without regard to its eco- nomical use, the ditches crossing and recrossing and carrying the water down from the bench lands to irrigate the bottoms, paying no regard Whatever to the advantages of the local topography. The great bar to future development is that the water rights as now held do not serve the most available land, although a proper diversion of the water in Sight will many times increase the irrigable area. A ditch that takes out of the stream 50 cubic feet per second and only delivers 15 or 20 feet to the land is a hindrance to true progress. The owners of water rights must come to some agreement by which larger and more modern Canals may be constructed, allowing the diversion of water to the land most available without long stretches of useless main ditch. The acquirement in any neighborhood by an association of the irrigators of all the water rights and sources and a transfer and relation of every right to its proper and nearest source would relieve the art of many of the uncertainties and hardships attendant on the present wasteful sys- tem. A much less number of large canals with a minimum of seepage and evaporation would discharge more water for actual use than is now brought to the land by the multitude of small ditches. Now the early settlers or owners of the “prior rights” claim the first exclusive use of water; the surplus is then allowed to those holding secondary rights, and by the time the third or fourth appropriator or new settler is reached there is no water. Useless seepage and evaporation have absorbed 70 per cent of the water taken in at the head gate, and the prior appropriators actuated by natural selfishness have disposed of the remaining 30 per cent. Under this system economy is impossible. The tracts irrigated often bear no economic relation to the source of supply, and the maze of crude supply ditches were constructed to carry as much water as possible to each particular tract, without regard to the fact that the same appropriation in many instances would serve much more land at a point nearer the head gate. One farmer besides a “prior right” may own secondary, third, and even fourth rights in the same ditch, accord- ing to the date of first cultivation of different tracts of his land. Pri- mary rights are often not determined with precision, and with all this complication the wonder is that disputes are not more numerous. Many cures have been suggested for all these evils, most of them re- quiring the outlay of vast sums of private or municipal capital; but it must be apparent that any benefit to be lasting must as a basis seek the improvement of the present system. False economy must be eradi- cated, bad construction replaced by good, and above all the irrigators must be informed of right methods. In Utah a small army of men, with prodigal expenditure of labor and water, have reclaimed a small portion of its great arid area, and at the present time high altitude storage of 252 IRRIGATION. storm water would only intensify the evil, because it would now have the sole effect of giving more water to be wasted in the proportion of 7 cubic feet per second for every 3 applied to the land. This strong presentation of the irrigation status of Utah is made in a spirit of absolute fairness. Census Bulletin No. 35, entitled “Irrigation in Utah,” after a special plea for the necessities of mountain storage, Says: Owing to the difficulties and uncertainties concerning the supply and distribution of water, many farmers in the northern counties have gone to the extreme of declar- ing that dry farming is preferable wherever it is possible. Cereals can be raised to a greater profit than by irrigation, although the yield per acre is less. Intimate personal knowledge and a voluminous correspondence has failed to reveal to the office of irrigation inquiry a single farmer who prefers dry farming to that by irrigation. Upon the very face of the case every drop of water applied to the ripening crop means additional profit to the farmer. If the land has a water right the additional an- nual expense in Utah is 91 cents per acre for water; if water is not worth this amount then irrigation is a failure. The statement is only noticed because of its connection with many others, all tending to cast the shadow of doubt on present and possible sources of supply. The primary fault in Utah is that the “water in sight” is misapplied; that is, it is directed to certain tracts, not on account of accessibility to the source of supply, but because the owner desired a “prior right” to water, no matter how far he had to go to get it; and the water is consequently wasted. The correction of this evil can only be accom- plished by Utah irrigators through proper legislation. To exhibit some of the past and present physical and economic condi- tions that environ the irrigator in Utah and influence his actions, the following condensed interviews between prominent local irrigators and the special agent are herewith presented: Mr. E. G. Wooley, bishop in the Mormon Church, came to Utah in 1850, and like the balance of the Mormons knew nothing about irriga- tion, as they all came directly from humid regions. “The Pioneers” came into the valley in July, 1847. The advance company drifted right down upon the site of Salt Lake, coming through Emigration Cañon. They went to work the first day, ran a plowed ditch out of City Creek, and started the water out on the ground, and planted Some potatoes the same day. That was the first irrigation. - In planting corn we adopted the methods of plowing while the ground is moist in the spring, and then when the time for irrigation came we would open a deep furrow at the head of the field and let the water down shallow furrows between the rows. In making a settlement we always locate the town on the higher and dry land, and the people live in the community. Mount Wooley has a large dam situated about 4 miles east of Washington, in Wash- ington County, and about 8 miles east of St. George on the Virgin River. It was first built of rock, dirt, and some brush. Some three years ago we built a dam by driving spiles down and filling in with brush and dirt; but the river is subject to very heavy floods and is full of quicksands, and about a year and a half ago this dam was washed out. Though discouraged, the people decided to make another effort; so they went up the river where the sides are solid rock and low on one side, and they cut a spillway on the north side. The spill is 100 feetin width. We then went to work and built a tight dam across the river, throwing the water through this rock spill, which saves all chance of too great a rise in the river. In putting this new dam in it was calculated that by building a ditch costing about $20,000 they can irrigate 1,000 acres of land. The dam will also cost $20,000. It goes right round the base of the cliff in the solid rock. Where the water is taken out into the ditch the river is dry, but 100 feet below the dam the water begins to seep back, and gradually fills, so that as much water is flowing below our tight dam now as before the dam was built. At La Verken we have taken out another ditch and tunnel, about 4 or 5 miles south of Toqueville and we irrigated about 800 acres then. In this case we went up *... *- ARTESIAN WELLS AND WATER IN UTAH. 253 to the ſº of the cañon and put in a temporary dam, and brought the water right out under a rocky cliff; then tunneled through a ridge for about 800 feet, and brought the water out on the bench or mesa land 150 feet above the river bed. This then irrigates 800 acres devoted to semitropical fruits. We can not raise oranges, but grapes, prunes, apricots, pears, etc. We do not use now in any of the older settlements one-fourth the water that was necessary when the land was first irrigated. Mr. Frank L. Hines, well driver, Salt Lake. City, has been in Utah Territory twenty years, and has resided steadily within 20 miles of Salt Lake City for eighteen years. He states that: The artesian basin embraces the whole of Salt Lake Valley. In North Salt Lake addition within the city limits, I sunk a well on October 14, 1888, and only had sul- phur water at 280 feet. We found there was water but no flow. The strata are: bowlders right in the grass roots for 100 feet, gravel 50 feet, sand 45 feet, hard pan 46, and cemented bowlders for 152 feet. We struck hot sulphur water at 162 feet, and found it in loose gravel in the cement. This well is north from the center of the city 3 miles, straight out Second street west. E. B. Wicks, Poplar Grove, has a well 3 miles west and south of city, in sec. 1, R 1 S., T. 1 W. The stratum bored was as follows: gºt Feet. Sand and clay ---------------------------------------------------------------- 40 Quicksand -------------------------------------------------------------------- 120 Clay-------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4 Sand-------------------------------------------------------------------------- 100 Clay.------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3 Sand-----------------------------------------------------------------, -------- 120 Hard pan --------------------------------------------------------------------- 6 Total.------------------------------------------------------------------- 393 Water is found in coarse gravel. Out of this well wood, sheep, and rabbit excre- ments were taken at 325 feet. It yields 125 gallons per minute by 5-inch pipe. The Burlington Syndicate well is located on sec. 1, R. 1 S., T. 1 W. The drill passed through— - Surface clay and sand, 6 feet. Quicksand clean down. At 160 feet, small flow, about 10 gallons per minute. At 185 feet, small flow, about 10 gallons per minute. At 325 feet, small flow, about 50 gallons per minute. At 452 feet, small flow, about 75 gallons per minute. Flows through a 4-inch pipe, City well, No. 1, in Liberty Park, on sec. 1, R. 1 E., T. 1 S. Its strata is as fol- lows (8-inch pipe): Feet. Loose gravel ------------------------------------------------------------------ 60 Cemented bowlders ----------------------------------------------------------- 40 Clay-------------------------------------------------------------------------- 16 Total.------------------------------------------- * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 116 Water in coarse gravel, 212 gallons per minute. City well, No. 2, in Liberty Park, with 8-inch pipe, shows: - Feet, Gravel and loose shale in alternate layers.------------------------------------- 130 Cemented bowlders ----------------------------------------------------------- 70 Loose gravel------------------------------------------------------------------ 66 Clay as sº e s as sº º ºs ºn is s e º ºs e s sº a sm e º s = e s e º us as º ºs º is e º ºr se as s a tº e º me • * * * * * * > * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * is e º sº º ºs 6 Total-...----------------------------------------------------------------- 272 Water flows 350 gallons per minute. City well, No. 3, in Liberty Park, has an 8-inch pipe. Feet. Gravel, shale, red sand, and clay, alternate layers ----------.... ----...----...----. 375 Hard cemented gravel -------------------------------------------------------- 175 254 - IRRIGATION. Water in coarse loose gravel, 500 gallons per minute, Wood was cut through at 500 feet; it must be from a log a foot or more in diameter. Shells came up with the water. Wood looked as if it had been charred by fire. These three wells are within 70 feet of each other in a line running north and south. City well, No. 4, in Liberty Park, with 8-inch pipe. Strata same as No. 3; that is— Feet, Gravel, shale, red sand, clay, in alternate layers to--------------- * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 325 Water-bearing sand ----------------------------------------------------------- 380 Thin clay to ------------------------------------------------------------------ 400 Total.---------------------------------------------------------------- 1. 105 With water in coarse gravel. This well is 60 feet from No. 3 and flows 350 gallons. City well, No. 5, in Liberty Park. Fe+t. Loose gravel to .-------------------------------------------------------------- 110 Clay-------------------------------------------------------------------------- 15 Good water, with sufficient pressure to take it up to tank 15 feet above surface at the rate of 150 gallons per minute. It flowed 4% inches above 8-inch pipe at the rate of 700 gallons. This well is about 550 feet north and west from No. 1. Perkins Addition well is about a mile from No. 5 well. Soil and clay 8 feet. From that point down to 120 feet it is cement. It has gone no farther, but the bore is still in the hole. In this same field there are twelve other 2-inch wells, all the way from 26 to 250 feet, and all flowing at an average of 15 gal- ons per minute. It is mere opinion, of course, but it is the result of nearly twenty-one years' experi- ence, that if a well is sunk to bedrock so as to get the underflow of Emigration Cañon and Parleys Cañon, a flow of 2,000 gallons per minute might be secured. The same is true of all the other caſions. There is an immense amount of water flowing into the Salt Lake Basin from the caſions. This is plain to anyone knowing the topography of these mountains. Take Parleys Park, at an elevation of 3,300 feet above sea—a great mountain meadow —which is full of water; 3 feet from the surface it can be obtained in large quantities. Then there is Bonanza Lake, 10,000 feet above sea, which has no visible outlet. Then later the mining tunnels show a great deal of water, as for instance at the Ontario, where the vein is in the contact between the quartzite and porphyry, one tunnel is 600 feet and another 1,000 feet. The Anchor mine has a tunnel in there of 1,300 feet, the Alliance another of 1,800, all of which discharge large quantities of water into this meadow called Parley's Park. To tap this immense supply, say at a point near Park City, would require a tunnel 30 miles, but large supplies coming down in the underflow of the caſions from such sources may be developed at little expense near their mouths. These meadows, or mountain sources, are also the prin- cipal feeders of the artesian basin. - Sandy well, at the Mingo smelter, is situated in the wash at the mouth of Little Cottonwood, and sinks 1,485 feet into the cañon wash all the way down. This well is sunk on top of a hill, and where the drill starts is 500 feet above Salt Lake. At about 300 feet deep we struck the first flow. Mr. Hines has three ranches, two of them irrigated from artesian wells. One ranch is 80 acres, watered by five wells running from 14- inch bore to 6 inches. He irrigates 17 acres of potatoes from 2-inch wells flowing combined about 120 gallons per minute, leaving a large surplus of water which he proposes to put on other crops. The water is caught in a reservoir about 1 acre in extent, and 4 feet deep, and from that distributed to the crop. Col. John R. Winder, of the Bishop's office, Salt Lake City, stated that he came to Utah in 1853. The first irrigation was done from City Creek. The natural flow of the creek was utilized and the water was taken out in laterals Over the soil from the sides of the stream. The first ditches were called Kenedy's ditch and Winder's ditch, and were small ditches about 4 or 5 feet wide and 18 inches deep. They were taken from Parley's Cañon. Emigration ditch, of about the same size, was constructed very shortly after. They were all made about 1848, UTAH CANALs, wells, AND APPROPRIATIONS. 255 The Kenedy and Winder ditches are now about 10 feet wide and 18 inches deep; they irrigate about 3,000 acres. - In the beginning we used to have to irrigate wheat to get it up out of the ground, now two irrigations will mature the crop, and the lower land has the seepage from the irrigation of the bench lands. They irrigate only on the high bench lands now as the bottoms are full of water. The first large canal that was built was the Big Cottonwood. It was built for the purpose of carrying rock to our works, but it was afterwards used for irriga- tion. It has a fall of 20 inches to the mile, is 20 feet wide on bottom and is 3 feet deep. This canal is on the east side of the Jordan, and it has been merged into what is called the Salt Lake City Canal. The next canal was the North Jordan, which irrigated the land west of the river. The next was the South Jordan, which goes higher up and takes a better volume of . The next is the Utah and Salt Lake Canal. These three lie one above the other. In the vicinity of the city the whole plateau was laid out in 5 and 10 acre lots, but as you went down further into the country the farms would increase in size up to 20, 25, and 30 acres, and sometimes more. Each canal has a board of directors and they appoint officers. They have one or more superintendents, as the case may be. These superintendents make an estimate of the amount of work they will have to do during the year, and levy an assessment on the stock at so much per share. The shares of stock represent an acre of land and water to irrigate it. Col. Wilder sunk the first artesian well in the valley. It is a 6-inch bore down 78 feet, with a flow of about 75 gallons per minute. He also drove a second well near the first. When the Second was down to the 78-foot level the water in the first stopped. The second well was driven 2 feet further and the water returned to the first well. Jesse W. Fox (Mormon), ex-surveyor-general of the Territory, stated that— - They commenced irrigation in this valley by leading the water from the main stream above the farming plane to the land. They were taken out on both sides of the stream at intervals convenient for irrigation. At first these were plow furrows and shallow dry ditches. When I came here the irrigation was mostly confined to Salt Lake and Davies counties, and did not exceed 14,000 or 15,000 acres. The first large canal was taken out in 1870–71–72, called the South Jordan. It has been since enlarged and extended. It was originally 6 feet on bottom, 2 feet deep, and 32 inches fall per mile. Its present size is 15 feet on the bottom and 4% feet deep, and 32 inches fall per mile. The next was the Utah and Salt Lake Canal, on the west side of the Jordan. The calculation was to set slack water back to Utah Lake, making that lake a reservoir. That canal is 20 feet wide on bottom, and carries 4 to 44 feet of water in the banks. The next is the North Jordan Canal, which was located about 1872. It is 12 feet wide on bottom, and carries 44 feet of water. These three canals are on the west side of the river Jordan, watering the land from the river to the mountain range. On the east side is the Draper Canal, located in 1873, which is 15 feet bottom width. These canals are all 1 to 1 and 1 to 1% slope. The irrigation of Salt Lake City was from City Creek, but we have now appropri- ated the waters of this creek for city purposes, and have constructed a canal from the Jordan River to supply the irrigation formerly had from City Creek. That canal was located in 1880. It is called the Jordan and Salt Lake City Canal. It is 20 feet on bottom, 44 feet deep. These are the principal canals, but there are others taken out from Red Butte, Cañon Creek, Mill Creek, Big and Little Cottonwood. The canals named were the first located in Utah. The duty of water in this Territory has increased at least 30 per cent, without con- sidering the lands moistened by seepage. Of the canals named, the first five were incorporated, having a capital stock, which stock was principally paid for in labor, only a few paying in money. A share of stock represents water for an acre of land. H. S. Josephs, C. E., Salt Lake City, stated that— In NW. 4, sec. 23, T. 2 N., R. 1 W., is a bore 580 feet deep, and no water. In sec- tion 22, same range and township, there is a fine well, having about 60 gallons flow. In section 14 there is another, 175 feet deep, that gives about 15 gallons per minute. This is sulphur water. In the same section there is another well, 175 feet deep, fur- 256 IRRIGATION, nishing perfectly pure water. This well is in the northwest corner of the section. On the north line of the same section, about half a mile from the last well, there is . another that goes down 400 feet, but water has been struck. In section 11, a little to the north of the center line, there is a well which is rather curious. It went down to 240 feet, and struck water that rose to within 40 feet of the surface. The other day the owner put a pump on to try and pump it out, when the water disappeared altogther, although it had been standing within 40 feet of the surface. In the Escalente Desert we sunk a well at Sulphur Springs, which has a very good flow. In Sec. 6, R. 14 W., T. 33 S., they went down 650 feet, and only got water standing in the bore. At Iron Creek Cañon water can be got from flowing wells suffi- cient for irrigation. At the other points I do not doubt that a man would get good water if he went deep enough. The land in Salt Lake Valley is best adapted for grape land, both on account of soil and because grapes need less water than grain. Mr. Fred. Trimmer, C. E., of Salt Lake City, Utah, stated that— It is believed that in Salt Lake Desert there are underground waters. Here is the Great Salt Lake, with an area of 1,200,000 square acres. It is ridiculous to say that the vast amount of water flowing into this lake to maintain and constantly increase its level is only sufficient to irrigate 260,000 acres of land unless high mountain stor- age is resorted to. The great thing we need in this country is to find out more about the under or subflow; to find its channels to the lake, and take it out before it be- comes salt. The total amount of water flowing into Great Salt Lake is sufficient to irrigate 600,000 acres. That at the rate of a cubic foot per second for 100 acres would only be enough to put half a foot of water over the lake basin per annum. Now we are told that the evaporation is 4 feet 5 inches per year over the whole surface of the lake. That certainly demonstrates that there must be a large supply from some in- visible source. S. Richardson, of Richardson, Grand County, Utah, stated in illus- tration of the extent of the surplus or flood waters that in May he crossed the Grand River in Utah, 13 miles due south of Cisco, on the Rio Grande Western Railway, and it was running 20 miles an hour, 1,000 feet wide, and 18 feet deep. From his knowledge he considers Utah quite well watered, especially the eastern portions. “There is water enough,” he said, “going to waste to put at least one million acres of land in Southeastern Utah under cultivation. This is no ex- aggeration. A man has only got to be there to see it. The great draw- back to agriculture and irrigation there is want of transportation. The average altitude is 4,500 feet.” - One of the great irrigation enterprises and works is that of the Bear IRiver Canal, which is diverted from the river of the same name about 3 miles above Colliston. The system, when completed, will have 150 miles of main canal and principal distributing canals and ditches, with laterals sufficient to irrigate 200,000 acres of land. At the point of diversion two main canals are projected on the east and west banks of the river. About 60 miles of main canal are completed, and nearly as many more of distributaries, with flumes, headgates, regulators, and other works. About 8 miles of heavy rock work in the cañon has been completed, so as to enable the canals on either side to carry the water out into the broad valley lands. Maximum flood discharge at weir site is about 8,500 second-feet; average minimum about 1,000 feet during midsum- mer. The diversion weir is located between high rock abutments, with its foundations in shallow rock. The weir is of crib work filled with earth and loose stones to a height of 174 feet. The abutments widen toward the top, so that the length on the crest is 370 feet, as against 98 feet at the base. The timbers are 10 by 12 inches and built to the rock bed. There are 5 headgates, 4 feet wide by 7 feet high, made of iron, on the west side, and the same number on the east side canal, which latter for 2 miles is in heavy rock work. There are two tunnels 14 by 14, in- clined, with a total length of 623 feet. The engineering is very bold. THE BEAR LAKE AND RIVER works IN UTAH. 257 Several deep cuts have been made, the deepest being 96 feet on the up- per side. In this portion of the canal a considerable length of rubble retaining wall, laid in cement, is constructed, quite 10 feet high on the inside, 24 feet thick at top, and 73 feet at the grade line. Heavy fills are made across ravines, which are drained by means of culverts carried through the banks. One of these is 108 feet in depth at the center and 508 feet long on the grade. On the top rests a wooden flume, which carries the canal water. It is supported by long piling driven 60 feet into the fills. In the level country this east side canal will have a bottom width of 50 feet and a depth of water of 7 feet, side slopes of 1 by 1 and a grade of 1 foot to the mile. It will be 50 miles in length, terminating at the Ogden River, Ogden, Utah. For the first mile and a half on the west side it is constructed in heavy rock in a similar manner. There are six tunnels varying from 57 to 267 feet in length, with the same cross section and grade as on the east side. Above and below the tunnels are eleven retaining walls similar in con- struction to those on the other canal. The canal has a bed width of 14 feet 3 inches and a depth of 10 feet, with nearly vertical slopes; 1,200 feet below the head is an escape gate and a second one 600 feet further, dis- charging into the Bear River, with clear openings of 12 feet wide. They are closed by wooden gates sliding between iron posts let into masonry piers. Below the second escape is a regulator, with five gates 14 feet in width, constructed for the purpose of controlling the discharge in the canal. Six miles beyond this canal enters a hillside excavation of a very bold character. The bottom width remains the same. The canal crosses the Malad River at its ninth mile, on an iron bridge with flumes 378 feet in length and 80 feet in maximum height, sup- ported on iron trestles, having a river span of 70 feet. The approaches to the bridge are wooden flumes 500 feet in length and 20 feet wide in the clear and 7 feet deep. The flume over the bridge is also wooden and of the same dimensions. There are three falls of 7 feet each. This canal terminates at Salt Lake. - Six miles below the head of the west side Canal a branch is diverted to Corinne. It runs 20 miles at its head, it is 22 feet wide on bottom, and carries 5 feet of water and is controlled by a double set of regula- tion gates. Both in the main and Corinne Canals the bottom and sides are protected by wooden wings. In the Corinne branch there are 16 vertical falls varying from 4 to 12 feet in height. The Maladi River is Crossed 14 miles from the head, on an iron bridge founded on piles and iron cylinders founded on concrete. The peculiarity of the bridge is that its superstructure, which is of iron-plate girders, constitutes the flume for carrying the water, with wooden flumes in the cab on either side. There are several inverted siphons or culverts of wood on this line, carrying the drainage under the main canal. One of them consists of two tunnels of 8 by 8, which have a clear waterway of 5% by 24. During the past year, 1891, there has been constructed what is known as the North Point Consolidated Canal, which adds 144 miles to the (litches on the west side of the Jordan River. The bottom width is 50 feet for the first 34 miles of its length, and the remainder varies from 20 to 15 feet bottom width. It will carry 93 cubic feet per second. The duty of water on the soil irrigated is 150 acres to the second foot, and it will therefore increase the irrigation in this valley 14,000 acres. The Swan Lake Reservoir and Canal Company is a recent enterprise which is still in process of construction. It consists of a reservoir fed by the Sevier River, covering an area of 70 square miles, and located S. Ex. 41 17 258 -- * IRRIGATION. in the central portion of Millard County, 5 miles from the Union Pa- cific Railway and 15 miles northeast of Sevier Lake or Sink. This reservoir consists of a number of natural depressions, requiring only slight construction work to appropriate and adapt them to the require- ments of the reservoir. The continued action of the river current has built up walls or natural levees which rise to a height above the surrounding country like the levees of the Mississippi and other streams. The company in construct- ing their reservoir repair the natural walls, build strong dikes across channels, cut ditches and canals, build dams and flumes. There are at present over 200,000 acres of level, fertile, and irrigable land lying under the reservoir supply. About 15 miles of canal have been com- pleted. The lake reservoir when full will hold about 3,500,000,000 cubic feet, or 200,000 acre feet. In May, 1891, when the river had its rise, the flow over the waste dam was 30,000 miners’ inches. The irrigable land is underlaid with clay a few feet below surface. The area to be reclaimed is estimated at 75,000 acres. Another enterprise, begun during 1891, contemplates the control of Utah Lake, and is known as the Oquirrh Water and Land Company. It has for its object the lowering of the Jordan River at the outlet and below Utah Lake. The present river bed is much higher than the bottom of the lake and acts as a bar to the lowering thereof and to the obtaining of a large supply of water that can not now be utilized, and which when so utilized will be restored in the winter. Such a lowering will, it is claimed, also admit of a better regulation of the rise and fall of the lake. This lowering of the outlet will permit the irrigation of possibly some 25,000 acres, and by storing in the Provo River this can be still further augmented. There are some objections and criticisms raised against these propositions. * In cities the municipal corporations control the waters, watermasters being appointed to regulate the division of the water. The following synopsis of laws relating to Utah were compiled and furnished by Col. Charles L. Stevenson, C. E., president of the Polytechnic Society of Salt Lake City: Whenever public necessity requires it, the county court may organ- ize the county, or part of it, into an irrigation district, and the land- holders therein may use the water brought into the district according to their respective needs, provided they pay and perform their proportion of the necessary expenses and labor. They may, on due notice, elect trustees, a secretary, and a treasurer. The trustees shall locate the ditches and estimate all costs and re- ports to the county court. If the report be approved by a two-thirds vote, a tax shall be assessed and the ditch constructed. The trustees have general supervision of the construction, mainte- nance, and regulation of the ditches; they may hold such personal property as is necessary to the performance of their duties; may sue and be sued, and may have appraised and sell any unclaimed lands that are to be benefited, and apply the proceeds to the construction of the ditches. * Lakes and ponds may be used as reservoirs, provided they are not raised so as to injure settlers upon their banks. In case of inundation or other sudden emergency the trustees may take measures for protection. Property and money in the hands of trustees to be used on the ditches is exempt from taxation. THE UTAH LAWS OF WATER MANAGEMENT. 259 Ditches have the right of way, a proper compensation having been paid. & Any person injuring a ditch or any of its appurtenances is liable in damages and to a fine and imprisonment. The district is liable for damages caused by the breakage of a ditch. The rate of tax at any election subsequent to the first may be de- termined by a majority vote, and the tax thus assessed shall be a lien upon the taxpayer's interest in the ditch and a right to use the Water. By act of February 20, 1880, the selectmen of the several counties are made water commissioners, who have a kind of Superior jurisdiction of the water rights in their respective counties. They determine claims relative to the use of water, oversee either per- sonally or by agents its distribution, and determine questions of right of way, etc. They also issue certificates showing the extent of Water rights. A person first taking water from any source of Supply, or having the open, peaceable, and continuous use of the water for seven years, has a primary right therein to the extent of the reasonable use thereof. Whenever persons having primary right use the Water for a part of the year only, the person appropriating it for the balance of the year acquires a secondary right. Water rights may be measured in inches or by fractional parts of the whole supply. Water rights may pertain to the land or may be personal property, as the owner may elect, and a change of place shall not affect the right to use the water, but no change of place shall be made to the injury of another owner without just compensation. Neglect for seven years to use water, or keep in repair the means of conveying it, is re- garded as an abandonment of the right. - Water rights are exempt from taxation, except for the purpose of regulating the use of the rights, but the increased value. Of the land may be regarded in making the assessments. Surplus water must be returned to the natural channel, and any per- son wasting it is liable to have his supply shut off, and to pay damages to any person injured. Any person using water lawfully appropriated to another, or divert- ing the flow of water lawfully distributed, or injuring any dam, ditch, etc., is guilty of a misdemeanor. Whenever the supply is not sufficient for all purposes, the use for domestic purposes and for irrigation purposes takes precedence in that order. Corporations may be formed under general laws for distributing water to their Stockholders. STATISTICS OF IRRIGATION IN UTAH. The meeting in Salt Lake City of the Irrigation Congress gave activity to the collection of data. The following table, prepared by Charles L. Stevenson, G. E., of Salt Lake City, is presented here with the indorse- ment of this office. The methods of collection are known, and the care and pains devoted to the proper presentation of the same appreciated. The total given of total acreage of “irrigable lands” is of course under- stood to be an estimate. By many good authorities a much large area is considered available for reclamation. This office agrees with them: IRRIGATION. g: º ſt t º : . rt; --> 3 | # , | # # , || 3 |###| ## | # |## |&# . tº ; : 3 *4 UD 20 Ú) s E #3 | "… - . gº do as cººr- § 3 ; tā * jº .# §§ | g = 3 || 3 in o E | 3: 3 E. #3 y-t T. F'ah º º º'; ; £ tº É 8 & * * : .33 County, .: $3 £5 º 3.3 3 QP -: bſ, 3’E 5 .S. º. •º: © g Q $3 §§ ; , ; a § 5 $35 | : P = # * 5 * : *, * : # ##| # # .# * | . = B | < ...": 5. 3.33 ± 3.3 E. © eſ] 5 :- an H d.ºrg | 6.2 3 .3 5.E 3 ||5 5.5, B - º *SAS, Tº ºs a -iſ: Mºš -- ‘P o 0.3 ºn * - c - , º, & v c. ... nº 9 : G tº §§§ gåå gºš 55 3 E º sº Q3 º *śāśā ā. º *2 &2 * ~ e5 = 3 C 'º & C3 C2 C º e C wº S-Yº O'Cºo C * - 5 10 PRELIMINARY REPORT ON THE POSSIBILITIES OF THE RECLAMATION OF THE ARID REGIONS OF KANSAS AND COLORAD0 BY UTILIZING THE UNDERLYING WATERS. BY HowARD MILLER, PH. D. OCTOBER 9, 1891. SIR : I have the honor to transmit my report on the possibilities of irrigation on the arid plateau of IKansas and Colorado. HOWARD MILLER. Hon. EDWIN WILLITS, Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, Washington, D. C. DE VELOPMENT OF THE ARID PLATEA U OF KANSAS AND COLORADO. The last generation of schoolboys learned from their geographies that the vast and little understood trans-Missouri region was known as the Great American Desert. It was asserted, and almost universally believed, that the Plains' country included in this alleged desert would never be fit for the occupancy of man. But as the years passed adventurous pioneers, taking the overland route to the Golden Gate, noted the streams and their fringe of forest growth and built themselves homes in the valleys. Thus it was that the eastern portion of the so-called arid region was invaded and made amenable to the demands of civilization. From these beginnings the population spread Westward, thinning and separating as it neared the Rockies. From the river to the mountains the soil was found to be perfect, the climate all that could be desired, and the general conditions, with but one exception, most favorable. The factor that has rendered ordinary agriculture more and more uncertain as settlement progressed Westward is the lack of rain at the time of its need by the growing crops. The elevation above the sea level from Kansas City to Denver is steadily progressive; at the former place it is 681 feet, and at Denver 5,170 feet. To the scientist this single condition bars the continuous success of the same methods of agriculture along the line of country under con- sideration. There are no natural boundaries to this huge incline, but the State of Kansas is usually spoken of as being divided into three sections—eastern, middle, and western, though this classification is purely arbitrary. In the eastern portion diversified agriculture is as successfully prosecuted as in any other State. In middle or central ** 301 302 + • IRRIGATION." Kansas the seasons, whether wet or dry, play an important part in the farmer's returns, while in western Kansas it may be regarded as set- . tled that ordinary mixed husbandry can not be relied upon with any certainty of success. From the eastern border of Colorado to Denver the conditions of the western third of Kansas are continued. To fully comprehend the immensity of the sections so briefly de- scribed a personal inspection is necessary. It must not be imagined that the ever-increasing altitude and the word Plains' imply a vast and perfectly level stretch of country with an imperceptible rise in grade. There are enormous reaches, aptly described by the current phrase “as level as a floor,” and then there are valleys, miles between their crests, gently rising and joining hands with the blue sky. There may be selected in this empire hundreds of square miles hav- ing any desired exposure and each so inclined that an antelope would be visible on any part of it. On the plateau of western Kansas and eastern Colorado there are no native trees—buffalo grass covers the earth—it is green in the spring time and cures into a natural food for stock. It is a matter of surprise to the stranger that there should be thousands of cattle knowing no other food from calfhood to the shambles. This land will produce anything that will grow in its latitude in the utmost profusion, if it only has water during the growing season. With its magic touch there may be opened up a literal garden of the gods that can feed the earth. There is but one key which will unlock this vast storehouse of the earth and make its products available, and this is best symbolized by the actual fact—a ditch with flowing water. When we speak of irrigation to the average Eastern man we put up a scarecrow, but to the Plains' man the talk is of gold. Irrigation is as old as man's earliest efforts at agriculture. Its ap. plication is as varied as the country and locality in which it is prac- ticed, and it may be broadly stated as the commonest form where man turns a stream into a ditch and diverts it from the main source of sup- ply to the fields he wants to water. -* If there is no available stream he may drill an artesian well and turn its waters into his fields. Between these two forms there are countless methods not germane to the subject here under consideration. On the high plateau of Ransas and Colorado there are no available streams, nor is there hydrostatic pressure to force water above ground if artesian wells were sunk. The theory that planting forests will produce rain is inapplicable, as trees will not grow without water, and if there is water to insure their growth the trees are not directly needed. In passing, it must not be inferred that rain does not fall in the arid and sub-arid regions under consideration. It does, but the precipitation and the time of its need by growing crops are hardly ever synchronous; that is, the rain does not come when man needs it. It is a common saying that if the country was plowed and cultivated rainfall would be produced. This is thoroughly fallacious. Climate makes vegetation and vegetation is a resuit, not a cause. Plowing the soil makes it retentive of the moisture that does fall, and only thus far does the cultivation of the earth assist nature. I do not believe that this entire arid section could be cultivated, which is an utter impossibility, but assuming that it could be done, I am of the opinion that a rainfall appreciably greater would not result. The formation of reservoirs on elevated portions of the farms has been urged, and this plan will doubtless constitute a feature of irriga- tion in many places. HYDROGRAPHIC CAPACITIES OF THE GREAT PLAINs. 303 If, then, there are no available streams on the plateau or in many other portions of the Great Plains, and if there is not a sufficient rain- fall, must this magnificent country necessarily be abandoned to the herder? The writer feels that this is not a sequence of the conditions as stated, and he is of that opinion for the following reasons: There is no fact better estabhished than that this high altitude re- gion is thoroughly well supplied with subterranean waters. This is shown conclusively by the fact that the railroad company to secure the water necessary for its engines has dug wells at intervals along the line. These wells are of varying depth and diameter, and are located right along the rails. They were dug for railway purposes with no im- mediate or remote contingency of their use for common agricultural purposes in view. Where the distance between wells allowed the com- pany utilized a site in close proximity to a stream, or rather the bed of a stream, and in all such cases the wells are shallow. The reason is apparent. The water running down the bed of the stream perco- lated through and saturated the adjacent strata and the waters readily fill the well. But there are other wells on high ground, far removed from any stream or dry bed of a stream, and in all of these water is had in abundance. Of course these wells are deeper than those nearer streams. It is manifestly clear that the entire arid region is underlaid with water. This water varies in quantity and quality, but only in rare instances is it so charged with mineral matter as to be unfit for use. Some of these wells are fitted with wind engines, and others are pumped by steam, still others have a combination of the two, steam supplementing the wheel in calm days. The water is pumped from the well to the water tank, familiar to everybody who has ever taken a rail- road journey of any length. º Nothing is commoner in the vicinity of these wells than the assertion that the water supply is inexhaustible, and nothing is more incorrect, as will be shown further on. It is well to note the fact that two theories obtain in reference to the existence of this water. One is, that it is sheet water that has percolated through the porous strata, fed from the rains and melting snows, in loco, and passing through the earth downward and laterally from the stream beds, which are invariably of sand or gravel of greater or less CO2.I'SelleSS. The other is that the entire plains country is underlaid with a depo- sition of gravel and sand, through which the waters of the streams and slopes of the Rocky Mountains slowly work their way eastward. The writer does not know which theory is correct. It is certain, how- ever, that water underlies the arid region. If it should be established that it exists in sufficient quantities to be made available on a large scale, the question is then one of simply raising the water to the sur- face and properly distributing it—problems easy of solution. If this underlying water is simply slow seepage, readily exhausted from the well,then neither ditches nor reservoirs are available, and the land inures to the stockman. If, however, this water varies in quantity, if there is a rise or fall, depending on freshet or season, and a practically inex- haustible supply by reason of its being caught on the rise and stored against the day of its use, then is the great American.ſpsert to be re- named and known as the Great American Garden. ... " Can this fact be determined? At first blush tº would seem an im- possibility, yet the writer not only believes it possible, but is at the present engaged in the settlement of the question. To do this satis- factorily the following tests and experiments have been begun: 304 3. IRRIGATION. Along the line of the Union Pacific Railway there is a number of dug Wells. The line passes through the very heart of the area under dis- cussion, and every well taps the subterranean supply of water, the very lifeblood of this section, that must be made to flow through the arteries of an irrigation system to make this country available as a field for agricultural operations. These wells vary in size, depth, and water supply. They were constructed with a view to securing water for the engines, and when this had been attained the work was finished. A brief description of one of these wells will get before the general reader an idea of their usual make-up. At Weskan, in western Kansas, within a few miles of the eastern border of Colorado, on high ground, removed from any stream, is one. It is 132 feet deep, walled with huge stones, is 12 feet in diameter in the clear, and has 11 feet of water. Just above the surface of the water, at the bottom of the well, on a stout platform laid on timbers built into the wall, is a steam pump operated by an engine on the ground at the top. The water is pumped into the tank as needed. The well reaches the sand and gravel in which the water is found. In this well the following apparatus is set up : A round box float of galvanized iron, resembling a small cheese box, water tight, and loaded with sand, rests on the surface of the water in the well. Attached to this float is a light copper chain, which is passed up to the ground floor of the well and over a 4-inch pulley. At the other end of the chain is a leaden counterpoise balancing the float. It will be apparent that when the water in the well rises, the float rises, and the counterpoising weight sinks, keeping the chain taut. When the water falls the float drags down the weight. It only remains to attach an index to the chain at the surface, moving up and down on a fixed scale graduated into feet and inches, and every rise and fall of the water is registered. The appa- ratus is simple, efficient, and wonderfully exact. The well attendant records on a prepared blank the depth of the Water at Sunrise and sunset before and after pumping and the amount pumped out. In connection with the well float is a thermometer and rain gauge near the tank, and thus it will be seen that the relation between the precipitation and the water in the well is readily shown. After the Weskan Well experiment had progressed favorably it was determined that the tests should be extended, and a selection of twelve wells, covering a distance of several hundred miles, was made and each one similarly fitted with floats, rain gauges, etc., and the tabulation of results begun. * It will be perceived that in any event enormously valuable results accrue from these records. If it should be demonstrated that rain or freshet has no effect on the water supply, or that the seasons bring a tide, a slow, huge wave, lifting the water in each well from the west to the east, much will be settled thereby. If, on the other hand, the sea- sons show no change, and the heaviest rains produce no results in these subterranean waters, the inferences are equally definite. The experiments have not, at this writing, proceeded far enough to show results Jupon which to assert an established fact. The freaks of the registration at Weskan require verification and corroboration by the records Öf the other wells along the line. The results, will in the end, largely settſe’;his underflow talk, of which every man has a theory, and no man knows: "Tº the end, the reports are to be published, and there will be no more’reasonable doubt about the result than attaches to the findings of a gauger who measures the contents of a series of barrels in a cellar every day of the year. Of course no such result MR. MILLER'S CONCLUSIONS TO EARTH WATERs. 305 may be attained without Congress authorizing, through law, the fur- ther prosecution of such work. It is a remarkable fact that in the vicinity of these wells the resi- dents are apt to consider them inexhaustible. This statement has been made over and over again at Weskan. Yet when the well had been fitted with the apparatus, and the pump, throwing a three-inch stream, was started, the index almost immediately recorded a fall in the water and continued to steadily fall while the pumping lasted, and a minute thereafter the water began to fill up the well. The incident is men- tioned to show that the talk, the opinions of men, honest in every re- spect, and the facts are not always in harmony. With this principle in view the writer, although thoroughly cognizant of the results thus far acrued, does not hazard an opinion as yet. When the results of the twelve well tests are all in, and set side by side, for a series of months, the conclusion will then be a solid foundation, and a fact, not an opinion. The results, however, amply justify the continuance of the experi- ments, as affecting an enormous stretch of country where there is neither running water nor storage possible from precipitation. If at the con- clusion of the experiment, it is deemed prudent to further continue the test, I recommend that the most promising well be deepened till a practically inexhaustible supply is reached, and this, if found, reduces the whole question of the occupancy of this arid region to a powerful pump and a properly laid out ditch. There are many places where this is done in the miniature, with a wind pump, but it is not available to the pioneer, who is never a capital- ist. No individual can undertake the development of this region in the manner and on the scale here suggested. This question should be brought to a certainty by means of such preliminary development as will render private action in the premises reasonably sure of success. The results, if successful, would be bewildering. Where the bare, brown plains stretch away in the distance, the home of the prairie dog and the antelope, no reach of imagination is required to see a mental photograph of the tree-lined village, the garden with enormous vegeta- bles, the town about the central water supply and the green and growing crops as far as the eye can reach. It is a beautiful picture, every color of which inheres in the water underlying the scene. The points that follow may be regarded as established facts: (1) Every Union Pacific Railway well between Kansas City and Denver can be pumped dry. • (2) The elevation does not have much to do with access to water, show- ing that the water-bearing strata are not of uniform deposition. (3) The water is generally good and is used by the residents for many miles around the wells in the more unsettled portions. (4) Where the water is bad inorganic matter is in solution, and this varies in quantity and quality. (5) A fairly uniform depth may be expected for wells on the same general plateau. (6) Failure to find water is rare. (7) No engineering difficulties present themselves, that is, none which are insurmountable. (8) The difference in elevation between the eastern and western well test is 2,927 feet. (9) The average fall from west to east is about 9.54 feet per mile for the distance covered. (10) In places penetration of the fresh-water strata results in secur. ing salt water. g S. Ex. 41 20 *306 iRRIGATION. The writer wishes to thank the honorable Secretary of Agriculture, and Mr. B. A. McAllaster, of the Union Pacific Railway, for their aid and sympathy in the investigation. He further thanks the well at- tendants, and others rendering service at the several points of test. The tables in this report show the altitudes and locations of the well tests. Publication of the entire results later on, when their extent, hºrney, and completion justify it, will, it is hoped, be authorized by &W, METHODS OF APPLYING WATER TO LAND, AS PRACTICED IN THE CENTRAL PORTIONS OF CALIFORNIA. BY C. E. GRUNSKY. Civil Engineer, San Francisco, Cal. Irrigation is still a new art in California, and the methods of apply- ing water to land which have found favor in different parts of the State are the outgrowth of attempts on the part of irrigators to adapt methods in use in other localities and countries to new conditions as here found. These attempts have met with more or less success, and have resulted in the adoption of a variety of methods of irrigation, each of which is more or less perfectly adapted to the peculiarities of climate, soil, and physical features of the region where practiced. When irrigation is accomplished with water from ditches the methods of irrigation may be classified as follows:* Irrigation by flooding. Irrigation from furrows. Irrigation by causing a rise of the ground water. Irrigation from subsurface conduits. Flooding may be accomplished by turning water out of small ditches constructed on the highest ground and making it flow in thin sheets over the surface (not specially prepared) to be irrigated. This is locally called “wild flooding.” Or it may be accomplished by constructing embankments of such height that the water which they restrain will cover the land. This is irrigation by flooding in checks. (A check is a compartment or basin inclosed by check levees.) The embankments may be adapted to the configuration of the ground, each of the main embankments being placed on a contour line. The method of irrigation is then called “flooding in contour checks.” If the embankments are constructed along the sides of rectangles the method of irrigation is then called “flooding in rectangular checks.” The sur- face of the ground in a check can be made perfectly level. Irrigation in such checks is called “irrigation in level checks.” “Furrow irrigation,” like flooding, is intended to supply water only to that part of the soil into which penetrate the roots of the plants, trees, vines, etc., to be irrigated. It is sometimes practiced for grain, more frequently for plants, trees, vines, etc., which are set out in rows. “Furrow irrigation with drainage” provides for the collection of all sur- * No attempt is here made to describe methods of irrigation as practiced elsewhere, but it is hoped that California's experience may prove serviceable to other sections and irrigators. This data is brought down to August, 1891. 307 308 IRRIGATION. plus water flowing through each furrow and its subsequent utilization. “In furrow irrigation” no surplus water is permitted to enter any fur- . IOW. “Irrigation by causing a rise of the ground water " can be practiced only under certain favorable conditions. It involves the rapid sinking of water from canals and ditches into the subsoils and imperfect drain- age of the latter. “Irrigation from sub-surface conduits’’ or “sub-irrigation,” as it is generally termed, supplies water to the surface soils only through pipes or other conduits from which water escapes and permeates the soil. It is well to bear in mind that it is just as important to conserve the moisture already in the soil as it is to add moisture. This fact has been taught by experience to the irrigators in San Juoaquin Valley, and it has become a universal custom to cultivate the irrigated tract as soon after the application of water as possible. The surface soil is broken up and pulverized. The capillary forces of the soil are reduced to a minimum and the weeds kept down. The furrows in use to distribute water are plowed in, and if the irrigation is to be repeated the same season new furrows are drawn. -- WILD FLOODING. [See Plate No. 1.] The practice of wild flooding can best be explained by reference to the diagrams illustrating this method of irrigation. In the plan, Fig. 1, the curved broken lines represent contours and indicate a slope of the surface of the ground in the direction from E to F. A. A is a supply ditch, whose water is diverted as required, at C C, into irrigating ditches. The irrigating ditches are sometimes permanent, sometimes tempo- rary. Out from the irrigating ditches to the right and left, at the points D, are small embankments, with nearly horizontal crests. Ma- terial for their construction is taken from their upper sides, thereby forming a depression which serves the purpose of a watering ditch. These embankments are usually permanent, and are so flat that they do not interfere with Ordinary farming operations. Irrigation is com- menced by turning water from the supply ditch into the irrigation ditch at C. It is checked at D by means of a temporary dam of earth, or by means of a small gate, and flows to the right and left. As soon as water attains the height of the embankment, out from D, it com- mences to flow over them and to flood in a thin sheet the land inter- vening between the first embankment and the next one below. If too much or too little crosses the embankment at any point the defect is remedied by attendants, whose presence is constantly required during the process of irrigation. At the Second point, D, the operation is re- peated, and so on until the surplus water reaches an inlet into a drain ditch, which may at the same time be an irrigating ditch for otherlands. The preparation of ground for this method of irrigation is very inexpen- sive, but the cost of applying Water, owing to the constant attendance required, is great. One man can irrigate from 1 to 2 acres per day by wild flooding. This method of irrigation is sometimes called “mustang irrigation.” Fig. 2 is a section from E to F. Figs. 5, 6, and 7 illustrate an im- proved arrangement of a 4-foot gate for a small supply ditch. ſº Plate 1, Wild Flooding 24 A. 1 Pan. / * 2 *~ º *~ \ z * º / *~s. *- 26 J. * / **s * * * * - * *-i- -* w ...” / <-- ºw ºw" . A - ^e * zºº" \ / ^ zºnºwº- / *~ • / / / N- \ / º | / * ~ Aj 2^ 26 S/ / ...” * N --> N. “...ſº ºs-> “sºmºv sºvº ºr: ^ N N º º - - - **** / & marºv $/ º - Check Gate in Sãºyoly-Ditch. Aº. 5. Parz. --sº Aº 6. 25ectron KZ. • * £’--- - - 4" — — --> - 2'--> º, zºº º sº SV ~. º tº • Tlate 2. F/OOa'izzgº in Cô/7/02/rChecks. A&# 1. Plan º 4-35; A º s A ſº # ** , “..... "...sº * Aſ * - e . . ." 5. { AM: A& º". “......'" e T #: º sºº, ſº # ... …tº j, "“ . ..., ..." **, *, *...**** C’ſ ſº- # 2 * : * * 9 \ # - nºt ,'! **, - * ; # ** * * e * * * tº 4 ºw * * * ****, *, **** * * *, **** * * ** - *** fe * * ****** 2,...twº." \ * Æ0 J $ ... wº"? 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" " "... ." ...". - ...fºº # "tºº"; i. * –Zevee “it t t t t it i + 4 + 4 + i + + H+ 4 + 4 + - tº t t + sít t t t + it it t t tit t t +** tº t t t it tº it it tº t++ittitt tº w LZ2eºry% =-14 Mora&ſe Check-Gadeaf B. In lef at C’. Afrº 2 ZZerazzon. Arº-4 Wºrºza/Jerºzarz. Arº 5. Horizontai Ajacaron. 271/et-Gaze ºf Z2 Aº Z Jºcerozz S Ex 4/. 52 1 * = * º Plate 6. Aºrrow Irrigazzozz of Graiz7. Afg. 1. Flºrrows in the aºrecaron of greatesz shºe. S Ex. £6. . . .52 | Plate 7 Irrigation by fi/izzg jºbsor/s wrah wafer Musse/AS/ough Country. Aº. 1 Plaza. |Jugoſy pitch -- Afg. 2. 52c-frozz AA. Sw, sº Stº. wº, ºr * . . v. *~ is ºw-wº ºr rºº &Szsºs ºnsº - a * * º ; , , ºf •. .* ... ." &/º º gº. “’ s * - * LEVERS, CONTOUR CHECKs, AND FLOODING. 311 are adopted arbitrarily without regard to direction of contour lines. This system of irrigation, is illustrated by diagrams on plate No. 3. Ground is supposed to slope gently from the upper left-hand corner of Fig. 1 to the lower right-hand corner. The highest point of ground in each compartment or check is therefore in the upper left-hand corner. All levees as well as ditch banks must be higher above the surface of the ground at the lower right-hand corner of each check than at any other point. The size of the compartment must necessarily be smaller than would be required for contour levees unless the ground's surface be very flat. But the method of applying water after the ground has been once prepared is the same as for flooding in contour checks. The system of flooding in rectangular checks has the great advantage of permitting levees and ditch lines to be adapted to the direction of rows of trees, Vines, etc., and it ought to be adopted whenever the configuration of the ground will permit. & Attention is drawn in this connection to the Kohler, West & Minturn tract, at Minturn, at Chowchilla River, Fresno and Kern counties. (See Plate No. 3.) At the time this tract was visited, in 1884, most of it had been set out to trees and vines. Irrigation was accomplished by water diverted from Chowchilla River. Part of the tract is prepared for irrigation by the contour check method, the rest by the rectangular check method. The rectangular checks are arranged as indicated in the plan (Fig. 1). They are about 660 feet long east and west by 330 feet north and south. The method of admitting water and drawing it off from each check into the next lower one as soon as the flooding of the check has been accom- plished, is the usual one already described. Water is supplied by dis- tributing ditches, arranged about as indicated in Fig. 1. - In Fig. 3 the general arrangement of the works for the diversion of water is indicated, and Fig.2 will explain the arrangement of the head gates in the various distributing canals. The soil of the Kohler, West & Minturn tract is a light sandy loam. Under it lies a hardpan which is quite near the surface at the eastern line of the tract, but its dip westward is greater than that of the surface of the ground. The ground Water is about 14 feet below the surface. When irrigation is in progress with a full head of water (about 16 cubic feet per second) 6 men are required to manipulate gates and guard check levees. Attendants work in two shifts of three, each for twelve hours. Where the levees are constructed on contours the area of the several checks is variable, the largest covering about 20 acres of ground. The contour levees are in 6-inch contour lines. All these are made sufficiently high to retain water to the depth of 1 foot. Irrigation, while contour checks are being flooded, progresses at the rate of about 40 acres per day of twenty-four hours, and at the rate of 20 acres per day while the land covered by rectangular checks is being irrigated. The greater time required in the latter case is due to the two causes, that the soil in these checks is deeper than at points east of the railroad, and that water used for its irrigation is generally subdivided, being made to irrigate a number of checks at the same time, whereby in porous soil unnecessary loss of water is always entailed. FLOODING IN LEVEL CHECKS. [See Pl. No. 5.] In some localities where the surface of the ground is neither suffi- ciently smooth nor sufficiently level to permit an application of water by either of the methods already described without too great an expense, 312 - * IRRIGATION. another method of flooding has found favor. Such has been the case near Fresno. It has there become customary to prepare land for flood- ing by constructing rectangular checks and making the area inclosed by each rectangle of levees as nearly level as the nature of the soil would permit. Sizé and relative length of the sides of the rectangular checks are always to be governed by the peculiar character of the ground's sur- face. It is evident that if the checks be made very long in the direc- tion of the slope of the ground, it may become necessary to move a very large amount of material from the highest end of a check to its lower end. Very frequently the entire work of leveling consists in the cutting down of knolls and the depositing of the material thus obtained in the low places of the check and along the line of the embankment which is to surround it. It sometimes happens, as on the sandy plains in the Fresno district, that when water is applied to the land for the first time the soil is compacted, the surface settles. This settling may be quite regular, but ordinarily it is irregular, and not infrequently a cav- ing in of the surface soil occurs in spots, leaving cavities sometimes 20 or more feet in diameter and 4 to 10 feet deep to be refilled after the first thorough wetting. Where such caving in has occurred it is quite evi- dent that the complete leveling of the ground's surface can often be ac- complished by a judicious selection of the points from which to take material for the purpose, with as little expense as a mere haphazard filling of the depressions would entail. Where the surface of the ground is of the peculiar knolly character generally termed “hog wallow” the same is true. An example of this method of irrigation has been taken from a tract in Central California Colony (Fresno County), and is illustrated on Pl. No. 5. The plan (Fig. 1) represents the ditches and levees re- quired to accomplish the irrigation of sixteen small checks of vines and two larges checks of alfalfa. Water is supplied by the ditch B. A. It is distributed to the several checks by the ditch C D and parallel ditches. Low levees very flat, just high enough to hold with reason- able safety about 4 inches of water, surround each check. Between each two small ditches, CD, are two rows of checks. Each of the vine- yard checks has an area of about one-fourth of an acre. The alfalfa checks are larger, the area of one being about 14 acres, that of the other three-fourths of an acre. The irrigation of any row of vineyard checks is accomplished by check- ing the flow of the water in the main ditch below an irrigating ditch, as at B, and admitting the water in turn into the several checks which are to be supplied from the irrigating ditch. Irrigation, except in the case of very impervious soils, will ordinarily be complete as soon as water has been made to cover all the ground of any check to a depth of 1 or 2 inches. The more pervious the Soil the more important will it be to supply a respectively large flow of water to each check. As soon as enough water has been supplied to any check the inlet gate, opening from the distributing ditch into another check, is opened and the gate leading into the former check is closed. - Wherever on sandy loam more than three hours’ time is required to thus supply enough water to any check, then there is something wrong in the method of applying Water. Either the size of each check ought to be reduced or the supply of Water increased. In 1882 an irrigator was observed who was engaged in irrigating four small checks of alfalfa. His water supply was small, only about 2.26 cubic feet per second. Instead of turning all the water in turn into the THE FLOODING PROCESSES AND THEIR RESULTS, 313 Several checks he apportioned it to the four and the time to fill them was ten hours, whereas not more than an hour apiece would have been re- quired had they been filled one after the other. Returning to the example of irrigation illustrated on Pl. No. 5, it is evident that the flow of water in the ditches can be checked either by means of small gates or by means of temporary dams of earth thrown in with a shovel during the process of each irrigation. A movable check gate of very simple construction is shown in Figs. 2 and 3. It consists in the main of a notched board with narrow strips nailed to it on either side of the notch, and a set of loose pieces of boards whose ends can be slipped down the grooves formed by the strips for the pur- pose of closing the notch. A check gate of this character can be set across a ditch at any point where it is required in a very minutes. It can be made more secure than it would otherwise be by nailing to its lower margin and to its sides a strip of canvas to be imbedded in the material used in refilling the excavation made to receive the gate. A permanent gate as at A can be arranged as already explained by Figs. 5 and 6, Pl. No. 1. The inlet gates at C from the small ditches to the several checks are arranged in the form of a small culvert, as shown in Figs. 4 and 5, Pl. No. 5, or they have the form represented in Figs. 7 and 8. The arrange- ment of levees, ditches, and gates at the point D of Fig. 1 is made clear by Figs. 6 and 7. No drainage is combined with this method of irrigation. All the water admitted into a check is absorbed by the soil. It is to be noted in connection with the experience of the early irrigators near Fresno, that the quantity of water absorbed by or rather percolating through the soil was at times enormous. Instances have been recorded where enough water has been run on to a 20-acre tract at one wetting to cover the tract to an average depth of 5 feet, and examples can be cited where the quantity of water supplied in one season would have been sufficient to fill a reservoir of the same area as the tract irrigated 20 feet deep. The preparation of land for irrigation by flooding in level checks is much more expensive than the preparation of land for irrigation by any of the other methods already described. It costs about $15 to $50 per acre to put the surface in proper shape and to construct the necessary ditches and gates. But the application of water when once preparation for it has been properly made is far less expensive than by other methods, and this method of irrigation enables a very econominal use of water, because the wastage by un- necessary percolation into subsoils is reduced in the same proportion that the time required to fill individual checks is reduced. IRRIGATION BY FILLING SUBSOILs witH WATER. [See Plate No. 7.] It is not infrequently claimed that large tracts of land are irrigated by lateral percolation of water from canals or ditches. As a matter of fact lateral percolation does not extend more than a very short dis- tance from a water course, unless the same supplies water to a Very pervious soil resting on a subsoil of clay or other impervious material. The phenomenon of the wetting of the soil at some point remote from the water course which supplies the water is ordinarily due to a very different cause. Where the surface of ground Water is very nearly level the effect of an additional supply of water to subsoils by downward 6 314 IRRIGATION. movement of water from canals and ditches will be to cause it to rise to a higher plane. It will rise most rapidly at those points where most water sinks into the ground, but its rise may extend over a very large area of country. The hydrostatic pressure exerted by the sinking water extends in all directions, and may cause a displacement and a rise of water even at very remote points. If water sinks into pervious sub- soils at many points throughout a relatively flat region it may cause the subsurface water to rise sufficiently to bring moisture from below within reach of the capillary and hygroscopic forces of surface soils. This occurs in the Mussel Slough country and it has become the com- mon method of irrigation in that region. The same phenomenon is ob- served near Fresno and at other points north of Kings River. The method of irrigating by filling subsoils with water, as practiced in the Mussel Slough country, is illustrated on Pl. No. 7. Fig. 1 rep- resents the plat of a tract of 160 acres. In the northeast corner is a small orchard and an alfalfa field of a few acres. The alfalfa is inclosed by a levee, so that at least once a year it may be flooded in order to ex- terminate gophers. A main Canal passes through the tract, and from this distributing ditches are diverted and carried down along the west and north lines of the tract. About 600 feet apart small irrigating ditches lead out from the distributing ditches. These have a very slight grade in order that water may be kept at a sluggish flow in them dur- ing the irrigating season. As soon as water becomes available for irrigation it is turned into all the ditches (which may be permanent or temporary), and the depth to ground water of October to December, as shown in Fig. 2, is gradually decreased until water is everywhere found at a depth of only a few feet below the surface. As soon as irrigation is complete water is no longer admitted into the irrigating ditches, and the depth to water begins to increase slowly. By careful inquiry it has been ascertained that before irrigation commenced, that is, before 1870, the depth to ground water ranged everywhere in this region from 15 to 18 feet. Except on the extreme edges of the region it no longer falls lower than 8 feet below . the surface in the fall of the year. During the spring and early part of the summer it is held by reason of the presence of water in the irri- gation ditches within 2 to 4 feet of the surface. It will be seen that, where this method of irrigation is practiced, lands lying between irrigated tracts may derive a full benefit from irri- gation without being taxed to contribute to the establishment or main- tenance of the irrigation system. The mere fact that the water has been permanently raised from 18 feet below the surface to 8 feet below the surface may in many instances be a great benefit. The system of applying water to the soil from underneath has the advantage of being very inexpensive. It is, however, open to serious objection when soils or subsoils contain much alkali. In such cases alkaline salts are carried upward by the upward moving water and their accumulation at the surface is the natural result. Many of the irriga- tors in the Mussel Slough region testify to such rise of the alkali, and to the fact that salt grass is crowding the alfalfa, and has not infrequently usurped parts of grain fields. IRRIGATION FROM FURROWS. Not the least important method of applying water to land is that which is ordinarily called furrow irrigation, and which is almost univer- sally adopted for the irrigation of orchards, vineyards, cotton, hops, vegetables, or other plants that may to advantage be set out in rows. FURROWS AS IRRIGATION WATER CONVEYERS. 315 By this method of irrigation it is aimed to moisten only those layers of soil into which the roots of trees and plants penetrate. Surface drain- age is Sometimes combined with this method of irrigation. More fre- Quently, however, no attention is paid to drainage, the aim being to introduce into each furrow barely enough water to accomplish the de- sired end. This method of irrigation can be best described under the following heads: Furrow irrigation of grain— (a) With furrows in the direction of greatest slope. (b) With furrows across the direction of greatest slope. Furrow irrigation of orchards, vineyards, etc.— (a) With drainage. (b) Without drainage. Furrow irrigation in leveled checks. Furrow irrigation of vegetables. Furrow irrigation of hillside orchards, etc. All of these special cases have been illustrated with diagrams, to which reference will be made in describing each. FURROW IRRIGATION OF GRAIN WITH FURROWS IN THE DIRECTION OF GREATEST SILOPE. [See Plate No. 6, Fig. 1. ) Even when water for the irrigation of grain land is available, the farmer is not inclined to burden himself with the additional expense of applying Water to land so long as he may hope to have sufficient rain- fall to mature his crops. In the most extensively irrigated region of the San Joaquin Valley the average annual rainfall is about 10 inches. This is sufficient to produce good crops if the rain falls at the right time. It does not always do this, and moreover the total rainfall is just as frequently below the average as above it. Consequently it often happens that water must be artificially applied in the spring of the year to refresh the parching fields of grain. If the same be pre- pared for flooding this method of irrigation will be resorted to. Should it be situated in a region like the Mussel Slough country, ditches will be kept full of water, and perhaps a few new ones will be constructed to hasten the rise of ground water. But if the same be not thus favored, then the question arises how to apply water to its surface most rapidly. The method which in some localities, as for instance near Kingsburg, has found favor, is that of irrigating in parallel fur- rows. The same method has there also been successfully practiced for the wetting of ground before it was plowed and the seed sown. If the slope of the ground's surface be not too great, the furrows, which are generally deep single furrows, are run in the direction of the slope. They are placed 8 to 12 feet apart, according to the porosity of the soil. Water is admitted into them from small ditches, generally crossing them at intervals of 100 to 200 yards. The irrigation com. mences at the highest part of the field. Water is admitted into a num- ber of furrows at one time, and by attendants this flow is checked or aided so as to accomplish a general soaking of the ground's surface. It is thus aimed to wet all parts of the field. This system of irrigation involves much labor and careful watching. It is relatively expensive. 316 IRRIGATION. - --- - FURROW IRRIGATION OF GRAIN WITH FURROWS ACROSS THE DIREC- TION OF GREATEST SLOPE, [See Plate No. 6, Fig. 2.] This method of irrigation is analogous to that just described, except that, owing to too great slope of the surface of the ground, the plow fur- rows are run on predetermined grade lines. The greater the slope of the surface the greater must be the deviation of the furrows from the direction of the greatest slope. Ordinarily no attention is paid to prop. erly draining the field irrigated in this way, it being the aim of the irri- gator to supply just enough water to accomplish the wetting of the sur- face soil. tº The furrows used for the distribution of water to accomplish the irri- gation of grain land are, as soon as irrigation has been accomplished, plowed in, so that they may not interfere with subsequent farming Operations. FURROW IRRIGATION OF ORCHARDS, VINEYARDS, ETC., WITH DRAINAGE, [See Figs. 1 and 2, Plate No. 8, and Fig. 2, Plate No. 9...] Whenever any plants set out in rows are to be irrigated the natural method of applying water to the soil is that of conducting it in furrows between the rows. In this method of irrigation, when rows are far apart, it may sometimes be advisable to draw a furrow for Water upon each side of every row of trees or vines. Ordinarily, however, one fur- row between each two rows of trees or vines is preferred. - Furrows are generally made by plowing between rows away from the center, thus raising the ground near the rows, lowering it midway be- tween them. The work of plowing is finished by making the last fur- row a double furrow. Sometimes ditch machines, prepared especially for the purpose, as, for instance, a long log with a wedge-shaped head, are drawn through the plow furrows to finally prepare them for water. This method of irrigation can best be explained by reference to Plate No. 8, Fig. 1. The ditches supplying water are there represented by double lines or by single heavy lines. From these water is admitted into the furrows between the rows of vines, trees, hops, or cotton, as the case may be. Care is taken to admit it at the same time to a suffi- cient number of furrows to reduce its flow in each, so that no washing of the soil will result. At the lower end of each furrow the water col- lects in a small drain ditch, which carries it off for further use. It is allowed to flow through each furrow long enough to permit a sufficient percolation intº the loose soil along its course. The application of water should always commence at the highest point of the field to be irrigated. Furrows are not generally more than 300 feet long, unless the ground's surface be unusually smooth and the soil quite impervious. FURROW IRRIGATION OF orchanº, VINEYARDS, ETC., WITHOUT DRAIN- A.G.E. [See Fig. No. 3, Plate No. 8.] It frequently happens that the soil to be irrigated absorbs moisture So fast that there is little or no danger of supplying water to any par- ticular spot in the field to be irrigated in so great quantity as to do injury to the plants there growing. It has therefore become a common practice to irrigate with furrows from the highest points of a field Plato 8. Aºrrow Irrigazzozz of Vºneyara's ana. Orchara's . Aº. 1 WFAA -\ sº Zºº. 2. Sacérozz AB. $ * - .* - wº 'ºrº ºs. tº ºr “ - - tºº º ºn tº N. & na Serº º - º *Nº ºn , Mw ZNS - ºyº AN ºzº Nºzº WºRº - * : * ~ * * * * * ---.S.--> * *s-s: % sº , ºr "S sº S ºwºwº Sºsº wº s g ExºS & S. &S º Sº SºSAS §: º KS: - * . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . ... “ &S sº * * * * S < \rs’N'NZSZR; NZS: - - • * - - - swº's sºw'ss * - - - - Cºº Nºv. Nº ºw. ºğ%&Nº. &S.S. NZSºNºw sº wº * .* * * Jº º .*. º º's - , * * Ałº 3. Wrºhouf Zzazzzage. \ Q Q. Q Q. gºssssſsºs- * - • ... • af ** \ º º Kº - S/Sº, * * º Sº #. • . ºw NZºr * %S ,- - • . wV -- * W N • - ** SS & • • * & SS .* Farror In/ef Złżóe. W *N & A t A wº - W - ** w. ," * ** . * * V -T—ſº ‘’’. , 3 W. “, , ** . \lº, W. ** - W NVºw"), ... - - -\ —sº. "...º * - M Šás. ... W W V — —/º —lºv \\ W ," ,, . W W º *= I *:Zºº %%: "...wº -->sº |||| \ N N « * * JN sº * * * N | º | 2 : “ . . . , sº \ Šssºr • * * ** &W W NS * w *\ - S Ex.4/.. 52 1 * As — e Plate 11. Irrigadron of Vegetab/es, APerries, or oëher Croos' cose/yr.sefira rows". Arg z Zarz. Q Sº Kº º sº gº & © Q * * * ºr {} Ø $3 €2 º' # & tº c3 * © Q & 3 <º ºb tº gº © “b & 39 43 9 @ 9 º' © 3 Łº * {3} º < i º 'º & © 2 & © ‘e © Jº Kº $3 & Q Q, * &- & 3 º' Gº Q, º A-Tº-Hää== 25 º 3? & © Q & © & Ö (º © Q & 2^ ~ ; -º & © & © 3 & © 9 Ç; {º} @ § 29 Gº Gº & tº Q gº ſº; gº º & Jº Q tº ºr ºf ºb º * tº Øy Aſſ 2. A.Şecerozz AAE’. a.º.º.º. §§ 3; sº gº ſ *** ********* **akaº ::::::::::::::::::::... ººz ==5.3%. E.E. ºr -ºº.º. } \, . ; : Y. º-º-º: #º. is: 2& Zºº. 9.S. A: - -zº , “ . ºğSXS/SxSºNAS/KS/Sº Sººyººyº Szºsº *Sºsºsºsºs.sysºsºsºsºsºsºsºsºszºwszsºs sºs sºsºsºsºsº * - sº - * & .’ * - th - * .* - • * • * * . * Aïč,3. 25ectrozz CZ2/en/argea'). Rºuautiºn ºn ºn tº ºut nº lººs ººl gº . . . . ºº Esº-ºº-º-º-º- ºr E. : EEE sº-c = ± == E. : E → ~ : . *:::::-ºº: * ~ *-a-->zrº- - 3-- --~~ *~~~~ :-r: ºr *: ** ... *. ſºil. †iº wº =ºllºwiſſRil \ ºmiſiúñāº ; : . ãºmºrrºwmºś *Timmy º *-nºrmºšillſº Illilºſºl º ºf *- - -: -s2-l----*-*.ſ S.Ex.34Z.....52 1 - FURROWS IN GARDEN AND HILLSIDE IRRIGATION. 317 toward the lowest, without making provision for drainage. Ditches and furrows are arranged as indicated in Fig. 3, and great care is taken to admit no more water into each furrow than will just wet it from end to end. FURROW IRRIGATION IN LEVELED CHECKS. [See Fig. 1, Plate No. 9..] When a few years ago it was feared that the ravages of the phylloxera, might be extended into the vineyards of Fresno County it was deemed advisable by some vineyardists to set out all vines in checks which could be completely submerged. Fortunately such submersion to com- bat the phylloxera has never become necessary. But the preparation of the ground which had been made led to a new method of applying water to the land. From a supply ditch, water is admitted into a small ditch upon one side of each check, and from this small ditch it enters deep horizontal furrows, which have been drawn between each two rows of vines. As soon as water has filled all the furrows, irrigation is com- plete and the head of the check ditch is closed. FURROW IRRIGATION OF VEGETABLES. [See Plate No. 11.] When irrigation must be more frequently repeated than in the case of orchards, vineyards, etc., as in the case of vegetables, the surface of the ground is more thoroughly prepared for the reception of water; the handling of the water is simplified. lt is customary to set out most vegetables, strawberries, etc., in rows that are close together. Each row is on a ridge of ground from a few inches to a foot in height. Each row is short, varying from 5 to 20 yards. Water is supplied to a tract of vegetables in a ditch located on the highest ground. Thence at right angles to the direction of the rows of vegetables branch ditches lead through the tract past the end of the rows. Each row of vegetables and the depression between it and the next row are horizontal. Water is ad- mitted from the small irrigating ditch to the furrow or depression be. tween the rows to the right and left, being checked at convenient points in the irrigating ditch until all furrows above these points have been filled with water. Surplus water standing in the furrows when gates and dams have been removed will, to some extent, find its way back into the irrigating ditch; the rest finds its way into the soil. The arrange- "ment of ditches and levees necessary to accomplish this irrigation is made fully apparent in Figs. 1, 2, 3, and 4 of Plate No. 11. FURROW SYSTEM OF HILLSIDE IRRIGATION. [See Plate No. 10.] Without attempting an elaborate discussion of the best methods of irrigating hillside lands, it is desired to call attention here to a method employed by an intelligent irrigator on a moderately steep hillside set out to fruit trees a few miles above Porterville, in Tulare County. The soil was of the nature of dry bog, very dark in color, sticky when wet, cracking and crumbling when dry. The supply ditch followed a grade line around the hillside above the orchard. At selected points it was tapped by smaller ditches, which 318 : IRRIGATION. carried the water along the hillside, below the main ditch, on a some- what greater grade. Into the lower banks of these irrigating ditches tin tubes were imbedded, fitted into headboards resting against the inner side of the ditch bank, as shown in Figs. 2, 3, and 4 of Plate No. 10. These tubes were in use to obviate the necessity of cutting the ditch banks and to prevent the washing out of cuts, in these banks, which would result if the tubes were not in use. They are only tem- porary features in the bank, being removed as soon as they are no longer required at any particular point. These tubes can be made of any thin material, like galvanized iron or tin, which can easily be bent into the desired form. . The great ad- vantage of using some contrivance similar to these tubes is the ease with which the amount of water taken from the ditch at any point can thereby be regulated. The water delivered through each tube was subdivided into three or four furrows, drawn as indicated in Fig. 1, between each two rows of trees, through a well-plowed and well-pulverized soil. One attendant, without any hard labor, could keep small streams trickling down thirty furrows at one time. After irrigation the entire surface layer of the soil of the orchard was wet, and much water had penetrated into the substrata of soil. IRRIGATION FROM SUB-SURFACE CONDUITS. [.'ee Plates Nos. 12 and 13.T This method of applying water to land has not been as satisfactory as it was hoped by its friends that it would be, but having been intro- duced in some localities on a large scale it can not here be passed with- Out a notice. The intent of this method of irrigation is to supply a moderate quan- tity of water directly to those parts of the soil where moisture is needed without wetting the surface of the ground. Thereby it was hoped to economize water, to greatly simplify its distribution and con- trol, to cheapen irrigation, and to avoid the baking of soil and the ne- cessity of breaking up its surface after each application of water. The system of sub irrigation which has generally found favor is illus- trated on Plates Nos. 12 and 13. It is essentially a pipe system. Water is distributed to all parts of the land to be irrigated in cement pipes, from which it escapes through perforated plugs of wood. It is admit. ted into pipes under a low pressure, sufficient to insure the escape of some water even in the highest parts of the land to be irrigated. The system is applicable only to smooth surfaced tracts having but a slight slope. * - - The final distributing pipes are constructed by means of a peculiar machine. They are made in place and are continuous. The diameter of their bore is 2 inches. At intervals ēorresponding to the distance between trees or Vines they are perforated from above and a wooden plug with a hole lengthwise through it is inserted in the perforation. This plug is protected by means of a hollow cap or earth guard resting loosely upon the pipe over it. (See Figs. 9 and 10, Plate No. 13.) The pipe is placed 20 inches or more below the surface of the ground so as not to interfere with plowing, cultivating, etc. Water is conducted to the 2-inch pipes, which may be laid between each two rows, if rows be far apart, as in the case of trees, or between alternate rows, if they be close together, as in the case of vines, by means of a system of 6-inch * • A tº Plate 12. o 45&b-Irrigation. . . Zºg I. Genera/Pan for Vineyara'ana Orchara! Ž ** F. -- " * Aº 2. Aºan ofBlock E - Mºneyara. ...A { º º 4. & t 4. (. AE 3. Pan of Block"F" – Orchara!. —- A **— Ž *º- 2. Q 2 & 2 3 & 2 9 2 , '2 3 & 2 2 3 2 9, 2 2 2 || 2. 2 gº a 22 a 2 3T3- 2, a 2 & 2 × 2. 2 º' a 2. 3 : 3-223%. 2 3 ºf * 2: 2 2- 2 & 2 a. º. 9 * 3 & 2 × 3 × 3 & 2 als * > 3 > 3 > 3 > 3 > > * > & 2 × 2 × 2 als —º- s .# ST3 … º.º.º. Tº a jº e;--> **** S Ex.4%..... 62 1 Plate 13. A5%/b-Irrigadroyz 2ečarſs'. - Aya/rant at C. Ayaſranā az Zarza’A). Fig.2 Pan Aº 4 Section A L. Aºſé Plazz. 25ectrons of Żaréh-Gwarz (enlargeay Aºg 9 Sectroz, O.P. Ajº MO Sectron QR. *a* * *-a-º-º-º-º- ---4- S Ex4/. ...52 1 © 2. — ” Tate 14, Pump Irrigation. James Rutter, A/orrn, 25acramerico Co. Pºg I. Sectrora AA. //. f/ *.*.*-a Czay N - *†S ºcłº-N §6% º \!--) - N º ...' !) - N. . . / SN 2.2% Rºž ſ N S Ex. £/ .52 i PUMPs, PIPES, AND SUB-surFACE CONDUITs. 319 and 4-inch pipes, which in turn receive water from a main supply pipe, generally about 8 inches in diameter. The illustrations given on the two plates already referred to show a possible arrangement of the pipes, etc., for the irrigation of vineyard and orchard land. In Fig. 1, Plate No. 12, an 8-inch supply pipe follows the line AA BB. From it branch off in the direction ACD 8-inch pipes, which convey all the water in turn to the several tracts to be irrigated. From the branch pipe lines ACD, at the points C, 6-inch pipe lines carry off the water and distribute it to a number of 4-inch pipes, and these in turn to the final 2-inch pipes. At all points where 8-inch and 6-inch pipes branch, So-called hydrants are introduced as shown in Figs. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, by means of which the water may be shut off from one line or the other of pipe. The hydrant represented in Figs. 5 and 6 illustrates the means of checking the flow of water in a pipe main. In the drawing the pipe is represented as open. It can be closed by inserting a disk and resting the same on the projecting rim around the hydrant below the mouth of the inlet pipe and above the head of the outlet pipe. The hydrant shown in Figs. 1 to 4 will enable the closing of the 6-inch pipe system from the 8-inch line, but it does not enable a closing of the 8-inch line and a forcing of all water into the 6-inch pipes. When water is to be supplied to any part of a vineyard or orchard, as, for instance, to the six blocks commanded by the two 6-inch pipes which leave the 8-inch pipe line at C, then it is first necessary to close the hydrants at B and D. All water arriving at A must flow into the pipe toward C, and thence into the 6-inch pipes, 4-inch, and 2-inch pipes utitil they are all full. It will escape from the plugs into the ground and must be supplied fast enough to stand in the hydrants everywhere above the highest parts of the 2-inch pipe system, so that there may be no doubt that water is escaping from every plug in the tract covered by the 2-inch pipe system. As soon as irrigation from this system of pipes is complete the 6-inch pipes in the hydrant C are closed off and an- other set of pipes is brought into use. Under favorable conditions it will cost about $50 per acre to prepare ground for irrigation by this method. The roots of trees and plants will, notwithstanding every precaution to prevent it, find their way into the lines of pipes at exposed points and may seriously interfere with a successful irrigation. Until irrigators are required to be very much more economical in the use of water for irrigation than at present, the matter of expense alone will interfere with any extended use of this system of irrigation. EXAMPLES OF PUMP IRRIGATION. On Plates 14 and 15 are shown a few examples of irrigation with water secured by pumping. The most interesting of the several ex- amples is that showing the arrangement of a reservoir chamber and eleven wells which supply water to it, as carried out by Mr. James LRutter, at Florin, Sacramento County. From a large pit 25 feet square and 18 feet in depth, he drove three short tunnels into the hardpan, which was sufficiently firm to stand without lining. When the reservoir space had thus been made sufficiently large (about 5,000 cubic feet) eleven wells were bored to depths of about 80 feet. The central well has a 10-inch bore; the others are 4-inch wells. These wells supply water to the reservoir chamber, in which it rises to within 10 feet of the ground's surface. It is drawn from this chamber by means of a cen- 320 - IRRIGATION. . trifugal pump, which when run at full speed lowers the water table 8 feet in about five hours. About 80 acres are irrigated with water thus pumped on the Rutter place. L. A. Oppenheim, Dr. W. A. Hughson, and others, near Florin, secure water for irrigation in the same way as Mr. Rutter, though generally the reservoir pit is circular in form, and one boring is relied upon to supply water to it. (See Fig. I, Plate No. 15.) W. B. Blowers, near Woodland, Yolo County, draws water from a large circular well or cistern 18 feet in diameter, lined with brick, which was sunk into a layer of gravel. Water is elevated by means of a cen- trifugal pump. (See Plate 15.) - ARTESIAN WATERS OF SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY. In the foregoing pages reference has several times been made to the artesian wells in San Joaquin Valley. The results of my examination of nearly 300 of these wells, which was made for the State engineer department, have been presented in tabulated form in the book pub- lished by that department, entitled “Physical Data, etc.”* The source of supply for the wells of this valley is at the base of the Sierra Nevada, where waters sink from the rivers into layers of sand, which lie between layers of clay. This source of supply and the strati- fication of the valley as revealed by borings near Tulare Lake is shown on Plate 16. A typical boring is shown on Plate 17, Fig. III, which shows the stratification as reported by the well-borer. In Figs. I and II on the same plate the arrangement of the reservoir or pond which is connected with the same well is shown. - The casing ordinarily used for artesian wells is of the double sheet iron type (Fig. IV), rarely of the screw joint pattern. (Fig. W.) Loss of water from ordinary casing is illustrated in Figs. VII and VIII, of Plate 17. The former represents the arrangement of a tank receiv- ing water from a well on FCern Island. When it was found that much water was lost a box was sunk into the ground, and the leakage from three joints was found to be as much as the flow into the main tank. This leakage was brought to the surface by the box contrivance shown in the illustration. * Fig. VIII illustrates the arrangement at the artesian well which sup- plies water to Hills Ferry, Merced County. Leakage above the hard- pan is sufficient to Saturate the heavy clay soil, and to keep a small pond full of water. Fig. IX illustrates the arrangement of the Cutler Salmon well about 8 miles southeast of Stockton. The inner casing (4 inches) supplies a large volume of gas, which rises with water that is strongly alkaline from a depth of 1,250 feet. The Outer casing supplies potable water from a depth of 844 feet. The gas is used in the kitchen and through- out the dwelling for heating and lighting purposes. The potable water is conveyed to various points about the Salmon place in pipes. The saline water commingled with the other has a temperature of about 800, and is used in public baths. WATER MEASUREMENTS. The necessity of delivering water to irrigators by measurement is beginning to be recognized. A unit of measuremnet is essential, and it will not be long before the “cubic foot per second,” which is a defi. *See Physical Data: Wm. Ham Hall, State Engineer, pp. 480–527. ºf . ºf Plate 15. Pºzzo Mºrºzzion. ºś3 §§§ {../ */s)//s/s/SS/S y/SºzºW %N 'S % //, > / º vº. - ..., */, * , * * - .” “ . & ..' /, , N 4, , J- - W. ‘’A * , . 4 º * * * . . . , ~ *e, * %. - .* ;” Harapart ' *.. *.* - ''. *. * , w * * 5. & % $2. sº & ;/º § & Ż % s ww.” ..,\\ W.’, - - w s & ...* *.. • * * * ...- , * .* e.” -*.* -------------- w = - ~~~~6 "------- - * * * * . w • . º. • gº ::, .4/. . . . 52 $ : & º tº & sº Plate 16. Strafff:caſion of $37,7027azz Vá//ey Aº Section from WE to .5'W, ºf Z. £hrough Ziºlare. <- ~ — — — —-- - - - - f — — 27 zerºes' * \s } ^* Se $ * * : i s§ º! º | sº sº % º º zº” º & …ſ. º A º % % % wº 2% ºfºº ºff. º, º º ſºº º :% º % *. º º Z }* /1// A sº ſ % % º Jéczroz Arom SAE ſo ZWW 3% of Ząſare Zake. º º º | t Aº P. Zººſ Carºaction aſ San Joaquin Väſley Aº 3. &hrough ſºlare Zake, 3%gnºrag 25&rg/rſrcººroºz. * -ºº - - -º- ºr mºº m-: **** — $– — — $4 52milar - $ cº- § §§ is §§ ºxwººl p : : tº . º. 6 ° 2. Aſ º > * * * *†: ..."; . . . % º: ºs º • * * * ****.*.*.*.*.*.*.* £%; ºr. Bº - . . . . . . .”/Zºrºž * -º & *see Zavºde of Mºrrºr &am S Ex. £...... 52 1 --k MEASUREMENT OF WATER BY INCH, METER, AND WEIR. 321 nite quantity, will have superseded the “miner's inch” (which is no unit and defines a method rather than a measure) throughout California. There have been but few satisfactory measuring boxes constructed in California, and in most cases at the present time Water, when measured at all, flows through orifices under pressure. This method of measure- ment is always unsatisfactory, and ought whenever possible to be ex- changed for weir measurement. I have endeavored to plan a measur- ing box which is adapted for use under conditions of water delivery as they generally prevail on the larger irrigation works in California, and have made a weir with clear overfall the basis of the Water measure- ment. The contrivance is illustrated on Plate No. 18, and is shown in connection with a “checkweir” or “drop,” as such structures are com- monly arranged in the central portions of this State. The main canal in the diagrams is supposed to have a width of 24 feet; it may be of any width. - Its flow is checked by means of the gates G. G., which are supposed to be constructed on the principle of loose flash boards, whose ends slide in vertical grooves along guide posts. By means of these gates, which might be arranged in any other manner, the water surface of the canal above the weir is made to rise to about 1 foot above the water surface, just below the checkweir. One foot fall from upper water to lower water in the main canal is not necessary, but is desirable and should never be less than one-half foot. Through the gate H enough water is admitted into the receiving box II to keep the samefull to the crest of the overfall edge J. J. This overfall edge may be made mova- ble by closing the spaces between the posts on the side of the receiving box by means of loose boards, of which the upper one in each case is provided with a sharp edge, preferawoly of thin wrought iron. From the receiving box water is admitted through a gate, K, sus. ceptible of close adjustment (submerged orifice) to the measuring box L L, whence it flows over the weir W into the branch ditch. At a convenient point in the measuring box a graduated Scale is securely fastened to the side of the box, on which the elevation of the water surface in the measuring box indicates at once the number of cubic feet per second which are passing over the Weir. The weir for use in this box may be constructed according to any approved pattern. It should have a sharp edge, and may have vertical sides or inclined sides to compensate for contraction. It can be made long or short, but should generally be about 2 feet shorter than the width of the box L. L. The length of the crest of the weir should be adapted to the water quantity ordinarily required to be passed over it. With this measuring box (or module) the requirements prescribed by Prof. L. G. Carpenter, of Colorado, and other eminent hydraulic experts can readily be fulfilled. - The quantity of water delivered by this measuring box in a given time is a definite quantity, and is measured with reasonable accuracy if proper attention has been paid to the conditions which should pre- vail and are prescribed by hydraulicians to secure correct weir measure- ment. The crest of the weir must be horizontal. Air must have free access under the sheet of falling water. Weir sides should be at least as far from the sides of the measuring box as the maximum depth of water intended to be delivered over the weir. Weir sides, when water Quantity is to be determined by length of weir without corrections for contraction, should be inclined one-fourth horizontal to one vertical. The crest of the weir and the sides must have sharp edges, which should be in the same vertical plane. S. Ex. 41 21 322 IRRIGATION. The channel of approach, that is, the water way between bottom and sides of the measuring box, should be ample to reduce the velocity of approach to less than one-half foot per Second, when the weir is taxed to its intended maximum capacity. The Water must have a free out- fall; that is, the water surface below the weir should be so much lower than the weir crest that its influence upon the shape of the surface of the overfalling sheet of water is not readily perceptible. The measurement of water passing over the weir is perfectly relia- ble when, in addition to the above requirements, the following conditions prevail: (1) When water flows over the weir crest with a depth of 0.25 to 2 feet. (2) When the depth of water on the weir is less than one-fourth the length of the weir. (3) When the height of the weir crest above the floor of the measur- ing box is at least twice the depth of water on the weir. When these three conditions do not prevail, that is to say, when a very small quantity of water is delivered over a large weir, or when a weir is taxed beyond the maximum flow for which it was intended, then results are only approximate. There are comparatively few cases where ample fall from main canal to the distributing canal is not available for the introduction of a meas- uring box, as above described, and in the main canals the necessary fall of one-half to 1 foot is always available, except occasionally in the case of main canals, which have been carefully constructed to grade lines. In these a backing up of water for one-half to 1 foot is always permissable, except when the canal is flowing at full capacity, and then water may be admitted direct from the main canal through the gate H into the measuring box. At such times water is plentiful, light fluctua- tions in the elevation of the water surface above the weir are least ob- jectionable, and the canal water surface has greater stability at that stage than at any other. In this measuring box an orifice under pressure may be substituted for the weir, but it will not be found satisfactory except where preju- dice, as the result of long-established custom, prevails in favor of a de- livery of water by “miner’s inches.” Plate 17. Artesian W6/8 in Jan Joaquín Vá//ey. - Aº. 1 Aº. F# 4 Aº. 5. Gowza! Panafºrarian// ^ºgº. //3// Oraºnary Screrºomſ ana' Keservory- *…*&^rr Casſzig. Casing. Ø º, º º º - Fºx.º. wº *.*.*.*** l fºotſ.” === sº £ºs::::::- * -e ~ * .‘’s*& es- S. x^3. :::::$. * * § º £º - 5.2 & 22% % # 42 º :::::::: Sºº Y SN - tº-: ...:* e * * * * * * %, à f Cz//ar,Ja/mons/2// near 2.5/ockforz . —All | | - ºf &riº º- I– wº º- -- % H. º ºw. º a ſº : * Tº | ** ====–---------- * : * ~ * º - º Pº - ºz. - - - & **. zº ºw. ...N- ºr * * * —º- d º º º º: º $ • * , S. ſ ſ º ſº * º º º % > º - rºlesºzºrºszºwsºz _Tº A º *\S-z SºS: & Nºzzsz Nºzzº. º, Sº ºf ſº, * s s" - . Nº *. * • **. Sz. W & N ** * wº | zº y sºsºs. *... º. y . .” - ** w - * - * te 18. M&2.5///772g Afox &yr C. Z. Gºrzansky. Aiº Z Seczzozz AB. 22:3&re/rezezzºz. A5&cºrozz CZ2 8 Ex.4/........5? I CULTIVATION OF THE SOIL BY MEANS OF IRRIGATION IN SOME OF THE SOUTHERN STATES. L 0 U IS I A N A. Considerable discussion has been had in various associations over the value and necessity of irrigating the important sugar cane and other crops. Rice, one of the staples of Louisiana, is of course cultivated by means of irrigation, and it is the example it always offers that induces other planters to turn to this source of security when the heated term so seriously affects the welfare of their valuable crops. The idea under- lying present debate is forcibly expressed by the Louisiana (New Or. leans) Planter of October 10, 1891, as follows: As we progress in our studies in the use of water for the forcing of plant life we shall doubtless find that we can aid or modify the influences of nature readily and effectively by irrigation. Our months of highest temperature, July and August, are of course those most conducive to active plant life, and the proper supply of water is an essen- tial of such life. As against the conclusion founded upon seemingly limited data, the year of 1889 stands out strongly. With an August rainfall in New Orleans of above the average, omitting the abnormal one of 1888, yet the crop was a short crop, and was caused by the self-evident drought that began early in that year and continued throughout the year. With a largely increased acreage the crop fell off some 20,000 tons, not- withstanding the record shows adequate rainfall, or an excess, in August and Sep- tember. We present these studies not claiming that any sound conclusions can be based thereon, but to create an interest in this line of inquliy, it seeming evident that our cane crop is now more dependent upon the supply of water for vegetation than upon that of temperature during the summer months, the necessary temperature being as- sured by the records, while the rainfall is the variable factor. To secure adequate moisture we shall probably have to call in the art of irrigation to supplement the deficiencies of nature. Papers of value were prepared and read before the Audubon Agri- cultural Associations of Louisiana, during the year 1891, which pre- sent in so intelligent a form the reasons for an interest there in irriga- tion, that it is deemed proper to insert some extracts from them in this place. At the Audubon Association meeting held in June, 1891, one of the essayists read a paper in which the following points occur: Nothing is better for pastures or for the hay crop than irrigation ; but for melons, squash, cucumbers, cabbages, and other vegetables, where irrigation or submerging during the growing season may be extremely dangerous, nay, fatal, I have used the sprinkling can with great advantage. Small wells are dug in the ditches, say every one-fourth of an acre, in order to have the water supply close at hand. One small boy can easily keep ahead of two live men whose duty it is to immediately cover the moist ground by pulling dirt to the planis; by this means I have watered from morn- ing to night with great benefit to the plants; but, on a large scale, I would advise a system of windmills supplied with sufficient cisterns or tanks properly elevated so that sprinkling carts could economically obtain the water; these carts could be so arranged that three or four rows could be sprinkled at one time, and if care be taken to cover up the moist dirt immediately by means of rotary hoes or other implements, watering can be continued with impunity during the hottest and driest parts of the day ; for if this is not done the moisture obtained at so great au expense is soon absorbed by 323 324 IRRIGATION. *3 the rays of the sun, and the ground becomes so hot that the tender roots of the plants become scalded. - Another plan that has been tried and given satisfaction is to fill small wells situa- ted in the ditches at regular distances (say the ditches themselves could be filled With water obtained by means of a syphon or water pipe), then a portable steam pump drawn by two mules can water or sprinkle one-half an acre on each side of the ditch, and if care be taken to immediately cover up this moist ditch, acres upon acres could be sprinkled by means of such an apparatus in a day. In my opinion sprinkling is preferable to irrigation proper, for it imitates in a certain manner the rain, for there is no doubt of the fact that when water is aérified it becomes charged with more elements of fertility, and is better not only for the vegetable but also for the animal creation. Another system that has many advocates is a system of irrigation and tile drains combined. - Such system of watering would prove of incalculable benefit to the truck farmer, for many vegetables are planted, grown, and are harvested in six to eight weeks' time; a drought of three or four weeks must necessarily diminish our production one- half, making our profits considerably small, and, as we farm for profit, it behooves us to lessen as much as possible the danger incidental to atmospheric changes. Mr. Gus. W. Soniat read a paper of considerable value;” he presented concisely the leading'facts in regard to the world-wide use of irrigation, and then states that— Irrigation is an indispensable adjunct to cultivation in a dry climate and a sandy soil, where the ground water is far from the surface, for water is essential to vegeta- tion ; deep-rooted plants find their supply in the low strata of the earth, but for su- perficial feeders, unless the rainfall be plentiful and come at needed times, the plants soon shrivel, die, and then decay for want of this necessary element, and no wonder, for the majority of plants need moisture, heat, soluble soils, air, and light. “Out of these five necessary elements, three,” says Mr. Soniat, “have a preponderance of water.” He continued, as follows: Whenever the ground water falls to 13 or 16 per cent the majority of plants will suffer, unless the hydrostatic conditions of the air be exceedingly favorable. * * * Water then must be supplied in some manner, shape, or form, and a proper relative between the five necessary elements above-mentioned must be maintained. * * * The necessity, then, of ground water must be apparent, and to supply it we must by artificial means when natural ones fail. According to Storer, the rainfall is not suffi- cient to supply the evaporation caused by the sum ; even here in Louisiana, with an an- nual rainfall of about 60 to 70 inches, how much of this water is utilized by the growing plants # I dare say a very small proportion, for we are in the greatest hurry to send it to the swamps as quickly as possible in our open ditches; and we call this drain- age 3 Yes, a drain is upon our superficial soil, and it is a wonder to-day that the vegetable portion is not completely washed away. The fact seems incredible, but I have seen dry land turned over by a two-mule plow immediately after a 3+, inch rainfall, thus showing conclusively the wanton waste of this fluid. Tile drains have partially remedied this evil, and have done wonders in augmentiug thereby the vegetable power of Louisiana clay soils, render- ing them nearly as porous and consequently as great retainers of humidity as our sandy loams. But how greatly could we increase this were we to utilize this vast amount of moisture and give it to the plants at different times; an acre of our land would be worth fully twice as much as an acre of northern lands; for if we multiply our average temperature by our annual rainfall (this is an old French rule), and make a comparison with theirs we find that we more than double their vegetative power, Our annual rainfall is about 60 or 70 inches, and our average temperature about 709 F., whilst in many States the rainfall varies from 40 to 50 inches and their average temperature 40° to 60°. F.; yet, strange to say, some Northern and Western farmers are able to compete with us in certain vegetable productions. And why? Simply because either by artificial or natural means a better relation between heat and humidity is maintained during the growing season of the plants. * * * We irrigate and irrigate with a vengeance, not only our rice fields but often the cane fields of our neighbors, to their detriment and annoyance. But few cane farmers are aware of the fact that a rice planter is often a great benefit to the neighboring crop . of cane for the following reasons: (1) By filtration through the Soil the necessary ground water is supplied to the CàIle:S, * On the Possibilities of Irrigation in Louisiana, Audubon Association, ...” WHY IRRIGATION IS DEMANDED IN SUGAR-GROWING. 325 T (2) The rainfall in any locality is greatly augmented by the rice planter, for “water will draw water,” as the old saying goes, for the simple reason that hot vapors passing over a water surface, meeting relatively cool vapors constantly aris- ing from the said surface, become condensed and fall in the form of rain, not only for the benefit of the rice field, but also for that of the whole neighborhood. The con- trary is the reason why there is no rainfall in the desert, for the dry heat constantly arising repels and keeps in a vaporous state the moisture that may be floating in the atmosphere. Irrigation, then, when properly understood, is a source of health and wealth, but when improperly used breeds pestilence and death, misery and all its concomitant evils; witness the evils occasioned yearly by badly-constructed pipes or flumes, etc. Our rice planters owe their wealth and success to the proper use of irrigation, for by this means the expenses have been considerably lessened and the yield greatly aug- mented over the dry culture, but constant care and attention are required for success; if, perchance, they irrigate at inopportune times and are unable to quickly drain their rice fields the stand of rice is endangered; or if they maintain too great a supply of water when the plant is young it can not tiller and becomes too slender to resist the storms of summer. Drainage and irrigation, then, must follow one another to insure success in all crops; in fact, the oftener we water and drain young plants the better our crops will be, for if we observe the root development of plants we will find that the roots are often double the length of stalks when the plants are young, but after- wards the stalks become twice the height of the roots. It stands, then, to reason that one watering or irrigation in time may be worth to the roots (hence to the plants) two or three later on. This is the reason why we must thoroughly prepare our soils before the planting of any crop and work the same in its early infancy in order that the young and tender roots may not be obstructed or impaired in the least, for if they are checked in the beginning of their career the plants become stunted and refuse to grow or develop as the farmer desires. Why, then, are the farmers in this section so backward in utilizing this great river that holds in solution yearly more tons for of fertilizers than the boasted guano beds of South America? Why, then, have the progressive cane planters not imitated the cane farmers of India, who irrigate regularly their canes? Because success has not placed her stamp upon the ventures of those who have had the audacity to try this on our soils. May I be bold enough to point out the causes of their failure ? Perhaps then a remedy may be found. (1) Irrigation has been tried in the spring, when the river water is from 15 to 20 degrees colder than the soil, thereby injuring by such a sudden transition the tender cane roots. (2) Because it has been tried in the summer in the heat of the day instead of night, thus scalding the roots. (3) Because it has been tried to flood from the ditches by forcing the water to rise on the land, thereby expelling the air contained in the soil, stopping the drainage conduits and packing or puddling our clay lands. (4) Because a drought in lower Louisiana rarely exceeds four or six weeks, or barely one-eighth of the growing time of cane, which is not enough to materially injure the growth if properly worked and highly fertilized; but when a drought lasts as it has lasted this year our cane crop can easily be reduced one-third or one-fourth. The only way of successfully irrigating cane or corn is to allow a certain an ount of water to course down the water furrows late in the evening or during the night; for if we flood the entire plat of cane or corn, the sudden transition from excessive dryness to excessive moisture will certainly injure the roots that are then deep in the soil, and compel the plants to form new roots near the surface, and lose thereby valuable time to the detriment of its growth. When we flood the entire land the effect is as bad or worse than when a flooding rain comes. * * * The greatest drawback in cane culture is not generally the want of rain during the growing season, but to its ab- sence during the months of October and November—the time of preserving our seed- cane. We are then in such a hurry to prepare for the grinding season; we are in so great a dread of Jack Frost that from the fear of Scylla we fall into Charybdis; from the fear of losing a few top eyes we run a greater risk of losing all by dry rot; but some planters now prefer to wait for a light frost before windrowing, claiming that the canes are hardy, and are therefore better able to withstand the winter. But the reasons, I think, that can be given to the better preservation of such seed canes are: First. The later we put our seed cane in windrows the less time it has to spoil; hence the better it keeps. Second. Generally, after a few light frosts, we have a rain, for the reason that the vapors constantly arising from the Gulf of Mexico, meeting the cold currents of air that has given us these frosts, become condensed and thereby produce rain or enough moisture to preserve our seed cane. But generally we windrow ill a drought and trust to luck; nine times out of ten luck is against us, when a little pluck or energy would save us; we are, as Tantalus, surrounded by water and we perish with thirst. We are encircled by plenty, and we die of want. What a shame for Iman's intelli- 326 IRRIGATION. - - , Aº - - . . . . . º. ---. - - - - - ~ -- gence, and what a shame must I have to acknowledge that I have suffered from the same cause when the remedy is so simple—irrigation. Two days' pnmping with a good pump could easily moisten 100 acres of windrow or fall plant, at a nominal cost per acre, and forever banish this evil. We may suffer from wet rot, if not properly- drained, but from dry rot, never. Irrigation has been used with the greatest advantage in the planting of corn, peas, sweet potatoes, cabbage, etc. In a drought the rule to be followed is : First, irrigate thoroughly ; then drain. As soon as the ground has been dried suf- ficiently, planting can be done with dispatch, and failure is impossible. To prevent rust in oats I know nothing superior to irrrigation during a dry spell. At a meeting of the same association June 20, 1891, Mr. J. Y. Gil- more read a paper in which occurs the following Suggestions: In Louisiana, the possibilities of irrigation are great; no doubt far beyond the com- prehension of the most sanguine of us. While we have an annual rainfall of more than double the average throughout the United States, yet we are subject to the most severe drought, especially in spring time, when crops most need moisture. Hence in the near future irrigation will become common here. Along our water courses in al- luvial Louisiana the lands are comparatively level, with a gradual slope from the streams. Hence, with a vast and inexhaustible water supply to draw from, and but little labor requisite to conduct it wherever we choose, in a short time every crop will be thus aided, for science has shown us that it is by liquid absorption that all plants take nourishment. It is no exaggeration to say that when our planters have perfect control (as they may) of both drainage and irrigation, the productiveness of our soil will be doubled. Thus a greater diversity of crops will be the result, for it has been proven that when conditions of the soil can be controlled vegetable culture is more profitable in Louisiana than any where else, because of climatic advantages. Orange culture will be wonderfully stimulated by proper irrigation, for the losses from drought on newly planted groves are far greater than from cold. Then, too, there is no doubt that when severe colds are expected a proper water treatment will save many trees, which otherwise would be severely hurt by ice. Drainage and irrigation are twin sisters, and without a perfect system of drainage irrigation is not practicable. Hence, subirrigation promises to become the popular method, for when the ground is properly tiled it gives perfect drainage, and when necessary (not so frequently, however, as on untiled ground), the water can be forced through the pipes, whose outlets being stopped will cause the water to rise to any height desirable, as was done recently so successfully by Dr. Stubbs at this station. Thus cultivation can be continuous, which would not be the case with surface irri- gation. However, in subirrigation great care will have to be taken not to allow the water to stand too long in the soil, which would exclude the air as well as tend to fill the tile with sediment, but it should be drawn immediately after reaching the height desired, when the air will follow the receding water and leave the land in a highly porous condition, and at the same time avoid the baking of the surface, as when irri- gated from above. However, Mr. James D. Houston, on his Ben Hur plantation, in the parish of East Baton Rouge, has this season irrigated his cane most successively by the open ditch system. - When we consider that nature has given us such a bounteous store of water to be had simply by asking, it is a shame that any crop in our alluvial scils should suffer from droughts. Those who urge the objection that our waters are too cold are either unaware or unmindful that in Colorado, New Mexico, and elsewhere in the West? where all crops are made by irrigation, the waters are most of icy coldness, being from the melting snows of the mountains, and so cold that no fish except the moun- tain trout can live therein. Then, too, when it is remembered that these expensive canals are constructed to carry water along ditches, it should make us more highly appreciative of nature's kindness here and determine us at an early day to bring our land to the highest state of culture by a proper system of irrigation and drainage. Dr. W. C. Stubbs, of Audubon Park and New Orleans, read before the Sugar Planters' Association of Louisiana a valuable paper on the need of water management and distribution for the security of the sugar-cane crop, which deserves to be reproduced in full.” Those por- tions only which bear directly on the cultivation of Louisiana staples by means of irrigation are, however, presented. Dr. Stubbs opens his important paper by asking : Shall we irrigate in South Louisiana, a country almost submerged beneath water and which is known to have a very heavy rainfall ? * “Sugar Cane Irrigation,” Louisiana Planter and Sugar Manufacturer, New Or- leans, October 17, 1891, $ RAINFALL IN LOUISIANA AND ITs IRREGULARITY. 327 He continued interrogatively at some length and then said: The sugar planter " ' " is particularly interested in every obstacle to maxi- mum production. ' ' ' He has realized that a full crop is rarely obtained oftener than once in twenty years, and that of the failures fully 80 per cent are assignable directly to drought. The questions thus asked, Dr. Stubbs answers himself in the state- ment that “irrigation eliminates the great element of chance from our farming operations, and good drainage makes the planter nearly inde- pendent of the freaks and idiosyncrasies of the weather, is the concur- rent Verdict of those who practice this art.” The doctor proceeded to give a succinct account of irrigation as practiced in other times as Well as in our own generation, and then continues: The short history given will show, first, that irrigation is not new and untried; second, that its beneficial results are so apparent to those who have practiced it that im- mense sums have been invested in permanent works; and, third, that irrigated dis- tricts yield the largest productions with the greatest profits. Just here permit a di- gression. . The time was when the country east of the Mississippi, with its large an- Inual rainfall, heavily wooded forests, and rich sugar soils, reveled in the conceit that it alone was the agricultural portion of the United States, and that their products would always be in demand in the less favored claims of the extreme west, where only mining and stock-raising were possible. But our forests have been felled, our rainfall decreased, and painfully irregular in its distributions. Our soils have been denuded of their virgin mold, and are no longer capable of enduring protracted droughts, consequently our crops are growing shorter, and agriculture is no longer the pleasant and profitable profession as of yore. While this gradual decline of yield has been going on in the East, a wonderful development of agriculture is occurring in the West. Science and experience have taught that deserts with favorable cli- matic condition may become highly productive and valuable by the application of water through artificial means. ' ' ' What will be the result of this immense agricultural development, with certain crops yearly? I was informed this summer by a prominent United States engineer, familiar with the country, that there were yet 125,000,000 acres in this country susceptible of being irrigated, and that each 25 acres irrigated were more productive of profit than 125 acres in the East, with the uncertain seasons. He further stated that every 25 acres would then support five souls. With these facts before us, it requires no prophet's vision to see the future wealth and grandeur of this now arid region. # * And now let us discuss the subject from a home standpoint. It has been found that our maximum crops of sugar cane are produced in those years when the rainfall was well distributed throughout the season. From accurately kept meteorological records we learn that maximum crops of sugar cane are made in Louisiana after a mild and dry winter, succeeded by a spring with moderate rains, well distributed, in turn supplanted by abundant showers at close intervals during June, July, and August, winding up with decreasing rainfall in September, with the remainder of the fall clear and dry. Last year's, the largest crop on record since the war, was made with the fol- lowing rainfall: January, 1 inch ; February, 3.10 inches; March, 1.98 inclies; April, 3.27; May, 10.71; June, 4.15; July, 7.30; August, 75; September, 4.56; October, 4.41; November, 0.87, December, 3.55, or a total of 52.65 inches, an amount nearly 8 inches below the average of five years, but well distributed for a cane crop, as will appear by aggregating into seasons as follows: Spring months, 15.96 inches; summer, 19.20; fall, 9.87; winter of this year, 7.65; winter, preceding crop, 4.53. The average for five years of the records kept at the station is nearly 59.09 inches, distributed as follows: spring, 16.58; summer, 19.06; fall, 8, 19; winter, 12.46. The winter and spring rain- falls of last year were below the average, while the summer and fall were normal in quantity, but better distributed. Dry winters and moderately dry springs are con- ducive to subsequent large crops for two reasons: 1. The soil is put in excellent con- dition both as to preparation, planting, and early cultivation, and the motto a crop well planted is half made is an assertion based upon such experience and should be well remembered. 2. The above conditions, with a dry winter in this climate, are favorable to both physical and chemical amelioration of the soil. The former is ap- parent in its pulverization, permitting a subsequent good cultivation, and the second in the increased nitrification which takes place rapidly in dry soils during our win- ters. Favorable winter and spring conditions, with hot weather extending through the summer, are then needed for maximum crops. The first condition in the growth of cane is drainage; that secured, the next is water, water at regular intervals, so that a maximum growth of cane may continue without interruption up to grinding. Unfortunately but few cane countries are vouchsafed these conditions by nature, and hence maximum crops of cane are rarely Ar" 14. 328 IRRIGATION: . made. In upper India irrigation is necessary and universally practiced. On the Rio Grande, in Texas, are sugar estates which depend almost entirely on irrigation for their supply of water. In the East Indies, Straits Settlements, and Java, so far as I am informed, the cane is grown only by moisture supplied by rain. In Singa- pore fine seasonable showers usually occur every fourth or fifth day, and splendid crops as a rule are raised, yet even in this favorable spot spells of dry weather do occur with great damage to the crop. Malacca, like Louisiana, has her periods of frequent showers and extensive droughts. In the West Indies long periods of dry weather are frequently reported with great injury to the crop. And yet few sugar planters any- where appear to recognize irrigation as the great safeguard. I may be permitted here to utter a belief that in the coming future every sugar plantation, wherever situated, will be provided with irrigation appliances and used whenever the crop is in need of water. This water can be supplied from rivers, from artesian wells, or caught and in closed in immense reservoirs from winter ra’ns, etc. Demonstrate the money value of irrigation and I believe human ingenuity can devise the means of supplying the water. Water is needed for the solution of the chemical ingredients in the soil, for the translocation of these substances from cell to cell in the plants, for the circulation of sap, etc. In fact irrigation is largely a chemical question, since water is the most essential ingredient entering into the growth and com- position of the plants. Suppress it in part and the plant wilts and growth ceases wholly and the plant dies. With an abundance of water heavy manuring may be practiced with success, while in times of drought the Smallest applications are with- out visible effect. Rainy years upon light soils always bring forth tolerable crops; hence the inference that irrigation on poor soils would always insure fair yields. Water is the vehicle for carrying food from the soil to the plant and produces the cir- culation of substances within the plant and causes the chemical processes and reac- tions which occur therein. It is also the very life of the plant. With abundant moisture, plants can use over and Over again a given store of ash ingredients, and thus permit of an economy in these costly substances. The amount of water needed by plants is enormous; 75 per cent of our cane crop is water and 25 solids. This amount is nearly constant, and shows it must be essential for the physiological processes which occur within the plant. The contents of the cell must be kept moist. The protoplasm of each active cell must retain its glutinous semiliquid conditions in order that its functions may be properly performed. Decrease the moisture and you increase the consistency of the protoplasm, and with it, vital activity of the plant. A plant must be properly charged with moisture in order to grow freely. If not so charged, the first evidence given to us is by its wilting. By the osmotic pumping action of the roots, water is taken into the plants from the soils and rapidly evapo- rated through the stomata of the leaves. This evaporation is sometimes so great that a few hours of hot, dry weather would completely desiccate the plant, were not a continuous supply furnished by the soil. When the soil can not supply mois- ture as fast as evaporated the plant wilts. Numerous experiments have shown that this wilting occurs when the moisture of ordinary soils at 80° F. is reduced 10 or 15 per cent. This wilting does not betray the first suffering of the plant, but rather the beginning of decadence, Experiments have also shown that for crops like sugar cane, there is evaporated during growth, at least 300 pounds of water for every pound of dry matter contained in the cane. Our cane and tops contain about 25 per cent of water and 25 per cent of solid matter. On a crop of 40 tons of cane per acre there would be fully 12 tons of leaves and tops, making 52 tops of product. Of this 52 tons there would be 13 tons of dry matter. If each ton of dry matter utilized 300 tons of water, the crop during growth would have consumed 3,600 tons of water. One inch rainfall gives 27,154 United States gallons, or 113 tons per acre. Our annual rainfall is about 60 inches, or about 6,780 tons per acre, nearly twice as much as would be needed to grow this crop provided it fell during growing season, and that none of it flowed off the surface through the quarter drains. But what are the facts? A large quantity of what falls goes off to the swamps, certainly 20 per cent, and during the spring and summer months, the season of growth, the average rainfall is about 35 inches, or a little over 3,900 tons, enough, if it were distributed, and no loss through quarter drains, to supply the above crop. But our rains are not well distributed, nor do they fall in such gentle showers as to permit total absorption by the soil. Hence the water to secure this large crop must be obtained from the winter supply in the soil and irrigation., *, * * Our experiments this year show that the water delivered through a 6-inch pipe would easily irrigate 20 to 25 acres in twenty-four hours. Another benefit of irrigation with Mississippi water is fixation of matter held in solution and Suspension, and its subsequent utilization by the lant. p This fact, first noticed by the French chemist, Maliguti, has been since fully estab- lished, and is expressed by practical men when they speak of water running off their plats “as used up.” The double silicates and humus of the soil have the power of withdrawing from the spring and river water, potash, ammonia, magnesia, and * IRRIGATION EXPERIMENTS IN LOUISLANA. 329 phosphoric acid and to a less extent of soda and lime. The excess of oxygen in the air of river waters also quickly unites with the oxidizable matters and is consumed. According to Humphrey and Abbott, the sedimentary matter carried by the Missis- sippi River is one part in weight to every 1,500 pounds water, or 1.4 pounds per ton. This matter is almost entirely deposited on the soil during irrigation. Besides this sediment, a small amount of valuable soil are held in solution, some of which are absorbed by the soil, and in the large amount of water used for irrigation these man- urial additions have no small influence on the growing crop. Do We need irrigation on our cane crops, and if so how can we best supply it 3 This is the chief question to-night. Our climatic conditions do not give us equalole Reasons. The first is easily answered in the affirmative. Droughts and excessive rainfall follow each other without regard to the season. Seedtime, cultivation time, growing time, and harvest are all subject to these variable conditions, fre- quently causing immense differences in the profit account of the farmers. How much seed has been lost in dry rot, when a slight irrigation of the soil would have pre- vented it! How mnch seed has been planted and covered in dry, cloddy soils with little or no prospects of full germination because the planters could not wait for a rain How often have we rolled with the plow and cultivator the obdurate clods to and from the young and tender cane of spring in our honest but fruitless efforts to pulverize them, when a mere saturation of them with river water would have caused their disintegration | If we reduce our crops to a money value, and estimate that of last year at 100, then our average annual losses from drought are fully 20 to 25 per per cent. To grow maximum crops our plants must be pushed from the germ to the sugarhouse. This can only be accomplished by a full supply of plant food, good cultivation, abundant sunshine, and sufficient moisture. The amount of moisture needed during summer by the cane crop is enormous, and any deficiency of at least 1 inch rainfall per week during the growing season, is believed to be fatal to maxi- mum growth. Less than this amount of water falling, the moisture should be sup- plied by irrigation. From a close study of the books kept at the sugar experiment station, it is believed that irrigation could have been successfully practiced at least fourteen times in the five years ending January 1, 1891, and four times this year have we irrigated with success, making eighteen times in six years, an average of three times per year. Having established the benefits of irrigation, the question is how and where shall we obtain our water ? To one who has recently witnessed the enormous labor, time and capital necessary to secure water upon our lands far removed from rivers, the question affords an easy and ready reply, viz: From the Great Father of Waters and its outlying bayous flowing past our doors nearly every sugar planter can draw all the water needed. A boiler and pump or an elevator of some kind is needed to lift the water over the levee. If siphons be used the former would only be required while the river would be below its banks. Some may say that we can not irrigate a thousand acres of cane. I may reply that they have already accom- plished far more difficult and less profitable enterprises. The writer has seen successfully irrigated fields of far greater inequality of surface than most of the cane fields of Louisiana. Lay off carefully on each place the line or lines of greatest elevation, running from the levee to the rear, and constructing ditches along these lines for the conduct of water through the plantation, and into these ditches pump the water. From these ditches have quarter drains running into each plat, and use these as laterals and distributaries, filling plat after plat, using wooden troughs to cross the drainage ditches. I verily believe that the plan can be easily and cheaply executed on every plantation, and the saving in one crop will pay for the entire outfit. We have already published an account of our irrigation experiments at Audubon Park. They were begun too late, and yet the results are astonishing. Our drought began on March 16, and irrigation was not begun until May 4. In the meanwhile our canes had suffered, and the effect of this drought is apparent I believe to-day in the decreased diameter of the canes over last year. The height is fully as great and the number to the running foot greater than last year; but nowhere among either home or foreign canes have we the size of the stalk, which defect we attribute to early drought stunting the size of the cane. Irrigation was subsequently applied as fol- lows: May 18 and 19, June 3 and 4, July 1 (on one plat only a shower making further irrigation unnecessary), and September 7 only on spring plants. There are five tile- drained plats on the station. All the tiles are connected with the common main. In the beginning of our experiments it was determined to leave two of these plats unirrigated, and our plans were so adopted. In irrigating the three plats it was found that the tiles were discharging the water nearly as fast as we were pumping it in, and it was necessary to hold it on the plat to make it reach several spots that were higher than the rest. The main discharge was, therefore, closed, and in a few hours all five of the plats were wet—three from surface irrigation and two from the raising of the water through the tiles or subirrigation. This first experiment was repeated, each subsequent irrigation with similar results. 330 . IRRIGATION. During August another drought prevailed. I was absent at the time, but daily expected, and on my coming everything was ready for irrigation, so, on September 7, when the canes were polarizing 8 to 10 per cent sucrose, we gave two plats another irrigation and only stopped from irrigating the entire crop by excellent showers which have prevailed ever since. Now, for the results—cane, corn, cotton, and cow pease have been irrigated during the year. Six acres of corn were forced by irrigation into early roasting ears and sold to the Italians. The amount realized from this source was nearly $500. Enough was left undisturbed to show that the yield was over 100 bushels per acre, while another patch irrigated gave a yield of about 25 bushels per acre. The other crops, have not been gathered. They are subject to inspection by any one interested in irrigation. The cane crop, it is believed, will be as large as the very large one harvested last year, and is in strange contrast with a piece of spring plant, which never received any irrigation whatever. In closing, permit me to say, that from a close study of cane-growing for six years, I am convinced that water as an element enters as the predominant factor into the problem of successful sugar-planting in this State. How to get rid of an excess is the great question of drainage, already studied and developed. How to supply the deficiency is the present and future agricultural problem, and I verily believe that this intelligent body will furnish as satisfactory a solution of this momentous ques- tion as it has done in the past with the many serious issues which have engaged its attention. In the discussion that followed Dr. Stubbs's paper, the doctor said that the necessary ditches could be made for from $2 to $5 per acre. The cross laterals oughf to be small. He added: We found in our experiments at Audubon Park that, starting the water about half an acre from the fence, and running down parallel with the circular road, a stream that 1 should say was about 1 foot wide and about 6 inches deep, we irrigate five plats, running three or four streams in six to twelve hours. Now, as to the streams, the number, of course, depends entirely on the size of fields to be irrigated. Ours is a common 6-inch pipe, having a drainage trough. That 6-inch pipe can easily irrigate 20 to 25 acrès per day From the time we commenced, say we would get to work about 9 a. m. and close somewhere between 9 and 12 p. m., we would irrigate from 12 to 25 acres in a day. Ours is a force pump, and we could irrigate from 20 to 25 acres in one day. The main pipe is a 6-inch one, as is also that leading off from the discharge. The latter flows into the trough that irrigates the field. We use an old pump, and if it had new pistons, it could drive with more force and lift more water. I do not think there will be any trouble in getting water over our lands if there is another drought of seven or eight weeks. I am satisfied that the results of the park would have been far more satisfactory had we commenced irrigat- jng sooner. We commenced May 4, and I think had we started about the 20th or 25th of March our cane would have been fully 10 per cent better. Our canes should be wet at least once a week from the time they germinate until ready for the sugar house. Where the soil was subirrigated the soil was not disturbed at all. I could hardly tell that any water had been on it except a little flood that I saw rising; while on the other plats that were surface irrigated it left a hard surface on the top ; so I prefer subirrigation. Now, we permit the water on the surface first to filter through the soil to the pipes, then rise back through the tiles onto the soil. * * * I will state if the water was kept in the tiles perfectly still some of that deposit would be deposited therein; how far it would be washed out by subsequent rains I can not answer. I never had any experience. I hardly think it would. Of course, we send into the diffusion battery water perfectly muddy and dirty; when it comes out it is as clear as it can possibly be. It is filtered through the chips and is perfectly clear. Mr. Soniat also said during the discussion: " I have tried to irrigate cane as you state on the rice plan, but the trouble was it stayed too long on the land. Dr. Stubbs is better favored than I was. His land is new, being land that has laid a good many years idle, consequently porous, and he may have risked putting water on the land two days without any injury whatever; but I have tried it on old lands and always found injury done to the cane thereby. If water remained in certain places I found in a few days thereafter the cane would turn yellow. I have always found that if water remained too long on young cane in the springtime the cane would be injured. I think by leaving the water start at one end to flow down the furrows, and not to permit it to remain longer than a day or two no injury will be done. On the contrary the came will be much benefited, provided the day thereafter, as soon as the land becomes dry, the crust is broken, which permits the air to penetrate the soil. I found that in this way a great deal of good was accomplished. Itried it only one year on sugar cane, but have used it mainly on truck farming. We take water cans and sprinkle the plants, but you could never. * ~ * º jº - -- - -- - * , . . . * * - § … .º. - - - Af - * º IRRIGATION FOR SUGAR CANE PLANTING. 331 de that with cane; truck farming is entirely different. The hills are far apart. One man can water an acre a day and it is very cheap. But watering sugar cane with watering pots is a very different thing. I think the only practicable Way is, as Prof. Stubbs has done, to flood; but as soon as possible thereafter the soil should be drained, and under no circumstances allow the water to remain on the land any more than one day, and immediately thereafter plow the land—the same as we are com- pelled to do after a rain flood. If a planter leaves his crop after a rain flood from three to six days, as soon as it dries the soil will crack and the sun will penetrate the roots, and in this way much injury is done. If all the cracks are stopped up, of course the sun will not go through the ground. The roots then become exposed to the sun, and in this way the roots are struck, destroying their vitality, and the leaves then turn yellow. I think there is a great deal more injury done in this way by the sun than by floods. Prof. Stubbs and myself have been studying this for years, and I think anyone can follow his footsteps with safety. -* “Sugar Cane Irrigation” is the title of a paper read by Mr. Adolph Thiel before the meeting of the Louisiana Sugar Planters' Association, October 8, 1891, extracts from which are here given: * * * As the success of irrigating sugar lands has been demonstrated beyond a doubt, I think it pertinent to consider the most advantageous mode of irrigation, in conjunction, with the subject for discussion. It will be remembered, perhaps, that I have advocated for more than two years the use of drain tile for irrigation purposes, basing my theory upon the fact that the water, if forced into the tile, would dis- tribute itself through the soil in the same pores and channels that it finds its way to the tile in wet weather. Dr. Stubbs's experiment in irrigating two tile-drained plats proved the correctness of my theory beyond a doubt. Although an account of the ex- periment has appeared, for a better understanding I will repeat the report in brief, which is in substance that plats 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 had been tile-drained in early spring. In order to determine the difference of results on tile-drained land irrigated and tile- drained land not irrigated, plats 4 and 6 were not irrigated. But as the water would not run beyond the first line of tile on each plat it was found upon investigation that the water escaped through the outlet tile, which was then stopped up to pre- vent any more waste of water, with the result, however, that the water was dis- tributed throughout the tile-drained plats (they being connected with each other through the main tile), and all of the tile-drained land was equally irrigated and benefited, as I could see no difference in the looks of the cane when I saw it. It is claimed by opponents of subirrigation that in this experiment the water found its way to the surface simply because the dirt over the tile had not become settled or puddled at the time, and that the water rose to the surface in that place only. I am prepared to meet that assertion with a statement from Dr. Stubbs to the effect that moisture appeared on the surface of plat 7, which is from 6 to 18 inches higher than plat 6, the highest place where water was applied. The appearance of moist- ure on the surface of plat 7 was due solely to capillary action. The entire practicability of subirrigation being demonstrated, it remains only to point the advantages of such a system over another. * * * By surface irrigation considerable time elapses before the soil can be stirred after the water has been ap- plied. In California and other places where crops are raised by irrigation exclu- sively, the ground is stirred with the plow or cultivator as soon as possible, and no doubt the rule should hold good in irrigation of sugar cane as long as it is not laid by or not tall enough to shade the ground sufficiently to prevent the cracking or baking & of surface soil. But as even the Mississippi bottom lands are rarely smooth enough for the equal distribution of water over the surface, with surface irrigation more water will accumulate in some places, delay the stirring of the ground, and cause loss of moisture by evaporation. On the other hand, with subirrigation, stirring of the soil may be carried on simultaneously, thereby preventing any waste of moisture. In order to distribute the water equally by surface irrigation numerous dams and channels are necessary, demanding constant attendance. These dams and channels can only be temporary, as they would interfere with the surface drainage in case of wet weather. By surface drainage the channels are permanently established, as a uni- form continuous grade is essential to the success of a tile drain. By the addition of the few valves, any system of underdrainage can be made to serve the double purpose of drainage and irrigation. On the question of “Artesian wells for irrigation,” Mr. R. S. Rickey, manager of a “hydraulic wells” company at New Orleans, writes to the Planter of October 17, as follows: In experimenting with irrigation during the spring and early summer drought, Mr. Benjamin Bourgeois, manager of Mr. Leon Godchaux's Elmo Hall plantation, irriga. 332 - IRRIGATION. --- ted a piece of black stiff cane land which seemed to be dying, and it is now as good as any plant cane he has. Drauzan Himel, of Assumption Parish, says that by irriga- tion during the same period they saved one-half of their crop and made the only good COrn CTOp. In speaking of wells and their capacity, we put down two 6-inch wells on Elmo Hall for Mr. Godchaux this year, and measured their capacity by pumping the water into large tanks. In this way we ascertained that the two wells gave 765,000 gal- lons of water in twenty-four hours, with Bayou Lafourche at its lowest stage. A 6- inch well just completed on Messrs.”Whitehead & Kent's Abby plantation, Lafourche, gave at the rate of 465,000 gallons of water in twenty-four hours, while a 4-inch arte- sian well at the Calcasieu Sugar Company gave at the rate of 500,000 gallons in twenty-four hours. We are now negotiating to put down an artesian well for the town of Lake Charles. The same parties have put down, according to Mr. Rickey, in all 102 “hydraulic "wells in the sugar district, 45 of them being made during the past year. - A “dahl’ is a flume built in the river levee for the conveyance of water to the rice fields. Their situation, unless properly gained, tends to Weaken the levees. Hence the legislature has provided for rigid re- Quirements. During the year 1890, however, such a flume weakened the Ames levee near New Orleans, and caused a serious crevasse. It is asserted that the old system of construction was more efficient than #. new. It is thus described by a New Orleans writer, Mr. W. W. ugh : The old fashioned “dahl’ is made of sound 3 inch cypress plank of one length. This is supported by three brick walls, built so as to extend some distance above the top of the woodwork, in order to interfere with the work of crawfish and muskrats, which would otherwise follow along the line of woodwork and give rise to leaks, and finally to the blowing out of the whole woodwork of the ‘‘dahl” and leave, a large opening in the levee through which the water would rush with a mighty force. In addition to the walls, but as a support to the dahl, good lime and plenty of it is used to form a strong front to the brick between the brick walls, which in a few days becomes hard, and when the dahl is taken up for renewal, or any other cause, re- quires to be removed with a pickax. The State law demands that the dahl should be made of iron instead of good cy- press lumber; it does not require the support of brick walls or the surrounding of the iron pipes by strong mortar or grout. There is no obstacle then to craw fish and muskrats, and leaks at the joints of the pipes or along it will necessarily in a short time end in its being blown out. Flumes constructed of good 3-inch red cypress plank will hold good for ten years or more. They are built of one length, have no joints to leak, and if properly constructed and laid down are just as reliable as the inch pipes as long as they last. These flumes should be replaced every five years. Iron pipes soon become honeycombed with rust. The season of 1891 was marked in Louisiana by long drouth, begin- ning in some portions of the State as early as the latter part of March. This condition created a great interest in irrigation. Mr. S. Mills, of Oakley Plant, Albemarle post office, wrote the Planter under date of May 26 in relation to his experience as follows: After five weeks of irrigation on a place whose peculiar topography enables me to irrigate naturally with swamp water over three-quarters of it, I still find myself very much in the dark, and with far less success than I at first anticipated. I see before me fall cane, and some succession cane, with water in ditches up to the water drains for the past four weeks, parching up, and not a few stalks dying, the ditch-bank rows, right along the water's edge, suffering even more than the interior rows. The middles show considerable moisture to the plow, and in some places, the water hav- ing slightly entered the water drains, a profuse growth of “milkweed” shows along the edges, but the cane still refuses to be comforted, and like the paradoxical ship- wreck, still cries for water. I have also in some portions of the field, pursued an- other course of irrigation. I dammed up my ditches at the first water drain of the upper end of the cuts to be watered, closed the outlets of the water drains (except- ing the first one alluded to), leaving the ditches open through the cuts, and allowed #. i. er to rise sufficiently to overflow the first water drain and follow the dip of the land. By the first system the water rises, or is supposed to rise by capillary attraction up ſº RIVER LEVEES, FLUMES, AND SIPHONS. 333 to the cane; by the second system it percolates through the soil downward just as a rainfall would and eventally reaches the ditches. Under the first system I can see no perceptible benefit to the cane; under the latter considerable. I take it that the second system is as near the mechanical action of rain as we can obtain it on any ex- tended scale. I am not set or at all settled in the matter, but if the latter view should prove generally correct, a small pumping outfit on wheels, capable of being easily conveyed and turned about on the turn rows, with a capacity of irrigating 20 or 25 acres a day, might be got up for about $1,500, and would be a valuable adjunct for other purposes on a plantation. By taking cut after cut, closing the outlets of the water drains and pumping water on the highest point from running water in the ditches, guided only by such small locks or dams as might be needed to have water accessible to the pump, I think such a course and outlay this season would have reclaimed an immense amount of plant came and many times over repaid the investment. Siphons in connection with pumps are coming into use in Louisiana for the conveyance of water over levees, when needed for irrigating the can and rice fields. It is considered by many a mode of conveyance cheaper than a flume, which latter method is more largely used. Mr. Sherland, a planter, says that— In order to insure the full performance of a siphon it should be made of iron heavy enough to be calked, the same as a steam boiler. This idea of making a siphon of thin tank iron and depending upon the rivets and lead to insure a tight job is a fallacy. While new, it may work a short time, but the iron being in the sun will expand and contract in the different temperatures that it is subject to, will soon loosen at the joints, and a planter will condemn a siphon and tap the levee to obtain his supply of water, and by so doing he will soon have a supply of water, and his plantation can only be found by the sailor's lead. Again, there should be in the lower end of the siphon some means of holding the water until the pump has made a perfect vacuum. Then, when the lower end of the long leg is opened, there will be a solid volume of water flowing until air accu- mulates in sufficient quantities to cause a cessation of the flow. All water that is exposed to the atmosphere contains a certain amount of air, and that air will seek the top of the water whenever the conditions are favorable. Hence there is a tendency to lodge in the highest points of the siphon until sufficient has accumulated to cause the water to cease to flow. Siphons should not be condemned until all laws governing the flow of liquids have been complied with. With regard to the presence of air in the siphon preventing its proper working, Mr. Soniat, presi- dent of the Audubon Association, says, in a published communication, that the rem- edy for the hindering accumulation is to have an “air vessel on top of the siphon. The horizontal portion of the siphon lying on the top of the levee should be slightly arched; then, by placing the pump at the top of the air vessel, it will fill the whole siphon and air-vessel with water. A glass water gauge on the side of the air vessel will show when it is full and will insure a steady flow of the full capacity of the siphon. This is an experiment.” He adds, that “when once understood, a siphon is no more trouble than a flume; is cheaper; requires no cutting of the levee, and, if required, can be moved from one place to another with very little work. The main point of having a properly constructed siphon is to place it so that both ends will be covered with water, and to have in front a small reservoir to allow time to close the siphon in case the pump stops.” Theirrigation experiments of the Sugar Experimental Station (Audu- bon Park), Louisiana, during the planting season of 1891, are of im- portance to cane planters. In describing these experiments, it is said: Our climatic conditions do not vouchsafe to us equable seasons; droughts and excessive rainfalls follow each other without regard to the time of the year, seed time, growing time, and harvest, and all subject to these variable conditions, frequently causing large differences in the profit accounts of the farmers. Tile drains are be- lieved to be a remedy to heavy rainfalls, and to a large degree will mitigate the severities of a drought. But, however well laid, they can not supply the necessary water for growing crops in a protracted drought. - It seems essential for the production of a maximum crop of cane in this climate that the plant should be pushed into growth as early as possible in the spring, and maintained in a healthy, vigorous, growing condition until fall. This can be done only with showers at short intervals, extending through the spring and summer months. Unfortunately, this rarely occurs. * * * Experience has demon- strated that whenever the rainfall for a month during the growing season is less than - - Es 334 - IRRIGATION. 2% inches, the plant fails to accomplish its maximum growth, and may with profit be assisted with irrigation. . . 36 34. # * # + $ It is believed that the Father of Waters, so often a terror to our planters, could sometimes be used with considerable profit in supplying our crops in the growing season with water, when the rainfall is less than 2% inches per month. To find out how often this accessory to our wealth could have been profitably used in the last five years, a special study of the carefully kept meteorological record of the Sugar Experiment Station has been made. For five years the average annual rainfall has been 61 inches, distributed as follows: Average for— Inches. Average for— Inches. January ---------------------------------. 4.42 || July ------------------------------------. 6, 21 February --------------------------------- 6. 52 || Angust ---------------------------------- 8. 03 March ------------------------------------ 4, 51 || September-----------------------------. . 4. 34 April ------------------------ * & tº me tº º 'º ºn tº tº tº º ºs 3.39 || October---------------------------------- 3.06 May -------------------------------------. 6.68 || November ------------------------------. 1. 81 Junº-------------------------------------. 8.42 || December ------------------------------- 3.59 A fuller examination of the record shows that 14 times in five years has the monthly rainfall been less thau 24 inches. Of these, 6 have occurred in the growing season ; 3 in April, 2 in March, and 1 in May. Then, at least 6 times in five years could an additional supply of water have been provided to our crops with profit. Yea, more; it is now confidently asserted that 25 acres under ditches, with intelligent artificial irrigation, will produce more than double that area naturally watered. Irrigation, then, should have been used advantageously many times in the last five years, even when the monthly rainfall was an average one. The entire sugar belt of Louisiana has been visited this spring by an unusually protracted drought, caus- ing great injury to late planted cane and retarding the growth of both fall plant and stubble. At the Sugar Experimental Station there fell, on March 16, 1.44 inches of rain. From that date to May 4, only 1.48 inches fell, distributed in six showers, at intervals of nearly a week. It was therefore very dry and crops of every kind be- gan to show the want of moisture. A plan of irrigation was devised and steps taken to execute it. On Monday, May 4, the pump was started and 3 acres of plant cane was saturated with water. The operation began at midday and closed soon after dark, letting the water remain on the cane all night. The work was well done, in fact successful in every respect, but the fruits of the work were destroyed, for while the land was thus under water at 8 p.m. there came a terrific storm, a perfect waterspout, accompanied with hail, lightning, and thunder. There fell in about one hour 1.6 inches of rain. This rain, while a perfect blessing to this community, for it was confined to a small area, was destructive to the experiment. However, early the next morning the quar- ter drains were opened and the water let off in the ditches, and up to date there are no visible signs of injury to the cane irrigated. The method of irrigatiug was a sim- ple one. The plats on this station are a half acre wide and extend in length entirely across the field. Between each plat is a headland or drive 15 feet wide; a quarter drain separates each plat from the headland. There are no quarter drains in the in- terior of the plats. The ditches run at right angles to the plats. When these grounds .. used for the exposition a complete water works was established for the entire park. - Two underground pipes of theirs cross our station at right angles to our plats, one 16 inches in diameter the other 6. Where these pipes cross our headlands they were tapped, and proper sized short pipes with plugs inserted. These pipes were arranged so as to discharge into quarter drains. The water flowed from the quarter drains down the middles of the rows, and when they were full and the moisture appeared on the top of the rows, the quarter drains were dammed and the water directed to another plat. Ditches were crossed by wooden troughs large enough to convey the flow of the water. By this experiment it was found that every plat on this station (nearly 50 acres) could be successfully and easily irrigated.” The first experiment was interrupted by a light rainfall. The dry weather, however, still continuing it was decided to try irrigation once more. On 10 acres of land without underdrainage, water was turned on foreighteen hours; 7 acres were in corn and 3 in fall cane. The tem- * * Louisiana Sugar Planter, May 16, 1891. LouisiaNA ExPERIMENTAL STATION work. 335 perature of the water was found to be from 700 to 719 F. Five acres tile-drained and planted in stubble cane were then irrigated. The first irrigation was that by flooding. The second would be that of sub-irri- gation. Some difficulties were met in the lay out of the several plats, of which there were five, being tiles 3 inches in diameter and placed 40 feet apart, by each string running into a common main 5 inches in diameter, discharging at the lower end of plat 3. It was determined to irrigate plats 3, 4, and 6, and leave 5 and 7 without water. Plats 6 and 7, the last tile-drained and used in ditching, were not thoroughly compacted. Hence, one of the plats consumed water too rapidly, preventing equal distribution upon the other plat. After partially closing the 5-inch dis- charge pipe, the irrigation was continued more rapidly. All the underlaid' plats by tiles were found to have been subirrigated. Three of the plats were served by surface irrigation or flooding. The reportin the Planter states the result as follows: The tiles are 4 feet deep, and the water had been therefore forced up through a layer of earth of this thickness. Thus both irrigation and subirrigation had been demonstrated. After eighteen hours the pump was stopped, the plats left full of water and the obstruction in front of the main pipe removed, and all retired to await the results of the morning. At 6 o'clock it was found that nearly all the water left on the plats had been removed during the night by the tiles, and it was estimated that a few hours more would have removed the last visible water, thus showing the value of the tiles in removing excessive rainfalls. Patches of sorghum, cowpeas, and Peruvian cotton occupying a part of tile-drained area were also surface irrigated. It may be mentioned incidentally that about 2 acres of corn first irrigated was unin- tentionally flooded again next day, making nearly forty-eight hours of inundation. The results of these experiments are plainly visible. The irrigated corn is in marked contrast with that unirrigated, both in size and general appearance. The cane is growing rapidly from the effects of its recent baths, while the sorghum, cotton, and even cowpeas are giving striking evidences of their superiority over those not irri- gated. Not a single yellow stalk or “sere and yellow leaf” is anywhere visible from the effects of irrigation, while a dark green coloring, everywhere to be seen, gives striking evidence of its value.” * New Orleans Planter, May 30, 1891. F L 0 R I D A . The conditions of cultivation in the Peninsula State tend rapidly to impress the need of water conservation and distribution upon the intel- ligent planters, orchardists, and truck-farmers thereof. They are en- gaged in raising crops of large commercial value and can not afford to depend upon the uncertainties of nature. The soil is largely unreten- tive of water, and the temperature, as well as rainfall, at the growing Season requires careful attention, with the husbanding of resources adapted to the deficiency and wants that arise. The rainfall being un- Certain while the heat is great, irrigation becomes an essential part of the economy of farm and orchard. In all directions then there is an active effort to supply the want of precipitation and the loss caused by evaporation. It is conceded on all sides that the lightest and most bar- ren of Florida soils can, with plenty of water and a modicum of fertili- zation, be made very productive. The Office of Irrigation Inquiry has received the following accounts of artesian wells and of irrigation plants in use for the utilization of those and other supplies: The most Successful and as it probably is also the most thoroughly practical ex- periment yet made in irrigation by artesian water is that of Thomas H. H. Hastings, of Hastings (Merrifield post-office), in St. Johns County. Mr. Hastings is a Northern man, who, on “flat woods” land, Cultivates early vegetables on an extensive scale. The results of his efforts, both in irrigation and maintaining the temperature in his “culce” or cucumber and other forcing houses, have attracted wide attention. In answer to the inquiries of the Irrigation Office Mr. Hastings fur- nishes the following particulars: The average is a flat pine wood land, with a clay subsoil from 12 inches to 2 feet below a rich top soil which can be ditched with a subsoil plow, said ditches carrying and holding water as well as piping. My beds are all laid off 20 feet wide, ditched each side; the water percolating on top of the clay, moistening the entire ground to the top. ... I can completely flood my beds, washing off and drowning cutworms and caterpillars. The cost of clearing and preparing, drainage, and ditches, is $55 per acre; palmetto Scrub costs more; fencing is extra. “My well is 239 feet deep, with a four-inch bore. Total cost was about $450. Flow of water sufficient to irrigate from eighty to one hundred acres. Force, from about three to five horse power. Natural flow upwards, about thirty feet. Have fine water- works system from a one-inch pipe attachment to well in my house; bath room in Second story of my house. Can attach turbine water wheel. As to the system of planting and water utilization, Mr. Hastings Says: Did not plow the whole ground; had no time. Dug trenches, put in compost, hoed the grass between trenches, which are 4 feet apart, built tomato frames out of rough boards, 150 to 200 feet long, 5 feet high to the north, sloping 22 feet to the south, where frames are 2 feet high. Use prepared heavy grade waterproof cloth curtains, which I roll down over the plants on-cold frosty nights. Found the curtains perfect pro- tectors from frost. Use same curtains in suminer to protect plants from heat of sun. The sun always shines in Florida unless it rains, which is very seldom, except in the rainy season—the months of June, July, and August. I dig ditches outside and around the frames, filling them with water to irrigate the plants in the trenches, thence turn the water loose, and the same ditches answer for drainage and for trenches. 336 * ARTESIAN water IN MARKET GARDENING. 337 In his “cuke” house (which is 165 feet long and 22 wide, costing about $1,400) Mr. Hastings uses his well water for heating. He says that in this house the— Two side benches are 3 feet wide, my two middle benches are 5 feet wide each, two rows to a bench. Moisture and heat are furnished by water at a temperature of 799 from my well by permitting this water to run all frosty nights underneath the benches the entire length of the house. - Messrs. Hastings and U. J. White (whose statement follows Mr. Hastings') own between them over 12,000 acres. During the past season they harvested 400 acres in rice, averaging from 75 to 100 bushels per 3,OI’0. Mr. Hastings writes: This was our first year's planting, on new land, only broken about eight months past. This is upland rice. Requires no more water than used for truck gardens. We expect to get from $1.10 to $1.25 per bushel for hulled rice. Will lose from 30 to 40 per cent in hulling, according to quality of rice. In August, 1890, I began my improvements, and did my first plowing. Mr. White began a year and a half earlier. The rice straw, when properly cured, furnishes excellent ensilage and feed for all kinds of stock, which eat it clean. * * : * We will buy no more hay. Am plant- ing now Irish potatoes, early turnips, and preparing ground for planting Bermuda onions; also planting celery seed in hot beds. Mr. Hastings, in replying to office inquiry, states that in his neigh- borhood there are seven artesian Wells, and within a radius of 7 miles some twenty, of which thirteen are used only for orange orchard irriga- tion. For fruit a sandy soil is used. In drilling for water, the first flow was obtained at 190 feet, the second at 239. The pressure is 10 pounds to the square inch, and the water rises above the surface about 30 feet. Temperature ranges from 74 to 799 F. No change seen in the flow, and the water is slightly sulphurized, but very clear. For irrigat- ing about 100 acres from 3 to 5 horse-power is used. A committee report read before State Horticultural Society, in May, 1891, describes their visit to the irrigated farms of Messrs. Hastings and White. Of the first named the committee says that Hasting’s was not in existence in August, 1890. They state: *. We soon discovered the great factor of it all in a 4-inch artesian well. This well is but 250 feet deep, yet the volume that rises is enormous and with such force that no pumps are needed to elevate the water to any part of the house or barn. The temperature of the water remains at about the same—79 degrees—the year around, which is a great advantage in gardening during the winter season. Close to the well the “culze " house is built, being 165 by 22 feet, containing four beds, which run the whole length. The house is covered with glass and built similar to green houses North, only that it does not have to be so strongly protected against cold and has no steam-heating apparatus. The heating of this house during the cold spells that occur during December, January, and February is quite novel as well as original, and we venture the assertion that nowhere in the world is it done the same way. When the “signs” indicate that a cold night is approaching the well is opened and the stream of water is conducted to the cuke house, where it flows under the beds in a stream from 3 to 6 inches deep. This current of water keeps the temperature at an average of 60 degrees on cold nights, frequently making a difference of from 20 to 30 degrees between inside and outside. After describing the tomato frames and the prairie garden the report goes on to say that— All this was done with the aid of irrigation, the artesian wells furnishing the sup- ply, although nearly half a mile off. Irrigation is done by means of ditches dug one side of the field. When a certain piece of land is needing water the trenches on both sides of it are dammed up and the water is allowed to fill the intervening trenches until level with the surface, and is then dammed in and left to percolate through the soil, which it will do in a very short time. w Of the rice culture it is said: * After vegetables are all harvested and the land plowed it is planted to rice and the S. Ex. 41 22 338 IRRIGATION. water turned on. In a great deal shorter time than one would think the ground is thoroughly saturated and the rice sprouts, and a good stand is the result. Thus the land can be kept in continued use the year round. All that can be done on this land remains yet to be proven, for the work that has been done is only a beginning, for it would be impossible for any one or two men to develop it in so short a time. U. J. White, of Merrifield, now irrigates and cultivates 350 acres by means of four artesian wells, each yielding 300 gallons per minute, or in all 1,728,000 gallons each twenty-four hours. The water is heavily charged with sulphur. Drilling began in October, 1889, and was not completed until February, 1891, when the last well bore was made. The water rises above the surface a distance of 30 feet; the temperature is 74 degrees; there is no perceptible diminution of flow; the casing is 4 inches clear, through hard rock, to a depth in different wells of from 150 to 250 feet. The cost was from $200 to $400. The drainage ditches on the farm are used to carry the well water for irrigation, flood-gates being put in at needed points. Main ditches are filled from the wells, and the water then backs into the laterals and furrows. The land is very level, with a clay subsoil, averaging 18 inches in depth, and materially aids the retention of the water about plant roots. The drainage system prevents undue filling of the soil. The rice fields are flooded by the throwing up of dikes around and then flooding the basin thus formed by water from the wells. The cost of preparing land is estimated at $20 per acre, and the cost of irrigation plant at $5 per acre. The cost of the four wells did not exceed this; certainly a very cheap system. Mr. White is enthusiastic in support of his own methods and results. There is in all 500 acres under cultivation by irrigation in his neighborhood. Fruits, semitropical and temperate, vegetables of all kinds, peas, beets, etc., and rice are the principal crops. The average returns under irrigation, except fruit which is large, is reported at from $50 to $60 per acre. The visiting committee of the State Horticultural Society, whose re- port we find in the Florida Agriculturist, published at Deland, gives the following in relation to Mr. White's work: We found Mr. White busy shipping cabbages from a 40-acre tract, and trying to figure out how much he would make at $17 net per car load, a large prairie of 400 acres, nearly all of which is covered with a crop of rice just coming up. This land three months ago was in its virgin state. Right through the center of this tract a canal is cut which is about 3 miles long. Into this canal the water from three arte- sian wells is turned and from here it is carried to all parts of the rice field. One can see a rice bed 14 miles in length with water flowing at every 40 feet. Last year, on some trial beds of rice, Mr. White gathered nearly 100 bushels to the acre, and the product was pronounced as fine as any from Louisiana or South Carolina. Some South Carolina planters have become very much interested in it. C. A. Bacon, of Ormond, Volusia County, writes at some length, Saying : In the year 1883 I had a 3-inch artesian well put down. The surface is 10 feet above high tide in the river, which, according to U. S. Coast Survey, is 13 inches above tide in the ocean. (We are located at the head of the Halifax River, 5 miles north of Ormond.) The well will cease to flow about 2 feet above the surface. At the surface it flows from 40 to 60 gallons per minute at high tide in the ocean, and 30 gallons at low tide. In drilling the first 30 feet we passed through shell 6 feet, then coquena and quicksand, the balance blue clay to 90 feet, where we struck the bed lime rock and obtained a small flow on top of the rock. The casing ceases at the rock. From the 90 feet rock to the 163 feet depth, where we finally stopped, we passed through at least fifteen strata of coraline rock, varying in thickness from 1 to 8 feet. Between the strata there were seams; sometimes the drill would drop 2 feet. We had an increase of flow at 108 feet, and the best flow was at 128 feet ; Ino increase after that. The water seems to be unlike any other in the State; visitors say it is identical in taste to the “Blue Lick” water in Kentucky. The Department of Agri- culture gave a qualitative analysis, viz.: Composed of chlorides and sulphates of soda, magnesia, potash, and lime, 280 grains solids to the gallon. ARTESLAN WELLS AS USED IN FLORIDA. 339 The first six months after the well was put down, Iran it in trenches around orange trees, guavas, etc. Since then it has run in a trench some 300 feet through my grove, within 8 feet of a row of orange trees, the next row being 12, the next 32 feet, and I can not see a particle of difference in the trees, or rather in their growth, either within 8 feet or 100 feet of the running water. I had about concluded to let the Lord do the irrigating. - This summer, however, I have built a cement wheel-pit, the bottom on a level with high (common) tide in the river; I have put in a 10-foot water-wheel; face plate on each end of shaft; two No. 3 Douglas force and suction double acting pumps, stroke 5% inches. The water from the artesian well 80 feet distance turns the wheel from three to four turns per minute, according to the tide in the ocean. One pump takes the water that (or a portion of it) carries the wheel in a 1+ inch pipe, to a 5,000 gallon tank, located 500 feet from the wheel. The top of the tank is 50 feet above the bottom of the wheel-pit. The other pump, lifts fresh water from a driven well through the bottom of the wheel-pit in 1-inch pipe to barn, house, etc., and then joins the 14-inch pipe, where the surplus goes into tank. The 14 pipe screws into the bottom of tank, so that my lateral pipes (1 inch) connect with it, to save piping back from tank. My wheel and pipes will now fill the tank in about two days. have 1,400 feet of pipes laid. My object is to irrigate the home acre or rather the home 3 acres, flowers, and small fruits, etc. I can attach at the farthest hydrant 100 feet of #-inch hose and throw the water 35 feet from end to nozzle; can attach a whirligig to hose and irrigate a circle 50 feet in diameter. I am well pleased so far; but, alas, man is never satisfied. I have a sprocket wheel on wheel shaft, am negotiat- ing for a 4-inch well, and mean to make the old wheel hum, turn my grindstone, and cut my feed. On my wheel I am using about 40 gallons per minute, with a fall of 6 feet. We are convinced that on our droughty soil a little water is worse than none. When we know that an inch of water on an acre weighs a hundred tons, we begin to appreciate the irrigation system. I am making basins around my trees and plants, will put in fertilizer mulch, and keep wet. I believe there are spots on my place that have not been soaked for three years. My house is 2,000 feet from the ocean, near bank of Halifax River. - The Rev. Lyman Phelps, of Sanford, in Orange County, writes that— In the section about Sanford, in Orange County, there are many artesian wells, but none used for irrigation. Some fifteen months ago I began work on a 3-inch well to see if I could get water for irrigation, and to study the geological formation. The land lies on the north side of Lake Jessup, in Orange County, and it is 16 feet above the lake at high water. There is a slight sandy loam on top. At 3 feet we struck clay mingled with decomposed shell; at 20 feet the amount of shell had greatly in- creased ; at 36 feet and on to 46 there was little but shell, then a strata of blue clay of 44 feet. Water began to flow, but only a sumall amount—about 50 gallons an hour. From thence on to 96 feet it was shell and clay. The flow began to increase and all along down from 53 feet I encountered nodules of phosphate rock, black and brown, which rolled under my drill and impeded the work considerably. From 96 feet down shells began to flow out in large varieties—as large as could come up through a 3-inch pipe. They were oyster, clam, muscle, periwinkle, needle scallop, bits of the back of turtle, etc., which looked precisely as though they were just picked up on the coast. I drove the pipe 110 feet and drilled 124, when the water rose 19 inches above the pipe, which was then two feet above the surface. Putting on 20 feet of upright pipe the full flow rose over this. I took off the 20 feet and put on 4 feet of upright pipe and an elbow with 10 feet of lateral. The pressure is sufficient that the water run- ning out of this lateral falls 4 feet ahead of the end of the pipe in a fall of 6 feet. The shells continued occasionally to run off. I have made no quantitative analysis of the water. Temperature is 78° F. There is a trace of chloride of sodium, more sulphate of soda, and some magnesia; also, some sulphurous gas, which quickly disappears in the air. All this tells us how comparatively new Florida is. The cost of this well was about $102; it was put down by hand derrick, four colored men working with us, in four days. The pipe is double extra thick, and probably it was unnecessary to have it so heavy, but safe. This well is for an experiment, when I shall have set a grove, and note results. The timber is remarkably heavy on these lands. Some of the cabbages are 60 inches in circumference and 70 inches to top. - I am satisfied that one-third of the cost of fertilizing will be saved by these wells, and much also in cultivating. The water of my well is light and delicious for drink- ing. Last winter by steam pump I put 40 pounds of water once a month on trees heavily laden with oranges, and kept it up for four months. There was no stirring of the ground. The trees kept their fruit and looked extremely well on the 15th of September. Those adjoining which had no water looked like overtaxed willing horses, all gone to pieces, discouraged, and broken down. From Artesia, Brevord County, Mr. J. H. Hogan forwards to this 540 IRRIGATION. office a clear, concise account of a well at that point. It is located, he SayS— In Sec. 11, T. 24, R. 37, and was let by contract to bore 300 feet at 75 cents per foot, The bore was to be 3 inches in diameter; work commenced about April 1, 1890, and was finished about May 1, being piped down 100 feet, the 3-inch iron pipe drill passing through tough blue clay to the depth of 245 feet, then struck very hard rock 14 feet thick. The progress through this was very slow. After passing this a little water came and at 285 feet a good flow. There was no increase in the flow on drill- ing 15 feet further; the water spouted 73 inches above the pipe, the end of which was above the ground. This gave a flow of about 6,000 gallons per hour; the well has been opened for a year aud the flow has diminished about 1 inch. I never had any way to pipe up the flow so as to determine the head, and can not tell whether the decrease is caused by sinking of the head or by obstruction in the bore. The temper- ature of the water is 759 F. No sand or fish have been thrown up. A qualitative analysis made at the New York Homeopathic Medical College gives the following: Hydrosulphate of soda. Sulphate of soda. Sulphate of soda. Sulphate of lime (a good deal). Hyposulphate of soda. Sulphate of strontia (a trace). Chloride of potash. Sulphate of magnesia. Chloride of soda. Bicarbonate of soda. Chloride of lithium. Bicarbonate of lime. * Sulphide of iron. Bicarbonate of magnesia. Alumina. Bicarbonate of iron. Silica. Sulphureted hydrogen gas. Sulphur (in suspension)f Carbonic acid gas. Sulphate of potash. I irrigated from 4 to 5 acres of land, using hose with small eyelets set in. The land is in orange trees, and the part in small trees planted is partly in vegetables. To lay the ground in pipe with hydrants, etc., so as to use sprinklers would cost for cement pipe from $250 to $300 per acre. Irrigating can not be done by the ditch sys- tem in this region; there is no clay subsoil, and little or no capillarity in the soil. No other crop is attempted here but oranges, and a few vegetables in the winter. Clearing the scrub or saw palmetto land costs $75 per acre, hemlock land about $45. As to the value of the land it is hard to say. From $50 to $100 an acre is asked for it. Mr. E. S. Hubbard, of Federal Point, Putnam County, writes that he irrigates by means of an artesian well, located in Sec. 37, T. 9, R. 27, that is at Federal Point. Drilling began in February, 1890, and well was completed by May. The first flow was struck at 152 and the sec- ond at 182 feet. The water is quite soft, with impregnations of iron and sulphur, smelling strongly of sulphureted hydrogon gas, and deposits white sulphur in ditch. Pressure has not been tested. The average rise of wells when closed in that section is about 46 feet above Sea level. The flow of Mr. Hubbard's well is 700 gallons per minute, and the temperature is 750 F. There is some decrease in flow, about one- Quarter or 175 gallons per minute. The water is sufficient to irri- gate 100 acres, but only 30 are now under cultivation thereby. The casing is 6-inch clear for 50 feet, balance in rock. The cost was $5,165 for the 225 feet of bore, which showed the following strata : Strata passed. º Total. Peet. Feet, Clay ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 30 30 Quicksand.--------------------------------------------------------------------------- 18 48 Soft sand rock. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 50 Hard clay, several kinds. ------------------------------------------------------------- 75 125 Gravel bedded in clay ---------------------------------------------------------------- 3 128 Thin strata of limestone.-------------------- ... --------------------. ----------------. 2 130 Soft white clay and gravel, hard brownish-gray clay. --------------------...-----...----. 10 145 Thin rock gravel and clay-----------------------------------------------------------. 5 140 Gravelly hardpan. -------------------------------------------------------------------- 5 150 Hard and soft lime rock ------ * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 10 160 Gravelly clay-----------------------...------------------------------------------------- 8 168 Blue and §. clays ------------------------------------------------------------------ 12 180 Very hard and flinty limestone, .....----------...... ---------...----------------------- 2 182 Coralline limestone, hard and soft layers, the water. ----------...--...------...-------- 43 225 AN INTERESTING PLANT AT ORANGE LAKE. 341 The water is distributed by means of drainage ditches which are dammed so as to make them subirrigating. The season is the three dry months of April, May, and June. The original cost of water is the amount given for well, etc., and the annual interest thereon of about $40. The land is underlaid with clay at from 2 to 3 feet from the sur- face. There is a foot of quicksand between the clay and alluvium. It is very level and requires drainage, hence the use of ditches. The cost of maintenance and repairs will not exceed $2 per annum. Citrus fruits and early vegetables are the products. J. F. Tenney, of Federal Point, reports one artesian well in use for the irrigation of 8 acres in semitropical fruits. The cost of preparing land for cultivation is about $30 per acre; for irrigation works, it is estimated at $10, and annual repairs at 50 cents per acre, though Mr. Tenney says: The work is so irregular and of such varrying character that no just estimate can be given. The plant is so new that the anuual cost can not be truly stated; I can only say that the cost will be nominal. The well was begun in 1890 and drilling finished in 1891. There were six flows struck, each at 60, 80, 90, 100, 198, and 245 feet. Some sulphur and iron were found in the water, the lowest flow being purest. The pressure is about 15 pounds to the inch. The flow above surface is 23 inches when the well is open wide, with a flow of about 500 gal- lons per minute and a temperature of 729. Five horse power is used per each 5 acres. The well is cased for 154 feet, with 4-inch bore. The entire cost $350. The drill passed through sand, clay, coral formation, and thin strata of rock. Water was found in coralline rock about 50 feet thick, of a porous character, and mingled with marine shells. Mr. J. G. Howes, of Florida, who is living in the neighborhood of Orange Lake, a successful and enterprising orange grower of that State, has a very interesting plant for irrigation purposes. The supply is from a small lake, 200 feet from the pump stand. The method is by sprinkling and wetting from the hose, and manner of use is as follows: The water plant consists of a small pool or lakelet, the water of which is lifted and distributed through the agency of one duplex steam pump, with 8 by 10 steam and 6 by 10 water cylinders, with 8-inch suction, and 3-inch discharge ports. There is a 15 horse power boiler. A 4-inch. suction pipe connects the lake with the pump —a distance of 200 feet. The water for distribution is forced through a similar pipe for half a mile, entering the orange grove on the north side and running straight across it to the south. The description proceeds: At intervals of 60 feet along this main are placed 24-inch plugs as hydrants, and when the plant is to be used 24-inch hose, in 50-foot sections, is attached to one end of these plugs, and stretched out between two rows of trees to the edge of the grove. The rows of trees are 25 feet apart, and two men operate one line of hose. The work of wetting down the trees and ground begins at the edge of the grove, and we will go through the operation with them and then we will know as much about it as they do. The man who handles the nozzle stands in the center of the square formed by four trees, and wets them, as well as the ground between them, thoroughly. As soon as he has wet these trees sufficiently, pipeman No. 2 disconnects that section of hose at the coupling, 50 feet to the rear, and at once begins to water the next four trees; at the same time No. 1 takes the disconnected section of hose and carries it over and stretches it out between the next two rows; he then walks back to third coupling of the line of hose in use, and by the time he gets them No. 2 has got his four trees thor- oughly watered. No. 1 then disconnects and begins the work of wetting down, while No. 2 takes his section of hose across and connects it to the section which No. 1 has just laid down, and then he hurries back to the fourth coupling and repeats the operation, and this is continued until the last section of hose is reached, and while one man waters the last four trees the other connects his section of hose to the next plug or hydrant, and then walks swiftly to the end of the new line, and when he reaches the end he finds 342 *~. ſº IRRIGATION. the water spouting out lively, and the operation is repeated. Two men will, in this . water 8 acres of grove per day, and serve from 400 to 600 gallons of water per The cost of this plant and service is estimated at $3,500. Amount of Service rendered is summed up in the statement that it has easily “delivered at the end of 24-inch hose, more than one-half a mile from the pump, 600 gallons of water in 58 seconds, with a boiler pressure of 75 pounds of steam. Mr. G. Loutrel Lucas, of Eden, Brevard County, uses for irrigation of orchard, etc., an artesian well, located in Sec. 9, T. 37, R. 50, 41 E., the work on which commenced July 2 and was finished August 25, 1890. The present flow was struck at a depth of 811 feet. Other flows were struck at 700, 760, and 800 feet. The elevation at surface is 13 feet above sea level. The water at 800 feet was strongly impregnated with Sulphur, but free from salt. The pressure when closed is 104 pounds to the Square inch. The gauge rises gradually. The rise in 3-inch pipe above ground is 20 feet, temperature is maintained evenly at 700 F. The flow after the well is opened several days remains the same. There is a little fluctuation at times in the flow since the well was first opened, but the average is not less. Sometimes sand is thrown. This is the first report on that head that has been received. The quantity is not large. The inside diameter of casing is 3 inches. The casing extends for 230 feet; the balance being in impervious clay. The cost of the well is stated at $600. Pipe is open at bottom. The following is the record of strata and feet passed: Strata passed through. Thickness. Strata passed through. Thickness. Ft. Im. I't, Im. Surface sand. ------------------------. 3 0 || Blue clay ---------------------------- 3 0 Yellow golden sand.----------...-----. 6 0 || Shell rock --------------------------- 0 2 Quicksand, worst kind ---...----...... 140 0 || Blue clay ---------------------------- 2 0 Cemented Sea shell, fine.----------.... 1 0 || Rock -------------------------------- 0 2 Quicksand---------------------------- 30 0 || Blue clay---------------------------- 1 () Cemented Sea shell ------------...-----. 2 0 ock ----------------------- sº gº ºs tº sº gº tº sº tº 0. 5 Quicksand. --------------------------- 37 0 || Blue clay ---------------------------- 30 0 Stiff blue clay.------------------------ 410 0 || Soft spongy rock like raw cotton.... 20 0 Medium rock------------------------. 0 2 || Hard rock with clay in holes ........ 5 () Blue clay----------------------------- 3 0 || Water rock, first flow...... ----...... 26 0 Hard flint rock; nine days drilling to Water-bearing rock ...-------------- 111 () get through.------------------------ 0 1 ass=sºmº mºsºsºmsºmº Blue elay ----------------------------- 5 0 Total --------------------------- 811 Plint rock ---------------------------- 0 3 This well is used to irrigate orange and lemon trees on about 1 acre. Pineapples are also planted between rows. Irrigation is reported to be 3, SUCCESS, - Mr. George W. Wilson, of Orange Lake, Marion County, reports about 200 acres under irrigation in his neighborhood. The ordinary means of supply is from small lakes, lifted into tanks or by direct pres- sure from standpipes, then distributed by hose. The cost of such plant, pipe, 3-inch main, 2-inch laterals, and 14 flow from hose nozzle, is about $50 per acre. The annual cost to user per annum is placed at $5 per acre. Mr. Wilson himself irrigates 50 acres of orchard and vegetable land. The product is greatly increased by the application of Water. Mr. F. E. Buffum, of Stanton, in same county, reports the use of a small lake supply in the irrigation of 18 acres of citrus land. A Weir is used for outflow and a steam pump to lift the water. The main pipe is 2,000 feet in length and of 2-inch diameter, and the tank has 13,000 gallons capacity. The cost of preparing clay land for citrus trees is about $15 per acre. The cost of irrigation plant is not given. RECLAMATION POSSIBILITIES IN NorthERN FLORIDA. 343 The Orange City Water Works and Irrigation Company, started by Wisconsin investors, is located at Orange City, in Volusia County. It has commenced the work of construction and is expected to be in ope- ration early in 1892. At Green Cove Springs, in Clay County, a local irrigation company has been formed. The supply will be obtained from a 10-inch artesian well in process of being drilled. Mr. H. B. Stevens, of Citra, in Orange County, reports 200 acres under irrigation, work begun in 1891, at a cost for pump and distributing plant of $12,000. The cost of irrigating truck gardens and orchards at or near Jacksonville is reported as from $50 to $100 per acre. The soil is sandy and ditches are not used. Steam pumps are necessary and also pipes and either hose and nozzle or revolving sprayers are used. There is marked appreciation in Florida of the latter appliance, which is similar to that so largely used and em- ployed for sprinkling city lawns. The largest reclamation scheme for cultivation purposes of which the Irrigation Inquiry has any knowl- edge is found in the following account of the plans proposed for utilizing the Halpate saw-grass section, embracing over 11,300 acres. It is now under control of the Sebastian Sugar, Land and Improvement Com- pany, which proposes to thoroughly drain the whole area, which now forms an impassable swamp of the extreme headwaters of the St. John River: “At ordinary times this area has from 14 to 2 feet of water over its surface, but during the rainy season is from 4 to 5 feet deep.” The whole country, for from 20 to 50 miles, is nearly a dead level in the rainy season, and the water stands on the prairies 2 to 4 feet deep. It will be necessary to surround the tract with a levee. The tract to be re- claimed is about one-third prairie and about two-thirds saw-grass ponds. It is 63 miles from the Indian River, famous for producing on its banks the best oranges in the State. The drainage will be into the San Se- bastian River, a considerable stream, emptying into the Indian River (which is a tidal lagoon). The fall from the ordinary surface of the water in the swamp to tide water in Indian River is 22 feet, and the length of the main canal will be 18 miles, and 54 feet wide on the bottom, 8 feet deep, with slopes of 2 to 1. The total length of the branch canals, including the boundary or intercepting canal, will be 95 miles, with- out counting the innumerable ditches. The levee will be 60 miles long and 30 feet wide on top, 6 feet high, Slopes 2 to 1. . . There are three large but shallow streams, some 600 to 800 feet wide, now enter- ing the tract from the west, which will be diked out and a new derivation channel dug for them. The Great Sawgrass lake, 1 mile north of the tract, will be 4 to 6 feet above the water level in the tract when lowered by the canals, and this will have to be kept out by levees and sheet pilling. The slope of the main discharge canal will be such as to allow steamboat navigation. The soil of these saw-grass ponds is a very rich black mud, 10 to 25 feet deep. From the experience of the Disston Company, who have re- claimed and planted large tracts of this kind of land in the State, it is found to produce abundantly. They have raised on similar land, with- out fertilizing of any kind, 6,000 pounds of sugar per acre; 30 barrels of rice, worth $3.50 to $4 per barrel; 60 bushels of corn; and are now experimenting with success with tobacco. The soil is peculiarly adapted for all kinds of garden vegetables, which can be placed in the northern markets about February and March. It is also exactly suited for bananas and other tropical fruits, and the drained prairie will raise pineapples, guavas, peaches, pears, mangoes, grapes, alligator pears, etc. Irrigation is to be resorted to after reclamation (drainage) is accomplished, so as to insure crop Security. S0 UT H E R N A LAB AM A. Prof. J. P. Stelle, of Fort Worth, Tex., agricultural editor of several important southern newspapers, a writer and scientist of ability, acumen, and insight, presents vigorously reasons for the practice of irri- gation in coast lands of Alabama. In a recent paper* Mr. Stelle, after alluding in flattering terms to the work of this Department through the Office of Irrigation Inquiry, says: In the very near future the most valuable agricultural lands will be such land as can be easily and inexpensively watered, and it don’t call for much thinking to en- i. one to see where this will place the Gulf Coast region east of the Mississippi IVēT. The region is literally broken up by broad valleys, down which flow perpetual streams of greater or lesser volume. These streams are sustained by living springs- and lie in beds but a few feet below the general level of the bottom lands of the val- ley. There is a first bottonu and a second bottom. The first bottom, immediately bounding the stream, is exposed too ceasional inundations, but it is comparatively nar- row; the second bottom is above all overflow, and the fall of the stream is usually great enough to throw it upon this second bottom land by ditches only a mile or so in length. The valleys open out on broad expanses of level lands making up the coast proper, and it would be no trouble whatever to irrigate every acre of these lands by turning the streams upon them. Ample water comes down the stream to meet every requirement in that direction if correctly applied. The cost of putting all these lands under irrigation from Chickasabogue and trib- utaries would be so small that in California, New Mexico, Colorado, etc., they would consider it scarcely nominal, for there they often carry their irrigation water through ditches, flumes, and aqueducts 30 and 40 miles, and think nothing of it, getting less water than we might get with half a dozen miles of plain, rockless ditch. Now, what would be the outcome of an irrigation arrangement of this kind? In the first place the system would cost comparatively little. There are no rocks to cut through, and no need of walling. If it was built by a syndicate, that syndi- cate would first buy up the lands. These lands could be had at from $2 or $3 an acre, but you may put it a little higher on the average if you wish. So soon as the system was complete every acre of that land would go at from $75 to $100 per acre. The irrigation ditches would still remain the property of the syndicate, and the land purchasers would be required to pay a low water rent annually, which could be so shaped as to bring in a good interest on the original investment. The man who has studied irrigation in the Southwest can easily see what would be- come of an irrigation arrangement like this. All the lands under the system would be promptly taken and would be converted, as it were,into a continuous village. Churches, schoolhouses, and factories would soon be built, and the now blank and lifeless region would be converted into a very hum of industry. Intensive culture would be prosecuted; fruits of nearly all kinds would be a success, and other crops would be made to lap one upon the other the year round. The early crops would be shipped to Northern mar- kets, as now ; the later crops would be consumed or worked up at home. Great canning, evaporating, picking, and central sugar plants would spring into existence for putting the later crops into shipping shape, to say nothing of great spinning and weaving plants to work up the immense Sea island cotton product that would cer- tainly be a result of irrigation. But the best of it is yet to be told. As already intimated the spring crop truck farmer must pay out the best portion of his returns for fertilizers. It is a fact well understood and settled that under irrigation less than one-fourth the quantity of fer- tilizers as are now employed would go as far to feeding plants as would the whole. The fertilizers now employed to make the spring crop would be ample, under irriga- tion, for keeping a succession of crops flourishing the year round. * Mobile Register, November, 8, 1891. 344 WELLS FOR IRRIGATION IN TEXAS. In the progress report for 1890, made to this office and the Depart- ment, Assistant Geologist, Prof. Robert T. Hill, of Texas, referred to a successful irrigation work carried on by Mr. William C. Lanham, of Glen Rose, Somervell County, who has profitably irrigated 30 acres with an 8-inch artesian well, which flows about 400,000 gallons of water every twenty-four hours. Mr. Lanham does not use manure and raises staple crops only, such as corn, cotton, and sugar cane. His land is reported to be precisely the same in character as that which produces without irrigation an average of 25 bushels of corn to the acre. The irrigated land gave in 1888, 75 bushels; in 1889, 66 bushels, and in 1890, 40 bushels to the aere. That not irrigated gave from 250 to 500 pounds of cotton seed to the acre. In 1888 Mr. Lanham's irri- gated lands gave him 2,200 pounds of cotton seed; in 1889, 3,000 pounds, and in 1890, 4,000 pounds. From ribbon cane he has a regular yield of 350 gallons of sirup to the acre. Several other experiments in the same neighborhood have met with equally successful results. No one has irrigated alfalfa, clover, small grains or small fruits, which are most susceptible of very profitable irrigation. At Paluxy village, 10 miles west, there are two irrigated farms upon which cotton was growing in 1891, 2 bales to the acre. Enterprises in operation on the Staked Plains region are already dem- onstrating the possibilities of reclamation. The reports of the arte- sian and underflow investigation (1890), and of the progress report for 1891, have furnished considerable favorable evidence on this point, There has been a steady degree of progress during 1891, and the use of the phreatic waters for irrigation purposes has steadily increased. A settlement along the line of the Texas Pacific, Martin County, has had Quite an experience as a pioneer in coöperative colony effort. The aim was to create small farms devoted chiefly to raising fruits and fine vege- tables for early markets. From the outset the irrigation needed has been obtained from nonflowing wells, the water of which, obtained at moderate depths, is lifted to the surface by means of windmills. The objects of the company now operating at Marienfeld is given in the an- nexed statement : (1) To grow fruits, vegetables, and general farm crops by irrigation and otherwise for profit. To market the products grown by this corporation in their natural state, as well as to can, pickle, preserve, evaporate, dry, refrigerate, or handle in any method necessary for safe transportation and sale. (2) To buy and sell fruit and vegetables and to pack for market the produce of others, for a consideration, after the methods enumerated above. (3) To promote horticulture, agriculture, vine-growing, and general farming in Martin and adjoining counties in Texas by irrigation and otherwise. To acquire by purchase or otherwise, for the benefit of the stockholders of this corporation, parcels of land and to prepare the same for irrigation and to plant the same in trees, vines, and marketable products. (4) To contract with nonstockholders to plant and irrigate their lands for a suit- able consideration. 4. (5) To make preserves, pickles, and canned goods of every description, and also to make and sell cider, vinegar, wine, sorghum sirup, and manufacture other products of the farm in this line of goods. To erect and maintain the necessary buildings 345 346 - IRRIGATION. and sheds for the storage, packing, and preserving, canning, and pickling of fruits and vegetables. - (6) To develop a water supply by means of digging or boring wells, or by erecting dams or tanks; to raise water by suitable pumping machines and to distribute the 'same by means of pipes, flumes, ditches, storage reservoirs, and other methods; and to secure, and if necessary to condemn in a lawful manner, the right of way for flumes, ditches, and water pipes for purposes of irrigation over lands not owned by this company. (7) To contract with farmers and others desiring water for irrigation, to supply water in stated quantities for a stated consideration. (8) To contract with nurserymen, fruit-growers, gardeners, foresters, and others for the establishment of orchards. Inurseries, vineyards, market gardens, and forests of useful timber, as well as the establishment of factories engaged in the preserva- #. in various ways of fruits and vegetables or manufacturing edible products of the 3, EID, There are more than 1,000 flowing wells in Texas, nearly all of them being found west of the ninety-seventh degree of west longitude. Several hundred have been bored during the year 1891. All this data is presented by the assistant geologist and is referred to only to emphasize the in- terest arising in the extreme South and Southwest over the practica- bility of utilizing the phreatic waters of that region. Their vast capa- bility and adaptability for making secure an agriculture always ren. dered uncertain under high temperature, even when the rainfall, if properly distributed, is ample for industrial uses, has just become a matter of general understanding. Prof. Robert T. Hill has recently said in relation to the use of artesian water in Texas for irrigation, that in the development of such wells their use for irrigation was not dreamed of originally, but that now they are being widely utilized. In Somervell County, where rain is rather scarce and one-fourth of a bale to the acre is considered a fair crop, “I have seen,” he says, “2 bales of cotton per acre and 250 gallons of Louisiana molasses raised per acre and 80 bushels of corn by the use of artesian well water.” The eastern half of the State is blessed with an abundant supply of rainfall, and hitherto it has been hearsay to say that rainfall was in- sufficient for agriculture in any part of the State. Sentiment is rapidly changing, however, and the irrigation idea is not only beginning to be tolerated, but applied to a great extent. There is no doubt that the whole agricultural aspect of the Western two-thirds of the State, which lies in the region of uncertain rainfall, will be changed within the next ten years, and steps are rapidly beginning to be taken in that direction. The Pecos River in Texas will soon be utilized by the numerous ditches now constructing along its course, and many new canals are also taken from the Rio Grande. The chief area for profitable irrigation in Texas, however, lies in the heart of the State, coincident with the great fertile black prairie region. This area is blessed with one of the most abun- dant and unique water supplies in the world, consisting of artesian Waters and springs. At Del Rio over 15 miles of ditch have been con- structed to utilize the waters of a single spring, which breaks forth from an arid plain back of the city and flows a larger volume than the Rio Grande into which it empties. The San Antonio River has its source in Springs of exactly the same character, which not only furnish the city water supply, but for 200 years have irrigated several thousand acres in that vicinity. San Marcus, Austin, New Braunfels, Georgetown, and other places have similar natural fountains which would irrigate millions of acres. This Water all comes up through natural fissures from a deep source, and the Springs might be called natural artesian Wells, for wherever in the region characterized by these springs a hole is drilled to the underground supply magnificent artesian wells are Box IRRigation. PRIDHAMORCHARD, LANoria Mesa, NEAR El Paso, Texas. º: º º Two YEAR old July TREE PRIDhaw ORCHARD, NEAR El Paso, Texas. ORIGINAL ORCHARD IRRIGATION NEAR EL PASO. 347 secured. Mr. F. E. Roesler, C. E., of Dallas, who has served the arte- sian and underflow investigation as special agent, and the irrigation inquiry as a volunteer field agent for Texas, has recently declared that— The farmer in the Rio Grande or Pecos valley, whom necessity has compelled to farm after rational methods, and who gets just as much if not more money for his wheat than does the ten-bushel farmer, can afford to sell his wheat for 50 cents per bushel and still clear from three to four times as much per acre. The same rule applies to the other crops. Then, again, as the irrigating farmer loses no time in waiting for rains to enable him to plow, he raises two or three crops on the same land while the rainfall farmer raises only one, and that often a small crop in the same time. Long-headed farmers in Florida and Louisiana where the rainfall is from 54 to 60 inches a year, are beginning to irrigate extensively, and they find it profitable. Some of the growers of fruit in Massachusetts and New Jersey are beginning to learn that irrigation pays. But there are very few of these sensible men. Untold millions of dollars are swept annually into the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean, while other millions are expended for artificial fertilizers. As a remarkable illustration of what water will do, and also as prov- ing the economic importance of a phreatic supply, the following account of the Pridham Orchard, situated on the mesa about 2 miles outside of El Paso, is given. A personal examination of it was made by the Special agent in charge during the summer of 1891. It is 10 acres in extent, planted with peach, plum, and pear trees, with a small portion in vines. This orchard is owned by a stock company and was planted as an experiment. Nothing more uninviting and desolate in appear- ance can be conceived than the Lanoria Mesa, as it is termed, on which the Pridham place is situated. The system of irrigation is peculiar, as well as original. Water is brought from a well, 122 feet deep, in which the water is raised to the surface by a windmill. The water rises 35 feet deep in the well. The bed rock is 17 feet thick. The trees are reg- ularly set out and at the foot or root of each one is a hollow box or cube of common board about 18 inches in length by 6 inches square. This is set obliquely in the ground near the stock of each tree and vine. The water is discharged from the windmill into a large cask, set in a hand truck. It is then hauled up and down the rows and several gal- lons of water poured into the box or trough at base of each tree. This it is claimed allows a minimum amount of water to do a maximum of service, it being applied directly to the roots, causing them to grow downward and not spread on the surface as in flooding. Every tree is doing well in the orchard and was doing well at the time of the visit of special agent June, 1890. The soil is about 4 feet thick and is immedi- ately underlaid by an impervious stratum of hard shale. There are sev- eral other orchards on this mesa, in which the same plan of irrigation is followed. Edgar B. Bronson, of El Paso, who is in the company operating this orchard, writes as follows: That the least cost in 1887 was $35 an acre (unimproved). That 160 acres of this land sold last month (June, 1891) at $17,000, or a little over $100 an acre (unimproved also). That the well, windmill, and fencing cost $600. That the well is a dug well 90 feet deep; there are about 15 feet of water in the bottom, which we have never been able to pump dry or to materially lower. That a 5-inch bored well would answer the same purpose and be much cheaper and more permanent. That we have inclosed under fence only about 10 acres, embracing about 2,000 trees, 200 grape vines, and a few berries. 23- I can not state to you the amount of water in gallons furnished by this well, but can positively that by our experience with the well on the 10 acres now cultivated that it furnishes abundant water for the cultivation of at least 25 to 30 acres in trees and vines. The trees and vines planted zost $500, _- 348 * IRRIGATION. The maintenance of the place costs us for wages and fodder $45 per month. In the cost of well and windmill is included the price paid for one horse and har- ness, one cart and one water tank, used for distributing the water in irrigation. As you have seen, our method of irrigation is peculiar and perhaps original. Im- mediately beside each tree is placed a wooden box 6 inches square, made of inch boards, 2 feet long and sunk 18 inches in the ground. Six inches above the bottom this box has 2 inch holes bored in it. We put no water on the surface of the ground. The water tank is driven down between the rows of trees with pipe and faucet at rear of tank, and the boxes at either side are filled with water as the cart slowly travels down between the rows. In this way not one drop of water is lost by evapo- ration or by the saturation of any soil which is not the immediate direct feeder of each particular plant irrigated. Moreover by this box system we carry the water entirely below the roots of the trees and thus foster a downward growth of the roots instead of leaving them to turn upward toward the surface, as inevitably results where irrigation by surface flooding is practiced. With us of course this box is only experimental, to show the capacities of the soil, and the possibilities in the economies in the use of water. The cost of the main- tenance of the place is high, but is a natural result of a condition where we are compelled to pay in cash for every variety of improvement, or stroke of labor be- stowed upon the land. We find the irrigation proposition, however to be a sound one, and certainly as cheap, if not cheaper, than a canal proposition, with the added advantage that each individual farmer entirely controls his own water supply. There are about seven or eight similar orchards and vineyards on the mesa irri- gated from wells. I don’t know the acreage planted, but should think there are from 10,000 to 20,000 trees and vines growing there. The most extensive canal system yet operated in Texas is that of the Pioneer Canal system in the Pecos Valley, Reeves County, and adjacent territory on the west side of the river. In the neighborhood of Pecos City, where there also are some twenty-five flowing wells, there are nearly 20 miles of ditch constructed, with 20,000 acres under it. On the east side about 12 miles are completed with over 10,000 acres to be served. When the east side system is finished at least 100,000 can be irrigated. About 12,000 acres were under cultivation by irrigation dur- ing the past season. The area is as good for fruit as cotton, for early vegetables and berries as for small grains and roots. It is in the sugar. beet belt also. AGRICULTURAL HYDRAULICS. CII. PTERS ON WATER, ITS MANAGEMENT, CLIMATE, INTERMITTENT IRRIGATION, AND THAT OF PLANTS USUALLY CULTIVATED. [Translated from the French of M. J. Charpentier de Cossigny, by Mrs. A. F. Wood, Office of Irriga- tion Inquiry.*] THE CONSTITUENTS OF WATER. [Chapter I, pp. 6–17.1 Mineral substances in solution in water.—Water never exists in a natu- ral state in perfect purity. In reaching the surface, whether by passing through the thickness of the most permeable strata, or coming from the deep fissures, whence they issue in the form of springs, they carry in solution the various mineral substances which compose the rocks with which they have been in contact during their passage. The substances most common and abundant in Water are lime, magnesia, aluminum, oxide of iron, mixed generally with silex and carbonic and other acids. Most of these substances are also contained in the tissues of vegetables and are found in their ashes. A fact which is evident in acknowledging the presence of these attri- butes in water is that when the ground is irrigated not only is it bene- fited by the application of the water to the soil merely, but the water also introduces into the soil the various mineral substances held in solution, to be used by the plants under the most favorable conditions of assimilation. These substances are especially important to the well- being of the soil to be irrigated when they supply those essences which are entirely absent and which would be eminently beneficial. Their ab- sence is often noted. M. Paul de Gasparin has found that water spring- ing from soil reputed to be exclusively calcareous in character has held in solution important quantities of silex.f. On the contrary, I have sev- eral times had occasion to observe on several localities situated on the same perimeter as Sologne, that when the cultivated ground was com- pletely deprived of lime the water of the springs was highly charged with carcareous salts—a fact which is sufficiently explained by the ex- istence of large deposits of marl contained in the subterranean regions traversed by these waters. Such water used in irrigation not only fur- nishes an element indispensable to the crops, but, in the long run, even succeeds in improving the character of the soil itself. *Second edition, Paris, 1889. Encyclopedia of Public Works. t Journal of Agriculture, 1872, t. IV, p. 169, 350 IRRIGATION. It has been found by M. Hervé Mangon, who has made numerous experiments on the use of irrigation water, that in several cases the mineral substances supplied by the water was in excess of the needs of the crop. Among these mineral essences are two, which, on account of the universal need of them by all plants and the scarcity of their deposition by nature in cultivable soils, are important, viz, potash and phosphoric acid. Potash does not appear in the analyses of many kinds of water, especially in those of ancient origin, and as for phosphoric acid, there is not a single analysis in which it is mentioned. But we need not con- clude from these facts that these substances are positively absent in the generality of natural waters. It must be remembered, also, that it has been but a comparatively short time that these essences have been sufficiently understood from an agricultural point of view, and we must also note the difficulty of correctly calculating and applying the very small quantities of potash and phosphoric acid necessary for plants. To determine these quantities with the requisite nicety would require the use of the most delicate and recent chemical processes as well as the skill of the most practiced experimenter. * However that may be, M. Sainte-Claire Deville has made analyses of the water of the rivers Garonne, Seine, Rhine, Loire, Rhore, and Doubs, and has found that the waters of all these rivers contain potash. Payen has found it in considerable quantities in the water of the artesian well of Grenelle at Paris. From an experiment made by him we may conclude that a field containing 1 hectare (2.47 acres), irrigated with the quantity of water generally used in France,” would receive therefrom as much potash as would be furnished by an application of 87,000 kilograms of stable manure. It has been demonstrated that rainwater dissolves the potash, little by little, in granite soils. It is equally true that this water also attacks the phosphates found in many soils and especially abundant in rocks of volcanic origin. There can be no doubt, then, of the existence of small quantities of phosphoric acid in most springs and in nearly all I’l VerS. - It may happen that some of the water used for irrigation does not contain a sufficient quantity of these substances for the production of abundant crops; in such cases, in order that all the benefit possible may be derived, this deficiency should be supplied by adding the needed supplementary chemicals, which must, however, be carefully adjusted and carefully administered. - Nitrate of ammonia in irrigation water.—In the before-mentioned analysis of the waters of the rivers Garonne, Seine, Rhine, Loire, Rhone, Doubs, etc., made by M. Sainte-Claire Devillé, it is found that matter exists therein in the form of nitrates. These waters, then, with the ex- ception of the Garonne and Loire, contain nitrogen (azote) in the form of nitric (azotic) acid.; - The important influence of nitrogen on vegetation is well known. Water containing animal matter in a state of putrefaction (as in rivers after having passed through populous cities) is notably ammoniacal in its character. Rainwater itself, though the purest of all water, con- tains, at Paris, according to Barral, from 1 to 3 milligrams of ammonia and nearly the same quantity of nitric (azotic) acid per liter. The * That is, with the quantity of water furnished by a continual and regular flow of 1 liter per second. This quantity would be 15,552 cubic meters in six months. tAcid formed by a certain combination of nitrogen (azote) with oxygen is known either as nitric or azotic acid. This azote, uniting in turn with lime, potash, soda, forms the salts known as nitrates or azotes, * THE ATMOSPHERIC GASEs AND AGRICULTURE, 351 water resulting from the drainage of cultivated land is richer in azote than that from springs or rivers, a fact that M. Barral was the first to call attention to. Gas in solution in water.—Water, especially running water, absorbs air. Gas and vapor are disengaged at the same time, and by means of some quite simple appliances they may be collected and analyzed. It is well known that atmospheric air is a mixture (and not a com- bination) of two principal gases, oxygen and nitrogen, in the approxi- mate proportions of a volume composed of 21 parts of oxygen to 79 of nitrogen. Air contains, besides, from 4 to 6 ten-thousandths of carbonic acid gas. * It must be observed that the oxygen and nitrogen, not being in com- bination, act separately, according to their affinity for the liquid, so that the water is always found to have absorbed, following the pro- portions of the atmosphere, more oxygen than nitrogen. We will investigate the rôle played by the gases introduced through irrigation waters into the cultivable soil. Oxygen is not so much a food for plants as it is one of the principal agents in the complex phenomena by which the sap is prepared in the depths of the earth. It slowly burns away the organic matter of vegetable or even animal origin mixed with the soil; it transforms little by little the insoluble matter into a humus which is soluble and which can be easily assimilated by plants. The oxygen, moreover, holds and returns to the soil at need the sulphur found there in a state of sulphates (inoffensive salts), to the exclusion of the sulphurets, especially the sulphureted hydrogen, which last is frequently the product of putrid decompositions, and which is poison- ous to plant life. Finally, this same gas—a life-giving agent par excel- lence—in encountering calcareous or alkaline matter in the soil, causes the azote mixed therein to pass into nitrogenous forms. These azotes or nitrates are the richest and most essential principles in the successful cultivation of the soil. As yet no experiment has been made determining the exact part played by the water in introducing azote into the soil, and we can only advance arguments in favor of our presumptions. Is this azote finally disengaged into the atmosphere ? It would seem probable for that portion corresponding to the water which is evaporated on the surface of the soil under the combined action of the sun and winds. But this is only a small portion of the irrigation, for independently of the lim- ited part which sometimes penetrates to great depths in the earth, there is still another important portion which, after having passed through the plant with the running sap, is returned by transpiration to the atmosphere. But vegetables do not exhale any nitrogen. There is reason to believe, then, that the azote found in solution in that portion of the water of which we are speaking must have become fixed there either by the soil a little in advance of the penetration of the water into the plants through the roots, or else by the plant itself during the pas- sage of the Water through it. In the first case it would not have been impossible for a nitrification of the azote to have occurred, owing to the action of the Oxygen and the alkaline substances contained in the water before its absorption by the plants. A gas dissolved in water is in a veritable state of liquefaction, and the molecules are infinitely more condensed than when they are in a gaseous state, which considerably augments the energy of the physical force. Who has not noticed, for instance, that the action of the air has no effect on iron nor on most other Iminerals when they are in a dry state, but that it oxidizes them as Soon as Water is introduced. Would it not also be possible for ni. 352 ſº IRRIGATION. trogen, usually in an inert state, to become a more active principle when in solution ? M. Hervé Mangon has experimented upon a prairie by irrigating through a whole season. At each irrigation he has measured the quan- tity of water appropriated and also the quantity which has afterward escaped, not having been absorbed. He calculated the quantity of nitrogen furnished by the soil by known agents and the quantity found in the crop itself, and found the last quantity in excess of the first. Whence comes, then, this excess, except from the atmosphere, and through what channels, under what influences, and by what chemical aid does this substance penetrate into the earth 3 M. Georges has claimed that the azote (mitrogen) is directly absorbed by the leaves, but the truth of this hypothesis has not yet been demon- strated, and it is now generally believed that through the intermedia- tion of the soil and the roots azotic matter passes into the organisms of the plant. But water contains in solution not only oxygen and hydrogen, but also carbonic acid in various proportions. But the carbonic acid found in the water could not be accounted for by the quantity found in the atmosphere without the intervention of other causes. One of these facts is that the water of the springs is more or less mixed with carbonic acid, and their water is more or less mingled with that of the rivers themselves, etc. On the other hand, Mangon found that irrigation water, running along in narrow channels on the surface of the ground, was found to be much more highly charged with carbonic acid than be- fore its passage through this prairie. Might it not be by means of a similar phenomena that is produced during heavy rains on the surface of each field that the waters of a river are much more highly charged with carbonic acid at the time of high water than at low water? In any case this acid plays a very important rôle in vegetation. It is by means of it that water attackssolid rocks, sand, clay, etc., and extracts from these inert, substances the fertilizing principles which are assimi- lated by the soil and which improve it. Water, charged with carbonic acid, carries with it in penetrating the soil the instrument whereby valuable substances are disengaged from it, such as potash and phos- phoric acid, which would not be otherwise found either in the water itself or in the fertilizer applied. It is objected that carbonic acid is formed in sufficient quantities in the soil by means of the slow combustion of organic matter, owing to the presence of the oxygen, of which I have already spoken. This objection might have some reason in regard to soils which are very rich in humus, but would not hold when applied to poor soils which contain but little organic matter; and I am inclined to believe that the carbonic acid supplied by irrigation water is useful in most cases. Solid matter in suspension in water.—There now remains to us the task of examining water from this last point of view, as to the Solid particles minutely divided which they hold in suspension and bring along in their course. The quantity of such drift matter is very varia- ble. The quantities of this sediment brought by impetuous torrents rushing down from the mountains is almost unlimited. Pebbles, gravel, and sand are successively deposited in proportion as the swiftness of the stream is diminished, but in the calmest rivers, flowing through the lower valleys, only impalpable matter troubles the transparency of the water. We are at present considering only the ooze or mud, the quan- tity of which is of course increased in time of floods and diminished at low water. THE GASES AS SUSPENDED IN WATER. 353 It has been observed that Alpine rivers, such as the War and Du- rance, are muddier in fine weather than in the winter time, owing to the melting of the snow in the most elevated parts of their course; while such rivers as the Seine and Saone, only flowing through plains or low mountain ranges, are, on the contrary, muddier in winter than IIl SU DOlſſler, The mud deposited by rivers is a mixture of impalpable sand, clay, carbonate of lime, and other minerals, dissolved into very fine parti- cles; and finally of organic substances nearly always azotic in charac- ter. The quantity of these substances varies in different rivers, and even in the same rivers from one day to another. It always happens, however, that the mud deposited by them is analogous to that of the most fertile soils and contains nearly all the mineral elements which are useful to vegetation. Azote (nitrogen) contained in mud.-The mud held in suspension in irrigation waters and supplied by them to the soil can not fail to add to its fertility. Attention is here directed to an experiment conducted by M. Hervé Mangon on the muds of the rivers Durance, War, Loire, Marne, and Seine, where we see that even the poorest mud of the rivers Seine and Marne is as rich in nitrogen as stable compost and should be considered as a fertilizer. The Alpine rivers are less rich in nitrogen, but they, also, by means of repeated irrigation, add much of this valu. able component of the soil. Take, for instance, the experiment made on a hectare of land by means of the water of the river Durance and with the quantity of water heretofore made use of in France, viz, 15,532 cubic meters during the six summer months. It is demonstrated in this experiment that the water contains on an average 1.46 kilograms of matter in suspension to every cubic meter, which gives, for the total weight of mud deposited on the piece of land, 23,706 kilograms, which contains from 16 to 29 kilograms of azote, and this is equivalent to from 4,000 to 7,000 kilograms of manure. AGRICULTURAL MANAGEMENT OF WATER. [Chapter II, pp. 30–35. I SURFACE AND SUBTERRANEAN WATER. Use of rain water.—The cultivator ought generally to occupy himself in collecting and conducting to the most suitable places the rain water, which, when the soil is neither too dry nor permeable, flows' off over its - surface or runs into ditches or channels. Unless this water be col- lected in reservoirs it could not be used to irrigate arable lands, which only must be irrigated when there is an insufficiency of rain. But the permanent prairies are benefited, at all times and whatever the climate may be, by slight irrigations as well as those of a more copious charac- ter. A meadow, then, in some bend of the land, may be formed by a simple management of the rain supply. - Much depends, however, on the nature of the soil. If it be permeable to a great depth the absorption will be so great that the drains pro- vided for it will be insufficient. If the soil, on the contrary, be very impermeable, the water will run along on the surface of the soil, wash- ing and impoverishing it, and becoming in the process itself more fertilizing. The effects are, moreover, as intermittent as the rain is. S. Ex. 41—23. 354 IRRIGATION. Indeed, in a permeable soil lying on one which is is less so, the first rains succeeding a drought will be entirely absorbed. But very soon, if the weather continues rainy, the soil becomes completely saturated, and then, little by little, the water will begin to flow off wherever it meets with the least resistance. Let a ditch be dug in such soil, and at the end of each rainy spell the water will begin to ooze from the sides of the ditch, making a small water course which will fill the bottom of the ditch. In such a locality, in ordinary seasons and under the above con- ditions, a flow of water can be obtained which if not regular is at least continuous during from five to six months. The trenches with which the roads are lined and which inclose the fields are generally utilized to receive and conduct the water, but it would be a good plan where one owns the land, in order to collect as much water as possible, to make a ditch beginning below the whole space from which the water is to be collected, not departing much from the level of the soil, but preserving at the same time a sufficient slope to allow the water to flow off freely (3 or even 5 meters per meter if pos- sible). This ditch is often composed of two branches inclined in differ. ent directions, starting from two opposite points and uniting at their lower extremities to form the central irrigation channel of the soil to be irrigated. All the other drains stretching over the whole extent of ground to be irrigated lead into this principal ditch. Use of drainage waters.-This water might be more usefully employed than it is at present. It is usually the custom to conduct the water from the drains, after making use of it in irrigation, into the nearest stream of Water, ravine, or ditch. In making a study of drainage one ought first to see if it would not be possible, in disposing of the col- lecting drains and prolonging them at need, to concentrate all this water in some spot in the lower part of the property to be irrigated. Water thus collected may be used for watering gardens, by gathering it into a reservoir, or it can be utilized in the formation of a permanent meadow, the extent of which would be determined according to soil and climate, and would consist of from 3 to 5 per cent of all the land drained. This, although a small one, is still an advantage. Use of springs.—The water furnished by springs is often used for irri- gating purposes. When there is enough water to supply a stream of water at all seasons it can be used in summer for all kinds of culture and can be applied successively on different sections of ground or be preserved in a reservoir, to be used at convenient times. The waters of several springs, each having a little water but not enough to produce a flowing stream, may be joined together, and so become useful. As to springs of small size, they are especially applicable to the irrigation of prairies, and always below their point of emergence a meadow may be created, with an extent proportionate to the quantity of water. Location of springs.-The Supply of water from springs can often be increased by artificial means. It even happens that a spring is dis- covered in places where the soil is observed to be always wet, or where sedges, willows, or other plants usually growing in swamps are found; in places where a Constant 00Zing of water seems to be going on, or even in a pond whose water never dries up, but does not flow off either. The work necessary to locate a spring consists in clearing the natural channels which carry off the water of the sand, gravel, trash, and other obstructions; in enlarging these channels a little when they are formed of crevices in the rock which water can not wear away; in obliterating, by means of puddled clay, concrete, or cement, the cracks, the perme- able sides of which absorb the spring water in part; and, finally, in MANAGEMENT of water IN AGRICULTURE. 355 Combining the small streamlets springing from various sources into one concentrated stream. But the nature of the soil, the disposition of the different strata and mineral substances, the configuration of the land, and the position of the springs may vary infinitely; and for that rea- Son it is impossible to give any positive rules for the location of springs. A provisional channel for leading off the water, so as to work with more ease in a comparatively dry place, is usually provided, but the best way to do this must generally be left to the judgment of the engineer in charge. f When water is observed to be oozing out at the foot of or on the slope of a hillside, more particularly in a little circular valley, the Spring is usually located by means of a cut having less inclination than the soil itself, and directed as if with the intention of penetrating the hillside. When the cut is very deep a gallery in the mountain is some- times reached. In rocks easily worked, and at the same time sustain- ing themselves without caving in, as chalk, for instance, the piercing of a gallery is not very expensive. These galleries are usually from 0.8 to 1 meter in width and are 1.8 to 2 meters in height, so that the Workmen can perform their labor conveniently. When the soil is of a crumbling character and needs to be shored up as the laborer advances, or when the rock is hard and can not be broken up except by blasting, the operation belongs more especially to mining, and becomes of so technical a character as to require special management and to be ap- parently out of reach of the ordinary agriculturist. Works of this sort are oftenest undertaken in France in order to locate mineral springs celebrated for their therapeutic virtues or those whose water furnishes cities with drinking water rather than for irrigation purposes. Many instances are cited, however, where galleries were hollowed out in looking for water for irrigation. The Moors of Spain and the Per- sians have thus created little streams, which, some of them, are in use to this day. In a soil that is nearly flat, or, in other words, in a situation where water can only reach the surface by rising vertically, the vegetal soil must first be removed, and then all the mellow soil through the whole extent of which these oozings occur. The level of the water is lowered as much as possible in these excavations, either by pumping it out or by means of trenches. This done, time must be allowed for the water to settle and become clear, when it will be observed to surge or bubble up in certain places from the bottom, which bubbling is seen much more easily on account of the grains of sand moving up and down; in the absence of the sand light substances, such as small chips, may be thrown in so as to render the motion more noticeable. The position of one of these bubbling points having been determined upon, a little pump well must be made, using a barrel with both heads knocked out for the sides, and this must be sunk.above the bubbling point already alluded to. But an ordinary barrel not being sufficiently strong, sections of large trees hollowed out were formerly used for the purpose. It would be better to use casks with strong staves, made of alder or oak, solidly surrounded by iron hoops, in the form of a truncated cone, which causes the hoops to be tighter. At present large pipes made of compressed concrete, especially used in building aqueducts and cul- verts, might be used. In every case, the pipe being vertically disposed immediately over the spring, it is sunk into the soil until the upper part sinks below the level where the definite flow of water commences. It is sunk by dredging the inside of the cylinder and directly under its outer walls, at the same time striking it on top with a mallet or putting 356 IRRIGATION. a weight on it. An iron kettle, the handle of which can be lengthened by fastening it to the end of a stick, will be sufficient to do the necessary dredging. The cask being correctly in place and the interior cleaned out as well as possible, a channel is made at the top of the cylinder for the water to run out at, and the clayey soil is rammed closely all around the cask or well. If this bubbling process is observed in several places ... the same process is to be gone through with for each place, and after- ward the water coming from each one of these well pumps can be joined into one central ditch. A little basin formed of masonry, or even simply formed of planks, might make the reservoir from which the several ditches flow, and the rest of the excavation might be filled up again. Such is the method frequently made use of in Piedmont, in Lombardy, and in some parts of France. In other places, instead of casks being sunk which are all in one piece, masonry or stonework is made use of; but this is less convenient, par. ticularly when the work has to be done while the water is there. Springs ought always to be covered with flagstones, as much to keep out the falling leaves and other débris as to prevent the growth of aquatic plants, the latter hardly ever growing in the dark. A little shed might be made inclosing the spring and its dependencies in one close covered chamber, but where the water is only to be used for irri- gation purposes this extra expense is usually dispensed with.* Bmployment of subterranean conduits for the water of springs.—To collect the water of a given number of springs and to conduct it to the nearest irrigation ditch, numerous kinds of canalization are used. The best way to collect several streamlets near their place of origin con- sists in forming little channels of masonry, large enough to hold the water without its overflowing. These little channels can either be cow- ered by stones or embankments of earth. Sometimes these little gut- ters can be joined into a small basin, from whence the water flows directly into a large central ditch, as has already been said; but oftener the springs being sometimes at Some distance from the soil to be irriga- ted it might result in too great a loss from evaporation and infiltration, to say nothing of the filling up with leaves and débris, if only a simple ditch were used. In such a case the various conduits can be directed into one “regard” or flush-box—sort of well pump-in cemented ma- sonry and covered with a movable flagstone. From this “regard” flush-box would start an earthenware pipe, the origin of which would be at a level a little lower than the place of entry for the water; for this pipe being likely to be often full of water, a slight obstruction should be placed above orifice to prevent too full a flow. Earthenware pipes are still in use, as formerly, but care ought to be taken to keep their joints well cemented. It is so difficult to lay these pipes that it is necessary to employ only such laborers as are especially familiar with this kind of work. These conduits, however desirable in other respects, lack elasticity, and the least piling up of the soil may cause them to be ruptured. And then, besides, the small crack would allow a little rootlet to enter, and a network of roots being developed from this small beginning would soon completely fill up the inside of the channel. Engorgements and repairs are more rare in earthenware pipes, and, when motives of economy do not forbid, it would be best to make the pipes of metal. The cement manufacturers of Porte-de-France, near Grenoble, undertake to make conducting pipes of cement, which * Indications relative to (captage) location of springs and some examples of con- structions raised over springs may be found in “L’Encyclopaedia des Travaux Publics, Distributions d'Eau.” Bechmann, No. 154. - # -*. USE OF SPRINGS AND UNDERGROUND waters. 357. they build in the trenches where they are to be used. Such conduits, except for their small diameters, are more economical than those made of metal; these last rust in the long run, and their defect is the want of elasticity. With that exception, however, they are more durable than those made of metal, which rust after awhile, and offer more re- sistance than those made of earthenware, which have much thinner walls. To sum up—in many instances very good results have been Ob- tained from their use in various places. * - Ordinary wells or bored wells.-There is hardly any locality where, in digging a well, one or several levels of water can not be found, but it is only where the water appears at a depth of from 4 to 5 meters, for in- stance, that it can be used to advantage for irrigation purposes. This state of things especially prevails in all plains forming the great river bottoms. There, under a varying thickness of vegetal soil or of mud–more rarely of peat (modern alluvium)—a deposit of gravel is constantly encountered (ancient alluvium), at the base of which is a sheet of water generally abundant, proceeding from the neighboring heights and making its way to the river. Under such conditions it is often profitable to dig wells and extract the water from them, but such water is particularly adapted for gardens, kitchen-gardens, etc. As to artesian wells, their use in agriculture is much more restricted. This is owing, first, to the fact that the boring of such wells is very ex- pensive, and, in the second place, that their success depends very much upon other contingent circumstances, except in the regions where ex- periments have already been made or where the existence of a sheet of water has been proven beyond a doubt. Everybody knows of the services rendered by artesian wells in Algeria, in the region of the Sa- hara. The results of these borings are particularly favorable when the water gushes out itself at the orifice of the bore. But it sometimes happens, also, that the water only rises to a certain level below the surface of the soil; if this level is not very deep, the work done can still be utilized * by the aid of a pump. & DISTINCTION TO BE MADE ACCORDING TO CLIMATE. " [Pp. 19–23. T Advantages of irrigation in the cultivable lands of southern countries.— It is only in southern countries that irrigation can be successfully em- ployed in all kinds of culture. In the splendid region of the Mediter- ranean, where the olive is the principal production, notably occupied by Italy, Spain, Algeria, and ten departments of France, the frequency and length of droughts, the persistent heat, and enormous amount of evaporation consequent thereon, make irrigation an imperative neces- sity in these countries. Some kinds of arborescent vegetations, among which the vine occupies an exceptional place, are the only ones which possess to a certain degree, and in virtue of the vigor and length of their roots, the power to seek at a great distance below the surface for the water which is indispensable to their growth. With the exception, however, of these arborescent species, and in localities where irrigation can not be made use of, in these hot climates only arid land scantily covered with poor crops is to be found. But let water be freely applied in these same localities, (the sun will do the rest), and the scene changes 358 frRIGATION. . . . . as if by enchantment. A luxuriant vegetation will be sure to remiu- nerate largely both the culture employed in rendering the soil fit for ir- rigation and the additional labor employed upon it annually, In northern countries irrigation is especially applied to prairies.—Be- yond the limits of the olive region the expense of irrigating is the same, while the advantages derived from it, considered as a means of increas. ing the water supply, gº on diminishing as one advances toward the North. In southern countries, indeed, irrigation is practiced during six months of the year. Moreover, the need of irrigation would only be felt during much shorter periods and at irregular intervals, and there are even certain years during which the amount of water given to arable lands in excess of the natura! rainfall would be injurious instead of being beneficial. Thus, in such localities as northern and central France, England, Germany, and Belgium irrigation has been compelled to be confined to special applications and to prairies. Such herbaceous vege- tation as is produced on this kind of land accommodates itself more easily than any other to an almost continuous humidity, and even when the water is not needed to moisten the soil, it serves to increase its fer. tility. Such ground as would otherwise be almost unproductive might be converted into prairies by the application of sufficient quantities of water. In countries rather cold than warm, the herbaceous growth will receive almost as much benefit from irrigation as will the ordinary products of more southern countries, but in a different way. Can the irrigation of other than meadow lands be successfully carried on except in Southern countries 2—The question as to whether the methods of irrigation practiced in southern locations can be made use of in more northern climates does not seem to be urgent just now in l'rance, Since there is a considerable amount of ordinary dry meadow or pasture land which is easily capable of being improved. All these lands can easily be converted into prairies; land which is either too steep, too wet, or too poor to be advantageously cultivated with the plow; lands which are liable to be flooded, the crops of which are periodically injured by rivers. These lands can be made prairies by first subjecting to a correct system of irrigation, and there will be much work of this kind to be done in France for a long time to come. It seems probable that if Canals were constructed in other places as has been done in Provence, Languedoc, and Roussillon, the same meth- ods would be just as successful as they have been in these localities. The economic solution of this question, then, depends not only on climate, but on the nature of the soil, its configuration on commercial outlets—in fine, on the aggregate of the whole agricultural and indus- trial régime established in each locality. The successful system of kitchen gardening adopted in and around Paris shows that, even in the climate there existing, an abundance of water applied to the soil will aid considerable quantities of vegetables, etc., such as lucern, clover, beets, etc., which would, without irrigation, be totally unproductive. This is why Belgium, Flanders, Normandy, and even the coast of Brittany, other things being equal, exceed in fer- tility any of the central parts of France. This fact is evidently due to the nature of the soil. The Cretaceous or transition soils of Flanders and Normandy are also found in some parts of France. That superfi- cial stratum of mud, anciently called loess, covering some parts of the northern departments of France, is not superior in quality to certain alluvial deposits found in various other parts of the country. The difference in the crops is, then, largely due to climatic influences. - On the one hand an even humidity prevails, permitting the continued ~ * *. RECLAMATION PRACTICES IN souTHERN SECTIONS. 359 growth of beets during the hottest summer months, while on the other hand periods of excessive humidity occur, followed by long droughts, the heat and water arriving simultaneously only in exceptional cases. Flax, which gives such remarkable results when cultivated in northern localities, is extremely difficult to cultivate in the central portions of France. It is owing to the never-ceasing humidity of the northern maritime climates that they support a vigorous herbaceous growth, where as in climates where intermittent droughts prevail the growth of flax, especially, is at times almost entirely arrested, when it withers, its stalks turn yellow, and a product appears which is not only less abundant, but which is €chaudé or scalded, and the best of which is of very inferior quality. If irrigation could be made use of during times of heat and drought, a modification of climate might take place and many things be cultivated which can not now be produced. Let us observe that in the Mediter- ranean provinces, where irrigation has been tried with great success, the temperatures found there do not differ from those of other localities as much as is generally supposed. What distinguishes the climates of the northern from the southern parts of France is that, while on the one hand the winter is long and the summer is short, on the other hand an exactly different state of things exists. It is during the summer, though, that plants attain their greatest development and ripen their fruits. It is, therefore, in such places, in situations where high tem. peratures are maintained only for a short time, that full advantage of the short duration of the heat ought to be realized by bringing irriga- tion to its aid. Irrigation would not, however, remedy the too great abundance of rain at some seasons, or that other scourge, in countries where the plains are far from the sea, the dry, cold wind, which arrests all vege- tation by cooling the ground by evaporation, and this evaporation is greatest when the earth is saturated with water. In fine, outside of the Mediterranean region, prairies, which can be formed anywhere that water can be carried, give generally a larger net profit than any other use to which the soil can be put. But it is probable that, in many locations not naturally disposed for prairies, arable lands, which can be easily watered when necessary and when subjected to appropriate culture, will give results equally satisfactory or even superior. A large portion of the land ought, however, always to be formed into prairies. INTERMITTENT IRRIGATION. [Pp. 23–26.] Irrigation should be intermittent.—If water be indispensable to vege- tation, the introduction of atmospheric air into the interstices of the vegetal soil is not less necessary to all cultivated plants. The oxygen contained in the air seems to be one of the essential agents by the ac- tion of which the nourishing principles of vegetation are elaborated in the bosom of the soil. A piece of ground constantly saturated with water is a marsh and is only capable of producing rushes, sedges, shave-grass, and other plants peculiar to humid or inundated lands, As to the plants which are of ordinary cultivation, they will languish, wither, and finally die if the soil in which they are grown is deprived 360 IRRIGATION. for too long a time of the intimate contact of the atmosphere. Thus it follows that irrigation should continue no longer than during the time strictly necessary to moisten the soil sufficiently,” after which that water which is already there will from various causes gradually disap- pear, and it is only when moisture is again absolutely needed that it should be again applied. The frequency of irrigation must be regu- lated in proportion to the heat and dryness of the climate and the per- meability of the soil. . The special need of each plant should be taken into consideration. Organization of intermittent irrigation.—When a proprietor has com- plete control of the waters of a stream or canal by means of which his land can be irrigated, he divides this land into fields or parcels and establishes a network of trenches, arranged so that the water can be conveyed to each one of these parcels at will, and they can then be irrigated, separately or successively, by directing the water to those points, one after another, which would seem to need it most. In cases where the same water supply Serves a great number of property-holders, an association or syndicate is formed of those who are the interested parties. The days and hours during which each one has the right to use the water is determined by rule. A rural guard or even an especial employé is charged with watching the execution of this regulation and even, in convenient times, attending to the distrib- Tuting water gates. In the plain of Blidah, for instance, there are several canals of dis- tribution with a total stretch of about 30 kilometers (18.58 miles). All along the route of these canals are placed at the commencement of each particular land claim a lateral water gate or sluice leading into an irrigation channel and another water gate serving to bar the canal immediately below the first. The irrigations occur twice a week, one set at night and the other during the day. Each proprietor has a right to the use of the water for a number of hours or minutes, according to the size of his claim. The water starting from a reservoir above and divided into the several canals, runs through the whole length of each canal until it reaches the lowest extremity. The time required to do this is deducted from the time of irrigation. It is the proprietor situ. ated farthest from the starting point that commences to irrigate. When the time alloted to him is at an end, the proprietor immediately above him shuts of the water by means of his water gate and waters his land in his turn. The work progresses in this way, going backwards, to the place where'the canal commences, at its highest point, and beginning again in the same way.f Blvacuation of superfluous water.—When an irrigation comes to an end, it is expedient that the surface water shall sink into the soil as promptly as possible, and that after entering the soil it shall penetrate more deeply, and thus cause the suction as soon as possible, which permits the air to penetrate with it to the roots of the plants to be benefited. If there be places where the water might become stagnant these places will be swampy and the vegetation there will inevitably suffer. Thus irrigation should consist not only in conducting the water and distrib- uting it over a certain area, but also in making that area healthy, by providing a way for the Superfluous water to run off promptly when ir- rigation is no longer necessary. This is done by means of ditches of drainage, of salubrity, or of evacuation, so called, either by carrying *Except in certain irrigations of prairies during winter. C ºtion taken from an account of the culture of the orange in Algeria, by M. . Joly. NECESSITY OF INTERMITTENT IRRIGATION. 361. back the water to a lower point of the same canal which brought it in the first place or in a special canal or to some place where it can run off conveniently. It is often necessary to prepare the soil beforehand. It is only in exceptional cases, where the soil is of excessive permea- bility or where the irrigation is so managed as to be entirely absorbed before attaining the extreme limits of the soil to be irrigated, that this plan can be neglected. It is through ignorance of this fundamental principle that some persons only succeed in growing rushes where they had intended to improve a meadow or piece of ground by furnishing it. with water. Influence of the permeability of the soil.—In general, whether irrigation. has been used or not, the most fertile soils are those which are perme- able to a certain depth—0.50 to 1 meter, for instance—and more or less, retentive in character at greater depths. This is more important still in case of irrigation. If the subsoil is composed, to a depth of several meters, only of coarse sand, gravel, or other materials which allow the water to pass through it like a sieve, drought is to be feared ; besides an enormous quantity of water would be needed to irrigate such lands. If, on the contrary, immediately below the surface strata, whether in grass. or under cultivation, only a subsoil is found which is almost impermeable, the space for the roots becomes too restricted, drainage can be only im- perfectly carried on, the quantity of water retained after irrigation is too. small, and the vegetal soil passes rapidly from a state of inundation to . one of extreme dryness. This dryness is also increased by evaporation, which causes too a chilling of the soil unfavorable to vegetation. If, instead, the mellow strata be deeper, a greater quantity of water can be held in reserve, the soil having received more; after the water has : ceased to arrive the plane of the water is soon lowered, and the benefit. of the introduction of atmospheric air immediately makes itself felt in the space occupied by the roots. The water is not, however, exhausted. In proportion as it begins to disappear near the surface; that of the sub-. soil begins to rise by capillarity, and maintains a sufficient amount of. moisture for quite a long time. Previous plowing or digging up of the lands to be afterward irrigated.— . The preceding considerations explain the fact, already many times. proven, that digging or plowing up the soil to a depth of from 40 to 80° centimeters before commencing to irrigate is generally a remunerative operation, whether for the establishment of fields, gardens, or prairies. IRRIGATION OF PLANT'S USUALLY CULTIVATED. [Chapters III and v. Extracts from pp. 95–189–4–193-4499–202-4–5–6-7–8.] The cereals.-The cereals are among the number of those plants: which only admit of a moderate foliaceous development, which trans- pire but little, and which require an abundant production of a grain. sensibly dry. It might then be supposed that they would need a rela- tively small amount of water. This supposition is borne out by the observation which teaches that cereals—wheat and barley more par- ticularly—while preferring a fresh and moist soil to any other, can bet- ter withstand too much heat than an excess of humidity. It is gen- erally the custom to carefully avoid watering this sort of plants during the time the ear is developing itself and coming out of its sheath, as well as in the efflorescent stage. Corn is the principal cereal cultivated ~ * - * -- * - - - - 362 . . . . IRRIGATION, in Southern countries, where irrigation is held in esteem. It has been found there that an almost unlimited supply of water can be given dur- ing the period of the first herbaceous vegetation—which takes place from the time the. Seed is SOwn to the formation of the ear. In coun- tries, too, where it is customary to irrigate in winter, the corn is watered soon after it is sown in the autumn. By these irrigations the fertilizing principles are laid up in the soil, of which they will avail them- Selves at a later period. They moderate the temperature of the soil during the winter, advance vegetation, and increase the suckers. Later, if the weather be dry, the corn receives another irrigation between the time of the first appearance of the ear out of its sheath and the time of efflorescence. Finally, it is again watered once or twice between the time of efflorescence and the harvest. In the South of France corn is not watered in the winter time. If irrigated it would be too far advanced, and would be more susceptible On this account to the severe effects of the cold spells always to be guarded against at the commencement of spring. During the other Seasons only a limited number of irrigations must be given to the corn, the Water being reserved for the more remunerative cultures. Corn is even planted in nonirrigable lands. In this last case, when the ground has been deeply worked and mellowed for the preceding crop, corn, not being affected by drought, is able, without notable accident, to pass successfully through all the phases of its development. It will, however, yield only a product of medium quality as to grain, and of mean development as to fodder (straw). Such a crop is not lucrative, and so corn has been replaced by other kinds of culture—especially arborescent vegetations and the vine—in many departments of France. This is not to be regretted, as there is sufficient land which is still de- voted to cereals, and the means of transport for the same are abun- dant. It is well, however, to find that, at need, crops can be raised in the South of France equal to those produced in the lands best adapted to the culture of cereals; but this can not be accomplished without the aid of irrigation. It has been claimed that when corn is irrigated the supply of fodder (straw) is increased at the expense of the grain. I think that there is, however, a great deal of exaggeration in this assertion, or, at least, that it only applies in lands where the soil is too light or too poor for the corn. In slightly clayey soils which are also provided, either by nature or by repeated applications of a fertilizer, with the mineral ele- ments necessary for the formation of wheat, irrigation while increasing the quantity of the grain also increases the quantity of the straw in still greater proportions, and it is because the volume of straw is so greatly increased that the quantity of grain appears to be diminished. Grass prairies.—In the southern departments of France certain por- tions of the irrigable soils are devoted to grass prairies. The ray-grass . of Italy, the tall föluque (a sort of grass) grow on them, and sometimes, also, the white clover, and “ lupulines,” besides other grasses. The irri- gations indispensable in these climates to the preservation of these prai- ries are made use of, except during very rainy seasons, from the end of April to the end of September, and renewed as much oftener as the soil when of a less clayey nature dries up more quickly. The intervals between the irrigations should be from 5 days at the least to 18 days at the most ; generally 10 days are allowed to elapse between the irri- gations. These prairies, supplied each year with fertilizing matter, will furnish as many as three cuttings of forage. The water, generally abundant in winter, is Sometimes not applied to them as it ought to PLANTS Usually cultivateD BY IRRIGATION. 363 be according to the rules already laid down for the irrigations of such prairies. - \ * - Lucerne (or alfalfa).-Although it objects to stagnant water and im- permeable soils, lucerne is one of the plants which draws the greatest profit from a soil maintained in a constantly fresh condition. There is no doubt that in all parts of France where it succeeds naturally its products might be notably augmented if subjected to such irrigations as those used in the maintenance of permanent prairies. Precautions would have to be taken, however, based on the fact that leguminous plants do not bear prolonged submersion as well as the plants of the grass tribe. The duration of the irrigation should be abridged, and should only be applied to land which can be drained to a great depth, for the lucerne is a plant of very deep vegetation. It could not live where the water was stagnant in the subterranean Space occupied by its roots. Though successfully cultivated all over France, it is nevertheless a plant of southern growth, and it is only when cultivated in a warm country, with irrigation, and in deep soils, that its full value can be appreciated. In the south they do not hesitate to irrigate it frequently. This plant would take the place of the grass-prairies, and advanta- geously, if its culture were not forcibly restrained by the limited duration of its growth, and if, on the other hand, the grasses were not calculated to prosper in soils of little depth, such as those in which sheets of sub- terranean water are found; such soils as would not be favorable to the cultivation of lucerne. ‘A When to favorable conditions as to situation are added a fertilizing agent and intelligent care, the lucerne in the south gives four or five cuttings during the year. Irrigation is resorted to from one to four times between two cuttings—in other words, from once a week to once a month, according to the greater or less time during which the Soil is capable of retaining its moisture. From 2,500 to 3,000 kilograms are obtained per hectare and per cut, making for the year 10,000 to 12,000 and even as much as 15,000 kilograms of dry forage per hectare, or its equivalent in green forage. * * Clover.—If the lucerne is a plant for warm countries, the clover is, on the contrary, the one specially adapted to the most southern portions of the temperate zone. An atmosphere which is habitually moist seems to be one of its principal necessities—and it is a source of riches for Scotland, England, and for the northwestern provinces. In the central part of France it no longer yields a crop comparable with the mature of the soil; as to the region of the Mediterranean, it is very little culti- vated (clover), even in irrigable lands. It must be recollected, however, that too great dryness of the soil in that region is injurious to clover, and if it were possible to obtain in the middle zone of France the same means of irrigation already available in the southern zone, it would be interesting to make experiments on the clover especially, as the plant which would be best adapted for such experiment. Hemp.–Hemp is very extensively cultivated in countries where irri- gation is made use of. By irrigation its cuſtivation is rendered really productive and becomes a rich specialty, particularly in the south of France and of Italy. Hemp is cultivated in irrigated countries exactly in the same way as in other situations—that is—the land is divided into plats separated into paths, which are 30 centimeters in width, so as to allow room for working the plants, and specially for pulling up the male stalks. In order to irrigate thoroughly the plats must only be about 1 meter in width. The walks or paths must be thrown up with 364 . . . . . IRRIGATION. the hoe to the depth of several centimeters, and the earth thus dug up will serve to cover up the seed afterwards. In these paths, a little later, the water will be made to run. Hemp loves a soil which is always fresh, and is, moreover, never placed into any but permeable soils; for this double reason it is one of the plants which require most frequent irri- gations. On an average it must be watered every ten days, and some. times even oftener. Unlike many other kinds of vegetation, the soil in which it is planted must be maintained in a state of constant freshness, if not humidity. One must not wait to irrigate again until all traces of the former irrigation have disappeared, but very light irrigations ... must be given very frequently. Irrigation must, however, be totally Suspended sometime before the flowers make their appearance. Flaar.—Flax is to northern countries what hemp is to southern coun- tries. Not only is the dryness of the soil prejudicial to it, but so also is the dryness of the atmosphere. Irrigation has been made use of in the Département du Nord with remarkable success. I think it very probable that generalized irrigation will be the only means of extending the flax region beyond its present limits, which limits are tolerably southern, and have not so far been passed with success. Arborescent culture —Trees, as a general thing, are less affected by drought than the generality of vegetation of smaller dimensions, and this is explained naturally when the greater depth to which their roots descend is taken into consideration. Thus the oak, planted in the soil which furnishes the proper elements necessary for its successful growth, traverses with its powerful taproot such soils as it is difficult even for the pick to enter, and which would offer insurmountable obstacles to the penetration of the fine little plants cultivated in our fields. The vine goes deep down into such soils as contain no stagnant water in their subsoil. It is particularly partial to those situations where the subsoil is formed of calcareous rock which is split or cracked; there it insinuates its roots to the depth of several meters into the fissures filled with clayey earth, and extracts therefrom at the same time the mineral food and indispensable moisture. It is then only after persistent droughts have considerably lowered the level of the subterranean moist- ure that such vegetations would stand in need of irrigation. During ordinary seasons it would rather be harmful to them, for their longest roots having reached a depth where water nearly always exists, it is very necessary that at least a part of the root system of these plants should have the advantage of aeration. The fruit trees cultivated in Orchards and gardens have not such a deep vegetation as those already cited, but experience demonstrates that the same remarks refer also to them. Fruit trees, indeed, can, at need, support, in the south of France, long droughts mostly during the summer, especially if no veg- etables of any kind are cultivated in their shade, and if the surface of the soil is kept always mellow by tilth-dressing applied often. These trees have a more regular growth and are more vigorous and productive when the soil in which they grow can be irrigated when necessary, only this must not be overdone. The subsoil must not be kept for a long time continuously saturated with water in a certain depth under the soil. It can be easily understood how much the nature and disposi- tion of the lower strata of the soil can modify the method to be pursued. The only rules which it is possible to lay down are, that irrigation shall not be resorted to until the drought shall have already penetrated to a considerable depth, that it shall not be renewed until all the water from the last irrigation shall have completely disappeared. . * Irrigation is never more serviceable than when administered a short *r THE CULTIVATION OF TREES BY IRRIGATION. 365 time before the fruit matures; then the water has time to descend to the Suckers of the lowest roots. Then a little air enters the soil at the same time, and then the tree is in the best possible conditions at the time when it is about to put the finishing touches to its fruit. The hotter and more scorching the climate the more evaporation takes place, the more the level of the moisture is rapidly lowered after a rain or an irrigation. Thus, in the north of France, fruit trees would only need to be watered in exceptional cases. On the border of the Sahara, On the contrary, no irrigation is possible unless water can be furnished by an artesian well to irrigate the date palms, which form the oases of this torrid region. In the Algerian Tell and in Spain, all the fruit trees are submitted to regular irrigation, even the vine is no exception. In the south of France irrigation is used more sparingly, and it has been noticed, morever, that all kinds of trees are not benefited by it in the same degree. * The orange.—This tree needs a (fresh) moist soil. If the one where it is planted it does not furnish this condition, irrigation must be re- sorted to. In permeable soils and also in very warm climates, such as Algeria and the south of France, irrigation is kept up all the year, the plants being watered about every fifteen days during the summer and autumn, and at longer intervals and with less regularity during the winter and spring. In these countries it is only when the subsoil is compact and retains the humidity that irrigation is completely sus pended during the rainy season. In those parts of France where the mildness of the climate will permit of the cultivation of the orange irri- gation is hardly made use of except from June to November, and even then in moderation. The pomegranate.—The pomegranate must also only receive a moder- ate amount of water, or else the fruit will be of little value, small and almost tasteless. It is remarkable that when the pomegranate is irri- gated every part of it is developed simultaneously. When, on the con- trary, it is not irrigated at all, the outer woody envelope often hardens and soon stops growing. Then it bursts under the pressure resulting from the swelling of the seed. The mulberry.—The mulberry, cultivated for its leaves, ought to be watered in times of drouth, but with great circumspection. The quan- tity of water supplied to the soil ought to be less than will be sufficient to bring the plant and its foliage to its highest degree of development. It is known, indeed, that when mulberries have been grown in too moist a soil they produce a large and very tender leaf, but at the same time very watery and not very good for the silkworm to feed upon. In Al- geria, in a warmer climate, the same tree is watered all through the winter. These irrigations, while furnishing an abundant provision of moisture to the soil, makes it at the same time more fertile and causes a precocious and vigorous start of foliage. The irrigation must be com- pletely arrested just as soon as the leaf begins to sprout and until the fruiting and pruning seasons are over. Irrigation is then begun again, and its influence, combined with the heat reigning at this season of the year, causes new leaves and buds to push out. This practice would seem to be a rational one. Often, in the most southern parts of France, mulberries are planted around fields or on the banks of ditches; these last serving at the same as fencing and also as channels for the distribution of water when the soil in which the trees are set is a little higher than the canal. In this case the mulberries are provided with a soil, dry enough to a certain depth, but at the same time having a subsoil which is always sufficiently moist, * * 4 * > 366 IRRIGATION. Fruit trees in fields.-Fruit trees play an important rôle in the south of France, where certain kinds are cultivated on a grand scale. Irriga- tion is sometimes used successfully in some of these fruit cultures. Generally, however, trees which bear fruit in the spring, or at farthest in June, are very little irrigated, the earth preserving up to that time sufficient moisture. Trees which only bear fruit in autumn, must neces- Sarily be irrigated from the commencement of the month of June and nearly up to the time of maturity—such as peaches, autumn pears, and apples. It must be remembered that irrigation is to be avoided as much as possible for all kinds of fruit trees during the flowering season. The almond is not watered at all in France, nor are the fig trees, except one or two late varieties, which are only found in gardens. The jujube.—The jujube tree, which bears fruit very late, only gives Satisfactory results when irrigated. The olive.—The olive, which is so valuable in all the countries sur- rounding the Mediterranean Sea, has a marvelous power of resistance to droughts. It even avoids moist lands, and nowhere gives fuller returns than when growing on hillsides in a permeable calcareous subsoil. It is undoubthdly true that irrigation sensibly increases the products of these trees in the climate of Provence, but it must be used with ex- treme caution. Before the end of the last century trials were made in regard to irrigation as applied to the olive, on the banks of the canal of Boisgelin, between Arles and Aix, and the results appear to have been marvelous in regard to abundance of production ; but the terrible winter of 1789 killed the roots of the olives which had been subjected to irrigation, and it has not been resorted to since. This has not con- vinced me, however, that a like mortality would have been the inevit- able consequence of all irrigation. The moderate use of water must be separated from the abuse of it and the nature of the soil must also be taken into consideration, especially that of the subsoil, as well as the periods when the irrigations are applied. Above all, there is in Pro- vence no want of other rich cultures to utilize its soils which are irri- gated, while this department is particularly fortunate in possessing such a tree as the olive, which accommodates itself readily to the dry- est Soils and those which it would be difficult otherwise to utilize. It is certain that in countries still more southern than in Provence, where there is no danger from frosts and which are the true habi- tats of the olive, this tree has been subjected to irrigation at times, and great advantage has resulted therefrom, provided that the price of water was low enough. Irrigation must commence from the month of December, but always as soon as the olive crop has been gathered. No irrigation must be made use of during the time of efflorescence, which occurs in the month of April, after which water is supplied every time the soil becomes too dry. It is especially necessary to irrigate in Sep- tember, so as to increase thereby the size of the fruit, Finally, irriga- tion must entirely cease a little while before the olives mature, The vine.—Nearly everything said on the subject of the olive will apply equally well to the cultivation of the vine. The same resistance to drought, the same predilection for soils which preserve but small traces of humidity, if not at a great depth, the same abstention from irrigation may be observed in the culture of both vine and olive in all parts of France. The same employment of irrigation as is observed in other countries, especially in Spain (southern), prevails. Near Avig- non M. Fancon has lately subjected his vines during the winter to a submersion during nearly forty days consecutively with a sheet of water of a minimum thickness of 10 centimeters above the Soil; but in C. THE FRUIT TREES FOR IRRIGATION CULTURE. 367 view of the inequalities of the soil and of the partial absorption which might occur an average of 20 centimeters of thickness must be allowed. Not only has this plan of operation appeared to have destroyed the phylloxera, that terrible insect which attaches itself to the roots of the vines, thus putting in peril the vineyards of the South, but the vines subjected to this winter irrigation appear also to be in the most flour- ishing condition possible. They are vigorous and productive, but must be fertilized every year. A definite opinion, however, can not be formed on this subject until a more prolonged season of experimentation has thrown more light on it. This submersion must be repeated every year, on account of the near neighborhood of the vines still affected by phylloxera, which have not been submerged. The soil is divided into compartments by small earth dikes, in order that only the extent of each compartment may be flooded without the necessity of spreading the water over the whole slope of the total extent of the Vineyard. Rice plantations.—Rice is one of the water grasses, and like the reeds it is necessary for its successful vegetation that it shall always have its feet in water. Rice is irrigated especially by submersion. A perma- nent sheet of water 15 to 20 centimeters in thickness, incessantly re- newed by a thin stream of water, is the best method of submersion. But at certain periods this supply of water must be diminished to a sheet of water only a few centimeters in thickness. In certain special accidental cases it would be Well to increase this sheet to as much as a thickness of 40 centimeters. Finally, at the time when the rice is to be worked and at the time of harvest, it must be arranged to have the soil dry, in order to facilitate these operations. To carry out perfectly the above conditions, the land must be divided into evenly-leveled compartments. Each one of these compartments must be surrounded by dikes nearly 50 centimeters high. As the soil, before the establishment of rice plantations, has generally a cer- tain slope, the lower end of each compartment will be found to have a different level from the upper end. If the whole ground is decidedly level, one or several hectares of extent may be allowed for each com- partment; but this extent must be reduced in proportion as the original slope of the ground was more considerable, so as not to have the em- bankments too high, and also to avoid having too great a height between one compartment and the next. The dike separating the two compart- ments should be only about 50 centimeters in height, counting from the bottom of the highest one. At the highest part of the dike it must be 66 centimeters wide, which dimension is indispensable for a path of service. A stream of water must then be turned into the highest coin- partment. From this point the water circulates from one plat to an- other by means of wasteweirs arranged in the dikes, the sluices at the lowest end serving to drain off the water at will and leave the rice field dry when desired. A ditch must be dug to carry off the water after it reaches the lowest plat; that is, when the water does not run off directly into a running stream or into the sea. All these arrangements are so simple as to be easily understood, and need no further explana- tion. Rice plantations can only be carried on in situations where the land is nearly horizontal or has only a very gradual slope. These conditions are often furnished by marshes or by land lying along the seashore. Land of this description, which is of very little use for other cultures, $º 368 3ºx. IRRIGATION. * is precisely that which would give the best results if devoted to the cul- itivation of rice. Those which are slightly salt are not to be avoided, Ifor the water when continually renewed dissolves and carries off the salt as it rises from the subsoil to the surface, and it is even sometimes the means of getting rid of the salt entirely. To this freshening process is added the happy effect caused by the deposit of mud contained in the water used for irrigation, the quantity of which becomes quite con- siderable in course of time. Thanks to these effects it must be seen that the cultivation of rice in certain unproductive soils makes that soil capable of producing other crops afterwards. k Sometimes rice plantations are carried on one year with submersion, and the next year the soil is put into other crops, without being sub- merged; and both plans are found to be successful. The dikes would have to be removed the second year, of course, as they would be in the way when the ground was put in order for the other crop; they could, however, be easily rebuilt. Sometimes a continuous stream of water is not required in cultivating rice, and only supplied during certain periods, as in otherlands devoted to irrigation. If necessary, rice planting can be carried on in this way. In such cases the water is left standing for several days, when it is again administered. This method is very inferior to that of applying a continuous stream of water, as then the rice plantation is always invaded by a great abund- ance of adventitious plants, and is more unhealthy than when subjected to a continual stream of water. Rice plantations are essentially unhealthy, and are supposed to cause the prevalence of intermittent fewers, and can be prevented by no man- agement nor hygienic conditions now known, whatever may be said to the contrary. In the mud which covers the soil myriads of insects and animalculae are moving about. When the water is turned off the rice fields this soil dries little by little in the scorching rays of the sun. The plants with which it is strewn, the animal life, and especially the infusoria which pervades the soil, die, and cause a putrid fermentation. This is, probably, the cause of the evil. If there were sufficient movement of the water, or if the rice could be worked and harvested under water without ever completely turning the stream, it is possible that this unwholesomeness might be overcome. It might be found that, on lands which are alternately submitted to. inundation and drought, the insalubrity might even be found to exist. to a greater extent. Quantity of water required for a rice plantation.—It has been calcu- lated that a continual stream of water of 14 liters to 2 liters per second and per hectare is necessary for the establishment of a rice plantation; but there are many times when a greater quantity might be required. IRRIGATION BY ARTESIAN WELLS IN ALGIERS.* - [Translated for the Office of Irrigation Inquiry.] 1M. Daubrée has drawn attention to the notes on artesian wells in the provinces of Algiers, Oran, and Constantine, which have been pub. lished by M. L. Ville, general inspector of mines. Besides the native Wells which have existed for centuries—especially in the Sahara—to bring water and fertility to many parts of it, a great many wells have been bored by more perfect methods. It is but fair to mention the initiative taken as long ago as 1844 by M. Henri Fournel, at that time chief mining engineer, showing the utility of a chain of wells to be established between Biskra and Tourgourt. Soon afterwards, in 1848, M. Dubock, mining engineer, established one in the neighborhood of Biskra, under the patronage of General Desvaux, who has not ceased to encourage in the most active manner other borings of the same nature. From that time up to 1875, 615 wells have been bored, of which 404 are in the province of Constantine, 194 in the province of Algiers, and 15 in that of Oran. These wells belong to different basins, and these basins are subdivided into other distinct basins. Thus, in the province of Constantine, the great basin of the Sahara incloses 104 wells, divided into three basins; the richest in wells is that of the Oued Bir, to which belongs the oasis of Tourgourt. Among the diverse basins of the province of Algiers is included that of the plain of Metidja, which is subdivided into 4 basins inclosing 80 bored wells. The total length of the borings is 26,352 meters (86,456 feet). The total cost has aggregated 2,497,780 francs ($499,558), which gives an & average of 95 francs to the meter (nearly $19). Most of these wells' have been bored in old alluvial soil, in Quarternary deposits or in Ter- tiary beds. Among the most interesting facts may be mentioned the increase of temperature, which in the borings of the “Grand Lac" rose to 57.59 feet; now the average increase is one to 98.4 feet. This is a very rapid increase, of which, however, there are other examples. Some of these waters are charged with saline matter. Discussing the origin of artesian waters in the Sahara of French Algiers, M. Jahcle, army chemist, stationed at Biskra, Algiers, pub- lished the following interesting statement in the “Journal de Pharmacie et de Chimie” of August 1, 1889 (page 102). M. Paul Leroy Beaulieu, in his work, “L’Algérie et la Tunise” (page 146), says: “There is yet another work to which the French administration has applied itself with most brilliant success, and which is capable of still greater developments, and that is, the artesian wells. This work has been the means of creating oases, and māy yet extend cultivation to the extreme south. A Russian publicist, M. de Tchihatchef, who has recently (1880) made Algiers a study, speaks of it with enthusiasm, and esteems highly the importance of the results which we have obtained. He writes: “Between the Chott Melghir and the town of Tougourt, a distance of about 120 * Bulletin des Séances de la Société Centrale d’Agriculture de France. (1876.) Page 464. .* S. Ex. 41—24 369 370 * IRRIGATION. kilometers (78 miles), there are not less than 40 artesian wells, which is one well for every 3 kilometers; and doubtless this line of wells will be continued as far as Ouargla. At present, between Tougourt and Ouargla, a distance of 150 kilometers (93 miles), there are but 5 artesian wells. “The Russian author estimates the number of wells bored in the province of Con- stantine, a subdivision of Batna, from 1856 to 1878, at not less than 155. He says: “The number of borings for bubbling water is about 149 and for ascending water 252; the total depth bored is 18 kilometers, 626 meters (61,108 feet), and the primitive dis- charge of the bubbling and ascending sheets is 182,119 cubic meters every twel..ty- four hours, or 765,742,969 cubic meters the year.” “These figures are sufficiently eloquent and need not be commented upon, and when it is considered that they represent the work of only twenty-two years, it can be said that if France has given Algiers nothing else but these artesian wells, they alone enable her to compare favorably with no matter what other country. “Since the Russian author has written these lines French activity has not slackened in its exploitation for subterranean sheets of water. On the 31st of December, 1881, the number of artesian wells in the three Algerian departments was 257 bubbling and 419 ascending wells. The total depth of the borings was 27 kilometers, 897 meters (91,525 feet), 50 per cent more than the figures given by M. de Tchihatchef.” The few Europeans who have ventured into the region of the bub- bling wells south of the department of Constantine have interested themselves concerning the origin of these undrinkable artesian waters. The hypothesis of an interoceanic current is now held to be untenable, as chemical analysis shows that the composition of these Waters has Inothing in common with sea water. - - The greater part of this section of the Sahara is below the level of the Sºa, and being bounded on the north by the Auris Mountains has led to the general admission that the artesian waters arise from the infil- trations of rainwater in the Tell River and the high plateaus. We will examine what truth there is in this. A careful study of the artesian waters of the region of Tourngouth-Ouargla will enable us to under- stand— First. That the hydrostatic level of these bubbling sheets of water is higher in proportion to the depth of the sheet. Second. The discharge of artesian sources increases with the depth of the sheet. Third. The quantity of salts dissolved diminishes as the depth of the sheets increases. In waters which have been analyzed up to the present time this quantity varies from 4 to 15 grams=60 to 225 grains. Fourth. The weight and grouping of these dissolved salts do not Vary much with the seasons nor with the years. - Fifth. Sulphate of lime dominates in the artesian waters, and in de- creasing order the alkaline chlorides, the earthy carbonates, etc. Sixth. All artesian waters contain nitrates, without applying to these Salts the rule in paragraph 3. Sometimes there is more nitrogen found in a lower than in a higher basin, and again inversely (nitrogen in a combined state of nitric acid), but generally the proportion of combined nitric acid does not vary much in these artesian waters. There is no current, since the waters are not all of the same compo- sition. They are Solid, located in natural superimposed reservoirs, and separated by layers of impermeable limestone. A knowledge of this phenomena controlling these bubbling waters enables us to determine their origin, and it is not believed that they can Come from the calcareous mountains to the north. In the first place the waters of the Tertiary Algerian strata and of the fossilized limestone of the Auris Mountains mostly contain alkaline chlorides. During infiltration and passage into the Quaternary basins, they preserve these salts in dissolution; now, the proportion of chlor- ides which is found in artesian waters is from four to five times less than * ARTESIAN WATERS IN THE ALGERIAN SAHARA. 3.71 that which exists in the waters descending from the Auris. This fact, is also applicable to the carbonites. The waters of the Auris contain but few sulphates; it is true that while infiltering into the Quarternary strata they might get charged with Sulphates; but there is no reason why quantities of other dissolved salts should diminish so considerably. In the second place, the department of Constantine and the extreme south does not contain any deposit of nitrates, nor do the waters of the high plateau on the Mediterranean side of the south side of the Auris contain nitrates, unless accidentally. These Waters infiltrate them- selves into the Tertiary strata and reach great depths under ground, without any contact with the air or nitrogenous matters. Therefore, the basins of the Sahara can not get so charged. If the artesian waters come from the north, how can we explain the presence in them of the combined nitric acid 3 Formerly there existed at Biskra some military saltpeter works. Little hillocks, formed by the remains of ancient Arab villages, built in pise (pounded earth and shell), furnished the nitric earth; but inde- pendently of these, nitric beds alone are used here. Everywhere where the waters produce these efflorescences by evapo- ration, which often spread over many miles, nitric acid in a combined state is found associated with the Sulphate of lime and the alkaline chlorides. Not only do the nitrates exist in the water of the Oueds, but they are also found in the sheets of water caused by infiltration, which are not bubbling but on the surface. Such is the sheet of the Zibans, a fortune to twenty oases, which, by its influence, are covered with magnificent date-palm trees. Returning from a mission to the Sahara in 1861, Mr. Wille, mining engineer, published the analyses of the waters collected by him between Boné, Ouargla, M’zat, and Algiers. He drew attention to the presence of the nitrates in the potable waters of the country of Mozatites. The fifth of the natural salt found in these waters is the nitrate of soda. This is remarkable and could not fail to be observed. As to the origin of this nitric acid Mr. Ville says: The presence of these nitrates is probably owing to the electric state of the atmos- phere during violent thunderstorms, which occasion the floods that fertilize the oasis of Beni-M’zat. However, this explanation of Mr. Ville does not seem admissible for tWO reasons: - First. The thunderstorms of the M’zat are neither violent nor frequent enough to manufacture, with the nitrogen of the air, the composite ni- trites which are found in the water. If the nitric acid is produced in the atmosphere by the electric fluid acting upon the nitrogen of the air, and upon the ozonized oxygen, it is by the vapor of the water condensed into rain, so that the acid is formed and taken into the soil. Now, in that part of the Sahara of Constantine during some years there is not more than 2 inches of rainfall, so that can not be the origin of the per- manent nitrates, especially as in the Tell and the Auris the thunder- storms are more frequent than in the Sahara, and yet the waters of the Tell do not contain any nitrates. Second. The fluvial and artesian waters of the Sahara when analyzed are ſound to contain the same quantity of nitric acid, no matter when the trial is made, whether during the seasons of thunderstorms or at any other time. The waters of Oued Biskra and the Oued Bir have the same compo- sition to-day that they had in 1861. The discharge of the Sources of the 372 - IRRIGATION. Oueds may have varied, but the proportion of the salts dissolved in the water has not changed any more than the soil from whence the waters are derived. - The presence of nitric acid in the atmosphere during thunderstorms is of little moment, but the presence of artificial saltpeter works, like those of Biskra, is a rare fact accidental in the Sahara. The presence of these nitrates is general in the waters of the South; in the waters which flow through the inhabited oases and also in the wells of the desert, far from all animal life. - We think that the clayey alluvium of Chott Melvir (the ancient sea of the Tritons), like the gypseous sand of the quaternary strata, pos- sesses in the highest degree the property of continually setting free the nitrogen of the atmosphere, even outside of all vegetation. Third. The presence of these nitrates in the artesian waters prove their origin. The waters come in great part from a quaternary forma- tion. These infiltrations take place naturally at high altitude. This, dur- ing the infiltrations from the surface and in the shallow beds of the soil, shows that the water is charged with the nitrates. The dissolved salts penetrate the lower basins and when the artesian bore causes the water to recover its hydrostatic level, the nitric acid is combined in the same proportions as in the water which flows up in the original surface above. Recently the attention of the civilized world has been called to the organization by Cardinal Lavigerie, of Algiers, of a Catholic order to aid in the suppression of the African Arab slave trade, with its terribly destructive raids, its wholesale slaughters, deportations, and sales. The headquarters of this order has been established at Biskra, on the South-Algerian borders of the Sahara. Quite a large number of affili- ates are already there, and the place was consecrated in March, 1891. The name of the spot is M'salla, which is the Arabic designation for “a place of prayer.” The estate contains a plantation of palms in full bearing, and is traversed in part by a small irrigation canal, bearing its share of the precious fluid from the neighboring town to which the area is entitled. Great stretches of ground, however, are uncultivated for the want of water, and measures have already been taken for its reclamation by the creation of a further artificial supply. A well was sunk to a depth of 53 meters (over 163 feet); the water, declared to be practically inexhaustible, rises naturally to within 32 meters (1054 feet) of the mouth of the well, and is thence raised by pumps to the surface. A second well has also been dug, in order to provide temporary auxil- iary resources. The militant monks will therefore be trained in the methods of Saharian culture, as well as in the use of arms. The house, occupying an area of 70 meters by 10, with the kitchens and offices in outbuildings, has the ground floor solidly built of stone instead of the sun-dried mud bricks generally used by the Arabs. The choice of Biskra for the headquarters of the order is a fortunate one, for the town, which is situated in an Oasis, commands one of the principal routes of the Soudan. The town proper, is composed of one large street built of European houses, and intersected by a number of smaller streets. The oasis, which is five kilometers long and half a kilometer broad, forms a forest of 150,000 palm trees and 5,000 olive and fruit trees. The population is cosmopolitan, and includes French, Tunis- ians, Arabs, Moors, and Israelites. - THE SAHARIAN DESERT AND ITS UNDERSHEET waters, 373 Napoleon Ney, a French engineer (“The Proposed Trans-Saharian Railway,” in Scribner's Monthly for November, 1891), says: To a young civil engineer, M. Georges Rolland, belongs the credit of reawakening the idea, long dormant, of a trans-Saharian railway. M. Rolland, who had been concerned with one of the Saharian expeditions, as I have already mentioned, made the subject of a desert railway his constant study. He established in the Sahara of Constantine an excellent colony, and in the desert regions of Oued Rir, between Biskra and Tougourt, he introduced a system of irrigation that has transformed the desert into a rich and profitable oasis. The ocean of sandy desert that separates the ſ"Fºe Duffourg * - I - , * Pſat/xG2 . . / - i., v.ºſaſām Mouidi \{}ºſiº.º.Sidi Yahºº &\éISKRK%W. #" （a § ! e * : N | %. i____sädi Amran ! Avata #": d 40. º, <> - ya ; º 7. d Djèdd; &. 7a mermas! # Öu£ * * Kºgºs & f sº “...ſaadaº # -- - °, | * > | Chegga A & - \ \º º | B • * ..:--> ... # *\,...º. T.'... A * Y *:::::::: 24. - *:::Mºš. ::::::::::::::::: soº S §§§ fºjº * • * \. º: º::s •: * ... : gur r} § $7,4×2 Q. ** &tº: * * * .….: S *A ... . . **.* Éyºdº fºetil 's sº \ à adº zº º: w o: A w -> Chişa Saiah (ºriana *. * C.SūYahia"Taa em Mouldi S É i ād; Amran. t º FAjata © #mernai # à c \, . tº) |-ee" 3. à/ºached º: vº \\ 2 *: t é, -> ##!/827arºzz, º ; : { † : | From Scribner's. Soudan from Algeria has been cited by critics of the trans-Saharian scheme as an insurmountable obstacle. mountable obstacle to the exchange of commodities between the new and the old worlds. And yet no one considers the Atlantic waves as an insur- I can say that the trans-Saharian railway will bring fertility with it. With sand and water one accomplishes wonders in Africa. The Arab proverb runs: “Plant a stick in the sand and water it, you will have a tree.” not always synonymous with desert. the Sahara has running water courses in summer, and subterranean lakes and arte- sian wells too deep for surface evaporation. The name Sahara is Notwithstanding the dryness of the climate, In the Saharian oases, where water 374 IRRIGATION. reaches the surface naturally, date palms make real forests and shelter smaller vege- tation that shows a grateful green against the monotonous gray of the desert. The date palm grows in the most arid soil, gypseous and even saline, sandy, and stony. The palm needs heat and water—its head in the burning sun, its feet in the water. It is the chief resource of the natives of North Africa, the king of the desert of Sahara, the tree of the Bible. The date is to the Sahara what wheat is to Europe, and rice to India and China. It is the common food of the native and his surest friend. It is the chief wealth and commodity of barter of millions of people, and is exported to every country. Its use is growing in Europe and America. When it can be used as a common fruit and not as a luxury, its value will be still more apparent. The date palm fruits in eight years after planting (and sometimes in five), and its culture is profitable. With 200 trees upon a hectare (about 24 acres) it brings in more than 1,000 francs a year. It will be seen that it is as profitable to plant palm trees in the Sahara as grapevines upon the slopes of Algeria or in the south of France. Its fruit is slower in coming, but there is no phylloxera to be feared. I have spoken of the subterranean sheet of water under the Sahara. The results produced by the artesian wells sunk since the French settled in Oued Rir, a series of oases south of the province of Constantine, of which the chief town is Tougourt, are nothing less than marvelous. The wells of the natives, lined with wood, last but a short time owing to the filling up of the sand, and everything dies for lack of water. For this reason some of the oases have disappeared under the sand. The natives were discouraged. “Our children are weak,” said one of the chiefs. “If God, the worker of miracles, does not help us, in ten years the Oued Rir will be deserted, buried in the sand.” As in the cases of the deserted cities of Central Asia, to be found on the line of the Trans-Caspian road, the Oued Rir was about to die of thirst. But the miracle was accomplished, and French engineering was about to save Oued Rir. On January 19, 1856, a memorable day, the sand-drill of the French engineer, Jus, brought forth a splendid stream of water, 4,000 liters (888 gallons) a minute, to the astonish- ment of the assembled natives. The Fountain of Peace was the name given to this well. The sand-drill won a greater victory and accomplished more than war for the peace of the Sahara. Since then the drilling in the Oued Rir has been continued with energy and perseverance by the military authorities under the direction of M. Jus. On October 1, 1885, there were 114 artesian wells belonging to the French and 492 belonging to the natives. Counting the few natural supplies of water, this gives a supply of 253,678 liters (56,372 gallons) of water a minute, or about 4 cubic meters (141 cubic feet) of water a second, equivalent to one-tenth of the flow of the Seine in summer, or equal to the flow of several streams large enough to give their names to departments, such as la Vilaine, le Tarn, l’Avignon, and la Dordogne. Thanks to the success of irrigation, the oases have become fertile again. There are to-day forty-three oases in the Oued Rir, 520,000 date-palms in bearing, 140,000 palms of from one to seven years of age, and about 100,000 other fruit trees. The an- nual production of dates is valued at more than 2,500,000 francs. The wealth of the Oued Rir in gardens, wells, houses, etc., has increased fivefold in the thirty years that have elapsed since the first well was drilled. In seven years, 1882—1889, M. Rol- land and his associates have “created” oases and three villages—at Ourir, in the north of the Oued Rir, at Sidi Yahia, and at Ayata, in the central-region. They sank nine wells, which give a flow of nearly 23 cubic meters (812 cubic feet) of water a minute. About 400 hectares (988 acres) of barren land have been made fertile. They have planted the enormous number of 50,000 palm trees, of which a fourth are of a fine variety known as deglet noir. They have dug 90 kilometers (56 miles) of irriga- ting ditches and have built dwellings for the French agents, the native laborers, storehouses, etc. A distinguished French engineer, M. H. Tournel, has well said that when one sees the amazing transformation produced upon the soil of Algeria by artesian water, the thought inevitably suggests itself that the conquest of the land l, as been achieved by first conquering what is under the land. t; FACTS AND CONDITIONS RELATING TO IRRIGATION IN V. A. R.I.O.U's COUNTRIEs. PREPARED BY RICHARD J. H IN TO N. IRRIGATION IN NORTH AND SOUTH AMERICA. IM E XII C O. The principal crops grown in Mexico with the assistance of irrigation are sugar, coffee, corn, wheat, oats, barley, beans, cotton, and tobacco; also oranges, bananas, and other fruits. Without irrigation, except near the coast, the yield would be very meager; with irrigation said crops are excellent, and will compare favorably with those of other countries, especially when consideration is had of the primitive agricul- tural implements used and the inefficient cultivation, as contrasted with that practiced elsewhere. The water supply is generally from streams, springs, and lakes. Some of the springs are large and important. One of these is on a hacienda belonging to the descendants of Cortez, in the State of Morelles, which supplies irrigation water sufficient for a fine sugar plantation. Storage and distribution works consist of dams, intended to elevate the level of the water in streams and rivers; also large reservoirs are formed by means of massive dams, generally of stone, the water being collected during the rainy season and held for use when needed. Each State of the Republic has its separate laws and regulations re- garding the distribution of water. The duty of water per acre and the amount used per season per acre vary according to soil, climate, and plants under cultivation. Moreover, the cost of water is generally in- cluded in the rental paid for the lands, which varies exceedingly in different places, according to the circumstances attending each locality. The ownership of the water is both public and private, but generally the latter, as the water privileges, being considered of quite as much importance as the land itself, have, in many instances, been transferred or transmitted by inheritance along with the title to the land. The following decree as to water management, approved June 5, 1888, is printed in the Consular Report on “Canals and Irrigation” (1891), issued by the State Department: * ART. 1. There shall be considered as general public highways, besides the inland roads, railways, etc., to the effects of section 22, article 72 of the constitution, the following: & - The territorial seas, marshes, and lagunes situated on the seacoast; canals con- structed by the Government or by means of public money; interior lakes and rivers, if navigable; whatsoever lakes and rivers situated and serving as boundary lines between the ‘Republic and foreign nation or between two States. º ART. 2. The federal executive has the power and right to look after the afore- named general roadways, and to regulate the private and public use thereof according ... to the following basis: (1) The towns situated on the seashore or the banks of a river shall have the gra- tuitous use of the water necessary for all domestic purposes of its inhabitants. • (2) There shall be respected and confirmed the rights of private individuals relating to the use and profit of rivers, lakes, and canals, providing that said rights consist in lawful titles or civil prescription exceeding ten years. (3) The concession or attestation of rights or titles to private parties on the lakes, rivers, and canals, relating to the present law, can only be made by the department of public works, excepting the case when said concession shall change the course of the rivers or canals aforenamed or should deprive of the use of their waters the in- habitants living down the stream. 377 378 IRRIGATION. * (4) The rights of fishing and pearl diving on the territorial seas and the uses and profits of marshes and lagoons situated on the seashore or national vacant lands shall be regulated specially by the executive power. - ART. 3. All transgressions of law comprised in the common jurisdiction committed on interior lakes, canals, or rivers, as well as the controversies that may arise between private individuals relative to obeying the statutes issued by the department of public works, shall be submitted to the competent local jurisdiction. A small number of wells, comparatively speaking, are in use in Mex- ico for irrigation purposes, the water being lifted generally by wind- mills. There are some small artesian wells along the railroad lines. Of the State of Coahuila, Consul Woessner, of Saltillo, says that— Water is worth a great deal more than land in this country, and the right to use it is fixed by law. There is considerable water power unused, which according to law can be acquired by denouncement. If a spring of water arises in the land of any one, the owner of the property also owns the spring. Rivers are owned and controlled by the State through which they pass. Rights and privileges to public waters are sold by the State. The system of water distribution is as follows, and is generally acquired by purchase: A stream of permanent water is called thirty days of water, and the owners may sell the right to any one to use this water for any length of time, say, for example, one day in every month, which is called one day of water, worth very often as high as $1,000 a day. It is an understood right between all landowners that parties own- ing any right or privilege in the water can pass the same to their lands through the lands of adjacent owners by means of narrow ditches. This system often causes many difficulties, particularly when the owner of a day or two of water dies and leaves some fifteen or twenty heirs, each of whom receives his share in hours, being an equal division, under the same right, of the day or two of water inherited. The formation of artificial lakes has already awakened attention, and a foreign (American) company of capitalists agitates at present the question of making a lake with the waters of the Rio Grande, to be used for industrial and agri- cultural purposes. This project, however, involves difficulties arising from its inter- national character. In all railroads and public highways provisions are required for the passage of irrigation ditches, pipes, flumes, or other modes of convey- ing water. A law under date of February 14, 1856, controls and regu- lates the distribution and measurement of water. The unit of water is identified with a furrow, and is termed the “surco" or “selco.” The metrical system was introduced in 1857, and the liter (0.26417 part of agal- lon) became the legal unit of measurement. The old system is still recognized when embodied in deeds and law papers. An elaborate code of regulations—handed from the Spanish control royal instructions regulating “servitudes of water"—has been promulgated in 1754. The guiding principle, both as to land and water, of these instructions was that all such property inured in the Crown and for public use and bene- fit; water rights were conceded to individuals as a special favor from the Crown. The law provided that to the sovereign and to no one else appertained the right to distribute natural waters. This is still the controlling principle, of Mexican law. The character of streams and other water sources was defined as follows in 1754, and the rule still coptrols: A torrent is a sporadic stream, originating from snow melting or sudden rainfall. Rivers are public and private. In the first all enjoy equal rights; in the others Some special contract or arrangement regulates use—it is usually described as having . “no banks.” Banks indicate in law the precise course of the flowing stream. Concessions of water make the same an appurtenance of the land through or over which it flows. A servitude is property pertaining to the thing. As to water, it attaches the same as service for land. Two predial estates are involved; One is entitled to use of water on another person’s land, the other is recognized as liable to such servitude. There are both urban and rural $º. **. wATER MANAGEMENT IN old MEXICO. " 379 servitudes. The latter involve the right to convey and use from another one's land water irrigation, domestic, stock supply, and for mill pur- poses. Works damaging others may not be constructed. Damages will be given for use of right of way. Stream courses may not be al- tered to the damage of those below. They may be changed on one's own land, if no harm is worked for others. Springs can be used by others than landowners for only a certain number of hours per week. Measurements for distribution are made according to position on the line of supply. All works must be of area easily calculated. Measur- ing gates are required. Flows must be continuous for a certain time, or when intermittent must be regulated. In fine, the rules are minute, involving all details of distribution. Cost of works are levied pro rata upon all lands served. These works must be constituted to known laws. Owners of springs or fountains or of flowing wells can control them fully. Surface waters become the property of the landowners in twenty years after possession, if he construct works subject to the “servitudes” of others. The flow and distribution from upper to lower levels is regulated by the water laws. When the supply is insufficient the community controls, and resort must be had to equitable terms, Some using their share by day and others by night. Indeed, the whole principle of water use places the same under community and legal con- trol. r In Lower California: Water supply to the cultivated lands is, from mountain streams and also several springs of permanent duration, by law still under the old régime. This country's system of water distribution among planters is regulated through the municipal town council, and is allowed free of taxation, thus being governed by the old rules and regulations of the laws of Spain ; the Mexican Government has not yet enacted laws regulating the using of water. In one of the most important valleys of the Pacific coast, situated in the upper part of the peninsula, 120 miles long by 40 wide, which is en- tirely without surface water, a valuable discovery has been made of a subterranean stream 70 feet below the surface, which, it is believed, flows through the whole course of the valley. T EIIR. A. R. G E N T IN E R EP Uſ B LIC. Jº- *The Argentine Republic has large areas within its extensive borders irreclaimable without the application of water for irrigation purposes. A system of flooding so that the surplus could readily be withdrawn was in practice before the Spanish and Portuguese occupation; not in Peru, Chili, and Bolivia alone, but on the eastern slope of the Andes, now forming part of Argentina. In his “Conquest of Peru” (Vol. I., pp. 131–133), the historian, Prescott, writing of the soil and its reclaim- ability by water, states that this— was conveyed by means of canals and subterraneous aqueducts executed on a noble scale. They consisted of large slabs of freestone nicely fitted together without ce- ment, and discharged a volume of water sufficient, by means of latent ducts or sluices, to moisten the lands in the lower level, through which they passed. Some of these aqueducts were of great length. One that traversed the district of Conde- suyos measured between 400 and 500 miles. They were brought from some lake or natural reservoir in the heart of the , mountains, and were fed at intervais by other basins which lay in their route along the slopes of the Sierra. In their descent a passage was sometimes opened through rocks, and this without the aid of iron tools; impracticable mountains were to be turned, rivers and marshes to be crossed ; in short, the same obstacles were to be encountered as in the construction of their Inighty roads. - 380 $. IRRIGATION. . These works were largely permitted to go to decay by the conquerors. Indeed so little care has been taken of them that many of their subterra- nean channels through which water still flows remain unexplored. In other places they still continue to partially fertilize areas where the con- duits are broken through. The system of water laws was elaborate, public and communal in character, but under strict general supervision. Overseers under the royal authority were in charge of management, dis- tribution, and repair. Remains of these works still exist in the Argentine provinces of Mendoza, San Juan, and along the upper eastern slope of the Andes. Since the conquest and up to a recent date agriculture has been greatly neglected. The aboriginal population were almost the only cultivators, until late in the present century. The interior provinces of Mendoza, San Juan, Catamarca, Tucuman, and Cordoba are those in which irrigation is a prime requirement and wherein it is practiced to an extent that gives evidence of continued growth. The average temperatures of these provinces are given in an interesting report by the United States consul at Buenos Ayres. His figures are summarized as follows: ë e g Flevation | Average rainfall in inches. - Provinces. * Lºude above sea * & level, meters. Apr. to Sept. Oct. to Mar. O f O f Mendoza ------------------------------ 68 49 32 55 2, 623 . 83. 3. 47 San Juan ----------------------------- 68 35 31 32 1, 131 2. 00 2. 24 Catamarca ---------------------------- 60 55 28 28 1, 788 ------------- |. ------------. Tucuman ----------------------------- 65 12 26 50 1, 506 2. 05 35, 00 Cordoba.------------------------------|----------|----------|-------------- 3.27 10. 04 Mendoza is on an average, San Juan on less than three years, and the other two on two years each. Mean of temperature in º degrees (Centigrade). - Provinces. Apr. to Sept. Oct. to Mar. Mendoza (city of) -------------------------------------------------------- 10. 61 21. 29 San Juan...... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 15. 09 24, 33. Catamarca---------------------------------------------------------------- 15. 44 26.17 Tucuman----------------------------------------------------------------- 14. 53 21:19 Cordoba ------------------------------------------------------------------ 13.54 17. 55 The territory of the Argentine Republic extends from 560 to 200.06 south latitude, so that the variety of climate embraced is as varied as the territorial range is extensive. The rainfall, latitude, and elevation, is given below, as indicating the principal irrigable areas. These tables illustrate the extreme dryness of the atmosphere, and therefore the need of irrigation. The sources of supply is almost ex- clusively mountain rivers, streams, and springs, and the trouble with them is their unequal volume. When the snow melts they are full to overflowing, but the waters soon disappear, those in the central system being rapidly imbibed by the sands and possessing no outflow. North and south the streams form part of the Rio de la Plata system, and those south of the province of Buenos Ayres. The distribution is usu- ally of the most primitive character. Dams are built in the streams, and the water is thus diverted at various levels by means of lateral drains, trenches, or ditches with sluices or head gates for admittance to the fields, where checks are used on level ground to facilitate flood- tºº. ~. -. tº. - * A. & water contROL AND USE IN ARGENTINE. 381 ing. When the head gates are opened there is no difficulty, as a rule, in evenly filling all laterals, especially in the upper and foothills region. The provinces using irrigation are reported by Consul Baker as follows: sº Area in w Provinces. cultivation. Total area. e. Electares. | Hectures. Cordoba ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 234, 395 || 17,476,700 San Luis---------------------------------------------------------------------. 19, 809 7, 591, 700 Mendoza ----------------------------------------------------------------...--- 88, 546 | 16,081, 300 San Juan -------------------------------------------------------------------. 79, 630 9,750, 500 Qatamarca-------------------------------------------------------------------- 44, 618 9,064,400 Rioja ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 22, 217 8, 903, 000 Simtiago del Estéro ---------------------------------------------------------- 120, 400 10, 235, 500 Tucuman--------------------------------------------------------------------- 35,943 2,419,900 Salta. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 38, 525 12, 826,600 Jujuy -----------------------------------------------------------------------. 18, 994 4, 528, 600 Total.------------------------------------------------------ ------------ 703,077 98,878,200 A hectare being 2% acres (within a small fraction), the total area in cultivation by irrigation will be, in the ten provinces, not less than 1,759,600 acres. The area of cultivation does not exceed 7 per cent of the whole. The chief products are corn, small grains, sugar cane, veg- etables, grass, and some fruit. Boring for artesian water has been con- ducted by the provincial government of Rioja with but little success (1889), however. Catamarca, Rioja, and San Luis are the most arid sections. The best system of works is found in the provinces of San- tiago, Rioja, San Juan, Mendoza, and Cordoba, especially the two last named. The figures given by Consul Baker as to the works begun about 1882–83, by lyr. Juarez Colman, since President of the Republic, show that a number of large dams or dikes, with masonry work, large canals, utilizing different systems, the waters of four important rivers, at an estimated cost when completed of $15,280,000. Their irrigable capacity is put at 3,020,000 acres, or a cost per acre of $27.87. The control of water, where ditches have been taken out wholly by land-owners, remains in their hands. Where construction has been made by the provincial governments a public tax for use is levied. The private control of water is in the nature of an easement, and can not be separated or sold apart from the land on which it is utilized. The original Inca system of public ownership and direction was broken up by the conquest. But as the great estates then created are in proc- ess of breaking up, the land sales are always accompanied by a trans- fer of water also. The public water tax for irrigation purposes in the two provinces of Mendoza and Cordoba is about $6 per acre (a square is charged $30 and embraces about 5 acres) for one in seven, the tax to be paid quarterly. Water for domestic use is taxed 25 cents per month for each house or family. In Catamarca the price is 6 cents per hour. In Tucuman $3 per mark for twenty-four hours' flow. In Santiago all farms and gardens pay $1.50 per hour for all the water they use, six times or six days in a month. There is a statement in the law of a limit to amount of water to be used. N I C A R A G U A, V E N E Z U E L A, A N D C U B.A. Irrigation is practiced to some extent in Venezuela very much after the usual fashion of the ranchers and laborers of mixed Indian and Spanish descent. The small streams are the chief source of supply. Coffee requires a good deal of water, as does sugar also, and the great 382 IRRIGATION. heat of summer rapidly evaporates the flowing water; as a result the Crops suffer from drought. There are no important works and no water code or regulations. United States Consul W. S. Bird reports: The system of water distribution is governed, according to the best obtainable ... information, by custom only, although there are some statutes in reference to it that, by common consent, have fallen into disuse. The unwritten law is that each person shall have the right to water on a stated day for a certain length of time, when he must close his flood gate and again await his turn. Under such an arrangement, therefore, it is evident that the amount of water used per acre and per season, and the tenure of ownership, etc., can not be intelligently stated. Nicaragua uses irrigation only in a very perfunctory way. Mr. H. C. Wills, United States consul manager reports that near Nandaime, a small Indian town in the de- partment of Rivas, three cacao (chocolate) estates are partially flooded in a primitive way by their owners from small rivers or streams being dammed to cause the water to flow over the plantations, which are below the streams. Some action has been taken in relation to artesian Wells, several of which were being bored in 1891, with fair prospects of obtaining good flows. The water is to be used in coffee plantations. A system of small irrigations exists in Cuba, according to our consul at Santiago de Cuba. There is an abundant water supply, but the summer heat and topographic conditions seriously affect the distribu. tion. The rivers and small streams are numerous enough to fill the soil by percolation and so make natural Subirrigation an availing fac- tor. “Los Cantos,” a sugar estate on the Bay of Guantanamo, owned by an English firm been have compelled to construct open ditches and irrigate 333% (10 caballerias) acres. tº The water supply from the Guantanamo River is dammed above the area irrigated and the water distributed by a system of small ditches. Permission was obtained from the Spanish Government, and the owners pay neither rental nor taxes. The amount of water used per acre de- pends on the rainfall of the rainy season, and can not be estimated, as the work has just commenced, - IRRIGATION IN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES. A U S T RIA = H U N G. A. R. Y . Consul-General Goldschmidt, at Vienna, reports that in Austria-Hun- gary, meadow irrigation on a large Scale, although generally in an im- perfect state of construction, may be found in the southern part of lower Austria; in the Mattig Valley, in upper Austria; near Klagen- furth, in Carinthia; in certain of the upper and central valleys in Tyrol; on the farms of Prince Schwarzenberg, at Wittingau; at the im- perial and stud farm at Kladrub; in the Bistritz Valley, and in the Elbe Valley in Bohemia. The water required is, according to local circumstances, taken either from rivers, creeks, springs, ponds, or other reservoirs. As a rule it is conducted from rivers or creeks with its natural head into channels or ditches. The water course is generally stemmed, more or less high, at the place where the conduit is to be started, by a suit- able dam, which will cause the water to flow into the irrigation channel. The latter is at its source or beginning generally provided with a gate, which serves to protect it from floods and to permit of its being laid dry when required. For small neadows there are in many places found wheels for raising the water from the natural watercourse (creek or river) to the higher border land. Those wheels are equipped with buckets, which are hung in and are moved by the currents of the streams in which they are suspended. They are found in large numbers on the Eisack River, in Tyrol, above Bozen. For irrigating extensive meadows at Kladrub, in Bohemia, for instance, a 30-centimeter centrifugal pump is put to work when the Opatovic Canal contains too little or no water. This pump is then operated by a 12-horse-power portable engine, and raises the water from the Elbe River to a height of 5.5 meters. Wells, tanks, or cisterns are generally employed for the irrigation of kitchen gar- dens only. Arrangements of this kind may be found in the environs of large cities, especially around Vienna. In this kind of irrigation the water is, as a rule, pumped from the well, tank, or cistern by means of horse power. In localities where but small supplies are found in creeks or springs, basins or ponds are formed by the erection of suitable dams. Such small basins or ponds have been constructed, for instance, at the trifling cost of 100 florins at Guttaring, in Carinthia, for the irrigation of a large meadow of 3 hec- tares, and on the Saager farm, in Carinthia, for a meadow of 1.7 hectares, when the total cost of construction amounted to only 85 florins. Consul-general Goldschmidt says, that: In Austria there exist no specialinstitutions for the supply and distribution of water from the main conduits (canals, etc.) for irrigation purposes, as, for histance, the so- called “water module” in upper Italy. Such arrangements are not known in Austria, for the reason that here no independent enterprise exists for vending quantities of water from canals. The distribution of the water into the different side ditches is effected by simple, mostly wooden, gates, which are raised or lowered according to requirement. * * …” There is no general code in relation to the use of water, and when impounded it is regarded as private property. Provincial laws exist for the control of water corporations, which provide, among other uses, that of irrigation and drainage. The corporations have a municipal or district character, and the propriety and need of inaugurating either irrigation or drainage enterprises is to be decided by votes that repre- sent the preponderance of acres in the area to be affected. Another law 383 —-, *. 3. *T s .# . . º: .* - 384 IRRIGATION, passed in Austria June 30, 1884, provides subventions from the states and provinces to the extent of 60 per cent of the total cost of irrigation and drainage constructions. In the Goriz district irrigation for rice is prac. ticed. Irrigation for grain fields is now planned in connection with the Marchfield plains, near Vienna. In the mountainous portions of the Tyrol meadow irrigation is both ancient and extensive. Many old irri. gation works have been reconstructed and improved, and new ones have been constructed in great numbers. # Several of the Bohemian canals constructed for power and naviga- tion are also used for both drainage and irrigation. The same thing is true in Austria. B E L G I U. M. Irrigation is practiced in Belgium, chiefly for the cultivation of meadow lands. There are numerous small works and canals for that purpose. There are 16 navigable canal systems with a total length of 587,773 meters (367.3 miles], the water of which is often used in agricultural processes, as, for example, in the flooding and draining of the flax pits in aid of the process of “rowissage,” or decomposition by “retting” or “steeping ” in water. These canals are all the property and under the control of either state, province, or commune. - A net work of canals known as “de la campine” are the chief arti- ficial channels used for the irrigation of meadow and moorland. Con- siderable use is also made of the rivers Scheldt and Meuse, and their affluents. The canals named have a length of about 350 miles, and were constructed for both navigation and irrigation purposes, at a cost of $5,000,000. There is considerable and successful enterprise in the way of reclaiming moorland by means of irrigation. The profit already obtained is about $22 per hectare (nearly 3 acres). Consul J. A. Stewart, of Antwerp, says: r No tax of any kind is collected for the use of the water of the canals for irrigating purposes, and no engagement of any kind exists between the parties interested, i. e., the state and the proprietors of the land under irrigation. Such proprietors have a uniform right to the water available from the canals, the requirements of naviga- tion having been previously satisfied. Permission to establish trenches from the canals for irrigation are generally granted under certain conditions. They have to be constructed according to plans sent in with the application, and approved by the Government. The applicant will be held to keep the land irrigated under cultiva- tion, and not use it for any other purpose. * D E N M A. R. K. Irrigation for reclaiming heath land is carried on in Jutland, Den- mark, by a corporation organized for that purpose. About 90 square miles or 55,000 acres, out of 140 square miles or 71,600 acres, have been brought under use, 6,400 acres as plantations and the balance as mead- ows and fields. The work done is divided into: “(1) Construction of irrigation canals; (2) plantations in general; (3) limited plantations on the different properties and inclosures with quickset hedges; (4) drain- ing of bog lands; (5) cultivation of marsh lands.” There are 145 canals in operation (1890), carrying 22,000 second-feet of watér and having a varying length of from 5 to 15 miles. The 21,000 acres of land under cultivation have increased in value $1,600,000, or nearly $80 per acre. The total cost is estimated at from $80 to $270 per second-foot, or a total of not less than $300,000, and administration is arranged by each canal. One crop is made per year, a local board is chosen, and they divide the water each season; that is, from April to December. Conveyance to meadows is made in wooden troughs. work, AREAs, water, AND VALUES IN FRANCE. 385 In all there are 51,400 acres of forest plantations. The corporation controls and owns 6,300 acres for experimental planting. Its work forms a very interesting reclamation exhibit. IF F. A. N. C. E . According to the report of Consul-General Rathbone (1891), the total area irrigated in France is 7,000,000 acres. All irrigating canals are river-fed. . Reservoirs are few in number. The works consist, first: Of a principal canal, or chief branch, through which the volume of water to be distributed flows from the river; second, of a smaller canal, fed by the principal one ; third, of a network of streams, drains, and ditches, which provide each landowner with the quantity of water to which he is entitled. - The use of water for irrigating is regulated by the French code. The articles bearing particularly on this point are as follows : 643. The owner of the spring can not change its course when he provides the in- habitants of a commune, village, or hamlet with the water necessary for them, but when the inhabitants have not acquired or prescribed the use of the same the owner may demand a compensation, the exact amount of which is to be fixed by an expert. 644. The owner of a property skirted by a running water which is not national property, according to article 538, has a right to the use of the water for irrigating his lands while it flows past them. The owner of ancestral lands traversed by this water may use it within the full limits of his lands on condition he restores it to its proper bed before it leaves his estate. 645. If a dispute arises between the landowners to whom this water may be use- ful, the tribunal called upon to give its decision in the matter shall conciliate the in- terests of agriculture with the respect due to the rights of property, and in every case with the particular and local customs and regulations which pertain to the pas- sage and use of water.” Recent enactments provide for some additional rules, the text of which is not at hand. Springs are owned by persons, by the state, or by the communities. Running waters are regulated, as to use, by law. Navi- gable waters belong to the state. Irrigation works are executed either by syndical bodies or by contractors working for public bodies. A hec- tare is very nearly three English acres, and the cost of water on several of the leading canals is given per year at from 35 to 80 francs per hectare, or from $2.33 to $5.33 per acre. Consul-General Rathbone states that: The cutting of a certain number of canals for Irrigation in the southern districts dates back several centuries. The more important works, however, are of compara- tively recent origin. During the last ten years, especially, a great impulse has been given to the construction of works devoted to irrigation. Subjoined is a list of the most notable enterprises of this kind. It is taken from the “Journal d'agriculture pratique.” * Departments. Description of works. Cost. * -- Francs, Drôme-------------------------------------------- Canal de la Bourne ------------------. 13,000, 000 Alpes-Maritimes.--------------------------------. Canal de la Vésubie ------------------ 7,000,000 Aude and Hérault.------------------------------. Canal to be used for submerging both 2,400,000 departments. Drôme and Vaucluse ----------------------------. Canal de Pierrelatte ----------------- 8,000,000 Basses-Alpes ------------------------------------- Canal de Manosque------------------- 4, 500,000 Hautes-Alpes -----------------------------------. Canal de Ventavon ------------------- 2,000,000 ude --------------------------------------------- Canal de Canet ----------------------- 1,000, 000 Bouches-du-Rhône-------------------------------. Drying up the Fos marshes, and puri- 18,000,000 fying the waters of the Crau. Herault ------------------------------------------ Canal de Gignac---------------------- 4, 200,000 Loire ---------- * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Canal de Forez ----------------------- 7,000, 000 Alpes-Maritimes---------------------------------- Canal de Foulon.--------------------- 1,200,000 Aude; * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * sº e s = º - 3. §: º m s ºr s m = * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 2,000,000 O - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 8D8l (16 Lll G - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Do.----------------------------------------- Canal de Fabrezan. ------------------- 1, 160,000 Total --------------- ... * * * * * > * e s - e º 'º º ºs º ºs e º ºr e º e i e º ºs e is sº is - - - - - is ºs ºn tº sº tº e º º º ºs º is tº * * * * #--------. 41,460,000 *Consular Report on Canals and Irrigation, 1891, p. 99. S. Ex. 41—25 © 386 IRRIGATION. The public treasury generally contributes one-third of the cost of the works; the land owners interested in them defray the remaining two-thirds. In the case of the most important works, the State, besides contributing its third, has guarantied for the space of fifty years to the parties who covered the loan raised for the purpose of carrying out the works the interest due on the sums lent to the contractor. The department of des Bouches-du-Rhône borders on the Mediter- ranean to the east and comprises the territory Surrounding the mouth of the river. The chief source of supply is the Dorrance River, a moun- tain stream of considerable volume. Its floods have often been de- structive in character. The area of irrigated land has largely increased during the past thirty years. The water surface (artificial) devoted to irrigation purposes was given some years since at 1,378 acres, while that of the natural lagoons, rivers, lakes, and streams is stated at 134,500 acres. The cultivated area was given twenty years since at 876,000 acres. It is now about one million. The products of this department include olive orchards, vineyards, and other semitropical fruits and products. The cultivation of wheat is also increasing. The small farming of France reaches it best development in the south of France. United States Consul Trail, of Marseilles, says: Properties of this sort are frequently not more than 20 acres, sometimes much less, that being all the land one average family can cultivate without the employment of hired labor. The products of such a farm are raised on small patches. One fre- quently sees but 1 acre given to wheat, another to the vine or olive, several for gardening, and the remainder in pasture on a 10 or 15-acre farm. This diversity of production prevents the farm work from being overexacting at any one period, enabling the family to work on the different crops at different times, and keeping it busy all the year round. Besides, it is found, even on these small farms, that marked differ- ences in the soil occur, so that experience has taught that it is more profitable to divide up 10 acres in several cultures than to confine them to but one. These small farms require little or no machinery in the American sense of the word. Irrigation in this department is as ancient as the Roman occupation of Gaul. At that early day canals were dug to conduct the water of the Durance to Arles and Salon in the southward. All subsequent authority has encouraged these irrigation efforts, however rude they may have been. Syndicates have been formed to construct roads, against the Sea and the river and floods, to drain lagoons, to irrigate the land. For drainage purposes there were in 1890 fifty-three of these syndicates, and for irrigation eighty-one. There are two classes, one under Government control, and the other elected by those interested. Each syndicate represents one work, which makes eighty-one, the num- ber of canals, the largest of which are the Crapponne, the Alpines, and the Marseilles, for all of which the Durance is the source of supply. The first-named system was constructed in the sixteenth century. It irrigates about 30,000 acres. The canal supplies the city as well as the land under its course by a system of ditches, conduits, and pipes ex- ceeding 100 miles in length. The annual receipts are about $300,000, and the cost of water for irrigation is from 27 to 190 francs annually, or from $5.40 to $38 per year. Water is sold by the measure, not by the acre. Consul Trail says: The French law permits a farmer to use all the water necessary to irrigate his fields from a river flowing through or by his land free of cost. When the land is lower than the river surface the question of embankment may be the most important for that particular property; when above the level, the cost of pumping the water up to a desired point for immediate distribution or for storage in a reservoir takes a most important place in the items of yearly expenditure for that estate, so that the value of rural property is governed by the ease and cheapness with which water can be obtained, or the contrary. Where nature alone has to be relied on for the rainfall the value of land, as given before, is very low, as the only products under that con- dution are a coarse and scanty glass and a few.frees of little or no value. WATER MANAGEMENT IN FRANCE FOR FARM USE. 387 In answer to the question sent in 1889 by the Senate Committe on Irrigation and Reclamation of Arid Lands, through the State Depart- ment, the various United States commercial agents in the Marseilles consular district state that there is under irrigation in nine communes a total of 93,762 acres. These questions, prepared by the writer as the committee's expert, were as follows: (1) Areas of land under irrigation; compare with the nonirrigable and cultivable areas when possible. Also, quantity and quality of crops grown. (2) Sources of water supply, whether from rivers, streams, springs, lakes, wells, reservoirs, catchment basins, or tanks, etc. (3) Character of works used for storage and distribution of water. (4) The system of water distribution, whether governed by laws, rules, and regu- lations, or custom. Give duty of water per hectare, i. e., the amount used per hec- tare and per season; the cost or rental to user; tenure of ownership of water, and whether the same be public or private, national or community. (5) Character of climate in irrigated region and nature of soil; annual rainfall or other precipitation. (6) Antiquity or otherwise of irrigation systems within the section treated of, and whether the same are maintained at public or private expense. - There are private ditches, and some controlled by riparian rights, but the larger number are the property of the communes themselves. The United States consul at Rouen, Mr. Williams, writes of the river and canal revenue and funds, as follows, so far as the subject in the north of France refers to irrigation and forestry: The rivers serve other purposes, such as reservoirs for man and beast and domestic purposes, and irrigation of the streets of villages and cities and irrigation of land. For the last-named purpose this district has no use. A considerable source of reve- nue arises from the sale of forests planted on lands redeemed by dikes, and the banks of canals upon which trees—principally willows and poplars—are grown, which sell on an average at 20 francs apiece at the growth of thirty years. The revenue from this source alone was 345,053 francs in 1887. The wood sales of the navigable waters of the department of the North and Pas de Calais were, from 1883 to 1887, 69,500 francs, and will he much more when the growing groves will be matured. The net profit of the sale of 18,000 poplars on the Seine was 414,000 francs in forty years, or 10,350 francs per annum. The trees add not only to the beauty but to the comfort of these waterways. The falls are utilized as a motive power, and they become vast reservoirs where fish are extensively propagated. They sometimes break through their banks and do much damage to lands, and become the depositories of much unhealthy matter and require great outlay for repairs. The importance of the waterways of France is conceded on all sides, and their ex- tension and amelioration have received the careful consideration of every adminis- tration, and of none more than the present.—(Canal and Irrigation, Consular Report, 1891, p. 119). - . The Forez Canal, in the Department of Loire, and supplied by the river of that name, irrigated 65,000 acres. It was begun in 1863, and the National Government has granted for its construction $122,200, and loaned the balance needed to the department at 4 per cent. In 1886, date of latest report, there were 23,000 acres served, with a length in ditches of 115 miles, at a cost of $219,104, or nearly $9.50 per acre. At that rate a total cost of the system will not be less than $598,000. The water is sold by volume under gauge. The distribution is in gen- eral periodic and Collective, through pipes carrying the water to a point most convenient for a group of farms. From the pipes head or flood gauge the water flows into farm laterals. This service is always once a week, on the same days or hours, the amount received being regu- lated by the amount purchased. The delivery commences on land furthest from main canal. Each proprietor turns off the water from his lateral when he has received what has been paid for, and the next in order is served. The system works well. The assessment tables are made out by November 1, and notice is served on each irrigator of the 388. IRRIGATION. * * days and hours when water was applied to each parcel or piece of his land. The smallest proprietor is served at least two hours, and the amount ranges from 7 to 15 liters per second. This irrigation is almost wholly employed on meadows. The methods are small ditches on slight grades or by wooden troughs where the land is flat. The results ob- tained are stated to be profitable and satisfactory. Land has increased in value from about $44 up to $300 per acre. The Department of Lozère is the most elevated in France. Irriga- tion is practiced there quite extensively, but in a primitive fashion. The fields are flooded by cutting the stream banks. All springs are collected through pipes and delivered to the land. The people of this department make their own water regulations. Riparian rights, regu- ulated by needs, are recognized. The water must be restored to its natural course after use and be received by those below. Passage over other lands is permitted ou indemnity for all works necessary to convey water. Courts have summary jurisdiction, and the prefects may make police regulations, if required. IT AL Y - Irrigation in Italy was probably as ancient as the rule of the Etruscan people. It certainly was an early and important part of Roman eco- nomics. It has had a distinct purpose in the agronomic life of the peninsula ever since. But its present importance dates from the works inaugurated by that almost universal genius, Leonardi di Vinci. At the present date the principal seat of cultivation by irrigation is in Piedmont and Lombardy. In 1878 there were the following areas under cultivation by irrigation: º Acres. Lombardy -------------------------------------------------- * * * * * * * * * * * * * 2,034,000 Piedmont--------------------------------------------------------------- 1,329,000 Venetia-------------------------------------------. --------------------- 122,000 Emilia---------------- - * * * * * - - - - - as a e º 'º - - - - - - as ºs = - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 288,000 Other provinces.----------. * - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 642,090 4,415,000 There are nine principal canals in Lombardy which are navigable as well as used for an irrigation supply; the mileage of the system is ex- tensive. The Piedmont main canals are 253 in number, with a length of 1,2074 miles. Venetia has 203 navigable and 40 minor canals. The latter are chiefly used in irrigation. It is estimated that about 500,000 additional acres can be brought by these means under intensive culti- vation. In the last twelve years there is no doubt that the increased acreage under irrigation will make the total at least 4,600,000 acres. In the Progress Report for 1890 of this office the local laws and regula- tions are given. * United States Consul Edward Camphausen, at Naples, writes: There are some lands under private irrigation. The water supply belonging to the respective landowners is taken from wells at a depth varying from 25 to 100 feet, water being found in abundance at that depth in most parts of the country. Near the coasts of the Adriatic and Mediterranean wells are formed by the infiltration of saltwater. Some of these belong to communities, but no definite law or regulations appear to exist for the use or distribution of the water, and there is no irrigated land in the true sense of the word in this district. The Italian Government has expended large sums of money since 1865 on irrigation works, and in 1883 it was empowered to loan funds (principal payable in thirty years) at 5 per cent to “irrigation associa- tions” (consorzi) and to provinces and communes for the purpose of * * x- *-g IRRIGATION works AND LAws IN ITALY AND SPAIN. 389 carrying on works of irrigation; provided the supply of water to be obtained shall be not less than 25 gallons per second, and provided the . province or commune advances an amount at least equal to one-tenth of the sum loaned by the State. In Sicily, especially, and throughout southern Italy, all fruit culture is carried on by irrigation, which is in all instances required throughout the summermonths, the proportion of nonirrigated to irrigated groves in ex- tent being as 1 to 15. One hundred 10-year old lemon trees that are watered produce on an average 15,000 lemons; whereas 100 trees that receive no water (other conditions being equal) produce but 10,000, or one-third less. The groves are watered from twelve to twenty-five times during the summer; that is either once every two weeks or once a week. At the last spring working of the trees the land is trenched, in order to obtain an equal distribution of the water. Parallel trenches are opened (generally about 6 inches deep and 8 inches wide at the bottom) between the rows of trees, the intermediate space being divided into symmetrical squares or divisions. Prior to 1866 the water for irrigation was owned by private indi- viduals, the municipality, and convents, or religious corporations. In that year, however, the Government confiscated all the property of the latter to which there was a clear title or in which no outsider, public or private individual, had an interest, so that now it controls all the water formerly owned by the religious bodies in question, which by far ex- ceeded that owned by the municipality and private persons combined. This water the Government either sells or rents. According to the reports of our consul at Messina, the— Distributing of water for irrigation purposes when the water is private property (for by law the owner is allowed to make what use of it he pleases provided he does no damage to his neighbors) is not governed by law, but by special customs that vary with the locality, and which it would be impossible to enumerate. The cost of water for irrigation purposes is so complicated a matter that it can not be fixed pre- cisely, but this much can be said: In this province a penna (a goose quill) of water, i. e., 36 gallons of water, per hour costs from $200 to $260 per annum. Here, as a rule, water, is private property. Some communes own water, either by purchase from private parties or because its source is on community land. The title to water is acquired by bargain and sale, exchange, gift, and can also be acquired by prescription. Not less than thirty years of undisturbed enjoyment are necessary to create title by prescription. Irrigation is commenced on April 15 and terminates September 15, annually. For obvious reasons it is not resorted to during the winter, excepting for promoting the development of grass lands. SIP A.I.N. The total area of irrigation in Spain is variously estimated at from 700,000 to 6,000,000 acres, the latter being the estimate given by United States Consul Perez, at Santander, of the area benefited by irrigation. The first-named estimate embraces the cereal, vegetable, and fruit area; the latter that of the forage plants and grass lands. The total cultivated for crops and pastures in the kingdom is given by the same authority at 120,000,000 acres. One of the most notable plans for irri- gation is that applied to the cultivation of meadows in the northern -coast provinces and known as the “spike channels.” Mr. Perez says: The system for irrigation of meadow lands most commonly applied in these prov- inces is that denominated “irrigation by inclined channels,” or also “spike chan- nels” (“riego por requeras inclinadas” or “ requeras en espiga”). The distribution channels are devised nearly in the sense of the greatest slopeness of the grounds; the irrigation channels connect with them and spread out to right and left. A rapid 390 IRRIGATION. sectional change takes place in the distribution channels at the point where they separate into branches with the irrigating channels. The last-mentioned channels, by having a gradually narrowing section from their parting point down to the oppo- site end, pour out the water by getting inundated. Another contrivance is also combined with this briefly described distributive system, which consists of collecting channels, called “azarbes,” dug on the natural lines of junction on the meadow ground, terminating in an outlet channel. Sometimes, when the extent of the meadow is not considerable, or when the quantity of water available is but small, the collecting crannels are changed into new feeding channels for the supply of other lots situated farther down. Any reasonable attempt to illustrate the irrigation works and meth- ods of distribution would require a volume in place of the few pages at the writer's command. It will suffice to say that irrigation in Spain goes as far back as Iberian life, existed under the Roman conquerors, was systematized and localized by the Moors when they controlled southern Spain, and that it has within the current century taken a new lease of life and enterprise. Engineers study the works of Spain for their construction merits; and as among the applications of hydrau- lic principles, legislators find in the codes and laws adopted by the national government as well as in the rules, regulations, and customs by which provincial local and municipal control is maintained over the natural wealth-water, a constant series of models for application else- where and under almost all varieties of circumstances. Agronomic economists are guided at every step by Spanish experience in learning and estimating economy in the use of water, the value of land and products under irrigation, and the means and methods by which such results are achieved. The former Spanish control of large areas of our own territory has left marked influences upon the conditions under which irrigations must be operated. The study, therefore, of Spanish irri- gation results, laws, regulations, customs, and of the constructions in use, will prove of value to all who desire to understand the legislative and economic, as well as engineering needs of an arid or sub-arid country, whose agriculture must be largely carried on by means of irrigation. IRRIGATION IN BRITISH DEPENDENCIES AND COLONIES. IN B R ITIS H C O L U M B I.A. The southern and central portions of this section of British America has most of the characteristics of eastern Washington, and requires, as it does, irrigation for security of crops. The climate is dry, the rain- fall quite small. The interior is a great basin, broken by small ranges and hills not much elevated, and is drained by the Frazer and Thomp. son rivers, and lakes. There is a marked absence of forest trees and the river basins and valleys are of great size. Irrigation is practiced to a moderate extent at several points, notably at Ashcroft, where irrigation is used in general agriculture and fruit growing. There are a number of ditch enterprises; one, known as the Boston, being 14 miles in length, and costing for construction $60,000, $4,285.71 per mile; somewhat less than $5 per acre. This ditch failed from want of good engineering and cost too much. At Hat Creek, near Ashcroft, there is an enterprise drawing water from a small lake and costing about $5,000. From the eastern slope of the Cascade range to the western one of the Selkirk Mountain, or as far east as the one hundredth meridian of west longitude, the storage and conservation of water for irrigation will become a necessity whenever farming begins on an ex- tensive scale. . Mr. C. F. Cornwall, a prominent citizen of British Columbia, writes to United States Consul Stevens that there are a number of irrigation en- terprises and that without it— The cultivation of the soil in such portions would be fruitless; with it the most satisfactory results are attainable and attained. * * * Though irrigation of land undoubtedly adds a certain percentage to the expense of cultivation, yet I think it can be indisputably proved that the advantages resulting from its use amply repay the increased cost. The average yield of crops under well-applied irrigation is very large; far larger than in unirrigated districts, however fruitful they may be. The use of the water, doubtless to a certain extent, enriches the land, and so rapid is growth under its beneficent stimulating effects, that in these comparatively northern latitudes produce is brought to a perfection of species which you would only expect to find flourishing in more southerly climes; for instance, besides all the usual grains and roots common to temperate climes, in these districts, under irrigation, flourish fruits of all descriptions—grapes, melons, cucumbers, tomatoes, maize, apples, pears, plums, etc., all too numerous to mention—and attain a maturity and perfection which is astonishing. Such womld not be the case were such latitudes subject to the cold which is associated with a degree of rainfall which would render irrigation unnec- essary. I think that most farmers who have experienced practically the advantages of irrigation would be unwilling to pursue their avocation in districts where its use was unnecessary or impossible. * Legislation in this province, adopted in 1873, making provision for ditching and diking, goes into administrative details with great care so as to retain control in the hands of the authorities. The act provides for the appointment of district commissioners, specifies their powers, and directs them how to carry on the work,-for cases in which the land is partially owned by the crown; for overseers; how to give notice to pro- prietors; how and for what, assessments, fines, and rates are to be made; 391 392 IRRIGATION. provides that lands may be leased or sold for payment of rates; that the land is liable only where the owner has not agreed to the works or for actions by owners against commissioners; that owners and occupiers shall furnish labor; fine may be levied for neglect of assessment of damages to sods or soil; that record is to be kept by clerk; the fees for inspection and extracts; as to cases of salt marshes and necessary breakwaters; assessment may be made only upon land benefited. Clerks are to be competent witnesses; commissioner must not be a clerk; how plans may be obtained; as to outer dikes and inner dikes; how kept, outer dike ceasing to protect inner; proprietors of inner dikes have recourse to compel repairs of outer dikes; injured dikes, how repaired; mode of making application for drainage—duty of commissioner; mode of valuing and assessing damage to lands—cases of two proprietors, but neither owning two-thirds, how provided for; occupant may appeal to Supreme Court; fine for official neglect; verbal notices valid unless otherwise specified; commissioners not liable for acts of predecessor; lieutenant- governor in council may in certain cases guarantee interest on two-thirds money for diking; assessments for the interest so guarantied, lien on the land therefor. BRITISH AND IN ATIVE (DEPENDENT) STATES OF INDIA. The peninsular region of India embraces irrigation, engineering, and economic problems of the first magnitude. Topographically speaking it is an area remarkably self-contained. As related economically and socially it is self-developed. In climatology, though it largely lies under the equator or is close thereto, it has many distinct types, and ranges from the lowest to the highest degrees of humidity and precipi- tation, of heat and cold. In population the region is one of the largest; in racial and ethical associations it possesses many and varied condi- tions. To the agriculturist and economist interested in irrigation ques- tions, it presents peculiar attractions. In formation India is an equi- lateral triangle, whose apex is the “roof of the world”—the vast central Sierra of Asia. The distinctly arid portion embraces the Himalayan Range and projects southward, like a huge diamond in shape, into the elevated central plateau of the peninsula. The shore portions, made from river deposits and practically their several deltas, are somewhat in the shape, on either side, of elongated triangles whose lower points meet in the Indian Ocean. The western triangle is the wheat region; the east the rice growing. At the south are the cane fields and other trop- ical products. In the arid section or plateau region the cereals, millet, maize, barley, Sesame, etc., are grown. There are many important streams and several of the world’s great rivers. They are both snow and rain fed in character, the latter being the largest and most impor- tant. The Indus, Ganges, and Brahmapootra are all larger than the Nile, the latter being four times as great in volume. The population of India follows rainfall, and evaporation producing aridity, renders the crowded life precarious. The soil of India is almost everywhere sat- urated with moisture. Mr. Deakin says: “By far the largest sec- tion of all is watered by Wells,” and their contents are lifted by means of “ hand or bullock draft.” Except at the head of the sub-mountain plains, where the supply lies too deep for present use in an economical manner, “there is water under the soil almost everywhere.” Even in the sub-Bimalayan provinces, “the plains are honeycombed with thou- sands of wells stretching southward.” - The Crown is the general landowner. Legally speaking, it is the only THE ANGLO-INDIAN WATER ADMINISTRATION. 393 landlord. All waste and unoccupied lands are distinctly controlled by the imperial administration. Their use adds to the common wealth and gives security to the empire. Irrigation offers the way for use. Since the Indian authorities have perceived the relations of land and water, as wested in a representative source and an administrative authority, learning the lesson left by the seven famines of the last half century, they have been sedulously endeavoring to re-create older Indian forces and habits with modern capacity and capital, to make safe the tiller of the soil, and to insure them against famine and its horrors. There are nearly 131,232,180 acres under cultivation, less than one-fourth of which are under irrigation works. There are 80,000,000 more, according to Prof. Wallace, that can be reclaimed. There have been large additions in this generation to the cultivatable area in Madras, the northwest prov- inces, Bengal, Sind, and the Punjab, while gaunt famine is slowly but Surely passing away. The farm villages have increased by many thous- ands and the land or rent revenues have grown in proportion. The policy of loaning for public works, especially those of irrigation, has had much to do with this progress. It has become so settled a course of action that 75 per cent in value of all land that can be irrigated, and so improved, may be borrowed of the imperial administration. It is worth while to inquire into these facts, which among others have made of the Indian ryots, in wheat exports, the most formidable of competi- tors to American farmers. > There are two seasons or harvests per year over the larger portion of India, known as the “kharif,” or summer, and the “rabi,” or winter season. The “kharif” is the season of greatest rainfall, and in the low lands, the northwest provinces, Bombay, the Punjab, and Central India, the precipitation is reckoned per season at from 20 to 40 inches. In “rabi” the rainfall ranges from 2 to 10 inches per season. The south- ern central portion and Sind may be compared with Arizona, southern Utah, and the San Joaquin Valley, California. This twin irrigation often doubles the crop capacity. The government control of irrigation works and administration is practically absolute outside the native states, and within them the idea of common or public property, strictly prevails. It disposes for use of all water, controls and manages the same, and it directs the distribution thereof. Water rates are assessed on irrigated areas, and these vary according to crops raised; SO also does the amount of water required, some crops being more thirsty than others. Community ditches and works are constructed and conducted under official supervision by the villagers themselves. Canal officers measure and oversee the supply. There are presidency departments of land, revenue, and water supply; also of public works, and a general de- partment at Calcutta for the whole empire. Engineers in chief, superin- tending executive, and assistants—are appointed. They all have magis- terial powers in the line of their duties. There are native deputies, magistrates, constables, and overseers. The chief engineer in each presidency or province is in authority, subject to the Indian council at Calcutta and the secretary of state for India at London. The Indian canal works are divided into “perennial,” supplied by and subject to regular seasonal fall; the “inundation,” subject to torrential filling and sources; storage and drainage works. There are also the native wells and tanks, all of which are carefully encouraged and looked after by the government. The one division may be termed general and the . other local. The inundation canals are found chiefly in the great valley of the Indus, and their main feature is the absence of permanent head works. This is in striking contrast to the suggestion made in the United ** -. 394 IRRIGATION. 3. States by one class of theorists in irrigation matters, that the use or storage of storm, torrential, or inundation waters must be accompanied by the creation of costly works, to be placed as a rule at high altitudes and under topographical conditions that are likely to insure the rapid washing away and destruction of dams and embankments as well as the silting up of channels. Possibly a solution of the more important problems involved may be seen in the utilization, as under the Maxwell system upon the Raton table lands in northeastern New Mexico, of great natural depressions on the open plateau as storage reservoirs. In this case, the mountain supplies are drawn direct from the cañon streams and conveyed by large artificial channels to the old lake beds or great playas which abound in the table lands. From these the distribution is easy. But, returning to Indian works, we find that for inundation canals the supply stream must generally flow at a relatively high level to the sec- tion to be watered. The channel bed should follow a ridge; in other words, be a “high line” canal. Sometimes the water is thus conveyed over lands by channels that are higher than the fields. Other canals of this class must be constructed with rivers subject to long annual overflows. A thorough system of drainage is a necessary part of such works, as otherwise there is seen the “reh,” or rising alkali, the undue rise of the sub-surface water level, the creation of marshes, accompanied by epidemics of -chills and fevers. The perennial canals are an accom- paniment of the mountain-fed streams and supplies, such as the Jumna, Ganges, Sutlej, and others. Many of these streams will rise during one season from 5,000 to 300,000 and even 1,000,000 second-feet. Mr. F. A. Franklin, C. E., of the New South Wales water supply department, in a report on certain aspects of Indian irrigation, gives in one paragraph so clear and simple a description of the same that it will bear quoting. It is as follows: The main channels in every case are formed on the ridges to be found on each side of the main rivers. These ridges, which exist in varying widths, right and left of the river channels, have been formed by the gradual deposit of alluviat matter when the rivers have been in a state of flood, and they occur at points where the ve- locity of the stream is checked. The effect is to leave on each bank a stratum of silt, in the sectional form of a long wedge, with the thick end towards the river. The width of this slope on the plains of India varies from 300 yards to a distance of many miles. Beyond these deposits, which occur also on all tributaries of such rivers, the country is low, and although not perceptible to the eye, yet instrumental examina- tion shows in which direction the drainage tends to flow. The irrigation of India is therefore based on a very simple principle. Madras, with a population of over 31,000,000, and the great alluvial delta made by the mouths of the Godaveri, Kistna, Penner, Kaveri, and Tramprapani, contains a number of the largest and most useful irrigation works. They are divided into “productive,” “protective,” “minor,” and “navigable.” The first are works constructed from govern- ment loans and charged with interest ; the second are works designed for protection against famine. The others are local works, or those con- nected with navigation, but incidentally only in aid of irrigation. The investments up to the year 1890 are as follows: Productive works ----------------------------------------------------. $25,840,000 Protective Works.--------------------------------- -------------------- 768,000 Minor and navigation ------------------------------------------------- 5,880,000 Total investment------------------------------------------------ 32,488,000 The pound is estimated at $4.80. This is slightly below exchange, but affords the most convenient unit of computation, and is sufficiently accurate. INDIAN wells, TANKs, DITCHES, AND ACREAGE. 395 The acreage watered is given for 1889–90 at 6,000,000. Of this total 2,300,000 acres are under the major works. In addition to a very large * 7 2 * increase of land revenue, the revenue from water supply was $8,400,000. The deficit in interest on loans was $1,726,160, deducting which the net return for the fiscal year 1889–90 was $673,840. This is in addition to $480,000 remitted to land owners. State irrigation in Madras is, there- fore, a direct and brilliant pecuniary success. Before the Anglo-Indian administration assumed control there were only 750,000 acres irrigated, mostly from wells and village tanks. A direct addition of 5,250,000 acres has been added to the area irrigated, and the revenue has swollen from $432,000 per year to $2,400,000. The present value of irrigated crops is stated at $79,200,000. In fact, the Government investment pays from 30 to 45 per cent per annum. The native people are well off. Of the land seven-eighths is controlled by those who work it. There are 35,000 villages, each with less than 500 inhabitants. The ryots have become [says Mr. Deakin] by tradition and practice experts in the art of irrigation, though their greediness and selfishness often lead them to apply too great a volume of water. Unless they are watched they will at any time of need turn drainage cuts into irrigation channels by damming them, to the injury of their neighbors and of the system. There is no feeling of obligation on their part to the State or its officers, but, on the contrary, any attempts to improve the alignment of works are met at once by exorbitant demands for compensation. The harvest which irrigation has brought them is thus often used to fight the Government, which has given them the means of irrigation. The great Madras works were originally planned as huge private enterprises, but their failure as such was so conspicuous, that the presi- dency authorities were compelled to buy them all in at a cost of $10,367,260. Free water was granted for five years, from 1882 to 1887. At present, until 1892 only one-half the water rate has to be paid. The nominal cost is 24 cents per acre; the actual cost is 12 cents. Perpet- ual maintenance is provided for on a total payment of 48 cents per acre. But the primitive native system still largely prevails. The number of wells used for irrigation is not returned, but it is not less than 30,000, and the area they serve is at least 3,000,000 acres. There are 60,000 village tanks or reservoirs, whose embankments of 6 feet in height, says Mr. Deakin, would if stretched out make a girdle 1:4 times the circumference of the earth. The Australian statesman says: We find first and most often the well. There are wells in the north, center, along the eastern strip, and in all river or other basins; river-fed canals in the north and northwest; deltaic canals in Sind, Bengal, and Madras, and reservoirs in the interior plateau, on the west coast sometimes feeding canals, and on the east often dependent solely upon rainfall. The natural conformation of the country has been studied and followed by its inhabitants. Wherever there has been water available it has been eagerly seized upon. Whether by well, by reservoir, or by canal, it has been caught and utilized. Wet cultivation is being carried on in all quarters and in all condi- tions. In a word, where the rainfall is deficient, India is irrigated in every part where irrigation is possible. Outside Madras, private companies for irrigation construction, sup- ply, and management have had no special trial, and in that presidency they have been failures. Bengal, a land almost built up by river silt, for the Ganges alone in a course of 1,200 miles has created a delta 300 miles in width, and lying, too, under an equatorial sun, has a modern public irrigation plant costing some $28,800,000, serving in 1889–90 in all some 2,500,000 acres. When the works began in 1870 there were 900,000 acres irrigated in the presidency of Bengal. This included the small as well as large areas. The chief product is rice. The canals now in use, begun as private works, were bought out and finished by the Government some ten years later. The system has several times - * > . | - * - 396 , IRRIGATION. demonstrated its capacity to save the native people from the copse. Quences of crop failure. More than that, the insight gained into native affairs and mismanagement by Anglo-Indian officials of the cold, logical type that engineering capacity and experience must produce, has led to the correction of great abuses, such for example as that of rack renting the ryots, under which within fifty years the Zemindars raised the rents from 140 to 290 per cent. & In 1885, in Lower Bengal there were 475,000 acres; in 1889–90 there were 560,000 acres under cultivation by irrigation. This increase rep- resents about the average increase of such culture throughout India. In the Some circle the system of works connected with the Ganges and Sone rivers are of an important character. Originally 800,000 acres were brought under them at a cost of $18,120,000. There were in 1890 1,305,000 acres of rice land served, with a total area of 2,611,000 under ditch. The Ganges system of canals is among the greatest in India. That of the Upper Ganges embraces 890 miles of principal channels, 3,700 of distributaries, 282 of outlet channels, 31 locks, 202 bridges and navigable sideways, with 17 great dams. The system was projected in 1842 and completed in 1884. It serves 1,205,000 acres, and has cost $14,644,000. The Lower Ganges system embraces 531 miles of main canal, 1,854 of distributaries, 428 of navigable channels, and 56 of escape or overflow cuts. About 620,000 acres are served by this system. The cost has been not less than $7,000,000. - Bombay in 1889–90 had 839,000 acres irrigated, and the public canals commanded 915,000 acres. Altogether there were 24,500,000 acres under cultivation in the presidency of Bombay. The irrigated crops in the last-named year were valued at $1,867,200. The expenditures of the “protective” canals has been $2,454,400; on the major or “productive” works, $8,337,600 have been expended, making a total cost of $10,792,000. Mr. Deakin writes of Bombay that— A summary of the results of irrigation in Bombay is not to be derived from any merely arithmetical standpoint. The Government is satisfied with the progress made, and the Department is sanguine of yet presenting good balance sheets. Security has certainly been established over large provinces against the suffering, loss, and death which follow in the train of famine. But the changes flowing from it do not depend only upon such contingencies, nor are they remote and anticipatory only. In the old days of Maratha warfare neither life nor property were safe outside village walls, and consequently the trembling ryots herded together in little fortified places for mutual protection. A condition of this kind once established in India has a very good chance of enduring for centuries and receiving at last an almost religious sanc- tion from immemorial use. The Maratha cultivators clustered in their clumsy earth- works for generations after peace was restored. Nothing could have dissolved the practice but a new series of conditions making it the immediate interest of each farmer to get out upon his own soil. . Nothing would have distributed them except irrigation, which has accomplished this beneficent change rapidly and peacefully in many parts. A husbandman who irrigates needs to be upon his plot early and late. He must work in it at nighttime in some seasons. In point of fact he must live upon it. By these necessities communities have been dispersed over their fields, to enjoy more freedom, more light, and fresh air, as well as water. A better housed people have been better occupied, better fed, and better clothed, rendered more contented, and in other ways more civilized; the whole of their life has been lifted a little by raising its material base. This has been accomplished under the very eyes of all ob- servers in the present generation by means of irrigation in the Maratha country. ..The Bombay code of water laws are rigidly enforced, so that when “water runs upon any land through an illicit breach all those whose farms are benefited are fined in double rates, and if no land is benefited and water is allowed to run to waste, then those to whom the channel is carrying a supply are held jointly liable. These general penalties are, of course, only inflicted when no guilty person or persons can be discovered. Those who benefit by means of a percolation through the "* THE GREAT works of THE PUNJAB AND SIND. 397 banks, or whose wells are within 200 yards of a canal, are required to pay for the advantage conferred on them without their request. Sum- mary powers are taken for the recovery of arrears.” The rules, though severe, are considered just, and generally the penalties are accepted without murmuring. The canal system of the Panjab and Sind are among the most im- portant and extensive in the empire. The figures alone will establish this. Many ancient works of great size, dating back from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, are still in partial operation. The British began the work of repair, reconstruction, and new creations as early as 1821, when they took the old Delhi Canal in hand, making modern changes thereon. It was the famine years of 1831–32 that first aroused them to greater activity. In 1821 this system served only 20,000 acres, while in 1831–32 it had increased to 94,000. By 1847 $590,000 had been expended upon it; in 1889–90, this had reached the sum of $1,598,400. The West Jumna Canal, which begun as a new work in 1875 to take the place of old and useless channels, has cost up to 1890 $8,000,000. There are 84 miles of main channels and 1,110 of distribu- taries, a total of 1,200 miles. The East Jumna Canal was projected in 1830; in 1837–38, its construction saved $9,600,000 in crops threatened by drought. By 1889–90 these two systems had returned the interest on all the expenditures and $480,000 besides. They had made secure an area of 2,000,000 acres, which paid the Indian Government a land tax or rental of $96,000,000. A new school of hydraulic engineering has been created by these great Works, and the engineers trained in them are the foremost irrigation authorities known to the world. The Doab Canal belongs to this system and section, running parallel with the Jumna River for 450 miles and inclosing an area of 20,000 square miles. The main canals are 130 miles in length and the distributaries 1,112. There are 850,000 acres “under ditch,” 580,000 that can be cultivated, and 250,000 that were served in 1889–90. The total expenditures for irri. gation purposes in these provinces represent a British investment of $36,400,000, and a total irrigated area of about 6,000,000 acres, of which one-half is under regular cultivation each year. These works have for sixty years paid an annual return of at least 8 per cent. Of other systems the Agra Canal has a total length of of 709 miles, 109 of which are main channels. There are 700,000 acres under ditch, of which total 178,000 acres were cultivated in 1889–90. The Dun Canal is 75 miles in length, serves 25,000 acres and cost $277,400. The Ro- hillkhand Canal has 357 miles of channels and 196,000 are regularly irrigated. The Behar Canal with 500 miles of channel has cost $1,116,800. It serves 150,000 acres, of which, in 1890, but 24,000 were cultivated. The total expenditures under the British direction, in the Panjab, Swat, Sirhind, Sind, and the sub-Himalayan region, for irrigation purposes has not been less than $64,000,000. Not less than 2,500 miles of channels were in operation during 1890. In the sub-Himalayan region many pri- vate canals have been constructed, which, from the rudeness of the work done, the Government discourages in every way, buying them out when- ever it can. . All the river channel banks are cut to let the water flow out, a practice which is very wasteful. Rude embankments are thrown up at favorable points to catch the rainfall. It is the practice of these native speculators in water to sell their supply for one quarter of the crops grown under their service. The whole region abounds with wells, usually only rude holes of small depths, protected by brushwood cas- ings. The water is lifted by man and bullock power and gives from 4,000 to 6,000 gallons each twenty-four hours. The Government offi- 398 IRRIGATION. . . cials endeavor to induce the ryots to make new wells and brick up or otherwise improve their old ones. When they do so there is a con- siderable reduction made in land rent, or other rewards are given. Contrary to the American practice, the Indian engineers prefer water free from silt or deposit generally. They not only like to apply clear water to the land, but they are generally favorable to lifting from stream instead of flooding the water direct from the ditches. Hence serious encouragement is given to systematic irrigation by Wells. It must be borne in mind that the questions waiting solution in con- nection with irrigation in India embrace many issues far different from those of mere engineering character; they range into the arena of imperial powers, the defense of vast possessions, the security of dependent races, and their training as indispensable factors in a con- test for industrial and commercial Supremacy. The Anglo-Indian dis- position of the ryots or peasants communities determines the character of Indian competition in the food markets of the world, a matter of significance to American farmers. Hence the following account of the policy and procedure adopted in the Panjab and the Sind country, the region of wheat, will have more than a transient interest. Mr. Deakin describes settlement under one canal, as follows: Under the Sidhnai Canal there were 118,000 acres of Crowni land, of which 41,000 were capable of being watered. Accordingly in 1886 the problem of securing its oc- cupation faced the Government of the Panjab very seriously, since there was then but one-third of the 64,000 acres irrigable from this scheme in the hands of cultiva- tors. The process of settling an agricultural population upon waste lands hitherto uninhabited, and which can not be cultivated without artificial irrigation, is both difficult and peculiar. In some respects it is analogous to the foundation of a colony, wrote the finance secretary in his letter to the central Government in that year. The returns for 1889–90 show that nearly 64,000 acres were actually watered in the kharif (summer) season, and though 10,000 acres of this received an impefect supply it is evident that the whole tract has been brought under the plow during three or four years. The same practice has been pursued under the Sirhind system with equal suc- cess, while the Chenab and Jhelum projects are avowedly undertaken in order to water large areas of outlying lands, which will require to be settled before the canal supply can be utilized at all. Considering the recess to be dealt with and the preva- lent dislike, of the farming castes especially, to leave their districts, the new task imposed upon the officials is by no means simple. They are required to build up from the very rudiments, to settle a population, to attract cultivators, to provide for the foundation and management of villages, to organize and pay the ordinary rural agency, and in fine to establish the whole economy of a new society. The country west of the Satlej at Fazilka was dry, barren, and desolate until the construction of the Lower Sohag canal, since which 50 villages have been created, with over 60,000 acres of watered land among them. In this respect, therefore, the province has un- dertaken a special and arduous work in connection with its irrigation. It is encour- aging to learn that it is being pursued to-day with triumphant success. The annual value of the crops grown on two of the smaller schemes is estimated at upwards of #2300,000, reaped from country which a few years before maintained nothing but a few goats and black sheep. The conditions of settlement differ in minor respects under different canals. The rajbahas, or branch channels, of the Sidhnai supply distributaries with an average length of 2 miles, commanding about a mile of country on each side, or about 2,500 acres in all. This is made the village block, but of course the size varies somewhat under other circumstances. Each block under the Sidhnai was surveyed into squares of 22.5 acres, and four of these, or 90 acres, was allotted to each settler. This is larger than the usual holding in the province, but was made so to encourage applicants, and also to induce them to undertake the expense of sinking a well and of maintaining cattle to work it, which is only possible in the Panjab for what may be termed well- to-do farmers. A five years' lease was given of each allotment, the charges being 18. 4d. per acre cultivated, 48, 6d. per acre watered in spring, and 58, per acre watered in autumn, with 3d. in the shilling for village officials and local rates. The digging of a well means a reduction of 28. 4d. a year per acre watered by it for twenty years; 18. in spring and 18. 4d. in autumn. The rent for the 90 acres is £1 a year, and the holding can be purchased at 68. an acre, or £27 for the allotment, after the expiration of the lease. The covenants inserted are something like those attached to the prelimi- nary licenses and leases granted to Australian free selectors—notransfer or assignment CoST OF NATIVE AND ANGLO-INDIAN works. 399 is valid without the consent of the department ; one-half must be cultivated within three years and two-thirds within four years after possession is given; a proportion of the cost of any irrigation channels constructed has to be paid, and all minerals are reserved. Not only does the State not bind itself to supply any water, but an addi- tion is made in the shape of a declaration that nothing in the deed confers any “right, title, claim, easement, or privilege whatsoever to or in respect of any water,” a con- dition which would be of enormous value to the Australian Governments if it had been inserted in all grants from the early days of the colonies. In the Indus Valley there are many small canals, each 8 to 16 miles in length, with a total length of 709 miles, supplying water to 214,000 acres, which area was under cultivation in 1889–90. Three other im- portant perennial canals supply in all 411,000 acres, and have a total length in channels of 1,479 miles. The Lahore branch of the Baril).oab Canal irrigates 523,000 acres at a cost of $1.60 per acre and a duty of 243 acres each second. It supplies, also, the water needed by 1,352vil- lages. The cost of these works by 1889–90 reached a total of $7,872,000. The year's net proceeds of the water, supply to the administration was $873,600, while the expenditures were but $288,000. ** In the province of Orissa, with an area of 24,000 square miles and a population of 4,250,000, there are hundreds of miles of irrigation ditches, and 250,000 acres under cultivation from them. In 1889–1890, 511,000 acres were under the canal system and ready for cultivation. In 1866, there were but 60,000 acres available. The rivers of Orissa are affected by perennial floods, the effect of which is felt in the natural subirriga- tion of about 3,000,000 acres. The independent or native states of India afford to the observer and student problems in irrigation of a most interesting character. They comprise two-thirds of the peninsula, and offer every type of industrial condition from the advanced state of Mysore to the semi-savagery of the fighting hill men. I'rom the point of irrigation and agricultural activity Jaipur is the most advanced. It contains an area of 14,463 square miles and a population of 2,500,000. There are 108 separate systems of irri- gation works, having 364 miles of main canals and 422 of distributaries; in all 786 miles. There are five storage reservoirs, the largest of which Covers an area of 64 square miles. The cost of these modern works has been $1,516,800, and the revenue for 1889–90 was $140,080. In addition to these new constructions the administration of Jaipur has restored and improved 300 native or village tanks, serving 30,000 acres, at a cost of $720,000, upon which the return is at least 4 per cent. In the native state of Mysore there are 1,000 miles of irrigation ca- mals, main and distributing, with 20,000 village tanks. The little state of Kotah has one well constructed canal system having an extent of 180 miles and serving 50,000 acres. But the greatest proposition of irrigation work in upper India is accomplished by other means than those of Canals. There are many thousand rain-fed tanks and wells, small diversions, and temporary dams, with a large number of petty storage areas, made from interior streams and sudden showers. It is im- possible to obtain the statistics of these native works; even under the imperial administration the returns are very imperfect. In the more advanced native states there is a systematic encouragement of small works. When built by the state for the ryots, they are required to pay annually a fixed assessment. Remissions are made when seasons have been bad, but with far less liberality than under the imperial rule. Without doubt the notable features of British Indian irrigation ad- ministration are: (1) The large and systematic extension of state aid; (2) the favorable policy on land and water management adopted of late years to aid the peasant or ryot population; (3) the thorough and 400 . . . . IRRIGATION. costly character of works in certain commanding areas of agricultural activity; and (4) the active and comprehensive manner in which the Anglo-Indian authorities and engineers are aiding in reconstructing the Inative and village systems of irrigation by means of wells, tanks, and other small, but independent appliances. It will be impossible to make more than a reasonable guess at the extent of the phreatic irrigation appliances in British and native India; still it will not overstep prob- able limits, but indeed be well within them, to estimate that at least 300,000 shallow wells are used on the Indian peninsula for the purpose of irrigation and cultivation; allowing 20 acres per well this will give 6,000,000 acres as under cultivation thereby. It is in all probability nearly double that area. The following partial table of returns found in Indian water-supply reports illustrates this statement: * * * Number | Irrigated Name of district. of wells. l º d. Acres. Gupanwala distriot -----------------------------------------------------------. 8, 195 163,916 Gurdaspur district ------------------------------------------------------------- 5,000 100,000 Rándesh district -------------------------------------------------------------.. 9,690 193,800 Ludheana district ------------------------------------------------------------- 1, 157 23, 148 Madras presidency ------------------------------------------------------------- 85,000 1,700,000 Mainpuri district --------------------------------------------------------------- 15, 178 303, 573 Meerut district ----------------------------------------------------------------- 14, 569 291, 395 Monghyr district --------------------------------------------------------------. 3, 500 70,000 Nellore district ----------------------------------------------------------------. 671 13,420 Puniab district ----------------------------------------------------------------- 50, 000 1,000, 000 Umbala district---------------------------------------------------------------. 3, 267 Total.-------------------------------------------------------------------- 196,227 3,924, 563 A serious effort has been made to obtain a correct statement of Brit- ish investments in Indian irrigation and reclamation works, but it is not claimed to be a success owing to the difficulty of separating with accuracy the several aspects and items of the great accounts that are involved. But taking only the stated construction items, a total of $165,956,560 is obtained. The total area of cultivation under irrigation in the imperial provinces is not less than 25,000,000 acres. With the irri. gated areas of the native states, which, large or small as they may be, will aggregate 8,000,000, we shall have a total irrigated area of 33,000,000 acres. This estimate is given upon the basis of one crop per year and can be considerably increased if credit be given for “rabi” or winter cultivation. In any event the policy adopted is comprehensively great in its magnitude, and the results achieved are massively great. The area under wheat as affected by irrigation is a matter for serious examination. According to Prof. Wallace, of the University of Edin- burg, who is considered an authority, there are at least 30,000,000 acres under wheat, of which 20,000,000 are in the provinces, while the re- maining third are found in the native states. Prof. Wallace states that in his opinion at least 80,000,000 more acres may be reclaimed, and Mr. Alfred Deakin writes in the Melbourne Age: There are some millions of acres still available for wheat growing by dry farming in Central India, only waiting for population and railways to become largely pro- ductive. Both these wants are likely to be satisfied. The people will steadily flow to them from the many congested villages of the northwest, and the enterprising Government of India shows ng signs of relaxing its spirited policy of railway con- struction, so that a gradual increase in the production from this quarter may be looked to for years to come. 2' ANCIENT WATER, SYSTEM AND WORKS OF CEYLON. 401 The wheat area affected favorably by irrigation is not less than 15,000,000 acres. Mr. Deakin continues by saying: Without taking into account what the natives may be able to add by means of new wells and tanks, it is certain that the Government schemes will increase the extent of the wetted lands considerably within the next ten years. . There are 10,000,000 acres under wheat in the Punjab and northwest to-day, while the new schemes in the former and the great Sarda project in the latter will probably add another 3,000,000 acres to the irrigated area. The regularity and largeness of the yield from these lands makes them a formidable addition to the Indian total. There is also a considerable acreage watered in which wheat is not yet grown, but upon which it would be grown at once if prices were sufficiently tempting. In the two provinces mentioned the pos- sibilities of wheat are limited only by the possibilities of irrigation. Probably a con- siderable portion of the uncultivated acreage elsewhere would require a system of water supply to make it permanently productive. The construction of the required works will demand time as well as money, and probably not more than 5,000,000 acres, counting Government and native schemes together, is likely to be added during the present generation to the irrigated area available for wheat. It is evident from all statements and estimates that the policy of the Anglo-Indian, especially from the standpoint of irrigation security, is one that will need to be seriously reckoned within the food markets of the World. - & - T H E IS L A N ID OF C E Y LON . The government of Ceylon, beginning in 1875, a practical work of irrigation restoration, has wisely as well as of necessity adopted some of the ancient systems of works and water usages. The irrigation prob- lem has become therefore a very interesting one. As in British India the government is really the chief, or, according to Judge Stephens, the only landowner. In this the British rulers are following the gen- eral economic law that underlies all Asiatic and ancient civilizations. It is the opinion of many close students of economic science in connec- tion with general history that a large proportion of the disorder and conflict that has arisen in Asiatic countries which have passed under European control is often the result of unwise because ignorant attempts to remold primary and institutional forces like the ryot or peasant control of the soil under general law or custom, into conditions more like those of landlord and tenants, such as in Europe, and espe- cially in Great Britain, are in operation. British India has suffered greatly from a failure to recognize the fact that the Zemindar class created by Mohammedan conquerors, were not landowners or landlords in the English sense, but collectors from the ryots of the land tax required by all native governments. The more recent and systematic recognition of these ancient relations to the land combined with the vast system of the public works, and especially of irrigation enter- prises designed as a protection against famine, tends rapidly and very greatly to strengthen the British administration of India by making it industrial, ameliorative, and beneficial. As India is one of our most for- midable competitors in the agricultural markets of Europe, it is well to understand the forces that go to make security there. Another pecu- liarity which, as it is identical with irrigation works and their mainte- nance, deserves mention. It is the old system of enforced labor modified and controlled as a local necessity. Of course money or currency, as we understand the terms, has never been of potential force in Asiatic or other countries whose wealth is fixed and immobile in character. If Hindoo or other Asiatic communes or villages have had work to do for the public benefit, they do not as a rule collect taxes and hire labor. They employed themselves to do the work needed, and the government is com- S. Ex. 41—26 - *** 402 IRRIGATION. - Esº pelled to offset this against other dues of produce or money. In this way the “corvee” system survives and can not be effaced. As much as British officials dislike it, they have been compelled to recognize the same, especially in Ceylon, the Panjab, Ouhd, and elsewhere in Hindo- stan, while leaving the village communities to be benefited to regulate the service themselves. We can see a “survival” of this practice in New Mexico. The Mexican irrigationists are everywhere hostile to the creation of new and better systems of works, as is proposed for exam- ple in the Mesilla Valley, because the American organizers propose to substitute a small annual payment of $1 or more per acre in place of the three days' labor generally given per year under the call of the majordomo or water master for the repair of “Zanja's" and “ace- quias.” The Ceylon authorities, availing themselves of such native customs, have for some years past been doing excellent work in the way of reor. ganizing and enlarging the irrigation system of that island. In one of a series of valuable papers prepared by the Hon. Alfred Deakin, M.P., of Victoria, and published during the year 1891 in the Melbourne Age, there is a full account of the course adopted. The task of the central board is declared by him to be one of no early or easy fulfillment, and he quotes their object as stated in a board report: It is to the gradual and patient renewal of the ancient irrigation systems of a whole district, utilizing every drop of water available that our efforts should be directed. It is by this means that the crops of a district are multiplied many fold and secured from failure; that many forms of disease and extreme want are banished ; and that the health, wealth, and comfort of the people are permanently assured. Mr. Deakin states that— Every village in the island had possessed for centuries a kind of assembly of nota- bles and elders, to whom all questions of common interest were referred. The abso- lute necessity for joint effort in connection with irrigation had been felt, and at a remote period a complete system of administration had sprung up, of which the tra- dition remained where the works had been destroyed, and the practice where they were still in existence. All land holders were compelled to do their share of repairs or else they were refused water. They were forbidden to irrigate fresh fields unless there was a surplus available, and in a season of drought were allotted only a fair proportion of the diminished stream. The rotation of watering and the order of sup- ply were strictly determined, and thefts of water or breaches of custom promptly punished. This communal system was readily revived when the need arose. It is also noteworthy that the governor, Lord Grey, who from 1846 to 1857 seriously began the consideration of irrigation restoration in Cey. lon, also suggested the idea of municipal district organization with local responsibility and the direct bearing of cost by the individuals to be benefited by water storage and distributory work. Substantially Lord Grey's recommendations proceeded and embodied the same ideas and principles that have since been established, with modification of scope, details, and plans, in Cape Colony, South Africa, in Ceylon itself, in California (by the Wright district laws), in Victoria and New South Wales, and later still in whole or part in the States of Nevada, Wash- ington, Kansas, and South Dakota. The Ceylon policy is more con- servative than that of the South African and Australian colonies, or of British India, so far as State aid by loan or gift direct is concerned. It is not of course as radical or thorough, in the sense of local self-govern- ment, as the municipal district system of California, but it is very simple and efficient. As has already been shown irrigation works in Ceylon, are very ancient, some still in partial use, being dated back to 500 B.C. They are also very complete, existing throughout the island, except in the central mountain district. The Mohammedan rulers in the middle * **. HOW STATE AID IS GIVEN THE CEYLONESE. 403 centuries of the Christian era enlarged them greatly. The later Portu. guese conquerors neglected them entirely, and the Dutch mismanaged them. The British began to repair them in a desultory way at the beginning of the present century. For the last thirty years they have worked to great advantage, as may be seen by the fact that the popu- lation, which was but 750,000 persons when their rule began, now num- bers over 5,000,000. In 1857, Governor Sir William Ward, revived the ancient communal custom of obtaining and regulating Water supply. The nature of the works required and their management were to be decided upon by a two-thirds vote of the landowners or farmers in any proposed district. This plan was extended in two periods of five years each over the rice plantations. In 1867 Governor Sir Hercules Robin- son, carried a measure which provided for a vote of the landowners for and against the establishment of irrigation districts, and for their con- trol by village council or headmen under by-laws supported when estab- lished by penalties. Most important was the authorization of a money advance by the state for expenditure upon private lands. Expenditures for minor works were locally authorized to the amount in each case of about $500. In larger works, requiring combination, the farmers can borrow from the government without interest on ten years' time, to be repaid by 10 per cent installments. Up to date (1890) the amount of such loans have been £543,000 or about $2,606,400 ($4.80 per pound). In 1881, the village or landowner control was modified by ordinance so as to provide for a central board and for provincial bodies of govern- ment officers and native landowners. In deciding on local works and regulations, the votes of two-thirds of all farmers owning or renting land and representing one-third of the area to be irrigated, or the votes of those owning two-thirds of the acres to be irrigated without regard to the number of persons, are necessary to settle conditions and Secure loans. In the construction of works, always under government engi- neers, the exact cost, not the estimated, is charged against the com- munity. In preparing plans, £250 may be expended by provincial boards. If a larger sum is required, the matter is referred to the cen- tral board. The funds appropriated are equitably assigned among the provinces. If the farmers, as has been found advantageous in many cases, are willing to perform the whole or part of the work required, they are granted certain offsets in payment. Land may be acquired as Com- pensation. The government will maintain all irrigation works, at a cost of about 5 cents per acre per year. A perpetual maintenance can be had by a payment not to exceed 24 cents per acre. The government loan is a first charge on all lands, and the same can be sold if the farmer is in default. It may be borne in mind, in considering the financial side of this policy, that the British authorities collect rent for the land and excise duty on rice, so that the great increase in revenue in both directions that has already arisen from the security in crops derived by irrigation works and management, is more than ample compensation for the non-interest loans that have been made. The works restored and repaired are principally to serve the rice or paddy fields. A consid- erable area has also been added in coffee, cinnamon, tea, fruit, and other crops. The extent of the ancient irrigation may be realized by the statement that the British authorities have already restored (1891) 2,250 small and 59 large tanks or reservoirs; they have also constructed 245 weirs or “anicuts,” as the Indian engineers call them, with 700 miles of main canals. The several areas reclaimed range from a few hundred up to 10,000, 23,000, and 25,000 acresin extent. The restoration now planned i " --- : * ' 404 IRRIGATION. in Ceylon will it is estimated cost £500,000. There are over 5,000 ancient reservoirs in the island, some of them of immense capacity. One king in the twelfth century is credited with having constructed 4,770 tanks and 543 great canals; also repairing 1,395 large reservoirs, 960 small ones, and 3,621 canals. No snow falls in Ceylon. The rain fall on the coast is 88.85 inches; on the low areas back of it, where the principal crops are raised, it is 23 inches, and on the mountains the fall is 217 inches per annum. This statement is based on an average of nine years. The duty of water is low, as rice is a thirsty crop, and the cost is put for the paddy fields at $24 per acre. The revenue derived from the irrigated areas in rents, etc., is stated at $1,500,000. The annual land taxation is £500,000, of which rice pays three-fifths. The total area under irrigation works is given by the Government at 574,000 acres, and by Ferguson's hand book at 700,000 acres. The origin of the tank system is lost in the impenetrable mystery which obscures the history of the Asiatic races; but the evidences of their antiquity are presented in the solid masonry and concrete of ages. The village tank is only second to the temple in every East Indian village, and its waters are preserved with as much care as the idols; for indeed it is wholly necessary for the health and the sustenance of the people, as well as for the celebration of their religious rites. Commencing in Ceylon, we find the tank system in a fair state of pres- ervation. The laws governing that system in India are necessarily communial, and all the natives who use the water are bound to con- tribute to its production and preservation. These village tanks are found by the score of thousands in every province or dependency of the British Indian Empire. The report of the Ceylon Central Irrigation Board for 1888 has an interesting account of the system in that island, from which the following extract is made, with a plan showing mode of distribution: The village tank, however, was the most ordinary form of water storage, and al- though there were more or less important differences in the mode of making use of its supply, and of apportioning the fields under it, there was a general resemblance on these points throughout the island, and the diagram on the opposite page of the arrangements for cultivation under a tank in the north central province, where ancient customs have perhaps been preserved with less alteration than in any other part of Ceylon, will give a fair general idea of similar arrangements throughout the island. The general customs according to which land under an irrigation channel in Uva were worked have been described by Mr. Bailey, from whose report it appears that all holding land benefited were bound to take an equal share in the repairs of the irrigation channel. Each proprietor was responsible for the proper repair of a cer- tain portion of the channel, and sudden and unforeseen accidents were repaired by the joint labor of all, as was also the dam, or, in the case of a tank, the bund. . No person was entitled to water if he neglected to contribute to the repairs of the dam or channel, and no new land could be cultivated to the detriment of the existing fields. The fields at the end of the channel were plowed first, and the rest upwards in regular order; and if the lowest fields were not plowed at the proper season they lost their right to priority of water. During the dry season the fields were irrigated by rotation, commencing with those at the commencement of the channel (or nearest the bund, as the case might be). When the volume of any supplying stream was insufficient for the irrigation of all the lands dependent on it, they were divided into portions of such extent as would admit of each being properly irrigated, and these portions received the whole volume of the water during succeeding seasons in rotation. The channel was inspected daily, and if any field were found irrigated out of its proper rotation the proprietor was held guilty of theft of water. Any violation of these regulations was promptly punished by whipping or fine, and if a royal prison was at hand, by imprisonment also. Waina (spull) Wetwa (the Tarik) Wana (spill) i i The fields next the tank are called Purampota, or Mul- s Złota, or Upayápota. . PMA L.A. E. L. A. PA 7 A i § “Sº ū Z ſ s 42 3. K : * * The next range is called the Hérena- pota or Peralapota: The land opened In addition to the above two ranges is called Katta Ka- duwa or Alut As wedduma. A. A. AE A. A. A. A 7" 4 f // A. E. A. E. L. A. AE A 7" A 1 A & L A £ 4. Aſ A A' 7"A * > Ab Al AyAf A: L.A. PA 7"A y, ºr ºf we we w IN NEw souTH walEs AND QUEENSLAND. 40b T BIE A U STIR A LIA N COL O N IF. S. The government of New South Wales expended up to 1890, $389,320, for the improvement of the Darling River, in order to utilize the same for both irrigation and navigation.” The Murray River improvements have been conducted chiefly by the Colonies of Victoria and South Australia. On all the important western rivers of New South Wales, the late Consul Griffin writes that— Irrigation is carried on by pumping, and for this purpose centrifugal pumps are used almost exclusively. The engines for working them vary from 8 to 10 horse power, and at one place the engines used are of 80 horse power. In nearly all cases the water is distributed in earthen channels excavated with plows and scoops. H. G. Kinney, C. E. and government engineer for New South Wales, estimates the water available in the Murray basin for that colony at a service of 800,000 acres. The supply from the Murrumbidgee is esti- mated at 500 acres, making a total of 1,350 acres to be irrigated in New South Wales by the two rivers. Making deductions for use in other ways—domestic and stock—the irrigation area is placed at 1,080,000 acres. The annual rates for water rental are put at from $2.44 to $4.87 per acre. An extensive canal projects known as the Murrumbidgee Southern Canal System, is under consideration. It will embrace six main lines and three branches, with the use of Urania Lake as a reser- voir. The main distributories will have a total length of 838 miles, and the cost is estimated at $6,669,746. Mr. McKinney’s plans for the utilization of the Murray embrace a canal system of 240 miles in six divisions, at a total cost of $7,863,535. The colony of New South Wales has not passed as yet (1890) any of the comprehensive legislative bills proposed by the royal water com- mission of 1888. All river and stream dams in the colony exist by suffer- ance only. As a result, when cut, as they sometimes are, by parties living below them, there is no legal means of redress or of deciding issues. In Queensland the supply and conservation of water is being devel- oped most directly by the systematic use of the drill in boring for arte- sian water. The “water supply” department of the colony has pushed work in a most energetic manner. J. B. Henderson, C. E., who is the government hydraulic engineer, in his report under date of Brisbane, September 23, 1891, says that— In selecting sites for artesian wells, one object aimed at has been to test the water- bearing capacities of as large an area of the colony as possible; the bores completed and in progress have therefore been placed in what are considered the most favorable positions for this purpose. He adds that “marked success” has attended these efforts; that they have created much general interest in “water conservation,” and in the scientific and practical questions involved, and that they have been helpful in the encouragement of private enterprise and investment in the same direction. In these respects the “artesian investigation ” and “irrigation inquiry” ordered by the Fifty-first Congress have caused the duplication of this Australian experience. Since such drilling for artesian water begun under colonial authority fifteen bores have been sunk by the Queensland department of Water supply, each averaging 1,571 feet, and only one can be called a failure, according to Engineer Henderson's report. Three of the fifteen have been abandoned by the contractors. If their work had been completed no doubt is felt but that an artesian flow would have been tapped. * Special Report on Foreign Canals and Irrigation, State Department, p. 72. 406 IRRIGATION. The total amount of expenditure up to June 30, 1891, is given by Mr. Henderson at $1,246,959. The amount appropriated for “water storage, main roads, and artesian wells” is given at $1,713,600. Of the total expenditures all but $396,519 is credited to direct cost of water supply. There are 33 artesian or well bores named, 3 other wells, 25 tanks and dams combined, one each of overshot dam, tank, and water supply, water hole, trial shaft, and bore shaft. In all there are 77 works under Government control. The greater proportion of these works are of course used for watering stock, some irrigation is accomplished by the artesian water, and domestic service is obtained in several cases. The total number of Government artesian well bores is 15, of which 8 are flowing. The amount of flow runs from 8,228 to 3,000,000 gallons per 24 hours. The 8 public wells in use flow a total of 4,613,428 gallons per diem. The depth of well bores made runs from 323 to 3,262 feet. There are seven ranging from 1,002 up to 1,781; feet, and three whose depths range from 2,000 up to 2,512. The railway service (Government) have bored one well with artesian flow. The temperature of the water ranges from 770 to 1249, and the surface pressure from 5 to 185 pounds per square inch. There are eighty-six successful private bores or arte- sian flows. These wells seem more generally successful than the Gov- ernment operations. No failures are reported. Eleven are reported as “rising in bore,” three having “only a very slight surface flow,” and of several it is stated, “no particulars to hand.” These are pumped up at depths of from 12 to 70 feet. In three cases water struck in bores was from 1,900 to over 2,000 feet from the surface. There were, at the close of June, 1891, sixteen artesian (private) bores in progress of drilling and twenty-five proposed. The map shows eight successful (Government) artesian wells, two as in successful progress, and twelve as in various stages. The regulations for watering cattle, etc., at the public wells or supply stations provide as follows: Charge for horses, 3 cents per head; cat- tle, 2 cents; sheep, 50, 12 cents; 100, 18 cents; each additional 100, the same. The extra amount charged must be paid by the person in charge of the animals. Drovers are given a traveling permit for use on the public stock road, and the caretaker at watering station may re- fuse water unless the stock has traveled for sixty hours after one water- 1Ilg. The area to be served by irrigation works in progress in Victoria is about 500,000 acres. The amount of money loaned to irrigation trusts is about $7,000,000. The area actually cultivated will not exceed 30,000 acres. In New South Wales the amount irrigated in small parcels, such as gardens and orchards, will not exceed 3,000 acres. Provision is now being made under Government aid for 38,000 acres. The plans of the Government engineer, Mr. McKinney, cover a great area, and will embrace 1,000,000 acres. In South Australia the colony being organized on the Murray River by the Chaffey Brothers, under convention with the Colonial Govern- ment, is designed for the ultimate reclamation of some 200,000 acres. There are probably 5,000 acres in the colony now under cultivation by irrigation. Some effort has been made in the direction of boring for artesian water, but without success now or any great promise for the future. This statement is made on the authority of Mr. Edward William Hawker, of Adelaide, who has recently visited the United States as Commissioner for the colony on irrigation and water conservancy. gº THE DISTRICT SYSTEM IN SOUTH AFRICA. 407 C A P E C O L O N Y . The water courses of South Africa are cousins german to a majority of those in our own arid region. They are for a large portion of the year dry-stream beds, but like our own streams rapidly assume a tor- rential character during the rainy or snow melting season. In Africa it is wholly rainfall, however. The physicial aspects of the interior are not unlike much of our southwestern sections—high table-lands and mountain plateaus, treeless to a large extent, and almost constantly subject to drought. Irrigation has been primitive, and Sporadic and individual in char- acter, where practiced in Cape Colony, among the Boers, the Free Orange State, and the South African Republic. In 1877 the Colonial Government organized a district system as follows: Any three or more landowners, with a given area where it is pro- posed to store water for irrigation purposes, may petition for the pro- claiming of such irrigation as an irrigation district. The petitioners must own not less than one-tenth of the land to be embraced. A Gov- ernment engineer is then sent to attend a landowners’ meeting and re- port to the governor on its practicability. If favorable, the district is permitted. The landowners then choose a board of management, which is invested with corporate powers. Each $2,500 in land value is represented by one vote. This board has the charge and conservation of all natural waters that rise and flow over or by their nature are common to two or more owners. They have the absolute control of all waters artificially stored and distributed, are given full power to do all the work and construction necessary for the highest use, with the legal right to levy taxes, etc. Land not improved nor irrigated by the dis- trict works or supplies shall not be so taxed. The board may borrow either from private means or public funds. In the latter case the loan may be to the extent of one-half of the land value within the district. Public money may be loaned for irrigation improvements to private landowners under dueforms of law, to be a preferred charge on their land at 8 per cent for the term of four years. Mortgagees may join in the application, etc. There are provisions regulating appropriations, arbi- tration, pollution, or obstruction of flow. Another law, passed in 1879, provides for irrigation loans to municipal bodies. Another and more favorable act was passed in 1880. By this legislation the Cape Colony became the first community to adopt the modern system of irrigation dis- tricts, as municipal and land owning or communities, formed to own, control, construct, use, and manage waterworks. Scientific surveys inquiries are now in progress for the determination of storage sites and and their relations to water supplies. Irrigation is everywhere a suc- cess, so far as it is now in operation. Borings for water have not been attempted to any large extent, but success has attended all efforts made, and public interest is aroused in the possibility of phreatic sup- plies. United States Consul George F. Hollis, of Cape Town, says, under date of 1889: The most complete storage work completed in this colony and the most important is that at Van Wycks Vley. The rainfall in this section is very irregular, the aver- #. for eleven years having been 10 inches, and in some years falling to 3 and 4 inches. The reservoir has depended on the catchment area of, say, 240 square miles. This has been found to be insufficient, and a furrow is now nearly completed through which the water of a neighboring river will be brought in, by which it is estimated that the water-covered area will be increased to 19 square miles, with a depth of 27 feet. The land under irrigation is held by the Government, and is leased at a mini- mum price of 10 shillings per acre. The bailiff in charge has the sole control of the tlow of water, and uses his discretion in its supply, some land within the area requir- ing more water than other portions. Owing to many causes, the chief of which was 408 IRRIGATION. * * ignorance of the character of the land, fostered by the report of interested persons, who declared that the water would be too salt for agricultural purposes and who de- sired the work should fail and be abandoned, giving them a chance to acquire it, the poorest tenants, assisted by the Government supplying seeds, were alone secured. Their success has, however, been so marvelous that the lands will soon be eagerly sought after. It is estimated that last year 1,300 acres were irrigated, at an expen- diture of an inch of water per month from the surface. The rainfall over the whole colony is so irregular that I have taken the subdivisions of the colony for the pur- pose of comparing, and have summarized the reports from an average of six stations in each district. The rainfall for these districts for the year 1888 was as follows: No. 1. Cape Peninsula ----...----. 53.84 || No. 7. East Central Karroo ... - - - - 10.15 No. 2. Southwest - - - - - - - -...----- - 32.95 | No. 8. Northern Karroo. ---...... 11. 43 No. 3. West Coast. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 15, 18 No. 9. Northern Border.- - - - - - - - - 8, 84 No. 4. South Coast ... --. * - - - - - - - sº 33.60 | No. 10. Southeast -----...--------- 28, 17 No. 5. Southern Karroo...... ---- . 17.59 | No. 11. Northeast -----....... ---. 20, 39 No. 6. West Central Karroo. - - - - - - 14. 12 | No. 12. Transkei - - - - - - - - - - - - ---. - 25.00 The topographical features of South Africa are so peculiar that the system answer- ing for one district is not applicable to others, while the rainfall varies greatly as one leaves the coast and ascends to the various table-lands. In general it may be said that. the land being almost entirely denuded of trees and bush, the rain is not drunk up by the soil, but runsrapidly over the surface, seeking its natural outlet to the sea, while the evaporation is very great, estimated at 6 feet at Van Wycks Vley, ne- cessitating deep storage basins.” SUGAR PLANTING AND WATER CONSERVATION IN DEMERARA. Irrigation is not practiced systematically in British Guiana, accord- ing to the report of United States Consul Walthall,f but the storage and conservation of water is thoroughly worked out, and in seasons of drought at least the sugar planter is not without the means of supplying the lack of natural precipitation. The following account of the manage- ment of the sugar estates is worth studying by our Louisiana planters: The average estate in Demerara has from 1,000 to 1,200 acres of cane under culti- vation, while the largest estates exceed 2,000 acres. The area of cultivation on each estate is generally divided into small fields of 10, 15, or 20 acres. The work of planting these areas is only necessary every four years or thereabouts, while the crop is reaped every fourteen months. To plant a large estate with sugar, cultivate it, harvest it, and manufacture it into marketable sugar re- quires necessarily a comparatively large number of laborers. These are free black natives, Portuguese, and Chinese, although the majority of laborers are from East India, better known as coolies, who are brought out from India as indentured immi- grants under a five years contract at the joint expense of the colonial government and the planter in the respective proportions of one-third and two-thirds. This class of labor is counted most profitable. The laborers are divided into gangs known as follows: First, the shovel gang; second, the weeding gang; third, the creole gang, employed to transport plants from field to field, manure, etc. The duties of the weed- ing gang are performed by the men and of the other two by women and children, the rate of wages being, men, 24 cents (18.); women, 16 cents (8 d.) per day. The drainage system should be and generally is most complete. The water sup- ply for both navigation and irrigation is obtained from a fresh water canal which runs along the rear. A sluice gate is constructed on the dam of this canal, and when water is required it is opened and the water pours into the trench. The transporta- tion of canes from all parts of the estate, coals from the river and railway depots to the buildings, is done entirely by punts drawn by oxen or mules. The main naviga- tion trench runs from the river up the center of the estate and is intersected at short distances by cross trenches and branch water ways, affording water ways for trans- porting canes cut at a distance of several miles from the factory to their destination by water. This, and nearly all other estates in Demerara, front on the sea or river, and are a source of constant trouble, anxiety, and expense to the planter, for their dams are frequently bursting, which has been known to do damage to the amount of £10,000 or $48,600. A sugar estate in complete working order, and with 1,200 acres of cane under cultivation, is worth about $72,900. The cost of producing a ton of sugar, interest on capital invested alone exempt, is £12 or $58 to £14 or $68. First sugar sells at from £19 or $83 to £20 or $97 per ton. When the market realizes this price the second sugars, rum, and molasses are regarded as profits. “Special Consular Report: State Department; canals and irrigation, 1891. f Ibid, pp. 327. 328. IRRIGATION IN EGYPT. Mr. Robert Wallace, F. L. S., F. R. S. E., etc., author of important works on “Rural Economy, Agriculture,” and professor of that chair in the University of Edinburg, Scotland, recently opened his lecture course by an address on Egypt. The professor is a careful student of irrigation problems, and has represented agricultural interests by an official ap- pointment to study the same in this country, India, and Australia. His recent address gives such a clear and succinct account of Egyptian practices and results that extracts are made. Mr. Wallace states that for agricultural observation the best time to visit Egypt is from August to October. He said: The mighty Nile, already much swollen, continues to grow toward its full flood and full measure of usefulness and wealth to the industrious cultivator; the cotton crop, by far the greatest source of wealth, gradually and by successive stages reaches ma- turity; the maize or “dura, ’’ crop assumes strength and acquires importance both for man and beast; the sugar cane makes the most rapid progress in its bulky and lux- uriant growth, and the whole face of the country is alive with the distribution of rich, red Nile waters to the roots of the crops in the ground and to the land being prepared for wheat, barley, beans, “birsem” or Egyptian clover, etc. The division of Egypt is into “Upper” and “Lower.” The upper province extends in a north and south direction from the province of Ghizeh, a little to the south of Cairo, to Wady Halfa, and comprises the lower part of the Nile valley, only a few miles wide, where the river has been confined within a narrow course by the barren hills of the African desert. Lower Egypt is represented by the Delta or alluvial plain, which has been aptly described as of triangular or fanlike form, with its apex to the south near Cairo. It continues to expand towards the north until it reaches the Mediterranean Sea, which forms its northern boundary. A few miles south of Cairo the Nile bifurcates and reaches the sea by two channels “ , ” “ the Rosetta branch diverging slightly to the west, and the Damietta branch slightly to the east of the direct line of the original northern course of the river. The whole cultivated area of Lower Egypt is traversed by a network of canals for the supply of irrigation water, by which alone the entire area is prevented from becoming a barren desert. Nearly the whole of the Delta is supplied by water from three great trunk canals which take off from the Nile at or above the Great Barrage Dam, which stands at the bifurcation of the river with the object of regulating the supply of water in its period of reduced quantity. The two arms of the river, together with the three great canals and various large subsid- iary canals which branch from them, have been spoken of as the veins of the fan, diverging radially as they do from one important point. The land surface falls away from the river banks and from a number of the canals which were at one period branches of the Nile, so that the surface of the country presents a series of depressed natural ridges which facilitate irrigation operations and will in the fullness of time materially aid the perfect drainage of the country. The Delta in the same rough fashion has been divided into a number of irregular zones or belts of very different character, in a direction lying east and west. The first towards the north consists of a line of barren sand banks skirting the coast. The second is formed by a chain of salt lakes, some of which are above and some below sea level, covering an area of upwards of 1,250,000 acres. Zone No. 3, resting on the southern banks of the lakes, consists of salt marshes which, if drained and freed by washing from excess of salt, would produce excellent crops. The fertile belt, the shortest and widest of the series, comes next, and embraces the greater part of the crop-bearing area. • * The cultivated land of Egypt proper is usually stated at about 5,000,000 acres, and it is believed that it is possible to extend cultivation in the future to an area vari- ously estimated at from 1,000,000 to 2,000,000 acres. 409 410 § IRRIGATION. The population is now given at 5,000,000, and it has been estimated that Egypt once supported 20,000,000 inhabitants. Prof. Wallace says: There are two distinct systems of irrigation well illustrated in Egypt: first, the old original basin system of Upper Egypt, at one time the prevailing and all but universal system; and second, the canal system begun by Mohammed Ali, and greatly extended and improved by the English engineers since 1882. In the basin system, where it is impossible to carry it on to the best advantage, large quantities of red Nile water are admitted on the land and retained by earth banks for a period of seventy days, until, by excluding air and light, it destroys the weeds, and by depositing the earthy matter held in suspension it “warps” the surface with a layer of fine mud, which manures the land for the succeeding crop. The seed is usually sown on the mud as the water retires, but at times the land is allowed to become somewhat dry, when it is plowed and the seed sown on an artificially prepared seed-bed, as in Europe. No watering is given to the crop during its growth. The improvements in this sys- tem are carried out with the object of gaining greater control over the water both as regards admission and escape. Masonry headworks, regulators, and exit sluices have been built so that it is not now necessary, as it was formerly at certain places, to peri- odically breach the earth bank for the passage of water. In addition to the advan- tages of extra control and an earlier supply of water, the expense of filling and dis- charging the basins has been greatly reduced. The canal system seen in Lower Egypt and on the high lands” along the Nile banks in Upper Egypt is much more elaborate, and involves much greater expense and greater engineering skill. By a series of large arterial canals, associated with a net- work of distributing canals, the water can be applied to the soil in moderate quanti- ties, which are within control at any period of the growth of the crop. The great advantages of the canal system over the other are, that a greater variety of important crops, such as cotton, can be grown, and when the water is to be had all the year round two and even three crops in place of one can be taken in a year from the same land. Less water is required per crop; but canal irrigation, involving the use of clear water and for Some crops especially a much limited amount of red water, does not support the fertility of the soil as basin irrigation does. “It tends also,” says Mr. Wallace, (a statement confirmed from other Sources,) “to an accumulation on the surface of alkaline salts. Evap- oration is greater where no drainage exists, capillary action draws the phreatic Water to the surface, and with it the alkali salts which had sunk, with the application of water to the surface, or were in the soil before.” Mr. Wallace holds that from 1 to 2 per cent of such salts are injurious to plant life. In the salt marsh lands of Lower Egypt the proportion is often over 10 per cent. Drainage is the only effective remedy, and with this the Egyptian irrigation department is occupied. Surface “soakage” and “seepage” washing are employed to correct the alkali. The first requires a large amount of water. Water flowing Over the land as in rice culture is to be found of service. Rice is some- times cultivated on land not too salt for the purpose of washing out the alkali. The professor suggests that moderate areas be banked and ditched, then the water when turned on sinks into the soil, carrying down the salts, which are in a large degree drained off into the open ditches set to relieve the land. This plan is in successful operation on the es- tate of Drened Pasha, at Kafr el-Daouar. Rice cultivation will dis- appear in Egypt under such a system, as other crops are more valua- ble. Rice is affected by the salts and does not produce sufficient humus for the soil. “Birsem,” or clover, will correct the want of decaying vege- ble matter, by the turning of two or three crops. Canal irrigation in Lower Egypt has led to manuring with a special material that is found in the rubbish piles indicating the sites of ancient villages, towns, and cities. These contain the excreta of the millions that have passed away, which in that dry climate have been preserved. It is termed “sabach,” and the piles that mark the site of old Cairo, for example, are rapidly being used to enrich the “dura” fields for miles * These are called “sharaqi,” which literally means “cracked.” THE CROP SEASONS AND PRODUCTs of Egypt. 411 away. The foundations of old villages are also being dug up and used for manure. So also with stable and animal compost and material. The effect of this fertilization is already apparent in increased, pro- duction. The crop season of Egypt [continues Prof. Wallace ) is divided into three distinct periods: (1) the winter, or “Shitawi'; (2) the summer, or “Sefi’; (3) the autumn, or “Nili,” so called because it corresponds to the time when the Nile is in high flood. During the winter, the cold weather, the various European crops, which thrive best in a temperate climate, as wheat, barley, beans, and clover (birsem), are grown. In summer those crops grow which require a tropical or semitropical heat and oc- cupy the portion of the land under crop, viz, cotton, sugar, and rice. The autumn or “Nili” crops are more of the nature of catch crops, and require, as a rule, only some three or four months to mature... In Lower Egypt the chief crop is “dura shami” (maize); in Upper Egypt, “dura beledi” (or millet, sorgum vulgare), maize, and “simsim,” or sesame, etc. The cotton is by far the best-paying crop, and there is consequently a strong temptation to grow an increased area of it where soil, water, and climate will permit. It is also an exhausting crop, and at the same time a delicate crop, extremely liable to degenerate, to be chilled, and thereby checked and injured, by cold foggy nights, and to be attacked by fungoid and insect parasites. It is frequently found good practice not to grow it oftener than once in three years, to guard against the various dangers mentioned, though in some parts it is grown with comparative success every alternate year. Where it has been grown year after year on the same land for five or six years the results are not at all satisfactory. Maize is an extremely important crop for the work animals, which are liable to become poor and weak when kept for a long period on “tibbin,” or straw, which has been trodden and ground down in the process of thrashing out the grain to a condi- tion resembling soft chaff. If the maize is planted at the proper season, viz, the 21st of July, so that it can secure the full benefit of the early “red water,” the thin- ning, pulled as required, supply an abundance of green food for the work cattle dur- ing the busy “Nîli” season. In Upper Egypt the thinnings from the millet crop (which much resembles maize in appearance during the early stages of its growth) are used for the same purpose, but as the young plant is extremely poisonous to cat- tle until it is about twenty days old, or until after the first watering, it is never used till this has been done. It seems to produce a deadly form of “hoven” in ruminating animals, from which horses and donkeys are exempted. Birsem, or clover (Trifolium Alexandrinum), a large growthed plant with a white flower head, is the great winter forage crop of the country. It is, at the same time, the restoring crop, in virtue of the power it possesses in common with other leguminous crops, of making use of the free nitrogen of the air, and leaving in the soil a rich store of combined nitrogen in its abundant root residue. It is not only the safeguard of the Fellah against the worst form of deterioration of his land, but it is an ample means, in its green state, and also preserved as ensilage (for which it has been shown to be admirably suited), whereby the numbers of farm animals of all kinds, including dairy cattle, may be increased where desirable. * * * # 36 An attempt has been made to grow the potato for the early London mar- ket. At one place in Upper Egypt a crop of 10 tons per acre was secured, and a price of £7, or $34, per ton was got for the potatoes in Cairo. Some consignments realized £13, or $63.18, per ton in London, from which, however, about $23.30, per ton of expenses had to be deducted. The best land for the purpose, of many varieties of soil tried, proved to be the rich Nile mud of light character, which is covered by the Nile when in flood and annually manured by a silty deposit, the land which, before tobacco culture was prohibited, was used for the growth of that crop. * * - The rotation of crops practiced by his excellency Reaz Pasha, the late prime minister, Mr. Wallace gives as a good example of what a rotation ought to be to yield the best returns: (1) Cotton. (2) “Birsem” (clover) or “full” (beans) to occupy the ground for five months. The land is afterwards exposed for five months without plowing or watering. This is probably to allow time for the root resi- due of the leguminous crop to decompose sufficiently to be of use to the next crop. If watered, the process of decay would probably be of a less suitable kind. (3) Wheat, which takes five or six months. The land is left without crop for four months, or, if maize is not to be planted, for six months, .* * 412 IRRIGATION. a matter which to a large extent depends upon the available supply of manure, as maize can not be successfully grown without it. (4) “Dura” (maize) follows wheat, or the land is left fallow. (5) “Birsem” is sown in the bottom of the dura ten to fifteen days before it is cut, when the land has become dry enough after the final watering, or it may be sown subsequent to the removal of the crop, or on empty land, after the fallow, about the 20th of September. In the matter of grains, the quality of Egyptian wheat as to gluten is some- what low. Barley is of a better quality. Bread is the chief food of the “Fellahs;” also green vegetables and fruits, chiefly the date. In Lower Egypt maize is the chief grain in use for bread; in Upper Egypt it is millet. The wages of agricultural laborers are now 34 piasters, or not quite 6 cents per day. The largest expenditure of hand labor in irrigation is caused by the level lift, or “shadief,” by which water is lifted from the Nile or canals for summer crops. The chief tool is the “fas,” a broad, short-handled hoe. The late Mr. Eugene Schuyler sent, as consul-general to Egypt, a valuable report to the State Department, in response to a circular prepared in 1889 by Irriga- tion Engineer R. J. Hinton, for the Senate special committee on irriga- tion and reclamation of arid lands, as a guide in the collection of in- formation by the consular and diplomatic agents of the United States. Some of the interesting data furnished by Mr. Schuyler are summarized as follows: Sedentary population, census 1882--------------------------------------- 6,302,336 Sedentary population to square mile------------------------------------ 543 Land area: Irrigable, Upper Egypt -------------------------------------- acres. . 2,400,000 Cultivated, Upper Egypt ... ---------------- _ ºn e º ºs º gº wº tº gº º sm tº gº ºi º e º sº tº do. . . 2,215,000 Irrigable, Upper Fayoum Basin ----------------...--------------do - - - 280,000 Cultivated, Upper Fayoum Basin ------------------------------- do - - - 220,000 . Irrigable, Lower Egypt.... ------------------------------------ do - - - 4, 000,000 Cultivated, Lower Egypt -------------------------------------- do. . . 2,740,000 Total : * * * * *-* Irrigable ---------------------------------------------- do ... 6,680,000 Cultivated -------------------------------------------- do - - - 5, 175,000 Annual Evaporation. * | Per day. |Per year. Inches, Inches. Ft. In. Upper Egypt.---------------------------------------------------------- 1.056 Q. 197 71 9 Lower Egypt. ---------------------------------------------------------. 8. 365 0.079 28 0 Ft. In. Slope of Upper Nile, per mile --------------------------------------------- 4 68 Slope of Lower Nile, per mile --------------------------------------------- 2 62 Miles. Mileage from source in Prince Albert Take to Mediterranean ... .... ---...----. 3, 1873 From junction of Blue and White Niles at Khartoum ... -- - - - ---------------- 1,875 The Nile flood has a velocity at its beginning (per hour) - - - - -. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 1+ The Nile flood has a Velocity at its full (per hour)-----...----...------------ 3# DATES OF NILE FLOODS AND volumE OF DISCHARGE. 413 Engineer Willcocks in his valuable work (Egyptian Irrigation, 1889) gives the discharges at Cairo and at the Barrage : Discharge in cubic feet per 24 hours. Locality. Channel. Season. Maximum. Minimum. Mean. Cairo -------. Main Nile.----------- Summer ------ 2, 189,840, 000 883, 000,000 1, 200, 880, 000 Do------ ----do----------------. Flood. -------- 36,450, 240,000 | 16.423, 800,000 24,017,600,000 Do. ------ ----do----------------- Winter ....... 7,064, 000, 000 3, 178, 800,000 4, 591, 600,000 Barrage. . . . . . Rosetta branch. -----. Flood -------.. 19,849, 840, 000 || 9, 536, 400,000 || 13,421,600,000 Do------. Damietta branch. - ... ----do --------- 14, 304, 610, 596 5, 298,000.000 8,476,800,000 Estimated mean daily discharge at Cairo, 8,830,000,000 in cubic feet. Estimated mean annual discharge at Cairo at average of 3,349,660,000,000 in cubic feet. In Upper Egypt there are 165 basins. They supply and cover 1,462,- 414 acres. There are also under summer cultivation 461,586 acres; by means of a siphon canal, 291,000 acres: total, 2,216,990 acres. - The system in vogue is a river, with transverse and parallel dikes. There are 21 basin systems, and the water is usually first let into the upper one, then passed into the others, and what is drained back from the lower basin into the river. - For ten years past the average flood variations between highest and lowest gauge has been 9 feet 1 inch. The annual Egyptian Nile rise begins at the end of September. The White Nile reaches its maximum in August. The Blue Nile begins in April its rise on the Abyssinian plateaus. At Assoor, the beginning of Egypt, the maximum flood oc- curs between August 15 and September 30. It is proposed by the En- glish engineers to construct high-line canals and fill all the basins simul- taneously. The total ordinary expenditures for irrigation were given for 1890 at $2,560,000. Mr. Schuyler wrote that— There are, however, also extraordinary expenses. In 1885 a decree allowed $5,000,000 to be spent for the improvement of the irrigation works. Of this there had been spent on December 31, 1888, the sum of $4,233,075. There will be allotted from a new loan now being negotiated the further sum of $4,550,000 for the same purpose. The aims of the Anglo-Indian engineers now and for six years past in charge of Egyptian irrigation works, are thus epitomized by Mr. Willcock: (1) The strengthening and securing of the barrages so as to insure a constant high- water level during summer, and not only utilize the whole summer supply of the Nile, but do away with a great part of the heavy silt clearances. (2) The construction of escapes and supplementary flood canals, so as to irrigate during summer from the summer canals, and during high Nile from the summer canals in their lower reaches, and supplementary flood canals in the upper reaches of the summer canals, and thus reduce silt deposits. (3) Having reduced silt deposits to a manageable amount, to substitute dredging and contract work for the corvée. (4) The obtaining of flood supplies as early as possible into the flood canals. (5) The reduction of regulation of the supplies entering the summer canals during flood so as to save the lowlands from inundation. (6) The improvement of the lowlands themselves by drainage and basin irrigation. (7) The improvement of the navigation. The land tenure and water supply practices in Egypt are a very un- certain quantity for the poor man. Lands are leased or rented, are tithe and tributary lands, “nulk” or freehold. The latter is modern in ori. gin. The state is considered, as in India, the real proprietor. The management of irrigation has always been in the hands of the rulers, whoever they may be. Mr. Schuyler says: According to the existing laws remission of revenue is granted on land incapable . of being sown with the winter crops, although flood crops irrigated by lift are ex- 414 IRRIGATION, # pected to pay the full taxes, but no provision is made for crops destroyed by floods during the inundations, or by drought in summer. Owing to the fact that there is plenty of water when the crops are sown, they are often sown to excess, and as the summer supply of the Nile only suffices for about one-third of the area in lower Egypt in May and June there are very often failures of harvest. All such cases are now - decided by the native court and the mixed tribunals on the basis of certain articles in their codes, but these are very insufficient. Mr. Willcock says: This not in a country where the Government sells the water, but where the Gov- ernment performs functions that the atmosphere does in other countries. However, things have become so bad now that something must be done. Previous to 1882 the mudirs or civil governors protected the poor as a rule from Jews and Christians, while the State was strongenough to hold its own. Now the tribunals dominate the State, and are unable to help the poor. The water-lifting practice is one of the most important in Egypt. It consumes a great proportion of the agricultural labor, all the more so because rude and simple. Lifts less than 40 inches are made by means of the “nattal,” a closely woven palm basket with ropes on either side, held by two who stand or sit near the water's edge. They swing this in Such a way as to fill it with water and throw it into the mouth of a small ditch, which carries it over the fields. By this process two men can raise from 140 to 175 cubic feet of water per hour. This has the advantage of being easy, inexpensive, and applicable anywhere in proper conditions. When it is necessary to raise the water more than 40 inches this becomes fatiguing, and the “shadoof” is resorted to. The old well sweep used in this country illustrates this system. The water is taken from small wells dug into Nile banks and filled by the river flow. The work is slow. A man averages only about 10 baskets or 22 gallons a minute, that is, 211.90 cubic feet per hour. The relays of men are changed every two hours. It is estimated that when the bank is sufficiently low to allow of “shadoofs" two men will water an acre and a quarter per day. Water wheels are in common use, principally the “sakieh' or Persian wheel. Whoever has visited Boise Idaho, has seen such wheels, im- proved somewhat as to buckets, etc., in Operation along the streets. On the Snake River, also, such wheels, very much enlarged, are in gen- eral use. One of the Egyptian “sakieh" will irrigate from 5 to 6 acres. The “sakieh" consists simply of a vertical wheel, an endless chain of small earthen pots, placed at about a foot from each other, which de- scends into a rude well on the bank of the Nile, thus bringing up the water and pouring it out into a trough leading into a canal. This ver- tical wheel is turned by another horizontal wheel applied to it by a rude system of uneven cogs, itself turned by a cow or a buffalo harnessed to the end of a long lever. The “sakiehs” are sometimes used in wells in the middle of fields, where such exist, and their existence is known at a long distance by the groaning Sound produced by the creaking COgS. * There are estimated to be 28,000 “sakiehs' in the delta or Lower Egypt, where the water has to be lifted from the canals for all summer irrigation. The total area therein is stated at 1,235,500 acres. IRRIGATION IN ASIA. THE T U R K IS EI P R O V IN C E S. Irrigation in the Turkish provinces of the Mediterranean, though necessary for the major cultivation, is still carried on under the most primitive forms and conditions. As will be seen from the annexed pre- sentation of the Ottoman code, the control of the water is maintained in the community. Ancient and oriental communities, practicing irri- gation, have had the water supply therefor under public control. Where great works were constructed in ancient times they were so made at the expense of the sovereign or State. As in Egypt down to a very recent period, the “corvée’’ or enforced labor prevailed in all irrigation, road-making, or other public works. Even in portions of India the system still prevails under modified forms. Assyria, Babylon, the an- cient kingdoms of the Levant, those of North Africa—as Carthage et al.—Persia, Ceylon, and the Brahmin, and the Mahommedan and other more ancient rulers of Hindostan have all constructed and possessed great systems of storage and distribution, the engineering skill dis- played in which is still the admiration of those who have studied them. Yet the chief results of irrigation cultivation have in all oriental coun- tries been obtained by the small cultivators and the petty and individ- ualized irrigations. These have gone on holding their ground to a large degree under systems of community regulation, and maintaininga con- siderable amount of agricultural activity, in spite of the historical fact that the great State works, often racial, dynastic, and always imperial in character and extent, have been destroyed during the progress of the tremendous wars, which in the ancient world have destroyed empire after empire, and communities, cities, towns, villages, with all their works, agricultural life, and other industries. Yet the small irrigation has held its place and is found everywhere, even as in Thibet and on the Pamar, at an elevation 12,000 feet above sea level the pivotal fact on which a working life has been sustained, and upon which, with new forces, as in British India and in Russian Central Asia, larger and more sustained development in the modern sense, has been or is being organized into existence. China and Japan are remarkable examples of what can be sustained in the way of industrial civilization by means of the individual farmer, working under simple community rights as to water and its use in cultivation. China and Japan have not in use a single great work, outside the great canal of China, for irrigation supply and distribution; yet the two empires carry on under their prim- itive but minutely-careful mode of irrigation an agriculture by which at least 300,000,000 persons are directly sustained. In British India at least one-third of the vast population are equally fed from small irrigations, the water for which is obtained from village wells and tanks or small ditches, that have been in use (or are modeled upon those that were) for many centuries. In all cases there are written or unwritten codes, customs and regulations, which recognize the public nature of water and provide for the local or community control thereof. Taking 415 416 - • IRRIGATION. the populations of other European dependencies, of Persia, Afghanis- tan, Thibet, Corea, and the native States generally, it will be found that at least 450,000,000 Asiatic persons are dependent for food upon the Small irrigations under review. The Ottoman code or law of water rights, usages, and proprietorship is an excellent example of the principles underlying the community Water control system of Asiatic countries. It has already been pub- lished in a consular report, but is inserted here as an illustration of an historical condition: Water, herbs, and fire are things outside commerce; all men enjoy them in common. Water running under ground is the property of no one in particular. - Wells not sunk by anyone in particular, and which are used by the public in com- mon, are common property. Seas and great lakes are common property. Streams of the public domains, that is to say, those which do not specially belong to anyone, are those whose bed is not the property of a number of persons; such streams are in common, as for example, the Nile, the Euphrates, the Danube, etc. Private streams, i. e., those whose beds traverse the lands the property of private persons, are of two kinds: -- 1. Those waters are subdivided among coproprietors, but which do not empty or exhaust themselves completely into the lands of the latter, and which run afterwards into public rivers; such water courses are also designated public because part of them is public domain ; the right of prečmption is not applicable to these water courses. 2. Private water courses which run within the limits of the property of a given number of persons, and whose water is exhausted and disappears upon such property without reappearing to form another confluent ; prečmption rights are only applica- ble to such water courses. t Alluvium deposited by a stream on the land of a private individual becomes that person’s property; no one else can lay claim to proprietary rights thereto. Herbs of natural (wild) growth upon lands the property of no one in particular are held in common, the same with herbs that grow upon private property unknown to the owner; but if the latter waters his land or incloses it with a view to prepare it for cultivation, then the herbs growing thereon become his property; no one else can appropriate them, and he who gathers them is held responsible therefor. By herbs are meant such plants as are not artificially watered; mushrooms, for in- stance, are included therein, but trees are not. Trees of natural (wild) growth upon mountains, which have no owners (djibali monbaha), are held in common. Trees of natural (wild) growth upon the property of anyone belong to the owner of such property; nobody can cut them down without his authorization. He who grafts a tree becomes the proprietor of the shoots and fruit thereof. *: anybody occupies a thing now common he becomes the exclusive proprietor thereof. Examples: The water which a person draws from a stream with a receptacle be- comes his undisputed property, and if a third person consumes it without the own- er's permission he is held liable therefor. The occupation of a thing must show intent; consequently, he who has placed a receptacle with the intention of collecting rain water becomes the owner of such water. The same with water accumulated in a basin or cistern; but the rain water found in a receptacle not expressly placed for such a purpose is not the property of the owner of the receptacle, and other persons may appropriate such water. - It is necessary in the occupation of water that it does not run continually; so, for instance, well water, which filters through, is in common. He who consumes the water thus obtained by filtration, even without the proprietor's consent, is not held liable for damages. Again, water is not considered as having been appropriated where as much enters a basin on one side as escapes on the other. Everyone may enjoy a thing held in common on condition that such enjoyment causes injury to no one. One can prevent a person from occupying or appropriating such a thing. [The contestations relative to water courses for drinking or irrigating purposes, and the customs and usages existing from antiquity are only to be taken into consid eration. #body can use the waters of public streams for his lands, and may for this pur- pose, or for the purpose of constructing a mill, dig canals and ditches or trenches on condition, however, of doing no injury to anyone. Works which cause an inundation, those which completely exhaust a stream or which prevent boats (barges) from float- ing, are to be interdicted. * Man and beast may drink of the waters not the individual property of any” PRIMITIVE water LIFE IN ANCIENT LANDs. 4.17 one, . The right to use water for irrigation and for the consumption of animals (“chirb”) of water courses not public property belongs to the owners of these streams (courses); any other person, however, may drink therefrom. Thus no other person than the owner can serve himself of the waters belonging to a community or of a ditch, trench, or well, for irrigating purposes, but he may drink therefrom and even water his animals, provided the number of these be not so large as to damage the water course, the canal, ditch, trench, or conduit; he can likewise draw water there- from with a pitcher or a pail and carry it to his house or garden. Those who possess a brook, stream, basin, or well upon their lands whose waters are renewed by nature may prevent anyone who wants to drink therefrom from en- tering their property; but if there exists no other water in common in the neighbor- hood the owners are obliged to either offer the use of their water or allow their lands to be penetrated; and in case they fail to offer their water those who wish to drink may enter the property, provided no harm is done thereto by damaging, for example, the edge of the wells or the water conduits. One of the coproprietors of a common water course can not, without the permission of the others, cut a channel, ditch, trench, or gutter. ... He can not change his “turn" or share of the enjoyment of the water long established, nor cede such right to a landed proprietor who has no right to the waters of such a river for irrigating his field or watering his cattle. The authorization to perform these acts given by the other coproprietors could be revoked by these latter or by their heirs. In all contestations touching drinking water or water for irrigating purposes the rules, regulations, and usages established ab antiquo are to be enforced. The waters of rivers, streams, springs, and other water courses pass- ing through the lands of a village or a city are the property of the community, and must be distributed, as has been the ancient practice, in such a manner as to secure a supply to each landed proprietor dur- ing certain hours either weekly or fortnightly. Every owner of land knows the exact time and quantity of water to which he is entitled, and in almost every village there is a civil officer who is charged with the duty of looking after the proper allotment and distribution of the water among all the inhabitants. Time is usually measured by hourglasses. In Asia Minor, Syria, and Palestine, the sources of supply for irriga- tion are the small streams, wells, and pools, and the modes of using and distributing are of the simplest character. Olive trees, for example, are seldom watered after the period of growth before bearing. The fig tree is irrigated generally for a limited period each season, by means of the water bag carried by men to each tree and applied directly to the roots. Shallow wells are numerous, and their water is lifted generally by means of a wheel, the flanges of which are also water buckets. A large buffalo skin is made into a bag by cords at the corners, let down into a well, and then drawn up filled with water, which is emptied into a conduit. The power used is generally animal—oxen, asses, or camels. The general plan used is known as the “Na’hura” wheel, clumsy in con- struction, but raising a considerable quantity of water. It consists of a clumsy cogwheel fitted to an upright post and made to revolve hori- zontally by an animal attached to the sweep; this turns a similar one perpendicularly placed at the end of a heavy beam which has a large wide drum built over it, directly over the mouth of the well. Over this drum revolve two rough hawsers or thick ropes, often made of myrtle twigs and branches twisted together, and upon them are fastened small earthen jars or wooden buckets. One side ºdescends while the other rises, carrying the small buckets with them; those descending are empty, while the ascending ones are full; and as they pass over the top they discharge into a trough, which conveys the water to the cistern. The length of the hawsers and number of buckets depend upon the pro- fundity of the well; for the buckets are fastened to the hawsers about 2 feet apart. The wells are of different depths, but generally average from 10 to 15 feet. It is claimed that with good animal power a bucket containing about 2 gallons of water can be raised every Second. S. Ex. 41——27 418 IRRIGATION. IP A. L E S T I N E A N D S Y IR. I.A. . These still remain irrigation lands, though its extent is now very restricted. The management of the water is crude and primitive in character. Mr. Henry Gilman, United States consul at Jerusalem,” Says: Small fields, gardens, or patches of ground are here and there cultivated in the neighborhood of some stream having its source in one of the perennial springs of the region. From such a spring the water is conveyed in shallow drains or ditches to wherever required, and is carried through the fields or gardens by still smaller chan- nels, the water being shut off or let on simply by the action of the foot, opening the tray inlet, or blocking it up with a few pebbles or masses of clay, as may be desired. In the scattered and small areas in which cultivation by irrigation is practiced, the Bedouins of Palestine follow the simplest methods. Mr. Schumaker, United States consular agent, says: In the early morning or shortly before sunset young Bedouins, in a seminude state, may be seen roughly constructing from Stones and earth a temporary dam to obstruct the waters of a stream or wādi (valley), while others provided with broad hoes dig little ditches throngh which they lead the overflowing waters, to be distributed over the parcels it is intended to irrigate, allowing the water free course in the lower lying lands, thus inundating or rather completely setting them under water. These manip- ulations are of daily repetition; the dams have to be regularly rebuilt, for the pres- sure of the water causes their daily destruction, and it is interesting to watch with what assiduity and perseverance these Bedouins are continually remaking and renew- ing the little ditches and canals, which need their unremitting attention. At Jaffa and in its neighborhood there are about 3,000 acres of oranges, olives, and other fruits, with garden vegetables, under culti- vation by irrigation. The value of such exports per annum is about $300,000 a year. The water is drawn from shallow wells, chiefly by the “vajara,” a simple water wheel, of which some 700 are in use. The irrigation season, fiom May to November, is one hundred and sixty days, and the cost of water will be from 20 to 25 cents per acre; that for the dry period will be at least $33 per acre. The net yield per acre will not be less than $150, the exports being valued at $120 per acre. In Syria itself works for the utilization of the underflow are quite numerous. They are usually placed on lands lying along the foot of a mountain, from which rivers, Springs, streams, or other water courses flow, and which by reason of their gentle slope adapt themselves for irrigating purposes. At Beirut the irrigation area extends 5 miles in one direction and some 10 in another. Mulberry trees are the most abundant product. In Tripoli the chief orchards are of oranges. The area covers 5 acres square. They are supplied with water from the Lebanon range. There are considerable areas under cultivation by irrigation in northern Syria. Canals or ditches are expressly dug for this purpose where they do not already exist or where the Water does not run of itself. The canals are usually old and are not kept in good repair. Springs are carried into cisterns or tanks built of masonry Well cemented, which are usually emptied each day. Large reservoirs are unknown, and the maxim among the natives in force is “ that irrigation is only profitable where the water runs unaided by man.” Their ancestors were of a different opinion, judging from the numerous works left by them scattered broad- cast over the land. In modern irrigation and waterworks the Beirut waterworks take the first rank. They are the property of an English stock company, which furnishes an excellent quality of drinking water at fixed rates, as well as a needful supply for irrigation purposes at rea- Sonable charges. a *Special Consular Report on Canals and Irrigation, 1891, p. 342. IRRIGATION IN PALESTINE AND SYRIA. 419 Progress is made in three directions. Pulsometer pumps of consid- erable power have been introduced, and in one instance proved entirely successful, though the water is raised 130 feet. American wind motors are also slowly coming into use. The Mount Lebanon areas are excep- tionally well cultivated. Mr. Edward Bissinger, United States consul in Beirut, says: Irrigation, as has already been tshown, is regulated entirely by usage and well- established rules, and every parcel of land has a right to the use of water for certain well fixed length of time; for instance, a small proprietor near Beirut has 5 acres of land; every Friday he can take as much water during six hours as he may need to thoroughly saturate his land; if he fails to take advantage of his privilege he simply forfeits it without being indemnified therefor. Where water is scarce, as in many places in the mountains, it is often divided into hours and even fractions of hours, and good care is taken that no one receives or takes more than his allotted share. The sole owner of a spring, a rare occurrence, however, may of course use the water thereof at his own pleasure. It is worthy of remark that in Mount Lebanon the waters of every spring, no mat- ter, how limited its capacity, is caught up into cisterns of good solid masonry and is utilized for irrigating and domestic purposes, and no matter how steep the mountain sides or how poor the soil, the smallest available tillable space is planted with onions, Vegetable marrow, or egg plant, and three and sometinues even four crops are thus produced each year. Projects and plans of a considerable character are under way or in consideration in Syria and Palestine, and a few years will undoubtedly See a large addition to the cultivated area of both these historic re- gions. In Syria there are a number of works of great antiquity; some are in ruins, but others still remain in use. Near Beirut are two aqueducts, built upon arches or cut partly through solid rock. The works at Da- mascus, Tripoli, Horus, Hamath, Tyre (Solomon's Pools), and other important points, are of great antiquity. The conduits and aqueducts are of stone masonry, earthen pipes, or hollowed out of stones in place or artificially arranged. Beirut is furnished with modern works, con- structed by an English company. Reservoirs are unknown. In the valley of the Euphrates and on the Mesopotamia plains there are many ancient works of great extent now largely disused, but which could be availed of if the channels were cleared out and repaired. In Persia, Afghanistan, Turkestan, there is a system of underground conduits called “karnaks,” by which phreatic water is conveyed long distances and distributed to fields below the point of debouchement. These “kar- naks” are made by digging well holes to the gravel, sand, or boulder stratum in which the drainage water is gathered. They are made a short way apart, beginning generally in some foothill section. When the bottom is reached a conduit or small tunnel is hollowed or dug out from each well. In this wise the water of the saturated stratum is gathered into a stream which flows under ground, until by gravity the water therein flows over the fields below the mouth of the “karmak.” The wells or openings are often used as watering places for stock, as well as for domestic purposes. There are many hundred miles of these rude conduits in Persia. They are also in Cashmere, Afghanistan, and other points of Central Asia, where the mountainous topography gives promise of a large supply of phreatic water. English travelers have called attention to the danger attending such conduits in the probable desiccation of areas lying above the route of the conduits. It has been observed by such travelers that grass and other forage perishes along the line of the “karnaks.” This is a point worthy of consideration. 420 IRRIGATION. *. Something similar to these devices is described by Mr. N. A. Nahi. kon, who writes as follows: The most extensive system in Armenia, is by wells dug in the following way: First a man will take the level of his land, then going up toward the base of the moun- tain he will have a well dug, generally from 80 to 100 feet deep, which will be a few feet above the level of his land (the bottom of his well I mean); then they dig three other wells between these two points, the depth of the wells diminishing, of course, as they approach the farm. They dig a tunnel through the bottom of all the Wells high enough for a man to walk through. This precaution is taken so that, in case there be a cave in of earth, they can open one of the wells (which has simply been roofed over), and a man is lowered down to see what is the matter. The water will flow through this tunnel until it comes to the surface by gravity at the desired place. Here they make a kind of reservoir 40 by 25 feet in size and about 3 or 4 feet deep, taking care that the bottom be not on sandy soil; and then to stop the evapo- ration of water from the said reservoir, they plant all around it mulberry trees, which, having thick foliage, will almost entirely hide the water from the sun's rays. These reservoirs are generally owned by several persons, and the measure of distri- bution is by the reservoirful per fortnight. Many persons may not own either any land or water, but may have the trees as property. These waters also during the winter go to waste. In the summer they are awfully cold. Really I know many of them that are too cold to wash hands in or drink at the point where they just come from the ground. There is not a single perennial stream of water in or near the city of Jerusalem, and only one in its immediate environs. There is a small stream which for a few weeks in winter flows down the Kedron Valley half a mile below the city; there is another ephemeral fountain which gushes forth a few weeks in the winter. Siloam is the only perennial stream about Jerusalem, if indeed that can be called a stream, which is intermittent. The population of Jerusalem has always been largely and almost entirely dependent on wells of living water. The winter rain was to the Hebrews what the Nile was to the Egyp- tians, and every means was adopted to economize the scanty supply. At a distance of 7 miles from the city there were extensive tanks and wells constructed, undoubtedly of the greatest antiquity, the intention of which was to collect water, to be conveyed by conduits carried upon and beneath the surface, and on a due level around the slopes of the country, a distance in its windings of not less than 12 miles. Two of these aqueducts conveyed the water; the one directly to the city near the Jaffa gate, and the other in a circuit around Zion on the southern side to the temple. All Writers on Jerusalem who have investigated the water supply attest the fact that, notwithstanding the aridity of the surrounding country, the inhabitants of the city have always had Water enough and to spare. * Aristeas, an eye witness, says: There is a continual supply of water as if there had sprung up an abundant foun- tain underneath, and there were wonderful and inexpressible receptacles under ground, each one of which had divers pipes by which water came in on every side. All these were of lead under ground, and much earth was laid upon them, and there were many vents in the pavements not to be seen at all by those who served, so that in a trice all the blood of the sacrifices could be waslied away, though it were never so much. The city of Jerusalem is indebted to Sultan Mahomed for its present supply cf fresh water, as the Mahommedans even more than the Jews require an abundant supply of fresh water for their religious observ- 3IlC6-S. The pool constructed by Solomon, called the “King's Pool,” 8 miles from the city— consists of three enormous reservoirs, partly cut in the rock, partly built of mass- ive marble masonry. Their dimensions are as follows: The upper pool, 380 feet long; breadth at east end, 236 feet; at west end, 229 feet; depth at west end, 25 feet. & THE POOLS OF JERUSALEM AND WATER USE. 421 The middle pool, which is distant from the upper pool. 160 feet, is 248 feet long; it is at east end 250 feet broad and at west end 160 feet, while the depth at east end is 39 feet. The lower pool, 248 feet eastward of the middle pool, has a length of 582 feet; a breadth at east end of 207 feet, and at west end of 148 feet, and a depth at east end of 50 feet. Each pool overflows successively, by regulated sluices, into the next below it, in the order given, the last pool emptying its superabundant water into the valley. The source of the water supply is the Sealed Fountain of Solomon, at the foot of a hill, a short distance west of the Upper Pool. This fountain is al- ways kept locked ; hence the name. A flight of twenty steps descends from an arched doorway into an underground vaulted chamber, where four streams of pure and cool water converge. A small acreage is irrigated from these pools and from that of Siloam. There is a copious spring in use for the valley and village of Urtas. Consul Gilman says: tº The distribution of the water is regulated by the old custom of system of “fassels,” a night and a day forming a “fassel.” Each family owning land there know, from time immemorial, its respective rights and share in the “fassel” of water. Some have an entire “fassel,” and again the same is divided among the different mem- bers of a family, to irrigate their respective shares of land. The water is carried from one plat to another by drains in the usual simple manner already described. The Europeans who own land there have made, however, a cemented conduit to con- yey their share of water into their ground. No statistics are obtainable, none ever having been kept, as to the duty of water per acre. No special rent or fee is paid for the water used, nor are there any charges on the land in connection there with, the only payments made being the usual government taxes—the “werke” (land taxes) and “ushur” (titles). Solomon’s Pools, the Sealed Fountain, and the aqueduct are public property, and are under the control of the Turkish Government. The temperature of the water at Jerusalem is about an average of 65 degrees. The largest tank or cistern remaining is 376 feet in circuit, is 42 feet deep, and has a capacity of 2,000,000 gallons. These meager statistics of the water supply of Jerusalem have been given because the city is better known than any other ancient capital, and from the fact that its surrounding desolation and aridity exceeds any part of our Western domain. Our frontiersmen can reasonably take courage by the comparison. C H IN A. All irrigation in the Empire is conducted practically on a mutual or coöperative plan. The sources of water supply are generally the tribu- taries of large streams, the latter being made useful for navigation with irrigation as an incidental service. The most minute care is taken to preserve every source of water or other liquid for use in cultivation. In southern and central China it is estimated that 1 acre of cultivated land will support from three to five persons. Rice and vegetables are the chief crops. Wheat, millet, and barley are raised in the northern and far inland provinces. Irrigation processes in southern China are described by Consul Seymour as follows: Return rows of growing vegetables, trenches filled with water obtained from the creeks, brooks, or pools, are kept ; and once or twice a day the water is scooped from these trenches upon the raised ground, in which the roots have great depth of loose and moist soil to promote growth. When these trenches of water are not available, owing to scarcity of water, or to porous land, the men and women carry, suspended from a yoke across their shoulders, two large buckets with long spouts, and sprinkle the rows of vegetables copiously. Sometimes the water for this purpose is carried in buckets a considerable distance. For the irrigation of rice lands, which have to be submerged, the lands are divided into small patches at large ievees, so that the appearance is that of a beautiful system of terraces, near a bountiful supply of water, which is raised to the upper level of chain-pump and tread-mill process with cooly power. From the upper to the lower levees the water decends so gradually as to avoid washing away the substance or fertility of upper to lower lands. In Ningpo, Fo-Kien, and Shanghai the modes of irrigation are generally from small ditches, taken from streams or large canals. At 422 , IRRIGATION, Ningpo the ditches are mainly fed by phreatic waters supplied from springs, which come to the surface in the bordering hills of the valley. The river water being brackish is never used. The supply canals are numerous, from 2 to 3 miles in length, and supplying the shallow laterals, which are dug at right angles, from 200 to 400 feet apart and 10 to 30 feet wide, supplying all the small fields and tiny gardens of the Chinese farmers. In the province of Fo-Kien, as the rainfall is equally distributed and quite heavy, irrigation has become an additional Security rather than a primary necessity. There are no storage dams, though the country is well adapted to their construction. Consul Campbell, of Fuchan, says: The water used for irrigation is drawn up from the ponds and water courses by an endless chain or rather an endless rope pump, which is worked by one man or some- times two men by treading upon a wheel made with a number of radiating arms which causes the wheel to turn upon its axis. A horizontal pole about 5 feet above the shaft is made fast, and the men support themselves by leaning upon this pole by treading the wheel. One end of the box through which the chain draws the buckets is placed in the water at an angle of about 45 degrees with the pond, river, or canal from whence the water is drawn into the field. The box is open at both ends and is made strong and light. The whole apparatus is easily carried by one man on his shoulders. The faster the man treads the wheel the more water is pumped, and the machine is kept going night and day when water is needed for irrigation. The pump is run very much on the principle of the treadmill so far as the motor power goes, and the water is carried up with the buckets something like wheat is raised in an elevator. * % Water is conducted into the fields, which are usually marked off into small com- partments according to the number of proprietors by earth embankments, the water filling one after another until all are covered. Everything is carried by human beings on their backs. The vegetable garden, flowers, and small plants are watered by water carried on the backs of the laboring people—men, women, and children. There are no written codes or laws; custom, handed down from im- memorial time, rules everything. According to the latest idea of the ethnologists and historical students, the Chinese, in irrigation and other things, derive their methods from Assyria and Babylon, as they are considered to be descended from the most ancient Turanian stock, whose existence on the plains of Mesopotamia is regarded as indispu- table. The processes indicated are general throughout China, while on all sides and by every ingenious primitive process that can be de- vised the most economy in storage and the largest duty of water in distribution is daily obtained. There is a recent increase of interest aris- ing, owing, probably, to the fact that so many Chinamen have seen irrigation of late years in other countries and under different conditions. Quite recently the office of irrigation inquiry has received a request from an English engineer in the service of the Imperial Government and stationed in Yunnan, the province lying next to Annam and Bur- mah, asking for information relative to artesian waters and wells, he being about to commence boring experiments. Recent speculation on the racial origin of the Chinese, attributing their civilization and policy to a migration from Babylonia and Assyria, seems to receive a contradiction in the nature of the agriculture, canal, and irrigation works. The latter, at least, were of a much larger and more important character in the valleys and plains of the Euphrates than is anywhere to be seen in China. The navigable canals in the provinces accessible to commercial and other outside intercourse are all used as sources of supply for the irrigation ditches and laterals. United States Consul Pettus, of Ningpo,” says: At Hangchow the canals of this district connect with the Grand Canal, which leads . as far as Peking. Almost every farm in this district has its canals for transportation and irrigation. * Special report on “Canals and irrigation,” State Department, 1891, pp. 64, 65. CHINESE waſtER wheels, LIFTS, AND CHAIN PUMPS. 423 Branch canals are excavated from the main canals at short distances, from 100 to 300 yards. These canals run at right angles from the main arteries, so that all the farms and gardens can be irrigated, which is done by wooden chain pumps made to reach the water from the bank. They are worked by hand or ox. So all farms in the valley are irrigated, always insuring a good crop of rice. The lifting of water in China, as seen in the maritime provinces, is thus described : º From these (the main channels), where the tides do not rise sufficiently high for irrigation, water is raised artificially by simple but rude machinery. This consists of a main cog wheel, worked by oxen, which turns a roller at the upper end of the trough ; at the lower end of which, immersed in the canal, there is another roller, and over these an endless series of wooden boxes revolve. The boxes or boards fitting the trough elevate the water and pour it into the fields, over which it is distributed by open drains. The whole machine is readily moved from place to place, and the trough can be arranged at any angle to suit the incliuation of the bank. In other methods of lifting water the ingenuity of the Chinese is strikingly apparent. Of the chain pump there are three adaptations of the same principle. One is operated by animal power, the two others by man power. The first is provided with a mechanism precisely the same, to all intents and purposes, as the horsepower suited to the older styles of thrashing machines. This is probably as old as husbandry itself in China. It shows that they understood that power and speed vary inversely, or that power or time is gained according as the mov- ing force is applied near or remote from the axis of a wheel. The chain pump attached consists of a hollow trunk formed of boards, having at each end a short axle provided with cogs, over which an end- less chain, having a series of buckets upon it, passes. The trough is placed in an inclined position, with one end in the water to be raised. The upper axle being put in motion by its connection with the power machine (which is placed on the bank of the canal, river, or pond, and operated by a buffalo yoked thereto), causes the endless chain to rotate. The buckets retain the water and raise it to the end of the trough, from whence it flows onto the field. The second description of chain- pump is worked by men, operating upon a description of treadmill with the feet. The upper axle of the endless chain of pumps is ex- tended to a long shaft on either side of the trunk, and provided with short, radiating arms, serving as levers for the agtion of the feet. A rotary motion is thus communicated to the shaft and the endless chain of buckets. The other description is worked by a crank in the end of the upper axle of the chain pump by hand power. J A P A. N. In the Island of Lewchew, belonging to Japan, irrigation is so care- fully handled as to demand special mention. It is still characteristic of the methods in use. The streams are small and short, brief in their course, and are all appropriated to irrigation. In their management of water the Japanese islanders are always seeking to secure “the retention of water or moisture, and the avoidance of surface washing.” In both cases they have succeeded. Dr. Green, U. S. Navy, who accompanied Commodore Perry’s expedition to Japan, says: Wherever a stream is found, whether large or small, also whenever springs issue from the sides of hills (if not excessively steep), the system of grading begins. If the ravine be very narrow, the sides near the bottom are cut down perpendicu- larly for several feet, and the bottom leveled from side to side, the level becoming wider as the sides recede from each other. It is formed into steps by slight, narrow banks running across, capped with grass. The height of these embankments is always small, rendering the length of the step or plot longer or shorter as the de- scent of the valley is greater or smaller. A plot of only 6 feet square is not neglected 424 * IRRIGATION. or despised. Where there is not a ravine, but an open, spreading valley, the sides alº not thus cut, but the leveling is effected by running the embankments across it in a curved line corresponding with the ground, the arch being always up the val- ley. If the stream be large enough to furnish side supplies, open ditches or conduits are carried along the sides, and the water is allowed to descend from plot to plot, the embankments of which are adapted to the surface, being arched outward, or from the side, where an elevation projects into the valley; and inward, or toward the side, where a depression occurs on its face. By this means no dams, as such, are made (liable to be washed away); but gentle descents of a foot or so are made from step to step, without any risk of injury, and requiring only the slightest restraints or banks. These are all covered with grass, and serve as divisions of property and also as pathways. By this simple arrangement great floods may be diffused over level land, and fall from grade to grade sogently as to pass off without detriment to the feeble embankments, and without injury to the soil by washings. This is the grading for irrigated lands. That for rolling lands is not unlike it, but is not brought to such exactness, as a perfect water level is not so much needed. Hillsides are thus cut into terraces, varying in width from a few feet to many yards; and also in length, according to the inclination or shape of the land. The same small margin of grass is found here on the embankments, which are from 1 to several feet in depth ere an- other terrace is reached. In this way, when the hills are conical and the terraces are arched outward, they look like giant circular steps from base to summit; and where a valley is regular and steep, they are arched inward, and appear as the steps of an immense amphitheater. The terraces are subdivided as the irrigated plots are, or by stones, or slight mounds of earth grassed over as division marks. They are bed- ded up gently towards the center, and all around the margin there is a slight de- pression or furrow by which superfluous rain water is carried to some point to be let down to the next level. But before allowing it to escape, it has to pass over a hole or reservoir in the ground, generally partially filled with vines and haulm. Any alluvial soil is thus arrested as sediment to assist in making compost or manure, the water alone escaping. Before escaping finally, however, into a stream or river, it has to traverse a much larger reservoir for the same purpose. Rice is grown only on irrigated land, which is first saturated, the soil being deeply upturned by the hoe. Where flooded a gang of 2 to 4 men enter each plot of land. Each one of them hoes a row across it, each row about a foot wide, in form like a plow furrow. The plants are then set out, having been first seeded in separate plots. The work is Swiftly done, the men moving along, dragging the young plants after them, at intervals of 6 or 8 inches, in the soft earth under water. In front is a sheet of water, behind the laborers is a field of rice, growing in regular rows. Apparently no culture besides digging is required. When dead ripe the rice is harvested. Two crops are grown annually, besides a winter one of sweet potatoes. The uplands are watered only by the rains, skillfully conserved by the system of grading and ditching already described. The cultivation is as minute and careful as in the rice fields. The agriculture of Japan is carried on in a similar manner as in the island of Lewchew. As to rice, the great staple of Japan, it is sown broadcast in seed beds, which are covered by shallow water, and the seed may be seen lying upon the earth through this water. When drawn the plants are floated by the drains to the place of planting. The ditches used are small, and in general the water or manurial fluids are carried to the plants by laborers. There are about 12,500,000 acres, nearly two-thirds of which are under irrigation, while the population is over 41,000,000. There is no general code of water regulation; as in China, local customs and coöperation control. Peasant proprietorship of land is the rule in Japan. S I A M a Consul-General Jacob T. Child gives in the State Department Report on Canals and Irrigation (p. 369) the following brief account of irriga- tion for rice in Siam : About one-half of the country is under cultivation, and of this portion fully four- IRRIGATION IN SLAM AND SANT) WICH ISLANDs. 425 fifths is under irrigation. Rice is the staple, consisting of two kinds, na suan, or garden rice, which is transplanted, and the second grade, na muang, or field rice. It is ºted that about 10,143,800 piculs (1 picul - 1334 pounds) are annually grown IIl SH3, Dºn, Water is supplied to the fields by means of canals, which branch out from the rivers in all directions. The water is conducted into the fields by small canals and ditches. The fields are divided off into ris, containing about one-third of an acre. Around the four sides of each ri an embankment is thrown up, about 2 feet in height, with an inlet, to allow the water to each ri, in turn, until the whole number of ris is full. There are no pub- lished works upon irrigation. - This system is governed by laws and customs. There is no duty upon the water, but if the land is Government property there is an annual rental in the form of a tax of 28 cents per ri, which includes the use of the water. The large canals are built at the expense of the General Government, but the small canals leading to the fields must be dug by the individual. The climate is tropical, with a wet and dry season. The average annual rainfall is 67.04 inches. The system of irrigation has been in use from time immemorial, and is maintained partly by public and partly by private expense. T H E S A N D W I C H ISIL AND S. The Hawaiian Islands are largely dependent upon irrigation for agricultural security, and the works, therefore, are generally of the most modern description, and are often, too, quite extensive in char- acter. Sugar has increased its yield under irrigation from 2 to 4 tons per acre. There are about 90,000 acres under cane; 7,000 or so under rice; of bananas about 5,000 acres. Half the cane and all the rice fields are irrigated. The water supply is derived from mountain streams, storage reservoirs thereon, springs, and artesian wells. The distribu- tion is generally by means of pipes, which are usually of wrought and cast iron. There are some extensive open ditches from 5 to 40 miles in length. No water code exists; the ownership is by lease, public and private, and the cost (by pumping) is $3 per month, or $45 per acre each season. The Kanakas have always used irrigation ditches for the purpose of cultivating “kala,” from which their chief food, “poi,” is made. Many of the ancient ditches are still in use. The duty of water is heavy, as rice and sugar require more water than any other crops grown in the world. In Spain, India, Siam, etc., the average duty for cane land is from 45 to 65 acres for one second foot; for rice the duty is one second foot for from 25 to 35 acres. In Hawaii the sugar cane duty is put at one second foot for 41.6 acres, on the large plantations of the Hawaiian Commercial Company, the duty reaching as high as 65 acres. But the conclusion is reached by engineers of repute— (1) That while the duty of water is variable with all the varying conditions of soil, climate, rainfall, wind, exposed or sheltered locality, and in some degree with the length of time the land has been irrigated, such variation is generally between the limits of 40 acres as the minimum and 90 acres as the maximum duty of 1 cubic foot per second. (2) That economy in the application of water below a certain limit, which, for the southerly slopes of this island seems to be about an average of 1 foot in depth per Itionth, can only be exercised at the expense of the yield of sugar. (3) That a greater duty than 60 acres per cubic foot per second can not be counted on with safety; or, in other words, that 328,500 gallons per acre are needed monthly, or to mature a crop say 15 times that amount, or 4,927,500 gallons, are required. In estimating on the cost of pumping water for irrigation these are convenient figures to remember. The largest artesian supply is derived from wells bored along the mar- gin of Pearl Harbor. They are almost phenomenal in their volume and extent. They irrigate 20,000 acres of rice, and also a large area in ba- nanas and other products, besides giving power for several large mills. 426 IRRIGATION, There are also a number of remarkable springs having considerable flow, 7 of them giving a total of 116 second feet. The measured flow of developed springs is on one of the islands sufficient to irrigate at least 7,000 acres of sugar cane, and probably as high as 10,000 acres. On the island in which Pearl Harbor is situated, there are 100 flowing wells, all of them bored within the past twelve years. Four of these wells would supply with water a city of 165,000 inhabitants. The wells are all confined to a marginal rim around the island back from sea level, at an elevation above it of from 21 to 42 feet. The supply seems unlimited, no diminution being observed. T H E IS I, A N ID O F M A. D. EIIR, A, The system of irrigation management practised in the island of Ma- deira is quite elaborate. The whole area is only about 240 square miles, or 153,600 acres, of which over one-half is irrigated and cultivated. Most of the coastal plane is so utilized. The products are mainly sugar cane, wheat, maize, onions, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, and fruits, of which bananas are a large part. Vegetables are grown successfully at an elevation of 3,000 feet, and most of the cultivation is between 500 and 1,000 feet above sea level. Oranges flourish at 1,500 feet. The water supply is furnished by perennial springs which are filled up with the waters of the rainy season. Water rights and works are termed “levadas,” a system which is at least 300 years old. There are no catchment basins or reservoirs, except such as nature has provided and the water itself has plowed and furrowed for its own passage. The “levadas” are open conduits or ditches of open masonry or rock cuts. They show skill and great labor, passing through tunnels, over bridges, or along the precipitous sides of mountains. Some of them are but a few miles while others are from 60 to 70 miles in length. These “levadas” are owned by “committees” of landowners, water being an easement of the soil. The delivery is regulated by custom, upon the horary plan. Some deliver their whole contents in an hour or two; others a quarter at a time just as the proprietors may deter- mine. The quantity issued is considered to be the amount which will run along a furrow at any one time without washing away the soil. To illustrate, the St. Luzia levada has 4,245 hours of water. These rights attach to purchase and inheritance, and were originally acquired through construction of the levada. The managing committee annually sells this water, or rather its use, for an amount sufficient to keep the conduit in repair. Each piece of ground under the levada is entitled to its hours in rotation. When the dry season sets in, a certain period for serving the whole district, called a “gyre,” is devised, and this war. ies from fifteen to sixty days between periods of service. The levadeiro is an official similar to the “water master,” “major domo,” or the “zam- jero” of Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, and Southern California. He is paid by fees, the tariff of which is regulated by the levada comunittee, who are selected by the proprietors. The prices of a run for the season varies at different parts, rising from $5 to $8 in the neighborhood of Funchal. Government levadas have been constructed and turned over to the local bodies. It is reported that they have been allowed to fall into bad order. Water is the most valuable property in Madeira and there is a good deal of litigation over it. United States Consul, T. C. Jones,” says: One of the principal difficulties attending the management of the levadas was the want of a legal standing as corporate bodies of their committees. A quarrel between * Canals and Irrigation, Special Consular Reports, 1891; State Department. THE ISLAND of MADEIRA AND MADAGascAR. 427 two levadas drawing their supply from the same valley occasioned a lawsuit which has lasted now more than forty years. Within the last few years a law has been passed enabling the committees to incor- porate themselves, with power to acquire property and otherwise protect and improve their levadas. They can purchase the land containing their springs, protect the for- est and the trees along their lines. Every farmer of thrift has on his land tanks to store his water, and from these tanks little levadas distribute it when and wherever he wants it. Water rights are held under title deeds, which specify the intervals at which the supply shall be given and the length of time it shall continue. Water is always of ready sale. If a crop fails from any cause, the water for that land is sold to a more fortunate neighbor, though sometimes at a very reduced rate. Under any system it is hard for the poor. Their supply is scant, and they must re- ceive it when their time comes, seasonable or unseasonable, day or night, and with- out tanks they can not care for or properly distribute it. g The rainfall along the coast belt is about 28 inches per annum. An important Work is now in progress by which the water collected in a gorge, considered heretofore as inaccessible, will be delivered by means of a large levada and conveyed to a fruitful valley, which has suffered from loss of its old supply. The source is 4,700 feet above the sea. After entering the valley the water will flow down a series of cascades with a fall of more than 300 feet. * A constant flow of a pint of water is sufficient to irrigate 5 acres of ground; that is, the water must flow into a reservoir and be used from that as required. The regulation for the government levadas are interesting, especially those which related to the duty of the “care-takers.” M. A. IN A G A S C A R . Irrigation by flooding for rice culture is the only mode practiced in !Madagascar. The water is applied direct through shallow channels con- structed of grass and mud, or through other material that may be at hand. Water is used without restriction or cost other than the labor required in its direction. It seems to be generally accepted as com- munity property. EXTENT AND IMPORTANCE OF ANCIENT WATER SUPPLY AND IRRIGATION WORKS. (The following interesting statements are from a paper read by Civil Engineer Frederick S. Gipps, before the Royal Society of New South Wales, in December, 1887.) The numerous remains of huge tanks, dams, canals, aqueducts, pipes, and pumps in Egypt, Assyria, Mesopotamia, India, Ceylon, Phoenicia, and Italy, proved that the ancients had a far more perfect knowledge of hydraulic science than most people are inclined to credit them with. To this experience it seems to me may be contributed the construction of many of those monuments and temples immortalized by their gigantic and imperishable ruins, the astonishment and admiration of the ancient historian as well as of the modern traveler. I am partially warranted in this assumption by the fact that the Egyptians ran canals through their quarries, by which, when filled by the inundations of the Nile, they transported on rafts proportionate to their weight huge masses of Stone for columns or obelisks to the positions at which they were re- quired, the whole country being intersected with numerous canals. Without doubt the Egyptians, Chinese, and East Indians have from time immemorial raised water both for irrigation and turning mills, and it is therefore probable that, understanding its property as a motive power, they applied it in the construction of some of their magnificent temples. . . . After a careful perusal of the records of history, it appears to me impossible to assert with confidence what particular na- tion originated the construction of reservoirs, canals, and water ma- chinery. The priests of Egypt believed that all things were composed of water, Whilst Thales, the Milesian, taught that all things originated from Water. The first artificial lake of which there is reliable record was Lake Maeris. The historians Herodotus, Diodorous, and Pliny have described it, on the testimony of the inhabitants of the country, as one of the noblest works of the time, from its enormous dimensions and its capacity for irrigation for the benefit of mankind. According to them. it was about 3,600 stadia or 413 miles in circumference, and 300 feet deep. Modern travelers have considerably reduced the circumference and depth of this lake, making it measure somewhat less than 50 miles, but even with this curtailment it must have been a magnificent engi- neering work, worthy the admiration of all the ages. It was con- structed, some historians say, by King Maeris, others by King Amen- emhet III, in the twelfth dynasty, 2084 B. C. Its principal object was to regulate the inundations of the Nile River, with which it com- municated by a canal about 12 miles long and 50 feet broad. When the inundation rose over 24 feet, and was likely to be disastrous to the crops, the sluices were opened and the flood was relieved, owing to their drainage through the canal into the lake; when the Nilerose only 12 feet and drought threatened the crops, the dearth was neutralized by the storage waters of the lake. As the Egyptians were so dependent on the inundation of the Nile for their welfare, even for their means of liveli- 428 THE ANCIENT systEM OF RECLAMATION. 429 hood, they made careful observations by fixed measures of the height of its inundation, extending over a long series of years, from which it was ascertained that if the flood rose only 16 feet a famine was threat- ened, or if over 24 feet a disastrous flood might be anticipated. Sesostris, one of the most illustrious kings of antiquity, who reigned in Egypt 1491 B. C., had a great number of canals cut for the purpose of trade and irrigation, and is said to have designed the first canal which established communication between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. This work was continued by Darius, who abandoned it because he thought the Red Sea was higher than Egypt, and would therefore deluge the whole country, and it was finally completed under the Ptolemies. Irrigation canals are so numerous in Egypt and irrigation is conducted on such an extensive scale that it is calculated only one-tenth of the water of the Nile which enters Egypt passes through the Medi- terranean Sea. The Assyrians were equally renowned with the Egyptians from the most remote periods of history for their skill and ingenuity in the con- struction of hydraulic works. Through the foresight, enterprise, and energy of their rulers they converted the sterile country in the valleys of the Euphrates and Tigris into a fertility which was the theme of wonder and admiration of the ancient historians. The country below Hit, on the Euphrates, and Samarra, on the Tigris, was at one time intersected with numerous canals; one of the most ancient and impor. tant of which, called the Nahr Malikah, connecting the Euphrates with the Tigris, is attributed by tradition to Nimrod, King of Babel, 2204 B. C., whilst other historians assert that Nebuchadnezzar constructed it. It seems that during June, July, and August the volume of the river Euphrates increased so rapidly that it threatened to overflow its banks and cause considerable damage to Babylon and its neighborhood, and it was therefore considered necessary to raise high banks on both sides of the river, built of brick cemented with bilimen, to protect the city. To facilitate this purpose a big lake was dug out 42 miles in circum- ference and 35 feet deep, into which the whole river was turned by an artificial canal. When the embankments were completed the river was restored to its original channel, whilst the lake served as a storage reservoir for collecting flood waters and distributing them for irrigation. With the destruction of Babylon the glory of the empire departed, the canals were neglected, and the country, described by Herodotus as being prolific before all other lands in its production of corn, wheat, and barley, has become so dry and barren that it can not be cultivated. The principal canals supplied by the Euphrates were the Nahr Malikah or Fluvius Regius, the Nah-raga, the Nahr Sares, the Kutha, and Palla- copus. The Tigris supplied the Nahrawan and Dyiel, besides several small canals. The whilom great importance of the Nahrawan, both for commerce and agriculture, and its great antiquity, are testified to by the ruins of numerous towns and cities on both of its banks. It started on the right bank of the Tigris, where the river debouches from the Hamrine Hills, and flowed at a distance of 6 or 7 miles from the river toward Samarra, where it was joined by a second conduit. About 10 miles farther on it received a third feeder from the river, and then continuing its course it approached Bagdad. A few miles lower down it flowed into the Dyalah or Shirwan River, which was raised by a large band or weir to a sufficient height to allow of its continuance. It then proceeded through Kuzistan, absorbing all the streams from the Sour and Buckharee mountains, and finally flowed into the Kerkha River. It was over 400 miles long and of immense dimensions, its width vary- *~, 430 IRRIGATION. ing from 250 to 400 feet, and by numerous branches on both sides it irrigated a very extensive area of country, whilst at the same time it was available for navigation. Few, if any, hydraulic schemes of mod- ern days equal in boldness of conception this stupendous achievement of a generation of four thousand years ago. The present irrigation canals deriving their supply from the Tigris, known as the Boogharib, Massoode, Desodee, Rithwammihi, and Mahmondee are very insignifi- cant in comparison with the Nahrawau. The remains of reservoirs in the neighborhood of Hebron, which the Jews are supposed to have constructed in the days of Solomon, for the supply of Jerusalem, show that their designers were equally alive with most engineers of the present age to the great importance of an ample and constant supply of pure water. A large portion of the supply con- duit consisted of earthern pipes cased with stone hewn out to fit them, which again were covered with rubble in cement; thus the coolness and purity of the water was perfectly preserved. The Phoenicians in the Zenith of their power were celebrated for their canals, both for the sup- ply of Carthage with drinking water and for the purposes of irrigation. Agathocles, the daring, but unfortunate, Syracusian general, who thought by his invasion of Africa to force Carthaginians to raise the siege of Syracuse, left this record of his disastrous invasion, that “the African shore was covered with gardens and large plantations, every- where abounding in canals, by means of which they were plentifully Watered. The lands were planted with vines, palms, and many other fruit trees, and the meadows were filled with flocks and herds.” When the Romans invaded Carthagenian dominions fifty years later, their historian, Polybius, drew a somewhat similar picture of their fertility and high state of cultivation. But, undoubtedly, the conduit which supplied Carthage with drinking water was their most notable achieve- ment in water-works. It derived its supply from a spring about 60 miles distant from the city, and its course cut through mountains by tunnels and crossed valleys by lofty and massive aqueducts, in one in- stance 125 feet high. It was 4 feet wide at the base and 6 feet high, closing at the top in the shape of a pyramid, and was sufficiently high for a man to walk in with ease. It was covered throughout, for sanitary reasons, and was constructed most substantially of masonry lined internally with cement, which has preserved it from the attacks of time so well that even now a large portion of it is used for the supply of Tunis, which derives its water from the same source. The Grecians, judging from the ruins of large aqueducts scattered throughout their country, appear from a very remote period to have paid the greatest attention to hydraulic science. Herodotus describes an ancient conduit for supplying Samos, which had a channel 3 feet wide and which pierced a hill with a tunnel nearly a mile long. An- other masonry aqueduct near Patara crossed a ravine 200 feet wide and 250 feet deep. It was constructed of masonry in cement. The stone blocks three feet cube had a bore through the center of 13 inches in diameter, and joints were formed similar to a spigot and faucet joint by the annular end of a block fitting into a recess of the op- posite end of another block. The joints were secured by cement and also by iron clamps run with lead. This aqueduct had a considerable depression in the center, and appears to have been one of the first at- tempts to run water in an inverted siphon, proving that the ancient Greeks had a thorough knowledge of the principle that water will rise to the level of its source. The Romans having vanquished all rival empires hastened to take . . . * " * - . . " ' . . . * - s. * * / *A - * * , reº * THE IRRIGATION AND WATER WORKS OF GAUL. 431 advantage of the knowledge they had acquired in their conquests, and in the construction of numerous grand and beautiful public works be- came not only renowned for their prowess in arms, but also for their high appreciation of the arts and sciences. They appear to have been espe- cially scrupulous as to the purity of their drinking Water and as to the cleanliness of their person. To insure the first, they constructed the Aqua Martia, which was covered throughout, and to encourage the last they built numerous baths. In the reign of the Emperor Nero, Rome was supplied by no fewer than nine large conduits, having an aggregate length of 255 miles, which delivered over 173,000,000 gallons daily. Afterwards the supply was increased to 312,500,000 gallons daily, equal to a rate of 325 gallons to each inhabitant. The Aqua Martia conduit, which alone supplied the drinking water, was 16 feet in diameter and 40 miles long. One of the principal aqueducts it crossed is remarkable for the grandeur of its dimensions, and for the skillfulness of its construction. It had to sus- tain three large conduits, the Julia, Sepula, and the Aqua Martia, and the greatest precaution was exercised to prevent the two first from draining into the lower one, and thus deteriorating its waters. Strabo, in alluding to the skill of the Romans in the application of hydraulics, remarks that not only were there subterranean conduits at Rome, but that all the houses had siphons or water pipes which probably could be used to extinguish accidental fires. * * * They drained the Pon- time marshes, and so improved the river system that, according to their historians, there was no river in Italy that was not made useful for the purpose of commerce and the transport of troops and provisions. Not content with thus developing the resources of their own country, they studied, wherever victory led the way, to improve the condition of the vanquished by similar public works. They constructed a series of large reservoirs along the range of the hills nearly bordering on the Black Sea, from which they supplied large covered cisterns in Constantinople with a pure and constant stream of water. In France they constructed conduits to supply Lyons, Frejus, Souy, Metz, and Nismes. The first, owing to the boldness of its conception and the skillfulness of its con- struction, and because it is one of the first known instances of the use of metal pipes subjected to any great pressure, is worthy of more than passing notice. It was designed especially for the purpose of Supply- ing the palace of Claudius, situated in the highest part of the town. * * * The Nismes conduit, constructed in time of Augustus, B. C. 19, which delivered 14,000,000 gallons daily, is celebrated for a magnifi- cent aqueduct called the Pont du Gard. Humble describes it as one of the grandest monuments the Romans have left in France or any other country. * * * Again, in Spain and Portugal they supplied the towns of Segovia, Seville, Evora, and Lisbon by means of conduits of considerable length, which crossed deep valleys on aqueducts of great magnitude, which, however, present no very remarkable features worthy of further comment. China is equally celebrated with Egypt for the great antiquity of its numerous canals. The Great or Imperial Canal is one of the most stupendous works of ancient or modern times. It is 650 miles long and connects the Hoang-Ho and Yang-tse-Kiang rivers. Its depth is seldom more than 5 or 6 feet, whilst in dry seasons it is considerably less. To regulate its fall it is provided with a number of solid wooden sluices, over which vessels are hauled by machinery and let down on the other side. * * * Its average velocity is 23 miles per hour, and in its course it crosses several large lakes on the top of enormous dykes. It 432 IRRigation. is available both for navigation and irrigation, and, together with its numerous branches, irrigates an immense area of country, thus afford- ing imillions the means of livelihood and support. Again, in the Malay Archipelago irrigation is carried out to such perfection as to excite the astonishment of the distinguished naturalist, Mr. Wallace, who thus described it : w It was here that I first obtained an adequate idea of one of the most wonderful systems of cultivation in the world, equaling all that is related of Chinese industry, and, as far as I know, surpassing in the labor bestowed on it any tract of equal ex- tent in the most civilized countries of Europe. I rode through this strange garden utterly amazed and hardly able to realize the fact that in this remote and little known island, Lombock, from which all Europeans (except a few traders at the port) are jealously excluded, many hundreds square miles of irregularly inundating coun- try have been so skillfully terraced and leveled and so permeated by artificial chan- nels that every portion of it can be irrigated and dried at pleasure. Many ancient native writers testify to the high estimation enter- tained by the inhabitants of India for water supply for irrigation pur- poses. The “Vishnood” declares that “no satisfaction is felt without water in the three worlds, Heaven, Hell, and Earth; therefore a wise and learned man should cause reservoirs, tanks, and wells to be made. The Yama-porans teaches that “a person in whose pond or tank there is a constant supply of water obtains perpetual felicity without doubt; and the Bhewish-Yotara-poomau exclaims: “O thou, son of Koonti, get large supplies of water made at the sacrifice of your whole property, for the man at whose reservoir the cow slakes her thirst becomes the pre- server of his family.” Immense tanks or reservoirs and irrigating canals appear to have been constructed in India many centuries anterior to the advent of Christ, and some of them are probably equally as ancient as the Egyp- tian canals. The Cummin tank in Madras has an embankment of 102 feet high, and of considerable length. The Naggar-Sulikerrai has an em- bankment 84 feet high and 603 feet wide at the base, which incloses an area of 40 square miles. In Bombay the Lachura tank is about 3 miles in circumference. In Ceylon the Mincheri tank forms a beautiful lake of over 20 miles in circumference. The Kalucarri tank forms a lake 60 miles in circumference by an embankment 15 miles long and 300 feet wide at base. Many of these immense embankments consist only of well trodden clay resting on the surface of the ground, and are con- structed without the application of any particular engineering skill, no puddle walls having been used to render them more Water-tight. WATERWORKS, EAST OF “ARID REGION,” HAVING THEIR "SUPPLY FROM ARTESIAN AND UNDERFLOW SOURCES. ABSTRACT FROM “MANUAL OF AMERICAN WATERWORKS, 1889–90.” - (“ENGINEERING NEws.”) S. Ex. 41—28 433 C O N T E N T S. - Waterworks, east of arid region, having their supply from artesian and underground sources; . . abstract from “Manual of American Waterworks, 1889–90”........ * nº º Gº ºn tº e º º is sº tº º as º º ºs º w w = e ºs 434 * Page, Waterworks (east of “arid region”) having their supply from artesian and underflow sources. [The problems involved in a water supply from phreatic or sub-surface sources are of a character on which all desirable data should be presented. As a part of the study of its importance and to aid in understanding what is signified under the conception of water con- servation and management, these carefully arranged tables are furnished.] ALABAMA. Capacity of Vi º City, town, or village. Supply (Wells, springs, etc.). Coºp- º Mode Of sºmping Or RemarkS. § - Standpipe. Gallons. Gallons. $ Anniston ------------------- Artesian Well and Springs.------ 450,000 10,375,000 | Pumping to reservoir and stand- plpe. - Bessemer ------------------ Spring-fed Streams ------------- 1,300,000 8,000,000 | Pumping to standpipe and gravity Bºated daily capacity 4,000,000 gal- OllS. Fort Payne ----------------- Springs (3) ----------------------| Q ----------- 263,000 | Pumping to Standpipe-------------- Huntsville------------------ Spring -------------------------- 800,000 200,000 | Pumping to reservoir -------------- Daily flow 2,000,000 gallons. Jacksonville---------------- Springs-------------------------- 500,000 1,000,000 || Gravity to and from reservoir ------ Montgomery --------------- Artesian Wells ------------------ 1,250,000 3,917,000 Gravity and pumping--------------- In 1886, capacity of 6 wells was 5,000," - 000 gallons daily. Selma-----------------------------do --------------------------- 2,000,000 159,000 | Pumping to standpipe and direct-- Spring Garden ------------- Springs-------------------------- 1,000 60,000 | Pumpillg to reservoir --------------- Talladega------------------- $pring -------------------------- 40,000 138,000 | Pulmping to Standpipe-------------- S [Proposed works,—Troy: Wells; franchise granted. Uniontown: Has artesian Wells.] ARRANSAS. Alexander ---------- r------- Springs.-------------------------- % ----------- 8,000 || Gravity ------------------------------ Brinkley-------------------- Deep Well------------------------ 0 ----------- 75,000 | Pumping to tank ------------------- Hope------------------------ Artesian Well-------------------- 0 ----------- 60,000 || ------ : - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ---------------- Hot Springs.---------------- Springs and bayou.-------------- 500,000 1,000,000 | Pumping to reservoir--------------- ine Bluff ------------------ COOk Wells (near river) --------- 0 ----------- 85,000 | Pumping to standpipe and direct -- g Rogers---------------------- pring---------------------------|--------------|-------------- Pumping to tank-------------------- Pº capacity of springs, 875,330 gal- - OilS. Texarkana ----------------- | 10 flowing Wagner wells -------- 1,000,000 3,000,000 | Pumping ---------------------------- 10 Wells to be added. [Works projected.—Batesville: Has spring, with capacity 400,000,000 gallons. Beebe: Artesian well being sunk. Helena: Two wells contracted for. Monti. cello: Works in progress; artesian supply. Stuttgart: Driven Wells proposed.] a Data not given. The same in all other items indicated by letter (i. \ ă | # c * Waterworks (east of “arid region”) having their supply from artesian and underflow sources—Continued. CONNECTICUT. t C Sº, Of Mode of Servi in e OnSUlm)- || I'êServOll’ OC10 Of Selº WIC6 (TOll]]ATOIIlg. OI’ City, town, or Village. Supply (Wells, springs, etc.). tion. p tank, or’ 1. §§ pling RemarkS. Standpipe. Gallon,8. Gallons. Ansonia -------------------- Springs.-------------------------- 0 ----------- % ----------- Gravity from reservoir------------- Has Other WorkS. Birmingham --------------- Springs and Surface Water ----- 0 ----------- 0 -----------|------ do ------------------------------- Two reservoirs, 9 and 27 acres. Canaan --------------------- Springs-------------------------- 0 ----------- 0 -----------|------ do------------------------------- Dam 150 feet long, 12 feet high. State Industrial School----| Springs and surface water----- 0 ----------- 5,000,000 ------ do------------------------------- Danielsonville-------------- Spring-fed brook.---------------- 0 ----------- 16, 750,000 |------ do------------------------------- urham -------------------- Spring--------------------------- * ----------- 0 ----------- Gravity------------------------------ ent ------------------------ Springs and Surface Water----- a ----------- 0 ----------- Gravity from reservoir ------------- IReservoir, capacity 13 acres. NeWington ----------------- Mountain Springs --------------- 0 ----------- 0 ----------- Gravity------------------------------ - Norwich -------------------- Springs and brooks.------------- 1,400,000 350,000,000 Gravity from reservoir ------------- Fº oº:: tºvoir, cap a city - - ,000,000,000 gallons, Stamford------------------- Spring-fed lake------------------ 1,000,000 6,500,000 || Gravity to and from reservoir ----- Lake capacity 300,000,000 gallons. Thomaston ----------------- Springs-------------------------- -----------| 65,000,000 || Gravity from reservoir ------------- - Thompsonville -------------|------ do-----------------------------------------|-------------- Pumping to tank ------------------- Waterbury ----------------- Springs and Surface water ----- 1,500,000 | 185,000,000 || Gravity from reservoir ------------- Windsor -------------------- Springs-------------------------- 15,000 ,000, Gravity------------------------------ DELAWARE, Dover----------------------- Wells (?) ------------------------ 59,102 -------------- Pumping direct--------------------. Newark--------------------- ell ----------------------------- 50, 186,000 | Pumping to standpipe and direct-- Newcastle ------------4---- Spring-fed Creek ---------------- 450,000 1,250,000 | Pumping to reservoir --------------- FLORIDA Fernandina-------- * * * * * * * * * Artesian Well-------------------- 20,000 113,000 | Pumping to tank-------------------- Jacksonville---------------- Artesian Wells (3).--------------- 878,207 ||-------------- Pumping direct --------------------- cººled flow of wells 4,700,000 gallons 3, Y. Melbourne---------------- Artesian Well-------------------- 0 ----------- 0 ----------- Gravity ----------------------------- Cala ----------------------------- do--------------------------- 50,000 130,000 | Pumping to tank-------------------- Palatka -------------------- Spring-fed stream--------------- b'75,000 183,000 | Pumping to Standpipe-------------- Pensacola ------------------ Artesian Wells------------------- 1,000,000 3 v v^* I - - - - - - do------------------------------- St. Augustine -------------- Artesian Wells (4) ---------------|--------------|--------------|---------------------------------------- Sanford--------------------- Spring-fed lake------------------ 125,000 250,000 || Gravity and pumping--------------- SèVille ----- º nº º ºs ºs e º am tº as sm is se as is sº as I sº * * * * * do--------------------------- " ----------- 53,000 | Pumping to tanks ------------------ Tampa --------------------- Artesian Well and Spring ------- 120,000 111,000 | Pumping to tank-------------------- Spring; daily capacity 5,500,000 gallons. #orks projected at other points.—Supply from Wells or Springs.] * § | GEORGIA. Bainbridge ----------------- Brunswick ----------------- Fort Gaines----------------- Macon ---------------------- Rising Fawn---------------- Rome ----------------------- Savannah ------------------ * * * - - - - - - sº º sº º sm º º- - - - - * * * springs * * * * * * * * * Springs (6) See “Remarks” p WéllS Spring---------- * * * * * * * * * * sº tº me - - - - - - - - - - - - º ºs º ºs - - - - - - - - - - - * * * * * * * - - - - * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Artesian wells (9), and river, if necessary. Artesian wells (2) • Artesian Wells [Projected works.—Supply from wells or springs. - * * * * * * * * * * * * * * - - - - - - - - - - gº ºm sm as “a - - - - 12,000 1,600,000 (Z COrdele: HaS arties: ian well." Fo 175,000 23,366,000 Pumping to tank-------------------- Pumping to Standpipe-------------- * * * as sº as * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * - - - - - 21,000 2,575,000. T330,000 4,185,000 12. 000 - * * * * * * s as sº as ºn a º - - sº sº sº em º ºne sº * * * * * * * * - * * * * *s ºn tº me sº sº ºn tº ~ * * * * * * * * sº as sº º tº ºr - sº ºw dO Pumping from reservoir to stand- plpe. Pumping to tank-------------------- Pumping to tank and reservoir ---- Gravity from reservoir------------- Pumping to Standpipe-------------- Pumping direct --------------------- Pumping to Standpipe-------------- Pumping to tank-------------------- rt Valley: Contract let; supply artesian well. Has an artesian well that supplies 108 drinking hydrants. Main supply, I’lver. Works not completed. Reservoir data refers to river supply. La Grange: Wells. Milledge- Pumping to reservoir and direct--- \ Aville: Springs. Trenton: Springs. Washington: Springs. Waycross: Bonds voted. Waynesboro: Has artesian well; daily yield 100,000 gallons.] ILLINOIS. Aledo ----------------------- Artesian Well-------------------- 0----------- 45,000 | Pumping to tank-------------------- Barry-----------------------|------ do--------------------------- 6,000 47,000 ||------ 9 ------------------------------- Report for 1887–'88. Bloomington.--------------- Tube and Surface WellS.--------- 700,000 75,000 | Pumping to standpipe and direct-- Blue Island.----------------- ell ----------------------------- 60,000 60,000 | Pumping to tank-------------------- Blue Mound----------------|------ do--------------------------- 0----------- 25,000 | Pumping to tank and direct-------- Buckley---------------------|------ do--------------------------- 4----------- %----------------- do ------------------------------- Cabery---------------------- Artesian Well-------------------- 1,000 45,000 || ------ do ------------------------------- Canton---------------------- Artesian and Surface WellS -- - - - 100,000 25,000 | Pumping to standpipe and direct-- Carthage------------------- Artesian Well-------------------- 0----------- 121,770 | Pumping to reservoir and direct---- Clinton--------------------- €ll ----------------------------- 90,000 |-------------- Pumping direct --------------------- DeKalb--------------------- Artesian Well-------------------- ,000 60,000 | Pumping to tank-------------------- ixon----------------------- Springs and river--------------- 200,000 a ----------- Pumping to reservoir and direct---- East Dubuque-------------- Artesian Well-------------------- 0 ----------- 100,000 | Pumping to reservoir --------------- aS0--------------------- Will guinea Surface and 6,000 36, 100 | Pumping to tank and direct-------- I’IVell, Eureka --------- sºs s me as sº * * * * * * * Well ----------------------------- 15,000 36, 100 |------ do------------------------------- Freeport-------------------- Artesian Wells and river (18 1,000,000 115,500 ------ do ------------------------------- Weiſ S). Fulton-...--------------------| Well ----------------------------- 0 ----------- 100,000 º { ; # | Waterworks (east of “arid region”) having their supply from artesian and underflow sources–Continued. * ILLINOIS-Continued. C Capacity of MOd if. • *-ri * onsump- reservoir, Ode of service (pumping or City, town, or village. Supply (wells, springs etc.). tion. tank, Or º p Remarks. Standpipe. Gallon 8. Gallons. Galena---------------------- Artesian Well-------------------- 300,000 129,250 | Pumping to standpipe and direct -- Galesburg ------------------ Wells ----------------------------| 0 ----------- 170,000 | Pumping to reservoir and direct---| No report since 1884. Geneseo--------------------- Artesian Wells (2) --------------- 30,000 50,000 | Pumping from reservoir ----------- Pº, yield of one well in 1887, 275,000 all OIlS. Greenville ------------------ 911 ----------------------------- 100,000 ||-------------- Pumping direct --------------------- g Havana --------------------- Gravel beds under grolindS.----- 0 ----------- 20,000 | Pumping direct and to standpipe -- Hillsboro ------------------- 911 ----------------------------- % ----------- 50,000 | Pumping to tank and direct -------- Hoopeston------------------ Deep Well and reservoir -------- % ----------- 30,000 | Pumping to tank-------------------- Jersey Ville------------------ Artesian Well-------------------- (. * - - - - - - - - - 50,000 |------ do------------------------------- Joliet ----------------------- Artesian Wells and pond-------- ,700,000 41,900 | Pumping to standpipe and direct.. Kewanee ------------------- ©11 -----------------------------| 0 ----------- a ... ---------| Pumping to reservoir and direct- - - º Lemont--------------------- Artesian Well-------------------- 80,000 100,000 | Pumping to reservoir--------------- Report for 1887–'88. Lewiston ------------------- Driven Well----------------------| @ ----------- 25,000 | Pumping to Standpipe -------------- Lincoln --------------------- Wells ---------------------------- 223,856 150,000 ||------ O ------------------------------- Lockport ----- * - - - - - - - - - - - - - Artesian Well-------------------- % ----------- 500,000 | Pumping to reservoir -------------- Mendota --------------------|------ do--------------------------- 0 ----------- 170,000 ||------ do------------------------------- Menouk--------------------- Well ----------------------------- 0 ----------- 57,000 | Pumping to tank-------------------- Monmouth ----------------- Artesian Well-------------------- 55,000 300,000 | Pumping to reservoir -------------- Morgan Park---------------|------ O --------------------------- 0,000 100,000 | Pumping to tank-------------------- Morrison ------------------- Spring --------------------------- 200,000 a ----------------- O ------------------------------- MorrisonVille -------------- Well----------------------------- 50,000 40,000 | Pumping to tank and direct-------- Mount Pulaski-------------|------ O --------------------------- 150,000 0,000 | Pumping to tank---. ---------------- Mount Carroll--------------|------ do --------------------------- 82,500 | Q -----------|------ do ------------------------------- Norwood Park ------------- Artesian Well-------------------- 0 ----------- 0 ----------- Pumping from reservoir to tank--- Oak Park------------------- Artesian Wells (2) --------------- 100,000 || 0 ----------- Pumping to Standpipe-------------- Ottawa --------------------- Springs-------------------------- 180,000 || 0 ----------- Gravity------------------------------ Peoria ---------------------- Wells ---------------------------- 4,000,000 889,000 | Pumping to Standpipes (2) --------- Petersburg ----------------- Tube Wells (4) ------------------- 80,000 185,000 | Pumping to tank-------------------- Pittsfield ------------------ Artesian Well-------------------- Q ----------- 39,750 |------ do------------------------------- Riverside -------------------|------ do--------------------------- Q ----------- ,000 |------ O ------------------------------- Rochelle -------------------- Springs -------------------------- 50,000 || @ ----------- Pumping direct --------------------- Rockford ------------------- Artesian Wells (5) --------------- 1,963,942 | d -----------|------ O ------------------------------- Sandwich ------------------ €11 ----------------------------- 28,8 84,600 Pumping to standpipe and direct-- Savanna -------------------- Will gabined Surface and 100,000 750,000 | Pumping to reservoir -------------- 1°l Werl). Somonauk-------------- ----| Well ----------------------------- 0 ----------- 80,000 | Pumping to tank-------------------- Sterling and Rock Falls ---| Artesian wells and river -------- 00,000 235,000 | Pumping to Standpipe-------------- - Streator -------------------- be and artesian Wells and 500,000 4,000 ||------ do ------------------ tº ſº tº ºs º ºs º is sº * * * * Artesian Well for fires Cree º Sullivan -------------------- Well ----------------------------- a----------- ,000 | Pumping to tank-------------------- Sycamore ------------------|------ 9--------------------------- 35,000 179,000 | Pumping to standpipe and direct-- Taylorsville ---------------- Surface and tube Wells --------- a ----------- ,000 | Pumping to tank and direct-------- Warsaw -------------------- Artesian Well-------------------- % -----------| 0 ----------- % ------------------------------------- Well for fires Washington --------------- Driven Wells--------------------- 0 ----------- 21,000 | Pumping to Standpipe-------------- Waukegan ----------------- Artesian Wells (3 flowing) ------ % ----------- * -----------| Gravity------------------------------ York Yille ------------------- Springs-------------------------- 1,000 200,000 ||------ do------------------------------- [Projected workeat other points; some already having artesian supply.] t INDIANA. Attica.----------------------- Springs ------------------------- 9,000 a ----------- Pumping to reservoir -------------- Bluffton -------------------- Wells (near º * * * * * * * * * * * * sº tº 200,000 a ----------- Pumping direct --------------------- Crawfordsville ------------- Springs (daily flow 4,000,000 a ----------- 0 ----------- Pumping to reservoir, standpipe, gallons). and direct. Elkhart --------------------- Well----------------------------- 450,000 106,000 | Pumping to tallk and direct-------- Daily yield 600,000 gallons. Goshen --------------------- Artesian Wells (6)--------------- 500,000 a -----------| Pumping direct --------------------- Greensburg --------------- Tube Wells----------------------- 0 ----------- Q ----------------- do ------------------------------ Hammond ------------------ ell----------------------------- 200,000 || @ ----------- Pumping to Standpipe-------------- Kendallville ----------------|------ O --------------------------- 7,000 || @ ----------- Pumping direct --------------------- Kokomo -------------------- Artesian Wells and creek - - - ---- 250,000 a -----------|------ do ------------------------------ Ligonier -------------------- ell ---------------------------- - 12,000 50,000 | Pumping direct and to tank-------- arion---------------------------- do --------------------------- 250,000 Q ------ - - - - - Pumping direct --------------------- In 1881. Michigan City -------------- Springs ------------------------- 800,000 120,000 | Pumping direct and to tank-------- Muncle.---------------------- Artesian Wells------------------- 500,000 || @*----------- direct --------------------- New Carlisle ---------------- ell ----------------------------- 20,000 35, direct and to tank-------- New Castle------------------|------ do ---------------------------| * -----------| 4 -----------| Pumping ---------------------------- Plymouth------------------- Driven Wells (5) ----------------- 18,000 20,000 and pumping--------------- Richmond ------------------ ings ------------------------- 1,000,000 9,000,000 Punºng to reServoir and direct--- Salem.----------------------- Spring ------------------------ as sº º 120,000 a -----------|------ 0 ------------------------------ In 1887. Shelbyville ----------------- ell----------------------------- 2,500 a ----------- Pumping to Standpipe-------------- South Bend----------------- Artesian Wells (11) -------------- 1,750,000 500,000 Pºng from reServoir to Stand- €. Wabash--------------------- Driven well, springs, and creek 250,000 | a -----------|--- p Rdo ------------------------------ Pº, flow of well, estimatod, 2,000,000 ** gallonS. [Projected works at other points; supply to be artesian. J - # s ** | * t $ Waterworks (east of “arid region”) having their supply from artesian and wnderflow sources—Continued. IOW.A. Consump- Capacity of reservoir, Mode of service (pumping or City, town, or village. Supply (springs, Wells, etc.). tion. tank, Or gravity). Remarks. Standpipe. g Gallons. Gallon,8. Atlantic -------------------- “Cook Wells”-------------------- 250,000 ||-------------- Pumping direct --------------------- Audubon-------------------- ell------------------------------ 20, 00 106,000 | Purmping to tank-------------------- Poone ---------------------- Artesian Wells------------------- 50,000 22,000 | Pumping to tank and direct-------- Cedar Falls----------------- Springs --------------,------------ 50, ,000 | Pumping to tank-------------------- Cedar Rapids--------------- Artesian wells and river-------- 1,000,000 |-------------- Pumping direct --------------------- 3 5-inch wells for domestic, and river for fire, purposes. Charles City ---------------- Spring --------------------------- * -----------| 0 -----------|------ do ------------------------------- Cherokee ------------------- Artesian Wells------------------- 0 ----------- 152,000 | Pumping to Standpipe-------------- glarinda * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * se sº sº º Driven Wells:-------------------- 100,000 -------------- Pumping direct --------------------- Clinton---------------------- Artesian Wells (?) --------------- 1,000,000 325,000 | Pumping to tank and direct-------- Wells 53-inch diameter, 1,100 feet deep. Colfax----------------------- Driven Wells (3).----------------- 30,000 70, Pumping to reservoir--------------- Decorah -------------------- Well (Surface) ------------------ 32,000 400,000 ||------ do ------------------------------- well 30 ºt diameter and 30 feet deep; IIl gra, Wei, Denison --------------------|------ do --------------------------- 16, 524 100,000 | Pumping to tank ------------------- g Dubuque ------------------- Tunnel---------------------------| 0 ----------- 1,750,000 || Gravity------------------------------ Abandoned mines drainage tunnel, tº 100 to 200 feet below Surface. Eldora ---------------------- Combined driven and Surface || 0 ----------- 100,000 | Pumping to tank ------------------- 6 inch driven well, 100 feet deep; in Well, bottom of surface well 40 feet deep. Gladbrook ------------------ Artesian Well ------------------- 800 30,000 ||------ do ------------------------------- Hawarden.------------------ Driven Wells--------------------- % ----------- 60,000 ------ do ------------------------------- Holstein -------------------- Well ---------------------------- 0 ----------- 50, 000 ||------ do------------------------------- Ida Grove.------------------- Driven Wells (23) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 15,000 100,000 ||------ do------------------------------- Independence -------------- Driven Wells and river. -------- 00,000 -------------- Pumping direct --------------------- Iowa City------------------- Wells (150 feet deep) ------------ 350,000 --------------|------ do------------------------------- Lansing -------------------- I'lowing Wells (2) --------------- 50,000 ||-------------- Gravity------------------------------ Le Mars -------------------- Driven Wells -------------------- 150,000 250,000 Pºpº gree (from reservoir OT fil’êS), Logan ---------------------- Wells (?)------------------------- 0 ----------- 90,000 | Pumping to reservoir. -------------- Marion --------------------- Springs (3) ---------------------- 200,000 614,700 | Pumping from reservoir to stand- Daily capacity of springs, 2,025,000 gal- • pipe and direct. lons. Mason City----------------- Springs (and river for fire).----- 185,000 150,000 | Pumping direct--------------------- MissOuri Valley------------ Driven Wells (10) ---------------- 0 ----------- 200,000 | Pumping to reservoir - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Monticello ------------------ Artesian Well-------------------- 60,000 500,000 |------ do ------------------------------- Neola ----------------------- Well ----------------------------- 0 ----------- ,000 | Pumping to tank and direct-------- Nevada ---------------------|------ do--------------------------- 0 ----------- } Pumping to tank-. ------------------ Newton.--------------------- Artesian Well-------------------- 0 ----------- 100,000 | Pumping to reservoir --------------- Odebolt --------------------- Driven Wells--------------------- 5,000 58,000 | Pumping to tank-------------------- Red Oak-------------------- Filter gallery (and river for fire) 400,000 ||-------------- Pumping direct --------------------- Reinbeck ------------------- 911 ----------------------------- % ----------- 20,000 | Pumping to tank-------------------- Report prior to 1889. Rock Rapids---------------- “Drive Points.” (50) ------------ 0. Pumping to Standpipe-------------- * Sioux City------------------ Driven wells (104.2-inch) -------- Pumping to reservoir -4------------ Daily yield, 2,000,000 gallons. Sioux Rapids--------------- Well ----------------------------- (I, Pumping to tank-------------------- State Center---------------- Wells (2) ------------------------| 1,500 | 64,000 ||-- ----do ------------------------------- In 1887. Tipton.---------------------- Artesian Well-------------------- (7. Pumping to Standpipe-------------- Villisca --------------------- Wells (supplied by springs) ----| a Pumping to tank-------------------- Vinton ---------------------- Artesian Well and river-----------------------|------------------------------------------------------ Webster City--------------- Artesian Well-------------------- Pumping to tank and direct-------- West Liberty---------------|------ do--------------------------- (!, Gravity------------------------------ Daily yield in 1889, 170,000 gallons. (I, y [NOTE.-Works are proposed or projected at several other places in State, with artesian wells, springs, etc., for the supply.] KANSAS (EAST OF THE 100TH MERIDIAN). Anthony-------------------- Driven wells (#) gº º sº gº ºs º gº tº dº ſº tº gº as sº º sº. 160,000 150,000 | Pumping to Standpipe-------------- - * Argentine ------------------ Wagner Wells (6) ---------------- * ----------- 500,000 | Pumping to tank ------------------- Blue Rapids ---------------- Wells ---------------------------- * ----------- 200,000 | Pumping to reservoir -------------- Columbus------------------- Artesian Well-------------------- 75,000 97,000 | Pumping to standpipe and direct-- Council Grove.-------------- Well----------------------------- 25,000 | a -----------|------ do------------------------------- 3rd ---------------------- Artesian Well-------------------- % ----------- 60,000 | Pumping to tank ------------------- Greenleaf------------------- Wagner Wells (8 6-inch ---------| 0 ----------- 80,000 | Pumping to Standpipe ------------- Daily yield of wells 500,000 gallons. Hiawatha------------------- Wells (Surface) ----------------- 30,000 108,000 |------ do ------------------------------- Junction City ------------ -- Wells ---------------------------- 40,000 500,000 | Pumping to reservoir -------------- Supply in 1889, 500,000 gallons daily. Marysville------------------ Driven wells (2011ear river) ----- 0 ----------- 59,000 | Pumping to Standpipe-------------- Pittsburg------------------- Artesian Well-------------------- 200,000 67,000 || P11mping to tank and direct- ------ Valley Falls---------------- Wells ---------------------------- 2,000 70,000 | Pumping to tank-------------------- Weir------------------------ Artesian Well ------------------- 50,000 50,000 | Pumping to tank and direct-------- RENTUCPKY. Georgetown---------------- Spring--------------------------- 0 ----------- % ----------- Pumping direct--------------------- | Glasgow--------------------|------ do --------------------------- 0 ----------- 100,000 | Pumping to reservoir --------------- Mayfield.------------------- Deep Wells----------------------- 0 ----------- 150,000 | Pumping to tank-------------------- Middleboro----------------- Artesian Wells------------------- 0 ----------- % ----------- *-------------------------------------- $ Pleasant Hill--------------- Spring--------------------------- 000 4,482 | Pumping to tank-------------------- Daily flow 5,500 gallons. I'llig 4, [Proposed or projected works (supply from wells or springs)—Princeton: Artesian well. Richmond: Wells (or lake). Shelbyville: Artesian, or surface well. Standford: Large Springs. I s É | Waterworks (east of “arid region”) having their supply from artesian and wnderflow sources—Continued. LOUISIANA.& C º, Of Mode Of ice ( & } On Sump- reservoir, Ode of Service (pumping or City, town, or village. Supply (Wells, springs, etc.). tion. tank, Or aVity). Remarks. Standpipe. - ſº Gallons Gallons. { Alexandria ----------------- Artesian Wells --------------------------------|------------------------------------------------------ Two wells contracted for to Supply § 100,000 gallons daily. 1887. MAINE. Brunswick. ---------------- Springs and river--------------- 200,000 7,625,000 | Pumping to standpipe-------------- t Diamond Island.------------ Springs-------------------------- 5,000 175,000 ||------ do------------------------------- Hallowell------------------------- do --------------------------| 0 ----------- 300, Gravity------------------------------ Houlton -------------------- Spring-fed streams ------------- 60,000 116,000 | Pumping to standpipe-------------- Old Orchard ---------------- ring--------------------------- * ----------- 390,000 || Gravity (pumping direct for fires). Rockland, Camden, and Spring-fed lake------------------ * ----------- 2,500.000 || Gravity to reservoir ---------------- Thomaston. Sanford--------------------- Springs-------------------------- 7,000 52,000 | Pumping to tank and direct ------- Skowhegan-----------------|------ do -------------------------- ” ----------- 275,000 | Pumping to standpipe-------------- South Norridgewock ------ Spring--------------------------- * ----------- 15,000 | Pumping to tank. ------------------ & Spring Vale ----------------- Springs-------------------------- * ----------- 30,000 |------ 0 ------------------------------- City * other works; supply, surface W3.56I’. York Beach ---------------- Artesian Wells------------------- 0 ----------- 25,000 ------ do------------------------------- º Mechanicstown ------------ Mountain Springs.--------------- 50,000 300,000 ------ do ------------------------------- ^ IMARYT, ANI). Annapolis ------------------ Springs and Surface Water - ----| 0 ----------- 8,250,000 | Pumping to reservoir -------------- Catonsville ----------------- Artesian Well and stream ------ 150,000 650,000 | Pumping to tanks ------------------ Chestertown---------------- Springs.-------------------------- 40,000 1,080,000 | Pumping to reservoir -------------- aston---------------------- Artesian Wells------------------- 50,000 84, 600 | Pumping to Standpipe-------------- Frederick------------------- Artesian Wells, Springs, and b ----------- 1,900,000 || Gravity------------------------------ mountain stream. Frostburg ------------------ Artesian Wells (4) and springs - 85,00 1,000,000 ||------ do ------------------------------- Hagerstown ---------------- Artesian Wells and Spring-fed 500,000 20,000,000 ------ do------------------------------- CT66Ak. 12 6-inch wells and river (for fire Springs Springs (3 * * * * * * * * *s ºr ºn as as * * * * * * * * sº as [Projected works.—Cambridge: Probable supply, well.] Well and river Spring-fed well Well * * * * * * * = * * * * * * * * Driven Wells and brook * sº sº se ºs º º sº tº sº ºne * * * * * * * * * = * * * * * * sº tº sº sº * * * * * * * * sº º sº sº es as sº * * * * * * * * * * Springs § à Spring-fed brooks *s ºs ºs º sº as sº gº º º sº tº gº tº gº sº ter) sº º sº sº gº º ºs e º ºs Wells and spring-fed brook ---- River and springs * * B º sº º ºs º º Bº Springs and Surface Water----- Driven wells (65 2-inch wells) - Spring-fed lake (for fires only) - Well (2) Springs WellS * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * and pond ----- * * * sº º ºs º ºs ºs ss ses sº tº es º ºs m. ºne sº * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Artesian Well and Surface Well- Srings and ponds Salisbury Union Bridge Westminster sº as sº dº sº º me as ºs º ºs ºs º ºs e º ºs ºn sº tº tº º ºs ºn tº ſº º tº ºs tº tº gº tº * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * AgaWam-------------------- Amesbury Amherst-------------------- Ashburnham --------------- * * * * * * * * sº ºf s tº gº tº sº º ºs ºs gºs º ºs ºs º ºse as sº º me • = * sº sº sº sº, sº ºn as ºn tº sº ºn Eridge Water. Brookfield------------------ Canton --------------------- Cheshire Chicopee-------------------- Chicopee Falls Clinton COhaSSet Cottage City---------------- & tº sº tº º ºn s is sº º sº tº as ºn tº gº tº sº * * * * * * * sº sº tº gº sº º ºs ºr sº º ºs & º ºs º ºs ºº º ºs º ºs ºº & eº º tº º º mº * * * * * = Lºs = º ºs s º ºs º º ºs º sº º Easthampton. -------------- Franklin Grafton and NOrth Graf- ton. Haverhill ------------------- Hinsdale-------------------- Holyoke Hopkinton.------------------ Hyde Park------------- ---- Ringston Leicester Lenox sº tº º ºs º ºsº, º sº sº, sº * sº * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * eit * * * * * * * * * sº sº gº tº sº tº sº º m tº º sº sº tº wºº tº sº º ºs tº sº as as sº sº as tº gº * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * = as sº as * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Springs Springs Springs Springs Spring-fed ponds Artesian wells (4) Driven Wells Well and river and WellS.----- and river.----- Driven Wells and pond Springs Springs and brookS * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * is gº tº tº gº sº º sº at a Projected * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * es as * * * * * * tº sº ºne º is ºne ºs as s me 27,000 84, 600 | Pumping to standpipe and direct-- 50,000 480,000 | Pumping from receiving to dis- tributing reservoir. 12,000 1,500,000 ------ 0 ------------------------------- MASS.ACHUSETTS. & ----------- -----------| Gravity------------------------------ 0 ----------- 2,300,000 | Pumping to reservoir --------------- % -----------|. 2,800,000 || Gravity ------------------------------ % ----------- 1,000,000 || Gravity from impounding reser- VOl?. 100,000 215,000 Pumping to tank and direct-------- * * * * * * * * * * * 205,000 | Pumping to standpipe and direct -- 40,000 100,000 | Pumping to reservoir --------------- 300,000 270,000 | Pumping to standpipe --------- ---- 0 ----------- 0 ----------- Gravity------------------------------ 0 ----------- 467,600 | Pumping to Standpipe ----- -------- 0 ----------- 900,000 || Gravity------------------------------ 30,000 5,530.000 || Gravity and pumping to tank ----- * * * * * * ~ * * * * | * * * * * * * * * * * * Pumping to reservoir -------------- 400,000 60,000,000 || Gravity from reservoir -------- ---- 0 ----------- 1,500,000 | Pumping to reservoir --------------- 0 -----------| 0 ----------- Pumping direct --------------------- 180,663 540,000 | Pumping to standpipe -------------- 60,000 } 600,000 |&Pumping direct—pond, gravity, 3 Spring-fed : Springs. tº se sº se s ºr me as º ºs = * * * 423,000 | Pumping to tank ------------------- 125,000 110,000 | Pumping to Standpipe-------------- 1,250,000 210,000 | Pumping to standpipe and gravity - * * * * * * * * * * * 40,000,000 || Gravity from reservoir ------------- 2, 380,000 70,000,000 || Gravity ------------------------------ 40,0 250, 0 Pumping to tank-------------------- * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 1,500,000 | Pumping to reservoir --------------- 25,000 265,000 Pumping direct ------------- * * * * * * * = * * * * * * * * * * * * * * h as gº tº gº tº ºs = * * * * * * * Gravity------------------------------ 45,000 605,000 || Gravity and pumping--------------- 1,000,000 1,096, C00 | Pumping to standpipe and tank; also gravity. 130,000- 242,000 | Pumping to standpipe and direct-- Pumping machinery, capacity 500,000 gallons; new Works—supply, springs (by gravity), in progress, {springs furnish one-half of supply. Capacity of another reservoir not given well yields 70,000 gallons aaily. b Data not.given. # *. * Waterworks (east of “arid region”) having their supply from artesian and underflow sources—Continued. Capacity of º & Consump- reservoir, Mode of service (pumping or City, town, or Village. Supply (springs, wells, etc.). tion. tank, Or gravity). RemarkS. Standpipe. Gallons. Gallons. Marblehead----------------- Driven Wells--------------------- 175,000 a ----------- Pumping to Standpipe-------------- Middleboro----------------- Well ----------------------------- 89,885 235,000 | Pumping to standpipe and direct-- Milford and Hopedale------ Wells and river ----------------- 325,000 -------------- Pumping direct--------------------- Wº: for domestic use. River for res, Nahant --------------------- Tubular and Surface WellS.------ 30,000 | a ----------- 0 ------------------------------------- Māºadwater Co.'s plant, through Newbury port:--------------- Wells ---------------------------- 400,000 300,000 | Pumping to tank---------------- -- - - sº North Adams--------------- Artesian Wells (2) and brook--- 1, 200,000 10,850, 000 Pºiº ºm wells; gravity | Daily yield of wells, 800,000 gallons. TOIIl Qi'OOK. North Attleboro------------ ell --------,--------------------- 3,553 564,000 | Pumping to standpipe-------------- North Easton.-------------- Well (near river)---------------- 87,000 235,000 | Pumping to standpipe and direct-- NorW00d.------------------- Spring-fed pond----------------- 300,000 1,400,000 | Pumping to reservoir -------------- Pond has capacity of 123,000,000 gallons. Orange---------------------- Spring --------------------------- 0 -----------| 0 ----------- Gravity from reservoir ------------- Palmer --------------------- Springs -------------------------- 70,000 8,000,000 || Gravity to and from reservoir ----- feabody-------------------- Spring and ponds--------------- 688,346 534,000 | Pumping to tank and gravity ----- Quincy---------------------- Wºls * storage reservoir 260,000 180, 318,000 | Pumping---------------------------- On OTOOK, • Stockbridge ---------------- Springs, artesian Well, and a ----------- b250,000 | Pumping to reservoir and gravity. Impounding reservoir, capacity not Surface Water. glven. underland ---------------- Springs-------------------------- 7 0 ----------- 3ra Vity to reservoir ---------------- SWampscott---------------- #. wells, and surface well- ,000 || @ ----------- * ------------------------------------- Furnished by Marblehead Water Co. § * * * * * tº tº sº *s sº º sº º sm º ºm º me as as §§ WellS and Surface Water- º ; tº tº E * tº gº 400,000 flºg direct--------------------- XOTIC138------------------- Springs-------------------------- } ravity------------------------------ Vineyard Haven. -----------|------ do --------------------------- -----. - - - - 117,000 | Pumping to Standpipe-------------- Ware ---------------------- ©!! ----------------------------- 133,359 1,500,000 | Pumping to reservoir -------------- Warren--------------------- Springs and pond ---------------| 0 ----------- 0 ----------- Gravity from springs, pumping | 60 families supplied from springs; town from pond for fires. has several Small plants. West Brookfield ----------- Wells and brook.---------------- 0 ----------- % ----------- Gravity------------------------------ Town has 4 plants—3 supplied from e wells-124 families supplied. Wiślºgº..…. §. 4::::::::::: *- 㺠Grily from reservoir............ §: [Projected works (with artésian supply) at several other places.j } w w v | *-* * *w y + way ++ v 4–11. A vºv- w variº - - - - - - - - - - - - * MASS ACHUSETTS-Continued. #. *d Winthrop------ §: and collecting Wells ---- 350,000 1,500,000 ɺg to reservoir -------------- iVerside ------------------- rings-------------------------- 0 - --------- 0 ----------- ravity ----------------------------- š. tº º sº *s are sº ºne sº º º ºs sº sº sº sº wº sº * * * * * * ; º * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 2, ! * § 20, § 000 ##### § Hºyoſ, and direct -- Sharon --------------------- ell (near brook) -------------- •2v, y Ulm pling UO tank ------------------- Shelburne Falls------------ Mountain Springs.--------------- 3 * ~ * 1 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Gravity ---------------------------- Southbridge---------------- Springs and Surface Water ----- 25,000 || 0 ----------- ------09 ------------------------------ §§a* sº as * * * * * * * * * * * * * sis §. * *s ºr sº sº tº ºr tº sº gº tº sº sº º sº tº as me tº sº as * * * * * * is sº ; § 317,000 łºń to tank ------------------- | MICHIGAN. * Adrian---------------------- Artesian and surface Wells----- 450,000 ||-------------- Pumping direct --------------------- Allegan ------- tº º sº tº gº ºn tº º sº is tº º is as Well (near river) --------------- 300,000°|--------------|------ do------------------------------- Ann Arbor------------------ Springs and Surface Water----- 00,000 9,000,000 | Pumping to reservoir ---------- --- Bessemer ------------------- Springs and Wells--------------- 0 ----------- 100,000 | Pumping from collecting reservoir Big Rapids ----------------- Driven Wells -------------------- 2,000,000 0,000 |------ do------------------------------- Capac ----------------------- Tubular Well (Sunk into rock) - a ----------- 5, Pumping to tank-------------------- o al’O ------------------------ Springs-------------------------- 40,000 230,000 | Purmping to standpipe and direct-- Cedar Springs.-------------- Well and Creek------------------ 0 -----------|-------------- Pumping direct --------------------- Pºłº, machinery, capacity 150,000 gallon S. Charlotte ------------------- Wells ---------------------------- 266,666 |----------- * * * * * * * * * = do------------------------------- Cheboygan ----------------- Artesian Wells (2)--------------- 230,000 --------------|------ do------------------------------- Clare------------------------ Well ----------------------------- 260,000 -------------------- do------------------------------- Dowagiac------------------- Artesian Wells (5) -------------- % ----------- 300,000 | Pumping from receiving reservoir. Wºl. throw Water 12 feet above Sur- a,C8. Edmore--------------------- Tube wells (in surface wells) -- 8,000 75,000 | Pumping to reservoir and direct -- Evart----------------------- Spring and Wells---------------- 35,000 ||-------------- Pumping direct --------------------- Fenton --------------------- Artesian Wells ------------------ 0 ----------- 0 -----------|------ do------------------------------- Pºiº machinery, capacity 1,500,000 gallollS. Flint------------------------ Wells, creek, and river --------- 762,316 --------------|------ do------------------------------- Fremont-------------------- Flowing artesian Wells (4) and a ----------- * -----------|------ do------------------------------- Pumping machinery, capacity 750,000 Springs. - gallons. Gaylord -------------------- ell ----------------------------- 4, 500 85,000 | Pumping to tank-------------------- Gladwin -------------------- Artesian Wells and river ------- 0 -----------| 0 ----------- Pumping direct--------------------- Pumping machinery, capacity 1,000,000 Grand Haven.--------------- Driven Wells (2 plants) --------- 580,000 ||-------- - - ----|------ do--------------------------- ----| gallons. Grand Rapids -------------- Springs and Well---------------- 0 ----------- 235,000 | Pumping to standpipe and gravity | City has other works, with supply from (from Springs). StreamS. Greenville ------------------ Driven Wells and river (for fire) - a ----------- 0 ----------- Pumping direct --------------------- Pumping machinery capacity 1,440,000 #º 35 2-inch Wells, 13-inch OintS. Hancock-------------------- Springs.--------------------------| 4 ----------- 70,000 || Gravity from reservoir. ------------ p Hastings-------------------- ell ----------------------------- 300,000 -------------- Pumping direct --------------------- Holland--------------------- Springs.-------------------------- 150,000 || 4 ----------- Pumping from collecting reservoir Contract let for well. Ionia------------------------ Artesian Wells (4), springs, and 300,000 -------------- Pumping direct --------------------- Sllrface Water. '. Ithaca ---------------------- Artesian Wells------------------- 0 ----------- % -----------|---------------------------------------- Projected works reported. Jackson---------------------|------ 0------ * =% º 'º gº º & ºm mº ºf E * * * * * * * * * * 1,800.000 -------------- Pumping direct --------------------- Kalamazoo ----------------- Wells (2) (sunk on iron shoe). -- 1,790, 660 ||--------------|------ Q ------------------------------- Lake Linden ---------------| Artesian Well and Creek -------- 35,000 -------------- Pumping direct and gravity-------- Lansing -------------------- Tile-lined Wells------------------ 900,000 289,000 | Pumping to standpipe -------------- 8 wells, 34 feet deep. Lapeer---------------------- Artesian Wells (3), flowing------ 150,000 30,000 Pºet (Overflow goes to TěSel"VOII"). Lowell---------------------- Driven Wells (20) ---------------- a ----------- % ----------- Pumping to reservoir -------------- Manistee-------------------- Cºed driven and Surface 700,000 ||-------------- Pumping direct --------------------- We IIS. Marshall-------------------- Well------------------- tº sº gº tº ºn as sº tº gº º sº I ºf sº tº * * * * *e as sº e as 235,000 | Pumping to Standpipe------------- . É s f * Waterworks (east of “arid region”) having their supply from artesian and underflow sources—Continued. MICHIGAN–Continued. C § Mode of º onsump- reservoir Ode of service (pumping or City, town, or village. Supply (wells, springs, etc.). tion. tank, or’ gravity). RemarkS. Standpipe. Gallons. Gallon 8. Mount Pleasant cºined driven and surface ? 176,250 | Pumping to tank and direct-------- W811S. Muskegon ------------------ Well and river------------------- 1,300,000 |-------------- Pumping direct --------------------- Newago--------------------- Well------------------------------ " ----------- % -----------|------ 0 ------------------------------- Pºłº, machinery capacity 750,000 all OIlS. North Muskegon ----------- Driven wells (30) and lake ------ 250,000 --------------|------ do ------------------------------- £; I * * * * * * * * * * * * * * sº tº º ºs º ºs º º ºs º ºn ellS ---------------------------- 100,000 --------------------do ------------------------------- *:::::::::: machinery capacity 2,000,000 ga OL18. OWosso --------------------- Wells Or river (or both) -------- % ----------- - * * * * * * - - - - - - - - - - 0------------------------------- £; * * * - - - - -e ºs ºs º ºs ºs as ºs ºs º ºs ºn A. º l ian weii.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I. 1% % 100,000 £; § tank and direct ------- 100IIIllſl&----------------- Tü681&ll Well-------------------- -------------- Pumping direct -------------------- Pontiac --------------------- Wells and river ----------------- 65. 000 -------------------- #. ls* * * * * * * * - - - - - - - - - - - - * as * * * * * * * Reed City------------------- Well, Spring, and Creek--------- ,000 -------------- ------ do ------------------------------- St. Johns ------------------- Artesian Wells------------------- Q ----------- 150,000 ------ do------------------------------- - St. Louis ------------------- Artesian Wells (2) --------------- (! ----------- * - - - - - - - - - - - !------ do------------------------------- Pºiº Imachinery capacity 1,000,000 ! º gallon S. . Stanton--------------------- Artesian Well-------------------- 100,000 a ----------- Pumping to reservoir --------------- Sturgis --------------------- Well------------------------------ % ----------- 0 ----------- Pumping direct --------------------- Pºš machinery capacity 1,750,000 - all ODS. Tecumseh ------------------|------ 9 ---------------------------| 0 ----------- 160,000 | Pumping to tank --- ---------------- g Three Rivers --------------- Driven wells (9.4-inch,96ft. deep) 130,000 ||-------------- Pumping direct --------------------- Y; ti III.I.I.I.I.I.I. §sian Well and river ---------| --- 500,000 ; § ##### § iºpipe and direct -- pSllantil ------------------- 914------------------------------ 254, unlp1118 UO tank -------------------- [NOTE.-Works (With artesian Supply) projected at other places in State.] MINNESOTA. Alexandria ----------------- Driven Wells--------------------- 4 ----------- % ----------- Pumping direct--------------------- Pºłº, machinery capacity 1,000,000 - gallonS. Austin --------------------- Artesian Well and river.--------- 60,000 -------------- - - - - - - do------------------------------- Well for domestic, river for fire pur- poses. Cannon Falls--------------- Well ----------------------------- 0 ----------- 175,000 Pumping to reservoir -------------- Faribault ------------------ Wells ---------------------------- 100,855 750,000 ||------ O------------------------------- Fort Snelling -------------- Spring --------------------------- j 30,000 | Pumping to tank, and direct------- Lanesboro ----------------- | Well §§ feet deep) -------------| 0 ----------- 225,000 | Pumping to reservoir -------------- Report for 1887–88. Mankato-------------------- Artesian Wells (2)--------------- 250,000 New Ulm ------ * * * * * * * * tº sº we me sº 911 -----------------------------| 4 ----------- North St. Paul ------------- Artesian Wells and lake -------- 3,000 Pipestone------------------- Bored well (200 feet deep) ------ 5,000 Rochester ------------------ §§ * = * * * * * * * * * * = as sº tº sº sº se m = y St. Peter-------------------- ell (near river) --------------- a ----------- Sandstone.------------------| Springs (5)---------------------- a ----------- Winona-------------------- Wells (50 feet deep, near river). 1, 184,634 [NOTE.-Works projected at other points; supply artešián, wélls being 850,000 45, * * * * * * * * * * *m. * * * * * * * * * * * * s sº * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * & º gº tº gº & * * * * * * *s as sº as sº me sº * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * sº * * * (probably). Pumping to Standpipe-------------- Daily flow in 1889, 1,500,000 gallons. eral places; unfinished at date of manual.] MISSISSIPPI. Biloxi ----------------------| Artesian Wells. ------------------ a ----------- a ----------- Gravity------------------------------ Capacity of one well 150,000 gallons - Columbus------------------- Artesian Wells (2)--------------- 300,000 40,000 | Pumping to reservoir -------------- daily. Meridian ------------------- Springs and Surface water ----- 400,000 | 200,000,000 ---------------------------------------- Wells flow from 50 to 75 gallons per Pass Christion ------------- Artesian Wells ------------------ a ----------- Q ----------- 0 ------------------------------------- minute. [Note—Works projected at other places; several already have wells.] MISSOURI. Carrollton ------------------ Driven Wells -------------------- 100,000 93,000 |Prumping to standpipe and direct -- Clinton --------------------- Artesian Well ----------------- r- 4 ----------- 2,080,000 Pºiº º reservoir standpipe all 800 ------------------------- Fulton---------------------- Artisan Well--------------------- a ----------- 100,000 | Pumping and $º * * * * * * * is sº º me tº gº is | Marshall-------------------- ell ----------------------------- 250,000 -------------- Pumping and direct ---------------- Mexico.---------------------- Springs and Surface Water----- 250,000 |--------------|------ do ------------------------------- Springfield ----------------- Spring--------------------------- 1,000,000 4,065,000 | Pumping to reservoir tank and di- reet -------------------------------- Trenton--------------------- River and Well ------------------ ,000 170,000 | Pumping to standpipe and direct-- [NOTE.-Works projected at other piaces; supply artesian.] I s º- §§ Waterworks (east of “arid region”) having their supply from artesian and underflow sources—Continued. * NEBRASRA (EAST OF 97°). Capacity of City, town, or village. Supply (Springs, Wells, etc.). Coºp. *ś, Mode of *:::::gºns Or Remarks. Standpipe. Gallons Gallons. Ashland--------------------- Wells (270 feet deep) ----------- 16,0 5, Pumping to tank-------------------- - Blair ------------------------ Tube Wells (30) ------------------ 50,000 700,000 | Pumping to reservoir--------------- # Fremont-------------------- Driven Wells--------------------- 75,000 80,000 | Pumping to standpipe and direct --| New system (Godfrey's), 502-inchweils (5 batteries, 10 wells each). Direct- pumping; yield, 2,400,000 gallons. . [Eng. News, Nov. 7, 1891.] Lincoln --------------------- Pºn wells (100) and surface 1,500,000 140,000 | Pumping to standpipe -------------- Weil. Pawnee City---------------- Wells (2 7-inch)----------------- 4 ----------. 80,000 | Pumping to standpipe and direct -- Wahoo---------------------- Driven Wells and river.---------- 200,000 |-------------- Pumping direct --------------------- Weeping Water ------------ Wells ------------------------- > - - | Cº - - - - - - - - - - - 170,000 | Pumping to reservoir--------------- West Point ----------------- Driven Wells (24) ---------------- 112,000 110,000 | Pumping to reservoir and direct--- Wisner---------------------- ell -----------------------------| * ----------- 90,000 | Pumping to tank-------------------- Wymore -------------------- Wells.---------------------------- %------------ 98,000 | Pumping to standpipe.-------------- [NOTE.-Works projected at other places, some already having wells,J NEW HAMPSHIRE. Bethlehem-----------------| Springs.-------------------------- 150,000 250,000 || Gravity from reservoir ------------- OWeſ ----------------------- Springs and pond--------------- 0 ----------- 2,000, Pumping to reservoir -------------- Drewsville------------------ Spring--------------------------- 0 ----------- % ----------- Gravity---------------------------- aw as Bºº logs (for pipes) laid in 1804, still * Il U1862. * Farmington ---------------- Springs.--------------------------| 0 ----------- * ----------- Pumping to reservoir -------------- Gorham --------------------|------ do --------------------------- 27,000 6,500 | Gravity------------------------------ Hanover -------------------- Springs (8) ---------------------- 10,000 --------------|------ do------------------------------- Lancaster ----------- tº gº as sº º ºs as Springs.--------------------------| 4 -----------| *-----------|------ do------------------------------- Plymouth ------------------|------ do --------------------------- 50,000 4,000,000 ||------ do------------------------------- Portsmouth ---------------- Springs (20) --------------------- % ----------- 0, Pumping to reservoir and gravity. Report for 1887–'83. West Canaan--------------- ring --------------------------- 4 ----------- % ----------- Gravity------------------------------ The Weirs ------------------ Spring and Wells ---------------- 0 ----------- % ----------- * ------------------------------------- |NOTE.-Works proposed and projected at several other places.] * f NEW JERSEY. Asbury Park --------------- Artesian Wells ------------------ a ----------- 105,000 | Pumping to standpipe-------------- Atlantic City---------------|------ do--------------------------- 500,000 198,750 | Pumping to standpipe and direct -- Blairstown ----------------- Spring---------------------------| 0 ----------- 112,000 | Pumping to Standpipe-------------- tr; Bridgeton ------------------ Springs, Well, and lake---------- 261,361 4,350,000 | Pumping to reservoir -------------- * Dover----------------------- Springs -------------------------- 0,000 6,000,000 || Gravity from collecting reservoir -- t Hºorange and Bloom- || Springs and Wells--------------- 650,000 -------------- Pumping direct -------------------- ..IIGIC!. Flemington ---------------- Springs and river--------- 4 ----------- Pumping and gravity -------------- Gloucester City ------------ Springs and Creek -------------- 75,000 2,145,000 | Pumping from reservoir to stand- lpe. Haddonfield ---------------- Spring-fed stream -------------- 20,000 2, 145,000 ||-- pº, * * *º gº º sº sº sº, º ºs º ºs s sº s as sº tº sº sº º is nº sº tº sº * > * * * & Lawrenceville School.------ Well ----------------------------- 7,500 50,000 | Pumping to standpipe-------------- Little York----------------- Spring---------------------------| 0 -----------| 0 ----------- Gravity------------------------------ Long Branch--------------- Springs and brook-------------- 710,000 152,000 | Pumping to standpipe-------------- Merchantville --------------| Stream fed by Springs.---------- - 26, 847, 600 |------ do------------------------------- Montclair------------------- Wells---------------------------- 200,000 282,000 | Pumping to tank-------------------- Moorestown --------------- Spring-fed streams ------------- 18,000 70,000 | Pumping to tank and direct-------- Morristown ---------------- Springs-------------------------- 275,000 19, 400,000 || Gravity------------------------------ NeWark----...----------------| Tubular wells (70) and river ---| 13,531, 356 44,000,000 | Pumping to reservoir ------- - - - - - - - New Jersey Reform School || Springs.--...----------------------- 25,00 28, 200 | Pumping to Standpipe and direct-- at Jamesburg. Ocean Grove.---------------- Artesian Wells (15) -------------- 400,000 215,000 | Pumping to tank-------------------- Pennington----------------- Spring--------------------------- 15,000 600,000 | Gravity------------------------------ Perth Amboy--------------- Springs and Surface water ----- 350,000 20,167,000 | Pumping from reservoir to stand- 1106. Phillipsburg---------------- Well ----------------------------- 300, 2,000,000 | Pumping to reservoir--------------- Princeton.------------------------- do--------------------------- 60,000 141,000 | Pumping to tank-------------------- Redbank--------------------|------ do--------------------------- 125,000 800,000 | Pumping to reservoir and direct--- Riverton and Palmyra.----- Well (near river). --------------- 25,000 70,000 | Pumping to tank-------------------- ś ----------------------| Well and Surface Water--------- 300,000 42,000,000 | Pumping from reservoir ----------- eabright------------------- Artesian Wells (9)--------------- 100, 67,680 | Pumping to Standpipe-------------- Short Hills ----------------- Springs -------------------------- 3. 4,000,000 | Pumping to reservoir--------------- Summit -------------------- Wells ---------------------------- 0 ----------- 183,000 | Pumping to Standpipe-------------- Vineland ------------------- Driven Wells -------------------- 175,000 79,000 | Pumping to tank-------------------- Wenonah ------------------- Springs-------------------------- 25,000 59,000 | Pumping to tank and direct-------- p [NOTE.-Works proposed or ings $ projected at other places—some having already an artesian Supply.] City has another plant with supply from Other SOUrCeS. Daily flow of springs, 300,000 gallons. Ground Water. In 1887. Report for 1887–'88. NEW YORK. Adams---------------------- Springs ------------------- 1,249 55,000 | Pumping to standpipe and direct -- - Albany---------------------- Driven Wells and Creek --------- a ----------- 156,000,000 ---------------------------------------- Fº wells supply, 15,000,000 gal- OnS Clally. Albion ---------------------- Wells ---------------------------- " ----------- 250,000 flºg to standpipe-------------- des--- Spring ------ tº sº º º 3,000 119,000 || Gravity ------------------------------ º | 3 É § | Waterworks (east of “arid region”) having their supply from artesian and underflow sources—Continued. NEW YORK–Continued. Capacity, † Consump- reservoir, Mode of Service (pumping or City, town, or village. Supply (Wells, Springs, etc.). tion. tank, Or º pillg Remarks. Standpipe. Gallons Gallon 8. Attica.----------------------- Springs.---------- 225, 12,000, Gravity------------------------------ AVoca----------------------- Springs and Creek--------------- * ----------- 1,000,000 ------ dO tº gº ºs º ºs º sº gº tº tº sº sº gº tº gº tº ſº º wº º ſº tº gº Bainbridge ----------------- Artesian Wells, springs,and res- a ----------- 0 -----------|------ do ------------------------------- 2 reservoirs; 1 has area of 15 acres. * el’WOIr. Ballston Spa---------------- Springs -------------------- e 600,000 | a -----------|------ O ------------------------------- ath ------------------------ Wells and Springs.--------------- 100,000 305,000 | Pumping to standpipe-------------- Brooklyn ------------- sº tº sº sº º is Open wells and Andrews driven 49,801,701 | 181,000,000 | Pumping to resevoirs (3) ----------- Estimated present supply from An- WellS. drews system of wells, 15,000,000 gal- lons daily. Cambridge------------------ Springs.-------------------------- 40,000 7,000,000 | Pumping from collecting reservoir. Canajoharie ----------------|------ do --------------------------- 0 -----------| 0 ----------- Gravity------------------------------ Canastota-------------------|------ do--------------------------- 0 ----------- ,000,000 }______ do------------------------------- Canisteo --------------------|------ do--------------------------- 0 ----------- 2,000,000 ||------ do ------------------------------- Castile ----------------------|------ do--------------------------- 0 ----------- 233,000 ------ do------------------------------- Chateaugay----------------- Spring --------------------------- 0 -----------| 0 -----------|------ do------------------------------- No report for 1889-'90, atham-------------------- Andrews gang Wells ------------ 300,000 1,500,000 | Pumping to reservoir -------------- yde------------------------ Springs.-------------------------- % ----------- 200,000 | Pumping to Standpipe-------------- Cobleskill------------------- Springs and Surface Water ----- 0 ----------- 120,000 || Gravity------------------------------ College Point--------------- Springs ------------------ 450,000 || 0 ----------- Pumping from improved reservoir. Corning--------------------- Springs and Creek------- 350,000 8,500,000 | Pumping and gravity -------------- Cortland.-------------------- Springs-------------------------- 300,000 375,000 | Pumping to tank ------------------- a ------------------------|------ O ----------------- * ----------- 700,000 || Gravity------------------------------ Davids Island -------------- Artesian Wells (2) --------------- 5,000 47,000 | Pumping to tank-------------------- Elizabethtown ------------- Springs-------------------------- 0 -----------| 0 ----------- Gºavity------------------------------ Far Rockaway ------------- Gang Wells (50)------------------ 600,000 294,000 | Pumping to standpipes (2) --------- Report for 1887–88. Flatbush-------------------. Wells (Stephens system).------ 750,000 239,700 | Pumping to standpipe-------------- 12 wells, 8 feet diameter, 36 feet deep. Flushing ------------------- P. wells (17) and pond for ,00 None. | Pumping direct --------------------- I’éS. Fonda, Springs------------------ tº ºs º gº º ºsº º 100,000 2,000,000 || Gravity------------------------------ Fort Edward ---------------|------ do--------------------------- 0------------| 0 -----------|------ do------------------------------- Fort Plain------------------|------ do--------------------------- 0------------ 15,000,000 ||------ do ------------------------------- lton----------------------|------ do--------------------------- 200,000 188,000 | Pumping to standpipe-------------- - Fultonville -----------------|------ do--------------------------- 20, 000 165,000 || Gravity and pumping -------------- 2 reservoirs; but 1 noted. Garden City---------------- Well (35 feet deep) -------------- 500,000 None. | Pumping direct --------------------- Geneva --------------------- Springs-------------------------- %------------ 0 ----------- Pumping and gravity--------------- Glens Falls ----------------|------ do--------------------------- 0------------ 79,000,000 || Gravity from reservoirs (2) --------- Gloversvile ---------------- Springs and Creek -------------- 500,000 16,000,000 || Gravity from reservoirs (4) --------- Goshen --------------------- prings-------------------------- 0------------ 46,000,000 || Gravity from reservoirs ------------ Gowanda ----------------- - Springs -------------------------- 115,000 ,000,000 l Gravity ------------------------------ Gravesend------------------ Wells (Stephens system).----- Greenbush------------------ Well and river ------------------ Greenport ------------------ Driven Wells (4) ----------------- Greenwich------------------ Springs.-------------------------- Groton----------------------|------ do--------------------------- Hancock --------------------|------ do--------------------------- Herkimer------------------- Driven Wells------------------- º Homer----------------------| Springs.-------------------------. Honeoye Falls ------------- ells --------------------------- HO9sick Falls -----, --------|------ do--------------------------- Irvington.-------------...----- Artesian Well and stream------- !slip------------------------- (6-inch) Wells-------------------- Jamaica -------------------- (6-inch) wells (6) ---------------- Jamestown ----------------- Artesian Wells------------------- Johnstown ----------------- Springs and Streams------------ Little Valley --------------- Springs.-------------------------- Long Island City----------- Driven and dug Wells ----------- Pyons----------------------- Wells ---------------------------- Malone.---------------------- Springs-------------------------- Manlius---------------------|------ do --------------------------- Middletown ---------------- Springs and Surface water------ Moravia -------------------- Springs.-------------------------- Mount Morris -------------- Springs (9)---------------------- Newark --------------------- Springs -------------------------- New Berlin -----------------------do--------------------------- New Brighton and Port | Driven wells (40) ---------------- Richmond. Wunda ---------------------- Springs-------------------------- WWack ---------------------- Springs and river -------------- Olean ----------------------- 911 ----------------------------- Oneida --------------------- Springs-------------------------- Otego ----------------------- Springs and Creek -------------- Patchogue------------------ Wells (6-inch pipe).-------------- Phelps---------------------- Springs-------------------------- IPhoenix---------------- ----| Wells, Springs, and river------- Port Byron----------------- Well ----------------------------- Randolph ------------------ Spring -------------------------- Round Lake---------------- Springs-------------------------- Sag Harbor----------------- Wells ---------------------------- St. Johnsville -------------- Springs-------------------------- Salamangº. ----------------- Springs and Surface Water----- Sandy Hill------------------ Spring-fed brook.--------------- Saratoga Springs ---------- Spring-fed lake------------------ Schenevus.-----------------| Springs.-------------------------- Sea Clift -------------------- Driven Wells (7) ----------------- Springville ----------------- Płºń88 -------------------------- Driven Wells--------------------- Stapleton and Edgewater- 2,000,000 323,466 % ----------- 0 ----------- 0 ----------- % ---------- 0,000 855,542 0 ----------- 180,000 15,000 % ----------- 500,000 750,000 500,000 0 ----------- 0 ----------- 90,000 250,000 0 ----------- 0 ----------- 0 ----------- 75,000 100,000 25,000 1,800,000 60,000 80,000 y * ----------- % ----------- 500,000 100,000 5,000 0 ----------- 40,000 0 ----------- 0 ----------- 300,000 100, 3,000,000 600,000 0 ----------- * ----------- 0 ----------- 10,000,000 1,000,000 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * tº ſº * * * * * * * * * Pumping to standpipe and direct -- Pumping to standpipe Pumping to reservoir. -------------- Gravity from reservoir ------------- - Grayity «s ºn as sº e º ºs º gº se tº tº º sº sº º ºs º dº sº tº sº sº tº sº tº sº as º sº º * sº me as as sº is as tº gº as sº es s sº tº gº tº º sº * * * * * * * * * * * Pumping to reservoir. -------------- Pumping to standpipe Pumping to ta. Pumping direct as ºs ºs sº gº gº º sº s = * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * = as sº sº sº sº tº sº tº as tº as tº º sº º sº as Gravity from reservoir------------- Gravity Pumping direct Pumping to standpipe Gravity to and from reservoir ----- Gravity as as as a sº me am as ºr me a m = * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * sº sº, sº gº º sº sº sº, º gº º ºs s = sº * * * * * * * * * Pumping to standpipe from Col- lecting reservoir. Gravit, & Pumping to reservoir and direct--. Gravity (and pumping for reserve). Gravity and pumping Pumping to reservoir = sº * * * * * * * * * * * * Gravity from reservoir------------- Gravit * Pumping to Standpipe Gravity & Pumping to Standpipe Pumping to reservoir Gravity------------------------------ Pumping to tanks Pumping to standpipe Gravity------------------------------ Gravity and pumpin Pumping to standpipe-------------- Pumping direct Gravity ---------------------------- * - Pumping to tank g Pumping from collecting reservoir- Pumping direct * * * * * * * * * * * * * * = ** as sº ºn m = * * * * as as sº sº sº * * * * * * * * * * * * * as a sm º ºs as as sº º ºs º ºs ºs sº sº sº as tº sm, sº em as sº as sº sº sº *s, * * * * * * * * * * * Yield of wells in 1889, 1,000,000 gallons daily. Q 4 #º wells yield 2,000,000 gallons daily. Capacity of 2 reservoirs not given. Small system. Report of 1887–88. Well has 20 3-inch pipes driven in bot- tCIIl. Daily capacity of brook,750,000 gallons. § * & # } § Waterworks (east of “arid region”) having their supply from artesian and underflow sources—Continued. NEW YORK–Continued. Capacity of • | - Consump- reservoir, Mode of service (pumping Or City, town, or village. - Supply (Wells, springs, etc.). tion. tank, Or gravity). RemarkS. Standpipe. º Gallon 8. Gallons. * Syracuse ------------------- Springs and surface water ----- 6,000,000 80,000,000 | Pumping to reservoir and gravity -- - Tarrytown ----------------- We! ----------------------------- 0 ----------- 1,400,000 | Pumping to reservoir and tank. --| Well in Swamp. Wºść.....: #Kºsiń.::::::::::: a ...”]. ” Fºg and gravity::::::::::::::: Warsaw I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I. Springs....III.I.I.I.I.II] ... III.I.I.III 4,500,000 |... do...I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I. Waverly -------------------- Springs and Surface Water ----- 500,000 93,000,000 ------ do -------------!------------------ Whitehall ------------------| Springs.-------------------------- 200,000 5,500,000 || Gravity and pumping-------------- White Plains---------------|------ do--------------------------- 26,480 275,000 | Pumping to Standpipe-------------- d Hº! Whitesboro-----------------|------ do--------------------------- 0 ----------- 0 ----------- Gravity from reServOil ------------- º Whitesville-----------------|------ 49--------------------------- 0 ----------- 35,000 || Gravity to reservoir ---------------- : , , }*4 Q º NORTH CAROLINA. ă 'Z Asheville ------------------- Springs, river, and surface 300,000 1,113,000 | Pumping and gravity to reservoir Water. , and Stand pipe. Charlotte ------------------- Springs-------------------------- 300,000 10, 190,000 Pºš. from imp, reservoir to Stand plpe. Concord -------------------- Spring --------------------------- 4-----------| 0 ----------- Pumping to tank ------------------- Daily capacity of Spring, 30,000 gallons. #. - - - - - - - - * * * * * * * * * * sº s and creeº:::::::::::::: 1.§§ 1 CŞ% gº to º from reServoir. ---- I'êellSOOl'O - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - prings and Creek--------------- y umping to tank ------------------- HenderSon Ville------------- # • * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 0 ----------- 0 ------ ...] Gray ty------------------------------ Reservoir being built. NeWberne ------------------ Artesian Well-------------------- 0 ----------- %-----------|---------------------------------------- Well, but works not yet built. Salem.----------------------- Wells (near Creek) -------------- 50,000 450,000 | Pumping to reservoir -------------- Wºli (2) ºcity of 40 and 50 . gallons per minute. Salisbury------------------- Springs-------------------------- 84,400 a ----------- Pumping to tank-------------------- Winston -------------------- Wells (9)------------------------- 120,000 1,000,000 | Primping to reservoir -------------- One well yields daily 144,000 gallons. [NOTE.-Works projected at other points—supply, springs, or wells.] * * OHIO. sº sº * * * * * * * * *s tº ſº * * * * * * * > * * AthenS—insane asylum---- Bellefontaine--------------- Bucyrus -------------------- sº sº is sº º ºs º ºs º ºs ºs º ºs ºs º ºs sº tº * * * * Clyde ----------------------- Crestline-------------------- Dayton --------------------- Dela Ware ------------------- Kenton --------------------- Lancaster ------------------ Leetonia-------------------- London --------------------- Mansfield.------------------- Marietta -------------------- Marion---------------------- Middletown ------- tº tº E tº gº tº ſº º sº. Mirierva -------------------- Mount Gilead.-------------- Mount Vernon ------------. National Military Home (near Dayton). Newark--------------------- New Lisbon ---------------- New Philadelphia---------- Oberlin --------------------- Painesville ----------------- * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ell ----------------------------- Flowing wells (2) and springs-- Well, filtered sº* * * * * * * * * * * *g mº tº $ 2 Wells, lake, and Creek ---------- Well, near river----------------- Wells, in bottom of Settling reServoir and reServoir. On Creek. Springs-------------------------- Tube Wells (30 8-inch) ----------- Wells and SpringS.--------------- Drilled Wells (4) ----------------- Driven Wells (6) ----------------- Springs (mainly) --------------- Wells ---------------------------- Driven Wells -------------------- Wagner wells (steam filter)---- Spring------------------------- ... 0. Cook Wells----------------------- 0. I'lowing artesian Wells (5) and Springs (2). Well (near river) --------------- Water-bearing gravel Stored in reservoir. Well --------------- tº dº tº gº º tº º sº tº sº we tº tº º Well (near Creek) --------------- Springs (2) Artesian well and Surface Well- Tubular wells (6) was sº me tº ſº tº º me tº e º 'º m sº tº ſº Wells (2) (in gravel)------------ Artesian Wells (4) and Springs. Wells and river ----------------- Springs-------------------------- ells and Springs -------------- Artesian Wells and Springs ---- River and Wells ----------------- Springs-------------------------- * as sº mº gº º sº, º gº º sº as tº gº as as was º ºs ºs º sº sº. & º ºf ſº º ºs º ºs eme º ºs tº sº Gº, º f : E * * * * * sº sº sº, sº tº º 'º me sº sº tº * * * * * * m º ºr sº º sº as º ºs º ºs º ºs sº as sº sº, º me 3. is me sº sº º say * * * * * * = & sº gº tº * * * * sº * * * s tº tº sº sº tº gº tº gº tº e ºs ºs ºn tº º ºxº sº sº gº º ºs º º º * * * * * * * * * * * 592,000 Pumping ---------------------------- • * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * = * * * Pumping to reservoir -------------- Pumping direct --------------------- Gravity from reservoir - ------------ Pumping direct --------------------- Pumping direct and to standpipe-- Pumping to reservoir -------------- Pumping direct --------------------- Pumping from reservoir to stand- plpe. Pumping to Standpipe-------------- Pumping to tank-------------------- Pumping to reservoir and direct - - - Pumping direct --------------------- Pumping to tank--------------- ---- Pumping and gravity Pumping to standpipe and direct -- Pumping direct --------------------- * ºr sº me º ºs º ºs ºm sº * * * * Pumping direct and to standpipe -- Pumping to Standpipe-------------- Pumping direct --------------------- Pumping to tank ------------------- "Pumping to standpipe.I.I.I.I.I.I. Pumping to reservoir and tank---- * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * = * * * * Pumping from reservoir to Stand- pipe. Pumping to Standpipe-------------- Pumping from reservoir to stand- s sº sº, sº gº as ºs s = * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Pumping to standpipe and direct-- Report for 1887-'88. In 1887. *. ; Waterworks (east of “arid region”) having their supply from artesian and underflow sources–Continued. OHIO-Continued. C Capacity of City, town, or village. Supply (wells, springs, etc.). °.” ºº Mode of ºping OT RemarkS. t Standpipe. Gallons. Gallon 8. Urbaixa ---------------------| Well ----------------------------- 700,000 ||-------------- Pumping direct --------------------- Wadsworth ---------------- Flowing Springs (4) ------------ 0 ----------- 0 ----------- Gravity----------------------------- Washington Court House - Battery of Wells----------------- 0 ----------- 294,000 | Pumping to standpipe and direct-- Waynesburg --------------- ringS.--------------------------| 0 ----------- 0 ----------- Gravity ----------------------------- Small System. Wooster -------------------- Springs and Well---------------- 150,000 12,000,000 || Gravity and pumping -------------- Xenia.----------------------- Springs-------------------------- :--> ,281, Pumping direct and to standpipe-- [NotE.—Works projected at other points: Supply wells or Springs.] PENNSYLVANIA. Adrian Mines--------------- Artesian Well-------------------- 4,000 3,700 | Pumping to tanks------------------ Allentown ------------------ Springs-------------------------- 2,400,000 ,000 | Pumping to reservoir and stand- plpe. Bedford---------------------|------ do --------------------------- 0 -------- sy - - 2,000,000 || Gravity------------------------------ Bellefonte ------------------|------ do --------------------------- 500,000 290,000 | Pumping to reservoir -------------- Bethlehem------------------ Spring --------------------------- 650,000 968.000 | Pumping direct with tanks -------- Wºº ºgºn 1754. See notes in Man- llal, Q. 221. Birdsboro----- <------------- Spring-fed Stream -------------- 30,000 || 25,000,000 || Gravity from reservoir ------------- Boyertown ----------------- Springs -------------------------- * ----------- 25, Pumping from reservoir ----------- Carbondale -----------------|------ do --------------------------- 150,000 || 36,000,000 || Gravity from storage reservoir to From report for 1887–88. # * e distributing reservoir. Centralia. ------------------- SpringS On mountain----------- 50,000 || @ ----------- Gravity------------------------------ 4 reservoirs, capacity not given. Coatsville------------------- Spring-fed Stream--------------- 120,000 3,000,000 || Gravity from collecting to distrib- uting reservoir. Columbia ------------------- Spring and river ---------------- 400,000 5,000,000 || Gravity and pumping -------------- Connellsville --------------- Springs-------------------------- 600,000 20,000,000 || Gravity from imp. reservoirs, 2- ---- Downington.----------------|------ do---------------------------| 0 ----------- 8, 127,000 || Gravity from reservoir (3) --------- Doylestown ----------------|------ do --------------------------- 80,000 530,000 | Pumping to reservoir and direct -- Dubois---------------------- Springs (6) ---------------------- % ----------- ,000,000 || Gravity to and from reservoir ----- East Brady----------------- Springs-------------------------- 0 ----------- ,000 | Pumping to tank------------------- Ebensburg ----------------- Artesian Well and pond--------- 0 ----------- 150,000 | Pumping to reservoir------- ------- Edenburg ------------------ Well ----------------------------- 8,000 40,000 | Pumping to tank ------------ ------- Emans---------------------- Springs (3) ---------------------- % ----------- ,000 || Gravity to and from reservoir ----- Emlenton ------------------ Springs and river--------------- % ----------- 325,000 || Gravity and pumping -------------- Emporium ----------------- Springs-------------------------- * ----------- 1,800,000 ravity------------------------------ Ephrata --------------------|------ do--------------------------- 1,000 60,000 ||------ do------------------------------- * | Springs and Creek Freeland -------- tº º ºr sº wº, º ºs e as sº sº Artesian Well-------------------- Gettysburg ---------------- Driven Well---------------------- Greenville ------------------ Springs-------------------------- Hanover-------------------- ountain Springs -------------- Hazleton ------------------- Springs-------------------------- Jenkinton ------------------ Artesian Wells (2) --------------- Jersey Shore. -------------- Springs and surface water----- Johnstown ----------------- Springs.-------------------------- Kennett Square ----- tº ºs º ºr sº º ºs Springs and surface water----- Knox Well ----------------------------. Pangh9rne ----------------- Springs.-------------------------- ſandsdale ------------------ Artesian Well-------------------- Pehighton------------------|------ 0 --------------------------- Lewistown ----------------- | Artesian wells (2), springs and sº creek for emergency. Pitit? ----------------------- Springs.-------------------------- Mahanoy City -------------- Springs and mountain stream . Manheim ------------------ Spring-fed Creek----------------- Mechanicsburg------------- Springs and artesian Well------ MeShoppen ----- * * * * * * * * * * * * Springs and brook -------------- Meyersdale ----------------- Spring--------------------------- Millerstown ---------------- Artesian Well-------------------- Minersville ----------------- Mountain Springs--------------- Mount Carmel-------------- Springs.-------------------------- Nazareth -------------------|------ 9--------------------------- ewtown ------------------- Artesian Wells (2) --------------- North Clarendon.----------- Artesian Well-------------------- North East ----------------- Springs.-------------------------- North Wales --------------- Artesian Wells (2) ----...---------- Oil City--------------------- Springs and river--------------- Oxford---------------------- Bored Wells (2)------------------ Pen Argyl ------------------ Spring--------------------------- Petrolia -------------------- Artesian Well-------------------- Philadelphia --------------- Well, and spring (Chestnut * Hill Works. Plymouth ------------------ Springs and surface water, ar- tesian Well and river. Reading -------------------- Springs (3) and Creeks (2) ------ Reynoldsville -------------- Springs-------------------------- Ridley Park---------------- Artesian Wells and lake -------- Rºstora and Spring | Artesian wells ------* - - - - - - - - - - - y. St. Petersburg ------------- Springs.---- tº sº gº tº Schuylkill Haven ----------|------ do--------------------------- gº º sº º se sº s tº see sº º & eºs s = me tº º ºs sº ºn tº sº º mºs as as ºn m ºn as º ºs * & º ºs º ºs s sº as * * * * * * * * * * * * * 154,250,000 72,000 75,000 184,000 117,000 8,000,000 me ºn us sº gº º ºs º 'º º sº * * * tº sº º º º º * * * as as tº º sº se tº dº sº tº º ſº tº sº sº sº º ºs º ºs tº º E * * * * * Gravity Gravity from reservoir------------- Gravity and pumping Pumping to tank ------------------- Pumping to reservoir --------------- Gravity------------------------------ Pumping to reservoir and stand- plpe. Pumping to tanks (2) Pumping from reservoir to tank--- Pumping to tank Pumping to reservoir--------------- Pumping and gravity--------------- gº ºs e as * * * * * * * * * *s s tº * = sº gº º ºs º ºs º gº ºs º ºs º ºs º gº º º ºs Pumping to tank-------------------- Gravity from reservoir ------------- Pumping to reservoir --------------- Gravity and pumping--------------- Pumping to tanks Gravity------------------------------ 0------------------------------- Gravity and pumping to reservoir-- Pumping to reservoir--------------- Pumping direct and to tank-------- Gravit £º through mains to tank. -- Gravity and pumping to reservoir- Pumping to reservoir--------------- Gravity------------------------------ Pumping to tank and direct-------- gº as ºr sº as ºs º º is sº sº sº gº sº tº º ºs º ºs tº º ºs ºs º º ºs º ºs º ºs Gravity from improved reservoir pumping to reservoir. tº sº nº m º ºs ºn m sº tº tº tº s gº tº as tº tº ºs ºs ºs ºn tº tº gº tº dº tº mº ſº gº º Hº tºº & gº tº ſº tº * Pumping to tanks IPumping to tanks and direct ------ Pumping to standpipe-------------- * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * tº gº tº sº sº tº me tº E tº º In 1887. Has two plants, one from mountain StreamS. Daily capacity of well: flowing, 1,500 gallons; by pumping, 75,000 gallons. City has two tanks—others private. Report for 1887–88. DO. Yºlº of well in 1883 200,000 gallons daily. Daily capacity 750,000 gallons. City has Several Other WOrkS. Yield of well in 1886, flow 20,000 gallon daily; by pumping 150,000 gallons daily. Minimum daily flow of springs 250,000 gallons. § i s | t Waterworks (east of “arid region”) having their supply from artesian and wnderflow sources—Continued. PENNSYLVANIA—Continued. Capacity of g Consump- reservoir, Mode of service (pumping or City, town, or village. Supply (Wells, springs, etc.). tion. tank, or gravity). Remarks. Standpipe. Gallons. Gallon 8. Sewickly ------------------- Springs and Wells--------------- 150,000 4,000,000 || Gravity and pumping.-------------- Shickshinny---------------- Spring-fed Creek ---------------- 300,000 || 0------------ Gravity------------------------------ Shippensburg-------------- Mountain Springs--------------- 100,000 700,000 ------ do------------------------------- Slatington.------------------|------ do--------------------------- 324,000 | a ------------|------ do ------------------------------- śa:::::::::::: ######Siúñ:::::::::::: *~15:555 %|::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Ollth East Orl -------------- lliºline) In Olintain ------------ * * * * * | * * * * * * O ------------------------------- ily yield, 70,000 gall Stroudsburg---------------- Springs.-------------------------- 6,000 | a -----------|------ do ------------------------------- Daily yie - gallons Sunbury-------------------- Springs and surface Water ----- 750,000. 4,700,000 | Pumping from imp. reservoir to - - distributing reservoir. Tarentum ------------------ Springs.-------------------------- 30,000 500,000 | Pumping to reservoir --------------- Tidioute -------------------- Spring-fed streams ------------- 0 ----------- 520,000 || Gravity ------------------------------ Tioga -----------------------|---"---00--------------------------- 300,000 15,000,000 || Gravity and pumping--------------- Titusville------------------- Wells (3)------------------------- 1,000,000 ||-------------- Pumping direct --------------------- Report for 1887-'88. Tremont-------------------- Springs and mountain stream - 20,000 1,000,000 || Gravity------------------------------ Troy ------------------------ pringS -------------------------- 200,000 | a -----------|------ do ------------------------------- Tunkhannock -------------- Spring and river ---------------- 0 ----------- 600,000 | Pumping to reservoir -------------- Ulysses --------------------- Springs.-------------------------- 0 ----------- 71,000 || Gravity and pumping--------------- Uniontown-----------------|------ do--------------------------- 0 ----------- 24,000,000 || Gravity from reservoir (3) --------- Walston -------------------- Artesian Wells (2) and river ---- 2,000 12,000 | Pumping to tanks ------------------ Waynesboro --------------- Mountain ; * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * : * * * * * * * * * * * * * * | * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Gravity------------------------------ Weatherly------------------ Springs and Creek--------------- 25,000 250,000 ||----...- do ------------------------------- Wellsboro ------------------ Springs -------------------------- 0 ----------- t 70,000 || Gravity to and from reservoir ----- West Chester--------------- Spring-fed Creek ---------------- 400,000 2,500,000 | Pumping to reservoir--------------- York------------------------ Springs and Surface Water ----- 600,000 11,000,000 |------ O ------------------------------- Austin ---------------------- Sl)ringS, WellS, and brookS ----- 0 ----------- 0 ----------- Pumping ---------------------------- Bangor - - gº ºn pring--------------------------- 0 ----------- 0 ----------- Gravity------------------------------ Berwick -------------------- Spring (near river) ------------- 0 ----------- 0 ----------- Pumping to reservoir--------------- Mauch Chunk and East || Springs.-------------------------- 0 ----------- 0 ----------- Gravity ------------------------------ Mauch Chunk. Milford --------------------- Spring--------------------------- 0 ----------- Q -----------|------ do ------------------------------- Minooka ------------------- Spring reservoir ---------------- 0 ----------- 4 -----------|------ do------------------------------- Shenandoah ---------------- Mountain Springs.--------------- 0 ----------- % ----------- - * * * - - do------------------------------- Susquehanna--------------- Springs -------------------------- 4 ----------- % ----------------- do ------------------------------- & RHODE ISLAND. Drownville ---------------- Well and pond------------------- 6,000 52,000 | Pumping to tank-------------------- * SOUTH CAROLINA. Charleston ----------------- Artesian Wells (3).--------------- 1,000,000 13, 170,000 | Pumping to standpipe and gravity To standpipe for domestic use. Water - to reservoir. passes to reservoir for fire. Columbia ------------------- Springs and rivers-------------- 600,000 6, 500,000 | Pumping to reservoir -------------- f Orangeburgh -------------- | Altesian Wells (2) --------------- 0 ------------ Pumping to Standpipe ------------- [Projected works.-Bamberg: Has an artesian well; daily yield 275,000 gallons. 'Barnwelſ: Hăsartesiań well with daily yield in 1889 of 275,000 gallons; works authorized. Batesburg: Artesian wells proposed. I TENNESSEE. Athens---------------------- Springs-------------------------- 0----------- 50,000 | Pumping to Standpipe-------------- Bristol----------------------|------ do--------------------------- 200,000 100,000 | Pumping to tank-------------------- Jackson------------ tº E tº e º ºs º ºs ºs Bored Wells (22)----------------- 500,000 -------------- Pumping direct--------------------- Manchester----------------- Large Spring-------------------- 10,000 --------------|------ do ------------------------------- Memphis.-------------------- Artesian Wells (38) -------------- 8,000,000 375,000 | Pumping direct and to standpipe-- Monteagle------------------ Spring--------------------------- 0 ----------- 30,000 | Pumping to tank-------------------- Murfreesboro-------------- Spring-fed Creek---------------- % ----------- 0 ----------- Pumping direct--------------------- South Pittsburg------------ Springs--------------------------|--------------|-------------- Pumping and gravity--------------- [Proposed works—Covington:, Has spring with yield of 75 gallons per minute; contract for works made, Fayetteville: Franchise granted; supply from springs or river. Newbern: Has 6-inch wells; surveys made. Sherman Heights: Has large spring. Tullahdma: Has springs. Union City: Franchise and contract granted; Supply Wells.j VERMONT. BellóWS Falls--------------- Lake (fed by Springs) ----------- * ----------- 0 ----------- Gravity------------------------------ Bennington.----------------- Springs-------------------------- 0 --------- - 0 -----------|------ do ------------------------------- Brandon-------------------- Pond (fed by Springs) ---------- 0 ----------- 0 -----------|------ do ------------------------------- Brattleboro----------------- Springs-------------------------- 50,000 7,500,000 ||------ do------------------------------- Fairhaven ------------------ Pond (fed by Springs) ---------- 45,000 | Q -----------|------ 0 ------------------------------- Hyde Park------------------ Springs-------------------------- 7,000 -------------- Gravity and pumping -------------- Island Pond ----------------|------ do--------------------------- 30,000 |-------------- Gravity------------------------------ Montpelier -----------------|------ do--------------------------- 0 ----- ----- 0 -----------|------ do------------------------------- Has two systems of work. Supply from One pond. * k \ º f # Waterworks (east of “arid region”) having their supply from artesian and underflow sources–Continued. VERMONT—Continued. C º, Of Mode of service ( i onsump- reservoir, ode of service (pumping Or g City, town, or village. Supply (wells, springs, etc.). tion. tank, Or gravity). RemarkS. Standpipe. Gallon 8. Gallon,8. Morrisville -----------------|------ do--------------------------- 0 ----------- 0 ----------- Gravity------------------------------ Northfield ------------------------ do --------------------------- % ----------- 0 -----------|------ do ------------------------------- Richford--------------------|------ do --------------------------- 0 ----------- 1,000,000 ||------ do------------------------------- * St. Johnsbury--------------|------ do --------------------------- 0 -----------| 0 ----------------- do ------------------------------- City has another system. Supply, a T1Wer. Springfield ----------------- Springs (4) ---------------------- 4,800 --------------|--------------------------------------- aterbury ----------------- Springs --------------------------| 0 -----------| 0 -----------|------ do ------------------------------- West Randolph------------- Springs and brooks ------------| a ----------- 1,000,000 ------ do------------------------------- Winooski------------------- Springs ------------------------- 160,000 5,000,000 |------ do------------------------------- VIRGINIA. Charlottesville ------------- Springs and surface Water----- 10,000 || 192,000,000 || Gravity from reservoir------------- hatham-------------------- Springs.-------------------------- 1, 67,500 || Gravity ------------------------------ Crewe ---------------------- Springs (4)----------------------- 125,000 40,000 | Pumping to tank-------------------- Fortress Monroe----------- Driven wells (1}-inch points)--- 20,000 72,000 ------ do------------------------------- JFredericksburg ------------ TWO †ems,one from Springs; I--------------|--------------|---------------------------------------- * IlC) Cl3,153. Gordonsville --------------- Springs.-------------------------- 0 ----------- 800,000 | Gravity ------------------------------ Hampton ------------------- Gang wº (National Soldiers’ 200,000 ||a ------------ Pumping direct --------------------- O]llé). Harrisonburg-------------- Artesian Wells------------------- 0 ----------- 1,000,000 | Pumping to reservoir. -------------- Leesburg------------------- Spring--------------------------- 0 ----------- 0 ----------- Gravity------------------------------ For fires all StreetS have cisterns; ca- ; pacity, 8,000 to 10,000 gallons. Lexington.------------------ Springs -------------------------- 90,000 2,508,000 ||------ do ------------------------------- Liberty --------------------- ountain Spring---------------- 150,000 a -----------|------ do------------------------------- Marion --------------------- Springs -------------------------- dº -----------| 0 ----------- Gravity to Standpipe --------------- Roanoke-------------------- Spring (On mountain) ---------- 1,350,000 2,500,000 | Pumping to reservoir and direct -- Salem----------------------- rings.-------------------------- 40,000 250,000 | Pumping to reservoir -------------- Staunton ------------------- 10 springs (in limestone).-------- 880,000 2,500, Pumping to and from reservoir----| Report for 1887-'88. Tazewell-------------------- Spring --------------------------- 0 ----------- 35, Gravity------------------------------ Winchester-----------------------do --------------------------- 0 -----------| 0 -----------|------ do ------------------------------- No report for 1889–90. Wytheville ----------------- Large Spring-------------------- 0 ----------- 1,000,000 | Pumping to and from reservoir ---- [Works projected—Pulaski City: Has two artesion wells.] - *QºHºeg Côv..& | \ . WEST VIRGINIA. Bluefield ----------- ge tº sº ºn as ºn as * Springs------------------------- 80,000 50,000 | Gravity----------------------------- Martinsburg---------------|------ do:------------------------- 300,000 -------------- Pumping direct -- WISCONSIN. Appleton.------------------- Artesian Wells (3) and river --- 600,000 2,500,000 | Pumping direct ..... ---------------- Baraboo-------------------- Springs.------------------------- 60,730 275,000 | Pumping to standpipe------------- Bayfield--------------------|------ do -------------------------- * ----------- 850,000 || Gravity----------------------------- Proposed increase of reservoir capacity - to 1,500,000 gallons. Beaver Dam ---------------|------ do-------------------------- 40,000 a ----------- Pumping to Standpipe------------- Beloit ---------------------- W. 30 feet diameter, 40 feet 500,000 100,000 | Pumping to tank and direct. ------ - Cleep. Black River Falls---------- Driven wells, 482-inch points-- 50,000 150,000 | Pumping to Standpipe------------- Burlington.----------------- Artesian Wells------------------ | 4------------ 70,000 ||------ do------------------------------ Darlington.----------------- Well ---------------------------- 12,000 115,000 | Pumping to reservoir ------------- Depere --------------------- Artesian Well (flowing)-------- 0 ----------- % ----------- Gravity----------------------------- Eau Claire ----------------- Springs ------------------------- 1,000,000 20,000,000 || Gravity and pumping-------------- Fond du Lac--------------- Artesian Wells (4) -------------- 1,000,000 3,000,000 Pºpº. ºt and storage reser- * VOlr iOl' Tire. Gº Bay and Fort How-|Artesian Wells (2)-------------- 300,000 900,000 ||------ do----------------------------- Flow of wells, 800 gallons per minute. à l'Oi. - - Hudson -------------------- | Artesian Well------------------- 50,000 300,000 | Pumping to underground reservoir Janesville ----do -------------------------- 0 ----------- 1,050,000 | Pumping to standpipe and direct- Kenosha ------------------- | Artesian Wells (4) -------------- 400,000 a ----------- Gravity---------. ------------------ Madison.-------------------- Artesian Wells (8) -------------- - 704,050 255,000 | Pumping to standpipe with stor- ſº age reservoir. Menominee ---------------- Springs and river-------------- 75,858 88,000 | Pumping to standpipe and direct- Oshkosh-------------------- Artesian Wells and lake-------- 1,200,000 || 4 ----------- Pumping direct-------------------- Prairie du Chien----------- Artesian Well------------------- 0 ----------- 0 ----------- Gravity----------------------------- Racine 0----------------------------- tº tº dº sº. m º ºs sº ºs ºs º gº is sm º ºs ºs ºs s nº º ºs I = º ºs as tº gº tº sº e º 'º ºs º ºs ºs º gº tº ſº tº sº tº sº us is as º º ºs sº as tº gº º sº is as º ºr Prior to 1887 had 2 artesian Wells each t §§ daily 550,000 gallons. New works in 1887. Supply, Lake Michi- § Not known if well supply is now U1S60. Richland Center ----------- Artesian Well. ------------------ 0 ----------- 600,000 | Pumping to reservoir ------------- Waukesha ----------------- Alºeil (1) and surface 100,000 330,000 | Pumping to Standpipe and direct- * WellS (2). Wausau -------------------- Well ---------------------------- 438,249 |-------------- Pumping direct -------------------- West Depere--------------- Artesian Well------------------- 0 -----------| 0 ----------- Gravity----------------------------- No report for 1889–90. WhiteWater----------------|------ do -------------------------- sº gº tº sº tº ſº tº sº es ºr sº ºs s. sº I sº * * * * * * * * * is s ºr sº I sº tº s ºn s we m sº * sº sº as sº º sº as ess º ºs ºn tº sº sº as as ºm sº º ºs º me ºn tº gº º tº as ºr es Daily yield in 1889 of 500,000 gallons. C # * $ i : § ARTESIAN AND UNDERFLOW INVESTIGATION. IFINAL REPORT OF THE CHIEF ENGINEER, EDWIN S. NETTLETON, C, E, TO TEIE SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE, WITEI ACCOMPANYING MAPS, PROFILES, DIAGIRAMS, AND ADDITIONAL PAPERS. Senate Executive Document No. 41, Fifty-Second Congress, First Session. IN F O U R PARTS. P A R T II. WASHINGTON: GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE, 1893. TABLE of con TENTs. Pages Letter of submittal.--------------------------------------------------------- 5 Introduction.--------------------------------------------------------------- 7–9 The Pecos Valley; (a) Pecos Valley subterranean waters... ----...-----...----... 11, 19 Underground water surveys; report of W. W. Follett, assistant engineer; (a) Cheyenne line; (b) Sterling line; (c) Frenchman line; (d) Big Springs line; (e) North Platte line; (f). Lexington line; (g) Loup line; (h) Grand Island line; (i) Garden City line; (j) Dodge City line; (k) Great Bend line----------------------------------------------------. 19–20 Norton, Kans., or the one-hundredth meridian line . .----. -----...----..... Underflow and irrigation problems within Kansas and Nebraska.------------. 30–34 Movement of the underflow in river valleys. -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -----. 34–38 Raising water by mechanical means ----------------------------------------- 38–40 Artesian Wells—data of.----------------------------------------------------- 40–74 Tabulation of artesian well data. -------------------------------------------- 74 Source of supply of the Dakota Artesian Basin. (a) Geological report from O. C. Mortson on section of Montana. . .--------------------------------. 78–83 Artesian well facts and theories --------------------------------------------- 84–87 Red River (North Dakota) wells; (a) Follett's report on Red River Valley Artesian Basin ----------------------------------------------- ----.. 87-95 Artesian basin at Miles City, Mont ------------------------------------------ 95–97 Yellowstone subterranean water and irrigation - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -97–100 Springs at the foot of the eastern slope of the Missouri coteaux. -------...----. 100 The Tiffany Underflow Basin. Report by Mr. Follett .----...----...-- - - - - - - - -. 100 Devils Lake and its connection with the Cheyenne River. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -. 100–103 The underflow from Turtle Mountains ---------------------------...----. ---. 103–105 St. Marys River, north Montana. Its diversion from Canadian territory..... 105–107 Climatic condition of the Great Plains. --------------------...--------------. 107–108 Artesian well irrigation and experimental work. -----------...----...-----.... 108–113 Artesian Wells data -------------------------------------------------------. 113–115 Artesian legislation ----------------------------------------------** - - - - - - - - - 115–117 TABLES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. Tabulation of artesian Wells data ------------------------------------------- 74 Geological map of portion of Montana, showing imbibition of rocks ......... 78 Appendices I to XXIII, being profiles and maps, and appendix XXV, in four parts, being record of wells examined on the various underflow lines, are placed at end of IPart II. Appendix XXIV is included in tabulation of artesian wells data. LETTER OF SUBMITTAL. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, ARTESIAN AND UNDERFLOW INVESTIGATION, Washington, D. C., December 24, 1891. SIR: I have the honor to submit herewith the maps, profiles, and final report of the Chief Engineer, in compliance with the instructions of the Secretary, dated October 16, 1890. Very respectfully, E. S. NETTLETON, Chief Engineer. To SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE. INTRODUCTION. ARTESIAN AND UNDERFLOW INVESTIGATION, -- Washington, D. C., December 24, 1891. SIR: In compliance with your letter of instructions, dated October 16, 1890, I left for the field of investigation on the 19th of the same month. As the time for making the investigation and report was then limited to the 30th day of June, 1891, it was considered advisable not to undertake any fieldwork in the northern portion of the country, as the season was so far advanced, but postpone it until spring. Active work was begun first in Nebraska and Kansas. - Maj. Fred. F. B. Coffin, then State engineer of South Dakota, who had been employed early in the season by the Department as agent to col- lect data concerning the artesian wells in the northern portion of South Dakota, was again employed as engineer to assist in the same line of inquiry. The work in the entire State was assigned to him. He was instructed to continue this inquiry so long as he could do so profitably. The inquiry was continued up to the 1st of January, mainly by means of correspondence. g & - Mr. W. W. Follett, formerly an engineer in the employ of the U. S. Geological Survey, was appointed assistant engineer November 1, and was immediately assigned to the work of making surveys of the Arkansas and Platte River Valley underflow waters, which was con- tinued nearly to the close of December, when the weather, became so §. as to prevent carrying on the field work any further, except in the outh. The month of January was spent in working up the notes and mak- ing maps and profiles and a progress report of the Work performed up to this time. Before going south a trip was made to Wyoming to con- fer with the State engineer and others regarding the line of investiga- tion to be made in that State early in the Spring. . On January 31 Assistant Engineer Follett and myself left Denver for New Mexico and western Texas, mainly for the purpose of making an examination of the Lanoria mesa in Texas and the Pecos Valley in southeastern New Mexico. The month of February was spent in this work. Early in March I was advised that Congress had extended the time from July 1, 1891, to January 1, 1892, for completing the inves- tigation and making the final reports. -- This change necessitated a revision of the former plans, which had contemplated putting on a larger force, and to begin work in the Dako- tas and Wyoming as early as the weather would admit in the spring. In view of the extension of time six months it was discovered that the allotment for the expenses of the engineering work would not admit of increasing the force thereof if the investigation was to be continued that long. - * 7 8 IRRIGATION. After a conference with the chief geologist regarding the amount and nature of the work to be done thereafter, it was thought best to so divide the work of the two branches as to distribute it as uniformly as was practicable to do over the whole section included in the terms of the act designating the area to be investigated. As the geologist had arranged to spend nearly the quota of the time naturally belonging to the different States in Texas, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, and Wyo- ming, I decided to shorten the time that I intended to devote in the engineering investigation in these States. This would give my division more time to work in the Dakotas, where there appeared to be a neces- sity for an investigation of an engineering character that required im- mediate attention. - In view of this arrangement Mr. Follett was instructed to improve the first opportunity of favorable weather to make an examination of the underground waters along the base of the foothills from Cheyenne to Laramie City, Wyo. There appeared to be a necessity for making additional surveys of the underflow in the valley of the South Platte, the drainage valleys of the tributaries of the Republican River, and also across the valley of the Loup River these surveys were accordingly made, the latter at the request of the geologist. Early in May active work was begun in the Dakotas, and was con- tinued in these States and Montana until the last of September, when the fieldwork was practically closed. Maj. Coffin took up his work again on the 15th day of March, and continued until the 1st of July. The engineering investigations have been carried on with two assist. ants, one constantly employed and the other five and a half months, and a rodman employed from time to time, amounting in all to about eleven weeks. * * The time being so limited and covering so extensive a field of inquiry has entailed a great deal of labor in getting over so large an area, and has therefore greatly increased the percentage of time spent in travel- ing as compared with the net time for the work in hand. I find my own mileage has been 22,580 miles traveled by rail and 1,108 miles by wagon and on horseback. The distance traveled by Assistant Engineer Follett has been about the same number of miles, but with a larger per- centage in wagon and on horseback. I have found it necessary to make some changes in my progress re- port; also to add considerable matter to the final report of the same nature which is so connected with the progress report as to require re- peating many portions of it. The profiles of the surveyed lines of the Arkansas and Platte Valley underflow waters are again submitted. All the profiles of the former report have been redrawn and are now in proper form to be lithographed, with important data added pre- viously omitted. I have gone into considerable detail concerning the deep artesian wells in the Dakota artesian basin, and have included some of the most important ones that have been drilled within the past twelve months, in addition to several that were not. noticed in the former report. I have also included many of those that were examined last year, but not fully reported on. The inquiry relating to the artesian wells has been made more comprehensive in the recent investigation than last year. We found at the beginning of the present inquiry that there had been several important changes in the flow and pressure of many of BENEFITs DERIVED FROM THIS INVESTIGATION. 9 the Wells that were examined a year ago, and to account for these changes we found it necessary to make particular inquiries regarding the flow to the surface. This information has been obtained, so far as possible, from the contractors or the parties who did the work. It is hoped that the detailed reports of this work will not be considered out of place. The questions concerning the relative depth of the different strata and veins of water, the seating of the casing in suitable rock, the methods used to make perfect joints between the strings of differ- ent sized casing, and the best methods of preventing clogging up of Wells are very important matters in the future development of the ar- tesian basin. Probably no portion of the engineering investigation has been so productive of results that have been of so much immediate benefit to the country as those carried on in the Dakotas for directing and in- structing the people in the proper methods of utilizing the water from their artesian wells. The little time and mdney spent in this line of work has, without doubt, been many times repaid by the value of the increased yield of the crops this season by aid of irrigation. The statement is made by men who are in a position to know, that the encouragement the people of South Dakota have received during the past two seasons from the interest the General Government is tak- ing in their behalf has been the means of increasing the acreage of wheat alone, the value of which exceeds many times the whole amount appropriated to carry on the artesian underflow investigation. Our own observations verify this statement. I desire to acknowledge the many favors and valuable assistance rendered this branch of the investigation by the people upon whom we have had to depend largely for much of the data embraced in this re- port; also the valuable aid of my assistants and especially to W. W. Follett for his efficient services and untiring energy from the beginning to the close of the investigation. ARTESIAN AND UNDERFLOW INVESTIGATION. PECOS VALLEY. The investigation of questions pertaining to subterranean waters has been the chief work of the engineering branch of the artesian and un- derflow investigation, and this report will be confined mainly to pre- Senting and discussing such questions as are required by the first clause of the act under which this investigation is carried on. To the former artesian well inquiry has been added that of investi- gating the underflow, which has greatly enlarged the scope of this work, and has made it necessary, in some instances, to travel over the same ground in our investigations, but where it has been practicable to do so we have avoided this in the engineering branch, and have taken new fields. It was intended to make an examination of the Lenoria Mesa subter- ranean Water supply, but I found that Mr. Hill, assistant geologist, had made a geological examination of it and the country around for the people of El Paso the year before, who were investigating the possibil- ity of obtaining an artesian water supply for the city and water for the irrigation of the fine body of land on the above-named mesa. The re- Sult of his investigation will doubtless appear in the report of the geol- ogist. - -- THE PECOS WALLEY SUBTERRA NEAN WATERS. The accompanying sketch map (Appendix No. 14) shows the location of the Pecos River and its tributaries in Chavez and Eddy counties, formerly the eastern portion of Lincoln County. The Pecos River heads in a low range of mountains near Santa Fe. It affords little water for irrigation along its course until it is joined by the Rio Hondo, excepting in early spring and in the rainy season in the fall. . From Roswell to Black River, a distance of 100 miles, the Pecos River is reinforced by numerous and constantly-flowing springs, whose total volume is nearly 1,000 cubic feet per second. Referring to the map, it will be observed that the drainage channels of the Pecos are on the west side of the stream. Black River, Rio Penasco, and the Rio Hondo are the only tributaries that ordinarily carry water in sight into the main river. The waters of the other tributaries usually sink before reaching the Pecos. The mountains in which the principal tributaries of the Pecos head are covered with timber, except the Guadaloupe. The Sierra Blanca Range is the highest, and is generally covered with snow from the middle of November until May or June. This range reaches an altitude of nearly 12,000 feet above sea level, the top of the highest peak being 11 12 * IRRIGATION. above timber line. The Capitan and Sacramentos are about 9,000 feet above sea level, and the Guadaloupe about 7,000. The waters flowing from the western slope of these mountains all sink soon after passing out of the foothills. There are evidences of an ancient river, with here and there remains of irrigation works on the West side of these moun- tains. This lost river seems to have at Some time carried quite a vol- ume of water. Its course was southerly through a valley lying between these mountains and the San Andreas Range 50 miles Westward. There are no running surface streams in this valley, although there is con- siderable water flowing towards it. This valley extends south to the Rio Grande; the south end is near El Paso, and is called the Lanoria Mesa. Prof. Hill will present the facts and theories concerning the subterranean waters in this valley and mesa in his report. The whole country between the Pecos River and the mountains to the west is underlaid with limestone; in fact the mountains themselves are in the main of limestone formation. Under the limestone lies a con- “glomerate composed of gravel and bowlders embedded in a matrix of lime and sand which closely resembles a coarse mortar or concrete. It ‘is in this conglomerate the springs are found, sometimes at the con- tact with the limestone, but generally some distance below. The lime- :Stone strata of the country are mostly inclined to the east and toward the river, though in some localities they are turned up at such angles, as to present excellent opportunities for rapidly conducting water through subterranean passages to the conglomerate. Black River, as it is called, is nothing but a storm-water channel into which four springs discharge. All the water from these springs would soon sink and be lost in the gravel and bowlder bed of the chan- nel if it was not taken out by irrigation ditches. Three of these springs discharge 5 cubic feet per second each. Blue Spring, the lowest one down on the stream, has a discharge of 17 cubic feet per second. Three thousand acres are reported to be irrigated from this supply. The water of the Blue Spring comes out at the bottom of a ledge of con- glomerate. The hills on each side are some 100 feet high, and are of the same formation. In my judgment the Black River springs are nothing but the reappearance of water that runs off the Guadaloupe Mountains, which sinks into the débris at the foot of the cañon and is carried along the conglomerate for many miles, where it again appears at the surface in springs of clear but very hard water. The largest single spring we saw was in the vicinity of Roswell. Here are four springs which break out on the prairie, each of which has a small river of water running from it. The rivers formed by these springs are the North and South Spring rivers, and the North and South Berendos, all of which join the Rio Hondo just before it enters the Pecos. The spring forming the North Spring River is the largest of this group; its volume is about 105 cubic feet per second, measured 2 miles below its source. The water of all these springs comes from the conglomerate and is undoubtedly the reappearance of water that has found its way into the limestone formation that occupies the country to the west towards the Capitan Mountains. The upper Rio Hondo is formed by two mountain streams, the Rio Ruidosa and Rio Bonito. There is considerable irrigation carried on on these streams and on the Hondo, a short distance below the junction. The amount of land that is irrigated from these streams seems to be adjusted to the volume of water at its minimum stage. The water in this part of the Hondo rapidly diminishes in volume as it leaves the Amountains, until it is lost entirely before getting out of the foothills. SURFACE AND SUBTERRANEAN SUPPLIES. 13 The melting snows in the mountains and sudden and heavy rainfall often sends quite a large amount of water through the whole length of the Hondo to the Pecos. A reservoir company has been organized to build a series of storage reservoirs 12 miles above Roswell for the purpose of storing the early spring and storm waters. The plan of this company is to construct two dams across the valley of the Hondo at suitable places; one 50 feet, the other 80 feet in height. The holding capacity of these reservoirs is estimated to be 138,720 acre feet. The area covered by the proposed reservoirs is 5,594 acres. The cost of the whole work, including dams, wasteways, and 12 miles of canal, is estimated to be $232,630. In the valley below the reservoirs is a large body of fine land which it is pro- posed to reclaim; without water, is almost worthless. The Rio Feliz is a stream that heads in the foothills and has consid- erable constantly running water in its upper part which comes from Springs, but as is the case in all this part of the country where the channel is in limestone, it soon loses itself and does not appear again except in a few places, and then only in sufficient amount for stock pur- poses. The last stream visited, the Rio Penasco, presents an interesting in- stance of what has been done, unintentionally in part, to prevent the water from sinking and losing itself in the soil and limestone of its channel. Here is a stream which heads in the timbered mountains of the Sacramentos, bringing down from them at all seasons of the year not less than 150 to 200 cubic feet of water per second, which formerly disappeared before it had hardly left the mountains. Along its chan- nel in the foothills, and on the plains, water formerly only stood in pools, and no water, excepting flood and storm waters, apparently ever reached the Pecos. Now, it is a running stream its entire length, even after considerable of it has been used for irrigation. The cause of this is accounted for in two ways. One is by the result of a successful attempt to carry the water some 10 miles or more in a new channel, over a sec- tion where it formerly all disappeared, the other by the continual tramping of the bottom of the channel by thousands of cattle that go daily to the streams for water. I am informed that years ago dur- ing the summer time the Penasco would all sink just below the town of Upper Penasco. Some farmers owning land about 13 miles below the town, desiring to obtain water for summer irrigation, conceived the idea of making a new channel, and, where necessary, to improve the old one, hoping to get a sufficient amount of water down the channel for irrigation through the entire season. An attempt was made a year or so afterwards which proyed successful, having not only enough to sup- ply themselves but a surplus, which has been appropriated by others, and a lawsuit has come up in connection, and the courts have been ap- plied to to settle the rights to the use and ownership of this surplus. water. There seems to be good reasons for believing that the tramp- ing of the earth and the gravel bed of the stream has packed and pud- dled it so as to prevent loss by infiltration. Within the past few years large numbers of cattle have found their way into the Penasco country. It is estimated that 12,000 to 15,000 head of cattle go daily to the Pe- nasco for water. In warm weather these cattle go into the stream and stand there for hours tramping about. The volume of water has in- creased so much in the lower Penasco that within the last two years a number of settlers have located there, and have taken up several thous- and acres of land, and are now building irrigation canals. Besides the springs that we visited, there are hundreds of others 14 * & IRRIGATION. scattered over the country; to examine and make note of them all would require more time than was at our disposal. - The flow of the Pecos River at Eddy is 1,000 cubic feet per second of spring water; the greater part of this comes into the river below its surface, and the springs are not discernible on that account. The Pecos Valley Irrigation Company has recently built a dam across the Pecos 7 miles above Eddy. This dam is 45 feet high, and sets the water back in the stream about 7 miles. While I was there the gates of the dam were closed and the water held back for several days, which gave a good opportunity for seeing the bottom of the river. The dam was per- fectly tight, no water passing it. Seven miles below I measured over 300 cubic feet of water per second that had come into the channel below the dam from the springs in the bottom and along its sides. Wherever rock could be seen in this part of the river it was conglomerate. In addition to the springs in the Pecos country, there are numerous pools of fresh water. Some of them are on the table-lands above any water course or storm-water channel. Some of these pools are but a few feet in diameter, others frequently cover a few acres; the water in them is cool and fresh, generally containing a great deal of lime and gypsum. The water in many of them has the appearance of being very deep; the surface of the water in these pools is usually a few feet below the surface of the ground. These small and deep pools are called “China holes” by the people, from their supposed great depth. At Roswell we were informed of the existence of several small bottomless pools, which lie on the east side of the Pecos, about 12 miles south- easterly from Roswell. An examination of several of these pools and small lakes was made, but, unlike those seen on the flat prairie, these were at the foot of a ledge of gypsum rock about 125 feet high. The Surroundings of some of these pools resemble an immense circular ex- cavation from 200 to 300 feet in diameter, cut down through the perpen. dicular face of the ledge to the bottom and extending into the water, and extending back into the ledge about one-half to three-quarters the diameter of the circle, resembling an immense well 300 feet in diameter, cut down through the ledge, and so near its face as to leave no wall on one-third of its periphery. The walls seem to extend nearly perpen- dicularly into the water. The water is very clear and transparent; the rock sides can be plainly seen a considerable distance below the surface. There is a dark hue to the water, giving it the appearance of great depth. The largest of these pools covers about 80 acres; two others are somewhat smaller in extent. These larger pools lie at the foot of the ledge, but not in a recess like the smaller ones. There is only a small amount of water flowing from any of these pools, that which does escape contains gypsum and lime in large quantities which has been precipitated by evaporation until it has built up large mounds or banks of earthy material which slope gradually from the edge of the pools. There are millions of cubic yards of material in these deposits. It is the opinion of the people who live in that vicinity that these pools are connected with each other and with a subterranean body of water by underground passages, which are large enough to allow large fish to pass from one to the other and to Some other place for the winter. It is reported that in summer time they all contain fish (bass), but in the winter none are to be found. Our examination of these pools or lakes, as they are commonly called, show that no two of them are on the same level, in fact some of them differ as much as 60 feet in elevation; consequently they can not be connected by underground passages, as supposed, nor is it probable that they are *...* Pools AND WELLs IN souTHEAST NEW MExico. 15 connected with any large underground lake, from the fact that when the rim of these pools have been cut down (as two or three of them have been, 3 or 4 feet) the water discharged was just simply that due to what was in the pool above the bottom of the opening, nor does any more water flow from the opening than before the surface was lowered. The depth of these pools as determined by us was a surprise to the people as well as to ourselves, for they all looked very deep. We had been told that cowboys had tied four picket ropes together and failed to find bottom, and also that a Dr. Alexander had sounded one of these pools with two spools of thread tied together (400 yards) and failed to reach bottom. Providing ourselves with a 4-pound lead sinker and 1,500 feet of line, we made a sounding off the edge of what appeared to be a projecting rock in one of these pools (the place where the cowboys had sounded with four ropes); we found only 48 feet of water at this place. The two most northerly pools were sounded by us all over the bottom in a boat obtained at Dr. Alexander's place. Mrs. Alexander told us of the doctor's sounding one of them with two spools of thread, and said the other had been sounded without findirig any bottom. We found the greatest depth of these two pools to be respectively 34 and 16 feet. On the bottom of each was found a thick growth of dark green moss; this was what gave the water the appearance of being so deep. I think it quite probable that some of the pools were deeper than those we sounded, but I doubt if any of them exceed 90 feet. These pools and the China holes found on the dry prairie present interesting sub- jects for the study of the effect that water has in dissolving and disinte- grating gypsum and lime rocks. Some of these China holes are of recent formation. Cattlemen who have been riding over the country report that some of them have been formed during the past twenty years. They first appear as a fissure or crack in the surface of the ground and gradually cave in and widen until cattle can get down into them for Water. The Mescalero ridge was visited at a point east of Eddy. At this place it is about 160 feet high and 800 feet above the Pecos River; this ridge is about 150 miles long and marks very distinctly the western boundary of the Llano Estacado or the great Staked Plains of western Texas. At the point visited the ridge is composed of limestone, which rises to the north, and to the south it gradually disappears until noth- ing is seen of it at the Texas line. Immediately at the top of the ridge begins the great plains, which slope very gradually to the east. It is reported that water can be found on the surface in places on these plains and in wells ranging from a few feet in depth to 80 or 90 feet. The country between the base of the ridge and the Pecos slopes gently to the west until near the river, where another ridge appears in places, but not so well defined nor as high as the Mescalero. The second ridge is composed of limestone and gypsum. Some portions of it is solid gypsum with streaks of red clay between the strata. The country be- tween these ridges is occupied as a grazing country. Water is found only by digging. The Eddy-Bissell Cattle Company have two rows of wells about 12 miles apart, and an abundance of water is found in places 16 feet below the surface in gypsum rock. A single well fur- nishes water for 4,000 head of cattle. Along the base of the Mescalero Ridge is a deep deposit of sand, gypsum, and lime, about 10 miles in width on which little vegetation grows; this is an accumulation of ma- terial brought there and deposited by the action of the wind. Consid- ering the presence of so large an extent of sand and the absence of any running or permanent water on the surface, this strip of country can be occupied only for grazing purposes. IRRIGATION. ' - - * * * S. - e - - * * - “. . .” - - - - , . ~. *- * * - f * } * * - ** - No attempt has been made in this part of the Pecos Walley to find artesian water, except within the last few months. Last fall a well was put down at Roswell; they found flowing water there at a depth of 207 feet in a drift formation mostly clay ; the water comes from a thin stratum of sand. The water is Soft and has a pressure at the top of the well of only 24 pounds per square inch. The pipe is 14 inches in diameter, and discharges 14 gallons per minute. Although the flow is small, the well is a great boon to the town, as it affords the only good water for domestic use in that section of the country. A mistake was . made in casing the well; had it been done properly the flow would have been much greater. Other wells are going down in that vicinity, and better results may well be anticipated. We are lately informed that a number of wells have been put down at Roswell which have the same general characteristics as the one described, although many of them have a much stronger pressure. The Hagerman artesian well is located on a high bluff just across the river, opposite the town of Eddy. The contractor went down 600 feet, which was the limit of his machine, and struck plenty of water, but none that would flow. It is intended to extend this well to at least 1,500 feet with the hope of striking a good flow of artesian water. Another bore has been commenced on the west side of the river, in the center of the Eddy Park, with reasonable prospects of obtaining flowing water. The Hagerman well shows the following strata up to September 11, 1891: . - Feet Solid rock, limestone---------------------------------------------------------- 5 Conglomerate bowlders (concrete) ------------------...------------------------. 145 Red clay---------------------------------------------------------------------- 3 Hard limestone --------------------------------------------------------------- 6 Red clay -------------------------------------------------------------------- 20 Alternate stratas of gypsum, clay, and hard shaly rock that looked and smelled like granulated cemented oyster shells, layers about 15 feet in thickness. - - - - - 300 Mixture of gypsum, alum, and salt -------------------------------------------. 75 Gypsum, oyster shells, and salt ------------------------------------------------ 46 Total.------------------------------------------------------------------ 600 The company well at South Roswell, New Mexico, has the following report of strata: Feet; Soil and top dirt -------------------------------------------------------------. Limestone chalky formation.------------------------------. ----. * - s tº º e º 'º - - - e º a 22 Blue and yellow clay--------------------------------------------------------- 50 Lime rock, fine grained ---------------------------------------- --------------- 10 Sand rock with pebbles ------ ------------------------------------------------ 25 Red clay with grit -------------------------------------------------, ---------- 50 Lime rock, porous------------------------------------------------------------ 22 Sand rock -------------------------------------------------------------------- 4 Clay and gravel, mixed -----------. ------------- - * * * --------------- 100 Lime rock with holes and crevices-----------. -------...----------------------. 42 Total.--------------------------------------------------------------------- 329 There is plenty of water in this last well near to the top, but no flow as yet. The following artesian wells are in operation at Roswell: Jaffa & Praga: Depth, 207 feet; 13-inch pipe; flow, 24 gallons per minute. Main Street : Depth, 165 feet; 13-inch pipe; flow, yery slight. S. Truxton: Depth, 156 feet; 14-inch pipe; flow, 33 gallons per minute. J. C. Lea: Depth, 165 feet; 3-inch pipe; flow, not definitely taken. Cosgrove: Depth, 185 feet; 14-inch pipe; flow, one-half gallon per second. Flowing water was also struck at Mr. Barrett's, but upon withdrawing bit the well caved and was abandoned. THE LIMESTONE STRATA AND PHREATIC waters. 17 I have herein noted what appears to be the most prominent features of this part of the country pertaining to this investigation. There now seems to remain a necessity for a brief discussion of the question of the probabilities of an artesian and underflow, and the utilization of these subterranean waters. The area included in the drainage into the Pecos River from the west, including that of the Rio Hondo and that of the other tributaries to the south as far as the Texas line, is about 7,000 square miles. The average annual rainfall on this section is probably in the neighborhood of 12% inches. I estimate that this portion of the Pecos River receives 1,000 cubic feet of water per second from springs underflows, and an average of 500 cubic feet per second from surface water that flows off the 7,000 square miles of drainage area. These estimates being correct, we have a run-off in the Pecos River of 23 per cent of all the water falling on the watershed; that is, the an- nuial discharge of the Pecos at the rate of 1,500 cubic feet per second would cover 7,000 square miles 2.9 inches deep, against 12% inches by the rainfall. Here is a loss of 77 per cent. Part of it is due to evapora- tion which passes into the air, and the remainder going into plant growth and into the earth. The percentage of run-off in the Pecos Valley is considerable less than in Massachusetts and several other places where observations have been made. It is to be inferred then that the percentage not accounted for here exceeds the average. This being true, we then must have an underground flow greater than the average to carry away a portion of the 77 per cent of the quantity un- accounted for. On account of the great amount of water that escapes in springs at the bottom of the limestone, I hardly think it possible to find artesian water with great pressure in the neighborhood of these springs, es- pecially in the limestone; it may be found in the conglomerate. The drill only can settle this question. The nearest borings that have been made in this part of the country are on the Texas and Pacific Railroad at Pecos City and Toyah, some 80 or 90 miles south. At Pecos City and vicinity there are sixteen flowing artesian wells; the largest flow is reported to be 60 gallons per minute. The wells are from 150 to 250 feet deep in the drift, some of them just reaching the conglomerate. There are two flowing wells at Toyah. The details concerning these wells and others in the same wi- cinity are given by Mr. Roesler in his report published in Ex. Doc. No. 222, Fifty-first Congress, first session (see pages 293–297). I doubt if water in sufficient quantities will be found in the conglom- erate for irrigarion purposes; it may be in the limestone, when it is con- fined to give it the requisite pressure. It does not seem advisable to employ expensive methods for inter- cepting the underground flow when solarge a percentage of the water that sinks in the mountains and foothills reappears again and can be used for irrigation. The water should be used before it sinks when it can be done so to advantage, otherwise after it comes to the surface in the lower valleys. There are many excellent opportunities for storing flood and storm waters which can be done at a reasonable expense. The only question regarding the storage of water here is the possibility of a large loss by infiltration into the lime rock, which is almost everywhere present, and very near the surface in most places where reservoir sites are to be found. S. Ex. 41, pt. 2—2 18 IRRIGATION. The amount of agricultural land in the Pecos Valley that is capable of being reclaimed by irrigation greatly exceeds the water supply even if it was all saved. Owing to the fine climate permitting the raising of nearly all of the products that can be grown in a semi-tropical climate, including the fruits (excepting the citrus) and the large and constant water supply, the Pecos Valley will be the largest and one of the richest, if not the richest, and best cultivated valley in New Mexico. The irrigable lands are being rapidly taken up and occupied by English-speaking people, a large percentage of whom are from the Northern and Eastern States. While in Santa Fe we found the Territorial legislature in ses- sion, which afforded an opportunity to obtain information from parts of the Territory that could not be visited. It seems to be the general opinion that the people of New Mexico are too poor to do much more than they have already done to develop the agricultural resources of the country by means of irrigation. Thus far, with a very few excep- tions, irrigation in this Territory has been confined to lands lying close to the streams which have required no great expenditure of labor, money, or engineering skill to construct their irrigation Works. Irrigation developments in the Territory would now seem to run along the lines of larger enterprises backed with a considerable amount of capital, which latter must of course come from outside New Mexico itself. Some doubts of the wisdom of this may properly be expressed here. Already a number of such projects have been designed. Two are now under way and to be ready for irrigation in the spring of 1892. Two other enterprises have recently been completed and are now in successful operation, for irrigation purposes. There are grave reasons for expressing a doubt as to the returns on capital required and also as to a sufficient water supply, without the aid of large storage reservoirs, in considering some of the pending projects designed for New Mexican irrigation. The agricultural lands lying above the valley of the Rio Grande, are of fine character, but the expenditure at present of large sums for the construction of the expensive high line canals that would be necessary to effect their reclamation does not seem to be desirable. Of some plans for bringing the mesa under irrigation, it may well be questioned if a proper water supply can be obtained. It is estimated that there is a sufficient amount of good agricultural land lying in the immediate valley of the Rio Grande to consume all of the water of that stream even if its flood and storm waters were stored in reservoirs and retained for use during times of low water. In making the suggestion that it would be more economical, and in the natural order of things to utilize the water to serve the lower lands first, the reply is, that the larger the enterprise, and the more money involved in its development, the easier it is to secure the money from abroad ; besides, the speculation in lands obtained from the Govern- ment in various ways has a charm for the investor. The lands in the valleys are mostly taken up, or are grant lands; so at present there is little attention being paid to the more simple and inexpensive methods for extending irrigation in New Mexico, and yet, in that direction, there is much progress to be made. The necessity of utilization of subterranean waters for irrigation is not attracting any special attention here. Since our first investigation several flowing artesian wells have been struck in the Territory; two near Springer, the others at Roswell. They all have very small flows; not sufficient for irrigation to any extent. The Springer wells have quite a pressure when confined; the exact How UNDERGROUND SUPPLIES ARE LOCATED. 19 pressure has not been determined. It has been reported that it was sufficient to raise the weight of two men on a three-inch pipe, which will probably be 40 or 50 pounds per square inch. The particulars con- cerning the Roswell wells are already noticed in this report. UNDERGROUND water surveys. We have made with considerable detail an investigation of the ex- tent and availability of the underflow in a few localities in Nebraska, Ransas, Colorado, and Wyoming. The valleys of the Platte and Ar- kansas rivers were selected as affording the best opportunity for study- ing the relation between the surface and underground waters as they exist in these valleys and the higher country on each side. The plan adopted in making this form of investigation was to deter- mine the elevation of the surface of the underground water on lines each side of the river channel. These lines were extended back from the streams far enough in most instances to reach the table lands, or extending from 15 to 40 miles each side, nearly at right angles to the stream. The elevations of the surface of the country and the water table underlying it were obtained by leveling over these lines, and wherever wells or bores had been sunk to water, the depth from the surface was either measured or obtained from people residing in the vicinity of the surveys. Eight of these lines were surveyed in the valleys of the Platte and Arkansas rivers; five in the Platte and three in the Arkansas. A simi- lar line was run across the valleys of the Loup rivers, which is an ex- tension in a northeasterly direction of the Lexington line. This line was surveyed at the request of Assistant Geologist Hicks, for the pur- pose of assisting him in his geological work in that section. A line from Sterling east and connecting with the Big Spring line was also surveyed. This survey was made to determine the question of the continuity of the so-called sheet water between the South Platte and the Frenchman, a branch of the Republican River. The line was also surveyed in Wyoming, paralleling the foothills between Cheyenne and Fort Laramie. The object of this survey was to determine whether or not a continuous supply of subterranean water can be found under a rolling country, which is here and there crossed by small drainage channels that carry more or less water in their upper section during the entire year. * The following report of Assistant Engineer Follett, with accompany- ing profiles, in the several appendices, give the details of these sur- veys, which affords an opportunity for studying the subject of the underflow waters in the Great Plains regions. WASHINGTON, D. C., December 15, 1891. DEAR SIR: I hand you here with eleven tracings showing a plat and profile of as many lines run by us last winter and spring across the drainage of the Platte and Ar- kansas rivers. I also hand you a sketch map showing the location of these lines. Reference to it will show that one line was run in Wyoming, two in Colorado, five in Nebraska, and three in Kansas. The line also shows the location of a barometric line run by you from Norton to Dodge City, Kans, The purpose of these lines was to study the so-called “underflow” theory. This theory is: That a large portion of the Great Plains is underlaid by a stratum of water- bearing sand and gravel continuous with the beds of the main rivers and fed by the water from the mountain drainage which comes down these main streams; that this water-bearing stratum is of great thickness; that its water is practicably inexhaus- 20 IRRIGATION. tible, and could it be brought to the surface would irrigate a large portion of the country overlying it. - With the exception of some remarks relative to the continuity of the water-bearing strata and their source of supply, this report is intended to be simply descriptive, telling you in detail what I found, and leaving to you the deductions. The lines are intended to test the statement that the water-bearing stratum is continuous, and corresponds to the bed of the main streams. They were hurriedly run with the as- sistance of only two men, a driver and a rodman. Distances were obtained by stadia reading, elevations by vertical angles, and direction by compass. I had my rodman mounted, and used a team and driver to transport myself and transit. The profiles represent about 860 miles of line. They were run at an average speed of 20 miles per day of actual instrumental work. All elevations are reduced to sea level, and the levels were checked, whenever possible, by railroad elevations at those stations which the lines reached. Vertical angles leave a rather large margin for possible error, which I found in one or two lines. Where checks were had the error was eliminated, and where not had, the probable error obtained from the work done just before and immediately after was applied. Your instructions to me were to obtain the relative elevation of the ground and of all permanent water crossed, the material in which it was found, and the strata passed through in digging the wells. Also, to obtain particulars as to the cost of wells, the cost and efficiency of the windmills and pumps used, the amount and quality of water obtained from wells, and the use to which it was put. I prepared and used the following blank in gathering the desired information about the wells whose surface elevation was obtained: Well examined by W. W. Follett on — line in —. No. of well —. When examined —. Location, Owner, . Post-office, º When put down, –. Kind of well, -. Size, –. Depth, –. Distance to water, —. Depth of water, —. Amount of water, —. Did water raise when struck? —. Is supply changing? —. Strata passed through, – Quality of water, —. How raised, -. Kind of mill, -. Stroke, –. Cost of well, -. Cost of pump, —. Cost of mill, -. Cost of repairs to mill, -. Maximum amount pumped per day, -. Used for, –. #. of surface, —. Elevation of water, —. Elevation of bottom, -. ©ImarkS, - It was my aim to connect with a well once in 2 miles whenever possible. Where the profiles show an interval between wells longer than this it is because none could be had. On some of the lines where the country was thickly settled, as on the Grand Island and south end of the Lexington lines, I did not attempt to examine all the wells close at hand. In some places there were two every half mile. Two hundred and sixty-four wells were examined and the answers obtained are attached to this report. (See Appendix No. 25.) The plat across the bottom of each profile shows the country the line runs through. The line surveyed is the one having small marks on it at intervals. The squares are sections and are generally a mile square... Whenever possible, wagon roads were fol- lowed. These generally ran on section lines. The profile is projected up from the platted line below. The heavy line with diagonal shading under it represents the surface of the ground, each portion showing the elevation of that point of the sur- veyed line, directly below it on the plat. The spaces between the horizontal lines each represent 50 feet in vertical height, and the number on each alternate line shows its height in feet above sea level. The heavy vertical lines show the wells examined, with the top and bottom at their proper sea-level elevation. By comparing the length of these lines with the dis- tance between the 50-foot horizontal ones, the depth of each well can be estimated. The thickness of the strata passed through are shown by the short horizontal marks on the well lines. The names given the material in these strata are descriptive of their physical form, and do not purport to be their proper geological titles. The horizontal line shading on the profile shows the elevation of the water surface in the wells, pools, or streams crossed. In many of the wells the water supply is artesian in its character, rising above the point where it is struck, although not enough (except in wells 164, 165, and 193) to flow over the surface. In all cases the shading shows the point to which the water rises. In all wells, unless otherwise noted on the profile, the main water supply is found at or near the bottom. These profiles are so platted that the observer is supposed to be standing with his back to the west and to be looking east or down the drainage of the country. As the Frenchman line runs east and down the drainage, it is platted with the west end at the left and the observer is looking north. The following is a detailed description of the several lines run. DESCRIPTIONS OF THE MID-PLAINS PROFILES. 21 CHEYENNE LINE. (See Appendix No. 2.) This line extends from the headwaters of Duck Creek on the Colorado-Wyoming line to the North Platte at Fort Laramie, and is 110 miles long. It crosses Crow Creek at Cheyenne, and then runs northward through a barren region uninhabited except in the valleys of the three or four small streams crossed. South of Cheyenne is a sandy country in which water has been found in reasonable guantity wherever wells have been put down. Two miles south of Cheyenne is a Small artesian well whose water comes from coarse gravel under hard white clay. The flow is but 1% gallons per minute and the pressure is small. Two or three wells in Cheyenne have been put down deep enough to strike this vein, but the ground is so high that the water will not flow. The surface wells in Cheyenne are all artesian in their nature, although not flow- ing. The water of each well varies much in quantity and in height at different sea- sons. The owner of well 194 said that in July or August his well, 33 feet deep, would have about 8 feet of water in it, and could be pumped dry in four or five hours with a common hand pump. In the winter and spring the water would come almost to the top of the well and could not be lowered with the pump. All wells in Cheyenne are said to be of this nature. At well 195, about 5 miles northwest of Cheyenne, on ground 180 feet higher than the city, water is found in gravel 100 feet below the surface. It rises over 50 feet and can be lowered only 10 feet by pumping, although the well tube is but 4 inches in diameter, and 30 gallons per minute have been pumped from it for twenty-four hours or more at a stretch. On leaving Cheyenne the line crosses the divide between the North and South Platte rivers. The country is rugged clay and limestone hills. Water has been reached on the divide in but two places along the line run. The first well (well 196) is in a deep depression where water was found in quicksand 75 feet below the surface. This bed of quicksand was penetrated 120 feet in an effort to get artesian water. The pipe got fast and the hole was abandoned without finding the bottom of the quick- sand. The second well on the divide is about 13 miles south of Lodge Pole Creek, and the water is in sand on a level with the creek, but 45 feet below the water in well 196. On leaving this divide the country falls rapidly to the northward. With the ex- ception of very narrow valleys on the small streams crossed the country is sterile and barren. No attempts have been made for wells except in these valleys close to the channel of the streams, and then water is found in drift on the limestone a few feet below the surface. At Cheyenne plenty of soft water is obtained right in the Creek Valley, but the Union Pacific Railway put down a well at their water tank, which sits upon the clay bluff north of the Creek Valley, some 20 feet above it and 500 or 600 feet distant from the creek, reaching a point over 80 feet below the bed of the stream, and ob- tained but a small quantity of water, so alkaline as to be unfit for use, showing that there is no sheet of water here level with the creek. Down the valley of the creek from Chugwater to Bordeaux water is obtained level with the stream and close to it, but nowhere at any distance from the channel. After leaving the Chugwater at Bordeaux no water of any amount is found until the valley of the Laramie is reached. The well at Eagle Nest (well 201) furnished at its best about 50 gallons per day of water seeping in through sandy clay marl. It has long since been filled up and abandoned. At Fort Laramie the delta of the Laramie and North Platte presents nothing unusual. Water is found in gravel at about the level of the rivers. This line, taken as a whole, is negative in its results, so far as showing the exist- ence of “underflow * is concerned. It is hardly fair, however, to give this line equal weight in the discussion with those farther east, as it lies so far west as to be prac- tically removed from the Great Plains. It is almost in the foothills. STERLING LINE. (See Appendix No. 3.) This line runs from Akron, Colo., northward to Lodge. Pole Creek in Nebraska, strik- ing it about 10 miles west of Sydney. . At Sterling, Colo., it crosses the valley of the South Platte on an angle of about 45 degrees, and is about 75 miles long. Akron is situated on a plateau some 600 feet above the South Platte River at its nearest point. No regular stratum of water-bearing material has yet been reached under this plateau. At Akron a supply of 12,000 gallons per day has been developed from a thin vein of fine sand about 75 feet below the surface by drifting tunnels in 22 IRRIGATION. the fire clay under the sand and topping it at various points. In other wells around Akron water, when found at all, is obtained in thin veins of sand or sandy clay marl. Many dry holes have been put down. Going north from Akron the plateau continues for about 12 miles, gradually fall- ing toward the South Platte. As at Akron water is hard to get when found. It is seep water in soft clay marl, sandy marl, or very thin veins of sand. At 12 miles from Akron sand hills are entered, and they continue until the valley of the river is reached. These hills are probably formed by sand blown up out of the J’latte, and, as is usual in hills so formed, are underlaid at an elevation but little below the lowest depressions by hard material. They are unfit for agriculture and so have but few inhabitants. Water is found in the deepest depressions a few feet below the surface on top of clay or sandy clay. No continuous vein of water can be traced. The supply from the local rainfall is quickly drunk up by the sand, through which it percolates slowly when the grade is steep. North of Sterling a small divide is gone over which furnishes near its summit water in large quantity close to the surface in a little arroyo. The line then crosses Cedar Draw. A well just on the south side of the draw reaches a strong vein of water, artesian in its character, in gravel 40 feet below the bottom of the draw. In the draw itself is a pool of permanent water whose surface is at the same level as that to which the water in the well rose. The general surface of the draw is clay and clay overlays the gravel in the well. It is probable that the pool is supplied from the gravel stratum through a break in the clay. The profile makes it appear that this water is level with the water of the Platte. It is level with it at Sterling, but the º at the mouth of the draw is some 60 or 70 feet lower than the water in this pool. North of Sydney Draw the climb is made up a gradual slope to the top of the divide between the South Platte and Lodge Pole Creek. Water is precarious, but is found in sandy clay or in sand. Some 2 miles east of well 230, down the drainage, is a spring. This is probably the outcropping of the stratum which furnishes the well with its water. Going up the slope north of well 230 water is found in but few places. When found it is in sand in some draw and is either obtained near the surface or in springs. Five miles south of the Colorado-Nebraska line a high plateau is reached which extends north ten miles to Sydney Draw. On this table land water is scarce. But few wells have reached it. Many have been failures. In those in which water was struck it was found in this vein of sand on top of hard clay marl or in sandy clay marl. The supply is small and at no definite distance below the surface. Sydney Draw, a depression some 4 miles wide and 230 feet below the adjacent country, has no surface water in it. At the point crossed by this line it furnishes a good supply of water in clay marl 80 feet below the surface. On its south side the escarpment of the plateau furnishes many weak springs coming out of a deposit of magnesia and cemented gravel about half way up the slope, or 100 feet above the bottom of the draw. - Between Sydney Draw and Lodge Pole Creek is a broken country of clay hills de- void of surface water. No attempts for wells have been made. On Lodge Pole plenty of water is found close to the creek in a gravel stratum level with its bed. Like the Cheyenne line, this one is negative in its results. It lies at about what may be called the northwestern limit of the Great Plaius. The plateau country both north and south of the Platte is so high above the river that a deep hole would prob- ably encounter rock in place far above the river's level. FRENCHMAN LINE. (See Appendix No. 4.) The Frenchman is one of several streams which form the Republican River. This river is what is called a plains stream, that is, one which rises on the plains. It carries no mountain drainage whatever. The upper portion of all its branches are at first merely storm water channels, but at some point in their course water appears in springs and then begins to flow. It is constantly added to until the whole river is formed. The principal branches of the Republican on the north side are, begin- ning at the west, the Frenchman, Stinking Water, Red Willow, Medicine, and Muddy creeks. These all rise on the plains and all gather a good flow in the first few miles below where the springs appear. Twelve miles below its source Medicine Creek carries 30 cubic feet per second minimum flow and I am told that the others carry the same or more. It is generally believed that these plains streams derive their water from the mountains through gravel strata, and it is locally supposed by all that the branches of the Republican on its north side derive their water from the Platte River. The data obtained from the Big Spring and North Platte lines (described further on in PROFILE LINES IN KANSAS AND NEBRASKA. 23. this report) was not such as to settle this question, and so you instructed me to run a line from Sterling, Colo., eastward to the headwaters of Frenchman Creek. This is the Frenchman line, extending from Sterling 65 miles east. Running eastward from Sterling, the first 8 miles after crossing the South Platte was barren sand hills. The eastern edge of these forms the water shed between the Platte and the Frenchman, and is 600 feet above the Platte. East of the sand hills is a rolling prairie country sloping gently to the east. Three miles east of the summit the first well is met. It is 205 feet deep, but the water supply comes from a vein of clay marl at 120 feet. But little water comes from the bottom, although it is on ravel under sandstone. The water supply is small. This is the history of the wells . or the first 12 miles east of the divide, a simall quantity of water seeping in through clay marl or sandstone. Even where gravel is reached, as in the well just cited, no large amount is obtained. The dry storm water channel, which heads directly east of this divide and finally forms the Frenchman, is of coarse gravel. In many places there is water at the bottom of this gravel on the underlying clay, and even within 3 or 4 miles of the summit it is almost permanent, failing in very dry years only. All the way to the east shallow wells into this gravel are found, some of them said to be permanent. None are put on to the profile as they would tend to confusion. Thirty miles east of the divide this water, stopped by a clay reef across the channel, comes to the surface and forms the “Julesburg waterhole.” This has never been known to go dry, although getting low in 1889 and 1890. About 13 miles east of the divide the wells begin to reach an abundant supply of water in sand or gravel under what is locally called “magnesia.” It is seemingly clay strongly charged with lime and mixed with gravel, the whole being more or less solidly cemented together. On the profile I have called it clay marl and magnesia. Well 247 was the first one that the line struck which went to the “sheet water,” as it is locally called. The bottom of this well is 100 feet above the Platte River at Sterling. The wells to the eastward show that the fall of this stratum is about 18 feet to the mile. This same gradient carried westward would throw the vein about 500 feet above the Platte at Sterling. As the fall of the Platte is but 8 feet per mile it is easily seen that there is not much chance of this water coming from it. It is not ad- missible assumption that this vein becomes nearly level west of where it has been topped, in which case the Platte might possibly catch up with it somewhere about Fort Morgan. As shown by the profile its tendency is to increase its gradient to- ward the west rather than to decrèase it. In the neighborhood of Holyoke the regularity of this slope is broken. Well 253 is the one whose water is farthest from the line of regular slope. * At Holyoke the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad has put down a well to a second vein of water underlying this, and artesian in character, rising to about the level of the upper vein. They have pumped 60 gallons perminute foreighteen hours from the 16-inch hole without lowering the water. East of Holyoke the wells all reach this upper vein. The gradient of the stratum flattens to about 10 feet per mile while the surface falls 16 to 18 feet per mile. Fi- nally the two come together in the channel of the Frenchman, 3 miles east of the Col- orado line. Here water begins to flow in the creek. Careful study of this line gives almost absolute conviction that the source of this water is not the Platte, and as the river cuts down far below the westward projec- tion of the water-bearing stratum it can not be from the mountains. The only infer- ence is that the source is local and is the rainfall along near the crest of the divide. BIG SPRING LINE. (See Appendix No. 5.) The Big Spring line runs from the North Platte, 18 miles north of Big Spring, 53 miles south to the headwaters of Frenchman Creek at the east end of the French- man line, crossing the South Platte at Big Spring. The country between the two Plattes is a high table land broken up into ragged bluffs on the north. On the higher portion of the plateau the water supply is derived from a deep-lying gravel stratum under thin rock whose waters are artesian in character. The water in well No. 4 rose about 100 feet above the point where it was struck. It is locally believed that this vein is continuous with the two rivers. Examination of the profile shows this assumption erroneous. The North River is 80 feet lower than the South and the water in well No. 4 rises to a point 160 feet above the North Platte. Near the southern edge of the table land water is found in sand or in sandy clay in good quantity, but not rising very far in the well. Well No. 10 (not shown on the pro- file) lies in the bluffs just north of the South Platte, some 8 miles northeast of Big Spring. A large supply of water, rising 8 feet in the well, was struck in gravel under sandstone. The bottom of this well is a few feet above the Platte. 24 - IRRIGATION. * The big spring at the station of that name comes out of the bluffs some 15 feet above the river. It comes out of or from under cemented gravel, and is probably from the vein supplying well 10. South of Big Spring the country traversed is typical of the Great Plains. The line lies 1 mile east of the Colorado-Nebraska State line and strikes Venango on the Bur- lington railroad. At the northeast corner of Colorado the lines strikes what is known as the State corner spring. There are several other good springs southwest of this one on the same or higher level. It flows about 5 gallons per minute and is 180 feet above the Platte. It comes out of sandy clay in a long sandy arroyo, which furnishes water below the spring within a few feet of the surface. This group of springs is probably fed by local rainfall and has no value in the study of the “sheet water” of the locality. Well 11 is the first one struck by the line south of the Platte Valley. Its water supply comes from a layer of gravel under cemented gravel 25 feet below the level of the Platte, but the water rises over 70 feet in the well. This is typical of the wells in the neighborhood. At Venango well 23 is put down to what is locally called the third vein. As it is overlaid with a thin layer of rock and as its water rises some 40, feet above that of the second vein, it is undoubtedly a separate stratum. The well has been pumped 80 ſºns per minute for one hour without materially lowering the water in the 5-inch Olę. From Venango south the water-bearing stratum rises, its level in well 23 being 3,390 feet above the sea level and the south end of the line (see well 263) 3,492. This elevation of 3,472 is 110 feet above the South Platte at Big Spring and is on the vein which supplies the Frenchman, the water of the latter stream coming to the surface about a mile and a half southeast of well 263. The wells on the south end of this line and on the Frenchman are undoubtedly in the same vein or veins and show that the line of greatest dip of the strata is north of east. NORTH PLATTE LINE. (See Appendix No. 6.) This line runs from the head of the South Loup, 23 miles north of North Platte, 52 miles south to Medicine Creek, 3 miles east of Wellfleet. Owing to détours, the line run was 60 miles long. The Loup rivers and their tributaries are plain streams rising in the eastern part of an extensive sand-hill country northwest of North Platte. At the point where this line strikes the South Loup Valley, water stands in pools and just begins to run. After reaching the table-land south of the Loup, the country is rolling prairie for 10 miles. Then the sand hills are entered and they continue to the Platte Valley. The water in the Loup is 160 feet above that of the Platte. Nearly all the wells examined reach Water not artesian in character in sand or gravelly sand about level with or slightly below the Loup. Wells 47 and 51 go down to a deeper vein and get water from gravel (under clay in 47 and sandstone in 51), which rises to the same level as the upper vein. The town of North Platte lies between the two rivers about 3 miles above their junction. The valley is six miles wide. The channel of the south river is 10 feet above that of the north, and in November, 1890, when this line was run, was dry, the water level being 4 feet below the river bed. This valley is all a deposit of river sand and gravel and, if water moved freely in sand, it would be found on the same level across this valley. Such was not the case. The first water struck on the north side of the valley was in White Horse Creek. Its elevation was 2,788 feet above sea level, but it was crossed three-fourths of a mile east of the crossing of the rivers. The water in the North Platte was at elevation 2,788. That of the water in the wells at North Platte and in the South Platte was 2,792, and in Fremont Slough 2,797, thus showing a difference of level of 9 feet in less than 4 miles square across the drainage. South of North Platte the line strikes a high table-land over 200 feet above the Platte Valley. The soil is sandy, becoming hard, fine sand (loess) at the south end, where deep canoſis are cut into it, with almost vertical sides. Some of them are over 100 feet deep. Water on the plateau is generally found under cemented gravel in fine sand changing to gravel, and, except in 1 or 2 wells, is not artesian in character. Immediately south of the valley, the level of the water-bearing stratum is practically that of the Platte, gradually falling to the south. The south end of the line on Medi- cine Creek is 110 feet lower than the Platte. As stated before Medicine Creek has here a minimum flow of about 30 cubic feet per second. This water comes out of the fine sand near the head of the Creek, and from stratum of cemented gravellower down. The stream is similar to the Frenchman. AcRoss THE CENTER OF WESTERN NEBRASKA. 25 LEXINGTON LINE. (See Appendix No. 7.) This line runs from the South Loup, 30 miles north of Lexington, to Oxford, on the Republican, 38 miles south and 6 miles east of the former place. From the Loup to the edge of the Platte Valley, 8 miles north of Lexington, the country is hilly and sandy. The water in all wells examined in these hills rose in the wells and was found in quicksand, changing to gravel under clay or cemented gravel. The water-bearing stratum at the north end is about 80 feet above the South Loup. There are some springs along the south side of the river coming from this stratum. The Loup is some 10 or 15 feet lower than the Platte at Lexington. At well 63 a hole was put down to a point 100 feet lower than the Platte, but no water was found below the regular vein, which at this place is between 40 and 50 feet above the river. The valley of the Platte falls from its northern edge towards the river about 5 feet to the mile, and the water found in large quantity in sand and gravel near the sur- face falls the same. South of the valley, which is here 15 miles wide, the line runs up onto a plateau whose northern edge is about 150 feet above the river, and for the first 15 miles south it averages up nearly level. It then falls off about 30 feet to the mile to the Republican River. The water does not rise in the wells. Under the level portion of the table land an abundant supply is found in sand or gravel. The stratum at the north end is about level with the Platte and falls to the south 10 feet to the mile for 18 miles. At this point the slope increases to 18 feet to the mile, coming down to the surface of the Republican at Oxford. South of this break in grade, water becomes uncertain and small in quantity where it is found. The sand and gravel stratum ceases and the water comes from sandstone or thin veins of sand and gravel under Sandstone. LOUP LINE. (See Appendix No. 8.) Starting from the north end of the Lexington line, this line runs 55 miles north- east to the North Loup near Burwell, Nebr., crossing in its course the South Loup, Mud Creek, Clear Creek, and the Middle Loup. - The country traversed is all broken and sandy, except at the valleys of the Loups. A large proportion of the inhabitants are foreigners, and the information about wells is not so reliable as that obtained on the other lines. This line runs somewhat east of what would be right angles across the drainage of the country. The North Loup at Burwell is 150 feet lower than the Middle Loup and 250 feet lower than the South Loup at the points where the line crosses them. An examination of the profile will show that the loops all seem to have cut down into and below the water-bearing stratum of the country. Comparing this profile with the north end of the Lexington line, it is seen that the water-bearing stratum immediately south of each Loup is higher than it is north. The stratum falls to the northeast, not rising with the country north of the streams crossed. The water is found in small quantity in sand or gravel under hardpan and is not (except in rare cases) artesian in its character. In the valley of the North Loup a large supply of water is obtained from a gravel stratum, but this stratum is 30 feet above the river and springs are found at its level along the bank. Well 221 shows its water 60 or 70 feet above where one would expect to find it, but the supply is small and probably local. This line was run at the request of the chief geologist. The information obtained is not of much value to the engineering branch of the investigation, as the character of the country is such as to preclude the probability of sheet water and such that it could not be used for irrigation even if present in large quantity. GRAND ISLAND LINE. (See Appendix No. 9.) Starting from St. Paul on the South Loup River this line runs 80 miles south to the Republican, passing through Grand Island and Hastings in its course. The sea level elevations of the streams crossed is as follows: - Feet. * Feet South Loup ---------------------- 1,778 Little Blue. ----------------. ----- 1,780 Platte.----------- tº ºs ºs e º sº tº gº tº e º º sº gº º º 1,878 Republican ---------------------- 1, 630 26 s IRRIGATION. On leaving the valley of the Loup 3 or 4 miles of sand hills 100 feet high above the river are met. The line then enters a valley which is practically the delta of the Loup and Platte. It falls for about 10 miles to the south, where the ground is 70 feet above the Loup and 30 feet below the Platte. . It then rises to the Platte 13 miles farther south. No wells were found in the sand hills. At their southern edge one gets water from a point about 20 feet above the Loup, although a little seep water was had at about the level of the valley to the south. In the wide valley water is found in large quantity in gravel a few feet below the surface, gradually rising as the river is approached. Soon after crossing the Platte the country rises about 70 feet and then slopes to the south an average of 3 feet to the mile. Water is found in several layers of sand and gravel separated by thin layers of clay. That from the lower strata rises, all reach- ing the same level. The north end of this water-bearing stratum is practically level with the Platte and the general fall is to the south, being more than that of the sur- face, or about 5 feet to the mile, and coming to the water of Little Blue Creek. This stream lies 9 miles south of Hastings and about 100 feet below the general surface of the country. At Hastings a prospect bore is being put down. In December, 1890, it had reached a depth of 1,145 feet. At 225 feet below the surface the water-bearing gravel was left and a thin layer of clay gave place to some 35 feet of ocher. Shale was struck at 263 feet and continued to the bottom of the hole. At 1,145 feet the bore was in very fine quartz gravel, each grain perfectly spherical. This is probably water-bear- ing, but is not artesian, at least not enough so to cause flow. South of Little Blue Creek the country is rolling, gradually rising to a summit 12 miles south, where it is about 200 feet above the creek. It then falls off to the Repub- lican, the last 80 feet of fall being a bluff at the river. The water-bearing stratum or strata show no regularity, except in keeping 75 to 100 feet below the general Sur- face. * Just west of the line a small stream (Willow Creek) heads and runs north into the Republican. It carries a small, perennial flow drawn from the gravel in which all the wells find their water. GARDEN CITY LINE. (see Appendix No. 10.) Three lines were run in Kansas across the drainage of the Arkansas. Owing to lack of time three lines, especially the Garden City line, were not run so far back from the river as they would otherwise have been. - The Garden City line extends from Beaver or Ladder Creek, near Scott City, south through Garden City, to an abandoned post-office called Loco, and is 83 miles long. With the exception of the Walley of the Platte and about 6 miles of sand hills south of it, the country is a moderately level prairie. This line is nearly south of the North Platte line in Nebraska. If the latter were projected south it would cross the Republican at McCook, and the Garden City line projected north would cross it at Culbertson. Great regularity is shown in the water- bearing strata of both lines, and both slope to the south, seemingly bearing out the underflow theory of a continuous sheet. The elevations of the water-bearing strata on the two lines and at the Republican are as follows: Feet. Teet. North Platte --------------------- 2,790 | Culbertson --------------...------ 2,550 Medicine Creek------------------- 2,680 | Scott City-----------------...... - 2,920 McCook.-------------------------- 2,490 Garden City ---------------------- 2,825 . From these elevations it is seen that the north end of the Garden City line is 370 feet above the Republican, directly north of it and 240 feet above Medicine Creek at the south end of the North Platte line. . This shows at once the impossibility of a continuous sheet of water. If the Garden City line had been projected north from Ladder Creek it would probably have shown the water-bearing stratum soon pitch- ing northward to the Republican. -- In this connection I wish to quote a few sentences from your progress report of last January, which tersely present the facts shown by the north end of this line. You say : “The sheet water, as shown on the Garden City line, conforms quite well to the theories of the people in that vicinity regarding its extent; but instead of the water- bearing stratum receiving its supply from the river, as heretofore supposed, we find the facts do not justify this theory. The wells on the north side of the river are comparatively quite shallow, and have an abundant supply of water which undoubt- edly comes from the west. It will be observed by an examination of the map of THE UPPER ARKANSAS VALLEY PROFILES." 27 Kansas that the drainage water of the greater portion of the counties of Finney, Scott, Wichita, and Greeley, flows to the east towards this line and sinks in a flat country in Scott and Finney counties. “Near Scott City there is a depression in the county into which a stream discharges itself whose head is in Colorado. During wet seasons considerable water stands in this depression for a short time, but sinks rapidly into the ground, and this water, without question, furnishes the subterranean Water shown on the north end of this profile. . It does not come from the Arkansas River, as the slope is in the wrong direc- tion, it being about 2% feet per mile towards the river. It is more probable that the underflow of the river near Garden City is reinforced from the underground waters coming to it from the northwest.” Wells 178 and 179 are worthy of especial study. These two wells are on a low bench north of the Arkansas River which has been irrigated for three or four years. Since irrigation commenced the water in well 178 has risen 10 feet, and in 1796 feet, and in December, 1890, still remained at the upper level, although no irrigation had been done for some time. The rise is in sand, the bottom of both wells being in gravel. This phenomenon seems to have a direct bearing on that portion of the un- derflow theory which assumes that water moves rapidly through sand and gravel. At well 177 is a reservoir holding about 100,000 gallons. This can be filled in twenty-four hours by the 14-foot Holladay windmill, the lift being only 12 feet. The pump cylinder is 8 inches in diameter and has a 12-inch stroke. The water is used for irrigation. In the summer of 1890, a very dry year, 7 acres of garden were irri- gated from the well by the use of this reservoir. The owner was certain that he was drawing directly from the Arkansas and said that the water in the well varied in height with the river. On examination he found that it had not raised any in the six weeks prior to December 19, 1890, although the river had raised over 2 feet. As the water in the well was then between 4 and 5 feet above that of the river at its near- est point, it is quite likely the rise in the river had not been felt at the well. The first 6 miles south of Garden City is a sand hill country presenting no especial features. Then a prairie country is entered, which gradually rises to Ivanhoe, 14 miles farther south, where the surface is 110 feet above the Arkansas, and then falls about 2 feet per mile to the south end of the line. South of Garden City no check was had on the instrumental work, but it was as- sumed that the same error existed as to the north, and the work was corrected in that way. The corrected levels show the water-bearing stratum, a continuation of that on the north end and falling to the south at about the same rate. If the levels had not been corrected they would have shown it falling about 1 foot per mile more than on the north. With the exception of 173, all the wells strike water not artesian in character found in coarse sand under clay or in loose fine sand. Wells 172 and 173 are only about 800 feet apart. Well 172 reaches a large supply of water in gravel 200 feet below the surface and under 120 feet of fine sand. In well 173, 160 feet from the surface, the fine sand gave place to blue clay, which lasted for 164 feet, and was underlaid by 13 feet of hard blue limestone. The well was first dug for about 180 feet, and then a 2-inch hole was put down. When the drill had passed through the limestone, at a depth of 337 feet below the surface, a strong flow of water quickly came nearly to the top of the drill hole. When the pump was put on, it was found that the pipe was solidly filled with very fine sand. . The well was then dug to 240 feet, the hole being 3 feet square, and another 2-inch hole put down through the limestone. This time the water spouted: out of the drill hole so rapidly that it was with difficulty the iools were gotten out of the well. It rose to the level of the water in 172, and has since remained there, although pumped for town use with a steam pump. The quality of the water in the two wells is the same. The two wells are owned by the town of Santa Fe. As before stated, the water sand still slopes to the south, and it probably comes to the surface at the Cimarron, which lies about 14 miles beyond the south end of the line. DODGE CITY LINE. (See Appendix No. 11.) Starting from Pawnee Fork, this line runs south through Dodge City, Kans. Ten miles south of Dodge the line begins to run to the west and finally ends in the east- ern edge of the Meade County artesian basin, 60 miles south and 16 miles west of its northern end. North of Dodge no well-defined water stratum is found. Many dry holes have been put down. Where water is found it is generally in small quantity. The best wells are in draws or along small streams where the surrounding topography is such as to indicate a supply from local rainfall stored in sand or sandstone. The shales are much nearer the surface here than farther west, cropping on the sides of the deeper 28 - 3º IRRIGATION. drainage channels. They are generally overlaid by cemented gravel, and some springs are found in the gravel, as at Duck Creek and near well 151. - South of Dodge City a large supply of water not rising in the wells is found at about the level of the Arkansas River or a little above it. As the country is high, the wells are deep. The profile seems to show a rise in the water-bearing stratum near the south end, but this is misleading. It is caused by the westing of the line, the water rising to the west nearly as fast as the country. The Meade County artesian basin is of very limited extent. It lies in the immedi- ate valley of Crooked Creek, a stream having a very small perennial flow. The basin is about 12 miles long north and south, and 5 miles wide east and west. In Decem- ber, 1890, there were in this area between 85 and 100 wells flowing an average of about 15 gallons per minute each under a very light pressure. They are all 2-inch wells and vary in depth from 57 feet to 220 feet. This variation is not due to surface elevation nor to location. Wells 400 or 500 feet apart will vary as much as 100 feet in depth and one may flow three to five times as much as the other. The material in which the water is found seems to regulate the amount of flow. In the weaker wells the water-bearing material is very fine sand, filling up the pipes, as noted in well 173, at Santa Fe, Kans, while the stronger wells get their water from coarse gravel. The attached sketch (first published in your progress report last January) offers a proba- ble explanation of the varying depth of the wells. The water is soft and pleasant to the taste. Increasing the wells does not seem to decrease the flow. As to the source of this water, the average elevation of the basin is about 2,470 feet above sea level. The elevation of the Arkansas at Cimarron north of the basin is 2,620. This shows a fall of 150 feet in the surface in 30 miles, or 5 feet to the mile. As the fall of the Arkansas along here is about 7 feet to the mile, if the water came from the river northwest, it would be under a still greater head, so that, so far as ele- Vations are concerned, it is possible for the water to come from the Arkansas. The country is said to be a low rolling prairie giving no surface indications of rock in place or other hard strata so Inear the surface as to prevent the southward filtration of the river water. GREAT BEND LINE. (See Appendix No. 12.) The most easterly line on the Arkansas drainage crosses the river at Great Bend. This line runs from Smoky Hill River south through Hoisington, Great Bend, and St. John, to a point near Iuka, Kans., and is 73 miles long. Owing to the detour to the north of the Arkansas at Great Bend, the south end of this line is directly east of Dodge City. It would probably have been more useful had it been carried about 30 miles farther south. On the 20 miles of the line north of Hoisington water is very scarce. What little is found seeps in from clay on top of shale. Many dry holes have been put down. Only one well (No. 144) goes down any distance into the shale. It found a strong vein of salty water in 10 feet of sand and gravel 180 feet below the surface of the shale. The water rose 70 feet in the well and can not be lowered by windmill pumping. At Hoisington well 138 was put down by the Missouri Pacific Railroad for engine use. It is 16 feet in diameter and reached water in sand mixed with clay. It fur- nishes 90,000 gallons per day of water drawn from that of Blood Creek Valley just to the south. -This valley is 50 feet lower than the Arkansas at Great Bend, 8 miles south of it, but the bluff to the south of Blood Creek rises 100 feet above it and is soft sandstone nearly to the top. A deep hole in the valley Dear Great Bend reached nothing harder than clay marl at a depth of 200 feet. * South of Great Bend the country is slightly rolling and sandy, being quite so at the south end. Water is found in large quantities at varying depths, but near the surface and in sand and gravel. The general level of the water in the wells exam- ined is considerably above the river, but the level varies a good deal in contiguous wells, showing no uniform stratum. - The water in well 134 was struck in gravel under clay marl at a point 49 feet below the bed of the Arkansas River a mile and a quarter north of it. The water rose 55 feet in the well, or to a point 6 feet above the bed of the Arkansas. The river goes dry here at some seasons, and the water surface in the sand gets considerably below the bed of the stream. In December, 1890, it was 3 feet down to water, so that the water in this well, but little more than a mile away, was 9 feet above the river water, Near the south end of the line the water-bearing stratum becomes more regular and dips to the south 4 feet to the mile, although the country is rising. The water is in sand under clay or cemented gravel and does not rise in the wells. This completes the description of the several lines. The Frenchman, Big Spring, North Platte, Lexington, and Garden City lines come nearest to showing proof of the *º- , PROFILE OF THE ONE HUNDREDTH MERIDIAN. 29 underflow theory. While it is probably true that the sheet water on the south end of the Platte and Lexington lines is fed by the Platte and on the south end of the Gar- den City and Dodge City lines by the Arkansas, the north end of these lines and the Frenchman and Big Spring lines clearly indicate that their sheet water is derived from local drainage, and instead of drawing on the mountain streams reënforces them. Yours truly, W. W. Foll.ETT. Col. E. S. NETTLETON, Chief Engineer, U. S. Department of Agriculture. THE NORTON, OR ONE HUNDREDTH MERIDIAN LINE. (Appendix No. 13.) This line was surveyed for the purpose of making a continuous ex- amination of the water-bearing strata from the Platte to the Arkansas River. The line does not quite connect with the Lexington line, and is a short distance to the west of it. As will be seen by the profile there is no uniformity of position of the water-bearing stratum, the water line following quite closely the contour of the surface of the country. The wells along this line generally furnish water sufficient for domestic use and for stock purposes; in some instances 400 to 500 head are supplied from a single well. In several localities water was not found at all in some wells, while in others in the same neighborhood a very limited sup- ply was found. This is generally the case where no sand or gravel was penetrated, and where the sand rock was absent. The lack of surface water in the large drainage channels like the Solomon, Saline, Smoky Hill, and Pawnee, was very noticeable. Many of the tributaries of these streams, with very much smaller drainage areas compared with those of the main streams, were carrying more water than any one of the above- named rivers. The water in these smaller tributaries is supplied by small springs which are generally found on the north side of the creek valleys, and issuing at the lower base of the sand rock when it was underlaid by an impervious rock. In the immediate valleys of some of the creeks and so-called larger rivers are deposits of sand and gravel which undoubtedly carry more or less water; but the indications are that no great amount of water for irrigation can be obtained in these, especially when long intervals occur when these water-holding sands are not reënforced by a surface flow. This profile and some of the others show that the Platte and Arkansas rivers are higher than some of the drainage channels that lie between these rivers. Deep borings in the immediate valleys of both the Platte and Arkansas are reported to have been made without reaching bedrock, passing through sand and gravel the whole distance. This would in- dicate that these rivers have been gradually raised by the filling up of their deeply eroded cañons with sand and gravel brought down from above until their surface is, at the present time, almost on a level with their rock-bound sides. The plains streams lying between these rivers have not been filled up to the same extent, hence their difference in elevation. 30 - IRRIGATION. UNDERFLOW AND IRRIGATION PROBLEMS WITHIN NEBRASKA AND KANSAS. The Platte River traverses the entire length of Nebraska, and the Ar- kansas enters Kansas near the southwest corner of the State and passes out of it into the Indian Territory at the ninety-seventh meridian, or the eastern limit of this investigation. These rivers have their sources in Colorado and Wyoming, where they receive nearly the whole of their perennial water supply. The appropriation of the waters of the South Platte and the Arkansas has been already made by ditches and canals in Colorado under the constitution and laws of that State, to an extent that little water is left for either Kansas or Nebraska, except during the short period of the annual and storm-water floods. In both Ne- braska and Kansas irrigation canals have been constructed, taking water out of these rivers, which antedate many of the large canals in Colorado, hence the possibility of a conflict of rights of an interstate character, and until these rights are adjudicated the surplus waters of the Platte and Arkansas rivers can hardly be depended on for irriga. tion purposes. Aside from the use of the water of the larger streams diverted by ordinary ditches and canals, the various methods of irriga- tion available for this country are about as follows: (1) The use of subterranean water obtained by open subflow ditches. (2) The use of subterranean waters raised a few feet by mechanical Iſleå IlS. (3) The use of the small perennial flow of the plains streams. (4) The storage and immediate use of storm waters. (5) The use of the flow of artesian wells. Fortunately, for the benefit and protection of the irrigation develop- ment in the valleys of these rivers in western Nebraska and Kansas, there is a deposit of sand and gravel of considerable width and of un- known depth that is charged with water; just how much is available that can be utilized for irrigation purposes remains to be proved by actual development. The only practical tests of the quantity that can be taken out by sub-canal has been made at Dodge City and Hart- land. A similar attempt is being made on the Platte River near Ogal- lala, Nebr. Other projects of the same kind in the Platte and Arkansas valleys are contemplated. The amount of water obtained by the two sub-canals at Dodge City and Hartland is 15 cubic feet per second for each mile in length of the excavation that is made, 6 feet below the water line. It is found that the width of the canal has but little effect on the amount of water per- colating into it; the depth and length are the controlling factors, other conditions being equal. These sub-canals are simply drainage channels extended up and along- side of the river beds until the bottom of the channel has reached about 6 feet below the water line then the channel is given the same grade as the river and extended as far upstream as circumstances will admit, or until the desired amount of Water is obtained. When the subcanal is made by removing the material in the ordinary way by scrapers, 6 feet deep below the water line seems to be the most economical depth for the excavation. Estimates from observations made of the inflow into channels cut to a greater depth show that it is about in proportion to the square of the depth. This estimate is verified by a deep excava- tion made on the South Platte, 25 miles southwest from Denver, where a company has put in a sub-conduit near the bed of the river, which is THE SUB-CANALS OF THE ARKANSAS VALLEY. 31 18 feet below the water line. In 700 feet of this subconduit there is obtained 9,000,000 gallons each twenty-four hours, or at the rate of 153 cubic feet per second for a mile of such conduit. This shows about ten times the quantity obtained from a sub-channel 6 feet deep, which, if the * rule was applied, would be only nine times as great, or 135 cubic eet. In answer to inquiries regarding the change (if any) in the amount of the flow of the sub-canal near Dodge City, which is the first attempt on a large scale to obtain water for irrigation purposes, Mr. G. G. Gilbert, one of the proprietors, writes, under date of November 6, 1891: The first attempt we made here to obtain water from the underflow was on a ditch known as the South Dodge Canal, where we last year excavated a ditch or gather- ing channel parallel to the Arkansas River, with the general result that for each mile of this gathering channel we obtained a flow of about 15 cubic feet of water per second. This flow has been pretty steadily maintained all this year, and we do not consider that the supply has either increased or diminished, nor do we find that the quantity of water running in the river has any effect whatever on the water which, percolating through the ground 6 feet below the river bed, finds its way into our gathering channel. Seeing the results which attended our works at the South Dodge Canal, we this spring began to carry out similar work at the head of the main canal, which, com- mencing near Ingalls, has a total length of 96 miles. We commenced this work on the same principle adopted at South Dodge, viz, ex- cavating a canal or gathering channel, which, by following an inclination flatter that: that of the river itself, gradually attains a depth of about 6 feet below the river bed. We carried on this channel for about 2 miles and obtained a very fair supply of water from it, quite as large, or indeed somewhat larger in proportion than we had at South Dodge. We find, however, that in order to obtain all the water we require we should have to carry on the gathering channel for some miles, and, looking at the expense of maintaining this work, we have come to the conclusion to adopt a differ- ent system. * - We have, therefore, by means of a centrifugal sand pump, excavated what we may call a gathering well, about 500 feet long and 8 feet deep (below the bed of the river), and have placed two powerful 15-inch centrifugal pumps to lift the water out of this well into our canal. t We find it will be impossible to pump the water out of the well, whatever pump- ing power we may supply, and that we have therefore an inexhaustible supply in this way, which only requires to be lifted up about 5 feet. & These pumps have only been running for two days, but nothing can be more satis- factory than the results they give. Generally, we may say that our confidence in obtaining an unlimited supply of water from what is known as the underflow is unabated, and when the conditions are such as to afford this stipply, as they do in the Arkansas Valley, this system may be adopted with certainty of success. There is not sufficient data obtainable upon which to form a definite opinion regarding the nearest distance these subcanals can approach each other without one interfering with the inflow of the other. It is claimed they can lap each other; that is, one can be started out oppo- site the lower end of the one above, or where the grade of the upper one is reduced in order to bring the water to the surface. If this be true, other sub-canals can be put in every 2 or 3 miles on each side of river channels like the Arkansas and Platte, providing there is suffi- cient water in the sands of the valley to furnish the necessary supply. The investigation and discussion of the problems for utilizing the surface waters of the plains streams and the storage of storm waters do not belong properly to this inquiry, hence we will only briefly refer to them. In many portions of the semi-arid country may be found small streams of water that have their origin in a small spring or wet piece of ground, and during their course for a short distance, and sometimes for a few miles, they are gradually reënforced by spring or seepage water until they become large enough to be of considerable value for irrigation 32 - IRRIGATION. purposes. Finally these creeks reach a point where instead of growing larger they begin to diminish in volume until the water entirely dis. appears. There are hundreds of this class of Streams, which not only carry a constant supply through the whole Season, but during a part of the year the flow is greatly increased by the drainage into them of surface water. These streams afford sufficient water, if properly con- served, to irrigate many thousands of acres in the narrow valleys bor- dering these water courses, which can be done at a very slight cost per acre, and on this account a great many farmers have already begun to irrigate in a small way, and have been successful in their attempts. A large part of the whole country examined affords opportunities for the storage of large amounts of water in natural basins, but it is not possible to make any practical use of a majority of them for irrigation purposes: First, because they are so much below the general surface of the country that the water they would hold can not be taken out; second, there is not sufficient surface water to be found that can be turned into them. The storage and utilization of the water for irriga- tion purposes that falls on the surface of the great plains regions is greatly overestimated by many people. x. A very small fraction of the rainfall on the plains regions can be conserved by means of storage reservoirs, on account of the small an- nual precipitation, the comparatively level character of the surface, and the deep and absorbing quality of the soil. Still, it is possible to do Something in many small ways in holding back the flood waters of some of the larger streams and the strong waters that flow down the smaller channels for a few hours, but this will need to be done in the immediate vicinity and in the deep channels of these streams. The presence of underground water is noticeable over most of the country wherever wells have reached sand, gravel, or quicksand over- lying some impervious material. Instances where water is not found at all are rare. One reason for this is, that but comparatively few attempts have been made in districts where surface signs are unfavor- able for obtaining water without considerable expense, as is the case in a section of conntry where the soil is clay of great thickness, with a surface having considerable slope from which the water rapidly runs off. If such a locality lies a few hundred feet above the surface of a running stream, the chances are that water will not be found until that level is reached. In many places on the plains where water was not at first found, or, if found, it was in very small quantity, in years afterwards the same locality afforded a supply sufficient for domestic use, with indications that it is increasing in quantity. This is accounted for very readily in an irrigated country, where a portion of the water supplied artificially is absorbed and travels downward until arrested by an impervious stratum of clay or rock. We can account for its first appearance, or for its increase of quantity, in a nonirrigated district, only by the fact that breaking up the original surface by the plow puts the soil in a condition to absorb a large portion of the rains that before ran off into storm-water channels, which is quickly carried away. It is a noticeable fact in an irrigated country that natural depressions in the surface of the ground, which never contained water prior to irrigation, are beginning to fill with water, even where no surface water from irrigation reaches them, nor can any springs or seepage be observed. These basins have been steadily filling, without any appar- ent water supply, from the results of irrigation. This is accounted for by the partial saturation of the earth around and under these basins to such an extent that it retards the percolation of the natural INTERESTING BLOWING WELLS IN NEBRASKA. 33 precipitation, which permits a larger run off of the catchment area of the basin. The opposite effect has been observed in lakes that lie in a country where no irrigation is practiced, but where the surface has been broken by the plow; that is, lakes that before the country around them had been cultivated received drainage water sufficient to balance the loss by evaporation and infiltration, but since the surrounding watershed has been cultivated these lakes are gradually drying up. It is claimed that this is not due to a decrease in the annual rainfall, as these observations have extended throughout a term of years, and in a country where the rainfall is claimed to have increased. The probable cause for this is the same that produced the increased amount of underground water as cited above, where cultivation increased the absorbing capacity of the soil and decreased the run-off, which in this case reduces the amount drained into the lakes. The annual rainfall is thought to be more evenly distributed than formerly in the settled portions of the country. Heavy rainfalls and cloud bursts are less frequent than formerly. The settling and culti- Vation of the country tends to modify the climate and produce a more equable distribution of temperature and precipitation. I think this is generally conceded to be the case in portions of Kansas and Ne- braska. This being true as regards precipitation, then we have less water than formerly rushing off the surface of the ground into lakes and creeks. The economic value of the effect of these phenomena is but little compared with that which produces the cause. There are other matters reported concerning the underground water that have come to our notice which in themselves are more curious than valuable. It is reported that there are several dug and bored wells in western Kansas and Nebraska and in eastern Colorado that seem to have some connection with the atmosphere in some of its peculiar con- ditions. Some are affected in one way and some in another by the same prime causes. The blowing wells, as they are called, are so common in this part of the country as to cease to be a wonder to the people, though no one attempts to explain these freaks, except that a northwest wind is thought to have something to do with them. The most common of these strange occur- rences seems to be the emitting of air from the wells just before and during a storm from the northwest. The statements made to us are from reliable men who have personally observed these phenomena. Mr. Mark Burke, county surveyor of Perkins County, Nebr., writes in answer to some inquiries about these wells, and says: I hurriedly submit all the information I have at present in regard to the phenomena of “Blowing wells.” Had I known that it would be of any service to the artesian investigation I would have been more diligent in my researches. In addition to observations of the influx and efflux of air and the attendant phenom- ena in a few particular wells in this vicinity, I send you a chart of the direction of the currents of air in the St. Elmo well at Grant, compared with the atmospheric pressure as indicated by the barometer at North Platte, Nebr., through part of the month of February, 1891, and I am satisfied that the phenomenon of “blowing” and “sacking,” as it is usually termed, is common to nearly if not all the deep wells of the table-land in this and adjoining counties. Though I have made frequent inquiries in different parts of this and adjoining States, I have not been able to learn of the existence of such wells at a greater distance than 40 miles from here, though it is probable that close observation would show that they exist, but with currents of less velocity. The great Cave of the Winds, in Wyoming, manifests a similar kind of phenomenon. The well which supplies Sayers & Walker's livery barn in Grant is 3 feet in diam- eter and 160 feet deep. It was dug during very cold weather in the winter of 1887–88. Three strata of dry gravel was passed through'60, 80, and 100 feet from the surface. The S. Ex. 41, pt. 2—3 34 ‘. . . . IRRIGATION. strata are 10, 25, and 40 feet thick, respectively. On reaching each of these strata an ascending or descending current of air was noticed, which was sometimes reversed before the stratum was passed through. After the third vein of gravel was reached a downward current prevailed, and during the succeeding night the moist bottom of the partially completed well was frozen to the depth of 3 inches. This was at the depth of 110 feet. The water in the 2-inch pipe through which it is pumped was, during another cold spell after the well had been completed, frozen 96 feet below the surface of the ground, causing the pipe to burst. John A. Miles's well, on sec. 9, T. 9, R. 38, is 3 feet in diameter and 138 feet deep. There is usually not more than 10 feet of water in this well, but at three different times last spring the water raised, filling the well and flowing out over the surface of the ground. Mr. Miles was unable to tell how long the overflow lasted, but said he had to dig a small trench to lead the water away. In other wells in that neighbor- hood, where water is raised with a bucket attached to a rope, it does not require close observation to prove that there is a fluctuation in the depth of the water, and it is confidently asserted by the owners of these wells that there is more water in the wells when the wind is from the north or northwest than from other points. The water in the well on the NE. # of sec. 28, T. 10, R. 35, is reported by Martin Cosgriff, of Elsie, Nebr., to have been so hot at different times that he could not endure to hold his hand in the water. He said he was willing to swear to the truth of this statement. 3 The accompanying diagram is a copy of the one referred to by Mr. Burke, who defines the term “moderate” as being a current up or down the well that was accompanied by a roaring sound and a current suffi- ciently strong to be plainly felt by the hand. The “strong” current was accompanied by a hissing sound, and was strong enough to throw an opened newspaper out of the well with considerable velocity. Mr. R. I. Smith, of Winona, Kans., writes: I have a 6-inch bored well in my door yard, 135 feet deep, with 8 feet of water. Over a year ago I noticed that at times a strong current of air came out of the openings around the pumpstock, and by observation find it to be an excellent barometer, as it blows from six to twenty hours preceding a storm. I have placed a brass whistle in the space, which at times can be heard a quarter of a mile. The harder and longer it blows the more intense the coming storm will be. A peculiarity of it is the fact that, after the storm, it takes back the wind. Mr. Smith asks for a scientific solution of the phenomenon. MOVEMENT OF UNDERFLOW IN EIVER WALLEYS. Comparatively little is known concerning the rate or velocity of the flow of underground water. That which prevents water from running underground as rapidly as it does on the top, when the grades are equal, is the friction of the water in motion through the soil or water which comes in contact. The more open and porous the material, the more readily will water respond to the force of gravity, and vice versa, until the friction is so great in the material under certain conditions that water will not of its own gravity or weight pass through the material, or can not be easily forced through. The character of the material in which the underground water exists is an important and controlling factor in the solution of the question as to the extent to which the subterranean waters can be applied for irrigation purposes. However bountiful the supply may be, unless it is susceptible of being transported underground, it will be of little use for the purposes under consideration. It is the common opinion with those who have given the subject but little attention that the under- ground waters have a rate of movement corresponding with the slope of the country, and which would be quite marked if it was possible to obtain its velocity, and would approach that of a surface running stream. We often hear statements made of a stream of water running from one side of a well so rapidly as to carry a float quickly to the other side; w EFFECTS OF SILT AND MOVEMENT OF EARTH WATERS. 35 also, that the water comes in, from the uphill side. More careful obser- vations show that these currents are caused by the rapid flow into the well when it has been pumped down, but when the water reaches its full height they disappear. The results obtained from scientific inves- tigations of the rate of the movement of underground waters are not of a very definite character, and more than an approximate estimate can not now be given of this important factor in the question under consideration. Some of the French engineers place the rate of move- ment of underground water in the river valleys at one mile in a year, or a little over 14 feet per day, or one-eighth of an inch in a minute. This seems like a very slight velocity, but from my own observations of the travel of seepage water along a highly inclined surface, of an intervening but impervious material, I am inclined not to doubt the Statement. It was our aim to make some experiments for the purpose of determining the travel of water in some of the river valleys in Kan- Sas and Nebraska, but after a couple of attempts in a hasty and crude way, without any except negative results, we concluded we could not spare the time that would be required to obtain reliable data. The two unsuccessful attempts, however, were not without some re- ward. One of these was made on a little island, or sand bar, in the channel of the Rio Grande, near El Paso, Tex. This sand bar was but slightly above the surface of the water in the river. In fact, it had been under water until a few days prior to our attempted test. The plan was to sink holes in the sand a little below the water line, with the expec- tation that the Water would rise in them to the same level as the river surface; then we were to note the interval of time it took a colored fluid, of the same density as water, to travel from one hole to the next one further down the stream; but even on this island, surrounded by water, and composed of the same material to all appearance as the river bed and its banks, as well as the whole country bordering on the river channel, we did not succeed in finding water at 3 feet below the surface of the river, which was within a foot or so of the pit, and no water came into these holes within the next twenty-four hours. This proves that the silt that comes down with the water of that river has a tendency to seal up its channel, and but little loss of water by infiltration into the channel sands can occur. Another evidence of the sealing effect of the silted Waters of the Rio Grande was observed on the Mexican side. Two years ago the main current and deepest water was on that side of the river, and as a result the channel was gradually encroaching on the old city of Juarez, when the Mexican Government took steps to pro- tect the bank, which was done by building a brush and rock jetty out into the river, and extending it down stream parallel with the banks. This jetty was 150 feet in some places out into the river channel. Be- tween the jetty and the bank was the deep channel of the river. The jetties practically divided the river from its old bed, leaving a pool of deep water. This pool of water was in February last almost dried up simply by evaporation. Within 100 feet of it was the river whose sur- face was fully 8 feet above the surface of the water in the pool. These facts are important in the consideration of the question of the amount of underground water in a valley like the Rio Grande, that is available for irrigation purposes. Upon following up the question of underground waters in the vicinity, I found the best wells for domestic purposes and those furnishing the most water were usually those away from the river and nearer the outer side of the walley, where the water is found in coarser material and which possibly comes from the higher country. The other attempt to determine the velocity of the underflow was F - - 36 IRRIGATION. made in the bed of Cherry Creek, near Denver, Colo. The bed of this Creek is composed of coarse sand and gravel. The grade or slope of the bed is about 30 feet per mile. At the place where the experiment Was made the sandy bed is wide and flat, and at the time there was a little water running on the surface, and when a hole was made in the Sands a few inches deep it would instantly fill with water to a level with that running on the surface. To all appearances it would be almost im- possible to dip the water out of an opening 2 feet cube any faster than it would run in. The plan proposed for obtaining the velocity here was to dig a small pit a little below the surface of the water, then down- stream from this dig a short trench 5 feet from the pit, and 5 feet still lower down dig another trench, and so on, having a line of trenches 5 feet apart across the supposed line of underground flow. This being done, a strong solution of aniline dyes, purple, was put in the water in the pit with the expectation of seeing it appear in an hour or so in the first trench, but twenty-four hours failed to show any colors even in the first trench. Apparently all the coloring matter remained in solution in the pit. The result was so contrary to our anticipation and so dis- appointing all around, and on account of pressing engagements else- Where we did not pursue the investigation as we should have done to have settled the question conclusively whether or not there was any perceptible velocity or whether the means used were at fault. In nearly all the valleys of the large rivers, especially some distance from the mountains, there are deep deposits of river drift. These drift deposits lie in a rock-bound, troughlike channel and are in some places several hundred feet deep and from 10 to 20 miles wide, as is the case in the valleys of the Platte and Arkansas rivers. Then in other places in the same valleys, the rock sides and bottom of the channel are so Contracted as to collect the surface and underground waters into a nar- row valley, with this rock bed close to the surface. At such places there is usually more water found running on the surface at times of low water in the rivers than where the deposits are wide and deep. The coarser the gravel and sand deposits are, the more water comes to the surface in such places. This is the case with the Rio Grande at El Paso. Other conditions change the result. The drift deposits in the valley in that river for several hundred miles above El Paso are fine sand and other material which does not admit of water passing freely through it. At El Paso the river passes through a narrow channel or gorge in the mountains, which is rock-bound, so that the whole volume of the underflow must come to the surface. The un- derflow is so small at this place that when the river dries up, as it fre- Quently does, there is no running water, no more than in the river above, where the Valley is 5 or 6 miles wide and where the river depos. its are probably over 100 feet deep. In the valleys of the Platte and Arkansas, where the bed rock brings all the underflow to the surface, water flows at these places when the surface stream above is dried up, but not to the extent that would be expected if the underflow was as great as many claim it to be. This fact is another indication that the rate of movement of the underground waters is comparatively very slow. Not having made careful measure- ments of the increase in the volume of the surface flow at such places, we have not sufficient data from which to verify the deductions of the French engineers that the velocity of the underflow is 1 mile a year, but from personal observations made years ago in the Platte River Valley, I am inclined to think that this estimate is too low for the un- derground flow of the Platte River, or any river whose bed is composed THE SUB-CANAL SUPPLIES AND WARIATIONS. 37 of coarse sand and gravel. The volume of water that would pass through the section of a river deposit 1 mile wide and 10 feet deep would be only 2.6 cubic feet per second, if the movement was only 1 mile a year, that is, assuming that three-tenths of the bulk of the un- derground mass was water. While this rate may be too low for the Platte River, it is undoubtedly too high for the Rio Grande, and possi- bly it would not be much out of the way for the Arkansas River below Lamar, Colo., as that river is a silt-carrying stream and the river-bed deposits are largely made up of silted sand and clay, with an inclina- tion of from 4 to 7 feet per mile. The efficiency of different soils and formations for transmitting water freely is very noticeable in the operations of the sub-canals for leading off the underflow water. The proprietors of the South Dodge (Kansas) sub-canal say it makes but little difference in the flow of their sub-canal whether there is a flood height of water in the river or whether it is dry. This sub-canal is excavated about 6 feet below the low-water level of the river and runs alongside of the river for 2 miles and is in some places 500 feet from it. The engineer at the southwestern canal, which is supplied in part from the sub-canal near Hartland, Kans., says in regard to the flow of the sub-canal: This stream has been constantly running for a year at highest stage of water in the river, when it was 7 to 9 feet higher than the water in the ditch for a period of two months and for 1,000 feet, running within 100 feet of the river, the ditch increased its flow about one-third, which shows that water is substantially obtained from the underflow. In this instance, as in the one at Dodge City, the lower stratum of sand is the best conductor; the upper stratum probably contains more silted material. In the South Platte River, near the mountains, where the channel bed is composed of coarse sand and gravel, with but little silt or clay in the material, the engineer in charge of the construction of the sub-conduit says a rise of 6 inches in the river increases the supply more than 100 per cent. In this instance the upper stratum is as good and perhaps a better conductor than the lower. The character of the material here being coarser than that in the Arkansas River, it responds more readily to the influence of the surface supply, which is an indication of a greater capacity to transmit water more rapidly. The amount and rate of the movement of the Subterranean water ex- isting in the drift formation of the great plains are undoubtedly very much less than in the river valleys, like those of the Arkansas and Platte. In these valleys there is a deep deposit of material, composed generally of sand and fine gravel, on top of which is a broad and con- stantly running stream of water, coursing through the whole length of these valley deposits (except, it may be, for a few weeks at a time), affording a surface supply to maintain a complete Saturation to the same level of the water in the river. Outside of these river valleys water is usually found only in com- paratively thin strata of sand and sandy material, sometimes mixed with a little gravel and often with a good deal of clay. These strata are usually underlaid and sometimes are overlaid with impervious material, and the water-holding strata, instead of being continuous as in the valleys, are often pinched out, reudering it impossible for water to travel in direct lines for long distances. It will be observed by referring to the profiles that outside of the river valleys the line of underground water, or Saturation, generally conforms somewhat to the surface of the country. The slope of this line is frequently quite abrupt towards the drainage channels of the 38 - IRRIGATION. surface water. If the underground water existed in large quantities and in materials which would allow it to flow freely, we would naturally Suppose it would respond readily to the laws of gravitation and come to the surface in the form of springs along the sides of the deeply eroded channels where these water-holding materials outcrop or come very near the surface, but this is not the case, except in a very few places, the most notable of which are on the head waters of the Republican River, where considerable underground water comes to the surface, which occurrence will be noted by the geologist. Assuming that the underground water outside of the river valleys lies above the surface of the running streams (as it generally does), it will be apparent that water found in the drift of the Great Plains can not be supplied from the surface or underground water of these streams. If this be true, we then have the water falling on the surface of the Country in the form of rain and snow as the only source of supply. Just how much of this is available to compensate for the draft which would be made if irrigation from this source was resorted to, we do not undertake to estimate. It must be remembered that the annual pre- cipitation on this region is small and the evaporation quite large, and, after taking into account what runs off in storm-water channels, the amount that finds its way into the earth below, where no loss can occur from evaporation, on the average must be very small, and the area capable of being irrigated will, without doubt, be far less than many have estimated. Still there is sufficient water at reasonable depths in many places that can be made to serve a few acres under proper husbandry, where the net profits, taking one year with another, will be greater than farming in the ordinary way on much larger areas, especially in the semiarid regions. RAISING VVATER BY MECHANICAL APPLIANCES. The value of the underground water supply for irrigation purposes depends upon its depth from the surface, the quantity that can be ob- tained, and the permanency of the supply. If it is too deep the cost of raising it will preclude its use. If it is in so small quantities that it must accumulate little by little, and be stored away, this will likely prove too expensive for general farming. The outlay necessary for obtaining a small supply is often as great as that of a larger one. The maximum amount that is practicable to ex- pend for obtaining water for irrigation purposes is generally governed by the use to which it is put. For instance, one man can afford to pay or expend $25 per acre foot * for water to irrigate land on which are grown high-priced fruits and vegetables, while another can hardly afford $1.50 per acre foot for water for common farming purposes. The same can be said in regard to the height to which it is practicable to raise water. Ten feet might be the highest that is practicable to raise water for ordinary farming purposes, while for intense agricultural and horticultural purposes 50, 100, or even 150 feet may be admissible. The cost for power to raise water increases as the vertical distance in- creases that the water has to be raised. Raising water to the surface *An acre foot is a convenient unit for designating a given quantity of water, as it combines both units for linear and land measurements. It is equal to a volume of water that will cover 1 acre of land 1 foot deep. Thus, the expression of 3} acre feet means 3} acres 1 foot deep, or an equivalent quantity would be 1 acre 34 feet deep. MECHANICAL APPLIANCES FOR LIFTING WATER. 39 for irrigation by mechanical appliances, propelled by wind, man, horse, or steam power, is not by any means impracticable so far as the cost is concerned, even for agricultural purposes. Raising water by these means is coming into use in our own country, as there are now quite large areas of land irrigated from water raised to the surface by various mechanical means, specially in the southwestern portion of the arid country. To show what has been done in other countries by this method of irrigation, it is stated that in 1864 there were in Central and Lower Egypt 50,000 pumps and water wheels in use. These were driven by 200,000 oxen and 4,500,000 acres were irrigated. The wells are shal- low and the pumps and appliances are of the crudest kind. The aver- age cost of a well and pump is $150. In Lower Egypt at one time there were 2,000 steam pumps used for raising water, where the cost of coal was from $10 to $20 per ton. The annual cash rent per acre was from $2 to $5, The crops raised were cotton and rice. If the rental was paid in kind it was one-fifth of the cotton and one-fourth of the rice. There are many places where large amounts of water exist at depths too great to be reached by sub-canals, but which can be brought to the surface by mechanical means. Carefully made calculations show that it is practicable to raise water for general irrigation a few feet by steam pumps or animal power. It can be put on the land at a cost which will exceed but little if any the cost of water obtained from the more expensive irrigation canals. One great drawback to the adoption of this method in new countries is the first cost of the plant, but as the country grows older and richer a considerable amount of land will be irrigated in this way. The average expense of raising water by high duty steam pumping plants in twenty-four cities in the United States shows that it costs $3.55 to raise an acre foot of water 100 feet high. This includes cost of fuel, labor, oil, and ordinary repairs, but does not include interest on cost of plant, nor the natural wear and tear of the machinery. There are records of some pumping plants that will raise an acre foot 100 feet high at a cost of $2.25. These plants are of course expen- sive ones, which can not be avoided where so high duty is obtained. 1Many of the ordinary and low-priced steam plants will run up the cost to $5 or $8 per acre foot. The cost of raising water by vacuum pumps similar to the Hoffer or Greeley pump is not less than at the rate of $12 per acre foot lifted 100 feet. This form of pump will raise water not to exceed 30 feet, depending on the elevation. A modified form of this pump using the direct pressure of the steam to force the water above the vacuum limit is used when it is required to raise water to a greater height. These forms of pumps are inexpen- sive, but the duty is very low. A great many of them have been in use during the past two seasons, but as a general thing are considered expensive contrivances for raising water, only suitable for lifting water a few feet for gardening and like purposes. For gardening and horticultural purposes considerable irrigation can be done by water pumped by wind power from wells not too deep. Water pumped in this way should flow into a reservoir and be used in large quantities. In this way pumping can go on continuously when- ever the wind is blowing, night or day, and the work of irrigation can be done at the times when the crops are in need of it. The area that can be covered by a single well may be small, but the number of wells can be indefinitely increased whenever the water supply will admit. We noticed two small irrigating enterprises in Kansas where the 40 - IRRIGATION. º -: Water was raised by windmills. In one a 10-foot windmill was used to raise the water 10 feet which was run into a storage reservoir 40 feet wide, 60 feet long, and 3 feet deep. The reservoir was made on the top of the ground with embankment of earth; with an 18-mile wind the mill would fill the reservoir twice each twenty-four hours. The pump used was a 5-inch Gause pump, which was attached to four drive wells which reached water 7 feet from the surface, raising it to the top of the reser- voir, making the total lift 10 feet. The Water was made to serve a 4-acre vegetable garden and small fruits. The cash outlay was $135. The products of the garden sold for $400, besides what was consumed by the family, and $100 worth were unsold. The expenses for oil and repairs for the season was 80 CentS. The other was on a little larger scale, having a 16-foot windmill which raised the water about 14 feet, which is stored in a reservoir 55 feet wide, 178 feet long, and 4 feet deep. An 8-inch Gause pump is used and with a fair wind will pump 16 inches depth of water into the reservoir, or about one-third of an acre foot. The cost of this plant was $500. Seven acres of garden vegeta- bles were irrigated from this supply. The proprietor estimates 12 acres of fruit trees can be irrigated besides a large amount of vegetables. These small irrigation plants and the beneficial results accruing from them are illustrations of what can be done in thousands of other places in the arid and semiarid country, when subterranean water can be found near the surface. The net profits from these small areas in high culti- vation under irrigation exceed those of a square mile two years out of five in many places where only the natural rainfall is to be depended upon. ARTESIAN WELLS STATISTICS, The following list of artesian wells does not include all of the deep bores made in the Dakota basin. Several are omitted on account of their isolated condition, which would have required more time to inspect than we had at our disposal. There are also quite a number that have been completed since the close of the fieldwork, and others in the pro- cess of completion, which do not appear in the list. The ninety Wells noticed do not by any means represent the whole number of bores into the main artesian flow. The investigation of the Dakota artesian wells during the past sea- son includes a wider range of inquiry than was made in the spring of 1890. The stratigraphy of the rocks penetrated and the mechanical ap- pliances used for conducting the flow to the surface have been made subjects of special inquiry. It is believed that the data furnished in the logs of the following list of wells, and in the illustration of the most important part of the data by profiles, will be of considerable value in the future extension and development of this great artesian basin. In the tabulated list will be found the elevations above and below Sea level of the rock strata and water courses, and the bottom of the bores. The exact points at which flows of water were found is not given, as the logs generally failed to note the depth, except to mention the Stratum in which they were found. Therefore, we give the elevation of the top of the rock in which the flows are obtained. The investigations do not show as great uniformity in the position of the upper water courses or the main water-bearing rock as was first thought to exist, nor does there <º. STATISTICS AND DESCRIPTIONS OF DAKOTA WELLS. 41 appear to be a general similarity in the character of the lower rocks. A part of these irregularities can be accounted for by the fact that these bores have been made by several different drillers. One driller may have an entirely different name than the other for a certain rock; besides, we find in many cases that no record of the strata passed through was made at this time, and we have been obliged to depend upon the memory of people for depths and the character and thickness of the rock formations. The best method of casing wells is an important problem to be Solved. The permanent seating of the casing, the proper lap, the proper protection against clogging up at the bottom, and the durability of the casing are all matters of vital importance to the life and success of the well. Failures on account of the noncompliance with some of the above requirements have already occurred in some wells, and others will sooner or later get out of order for like causes. It is hoped that the partial record that we give of the manner in which artesian wells are cased will be of service in the future as a means of reference to methods to be avoided as well as those to be adopted. Plankington well.—Located in Sec. 22, T. 103 N., R. 64 W., town of Plankington, county of Aurora, State of South Oakota. Owned by town of Plankington. Com- pleted fall, 1890. Drilled by Gray Brothers, Milwaukee, Wis. Depth, 830 feet. Cost, $3,200, or $3.85 per foot. Flow, 225 gallons per minute. Pressure, 91 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Temperature of water, 62 degrees. Elevation above sea level, 1,521 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: º Total. . Total JFeet Feet. Feet. Feet. Black loam. ---------------------- 3 3 || Sandstone (water)--------------. 5 543 Yellow clay ---------------------- 223 226 || Shales.-------------------------- 197 740 Chalk ---------------------------- 235 || Sandstone (water)............... 5 745 Shale----------------------------- 303 538 || Sioux Falls granite-------------. 85 830 The water from this well supplies the town with domestic water, which is quite hard, containing considerable gypsum. The upper vein was soft. When the flow is shut off the pressure quickly runs up to 50 pounds, and in three hours it reaches its maximum, 91 pounds per square inch. When allowed to flow freely very fine sand and gypsum comes up with the water. The casing is 3-inch and 4+-inch. The amount of casing in the well is not known, but the first flow is said to come up be- tween the 3-inch and the 44-inch, so it is quite certain that the 4+-inch stops short of the first flow, which is at 540 feet. There is probably about 745 feet of 3-inch casing in the well. White Lake well.—Located in Sec. 14, T. 103 N., R. 66 W., town of White Lake, county of Aurora, State of South Dakota. Owned by town of White Lake. Completed fall, 1887. Drilled by Swan Brothers, Andover, S. Dak. Depth, 863 feet. Cost, $3,800, or $4.40 per foot. Flow, 150 gallons per minute. Pressure. 35 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Temperature of water, 64 degrees. Elevation above sea-level, 1,630 feet. * Strata passed through are as follows: Thick. Thick- Iſle&8. Total. 115S8. Total. JFeet. | Feet. lº'eet. Feet. Yellow clay ... ------------------- 40 40 | Blue shale----------------------- 85 585 Blue clay. ------------------------ 50 90 | Hard lime and shale. ----------.. 15 600 Blue sandy clay. ----------------- 30 120 Blue shale (tough and sticky) ... 196 790 Blue shale------------------------ 170 290 | Sandstone (some water)......... 2 792 Black shale.---------------------- 30 320 Iron pyrites--------------------. 3 795 Sandy shale.--------------------- 30 350 | Blue shale ---------------------. 10 805 Gray shale ----------------------- 20 370 | Shale and lime ------------------ 37 842 Soapstone ------------------------ 100 470 Sandstone (flow) ---------------. 9. 850 Lime and iron pyrites. ----...----- 10 480 | Sioux quartzite.----------------- 13 863 Sandy shale ---------------------- 20 500 42 IRRIGATION. The top of this well is 139 feet higher than the Plankington well, but the height to which the water will rise from the static pressure of the two wells is exactly the same, being 1,713 feet above sea level in each case. Like the Plankington well the bore reached the quartzite rock, which lies only 24 feet higher at White Lake, show- ing a dip to the east of 2 feet per mile. This well is cased with a single line of 4- inch casing 840 feet. The water is used for domestic and stock purposes, and is also used for irrigating 5 acres of land without the aid of a reservoir. Collins well.—Located in Sec. 10, 110 N., R. 60 W., 2 miles south of Cavour, county of Beadle, State of South Dakota. Owned by township. Commenced June 24, 1891. Drilled by J. C. Weston, Huron, S. Dak. Elevation above sea level, 1,331 feet. Hitchcock well.—Located in Sec. 4, T. 113 N., R. 63 W., town of Hitchcock, county of Beadle, State of South Dakota. Owned by town of Hitchcock. Commenced May, 1885. Completed August, 1885. Drilled by Gray Brothers, Milwaukee, Wis. Depth, 953 feet. Cost, $4,400, or $4.62 per foot. Flow, 1,240 gallons per minute Pressure, 154 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Temperature of water, 70 degrees. Elevation above sea level, 1,339 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick- Ilê88. Total. Ilê8S. Total. * Feet. Feet, Feet. | Feet. Soil and yellow clay.-------...--. 100 100 || Sand rock (small flow).----...--. 4 928 Blue shale------------------------ 350 450 || Sand rock and sandy shale -----. 22 950 Shales. --------------------------- 470 920 || Sand rock (flow) ---------------. 3 953 Cap rock------------------------- 4 924 This well was put down to obtain a water supply for domestic and fire purposes, having a larger flow than is required to serve the town, a portion of which is used to drive a 45-barrel flour mill. The power developed takes the place of a 25-horse power steam engine. The water, after passing through the wheel, is used to irrigate 75 acres of land, without the aid of a reservoir. When the water from the well is not used for irrigation purposes it is allowed to run to waste. The well has flowed constantly for six years, with no change in the pressure or quantity. When the flow is shut off the pressure runs up quickly to 154 pounds. The outside casing, 4} inches in diameter, is seated in blue shale rock 800 feet from the surface. Inside of this is 160 feet of 34-inch casing, which laps on the lower end of the 44-inch 40 feet, and extends down 920 feet, or within 33 feet of the bottom of the bore. The small flow at 926 feet was soft water and quite cold. The main flow at the bottom of the bore is much higher temperature. City well.—Town of Huron, county of Beadle, State of South Dakota. Owned by water company. Completed in 1886. Drilled by Swan Brothers, Andover, S. Dak. Depth, 906 feet. Cost, $4,000, or $4.42 per foot. , Flow, 1,668 gallons per minute. Pressure, 120 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Elevation above sea level, 1,251 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick- ... Total ... Total. JFeet. | Feet. Peet. Feet. Yellow clay.--------------------- 13 13 || Conglomerate sand, shale, etc... 51 601 Blue clay ------------------------ 76 89 || Gray shale ---------------------- 101 702 Gray shale----------------------- 151 240 || Brown limestone, cap rock ------ 10 712 Hard iron rock----------- ** as e º s = * = 2 242 || White sand rock (flow).--------- 50 762 Sand rock.----------------------- 5 247 || Hard sand rock -----...--------- 10 772 Hard sand rock.----------------- 2 249 || White sand rock (flow) - - - - - - - -. 25 837 Gray shale.---------------------- 175 424 || Gray lime rock-----. . . . . . . -----. 55 892 Hard sand rock ------------------ 10 434 || Gray shale (caving) ------------- 4 896 Gray shale----------------------- 15 449 || Gray limestone (stopped) ------. 10 906 Brown shale --------------------- 101 550 This well is one of the first wells put down in the Dakotas for municipal purposes. It has been constantly flowing for the past five years, except during a few weeks in 1890, when the casing had to be drawn to repair the lower section which had been destroyed by the corroding effects of the water on the iron. It is used for domestic and fire purposes, sprinkling lawns, and watering shrubbery, besides driving motors for power purposes, such as propelling printing presses, spice and coffee mills, etc. The well is cased with 6-inch casing to a depth of 712 feet. STATISTICs of THE SOUTH DAKOTA wells. 43 Day-Harrison well.—Located in sec. 11, T. 110, R. 62, town of Huron, county of Bea- dle, State of South Dakota. Owned by F. T. Day. Commenced February 1, 1890. Completed May 1, 1890. Drilled by Roberts. Depth, 847 feet. Cost, $1,850, or $2.12 per foot, Flow,496 gallons per minute. Pressure, 120 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Elevation above sea level, 1,306 feet. No record was kept of the strata passed through while boring this well. It was put down for water for irrigation purposes. . In the winter of 1890 and 1891 the water was allowed to flow promiscuously over the land and as a result some of the land was greatly over-irrigated, and was so wet that crops could not be put in until late in the spring. A system of irrigation ditches has been laid out on a farm of 320 acres, and the area to be placed under irrigation is being doubled by the construction of a 3-acre reservoir. This well is reported to have a variable flow during the spring months. Its flow increases until midsummer, then gradually diminishes, reaching its minimum during the winter. It is claimed that the flow varies with the rise and fall of the water in the Missouri River. This well is cased with 4-inch casing to the first flow. Huron Mill well.—Located in sec. 36, T. 111 N. R. 62, town of Huron, county of Beadle, State of South Dakota. Owned by city of Huron. Commenced May 1, 1890. Completed September 1, 1890. Drilled by Howard, Holton Bros. Cost, $3,600. Flow, about 700 gallons per minute. Pressure, 108 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Elevation above sea level, 1,280 feet. There was no record kept of the strata of this bore. The contractor reports that blue clay and soft shales were encountered on the way down to the first flow (500 feet), thence to the bottom where were soft strata of sand rock between the shales. No cap or hard rock was found. The well is reported to discharge about 700 gallons per minute, after the flow has been shut off for a day or so, but when opened and given a free discharge the flow rapidly diminishes. The well was put down to obtain water for power purposes, but on account of the diminished pressure and the quan- tity of water discharged when opened the well is a failure for that purpose. It is cased with 300 feet of 8-inch casing, 437 feet of 6-inch, and 104 feet of 3%-inch cas- ing. The contractor was inexperienced, and on account of bad management the bore and its appurtenances cost him $1,400 above the contract price. Richards well.—Located in sec. 30, T. 112N., R. 61 W., 7 miles north of Huron, county of Beadle, State of South Dakota. Owned by American Investment Company. Com- menced October 15, 1890. Completed November 15, 1890. Drilled by Swan Bros., Andover, S. Dak. Depth, 917 feet. Cost, $3,668, or $4 per foot. Elevation above sea level, 1,300 feet. * Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick- & IlêSS. Total. Ilò88, Total. Peet. | Feet. Feet. | Feet. Soil ------------------------------ 1. 1 || Sand rock (first flow). --...-----. 20 789 Yellow clay ---------------------. 14 15 || Sandy lime. --------------------. 10 799 Blue clay -----------------------. 40 55 || Sand rock (get most of water) .. 30 829 Sand and gravel.----------------- 45 100 || Lime rock.---------------------. 20 849 Soapstone ------------------------ 280 380 || Sand rock (very little water). --. 20 869 Rotten lime and slate ------------ 20 400 || Iron pyrites and lime -...-...----. 5 874 Soapstone ------------------------ 300 700 || Sand rock (no water)......... --. 10 884 Iron pyrites.--------------------- 2 702 || Rotten lime --------------------- 16 900 Soapstone------------------------ 60 762 || Soapstone ----------------------- 10 910 Iron pyrites and lime cap rock--- 7 769 || Iron pyrites and lime ---...----- 7 917 Stopped in Iron pyrites. This well was put down for water supply for irrigating a farm of 480 acres, 300 of which were irrigated this year by aid of a 7-acre reservoir, whose holding capacity is about 35 acre feet. The water is quite clear and soft. The well is cased with 762 feet of 6-inch casing ; 60 feet of 44-inch casing is put in at the bot- tom, which laps 10 feet on the 6-inch casing. The lower end of the 43-inch casing is perforated with #-inch holes. Irisdom well.—Located in sec. 30, T. 111 N., R. 61 W., town of Huron, county of Beadle, State of South Dakota. Owned by A. H. Risdon. Completed March, 1891. Drilled by J. C. Weston, Huron, S. Dak. Depth, 960 feet. Flow, 2,250 gallons per minute. Pressure, 165 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Elevation above sea level, 1,290 feet. 44 4- . ** IRRIGATION. Strata passed through are as follows: - Thick- Thick- ... | Total. ... | Total. Ordinary clay and shale (to small Feet. Feet. Feet. I Feet. flow at)-------------------------|-------- 240 || Shale---------------------------- 9 700 Rock and iron pyrites. ----...----. 5 245 || White shale and sand rock (sev- Shale----------------------------. 215 460 enth flow). ---------------...---. 3# 703% Ilimestone (second flow).......... 50 510 || Water-bearing rock. ------...... 733 Shelly lime (third flow)........... 2. 512 || Water mixed with white slate. --| 117 850 Shale- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 88 600 || Flint ---. -----------------------. 20 870 Sand and shells (fourth flow). ---. 5 605 || Sand and slate. -------------...-- 20 890 Shale----------------------------- 35 640 || Very hard cap rock --------...-. 12 902 Shelly lime (fifth flow)........... 1 641 || Soft sand rock (flow) - - - - - - -..... 33 935 ale- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 49 690 || Soft sand rock (heavy flow) ..... 25 960 Shelly lime (sixth flow) .......... 1 691 This bore was made for testing the presence of natural gas, which was supposed to exist inside of 2,000 feet from the surface, a party of gas-well operators from Findley, Ohio, having made a royalty contract for the land surrounding the well for this pur- pose. At 960 feet a strong flow of water was struck, which it is claimed rendered further drilling impossible with the appliances they had. It is reported when the lower vein was reached the upward flow was so strong as to lift and support the drill- ing tools which weighed over 2,000 pounds, thus preventing any further progress in drilling. Complications have arisen regarding the terms of the contract and owner- ship of the water, and the well has been practically shut down since drilling was stopped. This is one. of the strongest flows in the James River basin, it being suffi- cient to develop at least 100-horse power, besides furnishing water sufficient to cover 20 acres with a 6-inch irrigation over twenty-four hours. This well is cased with 8-inch casing to 7034 feet. Inside of this is a string of 6-inch which reaches within 58 feet of the bottom of the bore. Owing to the prospective lawsuit over the ownership we are unable to get its cost. Wolsey well.—Located in sec. 23, T. 111 N., R. 64 W., town of Wolsey, county of Beadle, State of South Dakota. Owned by town of Wolsey. Completed September, 1890. Drilled by Swan Bros., Andover, S. Dak. Depth, 930 feet. Flow, 330 gallons per minute. Pressure, 137 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Tempera- ture of water, 76 degrees. Elevation above sea level, 1,348 feet. Strata which are passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick- 116SS. Total. IłóSS. Total. Feet, Feet. Feet Feet. Soil ------------------------------ 1. 1 || Sand rock (flow).--------------. 30 838 Yellow clay ---------------------. 19 20 || Lime rock ---------------------. 20 858 Blue clay. ------------------------ 40 60 || Sand rock (most of water) ...... 20 878 Gray shale ----------------------- 154 214 || Soapstone.----------------...-.. 15 893 Dark shale----------------------- 276 490 || Sand rock (little water) ......... 10 903 Sand rock (small flow). -------.. ... 10 500 || Rotten lime rock--------...----. 25 928 Light shale----------------------- 300 800 || Very hard rock (stopped) ...... . 2 930 Iron pyrites and lime cap rock.-- 8 808 This bore evidently penetrates a close grained hard rock, which does not admit of water passing freely through it. The size of the casing, being 6inches, with maximum pressure of 137 pounds per square inch, would indicate the flow would be much greater than it is. It is quite probable another flow below can be found in the more open rock. This theory is supported by the log of the Risdon well, only 12 miles in an easterly direction." After the well has been discharging freely for some time it takes about eighteen hours for it to reach its maximum pressure after the water is shut off. It is cased with 800 feet of 6-inch steel casing, weighing 18 pounds per foot. At the bottom is 96 feet of 5-inch casing, which laps on the outside casing 20 feet, and the lower 24 feet is perforated with three-fourths inch holes. Scotland well.—Located in sec. 8, T. 96 N., R. 58 W., town of Scotland, county of Bon Homme, State of South Dakota. Owned by town of Scotland. Completed in 1887. Drilled by Carr and Ritchie, Yankton, S. Dak. Depth, 587 feet. Cost $2,050, or $3.48 per foot. Flow, 9 gallons per minute. Elevation above sea level, 1,338 feet. THE ARTESLAN WELLS OF EASTERN NORTH 45 DAKOTA. Strata passed through are as follows: * Thick- Thick- In OSS. Total. In 688, Total. Feet. Feet. Feet Feet. Black loam----------------------. 4 4 || Blue shale.---------------------- 40 399 Yellow clay ---------------------- 40 44 || Quicksand ---------------------- 30 429 Blue clay------------------------- 15 59 || Blue shale ---------------------. 35 464 White chalk --------------------- 60 119 || Quicksand ---------------------- 30 494 Blue chalk----------------------- 60 179 || Lime rock. -------...------------- 13 507 Blue shale------------------------ 80 259 || Water bearing sand rock........ 28 535 Grey sand rock -----------------. 100 359 || Quartzite----------------...------. 52 587 Stopped in quartzite. This well is now abandoned. A small flow was struck at 512 feet from the surface at an elevation of 826 feet above sea level, indicating that it is one of the uppermost veins in the basin. The bore stopped in quartzite, which indicates that it is on the eastern edge of the artesian basin. #4 - Springfield well.—Located in T. 92 N., R. 60 W., town of Springfield, county of Bon Homme, State of South Dakota. Owned by Bonesteel and Turner. Commenced winter of 1891. Completed spring of 1891. Drilled by Grey Bros., Milwaukee, Wis. Depth, 592 feet. Cost, $2,400, or $3.50 per foot. Flow, 3,290 gallons per minute. Pressure, 86 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Temperature of water, 65 degrees. Elevation above sea level, 1,275 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick- Ilê88. Totals. In 688. Totals. Feet. | Feet. Feet. Feet. Soil and clay --------------------- 50 50 || Shale and sand (flow of soft water) 78 518 Chalk rock----------------------. 100 150 || Hard cap rock------------------. 12 530 Shale--------------------------- 290 440 || Water-bearing sand rock. --..... 62 592 This well discharges the largest amount of water in the Dakota basin, although the closed pressure of the well is only about half that of some of the others. This is an indication of a very open and porous water-bearing rock. The discharge from this well is nearly what it would be if the lower end of the casing entered a subterranean lake of water; therefore there is but little resistance to the water moving through the rock strata. The water is used to drive a 100-barrel flour mill, which is done by the power developed by a common turbine water wheel. The well is cased with 520 feet of 8-inch casing. Tyndall well.—Located in Sec. 6, T. 94, R. 59, town of Tyndall, county of Bon Homme, State of South Dakota. Owned by town of Tyndall. Completed in 1888. Drilled by Carr & Ritchie, Yankton, S. Dak. Depth, 735 feet. Cost, $2,544, or $3.46 per foot. Flow, 530 gallons per minute. Pressure, 35 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Temperature of water is 62 degrees. Elevation above sea level, 1,410 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick- Il688, Total. ID 988. Total. Feet, I Feet. JFeet. Feet. Loam ---------------------------- 4. 4 || Shale. --------------------------- 75 397 Yellow clay ---------------------- , 40 44 || Sand ----------------- * * * * * * * * * * * 60 457 Blue clay ------------------------ 171 215 || Stale---------------------------. 243 700 Shale ---------------------------. I00 315 || Water bearing sand rock........ 35 735 Hard rock ----------------------. 7 322 Stopped on quartz. * This bore is reported to have reached quartzite at about 735 feet from the surface, or 675 feet above sea level, which is 128 feet above the quartzite in the Scotland bore, some 14 miles to the northeast. The flow has decreased about 20 gallons per minute during the last year. The water is hard and is used for town purposes. The well is cased with 43-inch casing. Layson well.—Located in Sec. 22, T. 94 N., R. 61 W., 8 miles southwest of Tyndall, county of Bon Homme, State of South Dakota. Owned by H. P. Layson. Commenced 46 IRRIGATION. # October, 1890. Completed April, 1891. Drilled by H. P. Layson. Depth, 1,075 feet. Flow very weak, 1 gallon in three minutes; just comes to surface. Strata passed through are as follows: * Thick- Thick- In 888. Total. ITOSS, Total. E'eet. Feet. Feet. Feet. Soil -----------------------------. 3 3 || Soapstone----------------------- 300 765 Yellow clay---------------------. 32 35 || Iron pyrites and tough clay. --...- 45 810 Plue clay ----------------------- 55 90 || Sandstone (very little water).... 230 1,040 Chalk rock ---------------------- 280 370 || Coarse sand and gravel ---...--. 3 1,043 Very hard limestone ------------. 20 390 || Hard stone.--------------------- 3 1,046 Black clay. ---------------------. 14 404 || Black mud... ------------------. 27 1,074 Very hard stone.--------------... 1. 405 || Hard rock (made 1 foot. 8 inches Light colored clay (gray shale) .. 60 465 In three or four days and quit). 2 1,075 This bore stops in very hard rock, probably quartzite, in which only 20 inches could be drilled in three days. A stratum of sand rock 230 feet thick was struck at 810 feet from the surface, in which a small amount of water was found, which just rises to the surface. This bore is cased with 400 feet of 3-inch casing, 435 of 23 inch, which laps 79 feet on the 3-inch casing. The lower casing is seated in grey shale 319 feet above the bottom of the bore. The flow not being sufficient to supply the amount of water required, a windmill is used to pump the water into a tank for domestic use and stock purposes. When allowed to flow the water is clear, but when pumped by the windmill it is muddy. About 1 foot of blue tar-like mud settles on the bottom of the tank each month. Cost of drilling this bore and 400 feet of another one, which was abandoned, was as follows: Freight on pipe, $50.48; casing, $433.20; cost of tools and labor, $805.50; hauling water and boarding men, $596.18; total, $1,885.36. Horse power was used to drive the drilling machinery. The pressure is only suffi- cient to raise the water 7 feet above the surface. Mill well.—Located in sec. 6, T. 94 N., R. 59 W., town of Tyndall, county of Bon Homme, State of South Dakota. Commenced March 20, 1891. Completed Septem- ber 3, 1891 Depth, 752 feet. Flow large, fills an 8-inch pipe. Pressure, 40 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Elevation above sea level, 1,410 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick- IłóSS. Total. Il 68S. Total. - Feet. I'eet. Feet. Feet. Loam ---------------------------- 4. 4 || Shale-------------- ------------- 75 397 Yellow clay---------------------. 40 44 || Sand rock. ---------------------. 60 457 Blue clay------------------------- 171 215 || Shale. --------------------------- 243 700 Shale----------------------------- 100 315 || Water bearing sand rock........ 52 752 Hard rock------------------------ 7 322 Milwaukee Railroad well.—Located in T. 123 N., 64 W., town of Aberdeen, county of Brown, State of South Dakota. road. Completed March, 1882. $4,300, or $4.50 per foot. Elevation above sea level, 1,300 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: Jº Owned by Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Rail- Drilled by Swan Brothers. Depth, 955 feet. Pressure, 100 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Cost, Thick- Thick- IlºS8. Total. Ile 88. Total. Feet. Feet, Feet. Feet. Soil, clay and sand --------------. 3 36 || Sandstone - - - - - - s sº sº ſº º ºs s is tº * * * * * * * 15 910 Blue clay------------------------- 64 100 || Lime, shale and sandstone -----. 30 940 Blue shale ----------------------- 410 510 || Sandstone (main flow). --------- 15 955 Limestone ----------------------- 20 530 || Stopped on hard bottom. Blue shale streaks limestone (small flow). ------------------. 365 895 This is the first bore put down which reached the artesian basiſ of the Dakotas. It was made by the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad Company in 1881–82 for the purpose of obtaining water for engine use, but could not be used for that purpose on account of its quality, it being hard and foams badly in the boilers. i. gº CITY WELLS OF ABERDEEN, SOUTH DAKOTA. 47 When first struck it threw up large quantities of rock when left to flow freely. In 1886 it became choked up (probably by Gaving below casing). After it was cleaned out a 3-inch casing was put down 910 feet. Since this was done the water has been clear. The water is used for reinforcing the domestic supply of the city of Aber- deen. It is said that live fish have come up with the water. The man having charge of the water service of the railroad reports that large numbers of small fish have been found in the water tank, which is supplied by a pipe directly connected with the well. The well is cased with 3-inch, 43-inch, 6-inch, and 8-inch casing, the 8- inch extending to 510 feel; the 3-inch extends from the top to 910 feet from the surface. - City well No. 1.-Located in T. 123 N., R. 64 W., town of Aberdeen, county of Brown, State of South Dakota. Owned by town of Aberdeen. Completed in 1882. Drilled by Gray Brothers, Milwaukee, Wis. Depth, 918 feet. Cost, $4,000, or $4.35 per foot. Flow, 330 gallons per minute. Pressure, 40 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Temperature of water, 66 degrees. Elevation above sea level, 1,300 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick- IłęSS. Total. I\08S. Total. - Feet. | Feet. I'eet. Feet. Soil and clay--------------------. 16 16 || Sand (some water)---...-------. 10 889 Blue clay ------------------------ 78 94 || Shale.----------------, ---------. 15 904 Shale .--------------------------- 400 494 || Iron pyrites (cap rock).-----.... 1. 905 Iron pyrites and shale ----------. 10 504 || Sand rock, water - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 13 918 Blue shale ----------------------- 375 879 This well is the first, if not the very first, put down in the Dakotas to obtain water for municipal purposes. . At first both the flow and pressure were stronger than they are at the present time, but the action of the well, which at first resembled the rail- road well, is only a few hundred feet distant. The two wells do not seem to have any connection with each other; that is, the flow of one does not seem to interfere with that of the other. It is quite probable that this well has caved in, and as a con- sequence its flow is greatly diminished. The well is cased with 905 feet of 3.3-inch CaSing. City well No. 2.-Located in T. 123 N., R. 64 W., town of Aberdeen, county of Brown, State of South Dakota. Owned by city of Aberdeen. Drilled by Gray Bros., Milwaukee, Wis. Depth, 1,004 feet. Cost, $4,000, or $4 per foot. Flow, 825 gallons per minute. Pressure, 62 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Tempera- ture of water, 66 degrees. Elevation above sea level, 1,300 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick. Iſle SS, Total. In 68S. Total. { IFeet. Feet. Feet. Feet. Soil and clay --------------------. 110 110 || Shale--------------------------. 344 940 Shale----------------------------- 450 560 || Hard sand-rock cap ---...--...--. 6 946 Shale, sand, and iron pyrites.----. 35 595 || Sand rock (flow).---------------- 45 991 Sandstone, water (not flow). ...... i 596 || Shale---------------------------- 13 | 1, 004 Stopped in shale. This well was put down for power purposes by the city of Aberdeen. The water under pressure from the well is applied to a double action duplex piston pump, which is used to pump the sewage from the well into a conduit laid just below the surface. The power is ample and very steady, requiring no attention except to occasionally oil the machinery. The lift is about 20 feet and the capacity sufficient to raise 2,500,000 gallons per day. Both the flow and pressure have decreased a little since the well was put down. It is reported to have flowed 1,000 gallons per minute. Its flow now is 825. The well is cased down to 700 feet with a 6-inch casing, then with 270 feet of 5 inch, which laps 30 feet on the 6-inch casing; then 71 feet of 4-inch, which laps 20 feet on the 5-inch, the lower 12 feet being perforated. City well No. 3.--Town of Aberdeen, country Bown, State of South Dakota. Owned by city of Aberdeen. Drilled by American Well Works (Wheeler). Depth, 1,066 feet. Elevation above sea level, 1,300 feet. 48 IRRIGATION. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick Ilö88. Total. Ił088 *| Total. - • Feet. I Feet. Feet. | Feet. This log begins at.--------...-----|........ 835 || Sandstone (flow).----...--...----. 20 941 Iron pyrites, lime, etc............ 2 837 || Hard shale (almost slate).------. 25 966 Black mud and loose rock........ 53 890 || Hard, fine sandstone (no water). 18 984 Sandstone, water-------------.... 22 912 || Sandy shale--------------------. 32 1,016 Sandstone and lignite -----------. 5 917 || Loose sandstone (main flow) .... 50 1,066 Hard sandstone, cap rock ........ • 92.1 Bottom on hard material. This bore was made by the city of Aberdeen with the hope of obtaining a supply of clear water for municipal purposes. It is cased with 8-inch casing to the top of the cap rock (917 feet.) From this point a 2-inch bore is made to the depth of 1,066 feet. This was a prospecting bore through the water-bearing strata for the purpose of dis- covering the clear-water veins. One or two small flows were found just below the cap rock. The main flow was struck at about 1,020 feet, which is a strong flow for a 2-inch bore. Large quantities of coarse sand were thrown up with the water. In attempting to enlarge the bore the drilling tools became fastened in the sand, and after spending a few weeks in an unsuccessful effort to remove them work has been suspended for the present. Beard well.—Located in Sec. 20, T. 123 N., R. 63 W., town of Aberdeen, county of Brown, State of South Dakota. Owned by H. C. Beard. Commenced July, 1890. Completed October, 1890. Drilled by Gray Bros., Milwaukee, Wis. Depth, 1,050 feet. Cost, $3,050, or $3 per foot. Flow, 1,060 gallons per minute. Pressure 138 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Elevation above sea level, 1,303 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- gº Thick- In 888. Total. IlêSS. Total. Feet. Feet. Feet, Feet. Soil and clay --------------------. 140 140 || Shale.--------------------------. 37 997 lay and bowlders.--------------. 60 200 || Hard sand rock (cap) ------..... 3 1,000 Shele. ---------------------------. 740 940 || LGose sand rock (flow).----...-. 50 1,050 Sand rock and iron pyrites. ------ 20 960 This well was put down for irrigation purposes. winter of 1890–91 was used for wetting the land during cold weather. The flow of the well during the The land was covered with a thick sheet of ice, and the land so covered required no irrigation the following summer. Connected with this well is a 3-acre reservoir, which has a hold- ing capacity of 15 acre feet. By the aid of the reservoir, about 300 acres have been irrigated the present season. The well is cased with 6-inch casing to 970 feet, then with 50 feet of 5-inch casing, which laps 23 feet on the 6-inch. Columbia well.—Located in Sec. 29, T. 125 N., R. 62 W., town of Columbia, county Owned by town of Columbia. of Brown, State of South Dakota. 1885. Drilled by Swan Bros., Andover, S. Dak. Depth, 964 feet. Completed in Cost, $3,200, or $3.32 per foot. Flow, 940 gallons per minute (1,400 in 1890). Pressure, 160 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Temperature of water, 63 degrees. Elevation above sea level, 1,315 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: *A Thick- Thick- ... Total. ... Total. JFeet. I Feet. Feet. I Feet. Yellow clay---- . ---------------- 20 20 || Blue shale ---------------------- 200 719 Quicksand ----------------------- 8 28 || Sandstone.---------------------. 2 721 Blue clay ------------------------ 3. 38 || Sandy shale (small flow) --...--. 30 751. Quicksand ----------------------- 30 68 || Gray shale ---------------------- 50 801 Gravel ... ------------------------ 14 82 || Sandy shale (small flow). --...--. 55 856 Blue clay ------------------------ 8 90 || Broken limestone --------------- 6 862 uicksand ----------------------- 15 105 || Sandstone (flow) ---------------. 5 867 ardpan ------------------------- 9 114 || Blue shale----------------------- 20 887 Gray shale ----------------------- 355 469 || Iron pyrites and lime ----------. 5 892 Liard limestone ------------------ 2 471 || Sandstone (flow) ---------------. 10 902 Tough blue shale ---------------- 43 514 || Lime, sand, and shale----------- 2 927 Hard limestone ------------------ 5 519 || Sandstone (main flow) ---------- 37 964 .* - - w -v. * * * TECHNICAL DESCRIPTIONS OF ARTESIAN WELLS. 49 This well was put down for domestic and fire purposes. Water, soft but discolored, and when allowed to stand a fine sediment is deposited, resembling blue mud. It is claimed that the water from this well, as that of many other artesian wells, has some peculiar property which extinguishes fire more rapidly than that of ordinary water. Experienced firemen confirm this report. The closed pressure of the water in the well is the same as last year, but the flow is not as large. The apparent decrease may be due to different results obtained by the two methods of measurement. The well is cased with 900 feet of 43-inch casing. - Flanders well.—Located in sec. 31, T. 126 N., R. 61 W., county of Brown, State of South Dakota. Owned by Charles Flanders. Drilled by Charles Flanders. Depth, 965 feet. Cost, $3,000, or $3.11 per foot. Pressure, 135 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick- IłęSS. Total. ... | Total. g * º Feet. JFeet. Feet. Feet. Soil ------------------------------ 2 2 || Gray shale ---------------------. 40 724 Clay.----------------------------- 20 22 || Sandy shale (second small flow). 50 774 Quicksand ----------------------- 30 52 || Broken limestone - - - - - - - * * * * * * * ge 8 782 Cemented gravel----------------- 10 62 || Sandstone (third small flow) - - - - 3 785 Blue clay. ------------------------ 10 72 || Blue shale----------------------- 20 805 Shale (bowlders in upper part). -- 300 372 || Iron pyrites and lime.----...----- 5 810 Soapstone ------------------------ 100 472 || Gray shale .--------------------- 20 830 Timestone.----------------------- 6 478 || Limestone. -------------------. -- 50 880 lSlue Bhale------------------------ 150 628 || Limestone and shale .----...----- 32 912 JHard rock------------------------ 3 631 || Sandstone (main frow)...... -- - - - 10 922 Gray shale ----------------------- 50 681 || Limestone and shale -----------. 28 950 Słandy shale (first small flow) - - - - - 3 684 || Shale. --------------------------, 15 965 This well was put down for irrigation purposes. Quantities of sand came up with the water, and in June last it became so choked up with sand as to stop its flow. Heman well.—Located in Sec. 3, T. 125 N., R. 61 W., county of Brown, State of §outh Dakota. Owned by H. L. Heman. Commenced January 13, 1891. Drilled by Jä. L. Heman. Cost, $2,860. Elevation above sea level, 1,350 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick- IlêS8, Total. 1. Total. I'eet. Feet. JFeet. | Feet. Soil and clay --------------------- 96 96 || Clay and shale layers ...----...--- 119 640 Sand and gravel.---------. ------- 14 110 || Iron pyrites and lime ----------. 2 642 Shale----------------------------- 203 313 || Shale and clay marl-------...----- 20 662 Lime rock-----------------------. 7 320 || Iron pyrites and lime . . . . . . ----. 7 667 Soapstone (some shale)----. ------ 100 420 || Soft clay mall (some black Baſid) |........]. ------. Clay ----------------------------. 50 470 || Quicksand ---------------------- 30 697 Soapstone -----------------------. 42 512 || Soapstone ----------------------- 19 716 Lime rock------------------------ 9 521 - This well was put down for irrigation purposes. Mr. Heman purchased a drilling rig and put a well down by common labor, and gives the following items of the cost: Drilling and tools, $1,800; derrick, $300; hauling water, $200; fuel, $300; casing, 716 feet of 6-inch, $800; boarding men, $150; lumber, $150; railroad freight on casing and machinery, $160; hauling material 10 miles, $90; total, $2,850. Frederick well.—Located in Sec. 11, T. 127 N., R. 64 W., town of Frederick, county of Brown, State of South Dakota. Owned by town of Frederick. Commenced August 14, 1889. Completed May 15, 1890. Drilled by Swanson, Minneapolis, Minn. I)epth, 1,139 feet. Cost, $3,600, or $3.16 per foot. Flow, 135 gallons per minute. Pressure, 70 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Temperature of water, 69 degrees. Elevation above sea level, 1,383 feet. $trata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick- ... | Total. ... Total. Feet. Feet. JFeet. Feet. Soil and clay --------------------- 120 120 || Shale---------------------------- 52 1, 038 Shale ----------------------- - - - - - 775. 895 iſ Linie rock----------------------, 7 1,045 Lime and shale------------------- 75 970 || Alternating hard and soft sand Iron pyrites and lime. ------------ 15 985 rock (some shale three or four Sand (water 3 or 4 gals. min). ---. I 986 flows) ------------------------- 94 1, 139 S. Ex. 41, pt. 2—4 50 . - IRRIGATION. - *. … . . . . . This well was put down by the town for water for domestic use, but on account of its muddy character it is not generally used for that purpose. Arrangements are being made to use the water for irrigation. In the lower 90 feet the bore penetrates alternating layers of soft sand rock and shales, in which three or four flows of water were found. It is probable the disintegration of the soft rock which is brought up with the flow causes the mudly appearance and the fine sand soon settles, but the clay remains suspended in the water for several days. When the well is allowed to flow freely fragments of iron pyrites, shale, and gravel are brought up with the water. This is one of that kind of wells that increases in pressure for several hours or even days after the flow is shut off, and when opened the flow decreases in the same way until the normal flow is reached, which corresponds somewhat to the time required to gain its maximum pressure, though generally the pressure responds more quickly than the flow. The well is cased with 650 feet of 6-inch casing and 1,038 feet of 44. The latter comes to the surface.” - ICrowschnabel well.—Located in Sec. 12, T. 127 N., R. 63 W., town 7 miles east of Frederick, county of Brown, State of South Dakota. Owned by Caspar Krouschna- bel. Drilled by Caspar Krouschnabel. Commenced September 25, 1890. Elevation above sea level, 1,375 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick- IłºśS. Total. I\{}SS, Total. Feet. | Feet. Feet. | Feet. Soil ------------------------------ 2 2 || Soapstone (hard and soft layers) 555 740 Yellow clay and boulders.--..... 63 65 || Soft blue clay (some black grit).| 60 800 Blue clay (no boulders). --------. 60 125 || Iron pyrites -------------------. 1 801 Slate----------------------------. 60 185 || Rotten limestone and shale. - - - 55 856 Work on this well was stopped in June and started again on the 10th of December. At 885 feet a small flow was struck. Work on the bore is still in progress. Abbott well.—Located in Sec. 21, T. 127 N., R. 63 W., town 5 miles southeast of Fred- erick, county of Brown, State of South Dakota. Owned by Abbott & Morgan. Com- menced December 27, 1890. Drilled by Abbott & Morgan. Elevation above sea level, 1,405 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick- Il eS8. Total. Ile SS. Total. Feet. Feet. JFeet, Feet. . Soil -----------------------------. 2 2 || Slate -----------. --------------- 91 428 Yellow clay ---------------------. 20 22 || Hard soapstone (some slate) .... 19 447 Gravel and loose rock ------------ 1() 32 || Hard slate and lime .----...----. 30 477 Clay, gravel and sand.---- * sº º sº º sº e 13 45 || Sandy material (some clay).----, 52 529 Sand (surface water).----. ----... 140 185 || Hard slate and sand----......... 60 589 Clay and sand.------------------. 106 291 || Hard slate (little lime) .......... 31 620 Sand (bard) ---------------------- 22 313 || Shales (little lime) .............. 180 800 Hard sand and clay - - - - ---------. 24 337 Groton well No. 2.-Located in Sec. 19, T. 123 N., R. 60 W., town of Groton, county of Brown, State of South Dakota. Owned by town of Groton. Commenced June, 1889. Completed August, 1889. Drilled by Swan Bros., Andover, S. Dak. Depth, 922 feet. Flow, 830 gallons per minute in 1890. Pressure, 135 pounds, in 1890, per square inch when flow is shut off. Elevation above sea level, 1,304 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick. IlêSS. Total. IlêSS, Total. Feet. | Feet, Fee Feet. Soil ------------------------------ 2 2 || Grey shale---------------------. 120 445 Yellow clay.--------------------. 25 27 || Limestone ---------------------- 4 449 Blue clay ------------------------ 35 62 || Blue shale -----`----------------- 430 879 Blue shale -----------, ----------- 260 322 || Limestone.--------------------. 10 889 Limestone ----------------------- 3 325 || Sandstone (flow) ---------------- 33 922 * This log is not reliable. THE ARTESIAN WELLS OF SOUTH DAKOTA. 51. This well was put down for domestic purposes. Water, quite muddy. When flow- ing freely quantities of shale are brought up with the water. The well became choked up in May last and failed to flow for two weeks. Cased with 688 feet of 6-inch and 853 feet of 4}. Casing on latter comes to the top. Inside of this is 157 feet of 3-inch pipe, which is perforated at the bottom. F. D. Adams well.—Located in Sec. 8, T. 123 N., R. 60 W., town of Groton, county of Brown, State of South Dakota. Owned by F. D. Adams. Commenced February 12, 1891. Completed May 4, 1891. Drilled by John Anderson. Depth, 977 feet, Cost, $1,500, or $1.53 per foot. Flow, 105 gallons per minute; August 10, 255 gallons. Pres- sure, 80 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Temperature of water, 62 dé- . grees. Elevation above sea level 1,305 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick- Il CSS, Total. In 888. Total. - Feet. Feet. Feet. Feet. Soil and blue clay ---------------. 102 102 || Grey shale ---------------. ------ 100 653 Cemented gravel.---------------- 6 108 || Granite ------------------------- 3 656 Blue shale------------------------ 25 133 || Soapstone .---------------------. 75 731 Iron pyrites and lime .----------- 2 135 fi Granite very hard. -------------. 1 732 Grey shale ----------------------. 100 235 || Grey shale .--------------------- 100 832 Iron pyrites and lime. ------------ 2 237 li Fine white sand------------...--- 20 852 Hard blue shale-----------------. 10 247 || Hard rock.---------------------- 2 854 Iron pyrites and lime -------...--. 3 250 || Hard blue shale -------...-------- 50 904 Grey shale ----------------------- 100 350 || Hard rock... --------------------- 2 906 Timestone. ----------------------. 1. 351 || Sand rock (first flow). --...------ 10 916 Grey shale and limestone streaks. 100 451 || Hard cap rock -----------------. 1 917 Grey shale ----------------------- 100 551 || Saud rock (flow) ---------------. 60 977 Hard sandstone ------------------ 2 553 This well was put down for irrigation purposes, but the water has not yet been utilized for this purpose. In the bottom of the bore are two drills and about 200 feet of drill rods, which probably greatly impede the flow, Burnham well.—Located in Sec. 31, T. 124 N., R. 60 W., town of Groton, county of Brown, State of South Dakota. Owned by W. A. Burnham, Commenced Novem- ber 7, 1890. Completed January 27, 1891. Drilled by W. A. Burnham. Depth, 942 feet. , Cost, $2,500, or $2.65 per foot. Flow, 150 gallons per minute. Pressure, 137 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Temperature of water, 63 degrees. Elevation above sea level, 1,305 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick- i. | Total. ſº ... |Total. Feet. Feet Feet Feet. Soil ------------------------------ 2 2 || Iron pyrites.-------------------- 3 391 Yellow clay. --------------------- 22 24 || Blue shale----------------------. 70 461 Quicksand ----------------------. 20 44 || Boulders -----------------------. 18 479 Blue shale. ----------------------- 40 84 || Grey shale ---------------------. 246 725 Cobblestones.-------------------- 4 88 || Sand rock (first flow)............ 41 766 Cemented gravel ----------------- 20 108 || Blue shale. ----- ---------------. 40 806 Blue shale.----- * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 100 208 || Quicksand . --------------------- 10 816 Hard sand rock ------------------ 2 210 || Iron pyrites (cap rock).--------. 4 820 Blue shale. ----------------------- 150 360 il Shale --------------------------- 20 840 Brown lime ---------------------. 3 363 || Sand and slate (water) ...------. 102 942 Blue shale.----------------------- 25 388 * ºs- - This well was put down mainly for irrigation purposes, but very little has yet been done. When first completed if allowed to flow freely quantities of shale and gravel were carried up with the water. On April 10 it became choked up and was partially opened June 25. Cased with 4-inch casing to 816 feet, and inside of this is 150 feet of 24-inch pipe, which is perforated with 4-inch holes. Groton Well No. 1.-Located in Sec. 19, T. 123 N., R. 60 W., town of Groton, county of Brown, State of South Dakota. Owned by town of Groton. Drilled by Gray Bros., Milwaukee, Wis. Depth, 960 feet. Elevation above sea level, 1,304 feet. IRRIGATION. ſ - - # Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick- IlêSS. Total. IłęSS. Total r _* Feet. JFeet. Feet. | Feet. Soil ------------------------------ 2 2 || Limestone ---------------------- 4. 469 Yellow clay ---------------------. 25 27 || Blue shale ---------------------- 451 920 Blue clay ------------------------ 35 62 || Limestone, Sandy, cap rock ..... 5 925 Blue shale ----------------------- 270 332 || San dstone (flow). ------...--...--. 35 960 Limestone ---------------------, - 335 Gray shale.--------------------.. 130 465 This well was put down for municipal purposes. Soon after it was completed the seating of the casing gave way and the flow came up on the outside of the casing, which washed out a hole at the surface 30 feet in diameter and 100 feet deep. It will be observed the seating of the outside casing was in blue shale. The bore was cased with 840 feet of 57%-inch casing; 140 feet of 4% inch, which laps 60 feet on the 5* inch; then 75 of 3%-inch casing, which laps 35 feet on the 4%. The lower part of the 3#-inch pipe is perforated with #-inch holes. - Kimball well.—Located in Sec. 3, T. 103 N., R. 68 W., town of Kimball, county of Brule, State of South Dakota. Owned by town of Kimball. Completed in 1887. Drilled by Gray Bros., Milwaukee, Wis. Depth, 1068 feet. Cost, $4,500, or $4.21 per foot. Flow, 185 gallons per minute. Pressure, 20 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Temperature of water, 68 degrees. Elevation above sea level, 1781, feet. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick- t - Ił0SS, Totals. IléSS. Total F3et. Feet. Feet, JFeet. Clay ----------------------------. 230 230 || Salt and rock-------------------- 20 980 Quicksand ----------------------- i00 330 || Hard rock----------------------- 8 988 Shale ---------------------------. 610 940 || Soft Sand rock ------------------ 80 1,068 Sand rock------------------------ 20 960 || Stopped in soft sand rock. This well is used as a public watering place. The water is hard, but clear. The well is on the high country between the Missouri and James rivers. cased with a single string of 988 feet of 4% inch casing. The well is The well is said to be de- creasing in its flow. It requires one-half hour to reach its maximum pressure after the flow has been shut off. City well.—Located in Sec. 15, T. 104 N., R, 71 W., town of Chamberlain, county of Brule, State of South Dakota. pleted May, 1891. Drilled by Page Guthrie. Depth, 785 feet. per foot. Flow, 529 gallons per minute. Owned by city. Commenced October, 1890; com- Cost, $3,500, or $3.46 Pressure, 122 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Temperature of water, 74 degrees. Elevation above sea level, 1,547 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick IlòSS. Total. DęSS Total JFeet. | Feet Feet. | Feet. Soil ------------------------------ 3 3 || Shale---------------------------- 12 550 Clay------------------------------ 17 20 || Shale with layers of soft sand. -- 50 600 Clay ------------------------------ 10 30 || Shale---------------------------- 20 620 Clay.----------------------------- 80 110 || Shale---------------------------- 30 650 Blue clay------------------------- 15 125 || Shale.--------------------------. 25 675 Shale---...------------------------ 30 155 || Shale.--------------------------. 25 700 Chalk rock -------------------- > - - 45 200 || Shale. --...--...------------------. 13 713 Dark chalk rock. ----------------- 50 250 || Iron pyrites and sand rock (first Chalk rock ----------------------- 50 300 OW) -------------------------- 3 716 Chalk rock ----------------------- 100 400 || Sand rock.---------------------- 4 720 Chalk rock ----------------------- 15 415 || Shale---------------------------- 30 750 Shale----------------------------- 35 450 || Shale. --------------------------- 8 758 Shale------------------------ tº * s sº 50 500 || Sand rock (second flow).-------- 2 760 Slate ----------------------------- 21 521 || Sand rock ----------------------- 15 775 Sand rock. ----------------------- 4 525 || Shale -...----...--...------------- 5 780 Sand rock ------------------------ I3 538 || Iron pyrites, sand, and shale. --. 5 785 * * *: e . . . * . wRILs AT CHAMBERLAIN AND MITCHELL. 53 This well was put down by the city of Chamberlain for municipal purposes. It is located on a hill considerably above the city, where there is a settling reservoir sufficiently elevated above the city to afford good pressure for fire purposes. Mr. Scott Hayes, city engineer, who superintended the work of making this bore, has furnished us with the record of the well. It is so complete that I give most of it as a good example to follow for those putting down artesian wells. In addition to the log of the strata and other data given, he furnished the department with samples of all the strata penetrated, which will in due time be arranged in a glass tube, about 8 feet long, showing the order and thickness of the strata as they lie in that locality. The first flow was struck at 716 feet, one gallon per minute from the top of the pipe. Quality bad, quite salty. The second flow was struck at 750 feet. This flow was one- half gallon per minute, but better quaity than the first. The third flow was struck at 780 feet ; flow 74 gallons per minute. The temperature of all the flows at this point was 649. Pressure at the top of the well, 55 pounds per square inch. Quality good. The fourth flow was struck at 785 feet. The total flow at this point is 529 gallons per minute. Temperature, 749. Pressure, 122 pounds per square inch. Quality good. Tests with litmus papers, result neutral. Specific gravity, 1,000. When the well is closed the pressure gradually runs up to 100 pounds and increases to 122 pounds in 24 hours. The flow supports a 2-inch stream 45 feet high, and a 4-inch stream 63 feet high, and a 6-inch stream 10 inches above the top of the pipe. Within four months after the well was completed the flow was observed to be somewhat diminished. This has occurred twice. Each time there was considerable mud came up with the water, but as soon as the water became clear the flow increased. The amount of mud thrown out alltogether is estimated to be 100 cubic yards. The well is cased to 770 feet with 6-inch casing. There is about 300 feet of 8-inch casing near the top of the well, which was intended to be pulled out, but it was found impossible to do so with the appliances at hand. The well was put down by contract in city bonds.” Hammer well.—Located in sec. 19, T. 99 N., R. 69 W., town of Castalia, county of Charles Mix, State of South Dakota. Owned by A. A. Hammer. Completed May, 1891. Depth, 966 feet. Cost, about $1,500, or $1.55 per foot, Flow, 30 gallons per minute. Pressure, 50 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Elevation above sea level, 1,610 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- - Thick- Iſle SS. Total. IlêSS. Total. - JFeet. Feet. Feet. | Feet. Soil and clay --------------------- 87 87 || Dark sticky shale--------------. 45 675 Chalk rock----------------------- 213 300 || Blue shale-------------...--------. 50 725 Hard rock.----------------------- 20 320 || Iron pyrites and hard rock...... 30 755 Chalk rock.---------------------. 169 489 || Soft rock with iron pyrites.----. 100 855 Water-bearing sandstone......... l 490 || Water-bearing sandstone ....... 111 966 Chalk rock--------------- * = • * ~ * ~ * 140 630 || Hard and soft streaks. --........!-- - - - - -...-...--- This is a small bore put down for water for household use and for irrigating one- half acre of garder. Quality of water hard, but clear. Cased with 755 feet of 2-inch pipe, then with 14-inch pipe to the bottom. Mitchell well.—Located in Sec. 22, T. 103 N., R. 60 W., town of Mitchell, county of Davison, State of South Dakota. Owned by city of Mitchell. Completed January 9, 1886. Drilled by Mars & Miller, Chicago, Ill. Depth, 548 feet. Cost, $3,130, or $5.75 per foot. Pressure, 7 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Elevation above sea level, 1,316 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- | ºn * Thick- Ilê8S, Total. TheSS. Total Feet. Feet. JFeet, I Feet. Loam ---------------------------- 2 2 || Sand rock (water)--------------- 29 315 Sandy loam ---------------------- 38 40 || Blue shale----------------------- 134 449 Blue clay------------------------- 90 130 || Dry Band.----------------------- 30 479 White sand ---------------------. 40 170 || Blue shale ---------------------. 50. 529 Blue shale------------------------ 115 285 || Hard cap rock ------------------ 1 530 Iron pyrites and lime-...---------- 1 286 || Sand rock (water).-------------. 18 548 wº- This well was put down for domestic and fire purposes, but failing to get sufficient pressure the water from the well is forced into distributing mains of the city of Mitch- ell by steam pumps. By this means the city is supplied with water. *Elevations given are from the United States Missouri River Commission Surveys. 54 * . . IRRIGATION. . Unnamed well.—Located in Sec. 35, T. 104 N., R. 60 W., town 4 miles northeast of Mitchell, county of Davison, State of South Dakota. Owned by American Invest- ment Company. Completed April, 1891. Drilled by Thos. Ball, Mitchell, S. Dak. Depth, 507 feet. I'low, 40 gallons per minute. Temperature of water, 56 degrees. Elevation above sea level, 1,344 feet. This well was put down for irrigation purposes, but is not used. It is cased with 44-inch casing to 255 feet, then with 270 feet of 3-inch, which laps on the bottom of the 44-inch. Well flows a small amount of hard, but clear water. Schlund well.—Located in sec. 3, T. 103 N., R. 62 W., town 4 miles north of Mount Vernon, county of Davison, State of South Dakota. Owned by W. H. Schlund. Completed October, 1890. Drilled by Schlund. Depth, 338 feet. Flow, 40 gallons per minute. Elevation above sea level, 1,375 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick. IlêSS. Total. D1088. Total. g Feet. Feet. Feet. Feet. Earth ---------------------------- 36 36 || Iron pyrites and lime ........... 3% 246; Sand rock.----------------------. 4 40 | Shale---------------------------- 24 270; Shale ---------------------------- 96 136 || Shale and hard streaked to bottom 67 338 Saud rock-----------------------. 7 143 || Sand rock in bottom. Shale----------------------------- 100 243 This well was put down for irrigation purposes, but there is but little data concern- ing it. It is cased with 138 feet of 4 inch casing, which is seated in sand rock. In- side of this is 3-inch casing, length unknown. Elevations given are approximate. Andover well.—Located in sec. 35, T. 123 N., R. 59 W., town of Andover, county of Day, State of South Dakota. Owned by Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railroad. Completed in 1882. Drilled by Swan Brothers, Andover, South Dakota. Depth, 1,075 feet. Pressure, 65 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Elevation above sea level, 1,505 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick- Ile SS. Total. T1888, Total. Feet, Feet. Feet. Feet. Soil, sand, and clay -------------. 45 45 || Limestone .--------------------. 15 590 Blue clay. ------------------------ 30 75 || Shale streaks limestone..... ---- 480 1,070 Blue shale------------------------ 500 575 || Sandstone (main flow) ---------. 5 1,075 This well was put down for railroad purposes, but the water was found to be un- suitable for boiler use. It now serves the town of Andover for domestic purposes. The water is soft and clear but contains minerals which causes it to foam badly in steam boilers. It is cased to 725 feet with a 6-inch casing, which is seated in shale. Inside of this is 1,050 feet of 44-inch casing, which extends from the top to the bottom of the bore. The piping from this well is so arranged that its flow can not be measured, but it is sufficient to serve the town. Armour well.—Located in sec. 11, T. 98 N., R. 64 W., town of Armour, county of Douglas, State of South Dakota. Owned by town of Armour. Commenced Novem- ber 25, 1890. Completed January 7, 1891. Drilled by Swan Brothers. Depth, 757+ feet. Cost $3,030, or $4 per foot. Flow, 1,590 gallons per minute. Pressure, 55 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Temperature of water 69 degrees. Elevation above sea level, 1,514 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick- In 888, Total. Iſle SS. Total. - Feet. Feet. Feet. | Feet. Soil ------------------------------ 1 -------..]| Gray sand rock (very soft).----. 22 390 Yellow clay (sandy).--------...--. 30 40 || Blue shale.--...-----------...--. 50 440 Blue clay (greasy).--------------- 47 87 || Soapstone ----------------------. 25 465 Blue shale.----------------------- 119 206 || Gray shale.--...-----------...--- 58 523 Black shale ---------------------. 49 255 || Blue shale.----...----------...... 83 606 Chalk rock----------------------- 52 307 || Lime rock (yellowish) --------.. 25 631 Lime rock (blue).--------...----. 26 333 || Blue shale. ..... -----------...--- 60 691 Yellow Saud rock. . . . . .--...-----. 25 358 || Layers of sand and shale........ 10 701 Yellowish sand rock (soft). -----. 10 368 || Sand rock (pure).------...----...- 56 757 \. * * SOUTH DAKOTA. THE ARTESIAN wells of 55 The water of this well is used for town purposes. It is stated the pressure and vol- ume are sufficient to support a 3-inch stream 58 feet high ; a 43-inch stream 17 feet high 3, and a 6 inch stream 63 feet high. If these figures are correct it shows there is little or no resistance to the water passing through the rock as it approaches the lower end of the casing. seated in black shale. Edmunds, State of South Dakota. 1884. Drilled by Grey Brothers, Milwaukee, Wis. Flow, 40 gallons per minute. when flow is shut off. Temperature of water, 71 degrees. No record of strata given. $4.30 per foot. 1,531 feet. The well is cased with 206 feet of 8-inch casing which is Inside of this is a string of 708 feet of 6-inch casing which comes to the top of the bore. There is a good strong flow of hard, clear water. Ipswich well.—Located in sec. 27, T. 123 N., R. G8 W, town of Ipswich, county of Owned by town of Ipswich. Depth, 1,230 feet. This well was put down for domestic and fire protection purposes. strongly impregnated with mineral of some kind, which has destroyed the casing at the bottom. Completed fall, Cost, $5,290, or Pressure, 106 pounds per square inch Elevation above sea level, The water is The well is said to be cased with 1,000 feet of 4-inch casing, and in- side of this is 330 feet of 33-inch, which laps 100 feet on the outside casing. It is thought that this casing has been destroyed by the bad water, and has fallen down to the bottom of the bore and shut off the lower flow. the same the flow has decreased. the water in large numbers, but none have been seen during the last year or so. Orient well.—Located in sec. 18, T. 117 N., R. 68 W., town near Orient, county of Faulk, State of South Dakota. Drilled by Swan Brothers, Andover, S. Dak. Depth, 1,215 feet. While the pressure remains It is reported that at one time fish came up with Owned by Faulk County. Completed June, 1891. Cost, $4,860, or $4 per foot. Flow, 950 gallons per minute. Pressure, 130 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Temperature of water, 75 degrees. Elevation above sea level, 1,565 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick- IlêSS. Total. Ilê8S. Total. Feet. Feet. JFeet. | Feet. Yellow clay---------------------- 20 20 || Blue shale (with hard streaks) - - 43 477 Blue clay ------------------------ 27 47 || Gray shale (gaseous) -----------. 198 675 Black slate----------------------. 30 77 || Blue shale (cavey) ----...---.... 250 925 Blue shale ----------------------. 216 293 || Blue shale (streaks iron pyrites). 145 1,070 Gray shale ----------------------- 38 331 || Hard sand rock (flow water) . . . . 40 1, 110 Blue shale caving (hard streaks). 60 391 || Streaks sand, lime, iron pyrites, Lime rock (small vein water un- and shale.--------------------- 55 1, 165 der it).------------------------- 3 394 || Sand rock (hard and soft layers, Black shale ---------------------- 40 434 flow) -------------------------- 50 1, 215 This well was put down by Faulk County as a test well for irrigation purposes. The parties owning the land in the vicinity have an option on it, or agreed to pay the cost price for it, provided it proved to be a success. The bore is cased with 1,070 feet of 6-inch casing and 95 feet of 54-inch, with no lap. The 54-inch casing is per- forated. When drilling was stopped the flow" was 180 gallons per minute. Pressure, 130 pounds. Two days afterwards large quantities of sand began to come up with the water and the flow increased to 950 gallons per minute. When the sand stopped running the water continued to be discolored, probably by the eroding of the shales. Miller well.—Located in sec. 10, T. 112 N., R. 68 W., town of Miller, county of Hand, State of South Dakota. Owned by town of Miller. Completed in 1886. Drilled by Gray Brothers, Milwaukee, Wis. Depth, 1,145 feet. Cost, $4,010, or $3.50 per foot. Flow, 460 gallons per minute. Pressure, 100 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Temperature, 78 degrees. Elevation above sea level, 1,586 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick- , j | Total, ... | Total. - Eeet. Feet. I'eet. I Feet. Soil, clay, and gravel ------------- 220 220 || Shale---------------------------- 130 1, 105 Blue shale.----------------------. 710 930 || Flard sand rock (cap rock)...... 6 1, 111 Hard sand rock and iron pyrites. 45 975 || Sand rock (flow) . . . . .---------- 5 1, 116 Sand rock (no flow) -------...----. 29 3, 145 This well was put down for town use. sels and pipes quickly. The well is cased as follows: The wafer is reported to destroy iron ves- 510 feet of 6.4-inch casing, which is seated in blue shale, then 460 feet of 5%-inch casing, which laps 40 feet on the 64-inch, and is seated on the top of a hard sand rock; then there is 207 feet of 44- inch casing, which laps 32 feet on the 5-inch. This is also seated on the next lower .# 56 * *. IRRIGATION. sand rock, which is called the cap rock and overlies the water bearing 'sand rock, 2. . . Inside the 44-inch casing is 60 feet of 34-inch casing, which rests on the bottom oſ.” the bore and laps 20 feet on the 43-inch, which is perforated below the lap with ten #-inch holes to the foot. This bore is so cased as to admit the lowerflow, which has a high temperature of 78 degrees. Harold well.—Located in sec. 8, T. 112 N., R. 74 W., town of Harold, county of Hughes, State of South Dakota. Owned by town of Harold. Completed in 1888. Drilled by Swan Brothers, Andover, S. Dak. Depth, 1,453 feet. Flow, 85 gallons per minute. Pressure, 27 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Temperature of water, 94 degrees. Elevation above sea level, 1,800 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick Ile SS. Total. In 688. Total. Feet. | Feet. Feet. | Feet. Soil ------------------------------ 2 2 || Black shale .--...---------------. 50 600 Yellow clay ---------------------- 38 40 || Black Sandy Shale. ----...------. 140 740 Blue clay. --. --------------------. 70 110 || Gray shale ---------------------. 160 900 Bowlders in clay ----------------- 15 125 || Blue shale.---------------------- 400 1,300 Blue shale.----------------------. 155 280 || Blue shale (streaks of lime). . . . . 13 1,433 Limestone ---------------------. . 2 282 || Lignite-------------------------. 2 1, 435 Blue shale------------------------ 168 450 || Sandstone (main flow)........ --. 16 1, 451 Gray shale (streaks limestone)... 100 550 || Brown shale --...--------------- 2 1,453 The water from this well is used for town purposes. Its flow is reported as decreas- ing slowly. It is cased with a 4-inch casing all the way. The temperature of the water is the highest of any yet observed. A small flow was found at 1,000 feet, and three were found between 1,300 and 1,433 feet. Highmore well.—Located in Sec. 12, T. 112 N., R. 72 W., town of Highmore, county of Hyde, State of South Dakota. Owned by town of Highmore. Commenced Octo- ber, 1886. Completed March, 1887. Drilled by Gray Brothers, Milwaukee, Wis. Depth, 1,552 feet. Cost $7,200, or $4.64 per foot. Flow, 9 gallons per minute. Pres- sure, 124 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Temperature of water, 72 degrees. Elevation above sea level, 1,900 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick- ... Total. ... Total. Feet. | Feet. # Feet. Feet. Soil, clay, and gravel -----------. 240 240 li Blue shale-------------------...--. 116 1,430 Blue shale ----------------------- 500 740 || Sandstone (water, not flow). ---. 12 1,442 Bard gray shale and iron pyrites. 75 815 || Sandy shale----------------...--. 93 1, 535 Blue shale ----------------------- 271 | 1,086 || Hard sand (cap rock) ........... 2 1, 537 Gray shale mixed with sand - - - - - 224 | 1, 310 || Soft sandstone (flow) ---........ 15 1, 552 Shale and iron pyrites------------ 4. 1, 314 Bottom in sand rock. The top of this bore is the highest above sea level of any in the Dakota Basin. The plan of casing is the same as is used in the Miller well. There are 5 different sized casings used, the top being 63 inches and the bottom 3+. Each size laps 50 feet on the lower end of the string above. Each string of casing is stopped on hard rock, except the 34-inch, which is 155 feet in length and reaches within 17 feet of the bot- tom of the bore. The lower 20 feet of this is perforated with one hundred and fifty 3-inch holes, The flow decreased until 1890. Since that time it has been increasing a little Iroquois well.—Located in Sec. 6, T. 110 N., R. 58 W., town of Iroquois, county of Kingsbury, State of South Dakota. Owned by town of Iroquois. Commenced March, 1890. Completed October, 1890. Drilled by Gray Brothers, Milwaukee, Wis. Depth, 1,100 feet. Cost, $3,400, or $3.10 per foot. Flow, 100 gallons per minute. Pressure, 67 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Temperature of water, 72 degrees. Elevation above sea level, 1,403 feet. . Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick- IléSS, Total, In 9SS, Total. Feet. Feet. Feet, Feet. Black loam. ---------------------- 2 2 || Sand rock (very light flow). ----. 2 602 Blue clay.------------------------ 40 42 hale.--------------------------- 248 850 Shale---------------------------- 358 400 || Sand rock (flow). ---------------. 5 855 Sand rock (very light flow).-----. 2 402 || Sand rock (no flow). ----...----. 55 910 ale----------------------------- 198 600 || Soft rock (probably shales)...... 190 1, 100 2- 57 This bore was put down for water for domestic use and obtained a small supply of very soft water. On account of its purity it is used also for supplying the railroad with water for locomotive use. It is cased with 6-inch, 5-inch, and 43-inch casing, the lower end of the 44-inch casing being perforated with 3-inch holes. Britton well.—Located in Sec. 26, T. 127 N., R. 58 W., town of Britton, county of Marshall, State of South Dakota. Owned by town of Britton. Commenced Decem- ber 1, 1888. Completed March 25, 1889. Drilled by Swan Brothers, Andover, S. Dak. Depth, 1,004 feet. Cost, $3,614, or $3.56 per foot. Flow, 600 gallons per minute. Pres- sure, 115 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Temperature of water, 64 wells AT BRITTON, BRIGDEWATER, AND SALEM. 3. degrees. trata passed through are as follows: Elevation above sea level, 1,352 feet. Thick- Thick- Ilê88. Total. Il688. Total * Feet. Feet. Feet. | Feet. Sand (pockets of coal) ........ --. 90 90 || Limestone----------------------- 5 880 Plue clay.------------------------ 25 115 || Sand and shale (flow) - - -...----- 26 906 Blue shale.----------------------- 293 408 || Shale, lime, coal, and pyrites .... 70 976 Blue shale (hard streaks).---...--. 242 650 || Sandstone (flow) shale near bot- Blue shale (tough).----...--------. 175 825 || tom ---------------------------. 28 1, 004 Sandy shale ---------------------- 50 875 The water in this well is clear and soft, but when allowed to flow freely it is a little milky in appearance at first. lawns and gardens; also to drive a motor for running printing presses. with 8-inch, 6-inch, 44-inch, and 33-inch casing. It is used for domestic purposes and to irrigate It is cased top of the bore, and the lower 104 feet is perforated. & Bridgewater well.—Located in T. 101 N., R. 56 W., town of Bridgewater, county of McCook, State of South Dakota. April 20, 1891. Owned by town of Bridgewater. The 34-inch casing reaches to the Commenced Completed June 2, 1891. Drilled by Col. C. H. Chandler. Depth, 229 feet. Cost, $515, or $2.25 per foot. Elevation above sea level, 1,413 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick- Ilê88. Total. Il688. Total. Feet. | Feet. Feet. | Feet. Yellow clay ---------------------- 30 30 || right-colored clay and bowlders. 70 197 Blue clay.-----------------------. 25 55 ; Quartzite (probably bowlder) ... 3 201 Quicksand ----------------------, 11 66 || Soft sand rock------------------. 18 219 Hard blue clay and sand --------. 45 111 || Hard sand rock shelly bottom, 5 Quicksand .--------------------- 12 123 feet---------------------------- 10 229 Cemented sand and gravel ------. 4 127 This bore was put down by the town of Bridgewater, but on account of the failure to sell the town bonds work was stopped when it reached a depth of 229 feet. A small vein of good water was found at 224 feet, which rises within 60 feet of the sur- face and is lifted the balance of the way by a pump. The water is used for domestic purposes. It is cased with 53-inch, 4-inch and 24-inch casing. Salem well.—Situated in T. 103 N., R. 55 W., town of Salem, county of McCook, State of South Dakota. Owned by town of Salem. Completed fall of 1887. Drilled by Swan Brothers. Depth, 247 feet. Elevation above sea level, 1,517 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick- IlešS. Total. Ilê SS. Total. Feet. Feet Feet. Feet, Soil ------------------------------ 2 2 || Soapstone ---------------------- 40 215 Yellow clay---------------------- 35 37 || ſloose sand (water rises to 75 IBlue clay.----------------------- 32 69 feet of surface).--------------- 5 220 Quicksand ----------------------- 11 80 || Blue shale ---------------------- 2 222 Blue clay ------------------------ 85 165 || Sioux quartzite ----------------- 25 247 This bore was put down for water for town purposes, but was abandoned after drilling 25 feet into quartzite. McCurdy well.—Located in Sanborn, State of South Dakota. sº- Sec. 15., T. 105 N., R. 61 W., town of Letcher, county of Owned by Frank McCurdy. Commenced July 13, *#- . …” 58 IRRIGATION. t 1890. Completed August 13, 1890. Drilled by C. O. Hutchins, Woonsocket. Depth, 578 feet. ost, $700, or $1.21 per foot. tion above sea level, 1,310 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: Flow, about 70 gallons per minute. Eleva- Thick- - Thick- In 28S. Total IléSS. Total Feet. Feet. Feet. | Feet. Soil and clay. ----- lºs s sº me as ºs e º me as e s s = • 30 30 || Soapstone.-----------------...--. 8 514 Sand and gravel.----- * * * * * tº gº tº sº e º sº 22 52 || Sand rock (small flow).......... 0% 514 Blue clay -----------------------. 95 147 || Lignite ------------------------- I 515% Gravel -------------------------- 1. 148 || Soapstone ...... ---. ** = < e < * * * * * * * 37 552; Chalk with cement ----........ 175 323 || Sand rock (small flow).--------. 0% 5533. Limestone ----------------------. 7 330 || Soapstone ---------------------- 12 565 Soapstone.----------------------. 100 430 || Quicksand.--------------------- 2 567 , Soapstone with thin veins of iron Soapstone .----. ---------------. 1 568 pyrites 3 feet to 6 feet apart. ... 75 505 || Sand rock (water) -----...-...--. 10 578 Sand rock (small flow). -----..... l 506 This is a 2-inch well put down for domestic and stock purposes. Cost as follows: Hauling water $10; fuel, $50; cost of tools and drilling, including labor, $565; total $700. Letcher well.—Located in Sec. 15, T. 105 N., R. 61 W., town of Letcher, county of Sanborn, State of South Dakota. 1891. $3.12 per foot. 1,300 feet. Completed July, 1891. Strata passed through are as follows: Owned by town of Letcher. Drilled by city. Depth, 577 feet. Flow, 80 gallons per minute. when flow is shut off. Temperature.of water, 58 degrees. Commenced July, Cost, $1,800, or Pressure, 90 pounds per square inch Elevation above sea level, Thick- Thick- Ił0SS. Total. Il CS8. Total. Feet. Feet. Feet. Feet. Shale----------------------------- 100 570 || Sand rock (flow). --------------. 7 577 This bore was made by the town of Latcher for water for domestic purposes and Although the supply is comparatively small it serves the purposes for which it was intended and has filled a natural depression in the ground adjoining the town, forming a lake of several acres. similar ‘2-inch bore can now be put down for $500. Cased with 500 feet of 3-inch for a public watering place. casing, which is stopped on hard rock. comes to the surface. It is claimed that a Inside of this is 570 feet of 2-inch pipe, which Woonsocket well.—Located in Sec. 28, T. 107 N., R. 62 W., town of Woonsocket Owned by town of Woonsocket. leted in 1890. Drilled by Gray Brothers, Milwaukee, Wis. Depth, 725 feet. county of Sanborn, State of South Dakota. 3,820, or $5.27 per foot. Flow, 1,150 gallons per minute. Com- Cost, Pressure, 130 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Temperature of water, 65 degrees. Elevation above sea level, 1,308 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick- ... | Total. ... Total. Feet. Feet. Feet. Feet. Soil and clay --------------------- 110 110 || Soft sand rock (water) . . . . . . . . . . 41 725 Shale----------------------------- 240 350 || The sand rock in this well was Iron pyrites (soft sand rock). ---- 2 352 | full of very hard but thin Shale----------------------------- 180 532 || streaks, and when each hard Hard sand rock and iron pyrites . 30 563 || streak was drilled through the Shale----------------------------- 118 680 || flow increased. Hard sand cap rock -------------- 4. 684 The flow and pressure of this well have diminished considerably since 1890. In the fall of that year the flow from the well was shut off for a short time. Upon open- . ing it again it has failed to recover its former flow and pressure. For several days afterwards large quantities of sand, shale, and a tough, tenacious clay were thrown out of the well. It is estimated that at léast 100 car loads—say 2,000 cubic yards— * s r - - - f *s GREAT ARTESIAN WELLS AT WOONSOCKET. 59 of this material were brought up with the water before the flow could be shut off. But since regulating valves have been attached and the flow reduced to the actual meeds of the city, the water has cleared up; but upon opening the valves prior to the time when the flow was entirely shut off sand, broken rock, and mud would be thrown out. The bore is cased to what is commonly called the cap rock, 680 feet below the surface, where the 6-inch casing is seated, which is 45 feet above the bot- tom of the bore. The amount of solid material thrown out (if the estimates are cor- rect) would make a cavity at the bottom of the well equal to 38 feet cube, and it is not at all unlikely that there has been a caving in of the material overy lying so large a cavity. The casing is open at its lower end, and rests upon a stratum of hard rock only 4 feet thick. The former flow was 2,750 gallons per minute and the pressure was 155 pounds per square inch. There are three or possibly four rea- sons that can be given as the cause of the decrease in the flow of this well. One is . the probable caving in of the material overlying the cavity that undoubtedly exists after so large a quantity as 54,000 cubic feet of solid material has been removed at the bottom of the bore. Its caving in may have choked the free flow from the lower water course. The second is the probable falling down of the cap rock, on which the casing is seated, leaving a part of the flow to pass up outside of the casing. The third is the possibility of a rock having gotten fast in the lower end of the casing. The fourth is the possibility of the flow being diminished by another well abětut 1,500 feet distant, which was completed last fall, or about the time that this one was shut down. There are some reasons for believing that this is not the case, as the city well does not show any increase of volume or pressure when the other well is shut down for days, or even weeks, as it was during the past spring and summer. The well flows sufficient for city purposes, so there is no necessity for attempting to re- gain the original flow. Mill well.—Located in Sec. 28, T. 107 N., R. 62 W., town of Woonsocket, county of Sanborn, State of South Dakota. Owned by Northey & Duncan. Completed in 1890. Drilled by Robbins & Wowe. Depth, 775 feet. Cost $4,500, or $5.80 per foot. Pres- sure, 125 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Temperature of water, 69 degrees. Elevation above sea level, 1,316 feet. - Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- | Thick. , IlêS8. | Total. ... | Total. Feet. Peet. Feet. Feet. Yellow clay ---------------------- 25 25 || Soapstone.---------------------- 19 455 Blue clay------------------------- 20 45 || Soft shale. ---------------------- 5 460 Sand ----------------------------- 2 47 || Soapstone iron pyrites -- - - - - - - - - 80 540 Blue clay------------------------- 11 58 || Shale and sandy shale iron py- Hardpan ------------------------. 7 65 rites -------------------------- 97 637 Sand ----------------------------. 30 95 || Hard lime rock-----------------. 8 645 Hardpan and gravel.------------. 70 165 || Shale---------------------------- 45 690 Shale and iron pyrites.----------. 51 216 || Hard rock----------------------. 1 691 Soapstone.------------------------ 196 412 || Shale---------------------------. 6 697 Hard sandstone.----------------- - 20 432 || Sand rock and water, stopped in Brown sandstone.---------------. 4 436 sand rock --------------------- 78 775 The pressure and flow from this well are utilized to drive a 125-barrel flour mill. The pipe connected with this well is carried underground a few hundred feet and is finally reduced to a 2-inch nozzle, which directs the stream against the periphery of a 4-foot Pelton water wheel, which develops ample power to drive the mill with all its machinery. Prior to selecting the proper sized wheel and discharge orifice, a test was made of the pressure that could be maintained with different sized opening, with the following results: The well was allowed to flow freely for forty-eight hours, and then closed, showing a pressure of 85 pounds. When discharging a 2-inch stream the pres- sure was 78 pounds; when discharging a 24-inch the pressure was 72 pounds; when discharging a 3-inch stream the pressure was 62 pounds; when discharging a 4-inch stream the pressure was 48 pounds. A few hours afterwards the closed pressure was 93 pounds; with a 2-inch stream, 86 pounds. One day afterwards, when discharging a 2-inch stream, the pressure was 88 pounds. Two days afterwards, with a 2-inch stream, the pressure was 94 pounds. Three days afterwards the pressure was 95 pounds while discharging a 2-inch stream. The bore is cased with 697 feet of 7-inch casing seated on the sand rock with no inside or perforated pipe. This well is sit d- ated about 1,500 feet north from the city well. Although the two wells are so near each other it is thought that one does not interfere with the flow or pressure of the other. The proprietors have never measured the flow, nor would they consent to have it measured without a guaranty for any damage to the well that might occur in opening it for the full flow. They claim there is great danger of the well caving and choking up after it has been allowed to flow freely, as it throws up large quantities of sand and rock, the same as the city well has done. 60 IRRIGATION. Hines well.—Located in Sec. 29, T. 107 N., R. 62 W., town 1 mile west of Woon. 89cket, county of Sanborn, State of South Dakota. Owned by Charles E. Hines. Completed March, 1891. Drilled by Charles E. Hines. Depth, 742 feet. Cost, $900, or $1.20 per foot. Flow, 425 gallons per minute. Pressure, 131 pounds per squaré inch, when flow is shut off. Temperature of water, 65 degrees. Elevation above sea level, 1,348 feet. * Strata passed through are as follows: 4 Thick-l ºr Thick- ro ... Total. ... | Total. Feet. | Feet. I'eet. Feet. Shale to--------------------------|-------. 689 || Sand rock flow stopped in sand | rock--------------------------- 53 742 This well was put down for irrigation purposes. It is cased with a single string of 3-inch casing, which is seated in sand rock, in which the flow is obtained. When allowed to flow freely sand comes up with the water, especially when first opened. The º reaches its maximum quickly when the flow is stopped. Some irriga- tion was done this year from the water. The owner intends to construct a storage reservoir and put 200 acres under a complete system of irrigation next year. Ashton well.—Located in Sec. 35, T. 118 N., R. 64 W., town of Ashton, county of ‘Spink, State of South Dakota. Owned by Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Rail- road. Commenced September, 1882. Completed in 1883. Drilled by Swan Brothers, Andover, S. Dak. Depth, 925 feet. Cost, $4,000, or $4.32 per foot. Flow, 100 gallons }.” Pressure, 60 pounds when flow is shut off. Elevation above sea level, 1, eet. - Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick- Il GSS. Total. IlòSS. Total. Feet. Feet. JFeet. Feet. Driff----------------- gº e º ºs e is e s m = n s 66 66 || Sandy shale (small flow. ..... --. 35 830 Black shale ---------------------. 34 100 || Yellow limestone.---...-----...--. 30 860 Gray shale ----------------------. 300 400 || Lime and shale. ----------------- 32 892 Blue shale...... * * * * * * * gº tº ſº tº gº º is a sº ºn tº 250 650 || Iron pyrites and lime ........... 8 900 Sandy shale (small flow) - ........ 10 660 || Sandstone (main flow). -----..... 15 915 Blue shale ----------------------- 135 795 || Blue shale ------...--------------- 10 925 This well was put down by the railroad company for water for locomotive use, but owing to the tendency to destroy iron and foaming badly in the boilers it is not used for that purpose, and the well is practically abandoned. The pressure and flow re- main the same as when first struck. It is cased with 550 feet of 6-inch casing which is seated in gray shale. Inside of this is 903 feet of 4-inch casing, which starts from the top and reaches the lower flow. No perforations. Lower end open. Doland well.—Located, in sec. 31, T. 117 N. R., 60 W., town of Doland, county of Spink, State of South Dakota. Owned by town of Doland. Completed in 1889. Drilled by Swan Bros., Andover, S. Dak. Depth, 897 feet. Flow, 370 gallons per minute. Pressure, 122 pounds per square inch when the flow is cut off. Tempera. ture, 64 degrees. Elevation above sea level, 1,350 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- || rº Thick. Ii.68S. Total. IlêS$, Total. JFeet. Feet. Feet. Feet Yellow clay ---------------------. 12 12 || Blue shale-------------. . . . . . . . . 135 46(ſ Black clay.----------------------. 30 42 || Shale, sand, and lime (small flow) 90 556. Blue shale (hard) ----------------. 33 75 | Blue shale (lime streaks). -----. 330 886 Blue shalo (soft) ----------------- 200 275 | Sandstone (main flow). ......... 15 895, Soapstone ------------------------ 50 325 | Blue shale.--------------------. 2 89?' This well is used for domestic purposes and for irrigating trees and lawns. . It is, thought the well caved in last April and has become partly choked up with mud and, sand. The flow has fallen off about one-half since that time, but the pressure has in: creased 10 pounds and the water is 4 degrees colder. It is cased with a single string: of 4-inch casing, which is seated in the rock capping the main flow. The water it, quite muddy, being probably from the disintegration of the blue shale. ~. - *}: ARTESIAN WELLS AT FRANKFORT AND MELLETTE. 61 Frankfort well.—Located in T. 116 N., R. 62 W., town of Frankfort, county of Spink, State of South Dakota. Owned by city of Frankfort. Completed about 1888. Drilled by Swan Bros., Andover, S. Dak. Depth, 1,008 feet. Cost, $4,032, or $4 per foot. Elevation above sea level, 1,296 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick- IlêSS. Total. InêSS. Total. Feet. Feet. Feet. Feet. Soil. ------------------------------ 2 2 || Soapstone ----------------------. 93 800 Yellow clay ---------------------- 20 22 || Conglomerate ------------------. 3 803 Sand and gravel ------------------ 20 42 li Sand rock ----------------------- 57 860 Blue clay------------------------- 60 102 || Very hard sand rock ------------ 5 865 Soapstone ------------------------ 200 302 || Sand rock ----------------------- 60 925 Bastard lime --------------------- 10 312 || Soapstone ----------------------. 20 945 Soapstone ------------------------ 290 602 || Sand rock ----------------------- 40 985 Conglomerate ----...-------------- 5 607 || Soapstone ---------------------- 15 1,000 Soapstone ------------------------ 90 697 || Sand rock -----------...----------. 8 1,008 Sandy lime ----------------------- 10 707 This bore was put down by the town of Frankfort for water for municipal purposes. Owing to a defect in casing the well, the flow comes up outside, the water being used for irrigating about 100 acres instead of supplying the town with water under press- ure, as was intended. The water is hard and muddy. Well is cased with 225 feet of 8-inch casing, inside of which is 600 feet of 6-inch, and inside of the 6-inch is 860 feet of 44-inch. The laps are not given. It is reported that the 6-inch casing has slipped down so that its upper end is below the bottom of the 8-inch, and as the latter is seated in soapstone it is quite probable that the leak occurs at that place. - Mellette well.—Located in sec. 3, T. 119 N., R., 64 W., town of Mellette, county of Spink, State of South Dakota. Owned by town of Mellette. Commenced October 12, 1889. Completed December 24, 1889. Drilled by W. E. Swan Company, Andover, S. Dak. Depth, 920 feet. Cost, $3,100, or $3.37 per foot. Flow, 1,215 gallons per minute. Pressure, 166 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Temperature of water, 65 degrees. Elevation above sea level, 1,294 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: $ Thick- Thick. i. Total. ... Total - JFcet. | Feet Feet. | Feet 18lack soil ------------------------ Soapstone ---------------, - .----- 150 610 Yellow clay ---------------------- 24 25 || Conglomerate ------------------. 1 611 Blue clay------------------------- 40 65 || Soapstone ----------------------- 200 811 §and and gravel.---------------- 20 85 || Sandy lime ---------------------- 10 821 Blue clay. ------------------------ 10 95 || Soapstone ----------------------- 20 841 Soapstone - - - - - - - - - -------------- 200 295 || Conglomerate -----------------.. 3 844 ( longlomerate -------------------- 5 300 || Soapstone --. ------------------- 33 877 Soapstone ------------------------ 150 450 || Conglomerate ---...-...----------- 7 884 Bastard lime --------------------- 10 460 || Sand rock ----------------------. 36 920 This well was put down for municipal purposes, which it serves well, as it furnishes an abundant supply of clear Water with a pressure in the distributing pipes for a splendid fire protection. The surplus water is used for irrigating about 100 acres of garden and farming land. It is cased with 450 feet of 6-inch casing, which is seated in limestone. Inside of this is 877 feet of 43-inch casing, reaching from the top to the gap rock, 877 feet from the surface. - Brunn well.—Located in sec. 22, T. 119 N., R. 63 W., town 7 miles east of Mellette, county of Spink, State of South Dakota. Owned by E. Brunn. Completed December, 1890. Drilled by E. Brunn. Depth, 958 feet. Flow, 60 gallons per minute. Press- ure, 141 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Temperature of water, 65 degree8. §: passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick- IlêSS, Total. FlèSS. Total. Peet. Feet. Feet, Feet. Boil, clay, and shale.--...-----...--. 450 450 || Shale (small flow).-----...-...--. 43 923 Iron pyrites.--------------------- 2 452 || Cap rock ------------------------ 2 925 Shale .-------------------------- 48 500 || Sand rock (water).--------...... 33 958 Sh.ile (small flow). ------...--...-- 380 *SU * → 62 IRRIGATION. . . -- . . . This well was put down for irrigation pnrposes, but the flow is insufficient. There is 85 feet of drill pipe, and a drill bit in the bottom of the bore. At first the flow was 160 gallons per minute but since it has decreased to 60. There is a constant flow of . i ith the water, Cased with 43-inch casing and 85 feet of 34-inch, which is per- orated. Baker well.—Located in sec. 32, T. 119 N., R. 63. W., town of Mellette, county of Spink, State of South Dakota. Owned by J. W. Baker. Commenced February, 1891. Completed March 1, 1891. Drilled by Swan Bros., Andover, S. Dak. Depth, 920 feet. Cost, $2,760, or $3 per foot. Temperature of water, 65 degrees. Elevation above sea level, 1,275 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick- I. | Total. i. |Total. JFeet, Feet Feet.. I Feet. Soil ------------------------------ 2 2 || Soapstone ----------------------- 298 700 Yellow clay ---------------------- 20 22 || Iron pyrites. -------------------- 4 704 Blue clay.-----------------------. 45 67 || Soapstone ----------------------- 160 864 Soapstone ------ • - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 333 400 || Iron pyrites (lime soapstone cap rock).--------------------. 7 871 Iron pyrites (very light flow).... • 2 402 || Sandstone (flow) ---------...---. 49 92) This well was put down for irrigation purposes and has been so used during the past summer. At the time the well was visited by us there was no way to meas- ure its flow except to compute the discharge due to a 2%-inch opening under 34 pounds pressure, which gives 894 gallons per minute. With a free flow the discharge would probably be 1,000 gallons. The flow has increased since the well was com- pleted. At times it throws up quantities of sand and muddy water. It has been ob- served that this occurs just prior to a storm or low barometer. The well is cased with 864 feet of 43-inch casing, seated in the rock just above the main flow. Inside and at the lower end of this is 60 feet of 3-inch pipe, which laps 4 feet on the 44-inch. The lower end of the 3-inch pipe is perforated with #-inch holes, 12 to the foot. Day well.—Located in sec. 23, T. 119 N., R. 64 W., town 3 miles south of Mellette county of Spink, State of South Dakota. Owned by J. P. Day. Commenced March 1, 1891. Completed May 1, 1891. Drilled by Swan Brothers, Andover, S. Dak. Depth 993 feet. Cost, $3,070, of $3.10 per foot. Flow, 1,300 gallons per minute. Pressure 135 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Temperature of water, 65 degrees. Elevation above sea level, 1,285 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick- IlêSS, Total. In OSS. Total Feet, Feet Feet. | Feet oil ------------------------------ 1 1 || Soapstone (very small flow). ---. 100 800 Yellow clay---------------------- 15 16 || Rotten limestone .... -----...... 20 820 Blue clay ------------------------ 20 36 || Soapstone. ---------------------- 60 880 Sand and gravel.-----...-----...---. 36 72 || Iron pyrites ------------------. 2 882 Soapstone. ------------ * - - - - - - - - - - 350 422 || Soapstone. --...-----------------. 26 908 Iron pyrites and lime ------------ 3 425 || Iron pyrites and lime cap rock .. 7 915 Soapstone.----------------------- 275 700 || Sand rock (flow). --...----...----. 78 993 This well was put down for irrigation purposes. I was unable to obtain a full free flow ; with a 2-inch opening the pressure was 95 pounds; with a 4-inch opening the pressure was 37 pounds; with two 4-inch openings, one of them leading through 300 feet of pipe, the flow by weir measurement was 1,300 gallons per minute, with a pressure of 12 pounds at the top of the well. When first completed there were large quantities of clear pure sand thrown out with the water. It is estimated that at least 100 cubic yards, per hour were thrown out during the first two or three days. This well was put down in thirty days. Cost as follows: Derrick, material, hauling, and labor, $130; hauling water, $90; fuel, including hauling, $210; casing, $600; . labor in drilling, $1,920; board of men, $120; total, $3,070. The well is cased with 910 feet of 6-inch casing, which is seated in the cap rock. Inside of this is 96 feet of 14-inch casing, which laps the lower end of the 6-inch casing 14 feet and which is perforated. About 200 acres have been irrigated this season without the aid of stor- age reservoirs. At times the water had to be shut off to prevent the flooding of the country. * Hºen–Located in sec. 19, T. 119 N., R. 63 W., town of Mellette, county of Spink, State of South Dakota. Owned by Rowbotham, Bird, and Moore. Com- menced August 5, 1891. Completed September–1, 1891. Drilled by Swan Company. STATISTICs of ARTESIAN WELLS IN SOUTH DAKOTA, 63 Depth, 930 feet. Cost, $2,466, or $2.65 per foot. Flow, 670 gallons perminute. Pres- sure, 153 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Temperature of water, 65 degrees. Elevation above sea level, 1,280 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick- m. |Total. I, eS3. Total. & Feet. Feet, Feet. | Feet. Soil ------------------------------ 2 2 || Sulphate of iron.-----------...-- 2 711 Yellow clay---------------------- 30 32 || Soapstone---------------------...- 181 892 Black clay----------------------- 42 74 || Bastard lime-------------------- 8 900 Soapstone -----------------------. 375 449 || Conglomerate------------------- 2 902 Conglomerate -------------------- 10 459 || Sand rock----------------------- 28 930 Soapstone.------------------------ 250 || 709 This well is owned by three farmers whose land adjoins each other. The water is used for irrigation purposes; each owns 160 acres. The water is divided by taking water from the well with three pipes of equal size. The well is cased with 100 feet of 6-inch casing. Inside of this is 900 feet of 44-inch casing starting from the top and seated on the cap rock. Inside of this at the bottom is 60 feet of 3-inch casing with 20 feet lap. Below the lap the 3-inch casing is perforated with #-inch holes, 8 to the foot. Cost as follows: Hau,...e J.. it k material and erecting, $56; hauling water, $90; fuel, including hauling, $120; pipe and hauling, $607.50; labor in drilling and board of men, $1,592.50; total, $2,466. In connection with this well two 4-acre reser- voirs had to be built. When done it is expected the well will supply water for 480 acres of land. º Redfield well.—Located in sec. 10, T. 116 N., R. 64 W., town of Redfield, county of Spink, State of South Dakota. Owned by town of Redfield. Completed in 1886. Drilled by Gray Brothers, Milwaukee, Wis. Depth, 964 feet. Cost, $2,990, or $3.10 per foot. Temperature of water, 64 degrees. Strata passed through are as follows: Flow, 1,260 gallons per minute. Elevation above sea level, 1,300 feet. Pressure, 177 pounds when flow is shut off. Thick- Thick- IlêSS. Total. In 68S. Total Peet. | Feet. Feet. Feet. Soil and clay --------------------- 140 140 || Shale---------------------------- 150 941 Shale----------------------------- 610 750 || Hard sand rock iron pyrites cap 3 944 Sand rock (small flow). ---...----. 1 751 || Sand rock (flow). --...----------- 20 964 Shale and iron pyrites-----------. 40 791 || Bottom in sand rock ------------|---...-. | - - - - - - - - This well was put down for water for municipal purposes. After supplying the needs of 2,000 people, the surplus is used for irrigation of lawns and market gardens. This is a high-pressure well, with pressure and volume sufficient to throw an inch and a half stream 130 feet high. Water clear and soft. Is cased with 480feet of 64-inch casing seated in shale; then 501 feet of 51%-inch casing which laps 40 feet on the out- side casing. This is seated in the cap rock 941 feet from the surface; then there is 53 feet of 43-inch, which laps 30 feet of the 51%-inch ; this is perforated below the lap with #-inch holes, 12 to the foot. - Hall well.—Located in T. 117 N., R. 64 W., county of Spink, State of South Dakota. Owned by J. F. Hall. Completed October 24, 1891. Drilled by Swan Brothers, And- over, S. Dak. Depth, 987 feet. Cost, $2,500, or $2.53 per foot. Elevation above sea level, 1,302 feet (approximately). Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick Ilê88. Total. In OSS, Total. Feet, Feet I'eet. Feet. Soil ------------------------------ 2 2 || Soapstone.---------------------- 40 843 Yellow clay.--------------------- 45 47 || Bastard lime ------------------. 5 848 Blue clay .----------------------- 40 87 || Soapstone------------- -------- 34 882 Tight soapstone ----------------- 38 325 || Conglomerate .------------------ 5 887 Dark soapstone. ----------------- 250 57 Sand rock----------------------. 40 927 Conglomerate.------------------- 3 578 || Lime and sand mixed -------...--. 5 932 Dark soapstone.--------------- *-- 163 740 || Sand rock----------------------. 20 952 Iron pyrites---------------------- 1 741 || Lime rock ---------------------- 5 957 Soapstone-------, ---------------- 60 801 || Sand rock------...---------------- 20 977 Conglomerate.------------------- 2 803 || Conglomerate ------------------ 10 987 64 IRRIGATION. . . . . . * — . - # a -, - - , -" . . . . . 66 - -- ** -: }: - * - - IRRIGATION. » . S. maximum pressure in one hour after being shut down. There is only one string of 6-inch casing, which is seated in the sand rock. * Court well.—Located in Sec. 11, T. 140 N., R. 55 W.; town 24 miles northwest of Buffalo, county of Cass, State of North Dakota. Owned by H. E. Sargent. Com- pleted in summer of 1889. Drilled by George Frazer. Depth, 600 feet. Cost, $3,200, or $5.33 per foot. Flow, 12 gallons per minute. Pressure, 45 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Temperature of water, 52 degrees. Elevation above sea level, 1,190 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick- ... Total. IłóSS, Total. Feet. Feet. . Feet. . . Feet. ... Soil and clay loam, ...--------..... 15 15 || Clay marl ----------------------. * 250 550° Clay----------------------------. 185 200 || Vein Water---------------------. 1. 551 Mari----------------------------. 100 300 || Clay marl.---------------------. 49 600 This well is situated on the table-lands between James River and the Red River of the North. The drainage at this point is into the Red River, whose waters finally reach the sea at Hudson Bay. Although this locality is near the continental divide, its elevation above the sea is little less than 1,200 feet. The log of this bore and the next two succeeding ones show very different formations from those which occur in the James River Basin, as shown by the logs of the preceding seventy-five bores, the imost notable difference being the absence of solid rock. The whole material pene- trated thus far in this vicinity indicates that it is a deep deposit of alluvial matter in a lake which at one time existed in this section. Deep bores might reveal the ex- istence of a lower formation of rocks similar to those found to the west and south, but to our knowledge none have been made deep enough to determine this question. The water from this well is a little salty. It is used for stock purposes. The bore is cased with 150 feet of 3-inch casing, 250 feet of 2-inch, and 550 feet of 14-inch. All of these start from the top. t Staples well.—Located in Sec. 12, T, 140 N., R. 54 W.; town 6 miles northeast of uffalo, county of Cass, State of North Dakota. Owned by Staples. Completed Bummer of 1889. Depth, 514 feet. Cost, $1,500, or $2.92 per foot. Flow, 25 gallons sper minute. Pressure, 50 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Temperature of water, 51% degrees. Elevation above sea level, 1,170 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- nº Thick- Ile, S8, Total. Ilò88. Total. Feet. | Feet, Feet. Feet. Soil -----------------------------. 3 3 || Blue clay ---------------------. . 177 500 Blue clay -----------------------. 300 303 || Layers of clay and holes (no sand) 14 514 black shale ---------------------. 20 323 The quality of water from this well is good. It is used for watering stock and for household purposes. It has a continuous and free discharge, but on stopping the flow the pressure runs up quickly to 50 pounds per square inch. It is cased with 180 feet of 3-inch casing and 514 feet of 13-inch, which starts from the top. On the lower end of this is 7 feet of wire screen, made of four thicknesses of wire netting. Tower City.—Located in Sec. 19, T. 140 N., R. 55 W., town of Tower City, county of Cass, State of North Dakota. Owned by Northern Pacific Railroad Company. Commenced fall of 1881. Completed June, 1882. Drilled by Charles Petsold. Depth, 716 feet. Cost, $3,200, or $4.47 per foot. Flow, 20 or 25 gallons per minute. Pres- sure, 53 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Temperature of water, 57 de- reeS. g Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick- ... | Total. tº IlòS8, Total. JFeet. | Feet. x Feet. . . Feet. Soil -----------------------------. 3 3 || Flowing mud; had to mix with - Yellow clay. ----------------- - - - 30 33 sand to get it out... ----------- 100 660 Blue clay------------------------- 60 93 || Hardpan, gravel, and rocks ----. 56 716 - Blue clay (sticky). --------------- 327 420 Broke through into flowing - Soft gray sand rock -------------- 24 444 || water. Clay getting softer---------...---- 116 560 * AT ToweR CITY, BISMARCK, AND ELLENDALE. 67 This bore was put down by the Northern Pacific Railway Company. The flow from this well supplies a public watering place for the town. It is cased to 420 feet with 6-inch casing. Inside of this is a string of 4} inch, which reaches from the top to the bottom of the bore. The water is bºard and contains some minerals. The pressure reaches 40 pounds instantly and 53 pounds in half an hour after being closed. The elevation due to the pressure of this well and the two preceding ones is almost exactly the same, namely 1,291 feet, which is 139 feet below the surface of Devils Lake, which is 80 miles to the northwest. There are not a sufficient number of bor- ings in this part of the country to determine the extent and direction of the dip and other features of the Tower City artesian basin. It is not difficult to find a large number of small lakes and running streams of water that have an elevation suffi- ciently above the top of these wells to give the pressure they have. If the other conditions are favorable to transmit the water on the surface to these wells, it is comparatively easy to account for the water supply for this basin. The James River, even at its lowest elevation in North Dakota, is high enough to supply the pressure that the water has in this basin. Bismarck well.—Located in Sec. 4, T. 138 N., R. 80 W., town of Bismarck, county of Burleigh, State of North Dakota. Owned by city of Bismarck. Drilled by Swan Brothers, Andover, S. Dak. Completed in 1883. Depth, 1,315 feet. Elevation above sea level, 1,756 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick-l ºr Thick- In OSS. Total. IlêSS. Total. JFeet. | Feet Feet. Feet, Soil and yellow clay ...------...--. 70 70 || Blue shale----. ------------------ 104 500 Lime rock-----------------------. 5 75 || Black sandy shale .--...--------- 55 555 Blue shale-----------------------. 25 100 || Blue lime rock --...--...--...----. 5 560 Black sandy shale.--------------- 25 125 || Black Sandy shale....... -------- 60 620 Blue shale.----------------------- 55 180 || Gray soapstone ...--------------. 272 892 Black shale ---------------...----- 5 185 || Blue lime rock ---...--...-...----. 8 900 Bright green shale ............... 5 190 || Soapstone --------...------------. 340 1,240 Blue sandy shale ---------------.. 190 380 || Iron pyrites and lime. --...--...-. 10 1, 250 Brown shale---------------------- 16 396 || Soapstone ----. ------------------ 65 1, 315 This bore was put down for obtaining a water supply for the city of Bismarck. The top of the bore is 140 feet above low water in the Missouri River at this place. No flow was obtained at a depth of 1,315 feet. Work was stopped at this point with the supposition that the bore was deep enough to reach the James River artesian water-bearing rock, if such existed at Bismarck. Comparing the log of this bore with those in the Dakota basin, and also comparing the elevation of the surface and the bot- tom of the nearest artesian wells to the eastward, which are at Devils Lake and Jamestown, it will be seen that this bore should have been carried down at least 500 feet farther to reach the same rock. The bottom of the Jamestown well, 100 miles east, is 85 feet below sea level, while the bottom of this bore is 441 feet above, mak- ing 526 feet yet to go to reach the flow, providing it is in the same horizon here as at Jamestown. From a study of the general inclination of the Dakota rock the proba- bility is that it is still lower at Bismarck. This bore is cased with 8-inch casing: to 505 feet. Inside of this is a string of 900 feet of 6-inch. Below this the bore is 43. inches in diameter. No flows coming to the surface were found. - Ellendale well.—Located in Sec. 12, T. 129 N., R. 63 W., town of Ellendale, county. of Dickey, State of North Dakota. Owned by town of Ellendale. Commenced De- cember, 1885. Completed April 6, 1886. Depth, 1,087 feet. Drilled by Gray Brothers. Cost, $4,440, or $4.05 per foot. Flow, 700 gallons per minute. Pressure, 115 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Temperature of water, 69 degrees: Elevation, above sea level, 1,463 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- . . Thick- | ness. Total. ... | Total. JFeet. Feet. Feet. Feet, Soil and yellow clay ------------- 25 25 || Hard sandstone cap. -------...--. 7 1,042. Blue clay -----------------------. 85 110 || Soft sandstone (flow). --...-...--. 45 1,087; Shales.--------------------------- 925 | 1,035 || Bottom in sand rock ------------|- - - - - - - -]....... s. 68 IRRIGATION. sº * This well was put down for municipal purposes, and obtained a good flow and pressure for fire protection and for the supply of 800 people, besides having sufficient water for irrigating lawns and a 30-acre market garden. When the flow is shut off the pressure rises quickly to 80 pounds and in a few hours it reaches its maximum, 115 pounds. The temperature of the water is above the average in the Dakota basin. The water is soft and contains a little soda and magnesia. The well is cased with 1,037 feet of 43-inch casing and 75 feet of 34-inch, with a lap of 25 feet. The lower end of 34-inch is perforated with #-inch holes, 12 to the foot. Jones well.—Located in Sec. 10, T. 129 N., R. 63 W., town 2 miles west of Ellendale, county of Dickey, State of North Dakota. Owned by W. H. Jones. Commenced April 6, 1891. Drilled by A. T. Hayman. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick- IłęSS. Total. IlešS. Total Feet. Feet. I'eet. Feet. Soil, sand, and clay.-------------. 100 100 || Iron pyrites and lime .....-----. 533 Gray shale -------------------.... 400 500 || Sandstone (soft water rose 515 White clay alld lime. --..... ---... 32 532 feet). --, -- Q tº e = * = * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 2 535 Clay marl ----------------------- 65 600 Shale---------------------------- 18 l-------. This bore was abandoned at 618 feet on account of getting the drilling tools fas- tened. Oakes well.—Located in town of Oakes, county of Dickey, State of North Dakota. Owned by city of Oakes. Completed March, 1890. Drilled by Swan Brothers. Depth, 977 feet. Flow, 817 gallons when not clogged. Pressure, 125 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Temperature of well, 62 degrees. Elevation above sea level, 1,319 feet. 'The strata passed through were as follows: Thick- Thick- IlêSS. Total. In CSS. Total. I'eet. | Feet. Fee:. | Feet. Sand and gravel ----------------. 65 65 || Sand shale ---------------------. 25 745 Bowlder clay --------------------. 15 80 || Sticky shale.----------...-------. 50 795 Blue clay .----------------------. 65 145 || Sand shale ---------------------- 20 815 Blue shale. ----------------------- 155 300 || Sticky shale. ------...----------. 35 850 . Hard streak lime. --...---...----. 1. 301 || Sand rock (hard) - - - - - - - - - - - - - -. 5 855 Blue shale.----------------------. 99 400 || Brown shale and sand rock. --... 20 875 Hard streak lime----------------. 2 402 || Lime and iron pyrites in streaks 5 880 Plue shale------------------------ 128 530 || White sand rock, streaks, lime, Shale and hard streak lime...----. 45 575 and shale. --------------------- 62 942 Black shale ---. -----------------. 125 700 || White sand--------...----------. 10 952 Blue shale-----------------------. 20 720 || Streaks, lime, and sand.--------- 25 977 This well was put down for water for public use. A great deal of sand continued to come up with the water until last winter, when it became choked up and stopped flowing, by reason of shutting off the water long enough to allow the sand in the cas- ing and that in the bottom of the well to settle around the lower end of the pipe. The flow was partially started this summer, but only a part of the former flow was regained. It is believed when the well is finally cleaned of sand the former flow will be obtained. Mandan well.—Located in Sec. 27, T. 139 N., R. 81 W., town of Mandan, county of Morton, State of North Dakota. Owned by city of Mandan. Commenced June, 1890 Drilled by Gray Brothers, Milwaukee, Wis. Elevation above sea level, 1,645 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- - - Thick- ... Total, ... | Total. Feet. JFeet, Peet. Feet. River deposit (sand) ------------- 90 90 || Close sand rock (flow). --....... 60 470 River deposit (gravel).----------- 5 95 || Shale changing some in color but Gray shale ----------------------. 25 120 not in hardness, mixed badly... 1,030 1,500 Sand rock (small flow) ---------.. 5 125 White marl (harder than shale, Gray shale ----------------------- 285 410 but no grit) -------------------|--------|-------- AT MANDAN, HAMILTON, AND DEVILS LAKE. 69 This bore is being put down by the city of Mandan, who have made contract to put down 2,000 feet. Cost when finished, $10,000. December 12, the depth was 1,590 feet and drilling in shate. It is cased with 10-inch casing to 180 feet; then with 8-inch to 450 feet; then with 6-inch to 950 feet; then with 5 inch to the bottom, 1,590 feet. All the casings come to the top. Hamilton well.—Located in sec. 35, T. 162 N., R. 53 W., town of Hamilton, county of Pembina, State of North Dakota. Owned by Hamilton Artesian Well Company. Commenced November, 1887. Completed August, 1889. Drilled by W. B. Clements, Cavalier, N. Dak. Depth, 1,560 feet. Cost, $10,150, or $6.50 per foot. Flow, 26 gal- lons per minute. Pressure, 27 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Temper- ature of water, 4149. Elevation above sea level, 824 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick- IA688. Total. * * IlêSS. Total e Feet Feet JFeet. Feet. Soil ------------------------------ 10 10 || Gray limestone ---...---------... 277 584 Blue clay------------------------- 122 132 || Pink limestone ----------------- 25 609 Coarse sand (surface water)..... 42 174 || Gray limestone (very soft)...... 153 762 Hard pan (cemented gravel) . . . . . 15 189 || Blue shale (caving)..... --...... 130 892 Quicksand.---------------------- 4 193 || White sandstone................ 5 897 Red shale -----------------------. 32 225 || Blue granite ---------------..... 344 1, 241 Blue shale ----------------------. 20 245 || White sand (main flow). - - - - - - -. 1% 1,242} Red shale ---...- '- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 43 288 || Blue granite -------------------. 1% | 1,244 Gray limestone -------------..... • 12 300 || White sandstone.......----..... 315 1, 560 Blue shale (flow).--...-...----...- 7 307 This bore was put down for a test well, and with the hope of obtaining a supply of water for city purposes. Two small flows of salt water were struck, one at 300 feet which flowed 80 gallons per minute, the other at 1,241, which flowed at first 45 gallons of brine per minute. The discharge is now 26 gallons per minute through 300 feet of three-fourths inch pipe, with a pressure of 12 pounds to the square inch. The water contains 2,000 grains of salt per gallon. The bore is cased with 6-inch casing to 350 feet. Inside of this is a string of 897 feet ºf 4-inch, which starts from the top. There are 600 feet of drill roles, and a drill .11 the brºtom of this bore. The lower 350 feet is in what is supposed to be Laurer'Man granit 3. The bottom of this bore is 736 feet below the level of the sea. Devils Lake well.—Located in sec. 34, T. 154 N., R., 64 W., town of Devils Lake, county of Ramsay, State of North Dakota. Owned by city of Devils Lake. Com- menced July, 1888; completed July, 1889. Drilled by Swan Brothers, Andover, S. Dak. Depth, 1,520 feet. Cost, $9,000, or $6 per foot. Flow, 82 gallons per minute. Pressure, 20 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Temperature of water, 62 degrees. Elevation above sea level, 1,473 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick- Il BSS. Total. i 11088. Total. - Feet. Feet. Feet. | Feet. Soft shales and soapstone ---..... 1,010 | 1,010 || Black sandy shale (streaks sand). 28 1,428 Hard gravel and sand ------------ | 2 | 1,012 || Iron pyrites. --...----...--------. 3 1,431 Black sandy shale (hard streak).. 388 1,400 || Loose sand rock (water) ---..... 89 1,520 This bore was made for obtaining water for municipal purposes. The lower 89 feet is in a very soft light-colored sand, which can hardly be called a rock, it being so soft as to cave in, while the bore was being made, so rapidly as to make further progress in drilling almost impossible. It is reported that for a short time an immense flow of sand and water came up with tremendous force, but after a little it suddenly dropped down to about 80 gallons per minute with a closed pressure of 20 pounds per square inch. During the first year considerable clean, sharp, whitish sand came up with the water. During the last year the sand has nearly all disappeared, and the flow has increased 3 gallons per minute. The water flows into a tank for public use. The well is cased with 8-inch casing to 158 feet. Inside of this is a string of 650 feet of 6-inch, which starts from the top; inside of the 6-inch casing is a string of 44-inch, 792 feet in length. At the lower end of this is 22 feet of 34-inch, which is seated in hard sand rock. Then inside of this is 1,500 feet of 3-inch, which reaches from the top to within 20 feet of the bottom of the bore. The lower end of this pipe is plugged, 70 IRRIGATION. and the sides of the pipe are slitted with five or six slits, each 1 foot long, which are probably not over one-fourth of an inch wide. and through which all the water must pass into the pipe. The plugging and slitting of the pipe was done with the pipe in its present position. This slitting was done to prevent sand getting into the pipe. There are indications (judging from the operations of this well while being bored) of a much larger flow and greater pressure than is exhibited by this well. *.following is an analysis of the water, by Prof. James A. Dodge, of the University of Minnesota: Grains per Iłł States gal- lon. Sulphate of sodium------------------------------------------------------------------------ 94.62 Chloride of sodium.----------------------------------------------------------------------- 86. 46 Carbonate of sodium ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 41, 11 Carbonate of potassium --------...--------------------------------------------------------- 4.62 Carbonate of lithium---------------------------------------------------------------------- . 67 Carbonate of Calcium --------------------------------------------------------------------. 1, 56 Carbonate of magnesium ----------------------------------------------------------------. 1.01 Carbonate of iron ------------------------------------------------------------------------- . 03 Silica ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- . 56 Borates ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Traces. Bromides---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Traces. Organic matter------------------------------------------------- * ------------------------- Traces. Total of dissolved solids .... -------. * - - - - as tº e º ºs º gº tº * * * * - - - - - - tº tº E tº ſº e º is a to - e - - - - - - is as º ºs & º ºs 230. 64 Gases, none, except carbonic acid gas in moderate quantity, holding in solution the carbonates of calcium, magnesium and iron ; hardness of water, 3} degrees; reaction, alkaline; color, none; odor, none; taste, somewhat brackish. Jamestown well.—Located in sec. 36, T. 140 N., R. 64 W., town of Jamestown, county of Stutsman, State of North Dakota. Owned by city of Jamestown. Commenced October, 1886. Completed April 4, 1887. Depth, 1,476 feet. Cost, $6,700, or $4.54 per foot. Flow, 460 gallons per minute. Pressure, 97 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Temperature of water, 76°. Elevation above sea level, 1,391 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick- ... Total. - IlêSS, Total. JFeet. I'eet. Feet. Feet. Soil, clay, and gravel ------------ 120 120 || Sand rock (small flow) .......... 10 1,395 Light shale ---------------------. 905 || 1,025 || Shale and iron pyrites ----...... 55 1,450 Blue shale (hard streaks iron py- Hard sand rock (cap) ----------. 8 1, 458 rites).-------------------------- 275 1,300 || Soft sand rock (flow)............ 18 1,476 Sandy shale---------------------- 85 1,385 This bore was put down by the city of Jamestown for municipal purposes. Dur- ing the last year the flow of this well has diminished a few gallons, but the pressure has increased. The pressure reaches its maximum instantly when the flow is shut off. This well is cased with five different sized casings, as follows: 570 feet of 64-inch ; 495 of 53%-inch; 400 feet of 44-inch ; 105 feet of 34-inch; 30 feet of 34-inch. The latter has a lap of 4 feet; all the others lap 40 feet. The 34-inch casing is per- forated with one-half inch holes 16 to the foot. The bottom of this bore penetrates 18 feet into a soft sand rock and is 85 feet below sea level. Considerable gas was found while making the bore, which came up with the water in such quantity as to support a flame several feet high at the top of the casing. Probably it would still continue to come up if the well was allowed to flow without pressure. Asylum well.—Located in sec. 8, T. 139. N., R. 63 W., 3 miles southeast of James- town, county of Stutsman, State of North Dakota. Owned by the State of North Dakota. Commenced summer, 1889; completed November, 1890. Drilled by Gray Brothers, Milwaukee, Wis. Depth, 1,524 feet. Cost, $7,000, or $4 per foot. Flow about 4 gallons per minute. Pressure, 70 pounds when flow is shut off. Elevation above sea level, 1,470 feet. * * THE wells AT JAMESTOWN AND GRAFTON. 71 Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick- In eBS- Total. 106 SS, Total; g Feet. I Feet. Feet. | Féet. . Soil ----------------------------- 2 2 || Sand.--------------------------. 10 1,009 Red clay------------------------- 40 42 || Blue'shale (hard streaks lime- - Fire clay (not pure).------------. 49 91 stone). ------------------------ 290 1,299 Quicksand and limestone bowl- Quicksand, streaks shale and ders (some lignite).-----------. 20 111 limestone --------------------- 175 1,474 Shale with limestone gravel..... 110 211 || Hard sand rock. --...---------... 7 1,481 Light-colored shale. ------...----. J50 361 || Soft sand rock (water) ...... . . . . 3 1,484 Dark-colored shale.-------------. 200 561 || Hard sand rock, iron pyrites. --. 10 1, 494 Light and dark shale, streaks Soft sand rock (water) ------.... 11 1,505 . limestone ---------------------- 398 959 || Solid limestone ----------------. 19 1,524 Sandy shale--------------------.. 40 999 This bore was put down by the State of North Dakota for water for the use of the State Insane Asylum. The flow was at first about 200 gallons per minute. The soft sand rock found at 1,494 feet is caving in, and on July 8 the bottom of the bore had filled up 40 feet with sand. It is quite probable, if this was taken out, the flow would be restored. The well is cased, as follows: 900 feet of 8-inch, 550 feet of 5-inch, which laps 150 feet on the 8-inch; 250 feet of 4-inch, which laps 100 feet on the 5-inch ; 100 feet of 34-inch, which laps 50 feet on the 4-inch. The lower end of the 34-inch is open with no perforations. The bottom of this bore is 19 feet into a solid lime rock. This rock does not appear in the city well, about 2 miles distant. The lower end of the bore is 54 feet below sea level or 31 feet above the bottom of the city well. At 1,200 feet a bed of mussel shells was passed through. The following is an analysis of the water by Erastus G. Smith, professor of chemistry, Beloit Col- lege. t;º er Name of compound. Symbol. i. * cubicinches). Sodium sulphate ---------------------------------------------------------- Na2SO4 95.85 Sodium chloride. --------------------------------------------------------- NaCl 21.34 Sodium phosphate -------------------------------------------------------- Na3PO4 Trace. Magnesium chloride ------------------------------------------------------ MgCl2 1.24 Magnesium carbonate----------------------------------------------------- MgCO3 2.98 Calcium carbonate -------------------------------------------------------- CaCO3 8.44 Alumina ----------------------------------------------------------------- Al2O3 . 21 Iron oxide ------- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Fe2O3 . 12 Silica-------------------------------- * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * = = s. * * * * * * * * * * * * SiO2 64 Total.---------------------------------------------------------------|-------------- 128. 82 From the above analysis it appears that the markedly saline taste of the water is due to— & Sodium sulphate. Sodium chloride. Magnesium chloride. The water will produce, probably, marked laxative effects, especially to those not accustomed to its use. I should hesitate to use it as a boiler water, unless no other is to be had; and even then care should be used in selecting a proper scale compound. The water is quite free from organic matters. Grafton well.—Located in sec. 13, T. 157 N., R. 53 W., town of Grafton, county of Walsh, State of North Dakota. Owned by town of Grafton. Commenced February 24, 1885. Completed June 20, 1885. Drilled by Swan Bros., Andover, S. Dak. Depth, 912 feet; cost, $3,800, or $4.16 per foot; flow, 600 gallons per minute; pressure, 12 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off; temperature of water, 46 degrees; ele- vation above sea level, 825 feet. '72 ". IRRIgATION. - - - - - - - - - - .* * --- * T , ; * - *-- - 3. * ~~ - <-- - ‘. … ºf * • * * ~ * . The strata passed through are as follows: Thick- nº Thick- Ileš8. Total. Ilê88. Total. Feet. | Feet. Feet. Feet. Soil ------------------------------ 3 3 || Red Shale.-----...--...----------. 3 336 Yellow clay.--------------------. 10 13 || Lime rock (gray).--...----------- 4. 340 Blue clay ...... = me as as sº is sº s = s = * * * * * * * 90 103 || Red shale and iime streaks...... 48 388 Gravelly clay (blue).-----.... --. 30 133 || Green shale (brine flow) ........ 2 390 Quicksand (clayey) --...------...-- 22 155 || Gray lime-rock (gritty) ......... 5 395 Hardpan ------------------------- 40 195 || Magnesian lime-rock. --...--..... 200 595 Sand and gravel (whitelight flow). 30 225 || Cream-colored lime-rock ........ 105 700 Sand (coarse white).--------..... 20 245 || Red shale and lime-rock ........ 45 745 Red shale rock------------------- 10 255 || Blue shale ---------...----------. 135 880 Lime rock (reddish). --...--------. 2 257 || Red shale (gritty) ---...--------. 20 900 Redshale -----------------------. 13 270 || Sand and quartz (white) ........ 3 903 "White sand rock (flow of water). 60 330 || Granite (gray) ------...--...----. 9 912 Blue shale-----------------------. 3 333 This well was put down for municipal purposes. The water, being salty, is not suitable for domestic use, although used for watering stock and for fire purposes, and for sprinkling streets. No flows were found below 390 feet, and the bore was pur- posely filled up to this point. When allowed to flow freely, considerable sand is thrown up. The water contains 240 grains of salt per gallon, with a small amount of Epsom salts. The well is cased with 160 feet of 8-inch casing and 290 feet of 6- inch. The latter starts from the top and is seated in the sand-rock 100 feet above the lower flow. The lower end of the bore penetrates 9 feet into gray granite. Just above this is a 3-foot stratum of sand and quartz rock. It will be observed that all the salt-water wells have a low temperature. Moorhead well.—Located in sec. 8, T. 139 N., R. 48 W., town of Moorhead, county of Clay, State of Minnesota. Owned by city of Moorhead. Commenced February 23, 1888. Completed October 21, 1889. Drilled by Gray Bros., Jamestown, N. Dak, Depth, 1,901 feet. Cost, $10,000, or $5.26 per foot. Elevation above sea level, 901 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick- ... | Total. Jº OSS. Total. Feet. Feet. Feet. Feet, Black soil -----------------------. 2 2 || Alternating layers blue, red, and - Yellow loam --------------------- 3 5 gray rock; blue not hard, red Yellow clay ---------- _º - - - - - - - - - - - 50 55 harder, and gray very hard: Brown clay (sticky, tough) -----. 55 110 changes every 30 or 40 feet..... 725 1, 200 Hard gravel (water). --- - - - - - - - - -. 10 120 || Quicksand, broken lignite ...... 3 1, 203 Coarser gravel (water nearly to - Soft sand-rock, light-colored - - -. 27 1, 230 surface).-------------- * sº º ºs ºs º gº sº º is 15 13 Soapstone, strong fish odor.----- 20 1, 250 Coarse gravel, sand, and clay ---. 60 195 || Coarse sand-rock-------------- * . 10 1,260 Granite bowlder. --...------------. 5 200 || Hard sand-rock ----------------- 40 1,300 Clay, with bowlders.------------- 20 220 || Iron pyrites and lime ----------. l 1, 301 Dark clay ------------------------ 20 240 || Hard blue rock (Laurentian gran- Dark bluish clay.---------------. 60 300 ite).---------------------------- 600 1,901 Quicksand (water) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 70 370 Blue shale and quartz sand. . . . . . . 105 475 This bore is just across the Red River from Fargo. It was put down by the city of Moorhead for a test well, with the hope of obtaining a supply of domestic water for municipal purposes. The bottom of this bore is 1,000 feet below the level of the sea, and penetrates the granite 600 feet. The first vein of water, which was struck at 120 feet, came within 3 feet of the top of the bore. When the second flow was struck the water receded to 200 feet from the surface ; when the third flow was struck at 950 feet, the water rises again within 50 feet of the surface. This bore is cased with 800 feet of 8-inch casing, and inside of this is 1,265 feet of 43-inch, which starts from the top and is seated in hard sand-rock. Although it is not a flowing well, all the water found is artesian, but of a negative character. Chinook well.—Town of Chinook, county of Choteau, State of Montana. Owned by C. Artesian Company. Commenced July, 1890. Drilled by hired employés. JDepth, 960 feet; cost, $4,490, or $4.70 per foot. Temperature of water, 40 degrees. Elevation above sea level, 2,404 feet. Lower PRESSURE WELLS IN RED RIVER BASIN. Strata passed through are as follows: 73 Thick- Thick- Ilê88. Total. Ia888. Total. * Feet, Feet. Feet. | Feet. Loam and sand--------...-------. 112 112 || Blue clay, interspersed with thir. Stone bowlders.-----------------. 12 124 strata lime and sandstone, soft Stiff clay ------------------------. 96 220 IDud - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 330 950 Sandstone.----------------------- 2 222 || Blue clay, with gas and petro- Blue clay------------------------- 318 540 leum -------------------------- 6 956 Sandstone.----------------------. 1% 541% Blue clay------------------------. 78% 620 This bore was put down to its present depth by the town of Chinook, Mont. Ow- ing to some uncertainty regarding the title and ownership of the land on which the bore was being made, work has been suspended until the title can be perfected. Data relative to this bore was obtained by correspondence, which states that four flows were struck at 112, 220, 540, and 620 feet from the surface. The supposition is that at these depths are veins of water which are probably artesian in their charac- ter, but not of sufficient force to flow over the top of the bore. The two lower veins are reported to be salty. - Beck well.—Located in sec. 34, T. 8 S., R. 47 E., town of Miles City, county of Cus- ter, State of Montana. Owned by O. C. Beck. Commenced June, 1886. Completed June, 1886. Drilled by O. C. Beck. Depth, 456 feet; cost, $575, or $1.26 per foot. Flow, 5 gallons per minute. Pressure, 7 pounds per square inch when flow is shut off. Temperature of water, 57 degrees. Elevation above sea level, 2,353 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick- Il C88. Total. Iſle SS Total Feet. Feet. • . I'eet. Feet. Adobe soil and subsoil ...--------. 19 19 || Slate and sand-rock (mixed) .... 185 250 Gravel.-------------------------- 21 40 || Sand-rock (two light flows)...... 50 300 Hard sand-rock -----------------. 2 42 || Shale--------------------------- 93 393 Hard slate or soapstone .......... 18 60 || Sand-rock (main flow)........... 63 456 Sand-rock (water not flow). ... -- 5 65 || Bottom on sand rock. This bore is one of about thirty that have been put down in the vicinity of Miles City, Mont. The volume discharged, pressure, strata passed through, and quality of the water of this well are a fair representation of those of others in this basin, which we denominate the Miles City Basin. For additional particulars concerning this basin, see W. W. Follett's report. The receiving area for a subterranean or artesian water supply that may lie in this valley is amply large and sufficiently elevated to give the requisite pressure and volume. . It is not at all unlikely that this basin ex- tends far up and down the valley of the Yellowstone, far beyond the country yet developed. The existence of the other necessary conditions for an artesian supply are matters for the geologist to predict and the drill of the prospector to determine. Rosenfeld Junction well.—Located in T. 166 N., R. 54 W., town of Rosenfeld Junc- tion, State of Manitoba. Owned by Canadian Pacific Railroad. Drilled by Swan Company. Depth, 1,037 feet. Elevaticn above sea level, 780 feet. .* Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick. In 68S. Total. i. Total. Feet. Feet. Feet. Feet. Black soil -----------------------. 4 || Red Shale ---...---------...------ 160 495 Blue clay------------------------- 111 115 || Cream-colored limestone (Galena Sand and gravel. ----------------- 10 125 limestone passing above Tren- Bowlder clay (hardpan).--------. 12 137 ton) --------------------------- 305 800 Bowlders.------------------------ 6 143 || Red shale.----...-...--...-...----. 75 875 Gray shale ----------------------- 62 205 || Soft sandstone (brine flow), St. Limestone ----------------------. 15 220 Peter. . . . . . ... --------. -------- 50 925 Red shale ------------------------ 5 225 || Dark red shale..... --......----- 50 975 Gray shale----------------------- 10. 235 || Reddish and green shale......... 25 | 1,000 Limestone.----------------------. 30 265 || Bluish and gray shale.....------ 20 1,020 Fine gray sandstone (small flow Red shale ----------------------- 15 1,035 brine).-------------------------. 40 305 || Laurentian granite---......... -- 2 1,037 Chalky limestone.--...----------- 30 335 74. IRRIGATION. 3-º-º: Reference to this bore is made for the value of its log, which appears to have been carefully kept. The two small flows obtained were both salty; recorded as being brine. Granite was struck at 1,037 feet. Location in this bore is given by project- ing the United States land surveys. Beloraine City well.—Manitoba. Owned by city and government. Commenced in 1887. Depth, i,800 feet. Cost, $13,000. Elevation above sea level, 1,620 feet. Strata passed through are as follows: Thick- Thick- ... Total. i. | Total. Feet. Feet. Feet. | Feet. Black surface soil ---------------. 3 3 || Soapstone, with streaks of lime- Clay loam, with gravel and peb- Stone-------------------------- 495 787 bles ---------------------------- 30 33 || Blue clay, with snail shells...... 188 975 Hardpan, with blue clay ...... .. 56 89 || Slate (soft), soapstone, and mud. 825 1,800 Fine sand .----------------------. 5 94 wº Shale and slate, with layers of sand---------------------------. 198 292 This bore is noticed on account of its location. It is about 10 miles beyond the boundary line in Canada, and is located about 60 miles west of an axial line through the developed section of the Dakota artesian basin, as represeeted in map, Appendix No. 18. The sinking of this bore was first undertaken by the town of Deloraine, to obtain water for municipal purposes. The town authorities were induced to believe they would strike the artesian flow at about the same level as the nearest well in the |United States, which is at Devils Lake. To do this would require a bore about 1,578 feet deep. This depth was reached and no water found. The work was stopped until the Dominion Government came to the relief of the town, and for the further purpose of making a test exploration of the rock strata. It is intended to continue to sink the bore until the water-bearing strata is reached, provided it lies within a rea- sonable distance. Its present depth (August 1891), is 1,800 feet, or 180 feet below sea level, or 133 feet lower than the bottom of the bore at Devils Lake. These fig- ures indicate that the artesian stratum is either missing entirely or it lies at a greater depth in that locality than is due to its average inclination to the northward, as de- termined by the bores in the Dakotas. The discovery which will be made by con- tinuing this bore a few hundred feet deeper will be of considerable importance con- cerning the probability of obtaining artesian water in the middle section of North Dakota, which borders on the Canadian line. i THE SOURCE OF SUPPLY OF THE DAKOTA ARTESIAN BASIN. Geologists generally agree that the water from the deep flowing wells in the James River, or Dakota artesian basin, is found in a group of stratified rock, which they denominate as the Dakota. This rock, they claim, comes to the surface in the region of the Black Hills, in southwestern South Dakota; also along the drainage channels of the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers. It is supposed this soft and porous rock has the necessary properties to imbibe water freely and to permit it to be transmitted through it, even for long distances. The localities where these rocks are exposed to the surface waters are from 2,500 to 6,000 feet above sea level, and the sections which are tapped by the bores in the artesian basin are from 600 feet above to 100 feet below sea level, thereby affording condition for supporting an immense hydraulic pressure, which is sufficient in some places in this basin to raise a column of water to a greater height than the surface of the country for hundreds or even a thousand miles in any direction, except to the west. Therefore, it is almost certain that the water sup- ply must come from that direction. It is reported by those who have had occasion to observe the flow of water at a low stage in the upper Missouri River that between Great Falls and Fort Benton, Mont., there ? TABULATION OF ARTESIAN WELL DATA. * [From ninety-seventh meridian to foothills of Rocky Mountains.] *. | ./ - IP - # I'BSSRI I’B #. . . * * *. When well was i .. . . . *. Total , , , Elevation above sea. Flow (in 1%. Pºtemper. No. of Name of well. Town. County. State. " * Owner. Informant. By whom drilled. Completed. Depth (in feet) at which different flows were struck. depth i galions) per Pºgº aſſº Coshof. well. ..I | - . i - of Well. Surface Bottom of .#é.” inch when |“...i.” well. f ! of well well Different flows of water. 'l- . º § i ". º Ciſ)890i. * : - | mºr * - - - }. * , # º # - m *. k. I'eet. Feet, Feet, Feet º 1 || Piankinton. ...----.... Plankinton . . . . . . . . . . . Aurora ----------- South Dakota. ----| Plankinton --------------------------- Gray Bros., Milwaukee, Wis.----.... ----- Gray Bros., Milwaukee, Wis.............. Fall, 1890 ... . . First 549; second, 740. ---------------------------...--......... 830 1, 521 691 | First vein,981; main vein, 781 ...................................... 225 91 62 $3,200 2 | White Lake .......... White Lake ---------|---. do ------------. ----do - :----------- White Lake --------------------------|-------------------------------------------- Swan Bros, Andover, S. Dak ------------. Fall, 1887 ..... First, 790; Second, 850. -------------...--................ º, º m = n. * 863 1,650 787 | Firstºveia, 860; main vein, 800 ................................. IF # * 150 35 64 "3.300 3 Collins --------------. Cavour -------------. . Beadle.-----------l. ---do ----. # * * * * * * * Township ,-------------------------- |-------------- ------------------------------ J. C. Weston, Huron, S. Pāk---------------|----------------|-----------------.* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * = * 4 = * = * * * * * * * = * * * = ... = a a - - - || _ _ = * = a - 1,33i [...................................'….::::::::::::::::::::::::::::1....................... l … *4 | Hitchcock............ Hitchcock ------------|- -- do -------------l. ---do ------------- Hitchcock.--------------------------- C. W. A. Reynolds, Hitchcock...... --...--. Gray Bros., Milwaukee, Wis .-------------| August, 1885 --| First, 926; second, 953.-----...----...----------................. 953 1,339 386 | First vein, 413; main vein, 386...................................... 1, 240 154 || " " ' " 76"| 4,400 5 | City ------------------ Huron --------------- ----do -------------|----do ------------- Water Company. --------------------. -:----------------------------------------- Swan Bros., Andover, S. Dak------...--- ...| In 1886 ----... First, 7.1%; Second, 772.----------------------------------...--.. 906 1,251 345 || First vein, 539; main vein, 489 * * * ºn ºf # * * * * * * * * * * = F * * * * * * * * * is m = * * * * * * = s. 1,663. 120 l. -------- 4. (){}0 6 || Day-Harrison ......... -----do ---------------|. -- do ------------- --- do ------------- F.T. Day..... ---------------------- C. M. Harrison.-------- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -,-- Roberts. --------------------------------- May 1, 1890 ---| First, 775; second, 82%. ----------------------------- ?.......... 847 1, 306 459 || First vein, 530; main vein, 480 ..... # # * * * * * * * * * * # * * = ** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 496 120 ſ.........! 1,850 7 | Huron Mili.----------|-----. do ---------------. ---do ------------- !-- do ------------- Huron. ---- -----4--------.* = − = * * * * * * * ~ * F. Holton -------------------, ------------- Howard Holton Bros ::---...-- : - - - - - - - - - ---| $ºpt. 1, 1890 ---| First, 734; second,800----------------.. -----.................]... ---| < 1, 280 ----------| First vein, 546; main vein, 480----------------------...-----......... 700 103 ||........] § 600 8 | Richards .....- - - - - - - - - - - - - - do ... -- # * * * * * * * * * -- do --------. - - - - ----do ------------- American Investment Co. . . . . . . . . . . . . R. Q. Richards, Huron, S. Dak. -----...----- Śwºn Bros., Andover; S. Pāk--------------| Nov. 15, 1890 --| First, 762; Segond, 799------------...--------------............ 917 1,300 383 | First vein, 531; main vein, 501-----...----...........................}. * * * * * * * = ** = I = * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * = # 365 9 | Risdon ..........----|-|------ do ... ---. +-------- ---.do -------------|----do -------------| A. H. Risdon.-------- -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - J. C. Weston, Huron ---------------------. J. C. Weston, Huron, S. Dak......... '• * - - - - March, 1891...] Fourth, 600; fifth, 640; sixth, 690; seventh, 700; eighth, 902. 960 1, 290 330 || Fourth vein, 690; fifth, 650; sixth, 600; seventh, 590; eighth, 388; 2, 250 ić5 .......I.]....'.... g - § …” r g º * * i i º 2' main, 330. - . , , : F ". Wolsey-------...-----. Wolsey------------------ do ------------- ----do -------------| Wolsey.--------------------------- '---------* - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Swan Bros., Andover, S. Dak. ---...-..... Sept., 1890 ....| First, 490; second, 808; third, 858 --.......... --......--... . . . . 930 1. 3 418 is First vein. 858: • rin rºi • * = - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - º sºi.............. §.i............. Bonhomme . . ----- :::::............] ............................................................. Çarr & Ritchie, Yankton, S. Dak.--------. In 1887. . . . . . . . First "13 ----------. ----------...----...--------............ , 587 #: #|#;Y. ; ºngº manº. : ::::::::::::::::::::::::: sº 137 is 3. ; 12 || Springfield ..... -----. Springfield --------...}. --. do ------------- ....do .............] Bonesteel & Turner .................: J. L., Turner, Springfield ------------------| Gray Bros., Milwaukee, Wis. ------------- Spring, 1891. --| First, 440; second, 530. ----------------..... ----...--. . . . . . . . . 592 1, 275 683 | First vein, 835; second,745........................................ 3, 290 || 86 65 2, 400 13 | Tyndall ------------- Tyndall.------------- • I. -- do ------------- ----do ------------- Tyndall ------------------------------ Vincent Kalemar, mayor ---...----------- Carr & Ritchie, Yankton, S. Dak----s----. In 1888.:-----. *irst, 799.-------------------------------------------------.... Tºš5 1,410 675 | First vein,710'...................................................I. '530 35 §3 || 2:54: 14 Lason ----------------|-----do ---------------l. ---do ------------. ----do -----------.. H.P. Lason.---------- .* = * * * * * - - - - - - - - - - H. P. Lason, Tyndall . . . ------------------ II. P. Lason, Tyndall.---- # = * * = # = * * * * * * * * = * April, 1891 --. First, 822; fourth, 1,040 ---------..... ---...--.................. 1,075 | *1,500 485 | First vein,738; second,520......................................... (#) 1,385 15 Mill ------------------|-----. do ---------------. ---do ------------- ----do ----------....! -------------------------- --------, ---- Vincent Kalemar, Tyndall ----------------|----------------- § { * * * * * * * * * * * * * * = = * * * * * * * * * ޺pt 3, 1891---| First, 799------------------------------------................. 752 | 1,410 658 || First vein, 710 ...... . . ------------------------------------- .......] § jº" 40’ſ.........l.... º I6 Mºs R. R.----. Alsº m is sº m, in in ºr is ºn is nº ſº m Brown ------------ ... # * = E * * * * * * * * * º Milwaukee & St. Paul R. R. -}. Grav Bros. Milwaukee, wis.............. §º #:Māºwi * * * * * * * * * * * is is sº ºn *i; 1882. - . ; § second, ; third;925; fourth, 940 ----...--...---. . 955 l, ; 345 || First vein. 420; second, 410; third, 375; main, 360 ... -- Kº ºr * * * * * * = m ſº ſº sº a § 100 ....] 4,300 17 | City well, No. 1..... # * is as º is nº m = (10 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - i. ...do ------------- - - - -010 - - - - - - - - - - - - - A-bêI'ºtēēD - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ray Bros., Millwaukee, W18. -- - - - - - - - - - - - Tay 131'08., MillWaukee, WY 18. -- - - - - - - - - - -. Il 1852. - - - - - - - *TSU, $48; Seconº, 905. ----------------...-- ------------------. 918 1,300 382 | First vein, 421; main, 395 ...----...------...--...----...-......-- F =# * * * * = 330 40 66 4,000 18 §§ wº §........ ...; tº m sº ſº, º m = |* * * * * = m + k | * * º: ------- :----- ...;;............. :::::::: r is gº º º ſº im # = n + æ is is a mº º is ſº tº pº （; ; ; sº is ſº sº. E. E. Hº （; I - fobt ºr. dv, mavor...................... ‘Āniwaii works wieciºº ºg - m = m, m = m = m + ºn ºn tº E * * * * * * * * * * * = * * ~ * #; ; ...} ###i'i'ſ = * * * * * * * * * = * * * * * * * * * * = * = ** = * = 1, 004 1,300 ; #: Vein, 705; main, 834 ----------------------------------------. , 825 62 66 4. 000 ity well No. 3.-------|-----. 0 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - # * * * 1 1 + F = m is ºf F = * * * * * * * m ºn ºn tº 1. H. H. F is is is sº º ºr * ºr ºf is is "...º is I = R = ---do ------------------------------. 18,00l. WLOOſly, Tºlay'Ol' - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - # º °T) - - - - - - - - - - - - : - - - - - - - - - - - - - - || I'll'SU, 919; 8800llſi, 931; thiril, 1,015 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1, 06 º 34 || First vein, 390; 879; main, 284-----------------------------. --------- º ; É. * * * * * * * * m m = E = ± E. E. E. E. E. E. do ---------------|- * = i. * * * * * * * * * † - # * ::::::: sº is sº ºn is ºr ſº º is a m + º- H. C. Beard -...-- ---------------------- H. C. i.'A'. * * * * m = E = E = E = ſº º E. E. : : -, -} ºr Gray Bros. Milwaukee, Wis ............. 9ctºber, 1890...] First, 949; second, 1,000 ---------...-----------------...........| 1, ; 3. ; 253 | First, y; 363; º main. s..ºn ºn ºn ºf + = * * * m … j.d6 |'''''''' 133 || III || 3.050 21 | Columbia.------------ Columbia -------------| . . do - .----------- ---do ---------- ---| Columbia.---------------------------- G. M. Lyon, mayºr, ---52 ----------------. Swan Bros.; Anjoyer. S. Dak-------------- In 1885........ First, 721; second, 804; third,862; fourth, 892; fifth, 927. -----. 964 1, 315 351 | First vein, 594; second, 514; third, 453; fourth, 423; main, 388 .----. | 940 160 63 || 3:300 22 * im º º is is m tº # * * * * * * * * = … º. i. #. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * | * -- do -------------|- tº a 3. - - - - - - - - - - - - º: *:::::: - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - º m; sº tº Hº ; ; ; ; * : * * * * * * : * * * * * º is º R = R H + = ** = # = * * * m = | * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * #: j Second, 724; third, 782; fourth, 912.-----...-- * = * * * * * 965 I. - - - - - - 50'ſ...I.I.I.I.I First veir * = - = * * * * * * * * * * = * * * * * = * * * * = m ºn in * * * = = = = * * * * * * * * * * * * * m = ± = * † = * * * | * * * = = = * * * * * * 135 | . . . . . . . 3, 000 23 £Iſlfill - - - - - - - - - - - gº ºn my * is is sº is ºn (10 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ... do -------------|- ---do - - - - - - - - - - - - - , L, Hiëlliºl Il. - - - - - * : * : * m ºf m º º ſº º ſº sº tº E. E. E. is + 4 = tº . L. Elelīlāīl S, COIllſil D18 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - F ----. § II]till S, tº Olllllll)18 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |... - . - - - - - - - - - - - - ** *-----------------------------------------, -----------| . . . . . . . *1, 850 ---------. irst vein, 790 ------...------- * * * * * * * * = * * * = m = ± = ± = | r + º- + ºr sº º nºt -----......]. -------...--------…........" I 24 | Frederick :----------. Frederick -----------. . ---do ------------- ----do ------------- Frederick ----------------------------|--------- - - -------------------------------- Swanson, Minneapolis, Minn ... ---------| May 15, 1890 .. first, 985--------- Rºi º nº m ºn tº ſº. # = + + n = * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * = = = = = * * * * * * * * * * l, 139 1, 383 244 | First vein, 398; main, 338.... ----------...---------------- # * is is † : nº is is is is 135 * 70 + sº sº º ºr º º 65 ; § 25 I KTouschnabel ........]... ---. do -----------.l. ---do -------------l. ---do -------------| Gaspar Kronschnabel .... t.--------- º º * = * * * * * * * ºl, Frederick .........l. • - - - - - - - - - - - - - - I - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * = = * * * * * * * # = * * * * * * * * | * = = * ~ * * * 1.375 ----------|-----------------------. * * * * * * = * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * :::::::::::1.-----….l...... h 26 Abbott ---------------|------ do ----------. ---!. -- do ------------- --- do ------------- Abbott & Morgan -----............. --! Wallace ott, Frederick ---- . . . . . . . . . . } |(}lſ.T. OTºll. - - - - - - * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * | * * * * * * * * * * = = = = = |* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * = = * * * = = * * * * * = − = n = n = * * * = . . a. º. º. = . . . . . - - - - - - - - - - - || - - - * * * * *1,405 ----------|--------------------------- * = = * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * m m .......................... * = ′ = = * * * * * * * * * * * * * | * * * * * * * * 27 | Groton No. 2.-----.... Groton --------------.l. ---do. ------------ ----do ------------- Groton ------- g m º ºs ºn tº sº; : E. E. º. ºr sº ºn E iſ m = ± m = * * = #º mayor * = * * * * = m. ºn tº sº tº º m = , ºr = * * * * * = j."A. Andover, S. Dak-------------. §º". First, 906 second * * * * * = * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * = E = = = 922 1, 304 ----------|------------------------------------------------------- …...... ** 830 * | *- :- - - - - - - 135 * † - iº is is sº sº º : ::::::: 28 F. D. Adams..... tº ſº º ſº. º. I = * * * * * do ---------------1. ---do ------------- - - - -010 - - - - - - - - - - - - - F. D. Adams. --------------- .* - - - - - - - - - avid Harris ----------------------------- t? &S. A.Ilſlel'Sſ?Il . . . . . - - - - - - - .* = * * * * * * * * * * * * * Iay 4, 1891 . . . | First, 906; second, 917. ... ---...------...----- # * = = * * * * * * * * * = * = a * 977 T. 30: 382 | Main, 415 ... ------- --------------------------------------- ..I.I.I.] Io; 30 | 63.| "1.50ſ 29 | Burnham. --...-...----|------ do ---------------|- ---do ------------- .--, do -------------| W. A. Burnham ---------------------. W. A. Burnham, Groton. ------------......] W. A. Burnbam, Groton. ...----- # = * * * * * = * * * * Jan. 27, 1891. --| First, 725; second, 840. -----------...----...--................. 842 i. ; 328 | First vein, 399; main, 388 ........................................... #; 1% ; ; ; 30 § No. 1.---------|------ †* = E = F * * * * = g º is sº ºr ----do -------------|- ---do ------------- §i * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ~ * * * * * * * * * * * * * $. #: MºW.* = m = m = ± ſº a m = * * * Grºwawkee Wis.--------...--. In 1837....I. "irst, 92?-----------------------------...------------------ * * * * * 96() 1, #: 363 §. Vein, 580; main, 465. --...------...--...-- ….................….............i. . ...”.]...". 31 imball ..... ſº m = m, is is ºf m = Kimball . ------------ Brule .------------!. f--do ------------- imball ------------------------------ ouie Richards, Kimball.-----------------|-3; --. 2 : : - ; -------- - --------------------. In 1887: -------| :." - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - * * * * * r * * * * * * * * mº m 'm m. m = 1, 068 1, 781 844 | Main, 879 -------------------------------------------------. # * * * * * * * 185 32 || City well.-----------. Chamberlain. --....... ---do -------------|-- --do ------------- City ... ------------------------------ Scott Hayes, city engineer ... -- - - - - - . . . . . Page Guthrie. ---------------------------- May, 1891 - - - .. First, 716; second, 750; third, 780; fourth, 785. ... ... tº # * * * * * * * * 785 1, 547 713 | Main, 713 ---------------------------------. --...--.............. 529. 62 º ; ; ; 33 flººr. # = + , ſº sº, ſº is ſº is m = is gºlia # * * * * * * * * * * = m = gº Mix ------ ----do ------------- à *Hammer * * * = * * * = * = * * * * * * * * * * * = * * Geo, H. Waters, Armour, Douglas Co. -----. Ši m. ºn tº # * = * *- :- i) º: § * * st # ºf # * * * * * pi ∈ is is m 'm ºn tº s m ºn is --dº ---------|---------------------------------------------------------------- 966 1, 610 762 | First vein, 831; second, 797; third, 767; main, 762.--------...--. . ... 30 - 50 I.-----... i. 500 • 34 31 k - - - - - *...* : * = - º º is E. º. º ºs ark -----------------' Clark------------. -- do ------------- 8.TRI. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - lèTS BI'08. , Lé Sirl GT - - - - - - , . . . . . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -----------|- - - - -----------------------------------------------------------|--------|--------- * -------------------------------------------------------------...--...--...---------- mº - Hº # * * * * * * * * | * * * - - - - - - - - 35 | Mitchell.....--------. Mitchell ----- † = * = m = * * * Davison ----------l. -- do ------------. Mitchell------------------------------ A. M. Bowdle, mayor, ... ---. --------.** * * * * Mars & Miller, Chicago, Ill.--...----...----- Jan. 9, 1886 --. First, 285; second, 530-----------.......................... --.. 548 1,316 ----------|------------------ * * * * * * * * * * * * * * = * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * # = * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * = | + + i + is m º ºr ºs º is ºn III.i 3.136 36 |-----fundſ....I.I.I.I.I.M. - - § m = ± E. E. E. is º iº is in is º is # * * ---do -------------4----do ------------- lº º * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * : h = i º ºf mº m = + + m = ± *}}...E.; sº......... º § Mºhells Dak. -------------. §§ tº. * I - sº tº--------- -------------------------------------------------- § , , ; 768 || First vein, 1,031 ; main, 786 ............. tº a sº im º ºn sº sº sº. …............. 40 l.----.......” 56'ſ........ 37 Sch uild - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Mt. €I'ſ]011. - - - - - - - - - m = do ſº ºn tº ſº. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. : * I s ...do * * * * = m, a m + $º º ſº ſº. • Nº. !! Ilſl - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - * +º m ſº g oligall, &Ilkll] iſłIl S. tlk. - - - - - - - - +. , ºſ. UIlúl - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Čtſ) []{}T - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 338 1, 375 837 First vein, 9* -------------------------------. * = * = F * is m is is ſº sº gº # = ſº is # * * * 40 * = F * * * * * * * * = | * * * * * = a -s a = ºn m = ± ſº º ſº 38 | Andover--------------| Andover--------------| Day ----- º ºg º º im # = sº ºr ----do ----- # * iF = m # * is Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul R. R. . …::::::: Swan Bros, Andover, šijak..............] in 1882.'... Main, 1,070------------------------------- # * * * * * * * * * * = ºn tº m = ±1 ± = m = 1,075 1, 505 1,087 --------------------------------------- # * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * † = * * * * * * * | * * * * * * * * = = * * 65 III. I.I.I.III. 39 Armour -------------. Armour -------------. Douglas -------- ‘...]. -- do ------------- Armour -----------------------------. A. E. Swan ------------- Jº ºr e = * = * = * * * * * * * * * : * * * = * * Q - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - : - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Jan. 7, 1891----| Main, 696.-------------------------------------------...-----. 757 1, 514 757 | First vein, 818 - - - - - - -...- ..........--- * * * * * * * * * * = m = * = * * * * * * * * * * * * * * = r }. 590 55 || “‘’’ 65 || 3,630 40 Ipswich ------...----- Ipswich -------------. Edmunds.-------. ---do ------------- Ipswich ----------------------- # = m * * * * J. J. Skahem --------- * ºr m ºr is ºn tº a m = ± = * * * * * * * * * Gray Bros., Milwaukee, Wis. --...-...----. Fall, 1884 ... --. First, 1,000; second, 1,230. -----------------------------------. 1,230 1, 531 801 || First vein, 531; main, 301. -----------...--------------............. | 4 106 71 5. 290 41 gº * * * * * * = tº ºn is m + ºn tº º ſº. § * -- tº ºn tº ºn tº E = E = E = E = #. * * * * *r = ºf ºf ºn ºn ºf re. -- do ------------- #. County ------------------------ § O. ºiſſºw; ºr ſº mº m ºf mº is ſº is º is is gº ºn. # §º. §: S. §: - - - - - - - - - - - - - - **** * * * , #. *cºlº third, 1,070; fourth, 1,165 ...----------. 1,215 1,565 350 § Veln, 1,171 ; second, 515; third, 495; main, 400. ---......... . . . . 950 130 75 || 4:350 42 | Miller.--------------- iller ---------------. 811ſl - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- do ------------. Miller --------. .* * * * * * * * * * * * = = * * * * * * * * ray Bros., Milwaukee, Wiśl -- - - - - - - - - - - , . ray BIOS., Mill Wäukee, YY IS. - - - - - - - ....... in 1886. -------| First, 1,110 --------------------------------------------------- 1, 145 || I, 586 441 Main, 470-----------------------------------------------------------. | 43 Harrold ------...----- Harrold -------------- Hughes-----------|- ---do ------------. Harrold ------------------------------|----- sº * = * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *------------. Swan Bros., Andover, S. Dak. --------...--. In 1888. ---. --| First, 1,000; fifth, 1,435. -------------------------------...----. 1.453 1,800 347 | First vein, 800; fifth, 365 -------...-----...-- # * * * * * * ºr * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * º ! § m 4,010 44 | Highmore .----------. Highmore .-----------| Hyde.------------|. ---do ------------- Highmore ---------------------------. Gray Bros., Milwaukee, Wis. --...----------| Gray Bros., Milwaukee, Wis.--------...-. Marºh, 1887---| First, 1587 --------------------------------------------------. 1,552 1,900 348 || First vein, 470; main, 363........................................... 9 124 73 || 7, 200 45 || Iroquois..... | m ſº º ºs ºf º ºs Iroquois. ------------. Kingsbury.----...}. ---do ----- * * * * * * * * Iroquois ------------------------------ C. Fred. Zimmerman . ---------------------|------ 0 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - October, 1890 -| First, 400; second, 600; third, 850............................. 1, 100 1, 403 303. First vein, 1,003; second, 803; main, 553. -- }00 67 72 3. Too 46 | Madison.----------... Madison -------------- aße.............I. ---do ------------. Madison ------------ tº º mº º ſº is is º ºs º ºs = º 'º ºf mº m ºf Chas. B. Kennedy, mayor ---...------------- City of Madison -------------------------|---------------- £irst, 999 -----------------------------------------------------|--- ... 1, 660 -------- … sº ºn tº ºn ºf...::::::::::::::::::::::: |---------------------...l.........l.... º: 47 | Britton -------------.. Britton ---------------| Marshall ---------|--|--do ------------. Britton ------------------------------- C. A. Cooper -----------------------------. Swan Bros., Andover, S. Dak. --...----.... Mar. 25, 1889 ... First, 880; second, 976. .......----. ----------------------------| 1,004 1, 352 48. First vein, 472; main, 376.. ---...-- * = H = * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * = m, sº a fºr **600 115 64'ſ 3,614 48 || Bridgewater.......... Bridgewater.--------. iMcCook ----------|----do ------------- Bridgewater.------------------------- Col. C. H. Chandler ----------------------. Col. C. H. Chandler, Bridgewater. . . . . . . . . . §une 3, 1891. --| First, 3% ----------------------------------------------------. 229 l, ; 1, 184 | First vein, 1,189.-----------------...------------ + = * * * * * * * * * *:::::::::l.----------|------..….l.... ... '#15 49 | Salem ------------...--. Salem ---------------, i. ---do ------------- ----do ------------- 8.15th - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -------------------------------------------| SWan. Bros.: ------------------------------ Wall, 1887..….] §rst 343 ---------------------------------------------------. 247 1, 51 **79 Main, 1.80%---------------------------------------------------------|------------|-----.......l.................. 50 | McCurdy.----...----. Letcher.-------------- Sanborn ---------. ----do ------------- Frank McCurdy---------------------- Frank McCurdy------------ * * * * * * * * * * * * * * C. O. Hutchins, Woonsocket'. --........... Aug. 13, 1890...] I’irst, 505; second, 514; third, 552; fourth, 568. -----------..... 578 1, 31) 722 || First vein, 795; second, 786; third, 748; fourth, 732 ---------....... 70 l------------|---. 700 51 | Letcher.-------------|------ do ... -------------|- ---do ------------- ----do ------------- Letcher ------------------------------ H. E. Mayhew.---------------------------| City of Letcher--------------------------- July, 1891 - - - - - First, 300; second, 400; third, 570....... --------- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - • 577 1, 30) 723 || First vein, 1,000; second, 900; nain, 730....... … 80 . 90 53 | 1,800 52 || Woonsocket - - - - -... --| Woonsocket----...--. ----do ------------- ----do ------------- Woonsocket ------------...----------. Gray Bros., Milwaukee, Wis. ------------. Gray Bros., Milwaukee, Wis.............. In 1890. --...-. First tº ----------------------------------------------------- 725 1, 308 * Main, 824----------------------------------------------------------. 1, 150 130 65 3. 820 53 | Mill well.----...----...---- do ... ------------ ----do ------------- ----do ------------- Northey & Duncan -...----..........--- * = ′ = − = * is + is is ºn 4 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Robbins & Vowe -------------------...-- .....do ---------| First, 645; second, 690; third, 697. ---------...-----------...----. 775 1, 315 541 | First vein, 671; second, 626; main, 619..... # * * * * * * ºr * * * * * = + ºn tº º ſm ºf ºl ...]------. “. 125 65 4.500 54 Hines.---------------------- do ------------- ------do ------------. ----do ------------- Charles E. Hines.----------------...--. Chas. E. Hines ---------------------------- Chas. E. Hines.---------------- ----------- Mºgh, 1891---|--------------------------------------------------------------. T42 1,343 606 || Main, 659 -----. . . . . ...----...----.'….................... 425 131 65 god 55 #:................ à. * * * * * : ; E E ºr * * * * * * * = sº # * * * * * * * * * = E tº ::::::: * = * * * * * * * * * * * $." Milwaukee & St. Paul R. R.!-------------------------------------------- swº # * = ±1 ± = {1 + m, ſº sº º Bº is ºn ºf ſº m = Hºm º º m º º gº ºf m + m = #. # * = m = ± = mp ºr ; §: ...} §: third, 905. ----------------------------. 925 1, ; # #: vein, 646; second, 501; main, 391------------...-----------..... 100 60 - - - - - - - -. 4,000 56 Olallſi - - - - - ** = * * * iº E ºf E = Giºllºi - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- . (10 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (10 - - - - - - - - - - - - - Oland,- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - iº, º m is ºn is ſº jº nº m is is sº * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 9.----------------------------------- Il 1889 - - - - - - - - l'I'SU, ; S600ht!, 880- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -'---- 897 1, 35. 53 irst vein, 830; main, 470 ------...---------------------------------. 7 22 64 |..... --. 57 | Lebrie---------------------- do ---------------|. ---do ------------- ----do ------------- Joseph Lebrie------------------------ Jos. Ilebrie ------------------------------. Jos. Lebrie -----------------------------------------------|---.* * * * ... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - I - - - - - - - - - ...:...........] ….:*:::::::::::::::::::::::: |- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - sº E is tº im # - tº * * * * * * * * º * : * * * * * * * * ; ºt # tº El ºf E = # ºr m º tº E = Bº Đi - sº tº gº ºn m ºn ºn : * = # 1 º E. E. * is ºf Hiſ sº sº. :::::: * * * = F * is nº gº sº ſº ºr ºr § º # = n = m + iº m sº m is º gº tº s m = ± = F * * * = E = m = | * P.S. stacey............................... §º ść Kä* * * * * * Šijak* = * : * * * * * * * #. #5. First, 803; second, 865; third, 945; fourth, 1,000.--...--...... .[ 1, ; # ; ; ; vº, 493, second, 431; third, 351; fourth, 296 .................|.......----. # * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 4, 632 ellette - - - - - - - - - - - - - - !ellette - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (10 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (10 - - - - - - - - - - - - - ëllëtte - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - , S. Stå06.V - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - , Iº. SWän UO., Andover, S. Lak ...— . . . . . . €0. 24, * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * = * * * * = * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * = m = m = m = n is a r ; -v *ain, 40---------------------------------------------------------. *1,215 r: f 60 #. * * = * * * * * * * ºn ºn * * * * = | * * * = * * § m = ± = * * * * * * * * * * * 4- tº i. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ºf ſº sº. §: = +º, º 'º - E. tº # = m is sº m §. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * = * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * > , Brum --------------------------- ------- É. Brum, Mellette -------------------...--. Dec., 1890... -- | First, 500; third, 880; main, 925.........--...------------------- 958 1, 29 322 First vein, 780; second, 400; main, 355.............................. 6t) º § § | 6I {l up * = ** = = * * * * * * = = * * * | * * * * * * (10 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - m = 0 - - - - - - - - - - - - - rºl ºr 0 - - - - - - * * * * * * * 3. up- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - tº ſº tº gº ºn tº g º º ſº tº ºn ºf E. E. E. F. #auge * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * + 1 + i = = ------------|- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -------------------------------------------------|--------|-------.* f * | * * * * * * * * * * | * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * = = n = * = - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - , || - - - - - - - - - - , s : * ~ * = n. * = - - - - - H - - - - - - -, - . . . . - . º: 62 Baker ------------. ---|-----. do ---------------|- --do ------------- ----do ------------- J. W. Baker -------------------------. J. W. Baker -----------------------------. Swan Bros.-----------------------------.. Mar. 1, 1891 ...! First, 400; third, 871 ---------------------------...--------...--. 920 1, 27 385 First vein, 875; main, 404.----------------------...------------------------------|-----------. 65 2, 76ſ) 63 Day ------------------|------ do ---------------|- ---do ------------ ----do ------------- . P. Day. ---...---------------------| J. P. Day ---------------------------------|------ do ----------------------------------. May 1, 1891 - ..] First, 700; third, 915 ---------------------------...---------.... 993 1, 285 292 | First Vein, 585; main, 370 ----------------------------............... 1,300 135 65 3.07.0 ; Bird do III.I.I.I.I.I.I.I. º * = * = º ºſ º ºs º is ºf mº E. E. º. I k 4- tº |. * = h = ** = -k ‘gº º sº ºr ºf ºf # I # * * * º * = * * * * = * * * * * * Rºwºhan, Bird & Moore... --------- &:* §. than ... * - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - š. §: = = * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * = a + sº 1, 1891 --- First, 904 ----------------------------------------------------. 930 1, 28% 350 | Main, 978--------------------------------------.................... 67 153 § 3. 466 5 H------ 0 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -ºlo - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (10 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -(10 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - --do ------------------------------. B1. R.O.W 30th fºlk . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Wºll BTOS - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- . (19 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 910 1, 28% ----------|--------------------------* - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 6 # il. ...". 66 | Redfield -----...------ | Redfield.-------------- ...do ....?.....I. -1.---do ------------- Redfield ------------------------------ Mayor A. Kemenerer ----------------...--. . Gray Bros., Milwaukee, Wis.............. In 1886. -- . . . . First, 760; third, 944 -----------------------------------------. 964 1, ; 836 | First vein, 550; main, 356----------------------...................... *1, ; # # 2.956 § # #ºn - - - - - - - - - - - - - º # * is º º # * = +& ſº tº ºn tº # ...; # * * * * * * * * * * * * | * ...; * * * * * * = F * * * * * #. # ºu * * * * * * * * * m ºn is is is m = m + m º ºs ºf # = m = * * ; #: §...... * * * * * * * * * * : * = E = #" ºr ºf Eł is + i + = W. E. Swan Co-----------...--...-----..... October 24. ---| First, 800; second, 927-...----------------...-...--------...--...-. 987 1, sº *16 | First vein, 412; main, 375. ---------------......---------------------|------------|------......l......... 3.50ſ ridley---------------! Turton ------. --------|. * * * * * *-F ºf m = |* * : * * * = ± = E = | * - - -010 - - - - - - - - - - - - - ohn Fridley ------------------------. ohn Fridley -----------------------------|--------------------------------------------|----------------|----------------------------------------------------------------|--------|-------- * : * * * * * * * * * * | * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * = = = = = * = * * * * * * ~ * - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - || - sº sº ºn a ºn a -, -, - r = | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . º: 69 . jºi * = h is my gº ºn E = # i. iſ.......I. § * * * * * * * * * * * * * | * ---do ------------- United States Government. ----......|. iſſää riani..................... Aurora Well Co -- --------------------...- Jan. 25.188 first 460, second, 536; third.6íð.....I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I. 979 |-------- !-----------|--------------------------------------------........................l......…............................ 70 "ort Randall.---..... Tort Randall.-----. . . Todd -------------|- --do ------------------- (10 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ieut. M. McFarland. ---------------------|---------------------------------...-----...--. an. 25, 1886 first, ; Second, 520; third, 610. ----------------------------. 610 1, 24 635 | First vein, 785; main,725; third, 635 -----...--------......... ---.... 600 -----------. 2, 572 71 | Mill well ....... --.... Yankton--------------|. Yankton.---------|. -- do ------------- Miner & Walker -------------...----. Miner & Walker. ...--...---------...------- Carr & Ritchie ----------------...-------. In 1883. -------|------------------- ... * * * * * * * * * * * B = * * * * = gº # = * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 595 1, 19 595 !--------------------------º * + ºr º * = = * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * = r = * * = 1. 450 48 ; ; ; 72 | Wilcox. ----...-------|------ do --------------- - - - - ClO - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ---do -------------| E. P. Wilcox.------------------------- E. P. Wilcox-----------------------------'--------------...:---------…---------------| In 1890.------- !"irst, #33.----------------------------------------------------- 455 | . . 1, 16% 713 Main,736.........................................................I. '330 55 60 "450 # $º: Works.------------- 3. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - :::::: is ºf E. E. E. m. º. is ºn m gº º # 1 ºr - - #. # * * * * * * * * * * * * §§§5..." Co -------------- ; . ºùù Snti isano'asyim. Gray Bros., Milwaukee, Wis.............. Fºllº m = - m = #. ;: second, 390; third, 405; fourth, 435; fifth, 450 ....... ; }. ; | ; Yº 825; second, 810; third, 795; fourth, 755; main, 725..... 1, 300 50 64%. , 2,500 SYIllin - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 0 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (10 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (10 - - - - - - - - - - - - - à Tê š0ll flkotº - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - r. Meade, superintencent Ins I * | * * * * * * * B = * *... - . .” - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -| In 188! … --- !"8", º' - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ------------------, --- - - - - - - - --------- º aim, 685 -------------------------------- i. i* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 165 º # gº............. i㺠* = * * * * * g = E = ± = E = Ča o -------------' ... do Takota ... | ź º ºr ºf E = E =... --------------------- ¥*śNiš r: * * * * * * * 3. . * = m tº m º ºr º # = E = * = # * * * * * * * * * = * * §: --| First,019 ---------------------------------------- # * * * * ºr ºs º my mº m sº m 615 § * | Main, 649.---------------------------------------------------------. 880 ! § ; ; 7 Olliºt - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - uffalo --------------- Cass. ------------- North Dakota. . . . .] T. E. Sargent ------------------------. ..I). Court, Buffalo, N. Dak . . . . . .-----... eorge l'tazer - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - * * * * * * * ummer, 1889 ----------------------------------------------------------------- 600 1, 19 590 Main vein, 639 -------------------------------------------. :--------. 12 45 52 3.300 77 Staples --------...-----|----.. do --------------- --- do --, ----------|----do ------------. Staples . . . . . -------------------------. W. A. Metzger, Absaraka, N. Dak --------|------------------...-- ----------------------- --do --------|--------------------------------------------------- º---- is m = m = * * * 514. 1, 17 656 || Main véin, 670 ................ !------------------------------------- 25 50 51 iſ 500 º; #. .ty ----------- #. º * * * * * * * * * * * B. *: ii...I.I.I.I. § + = m = * * * sºr ºf ºf m º gº. i. Pacific R. R. Co............. º sºº; *: # m = * * tº ºf ºf m ºf m ºn gº; jº, º,* # * : * + i = is m + m, # º ----| First, 716 ----------------------------------------------------- i 7| 6 1, ; 45? | Main vein, 452 -----------------------------------------...-----...-. 20–25 53 ; 3,366 18m ºf Cl: - - - - - - - - - - - - - lSillaf C.K. . . . . . . . . - - - - - Ull'it}l; Il , - - - - - - - - - - - - - (10 - - - - - - - - - - - - - 18ſnarök - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - . J. Stå Cey, ë!'ClèëII, S. Lalº - - - - - - - - - - - - Wall BröS., A Plötöver, S. 1981: ...... ... . . . . . In * - ------------------------------------------------------------------, , 315 1, 75 *1 ----------------------------------------------------------------------|------------|------------|---------|-------. 80 | Ellendale .......... --. Bllendale -------------| Dickey ... --...--. ----do ------------- Ellendale ...------------... . . . . . . . . . . . . Gray Bros., Milwaukee, Wis ...----------. Gray Bros., Milwaukee, Wis......... ---. - April 6, 1886 --|-----------------------------------------...--...------------------| 1,087 1,46; 376 | Main vein, 421 ------------------------------------------------------ **700 115 69 4,440 § §. * * * * * = F * * * * m = ± = * * * = Öğ" Fºº lººk ºf 4. ºf - - - - - - - - - - ---. # = * * * * * * * * * * * * !--do -------------' W. H. Jones --------------------.... ... A. T. Hayman, Ellendale, N. Dak ...... . . . §ºman Ellendale ------------------| - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - . . . . . . . ----------------|- - - - - - - - - ------4-----------|----------------------------- - - - -------------------------------------|------------|------------|----------------- ak68 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -. ** 88 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (10 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - --do ---------' --. Oakes----------------------------. . . . .I-------------------------------------------- Swan Bros. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . --...--........ | March, 1890...]. Third, 790 fourth, 845; fifth, 870; main, 937 ---...--.......... 972 1. 319 347 || Mai in 880 -----------------------------------------------------. 81 25 62 -------- 83 || Mandan ....---------. Mandan -------------- Morton ........ --. ----do ------------. Mandon ----------------- - - - - - - - - -... ..] I), M. Bougard, Mandon, N. Dak.--------.. Gray Bros., Milwaukee, Wis. --...-...-----|-----. ... . . . . . . . First 'Igo. second, 410 ---------------------------------------- 1, 590 !645 55 #. §. second, 1,235 .-------------------------------------|---------- 1. # # * * * * * * * * * * * +- * : * * * * * *- 84 || Hamilton :-----....... Hamilton :------------ Penibina . . . . . . . . . . ----do ------------. Hamilton Artesian Well Co .... . . . . . . H. N. Jay, Hamilton, N. Dak ...... ----....] W. B. Clements, Cavalier, N. Dak. --...... August, 1889..]. First, 300; second, 1,241 ------------- ----...----...----....... 1, 560 824 –736 | First vein, 524; second, -417. .... ---...--... . . . . . . . ---...--...-...--. 26 27 413| 10, 150 85 | Devils Lake ........ -- 19evils Lake ---------- Ramsey ---...-...--. ---do ------------- Devils Lake -------------------------. Qity auditor ... . . . ;-- : - ; ;...- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Swan Bros., Andover, S. Dak.--------...] July, 1889 ----|----------------. . . . . . .---------------------...----------------- 1, 520 1, 473 —47 | Main vein, 42 to —40 . . . . . ... ---. * * * * * * = * * * * * * * * * = = = * * * = = = + = = * = * * * * * 82 20 62 9, 000 86 | Jamestown ........... Jamestown ----------- Stutsman.........l. -- do ------------- Jamestown . . ... --...--------..... . . . . Gray Bros., Milwaukee, Wis ----------... Gray Bros., Milwaukee, Wis.........----. April 4, 1887..] First, 1,385; second, 1,458 ---------........................... 1,476 1, 391 –85 First vein, 6; main vein, –67 --...----------........... ------...... 46t) 97 76 ti, 700 87 sylum --------------|-----, 10 ---------------|- --do ------------.l. ---do ------------. State North Dakota. ------------------|--- - - - - - - --------------------------------|----- do ---------------------------------, November, 1890.--------------------------------------------------------...----. 1, 524 1,470 –54 First vein, -9; second vein, –35. - ... ------. -- . . . . . . . . .---...----. 4. 70 F. - - - - - - - 7,000 88 || Grafton ---. --...---- Grafton . ----------- Walsh ----...-----|- ---do ------------. Grafton------------------------------- A. E. Swan, Andøyer, S. Dakº.------------- Swall Bros., Andover, S. Dak ...... - June 20, 1885. First, 195; second, 270; third, 390 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 825 –87 | First vein, 630; second vein, 555; third, 435 ..... tº # * * * * * * * * = º ºr E. E. º. º. º. º. f;00 12 46 3,800 89 | Moorhead ............ Moorhead ---. ---...--. Clay -------------. Minnesota. --..... 'Moorhead ---------------------------. Andrew Boles, Moºrhead, Minn.......... Gº ºros., Jamestown and city of Moor. Oct. 21,1889 ---|-----------...-------------...... ------...--...--...----------...-- 1, 901 901 | –1,000 | First vein, 781; second vein, 101; third, –49.- ......... --...--------. I.-----------|------------|--------- 10,000 º º E. º # £3.01. f *} - - - ; Chinook..... º ºg gº ºn tº # * * * Shinook: ------------. ghoteau # = * * * * * * * Montana --------. C. Artesian Co-----------------------. Thomas O'Hanlon . ----...------ - - - - - - - - - - - Hired emplºyás-º:-----------------------|---------------- First, 1.12; second, 220; third, 540; fourth, 620 ................ 956 2, 404 1, 448 || First vein, 2,292; second vein, 2,184; third, 1,864; fourth, 1,784......]. -----------|......... --. 40 4,490 § Beck ----------- - - - - - - Miles City ---.. : - - - - - Custer------------ dº...-----------. 9. C. Beek: -------------------------. O. C. Beck. --------------------------------| Q. C. Beck, Miles City, Montana........... June, 1886 ----| First, 250; second, 300; third, 393 ------...-...--...--...--...-- tº ſº. 456 2, 353 1,897 || First vein, 2,103; second vein, 2,653; third, 1,960 ............. . . . . . . 5 7 57 575 2 || Rosenfeld Junction...] Rosenfeld Junction .........---...--...-. Manitoba......... Canadian Pacific R. R. Co. --...---...--|-------------------------------------------. Swan Co-----------...-- ------------------|---------------. First, 876 ----------------------------------------------------- 1,037 780 —257 | First vein, -95. --...* = = * * * * * = * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * = * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * = ± sº I = * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * + 1 = * * * * * * * * * * * = * * * * * 93 || Deloraine City--------|-------------...---...--.]. ------------------ |----do ------------- City and Government. --...-----------| Mr. Stephens -----------------------------|-------------------------------------------- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 1, 800 1, 620 —180 ----------------------------------------------------------------------|------------------------|--------- 13,000 -*- -** f W -sº i. S. Ex. 41, pt. 2—Face page 74. * Estimated. f Very weak; just comes to surface. 1 Large; fills 8-inch pipe. § Can not now be measured. | 1,400 in 1890. ** In 1890, . MISSOURI FLow ABOVE AND BELOW GREAT FALLs. 75 is a perceptible difference in the volume of water, there being less at Fort Benton than at Great Falls, some 40 miles up the river. This reported decrease of volume between these places has suggested the idea that possibly a portion of the supply of water in the artesian basin under consideration may come from this point. A reconnoissance of this locality was made in August, when it was found to be practicable to detect any considerable difference in the Volume of the river by a series of gaugings at several points between Great Falls and Fort Benton. As the river was gradually falling it was decided to defer making these measurements until the close of the field season, or when the volume of the river would be at or near its minimum, for having as little water as possible to deal with would tend to reduce the percentage of error in the measurements. Before closing the fall work a few days were spent in making meas- urements of the river and other investigations of this supposed source of the water supply. It is to be regretted that this part of the investi- gation could not have been made jointly by the geologist and the engi- neer, as this is an interesting and important field of inquiry. As the absence of the geologist could not be avoided, we were compelled to take up some lines of investigation that do not properly belong to en- gineering questions, or else to simply collect certain engineering data which of itself would not be sufficient to establish with any degree of certainty that this outcropping is one of the points where the artesian supply enters the Water-bearing strata. The geological data required has, however, been fortified by a valuable paper annexed to this di- VISIOOl. - The Missouri River* first comes in contact with the Dakota sand rock at the city of Great Falls. From this point it begins to cut down into the rock, forming a caſion with almost vertical walls which are composed of parallel strata of rock varying from a few inches to 15 feet in thickness. These strata are generally sandstone of different degrees of hardness, color, etc. Some of them contain considerable lime and clay. Between these strata are beds of shale, soapstone, lignite, con- glomerate, with water-worn pebbles and cobblestones embedded in the sand. These beds range from 2 feet to 4 feet thick. The whole forma- tion seems to have in very many ways the same characteristics of the water-bearing rock in the Dakota artesian basin, as is revealed by the logs of the hundreds of bores of which we have record. At the city of Great Falls there is apparently a ledge of rock run- ning across the Missouri River Valley which forces the river to near the surface of the country. On the upper side or crest of the rock is what is locally called the “bay,” which is a little widening and deep- ening of the channel, the water of the river being backed up for 2 or 3 miles. The river passing over the crest of this outcropping resembles the spillway of a rock dam about 1,500 feet long. & The top of the rock at this point is quite hard, over which the flow of the river for ages has made but little impression. Immediately after passing over the crest, the river falls rapidly and begins to cut its way into the somewhat softer rock for some 3 miles from the crest, then it plunges down 30 or 40 feet, forming what is known as the Black Eagle Falls. At the bottom of this cascade is a hard stratified rock resembling quartzite, which has prevented the river cutting deeper at this point. Then for 23 miles there is another stretch of rapids where the river * See Appendices 22 and 23. 76 IRRIGATION. cuts still deeper into the rock, then it falls perpendicularly about 12 feet On a hard stratum of rock about 5 feet in thickness. About one- third of a mile below it again falls perpendicularly about 45 feet, form- ing the Rainbow Falls. Below these falls is another short stretch of rapids of one-half mile. Then it makes another drop of 20 feet, then comes another stretch of rapids 4 miles long, when the river makes its last and perpendicular plunge of 90 feet. These falls are called the Great Falls of the Missouri River. From this point to the mouth of Belt River, some 6 miles, the aver- age slope of the river is greatly decreased, it being about 20 feet per mile. A short distance below the Great Falls there is a narrow and very deep channel in the river bed, through which nearly the whole volume of the river flows during a medium stage of water. This deep channel is from 75 to 100 feet in width, its depth is un- known, but it is so deep that a flow through it of 6,000 to 8,000 cubic feet per second produces a current that is hardly perceptible. Prob- ably this deep channel was cut out of soft rock by the action of the water at the time the Great Falls were at this point, as they undoubt- edly were at one time, as there are evidences that these falls have been gradually receding. From the upper end of the first rapids to the bottom of the Great Falls the average of the slope of the river bed exceeds the dip of the rock by some 200 or 300 feet. From the foot of the Great Falls to the mouth of Highwood Creek the slope of the river is considerably less than the dip of the rock, so that in a short distance eastward from the latter place the top of the rock passes under the river channel and dis- appears. From this point the river channel is cut into the shales which overlie the sand rock, and the slope of the river bed assumes its normal grade, which is only about 4 feet per mile. The point where the Dakota rock passes under the river marks the head of navigation on the Missouri River, and from here the clear water of the river becomes colored by the erosion of the shales, which is the beginning of the “Big Muddy.” The relation of the dip of the rock strata to the surface of the river bed is shown by the sketch marked as “Appendice 23.” We will call that portion of the river above the Great Falls the up- per section and that below the lower section. The river in passing down the channel of the upper section forms a cañon which grows deeper as long as it continues cutting through the rock which it has done until it reaches the foot of the Great Falls. From here the relation between the inclination of the strata and the river bed is reversed. The grade of the river below the Great Falls is very much reduced, it being as much less than the dip of rock as the inclination was greater in the section above, and from this point instead of the river cutting down through the strata, from now on the process has been reversed and the river from here on is passing over the edges of all the strata it cut through in the upper section, which now affords an opportunity to imbibe the water from the river. Whether the rocks do, or do not, take in water from the river is the question to be solved, and this was accomplished by accurate measure- ments of the volume of the river above and below the lower section. The upper measurement was made about 8 miles above the Great Falls; the lower one at Fort Benton, about 30 miles below. The only surface water that enters the river between these places (except it may be a very small amount from a few springs) was from the Belt and High- wood Creeks, which amounted to 85 cubic feet per second. w” VOLUME OF RIVER, FLOW AT GREAT FALLS. 77 Near the place where the upper gaugings were made is a group of Springs, one large one being in the channel of the river, the other on the right bank just a little above the surface of the water. It seemed desirable to ascertain the flow from these springs, and to do so required a gauging of the river above and below. The difference in the flow at these points, of course, would be the discharge of the springs, therefore tWO gaugings were made of the upper section. The gaugings were made by carefully measuring a cross-section of the stream by taking depths and distances in a skiff. The velocity of the current was ob- tained by an electric current meter. The points at which the veloci- ties of the measurements were taken were located by angular measure- ment, taken by a sextant in the boat. These stations were from 25 to 75 feet apart and between them several measurements of the depth Were made. From these data the following results were obtailled : The volume of the river above the springs was 3,885 cubic feet per Second. The volume of the river below the springs was 4,523 cubic feet per second, the difference being 638 cubic feet per second, or the volume discharged by the springs. The volume of the river at Fort Benton was 3,774 cubic feet per second, being 749 cubic feet per second less than the volume of the flow below the Giant Springs. To this must be added 85 cubic feet per second, the amount that the river is re- ënforced by Belt and Highwood creeks. Therefore we have 834 cubic feet per second of water that is apparently lost somewhere between Fort Benton and the foot of the Great Falls. - The fact that a certain amount of water disappears is now dem- onstrated by actual measurement. The possibility of this lost water being held within and carried down the incline of this rock strata to the James River artesian basin, which is some 600 miles distant, remains to be determined before the statement can be positively made that this is one of the sources of the artesian supply found in the Dakotas. If there is a continuity of the rock formation that we have been consider- ering through this 600 miles and its structure is the same throughout its entire length, as we find at Great Falls in the basin where the arte- sian flow is found, I think we are justified in the statement that it is possible for this water to travel this long distance underground. The immense volume of water flowing from the Giant Springs is noth- ing more or less than an artesian flow. The water comes up through a rock which appears to have been uplifted by a tremendous pressure from below. The strata for 50 to 75 feet around are broken up, resem- bling a condition that would exist if a heavy charge of giant powder had been exploded in a drill hole 20 or 30 feet deep at this place. The surrounding rock is all in place, but this deep hole is filled with broken rock. The water from these springs must come from the subterranean channels in this Dakota rock. There is a close resemblance of the Quality of the water to that of the artesian well water in South Dakota, especially in the Southern portion of the basin. The following is an analysis made by Prof. James A. Dodge, of the Jniversity of Wisconsin: Grains per gallon. Sulphate of lime (gypsum).----------------, ------------------------ 14.04 Carbonate of lime.-------------------------------------------------- 4. 38 Carbonate of magnesia-----------. ºr º- tº ºs º ºs - & º ºs - - as e s - - e º º - - º º ºs - - tº * ~ * * * * 4. 98 Chloride of sodium (common salt) -----...-----------------...---------- . 56 Salts of potassium -------------------------------------------------- Traces. Salts of lithium----------------------------------------------------- Traces. Borates----------------------------------------------------------- - - Slight traces. 23.96 Hardness, 28 degrees. 78 & - IRRIGATION. - s Organic analysis. Free ammonia. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .01 part per. 1,000,000 Albuminoid ammonia.----------.. .* = as ºn e º ºs e = * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * None. Nitrates and nitrites.--------------------------------------- None. The temperature of the water of these springs is 514 degrees, and it is Said there is no change of temperature between winter and summer. It is the opinion of people who are acquainted with this part of the Country that the water from these springs comes from the Belt Moun- tains some 15 or 20 miles to the southeast. It is reported also that the Water in the Belt and some other creeks all sinks during a low stage of water into the rockbound channels of these creeks. The rocks skirting the northerly side of the mountains are said to be the same as found at Great Falls and under this sandstone rock lies a thick bed of limestone. This is the same arrangement of strata as has been found in some of the deep wells in the Dakota basin. There are other opinions that the Water from these springs comes from the Missouri River some two or three miles to the southwest, as the river in that direction is suffi- ciently above the springs to force the water to the surface. The differ- ence in the quality of the spring and river water and the temperature of the two does not support this theory. It is hardly to be supposed that so large a volume of water as these springs discharge (over 413,000,00 gallons per diem) would in so short a distance as two or three miles produce such differences in quality and temperature as oc- cur between the river and the spring, as the water in the river is quite Salt and comparatively free from magnesia and gypsum and the tem- perature of the water has an annual range of from 40 to 50 degrees. EEPORT ON THE GEOLOGIOAL OHARACTER OF OERTAIN SEOTIONS OF THE STATE OF MONTANA, SHO WING THE POSSIBILITY OF IMBIBITION OF WATER WEIIGH WOULD BE A VAILABLE FOR ARTESIAN PURPOSES. [By O. C. MoRTson.] Jºnce 1867 I have been constantly exploring the region in Montana between the Rocky Mountains and the Dakota boundary, both geologically and topographically. My mass of notes made is therefore very large, and if taken in extenso would necessa- rily be too bulky for this report. I shall therefore briefly refer to each locality sepa- rately, giving its general characteristics, make deductions, and indicate from my line of view the probable artesian centers. © SECTION No. 1.-Poplar and Muddy creeks. The watershed of this section has its commencement in the Wood Mountains across the Canada line. The principal streams are the Big Muddy Creek and Poplar River. The general direction of the streams is south-southeast. They both carry consider- able water prior to entering Montana. The Big Muddy is, however, dry at its mouth most of the year; the Poplar River, on the contrary, always carries considerable water, and in spring is liable to overflows. . In Montana the whole of this section pertains to the lignite formation, the dip of strata being, I should judge, slightly east of south. In places, however, on the Missouri, the strata have been so disturbed by fires burning the lignite veins, that it is hard to judge. The center of the section is comparatively flat, and at points marked A on map forms sandy depressed plains. Generally speaking, the surface soil is an adobe, the bluffs north of the Missouri Val- ley carrying considerable alkali in various places. The general character of the strata, however, is lignite of either the close of the Cretaceous period or beginning of the Tertiary period, and is identical with those of northwestern Dakota. I would consider points A A as probable àrtesian centers. º - - | | º - lºwl º * º º Hº - - - --- ----- º- - º - - - - - nº lºw-in- - - --- -- - - - - - - - - -- - º - 11 * . - *º-º - - - - - º s - - - - Pºu-ºº. - ------- ------ ----- **** U.S DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. wº-ºº-2 º - ºlº Tºll ſº –Washington.D.C. Geological MAP orportion of MONTANA &omºzoºzzº of Zzºzoº of Zoºs * * * * &ziąże fºr AA743/aw Azzºzoºes º º - - **; – By — * ſº - - F- 0.0. Mortson -- Sº - N 1891 --- - - cLays and MARLs L-MESTONE ERUPTIVE METRocks - (TERTARY) (cARBſ) GRANTEPC. scºle or stature ºuts - % *_*_* -- - - - -- -- Caup Truster" 2 4. THE HYDRO-GEOLOGY OF UPPER MISSOURI. 79 SECTION No. 2.-The Milk River Valley. This section may properly be divided into two parts, as a portion of the Milk River Valley lies, in Canadian territory. Taking the Western part of this section the fol- lowing remarks are applicable. It would be an easy matter to divert the waters of St. Marys River into Milk River for irrigation purposes, but the Canadian settlers would derive the benefits therefrom first and before the American settlers living east of 111° west longitude. In this western part of the section the strata for the most part are soft white and gray sandstones, apparently of either Upper Cretaceous or Lower Tertiary. It consists of a very high ridge separating the waters of Milk and Marias rivers. The dip of strata, except on the immediate foothills of the Sweet Grass hills, is northeast. The Sweet Grass hills are about 30 miles in length and are composed of various eruptive and metamorphic rocks and slates. The range consists of the east and west buttes, with small isolated peaks between, the northern slope being the most precip- itous. Near the 111th degree west longitude, Milk River again enters Montana, and from there on that portion of this section north of Milk River passes through a lignite for- mation similar to section 1 and having a slight dip to the east. Borings have been made at Chinook, but I have not yet heard the result. Frenchmans Creek, Cotton- wood Creek, and east and west forks of Milk River rise quite a distance beyond the British boundary, draining the west side of the Wood Mountains and the south side of the Cypress Hills, and consequently in that region have a larger flow of water there than they have in Montana. Milk River valley itself is wide and flat, having a considerable depth of alluvial soil." Lignite coal is found as marked on the map. Qn the south side of Milk River the same remarks are applicable, except on the east side of Lonesome Prairie, where there are heavy surface deposits of sand in de- pressed basins, and locally thick beds of alkaline soil. Lonesome Prairie itself is, in my opinion, a coal-bearing region, either Upper Cretaceous or Laramie Group, as coal has been found all around it, and with the exception of Sage Creek, being almost destitute of coulees or creeks, would be an admirable experimental ground for arte- sian purposes. The Bearpaw Mountains consist of a central granite (trachyte 7) peak, with moun- tainous ridges radiating from it, consisting of eruptive, igneous, and metamorphic rocks and slates. The northern side has a narrow strip of Jurassic limestones and shales bearing gryphaea, ammonites, and other characteric fossils which continues to within 5 miles of Fort Belknap. The same formation found in the Bearpaw Moun- tains continues through the Three Buttes and the Little Rocky Mountains, the strata sloping on every side from the mountains. From thence to the mouth of Milk River it is similar to the north side. SECTION NO. 3.-The Marias River and northern watershed of the Teton River. This section from Snakes Head ridge (which consists of Cretaceous sandstone) to its eastern boundary consists of a rolling prairie with few creeks, there being only four, being a gradual watershed from the Milk River divide and the Sweet Grass Hills to the Marias River. The geology of the Sweet Grass Hills has already been referred to in section 2. From the mouth of Cut Bank Creek to its confluence with the Missouri River, the Marias River, generally speaking, occupies a narrow, deeply depressed valley with high cut bluffs of alluvial and Cretaceous clays and shales, in some places forming bad lands of narrow width. Between the Marias and the Brit- ish line the prairie often has large upland ponds without inlet or outlet, and which is often the only water to be obtained for many miles. As the altitude of the east and west peaks of the Sweet Grass Hills are respectively 8,400 and 8,200 feet, and the average altitude of the Marias River is at the mouth about 2,750, and at Cut Bank Creek confluence about 3,200, this will give an average of ascent between the sum- mit of the Sweet Grass Hill range and the Marias River of 5,325 feet. As this water- shed is perfectly dry most of the year, except in the immediate vicinity of the hills, also the dip of strata as far as I could discern being toward the south and southeast, the mean distance between the two points being nearly 45 miles, there is every reason to conclude that there is a large imbibition of water in this section. West of the forks of the Marias the copuntry breaks up into wide valleys bounded by high rolling ridges which continue to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. As the main western line of the Great Northern Railway traverses this section almost midway, I am satisfied the engineers of this road would be able to furnish data of altitudes which would be of great advantage in determining drainage. The northwestern portion of this section at the head of Cut Bank, Milk, and St. Marys rivers I can give no information regarding, as it is a difficult problem to treat †: which I do not yet understand myself, especially in the vicinity of St. Marys abkö5, gº 80 IRRIGATION. As regards Badger Creek (marked on map as Marias River, and flowing consider- ably south in the Rocky Mountains) this creek rises no further south than west of the head of Birch Creek. At this point a low mountain separates it from the North Fork of Sun River, which flows southeastwardly a mean distance of about 38 miles. De Pouie Creek and nearly all of the tributaries of the Teton River take their rise in a mountainous limestoue ridge which separates them from the watershed of the North Fork of Sun River. - With the exception of a small section of country near the mouth of Birch Creek which is distinctively Tertiary (by fossils found), and another section near the head of De Pouie Creek which I believe to be either Upper Cretaceous or Lower Tertiary, balance of this section is essentially Cretaceous, as proved by the fossils which are found so abundantly in various places. The south side of the Marias River has distinet features from the north side, the country being more broken, and in places the Bad Lands having a greater width, though no permanent streams enter it after the confluence of the three forks, the Dry Fork and Piser Creek having only pools in the fall. The ridge between the Teton and Marias rivers is not high, except in the vicinity of the Goose Bill, where it as- sumes the height of a high butte, and the formation there is lignite, showing two or more veins of that material. This lignite formation is exposed on the surface from the principal meridian of Montana on this ridge to the one hundred and eleventh degree west longitude, and belongs to the Upper Measures of the Cretaceons Period, the point of division between it and the Benton Group being clearly seen on the north side of the Teton River, 6 miles northwest of Fort Benton. Similar to the Ma- rias, the Teton River has few creeks on the north side. The geological strata along the Muddy and near the town of Choteau being the Dakota Group No. 1, Cretaceous Period, which gradually disappears under the Benton Group No. 2, and as we ap- proach the mouth of the Marias River higher groups of the Cretaceous corresponding to the Colorado Group appear locally. Résumé.—The strata of this section may be said to have a slight dip to the southeast north of the Marias. South of this river to the Teton watershed a slight dip to the northeast. From this point south to the Teton River a dip gradually to the south- east, and as you approach the foothills of the Rocky Mountains this dip is more pro- nounced. In the southeastern part of this section the higher Cretaceous formations make their appearance covering the lower groups, and below the mouth of the Marias along the bluffs of the Missouri River these higher groups continue, till near the mouth of the Little Sandy Creek a coal vein is found containing middletonite, and which I place at the close of the Cretaceous period or beginning of the Tertiary. It is my opinion that the dividing ridge of the Teton and Marias rivers is the northern boundary of a great geological trough or basin which will be referred to section 4. SECTION NO. 4.—The southern watershed of the Teton River, the Sun River, Dearborn and Missouri valleys, and part of Smith, Belt, Highwood, and Shonkin creeks. The Missouri River traverses this section almost midway, running in a northeasterly direction, the city of Great Falls being near the center. This river enters this sec- tion near 47° north latitude and leaves it near 48° north latitude. At or near the southwest corner of township 17 north, range 1 west (near the Halfbreed Rapids), the flow of the river is considerably increased from some source not yet determined. It is almost certain, too, that the underground flow of the Dearborn and Sun rivers is greater than has been supposed hitherto. At the city of Great Falls commence the great falls of the Missouri River, which, in the distance of 9 miles, makes the river descend 500 feet. One and a quarter miles northeast of the city limits is the great “Giant Spring,” which ejects a volume of water equal to one-half the bulk of Sun River. In the center of the river bed and opposite to the Giant Spring is another spring supposed to be equally as large. These two springs, I judge, increase the volume of the Mis- souri River about one-tenth. Many surmises have been made as regards the origin of this remarkable body of water. Nothing can be said with certainty, so that I shall only deal with facts from which deductions can be made. First. The Giant Spring is situated on the south side of the Missouri River. Second. Its level is about 10 feet above the river at medium stage of water. Third. It is about 100 feet from the edge of the rocky bank or low bluff. The bank is not high immediately near the spring, but a little further up the river on the same side about 20 feet of perpendicular rocks are exposed which belong to the Dakota Group, No. 1, Cretaceous period. Fourth. For a distance of about 300 yards there are numerous small springs in this º which contain in solution so much lime as to form calcareous tufa at their point of exit. Fifth. There is no limestone in these cliffs. \ - } THE DAKOTA GROUP AND THE GREAT SPRING. 81 The Dakota Group cover this section for 27 miles south of this spring, and in that distance the strata have a dip northward of 1,427 feet = 52}} feet to the mile. That immediately south of this Dakota group are the Little Belt Mountains, which at this locality are limestone (Carboniferous), and the water contained in the creeks issuing from this range sink so much that not one-twentieth part of their volume reaches the Missouri River on the surface. The Dakota Group here has also a dip to the northwest as in section 9, township 19 north, range 5 east, in sand coulee, the Carboniferous limestone here appearing at the surface, the Dakota Group lying unconformably upon it; whereas in section 14, township 20 north, range 3 east (about 1 mile southwest of the city of Great Falls), the Carboniferous limestone lays 345 feet deep as proved by boring. This will neces- sarily give a dip of 31*r feet to the mile between the two points. As the boring is N.46° W. from the limestone exposure and the other dip being north, this would give a mean dip of N. 23° W., and as the Giant Spring is N. 11° W. from the limestone this would make the center of dip strike the Missouri River three-quarters mile west of the Giant Spring, which is close enough for all practical purposes. No faults or dikes are yet known between the two points. This would, therefore, account for the numerous springs found in the cliff above the Giant Spring which carry so much lime in solution, but it does not account for the Giant Spring itself, which is far purer, the materials held in solution being mostly of a different character, the organic matter being merely nominal. The formation of the Giant Spring must also be taken into account. The orifice is wide and deep. In the limpid waters huge masses of rock seem torn asunder by some convulsion of nature. The body of water is immense. Its outflow is above the level of the river, and the purity of the water I have already spoken of. 3. Another important factor is that the volume and temperature of the water is al- ways uniform the year round, and the outflow is never affected by the driest or wet- est Seasons.. - As another spring exists in the center of the river opposite the Giant Spring and of similar purity, size, and appearance, I can not come to any other conclusion than— First. That the source of the two springs lies deep. Second. That these two springs either are situated on a huge dike or fault not visi- ble on the surface, or that they are ejected from some great subterranean body of water which might, by boring on the same strike, be reached at a considerable depth. If either supposition or deduction is adopted, a line drawn through the two springs and extended southeastwardly to get clear of the neighborhood of the river, would, in my opinion, form an excellent site for a deep boring for water, such site to be about 1% miles distant. * About 3% miles southeast, in a portion of sand coulee, it has been proved by boring that a short distance below the surface a body of clay exists, which is from 30 to 150 feet thick. This clay extending over the bottom lands of sand coulee for a distance of over 2 miles. This deposit is, however, merely local. The Dakota Group is visible on the Missouri River to within 5 miles of Fort Benton, where it is overlaid by the Benton Group. Northward from Great Falls the depression of this great geological basin or trough is still greater, till the northern edge is reached on the divide of the Teton and Marias at the Goose Bill and Knees Hills. The northern crest of this basin commences at these hills, as stated, thence west to the Muddy, which flows into the Teton, following along or near the Muddy, thence it skirts the limestone mountain foothills of the Rockies southerly to the Dearborn River, then north and east around the Mission Mountains, thence across the Missouri River southeast to a point about 5 miles above Hound Creek, which flows into Smith River, then following the foothills of the Belt and Highwood Mountains to Highwood Creek. The Dakota Group covers the whole of this section eastward and northward toward the center of the basin. True, Square, and Crown Buttes, near Fort Shaw, have a basalt capping, but this is merely local, and has not disturbed the Measures underneath. - From the western slope of the Highwood Mountains the eastern edge of the basin goes northeasterly to the Missouri River, the Dakota. Measures being covered by later Cretaceous. - About 2 miles west of Fort Shaw, however, a very large dike traverses the country, running NNW. and SSE., and which can be traced southeastwardly to the Mission Mountains. As Sun River loses cousiderable of its volume in its course, can it be this dike has some effect on it * - It is also an undoubted fact in northern Montana, that where mountain ranges have their foothills composed of limestone, at or near the point where the limestone is superlaid by other strata, streams running through that section lose sometimes all their water by imbibition, and always do Jose considerabie of their volume. Though, as I stated before, the Dakota Group is found on the Missouri River to within 5 miles of Fort Benton, it does not always exist as a surface stratum. On S. Ex. 41, pt. 2 6 82 - IRRIGATION. *. Highwood Creek, about 6 miles from the Missouri River, on the east side and close to the road is a good showing of the conformability of the contract of the Dakota and Benton groups. From this point to Pueblos Island on the Missouri River the strata. dips rapidly, so that at this point the Benton Group comes to the level of the river, and if as reported the Missouri loses some of its velume between Great Falls and Fort Benton, it must be at or near this point. This loss of volume as reported, however, needs confirmation, as I have seens no signs of it. The Highwood Mountains are composed of eruptive rock, connected with the Bear- paw Mountáins by a broad belt of trap and other dikes. The Dakota Group is ex- posed for a short distance on the west and northwest, and apparently not much dis- turbed; they are, however, quickly overlaid by the Benton Group with a general dip toward the Missouri River, where more recent measures are superlaid. Opposite the mouth of the Little Sandy Creek the Missouriflows through badlands partly cretaceous, but mostly Tertiary on the surface, stupendous in their magnitude, and almost unique in their eccentric forms. Résumé.-It will be seen that nearly the whole of this section 4 is situated in a reat geological basin or trough, and from examinations made of the dip of the strata #. satisfied the great plateau north of the Missouri and Great Falls, the plateau between Great, Falls and Belt River, the basin of Flat Creek, and the vicinity of the town of Choteau offer strong inducements for the sinking of artesian wells. SECTION No. 5.—East side of Missouri Valley, part of Great Belt Mountains, part of Smith River, and part of Little Belt Mountains. No part of this section, in my opinion, offers an inducement for operations, except a small section near Townsend, on the Northern Pacific Railroad, where a small area is covered with cretaceous measures, covering some of the foothills of the Great Belt Mountains, and lying at an angle which would afford means for imbibition of water. All other parts of this section, if they have any imbibition of water, it would be merely local, as the balance of the section consists of eruptive and metamorphic rocks, Jurassic slates and sandstones in some localities, a large area of Carboniferous lime- stome often lying vertical, and in Smith River Valley a small area of the Miocene age. SECTION NO. 6.—The Judith Basin and Arrow Creek. This widely known section of the country forms an interesting study from a geolog- ical standpoint. Hemmed in by mountains on all sides except the north, the number of geological strata found within its limits are as varied as the isolated mountain peaks and ranges by which it is surrounded. Around the Highwood Mountains no limestone formation is found on the surface, with the exception of a small impure stratum near Arrow Park. The Dakota Group lie against these mountains on the east and south sides, the strata being rent and distorted in the immediate vicinity by dikes, where the coal vein is frequently ver- tical. The strata has then a dip of northeast toward the mouths of Arrow and Ju- dith rivers, where they then become superlaid by upper Cretaceous measures, and finally by the Tertiary. The Little Belt Mountains consist of a granite and trachytic core, with outlying mountains of Carboniferous limestone, traversed by porphyry dikes. On the foot- hills the Dakota Group comes in, which is coal bearing and can be easily traced the whole length of the range to the Judith Gap to the center of the basin. For the south, southeast, and east parts of the basin the same remarks are applicable. The altitude of the sources of the various confluents of the Arrow and Judith rivers is very near the same, viz, about 5,000 feet, as follows: Source. Mouth. Source. Mouth. Feet. I'eet. Feet. | Feet. Arrow River (main stream) -----. 5,000 2,600 || Judith River (main stream) ....] 5, 150 2,400 Wolf Creek ---------------------. 5, 100 || 2,700 || Ross Fork. --------...----- - - - - - - - 5,000 3,600 Sage Creek. ---------------------. 5,000 || 3,000 || Dog Creek (flows in Missouri Warm Spring Creek ------------- 4,700 2,950 River). ------------------------ 2,900 2,400 IBig Spring Creek.-------------- ...] 5,000 || 3,400 The average height of mountains are: Little Belt, 8,000 feet; Big Snowy, 8,000 feet; Judith, 6,000 feet; Moccasin, 5,700 feet; Highwood, 6,800 feet. The Judith Gap is 4,650, being a low pass south of the basin. The general average of the altitude of the basin is as follows: Upper, 4,500 feet; center, 3,800 feet; lower, 2,400 feet. IMBIBITION AND ITS GEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 83 As stated before, on the slopes of the Belt Mountains, the formation is Carbonifer- ous limestone; this is superlaid by Cretaceous measures which occupy the whole cen- ter and part of the lower basin, and which in the section between Arrow and Judith rivers east and northeast of the Highwood Mountains are again superlaid by tertiary measures which extend to the Missouri River, and are known generally as the Arrow River Bad Lands. Not one-twentieth part of the volume of water which leaves the various mountain ranges reaches the center of the basin on the surface. This is especially character- istic of the streams of the Belt Mountains. All the measures dip to the center of the basin, when there is a general declination to the north towards the Missouri River. A special surface feature of the center of the basin is the remarkable low divides between the various streams, the height being so small that sometimes it is impos- sible to tell when crossing from one creek to another. Several local deposits are found in different parts of the basin, which I have not yet had opportunity to examine. Résumé.-From the above remarks it will be seen there is a remarkable imbibition of water in this section at the foot of the mountain ranges; that the center of the basin is nearly level, so to speak; and that the course of the underground currents must be NNE.; consequently, in my opinion, the whole section from Stanford to Lewistown would be an admirable experimental ground for artesian purposes. SECTION No. 7.—The area south of the Bearpaw Mountains as far as the Missouri River, thence to the intersection of the south watershed of Milk River with the Mis- 8ouri River. - South of the Bearpaw Mountains the country is much broken between the moun- tains and the Missouri River, changing into Bad Lands, which extend east to 108° west longitude, and south of 48° north latitude to the Missouri River, after which the remainder of this section may be characterized as rolling prairie. The whole section, with the exception of the mountains, is Tertiary. SECTION NO. 8.-The Muscle Shell River and Armells Creek. The neighborhood of Armells Creek is essentially Tertiary, and northward and east- ward along the Missouri very broken. On the Muscle Shell River near the mouth is Tertiary, but advancing upstream the valley is one vast coal field, mostly lignite as exposed on the surface, for there has been no underground exploration work done. This coal field extends along the foot of the Big Snowy Mountains as far as Elk Creek, which rises near the Judith Gap, thence it reaches south as far as the Bull Mountains south of the Muscle Shell River. Westward in this section Cretaceous measures. come in which extend to the moun- :a The general dip, except in the immediate neighborhood of the mountains, is easterly. SECTION No. 9.—The Big Dry and Elk Prairie creeks. This section I have not visited for twenty-three years, so that memory will not serve. The Tertiary and Cretaceous, however, are marked pretty accurately. SECTION No. 10.-The north watershed of the Yellowstone River. From the Crazy Mountains northeastward this section is the same as the Muscle Shell, with the possible exception that below Billings the strata may be Lower Ter- tiary. The fossils I have found above Billings are essentially Cretaceous. The gen- eral dip is ENE. r SECTION No. 11.-South slopes of the Yellowstone River. On the northern slope of the Bear Tooth Mountains are the Red Lodge coal mines, belonging to the Laramie Group. Coal mines of the same group are found west of Livingstone. In my opinion a large area of the Crow Reservation is underlaid by the same formation. Eastward of this the lignite deposits are found, which cover a very large area, as by my personal observation they extend as far as the Powder River ranges. I consider that that part of section east of Big Horn River is an ex- tension of the same measures as the Dakota lignite series. A general dip easterly is found in this part of the section. GREAT FALLS, MONT., December 25, 1891. 84 IRRIGATION. ARTESIAN WELLS–FACTS AND THEORIES. The theory that there is no relation between the pressure and volume discharged from artesian wells is supported by Flenniken & Co., who are manufacturers of a special water wheel adapted for high heads. They have made a study of the Dakota artesian wells for the purpose of designing a wheel to utilize the water (under pressure) from artesian Wells for power purposes. They say: Many inquiries come to us about the power of artesian wells. Some people seem to think that the pressure of a well is different in principle from that of a “head '' or. &iº Such is not the case. The pressure in both cases is due to the same cause, a ** hea,01. The hole in the ground is only to obtain a connection with the underground reser- voir, which receives its supply from some level, perhaps hundreds or thousands of miles distant, and whose pressure is dependent upon the elevation of the source of the supply above the level of the ground where the well is sunk. Still there are difficulties in estimating “artesian powers” that are not found in ordinary practice, but those difficulties are not due to any difference in principle of hydraulic action, but natural causes that seldom affect the development of water- falls, viz, the restricted discharge of the water from the pipe due to the receiving end penetrating a porous rock, through which the water must be filtered, instead of tapping a solid volume, as would be done if the pipe connected to a pond. The result is that the flow of water, instead of being governed by the pressure or friction on the pipe, as would be the case when a pond of natural surface reservoir is tapped, varies with the porosity of the sand or rock through which it filters. This is the reason that a 6-inch well with 60 pounds closed pressure will often discharge more water when running free than a well of the same size with double the pres- Sure, It also accounts for the fact that the flow is never up to the full discharging capac- ity of the pipe; and furthermore, that it does not increase in volume in proportion to the increase in size of pipe, which would be the case if the supply was restricted. To illustrate: A 6-inch pipe, if connected with a tank or reservoir of water which had a pressure of 100 feet head at the delivery, would discharge about 750 cubic feet per minute (less the frictional loss through pipe); then an 8-inch pipe under the same condition would discharge 1,333 cubic feet, or nearly double, the difference being as the squares of the diameters of the two pipes. In both cases the discharge is limited by the areas of the pipes; but the same rule does not apply to artesian wells, be- cause the porosity of the rock more than the size of the pipes govern the quantity discharged under same pressure. Therefore we seldom find 6-inch artesian well, swith a pressure equivalent to 100 feet head, which will flow more than 200 cubic feet per minute; and an 8-inch well under the same conditions will not usually flow more than 30 to 50 per cent more water than a 6-inch well. These facts lead us to the conclusion that while with unrestricted supply the dis charge of pipes is in ratio to the areas or the squares of the diameters, the law doe not hold good in artesian practice, though the discharge will be in favor of the large pipe, owing to the frictional loss being less. - An understanding of these facts will enable those who wish to improve artesian powers to give us such information as will enable us to estimate their powers, especially if they observe the instructions which follow. The only way to properly develop an artesian power is to take the measurements and pressure of each individual well, for no dependence can be placed on any two wells of the same size, and showing same pressure when closed, developing the same power. In fact, the power may vary from 50 to 200 per cent, and is pretty certain to vary 20 or 30 per cent. There are two ways of measuring the power of a well, which we will describe. Let us suppose a well of 6-inch bore. There should be a gate valve on top of the pipe and a nipple above the valve. Below the valve the pipe should be tapped to attach a water gauge which will show the pressure in feet of head. (In the absence of a water gauge a steam gauge which registers the pressure in pounds will do.) First take the pressure with the valve closed, then take it with a 4-inch reducer on the top of the pipe, and follow with a 3%, 3, 2}, and 2-inch reducer, recording the pressure in each instance. From the information thus obtained, we can estimate the power within a margin of 15 per cent. A more accurate plan is to measure the flow of water through a weir (as described on pages 16 to 19 of the Flenniken Turbine Catalogue), dispensing with the reducers on the pipe entirely, and throttling the flow with the valve, so as to obtain pressures Tools, STRATA, PRESSURE, AND OTHER DATA. 85 from one-half to two-thirds of the total pressure, for between these ratios will the most efficient discharge be found. Send us the width and depth of flow on weir at six or eight different pressures, ranging from one-half to two-thirds of the total pressure, and we will be able to compute the maximum power of the well. { Having done this we can construct a wheel that will develop the highest efficiency, and insure the most profitable use of the water. A careful attention to these instruc- tions will prevent blunders or costly experiments. - The larger portion of the rock passed through in sinking artesian wells is of a slaty nature, which under ordinary conditions does not pre- sent serious obstacles for rapid and successful sinking of holes into it by common drilling machinery, but in nearly the whole area of the Dakota artesian basin drillers have encountered what they call “bad ground,” from the top to the bottom of the hole. Hardly a well has been put down in the whole country without mishaps or delays of Some kind, which in a majority of cases are caused by the peculiarity of the “ground.” These thick strata of soapstone and shales that are encountered are generally so soft as to cave in after the drill, and some of the material is a tough, waxy clay, which is forced into the drill hole by the immense pressure on it, rendering it almost impossible to get through it, and to make any progress with safety it is absolutely necessary to protect the hole from caving in by inserting a casing which must follow the drill Quite closely. This is the most difficult part of the work in sinking artesian wells. Frequently there are thin strata of hard material scat- tered in among the shales, through which it is difficult to drill a hole from the inside of the casing large enough to allow the pipe and coup- lings to freely pass through it. In attempting to force the casing down very frequently it gets fast and can not either be forced further down or drawn up. Then a smailer hole has to be made, and smaller casing put in, which may also get fastened in the same way. Then still another smaller hole must be made, and still smaller casing used. So it hap- pens in many cases only a very small bore can be made when the arte- sian supply is reached. Drilling tools have been devised to enlarge the bore below the bottom of the casing sufficiently to allow it to be safely and easily lowered as the drilling progresses, but none of these devices have worked well in this hard rock. When suitable machinery is in- vented to drill and case the hole at the same time, and continue to do so until the artesian flow is reached, I am of the opinion that the cost of sinking artesian wells in the Dakota basin can be reduced at least one- half; but with the present appliances, and the risks and delays which are involved in their use, there is but little expectation that responsible contractors will reduce the present prices, as they must have a good margin to cover accidents which many times can not be foreseen or avoided. Among the statements made concerning the periodical changes in the flow, pressure, quality of water, and other phenomena connected with several of the artesian Wells in the Dakotas is the statement that small live fish have been known to come up with the water from several of these deep wells. Diligent inquiry concerning the localities of these fish-throwing wells has resulted in confining them to the railroad and city well No. 1 in Aberdeen, S. D. Here we find scores of honest and reliable people who claim to have seen with their own eyes fish come from these wells. No explanation or argument that the fish might have come from some other source can convince them that they can be mistaken in their statements. The man in charge of the water service of the railroad claims to have seen large numbers of fish in the water tank which had no connection 86 IRRIGATION. - - with any other water supply than the railroad well. Persons filling. water wagons and barrels directly from the city well, claim to have caught fish coming direct from the well. Children have bêen seen hold- ing corn poppers, sieves, and netting under the pipe leading from the well, and have caught large numbers of fish in that way. * The following affidavits from respectable business men in Aberdeen are here given: STATE OF SouTH DAKOTA, County of Brown, 88 : I, William H. Finch, being duly sworn acording to law, depose and say that I am a resident of the city of Aberdeen, county of Brown, State of South Dakota, and have been for the past six years. During the season of 1886 I was running a hotel in the city of Aberdeen, located within 100 feet of what is known as the “city artesian well,” and within 300 feet of the “railroad artesian well;” that during said year I had occasion to see these wells nearly every day; that sometime during the year of 1886 the railroad well ceased flowing on account of some obstacle getting into the pipe; in the fall of the year a machine was at work opening up this well; there had been made prior to this time a ditch about 2 feet wide and 1 foot deep for the purpose of carrying off the waste water from the well. This ditch, however, had been per- fectly dry for several weeks, owing to the fact that the well had ceased flowing. While the men were at work drilling in this well the water commenced to flow, and very soon a large stream was coming from the same. The land all around this well was perfectly dry and had been for a long time. I was at the well and saw the water flowing from the same, and with force sufficient to throw a stream into the air 8 or 10 feet, and it fell in sprays on the ground near the well. I gathered a large number of small fish that came from this water. A large number of people were there and saw the same thing, and picked up a great many fish that had been thrown on to the dry land from the well. There was no possible way that these fish could have been brought there by any other sonrce, as there was no water anywhere near the well, as the land had been dry for a long time, even if there had been fish in the water which formerly filled the ditch flowing from said well. Also, a few days later, after the workmen had finished the well, at a waste pipe ex- tending some feet from the well, conducting the water into the ditch, I have seen people stand with buckets and catch the water from this pipe, in which there would be a number of the small fish, so that there was no possible way for the fish to get . into the buckets only as they came from the well. During the same year the city artesian well, located within 100 feet of my hotel, was flowing a large stream of water all the time. The city placed at this well a water trough, which was about 2 feet wide, 2 feet deep and 10 feet long, making the top of the trough 3 or 4 feet at least, from the surface of the ground. The water from the well was carried into this trough by means of a pipe running direct from the well, and I have at several different times during the summer caught a large number of fish in this trough, and have seen taken from the trough at least 500 of the small fish during one day. There was no possible way that the fish could get into the trough from any other place, and even had they been left there by other parties, it would have been impossible to have placed the number in the trough, without detection, that were every day carried away from the same during the SUIDſ, DQ6Iſ, t Further, that these fish apparently came from the well only during a few days at a time; probably the longest period that fish were caught from the well at one time would not exceed two weeks. Then there would be no fish to be seen for perhaps five or six weeks, when they would again appear. The size of the fish would usually be from 1 to 2 inches long, perfectly formed, and looked like the common minnow that is found in nearly every stream of water. Also, that at different times during the year following, up to the year 1890, I have seen fish taken from the well in the same manner above described. The frequency of their appearance, however, seems to be less and less every year. WILLIAM H. FINCK. Subscribed and sworn to before me this 10th day of June, 1891. S. W. NARREGANG, Notary Public in and for Brown County, S. Dak. STATE of SouTH DAKOTA, County of Brown, 88 : I, Orrin S. Cook, being first duly sworn according to law, depose and say that I am a resident of the city of Aberdeen, county of Brown, State of South Dakota, and have been for the past nine years; that I am well acquainted with all of the artesian wells in this city, and during the year 1886, the well known as the “city artesian well,” located in Aberdeen, while flowing as usual was discharging a large number of small º .* - - \, * -- AS TO FISH THROWN UP IN ARTESIAN WATER. 87 \, fish known as minnows. I did not believe at first that the fish could possibly come from the well, and stopped my team to examine the fish. I saw one of the parties take a cloth screen, and, making a sack of the same, hold it under the spout of the well, catching a number of fish in the same. I took a few of them home with me, where they were kept for over a month, and undoubtedly would have lived longer if we had given them proper attention. There was no possible way for the fish to get into the net in any other way only in going out of the well, as there was no other water near the same and no fish anywhere around, with the exception of those that came from the well. I have seen many people who have claimed to have caught the fish in the same manner from the well at different times, and know of my own knowl- ‘edge that the fish actually came from the artesian well as above described. e ORRIN S. COOK. Subscribed and sworn to before me this 10th day of June, 1891. S. W. NARREGANG, Notary Public in and for Brown County, S. Dak. If it is a fact that fish do come up with the flow from these artesian veins, the rocks in which they are found must be exceedingly porous, and they must have continuous lines of fracture both horizontal and vertical. The outcropping of the Dakota group of rocks which are exposed on the Missouri River below the city of Great Falls, Mont., reveals the existence of lines of fracture with sufficiently wide spaces to allow fish of the size here mentioned to enter. If fish have come up with water from these wells they must have come from the lower vein, as both wells are cased to the lower flow. These statements are given as they are made to us, and it can only be said regarding them that they are made by people who there is every reason to believe think they are stating facts. If we admit that fish can exist under a pressure of 530 pounds per square inch and after coming to the surface are alive, with eyes and all the habits of fish at the sur- face, we have admitted a problem no more difficult to solve than to account for their coming from a source of supply 600 miles distant through rock fissures. I do not undertake to offer a solution of either of the propositions. ARTESIAN WELLS IN THE RED RIVER BASIN. In addition to the great artesian basin of the Dakotas, which is noticed in detail in preceding pages of this report, there is another basin in North Dakota of quite a different character, whose southern end, as determined by recent developments, laps somewhat on the north end of the Dakota or James River Basin, and extends north into British America. This basin we denominate as the Red River Basin. Its. southern end, as determined by the investigations, is in the vicinity of Fargo, and follows the valley of the Red River of the North to Lake Winnipeg, in British America. The investigations of this basin are, of course, confined to that portion of the country lying west of the Red Biver, as this river traverses almost exactly the ninety-seventh degree of longitude, the eastern limit of this inquiry. Assistant Engineer W. W. Follett was assigned the duty of making an examination of this basin, and makes the following report: REPORT ON REA) RIVER WALLEY ARTESIAN BASIN. JAMESTOWN, N. DAK., August 31, 1891. DEAR SIR: The following is my report on the artesian waters in that portion of the valley of the Red River of the North lying north of Fargo in North Dakota. The territory covered by this report is about 150 miles long, north and south, by about 35 miles wide, east and west. That portion of it in which artesian water is found 88 * IRRIGATION. f lies along the river and back from it for 12 or 15 miles—in some places 20 miles—and is of very uniform surface, falling in the 150 miles from 903 feet above sea level at Fargo to about 810 feet at Pembina, or only some 0.6 feet per mile. The fall from west to east is from 5 to 10 feet to the mile, being less near the river and greater far- ther back. West of the valley proper the ground rises much more rapidly, being the southern continuation of that ridge which terminates at the north in the Pembina Mountains. The basin extends across the river into Minnesota for a short distante. I did not go into this territory as it is outside the limits of this investigation, but learned by inquiry that there were some wells all along the river in Minnesota, but that the quality of the water was bad near the river. At Crookston, about 18 miles east of the river, I was told there were 18 or 20 flowing wells of good water. I could learn nothing of their depth, size, pressure, or flow. They may be in this basin and may be in another. The main and lower artesian vein in this valley lies at a depth of between 200 and 300 feet below the surface and is in a drift formation. The water is found in a clean white sand or sandstone. Mr. Swan, who drilled the well at Grafton, and also one at Rosenfeld Junction, in Manitoba, about 15 miles north of the boundary line, calls it “gray sandstone.” The shoal-well drillers call it sand. It is quite likely that it is an open porous sandstone, very friable, and containing much free sand. If it were loose sand only it would be impossible to keep a hole open in it. The drillers do, however, except in a few cases where the flow is very free when first struck, go down in it as far as they wish and put in their pipe, using no screen on the lower end of the pipe. This sandstone is immediately overlaid by red shale or cemented gravel. The up- per formations are quicksand, some limestone in places, shale, clay with granite bowlders, and clay. The water is all salty. The amount of salt is small at the south and increases to the north. I could not determine to my satisfaction that there was any increase in the amount of salt in the water as the river was approached or as lower ground was reached. At Grafton it was thought by some that this was the case, but no one was sure of it. The surface pressure of the water, on east and west lines, was, in Walsh County at least, about the same so long as the rise of the ground was not over 5 feet per mile. When the rise became more rapid the pressure grew less until the water will not come to the surface. There are above this main vein two or three weak veins from 100 to 200 or 250 feet below the surface. These veins are not continuous. In fact, if the quality of the water in adjacent wells is any criterion, it may be best to say that there are two or three sets of veins above the main flow. One well, say, 150 feet deep, may flow water so bitter and impregnated with minerals that no animal can drink it, while a well near by, of about the same depth, flows good water fit for domestic use. These upper veins are also very much broken up. In places the wells going to the deep or main flow will strike two or three weak flows above it. In others none will be struck. Per- llaps a hole will be put down 200 feet, a granite bowlder struck, and the hole aban- doned with no water, the rig moved 50 or 75 feet away and a flow obtained at 100 or 150 feet. These upper veins are in quicksand under clay or bowlder clay. The veins are generally thin, not more than 2 to 5 feet of sand, although in places 25 to 30 feet of quicksand is encountered. They have only 2 to 5 pounds pressure and a small flow, seldom exceeding 5 gallons per minute. The water varies widely in quality, but is generally bitter and impregnated with minerals. Beginning at the north and taking the several counties in order, the following is a history of the wells, so near as could be learned without a personal visit to each well. Pembina County.—This county includes the first 32 miles south of the international boundary. At Hamilton, about the center of the county, a 43-inch well (see Hamilton well in main report on the Dakota wells) was put down to a depth of 1,560 feet. In this hole a vein of salt water, not flowing, was struck at 174 feet; a flowing vein, furnishing 80 gallons per minute at 300 feet, and another furnishing 125 gal- lons per minute of brine at 1,241 feet in a rift in the granite. This last flow contains 33 per cent of salt, or 2,000 grains per gallon. The flow at 300 feet con- tains about 350 to 410 grains of salt per gallon, but was bitter, as was that struck at 174 feet. The water from the deep vein (the others were cased off) kills vegeta- tion, and is used only for bathing. Its temperature is 414° F. and the pressure when closed is 27 pounds. The well is not in such shape that the flow can be 1measured. The 43-inch pipe is plugged with a long wooden plug having a #-inch gas pipe through it with a T on top. One end of the T runs to a bath tub, and the other end has a valve on it and opens to the air. This valve will pass 26 gallons per minute with the gauge on the other end of the T reading 12 pounds pressure. It is impossible to say what portion of the full flow of the well this may be. At the elevator in Hamilton is a 2-inch well 290 feet deep with small flow, not used. There are ten or twelve 2-inch wells down 175 to 200 feet around in the country near RED RIVER BASIN AND ARTESIAN WATERS: 89 Hamilton. They all have small flows and are used for stock water. At Bathgate, 6 Iniles north of Hamilton, there is a small well. St. Thomas, 4 miles north of the south boundary of the county, has three or four 2-inch wells with very weak flows. * These are all the wells I could learn of in Pembina County. They show that the artesian veins, while underlying the country, are poorly supplied with water. At- tempts for wells at various places show that the veins are broken up, pinching en- tirely out in places. This is especially true along near the Red River. Hamilton lies back 11 miles from it. Walsh County.—The next county south of Pembina is Walsh. It is 24 miles wide, north and south, and has the best wells in this valley. The number of flowing wells in the county is about as follows: 6-inch well going to deep vein ------------------------------------------------ 1. 3-inch wells going to deep vein ------------------------------------------------ 2 2-inch wells going to deep vein (about) -- - - - - - - - - - - - - -------------------------- 20 2-inch wells going to upper veins (about)-------------------------------------- 60 S3 , The depth of wells going to the deep or main flow varies from 220 feet up to 300 feet. This flow is always overlaid by cemented gravel and bowlders grred shale, and is in a coarser sand than the upper flows. Grafton, the county seat, 8 miles south of the county's northern boundary, seems to be the center of the area giving free and large flows. The city has a 6-inch deep well (see “Grafton well” in main report on Dakota wells) put down to a depth of 912 feet. It is plugged up below 330 feet and derives its water from a white sand or sand rock lying under red shale between 270 and 330 feet. It was supposed in Grafton that the flow came from below 500 feet. One log gave it as from 503 to 528 and another as from 511 to 536. The temperature pressure and quality of water all led me to believe that the flow was from the same vein as that of the 2 and 3-inch wells in the neighborhood. I wrote to Mr. A. E. Swan, who put the well down, and he told me that the well was plugged below 330 feet as stated above, and that no water at all was found below 330 feet, except a light flow of brine at 390 feet. The well flows 600 gallons per minute. Temperature 46 °F. Pressure, 12 pounds, and has 240 grains of salt to one gallon of water. There are two 3-inch wells in this county. The one at the courthouse in Grafton is 301 feet deep. Water was struck in sand rock under red shale at 281 feet and has a pressure of 12 pounds; temperature 45°, and flow 175 gallons per minute. The flow 3f this well was obtained with considerable difficulty, as a valve had to be taken to pieces and taken off, some reducers taken out, and a piece of pipe put on to carry the water outside the well house. The flow of 175 gallons was a weir measurement of the full flow of the well. The other 3-inch well is at Minto, 8 miles south and 3 miles east of Grafton. The water was struck in friable sand rock under cemented gravel at a depth of 209 feet, and the well is said to have a flow of about 175 gallons per minute and a pressure of 12 pounds. The quality of water is the same as at Grafton. A sample of the 2-inch wells going down to this flow gave same temperature and pressure, and flow of 45 gallons per minute. It was flowing some sand, and I was told that some of the other 2-inch wells flowed more water, probably 60 gallons per minute. * These samples show that the flow here is abundant. The sand, or sand rock, is 60 feet thick, and so free that the water gets through it readily. Over on Red River, about 10 miles southeast of Grafton, are two 2-inch wells reach- ing this vein. They are 227 feet deep; water in sand or friable sandstoně, under cemented gravel; 12 pounds pressure and 30 gallons per minute flow, with about 300 grains of salt per gallon. In one of them a small flow was struck in quicksand at 120 feet, but none in the other at that depth, although the two wells are only about half a mile apart. The other 2-inch deep wells are near Grafton and west of there. Those farthest away are 10 miles west of Grafton, or 20 miles from the river. The pressure and flow are less on these than at Grafton, but the water is said to be a little less saline. I was told in Grafton that the water of this main flow contains more salt as it is tapped further east and is quite strongly saline where struck in Minnesota, across the Tlyer. g The shoal wells are scattered all over the eastern 18 miles of the county. They are from 100 to 150 feet deep and are all 2-inch wells. The water is found in quicksand under clay. The pressure is only 2 to 4 pounds, and the flow very small, ranging from 1 to 5 gallons per minute. The quality of the water varies widely; some of it is good for household use and some is bitter and salty. Attempts have been made for wells in the central part of the county, but have been unsuccessful. At Park River, elevation 993 feet, a well has been put down 492 feet. 90 * , tRRIGATION. , , The clays which underlie the upper veins of water around Grafton here come to the surface. At 98 feet, 5 feet of sand was struck with a vein of water which came within 30 feet of the surface. This is probably the main vein of the lower valley. A smaller tºler less pressure was struck in 2 feet of sand rock at 300 feet, but no water €10W this. Grand Forks County.—This county is 36 miles wide, north and south. There are very few flowing wells in the county. The number is about as follows: About 6 miles southeast of Forest River, in the north edge of the county, 2-inch Three miles west of the river, 2-inch wells-------------------- * * * * * * * * * * * * * º ºs º ºs 10 At Ojata, 12 miles west of the river and 20 miles south of northern boundary of county, 2-inch Wells--------------------------------------------------------- At Reynolds, on south boundary of county, 3-inch well------------------------- 1 Total, one 3-inch, fifteen 2-inch wells. The most of these go down to the lower or main flow. Around Manvel many wells have been put down to an upper flow struck at about 100 feet in quicksand. These are of no account, as they invariably soon choke up with sand and stop flowing. * One of the three wells 6 miles southeast of Forest River is said to be 125 feet deep and flows fresh water. The other two are 160 feet and 230 feet deep, respectively, close to the first, and both flow salt water. I did not visit these wells. At Manvel I*xamined a 2-inch well 166 feet deep that gave about 10 pounds pres- sure, 60 gallons per minute flow, temperature 469, water salty and bitter, but used for stock. It is too strong for household use. The owner of the well, and others, said that quicksand and first flow was struck at about 95 feet, and that there was no hard material below this point, but that the sand gradually got coarser until the main flow was struck in coarse gravel at 166 feet. This, while contrary to what one would naturally expect, is probably correct, and the water struck at 95 feet is from the main flow, but impeded by the quicksand. This well was a new one put down about two months ago, and has the largest flow of any of the wells at Manvel. The average of the ten in and around Manvel would be about 25 gallons per minute. In all the water is too rank for household use, but stock drink it readily. They are from 125 to 175 feet deep. The vein seems to be pinched out all around Manvel, as none of the wells obtained are more than 3 miles away, and outside of that limit several dry holes have been put down. Six miles southwest of Manvel, on Turtle River, a hole was put down 300 feet, and no water obtained, I was told there were at Ojata two 2-inch wells flowing a small amount of water. My time was so limited I did not visit them. At Reynolds the 3-inch well is 218 feet deep and flows about 4 gallons per minute; water salty, not so strong but that it can be used for household purposes. In the western part of the county several dry holes have been put down. Near Larimore three holes have reached a depth of about 600 feet and no water. At North- wood, 4 miles north of south boundary of the county, and 30 miles west of the river, a hole is now being put down. They are down some 300 feet and have no water. About 3 miles south of the north boundary of county and 22 miles west of the river a hole was put down 200 feet and no water obtained. There are samples of quite a number of fruitless attempts for water in the western part of Grand Forks County. I could not learn that abortive attempts for wells had been made at or near Grand Forks, but it is fair to suppose such is the case, as there are no flowing wells in that part of the county. There are possibly a few in small wells in the southeast corner of the county. \, Traill County.—Traill County is 30 miles wide, north and south, and extends the same distance west from the river. There are a large number of flowing wells in the county, pretty generally scattered over it, except in the extreme western edge. It is difficult to give the number in the county without a detailed examination and visit to each township. The following is approximately the number: Location of wells. Size. No. Inches. Buxton ----------------------------------------------------------------------- • gº tº sº gº tº gº º sº ºr tº 3 1 In and near Buxton --------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 15 Hillsboro ------------------------------------------------------------------ 2 70 Caledonia and along river.------------------------------------------------. 2 60 Relso ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 10 Mayville.... -------...-- ------------------------------------------------------------------ 6 1 In and near Mayville-------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 10 : Portland ---------------------------------------------------------- 2 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 7 1. Along railroad, south and southeast of Mayville.--------...--...-...--...-...------------. 2 15 Total -----------------------------------------------------------------------------|------- 183 * + - -, - n | - {{ CONDITIONS AFFECTING LOW-PRESSURE WELLS. 91 It is currently reported that there are 400 flowing wells in Traill County. This would give nearly one well to each section throughout the portion of the county where wells are obtained, and it is certain there are not that many. The number might go up to 250 by counting all the weak flowing wells and those which have flowed at one time, but have now failed. The number can not go beyond 250. - In the eastern half of the county the wells run from 125 feet to 175 feet deep, ex- cept a few deep wells which are from 250 to 300 feet deep. The flow of the shoal wells is small, probably averaging 5 gallons per minute. The quantity of the water is rather poor. T All of it is saline and all of it has other mineral in it, rendering it bitter and, in many cases, unfit for household use. The quality of the water near the river is said to be better than that farther west. The temperature of all is 469 and the pressure about 10 pounds, varying, however, from 7 pounds along the river to 20 pounds in some of the shoal wells at Hillsboro near the center of the county. The water is generally found in gravel under blue clay; sometimes quicksand is encountered, but the flow, if any is obtained, is small and of poor quality. As in Grand Forks County the water-bearing strata seem to be much broken up. . In Hillsboro are some ten wells, all flowing, yet a dry hole was put down 715 feet at the elevator, the last 115 feet in Laurentian granite, and two or three other dry holes were had in different parts of the town. From all parts of the county failures are reported. North of Hillsboro are four deep wells. One of them is 262 feet deep. No water was struck until 259 feet was reached. Then water in gravel under blue clay, flow- ing 67 gallons per minute; temperature 469 pressure, about 30 pounds; water saline, but good for stock and household. The other deep wells are similar both in material pºd through, flow, and pressure, although their flow is smaller than that of this Well. All the wells around Buxton, in the northern part of the county, are said to be be- tween 300 and 400 feet deep, and to flow from 8 to 10 gallons per minute. It is likely these depths are too great, but it may not be. I did not have time to visit Buxton. . The wells around Kelso, near the eouth side of the county, are from 110 to 125 feet deep, and have a very light flow, not over 2 or 3 gallons per minute. In the extreme south edge of the county, and 10 miles west of the river, is a 43-inch well recently put down to the depth of 306 feet. There was an old 2-inch well on the place 206 feet deep with very small flow, and this one was put down to obtain, if possible, a larger flow. At 305 feet a vein of sand and gravel 1 foot thick was struck, which furnished at first a little water, coming up in the pipe to within 21 feet of the surface. The pump was put on to try the volume of water which could be pumped. Sand commenced to run and the water pressure to increase until in 48 hours the well was flowing 35 gallons per minute from a pipe 4 feet above the ground, and had a pressure of 2 pounds. The temperature is 46 degrees and the water is very hard, but slightly saline, and is good for household and stock. This is the only well I could learn of in the southern portion of Traill County which went down to this lower vein. It is doubtful whether or not the vein is continuous. As seen in the record of this well it was almost pinched out here. The 6-inch well at Mayville, near the western part of the county, is 357 feet deep. The strata passed through were clay and then rock-clay and gravel mixed with some cemented gravel. Two or three light flows of water were obtained from thin veins of quicksand. The final flow is from sand, but is small. It could not be measured as it was attached to mains and a tank, but as near as could be learned from inquiry it was some 60 gallons per minute; temperature, 46 degrees; pressure, 8 pounds; quality, salty, but used for household. The 2-inch wells around Mayville vary from 200 to 375 feet in depth, and have flows of 30 to 40 gallons per minute. All are saline, but used for stock and men. The 7-inch well at Portland, 3 miles west of Mayville, is 560 feet deep. The strata passed through are clay, hard pan and rock-magnesian clay, quicksand hard pain, quicksand, and then water in hard gravel. Two small flows were obtained from the quicksand strata. This well also could not be measured, as it was attached to a tank and mains. The flow is larger than that of the Mayville well. Some gave it as 275 gallons, but this is probably too high. It has at least 150 gallons per minute flow, pressure 8 pounds, temperature 46 degrees, quality saline, but good for household use. It supplies 300 people. There are no other flowing wells in Portland. About 8 miles southwest of Mayville is a 2-inch well 440 feet deep. There was a light flow struck in quicksand at 375 feet. The main flow is in sand under hardpan, flow 30 gallons per minute, pressure about 10 pounds, temperature 46 degrees, good water, only slightly saline. This well has the largest flow of any south of Mayville. Near Blanchard, 8 miles north of the south line of the county, are some eight or ten wells from 150 to 350 feet deep and all having fair flows, probably 10 or 15 gal- lons per minute, all good water. f The formation in the western part of the county is considerably different from that in the eastern part. The different veins of water become more widely separated and 92 IRRIGATION. well the intervening material becomes harder and more stony. It is called by the men “a hard country to drill in.” - *: º — — . Ca38 County.—Cass is a large county, being 42 miles wide north and south and ex- tending 42 miles west from Red River. The portion, however, which lies in this basin is in the northeastern part and north of Fargo and is 25 miles wide, north and South, and extends 20 miles west from the river. There are some ten or twelve wells in the southwestern part of the county, but they are probably in a separate artesian basin (the “Tower City” Basin), and should be treated in a separate report. f #. number of flowing wells in the northeastern part of the county is about as OILOWS : {5 Location of wells. Size. No. == Inches Grandin and the two townships at north side of county. --...-------...------...--...--...--. 2 50 Gardiner and the two townships next south. -------------------...----------------------. 2 35 Argusville, and near there-------------------------------------------------------------- 2 15 Hunter and east.------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2 25 North of Casselton, along railroad.------------------------------------------------------ 2 10 Total -----------------------------------------------------------------------------|------- 135 It is currently stated that there are “several hundred” flowing wells in this county, but I could not materialize them. The number given above is about correct, barring the few in the southwestern part of the county, which, owing to their depth, flow, pressure, and quality of water are thought to be in another artesian basin. All of these 135 wells stop at the first flow obtained. Whether there is a deeper flow at all places or not I am not prepared to say, but it is doubtful. In a few places holes have been put down 300 to 400 feet without getting water. The wells vary in depth from about 200 feet in and around Grandin to about 120 feet in Gardiner. When at Grandin I could learn of but one well, the 43-inch well in the extreme south edge of Traill County, which, went down to the lower flow. At Fargo and at May- ville it was reported that there were several between Grandin and the river which went down to it, but diligent inquiry failed to find them. The flow of these wells is all small; probably two gallons per minute would be about the average. The pressure on all is light, not over 2 pounds in any, and in some de- creasing to barely enough to cause the water to flow. The water is all saline, none of it is pure, and none of it very bad. The drilling in the eastern part is easy and wells fairly sure except close to the river. There many dry holes have been put down. In the western part, along near and east of the railroad running north from Casselton, the drilling is much harder, as much gravel and bowlder clay is encountered. The wells are deeper than near Grandin and Gardiner, but the flow is stronger. At Hun- ter is a two-inch well, belonging to the town, 345 feet deep, flow about 15 gallons per minute, pressure 8 pounds, water clear and good. The other wells near Hunter are deep, nearly all reaching 300 feet, and the average flow would probably be 6 or 8 gal- lons per minute. Around Argusville the flow is small and pressure almost nothing. One 2-1nch well at Harwood, 8 miles northwest of Fargo, barely flows. In Fargo no flowing wells are obtained unless in depressions. This same vein un- derlies the whole country here, however, at a depth of from 160 feet to 180 feet, the water rising to within a few feet of the surface and being slightly saline. The total number of wells and aggregate flow in this basin are as follows: # *: County. 1 inch. 6-inch. 4, inch. 3-inch. 2-inch. |*.* e Gallons. Pembina--------------------------------------|--------|-------- 1 -------. 17 165 Walsh ---------------------------------------. * * * * * * * * 1 |-------- 2 80 1,950 Grand Forks.---------------------------------|--------|--------|-------. l 15 370 Trail] ---------------------------------------- 1 1 1. l 180 1,800 Cass -----------------------------------------|--------|--------|--------|-------- 135 300 Total ----------------------------------- 1. 2 2 ” 4 427 4, 585 This total of 4,585 gallons per minute means 20 acre feet per day, or 7,300 acre feet per year. As much of the flow is estimated, it may be possible that the whole flow of the wells is 10,000 acre feet per year from an artesian vein that is known to be 125 GEOLOGICAL CHARACTER OF WATER-BEARING STRATA. 93 miles long by at least 15 miles wide, or an area of 1,875 square miles, or 1,200,000 acres. This 10,000 acre feet spread over this area would be one-tenth of an inch deep. In other words, the combined flow of all the wells, provided they ran constantly, would only lower the water in the sand rock one-tenth of an inch if it were a contin- uous sheet of water. The fact is that the wells do not average flowing more than half the time. It is needless to say that the supply is not visibly decreasing except in a few wells that are in quicksand where the water does not have free access to the plpe. * FORMATIONS. While it is the province of our geologists to discuss the stratigraphy of the country, it seems best in this connection to give, as a matter of record, the notes which I ob. tained of the formation in the valley. The Archaean rock underlying the valley is a gray rock called by the Canadian geologist “Laurentian granite.” It is claimed by some that this is not a granite, but a very hard impure sandstone. Whatever it is, its presence is constant under the valley wherever holes have been put down deep enough to reach it. Was Location. *...* |stºat 1: s about— | 16V91. Feet. JFeet. Feet. Moorhead -----------------------------------------------------------------. 903 550 353 Hillsboro------------------------------------------------------------------- 901 600 301 Grafton -------------------------------------------------------------------- 827 903 — 76 Hamilton.------------------------------------------------------------------ 824 897 — 73 Rosenfeld Junction -------------------------------------------------------- 780 1,035 —255 Winnipeg------------------------------------------------------------------ 750 1,000 —250 It is stated that the granite is below the surface. This shows an average dip to the north of 3 feet to the mile, about five times the dip of the present surface. With the exception of the well at Hamilton, no flowing water is found in this rock although it was penetrated some 1,250 feet at Moorehead, 115 feet at Hillsboro, and 650 feet at Hamilton. At Grafton and at Rosenfeld Junction work stopped whén the granite was reached. The rock at Moorhead and. at Hillsboro seems to lie level, but at Hamilton the stratifigation is supposed to be tilted up on edge, as shown by the fact that the drill, when striking veins of mica, would go off one side of the hole, making a crooked hole. This may account for the fact that water is obtained in the rock there, or there may be vertical seams in the granite, reaching to the sur- face. The water at Hamilton is found in a sard vein 14 feet thick 1,241 feet below the surface of the ground, and 344 feet below the top of the rock. This, as stated above, may be simply a rift extending to the surface of the rock and drawing water from the artesian vein far above. Overlying this rock is a thin stratum of sandstone not always present. It contains no water. Above the sandstone is a deposit of shale of varying thickness. At Rosenfeld Junc- tion it was 160 feet thick; at Hamilton, 130 feet ; at Grafton, 200 feet; at Hillsboro, about 200 feet thick; at Moorhead, 105 feet thick. This shale all contains sand. At Rosenfeld Junction the upper 50 feet was so sandy that it was classed as “sandstone.” On top of the shale comes limestone of varying degrees of hardness and of vary- ing thickness. At Rosenfeld Junction it was 380 feet and furnished a flow of water 34 per cent salt at 300 feet below its upper surface. At Hamilton it was 455 feet thick; at Grafton, 310 feet ; at Hillsboro, a little; and not present at Moorhead. Above the limestone comes more shale of various colors and degrees of hardness. These shales vary in thickness, but come up to the sand or sandstone, which fur- nishes the main artesian flow. They are thickest to the north, being 350 feet thick at Rosenfeld Junction, and apparently coming so high up as to entirely pinch out the artesian sandstone, being there immediately overlaid with bowlder and bowlder clay, and coming within 145 feet of the surface. At Rosenfeld Junction, Hamilton, and Grafton a light flow of brine was found in this shale, but of small pressure and amount. The artesian sand, or sandstone, lies on top of this shale. See page 2 of this report for a discussion of the material and composition of this sandstone. It varies widely in thickness in different places, and is, as mentioned several times in this report, sometimes entirely wanting. At Rosenfeld Junction it is wanting. At Hamilton it is 4 feet thick, and seems fo take the form of quicksand. At Grafton it is 60 feet thick. At Hillsboro it is thin, wanting in one hole. At Grandin it is only a foot thick, and seems to be gravel. At Moorhead it takes the form of quicksand, and is º 94 IRRIGATION. 70 feet thick. Along the western edge of the basin it varies widely in thickness, and seems to be in many cases sand or gravel. * - - This artesian sandstone is overlaid in nearly all cases by cemented gravel, or red shale, especially in the northern portion of the basin. At Hamilton it was overlaid by 6 feet of cemented gravel (locally called “hardpan"); at Grafton by 13 feet of red shale; at Hillsboro it was overlaid by clay; at Caledonia by red shale; at Moor- head by blue clay. Above this cemented gravel or shale comes clay and bowlder clay. The bowlders are granite and very troublesome to drill. The weaker flows are found in veins of quicksand scattered through the clay. The thickness of these quicksand strata vary; frequently they are not present, and at times become 25 to 30 feet thick. nºfi this bowlder clay comes blue clay without bowlders, then yellow clay, and 6Il SOII, These are, in a general way, the strata found in the valley. RoforéLice to the log of wells examined in this valley will show considerable variations from these given, and, in a few cases, entirely different formations. These are, in general, true for that portion of the wells located on the flat country near the river. About 20 miles west of Red River is a strip of “clay country,” 3 or 4 miles wide, running through all the counties covered by this report. At the international bound- ary it is 25 miles west of the river, and at Gardiner it is 15 miles. East of this clay strip it is very difficult to obtain “surface” wells—that is, shoal wells from which the water is pumped. In many places no water will be struck before the upper weak artesian veins are touched, and in others water will be found seeping in through the clay, but so bitter and impregnated with minerals that it is unfit for use. West of this ridge, however, the subsoil becomes more sandy, and sweet water is found in abundance at a depth of 15 to 20 feet. This is true for the next 10 or 15 miles west, or until the country begins to rise into the Pembina ridge. The elevation of this country is from 100 to 200 feet above the river east of it. It is quite likely that this sandy country supplies the upper or weak veins in the valley to the east. It is not exact to say that the clay strip is the cropping of the blue and yellow clays below the surface in the lower valley, as the clay is here as thick, or thicker, than east, but it is evidently the western terminus of these clays. West of the sandy country and at about the eastern edge of the Pembina Ridge is found the bowlder clay. Further west is a gravelly country, and then a sandy country running into a clay underlaid by shale. For 10 or 12 miles southeast of Langdon, 15 miles south of the international boundary, and 60 miles west of the river, and some 700 feet above it, the railroad euts all go down into shale. These facts seem to point to the inference that the gathering ground of this water is on this sandy ridge. The fact that the pressure on each and west lines does not grow greater as the river is approached, although the country is lower, would indi- cate that the water came from the west. The fact that the pressure grows less as one comes south, until at Fargo the water will not come to the surface, would indicate that this ridge is the gathering ground as its elevation above the river grows less to the southward. - - I attach detailed records of all wells examined in the territory covered by this report, arranged as near as possible in the order in which they are referred to in detail in this report. Yours truly, W. W. FoELETT, - A88istant Engineer. Col. E. S. NETTLETON, Chief Engineer, U. S. Department of Agriculture. In addition to the wells reported on by Mr. Follett there are many others of the same class scattered over the settled portions of the Da- kotas. This basin is probably the most extensive of any lying in the drift that has yet been discovered in the Dakotas. A smaller one exists in the southeastern part of South Dakota, which was in part examined in the summer of 1890 and reported on by Prof. Updyke. This basin has the same general characteristics as the one under consideration ex- cept the quality of the water is much better. There are other small artesian basins in South Dakota which were not examined for lack of time. I think it is safe to say there are at least 1,500 of these small flowing wells in the two Dakotas. The number is fast increasing, as the cost is but little compared with the value they are for the use of the farm. As yet but little irrigation is done from the surplus waters that { - # -- Ts ARTESIAN WELLS IN THE YELLOWSTONE VALLEY. 95 many of them afford. As a general thing the proper stratigraphic con- ditions exist in many of the broad valleys and low flat sections of the Dakotas for an artesian supply of this character. During the processes of filling and leveling up of the bottom of the inland lake or sea which at One time occupied this country there were thick layers of mud and Clay deposited on the top of fine beds of sand and gravel, and then an- other layer of perhaps fine sand, which is capped again with an imper- vious alluvium, forming alternating beds of pervious and impervious materials, one bed being capable of imbibing and holding the water, the other preventing its upward or downward escape. If these strată are inclined a little or come in contact with the surface water or with ground water that has permeated the top soil of the higher country, the result is almost certain to be the formation of an artesian basin. These Conditions exist in many sections of both North and South Dakota. Considerable of the surface of the coteaux and table lands are covered With a gravelly and porous soil and subsoil which imbibes water rap- idly. Besides there are thousands of lakes scattered over the surface, having an area from 5 to 500 acres each, into which the surface water is drained instead of running into the river and creek channels to be Carried away into the larger rivers. These coteaux and table lands are the receiving grounds and sources of supply for the drift wells. ARTESIAN BASIN AT MILES CITY, MONT. This artesian basin was examined by Mr. Follett, whose time for this purpose was limited to a few hours, or the time between railroad trains, while on his way to Great Falls. Fortunately the contractor was found who put down most of the bores in this basin, who proved to be com- petent and answered most of the questions concerning each individual well. Eollowing up the valley of the Yellowstone we find the water-bear- ing rock in this basin rises rapidly towards the surface, and is finally exposed at Billings; at least a section of 90 feet of it stands above the surface of the river at that point. Further west the exposed section is Still thicker. * There are two means by which water may be supplied to this"basin. One is through the upturned strata which lie to the south and west, and which are exposed to the surface waters that fall on that country. The other is from imbibition of the water of the Yellowstone River as it traverses an eroded channel 100 miles or more in length, which has cut its way through the entire section of the rock forming this basin, thus exposing all of its strata to the surface and underground waters in the valley. It is quite probable that should this rock be of the proper character to hold and transmit water a stronger flow and pres- sure will be found in the lower section of the valley, but on account of the strata inclining in an easterly direction so much more rapidly than does the surface the great depth will likely render it impracticable to . reach water within a distance that will justify for artesian well purposes. For additional information regarding this artesian basin, see well No. 91, and the following report of Mr. W. W. Follett, assistant engineer. 96 IRRIGATION. REPORT on MILEs oity, MONT, ARTESIAN BASIN, - 5 WASHINGTON, D.C., October 24, 1891. DEAR SIR: At Miles City, Mont., on the Yellowstone River, is a small local arte- sian basin known as the “Miles City Basin.” It is only about 45 miles long by 2 or 3 miles wide, and is confined to that portion of the immediate valley of the Yellowstone ex- tending from 35 miles above Miles City to 8 or 10 miles below. In this area are some thirty wells with an average flow of about 10 gallons per minute. Temperature 57 degrees, and pressure of from 4 to 8 pounds. There fº one 6-inch well in Miles City, only flowing 6 or 8 gallons per minute. The others vary some in size. The most of them are 23-inch wells. None are smaller than this. * The depth of wells varies from 160 feet up to 500 feet. The sand rock furnishing the water seems much broken up. It may be that its form is about the same as the supposed form of the water-bearing sand in the Meade County, Kans, artesian basin— that is, folds of the saud rock interlap with the shales. The following is the record of a well about two miles southeast of Miles City. This is said to be an average well fairly representing those in the basin. Mr. Beck, the owner, put down the greater part of these wells, so is well informed as to their depths, etc. Much of the information given in this report was obtained from him. This well is No. 104 of the Main Report on Artesian Wells of the Dakotas. Owner of well: O. C. Beck. Location: Sec. 34, T. 8 S., R. 47 E. Montana principal meridian. Near Miles City, Mont. Put down in June, 1886. Size of well: 24 inches. *rst flow struck at 250 feet; 1 gallon per minute. Second flow struck at 300 feet; 2 gallons per minute. Third flow struck at 393 feet; 5 gallons per minute. Pressure, well closed, 7 pounds. Flow : 5 gallons per minute. Temperature: 57 degrees. Quality: Water soft, but with some mineral in it; will not rust iron. Used for irrigation. Has irrigated one acre of garden. Cost: $1.25 per foot. Strata passed through. Thickness Total - in feet. feet. Adobe soil and subsoil -------------------------------------------- 19 19 Gravel with surface water in bottom ------------------------------. 21 40 Hard sand rock -------------------------------------------- * gº º ºs º º żº 2 42 Slate or hard soapstone, hard and soft streaks---------------------- 18 60 Sand rock with water not flowing --------------------------...----. . 5 65 Slate or hard soapstone and hard and soft sand rock, alternating thin - layers of each--------------------------------------------------- 185 250 Sand rock, light flow (at 300 feet flow increased) ------------------- 50 300 Shale------------------------------------------------------------- 93 393 Brownish red sand rock, 5 gallons per minute main flow.----------. 63 456 Bottom on shale. Feet Elevation of ground above Sea - - - - - - - - - * - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - • * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * = 2,343 Elevation, top of main flow-------------------------------------------------- 1,950 Elevation, bottom ----------------------------------------------------------. 1,887 The sand rock is nearly all soft, and all wells flow sand for a day or two after water is struck. There are hard streaks in the sandstone varying from a few inches to 6 or 7 feet in thickness. Examination of this log shows that there are several upper veins of sandstone hav- ing water under low pressure. In other wells some one or other of these strata are more open and furnish the main flow. # The water has a mineral taste, but will not corrode iron. In this well the pipe which had been in use five years was just as perfect as when first put in. ere is not enough, data obtainable to make it possible to give a very probable conjecture as to the origin of this water. The fact that water is found for a limited distance only in the valley of the Yellowstone would lead one to suppose that the water came from a gathering ground either north or south of the river and that the vein crosses the valley here, giving a flow wherever the ground was so low that the pressure on the water in the rock was sufficient to force it above the surface. I 97 could not learn that this rock cropped out either north or south of the river, but the formations are so much broken up here that it might easily crop and not be noticed, especially as the rock itself is so broken up and interfolded with shales. It may be that this is a cropping or uplift of the main Dakota Sandstone, although the color (brownish red) is not the same as that of the Dakota. It is known that the latter stone crops in the southeastern part of Montana, and this may be a part of it. The supply of water seems to be constant. The increase in wells does not affect any appreciable decrease in the flow of existing wells. There is not enough water to use for irrigation, and its use will be limited to the household and to the watering of stock. Yours, truly, THE YELLOWSTONE WALLEY AND ITS WATERS. W. W. FollBTT, Col. E. S. NETTLETON, A88istant Engineer. Chief Engineer, U. S. Department of Agriculture. SUBTERRANEAN WATERS IN THE YELLOWSTONE VALLEY. In addition to the investigation of the artesian basin at Miles City, a hasty reconnaissance was made of the Yellowstone Valley between Glendive and Livingstone, a distance of about 340 miles. The valley between these points is from a half to 8 miles in width. On each side is a line of bluffs from 100 to 300 feet high, whose faces are irregular and precipitous. The land in the valley is most of it considerably above even high water in the river. To irrigate the most elevated part of it by common methods will require long lines of expensive canals, as the grade of the river is so slight, except in its upper portion ; besides, every now and then the rocky bluffs project into the valley to the river's edge; or, in other words, the largest bodies of irrigable lands lie in cove-like localities which are encircled by the high bluffs which close into the river, and to reach the middle of these fine tracts of land with an irrigating canal will require building for many miles—in some in- stances along the rock face of the bluffs. The time will undoubtedly come when considerable of these lands will be irrigated by ways and means which would now make it too ex- pensive for the common farmer to adopt. The land commissioner of the Northern Pacific Railway has had the question examined of the practicability of utilizing the water of the Yellowstone for irrigating the lands in the immediate valley as well as the table lands lying back from the river and above the bluffs. He has given me permission to copy from a report made by special examiner and engineer, Mr. R. J. Perry. Speaking of the canals in operation in this part of the valley under consideration, Mr. Perry says: The only canals in operation east of Livingston are those in the valley above Bil- lings, except one or two small ones along by Stillwater and Merrill. . . . . It will be difficult to take water from the Yellowstone River between Custer Station and Glendive for two good reasons: First, because the river has so slight a fall, and, secondly, because none of the several widenings of the valley are large enough to attract would-be canal builders to invest large sums. - Mr. Perry gives the gradients of the Yellowstone River as follows: º Fall per Distance. Total fall. mile. Miles. Feet. I'eet. Cinnabar to Livingston------------------------------------------------. 51 691 13. 55 Livingston to Billings -------------------------------------------------- 116 1, 373 11.84 Billings to Custer Station ---------------------------------------------- 53 390 7. 55 Custer Station to Miles City.-------------...--...---------------...-...-. 94 372 3.96 Miles City to Glendive --------------------------...--...------------...--. 78 286 3.66 S. Ex. 41, pt. 2—7 98 IRRIGATION, — ºw. Mr. Perry speaks of two or three canal enterprises above Glendive, where it is possible to irrigate in all about 50,000 acres. He remarks that Owing to the slight fall of the river these canals would be from 30 to 40 miles long and would encounter much expensive work. In view of the difficulty and expense of utilizing the Yellowstone River and the smaller streams for irrigating several tracts of fine land in the valley of these streams, Mr. Perry has called the attention of the Land Commissioner to the possibility of irrigating these lands by water raised by mecham- ical means. His plan is to raise to the surface the underground watcrs, which are to be foºd at shallow depths and in large quantities in that vicinity, by means of the Hoffer vacum pump, manufactured at Greeley, Colo. He describes a pump of this kind which he saw in operation. He says the pump- - is located at Rosebud Station on the Yellowstone, and is a 1,000 gallons per minute pump, or 85 miner's inches of water, and would irrigate, according to the table of es- timates, 100 acres of land, while the maker claims it would serve 170 acres.” * & I am sure the maker's estimates are too great; 85 miner's inches will not serve 170 acres of crops. I saw this pump at Rosebud in operation at two different times dur- ing the past season, and measured the water and found it was raising 1,000 gallons per minute, or 85 miner's inches. It it is owned by Smith & Bowles and cost them nearly $1,500 set up. The pump has no cylinder, piston, wheel, pulley, or belt, no machinery of any kind, simply a large boiler to furnish a large volume of dry steam to the pump. Steam goes direct to the pump. A jet of cold water condenses it and the vacuum thus formed is filled with water from the river by simple atmospheric pressure, the water flowing out into the ditch by gravity. When in good working order the only thing to do is to feed the fire, keeping a steam pressure of from 20 to 40 pounds to the inch, which gives as good results as a higher pressure. The water by this pump is raised 21 feet. Mr. Perry estimates the cost in Montana of pumping water with a 2,000-gallon Hopper pump for thirty days, twenty-four hours a day, or 60 days at twelve hours a day, lifting the water 20 feet, to be as follows: 80 tons of Montana coal, at $2 a ton.----------------------------------------- $160 Interest at 5 per cent on total cost of $2,000 ---...-------...----...----. -------. 100 One man, two months, at $35 a month ---------------------------------------- 70 Sundries -------------------------------------------------------------------- 10 Total.------------------------------------------------------------------ 340 Which is $1.60 per acre for water, sufficient, theoretically, to cover in one month 210 acres 15 inches deep.f While these estimates are considered conservative as to what can be accomplished and the cost per acre for the railroad company to secure water for irrigation purposes, yet it is a question, even if the cost is no more for the individual, if it would in practice pay to raise water in this way for common farming purposes. The pioneer farmer is generally unable to put so much extra ready cash into his farming operations as would be required in the purchase and operating-expenses of such a lant. p It will undoubtedly pay to raise water by steam, wind, and animal º, *Mr. Perry estimates the miner's inch to be equal to 113 gallons per minute, and that 100 inches are required to serve 120 acres of land in the Yellowstone Valley. This amount of water would, during the irrigating season, say 90 days, if it was supplied constantly during that time, cover 120 acres 40 inches deep. Of course there would be considerable loss by evaporation and absorption by the soil, etc., so a large percent- age must be deducted from its useful effect for irrigation purposes. Suppose we say that one-half be deducted, we then have 20 inches of water in addition to the natural rainfall, which is an ample supply, and this can without doubt be obtained by means of a good storage reservoir. - f This estimate being made for the railroad company the price of coal is probably considerably under what it would be if the usual freight charges were added. . .- THE MISSOURI COTEAUX AND ITS SPRINGS. 99 power for gardening and similar purposes, where the net value of the products from an acre greatly exceed the cost of the labor and seed. The same may be true when an artificial application of water will save a common field crop that would otherwise be lost by drought. As the country becomes more thickly populated, the agriculturists more fore- handed, and when they have learned by experience how to economize in the use of water, irrigation by water raised in these ways will, without doubt, be resorted to which at the present time is wholly impracticable, and which even the most sanguine dare not now predict concerning the natural developments by irrigation. SPRINGS AT THE Foot of THE EASTERN SLoPE OF THE MIssouri COTEAUX. An examination of the probable amount of irrigation that can be done from the perennial springs which lie at the foot of the coteaux on the west side of the valley of the James River, was made by W. W. Follett, assistant engineer, who makes the following note: * , There were a small number of springs suitable for irrigation found lying along the eastern edge of the coteaux in Ts. 126 to 145 N., Rs. 65, 66, 67, and 68 W., in McPher- Son County, S. Dak., and Dickey, Lamoure, Stutsman, Wells, and Foster counties, in North Dakota. There are also many small springs in the bottom of the long de- pressions, or coulees, as they are locally termed. These furnish water amply suffi- cient for stock use, but not enough for irrigation. Were there enough water, it could not be used for irrigation, as it could not be gotten out of the coulees onto arable land. The only places where springs can be utilized are along the eastern edge of the hills, where the smooth plains country comes back to them. Here, if water can be found in sufficient quantity, it can be utilized. In T. 128 N., R. 67 W., McPherson County, S. Dak., in sections 17 and 31, are two Springs. From the one on section 31 I last month made surveys for a ditch to carry the water out onto land belonging to Ira D. Clark. There is plenty of fall and the water can be gotten onto the land at small expense. Water enough for from 800 to 1,000 acres can be obtained, and the land to be watered lay in excellent shape for irri- gation. tº In section 18 at least as much more water can be obtained and good land lies below it. This is more of a marsh than is section 31 and more work would have to be done developing the supply. A good stream, probably 2 cubic feet a second, was running away from the marsh when I was there. It is not level, but lies up on the hillside at quite an angle. In a marsh of this kind I am of the opinion that the water sup- ply can be largely increased by digging ditches back into it, thus relieving the back pressure on the water and allowing it to flow freely. - I have seen in New Mexico good strong springs, furnishing water enough for 600 to 800 head of cattle, formed in this way from a place where the only indication of water was a little green vegeta- tion; I can see no reason why this development work should not work on a larger scale in these marshes lying upon a hillside. Of course a marsh which lies flat may be made such from a very limited supply of water, but one on a hillside with water flowing from it must be supplied by a water-bearing stratum behind it. Going north from the springs mentioned, the next were two springs about 3 miles north of the State line, in Dickey County, N. Dak. Only 200 or 300 acres could be watered from these ; not more. Y. *. In T. 131 N., R. 65 W., are three springs. One of these (which is in fact two close together) is two large marshes lying well up on the hillside. It is uncertain how much water could be developed from these ; at least enough to water 400 or 500 acres, and probably more. The other two are smaller, but together would probably water 300 or 400 acres. Good land is near all of these, and lies low enough and with sufficient slope to be easily irrigated. > In T. 133 N., R. 65 W., Lamoure County, N. Dak., is a long draw with running water fed by springs. It is hard to tell how much water would be gotten from this— at least enough to water 500 acres. The land below lies in good shape for irrigation. From this point north to township 144 north the country breaks up ; both the range of hills and the plain disappear in a rolling, broken country, good for grazing, and a fair farming country when rain is had, but too rolling to irrigate. There are no large springs in this stretch of country. * 100 IRRIGATION. - - .* = In Sec. 16, T. 144 N., R. 67 W., Stutsman County, there is a large marsh with water running away from it. Probably enough for 300 or 400 acres could be gotten here. Good land lies in proper shape for irrigation 2 miles below it. On the east side of the Hawks Nest, in Sec. 25, T. 145 N., R.; Wells County, is a run- a running spring which will irrigate 300 or 400 acres of good land near. These are all the available springs in the country examined, or for several miles north and south of it, giving water enough for 3,500 to 4,000 acres of land. This is without reservoirs for the storage of water, using it directly from the springs. The conformation of the country is such that reservoirs of large capacity can not be cheaply built. Small ones can, however, be built out on the smooth land, makin them long and narrow with their long axes at right angles to the line of greatest fal of the land, being practically wide, on bank ditches. These would store the night flow and that of days when irrigation would not be going on, and thus largely in- crease the capacity of the springs. Ry such cheap resorvoils as these the springs couid be made to serve 6,000 acres. There is in all the draws running back into the hills a good spring flow of snow water and summer floods of storm waters. There are no suitable reservoir sites for this water, as the average fall of the country is too great, but some of the snow waters might be used to advantage for direct irrigation, soaking the land thoroughly about seed-time. As seen on the Richards farm north of Huron, this method of irri- gation will go far towards insuring a good crop. The nature of the soil in this coun- try is such (a mixed clay and sandy loam with in pervious clay subsoil) that it will hold water for a considerable length of time, and much benefit can be derived from irrigation at any time of the year. Care must be exercised, however, to not over- irrigate. The soil must not be given more water than it can easily take up. If enough is put on to flood the land it will cause the soil to bake and become hard, and will leave it in worse condition than it was before being irrigated. 'The formation from which this spring water comes is a gravel intermixed with large bowlders of granite. The water in the wells on the plains east of the springs is found in sand bélow clay and is generally artesian in its character, but not rising to the surface. The source of the supply is the hills or coteaua, to the west, being local drainage. The springs are all lowest in July and August, but increase their flow in September, although that is generally the dryest time of the year. . This would indicate that the gathering ground is at some distance, the water coming in September being, per- haps, the snow water of the previous winter. This is an inference not sufficiently supported by facts to make it worthy of much credence. It may be correct and it may not. Lying immediately west of this section are the Missouri coteaua, which have an elevation of two to three hundred feet above the west- ern edge of the plains country west of the James River. On these co- teau.” are hundreds of small lakes which have no visible outlet. The water which falls on this elevated section of country is not carried off in surface drainage channels, except a few on the outer edge, which ex- tend only a short distance into the coteaua'; therefore, the precipitation that falls on this country that is not lost by evaporation is either ab- sorbed by the soil or finds its way into these lakes. In some respects this elevated source for an artesian supply resembles that on the west side of the Red River artesian basin, and if the same alternating beds of clay and sand are found here as occur in that basin, we might expect a similar condition to exist that would furnish flowing artesian wells. But the records of the borings of the deep artesian Wells along on the eastern base of these coteaua, through nearly the whole length of South Dakota and a considerable distance into North Dakota, do not reveal the existence of a drift strata, as is found in the Red River Valley. The borings already made show shales existing in the upper part of the strata penetrated, but as a general thing no water has been found in any of these bores in the shales. * The conclusions are that there does not exist in this section an arte- sian flow, unless it may be a very small one at shallow depths along the immediate base of the Coteaua. Such a condition has formed Springs which now break out in limited number. CAPACITY OF IRRIGATION FROM WELLS. 101 THE TIFF ANY UNDERFLOVV BASIN, NORTH DAKOTA. On the table-lands lying between the James and Cheyenne rivers, about 20 miles east of Devils Lake, in North Dakota, there is a small area of flat country where there appears to be a deep deposit of sand, which is charged with water that lies so near the surface as to make it practicable to use it for irrigation. While it might not be practicable at the present time in North Dakota to lift water by wind or horse power for general farming purposes, yet every farmer in this basin can, with comparatively little cost, obtain a sufficient amount of water to make Sure against drought and to raise a sufficient amount of garden vegeta- bles and the like for the family. If there is a market for the products of vegetable gardens there is no doubt that small farming by irrigation will pay even in that locality. * Assistant Engineer Follett examined this basin and makes the follow- ing note of it: In the neighborhood of Tiffany, Eddy County, N. Dak., is a level basin, some 10 or 12 miles square, which is underlaid at little depth by water. The soil is a sandy loam, underlaid by a thin clay subsoil. The latter is not over a foot thick; under it is fine, loose, clean sand; some 4 or 5 feet down in the sand water is found. No one has yet been through the water-bearing sand, as the water runs in so fast as to pre- vent digging. It is said that the sand gets a little coarser as depth is gained. This water is from 7 to 12 feet below the surface, the variation being due to difference in surface elevation. This water does not come from the Cheyenne or the James, at least not directly, as the flats are higher than either of these rivers. It is probably supplied by local rainfall, the gathering ground being to the west. At the east end of the flats is an alkaline lake in which may be the outcropping of this water. The land inthese flats is not favorable for irrigation, as it has no uniform slope and is cut up by depressions. But wells could be put on the high points and enough land would be under each to use the full supply of the well. The water would have to be pumped either by wind or horse power. It seems to me that the best way to lift this water (the total lift being not over 15 feet) would be with some form of elevator pump operated by horse power. This kind of pump is simple in construction and maintenance and the farmers all have plenty of horses. A small reservoir (say of 1-acre area and 3 or 4 feet capacity) could be built, and the pump kept running at all times, and the water used whenever needed. Much could also be done by wind- mills, but it is not safe to trust to wind alone, as it might fail just at the time water was most needed. Both horse power and wind could be used to advantage on the same well. wº From a single well and large windmill, say a 12-foot Aermotor, or a 16-foot Enter- prise, it is likely that 10 or 15 acres could be irrigated; with horse power, probably 25 {{CF628. The supply of this water is supposed by the residents of the basin to be inex- haustible, as is always the local supposition in regard to “sheet water.” But there is a possibility that large and constant use of it would very materially lower its level and possibly so exhanst the supply as to make it difficult to obtain the needed water. This is only a possibility and should not deter efforts to utilize the water known to be there now. The soil of the basin is fertile and sandy, and appears to be a good soil for alfalfa. Capt. C. H. Culver, 1 mile north of Tiffany, has 3 or 4 acres three years old, but it is not a good stand, and looks as if it needed more water than it has had this year. Large crops of cereals are raised whenever the rainfall is sufficient. DEVILS LAKE AND IT'S CONNECTION WITH THE CHEYENNE • RIVER, Devils Lake forms a part of the boundary line between Ramsey and Benson counties in North Dakota. The lake is about 35 miles long and 6 to 8 miles wide in the widest places. It is very irregular in its out- line, the present shore line covering about 225 miles. The Water of the = º 102 IRRIGATION. - lake is quite salty and contains considerable magnesia, and is unfit for drinking purposes. ºf . The surface of the lake was, at no very remote period, at least 35 feet above the present surface, as is distinctly shown by the beach lines on the north side. Nearly one-half of the subsidence has occurred within the memory of men now living. There are distinct evidences that the outlet was at one time into the Cheyenne River, as it would be to-day if the waters of the lake were 25 feet above its present stage. What has caused the subsidence is very difficult to determine, but the most reasonable explanation is the chang- ing of the climatic conditions of the country. It is quite probable that the loss occasioned by evaporation and percolation of the water into the soil so nearly balance the rainfall on its surface and the small drainage into it from surface and underflow waters that a slight change in the annual precipitation or in the rate of evaporation is sufficient to account for the “ups and downs” of the surface. Assistant Engineer W. W. Follett was instructed to examine the country lying between the south shore of the lake and the Cheyenne River, and makes the following notes and conclusions: Referring to the maps (see Appendix 17) it will be observed that— The lake shore is very irregular in outline and the course of Cheyenne River is tortuous. From Fort Totten south it is about 8 miles to the river, and this is the nearest the two come together. Heading about 2 miles south of Fort Totten is a long draw running southeast. The upper end of the draw is dry, but it soon becomes marshy, then full of springs, and finally has a running stream delivering some 2 or 3 cubic feet per second into the Cheyenne. The first running water is about 3 miles from the lake. This draw is typical of many draining into the Cheyenne from the north. At first sight it seems evident to one that this water must come from Devils Lake, as the river at the mouth of the draw is some 50 or 60 feet lower than the lake. The south shore of the lake shows a line of springs from 18 to 30 or 35 feet above the present water level. These springs, so people familiar with the country say, ex- tend along the whole south shore of the lake, but not along the north or west shore, and the whole country between Devils Lake and the Cheyenne River is underlaid by this water-bearing stratum. It is a fine sand not very strongly charged with water, the springs taking the form of bogs rather than running streams. It is from this stratum that these draws obtain their water. Inquiry of the old residents around Fort Totten elicits the fact that the surface of the lake is about 13 feet lower than it was in 1867. My hand level showed the pres- ent surface to be about 15 feet below the highest beach line, which can be plainly traced. There are in places dim marks of others still higher up. This fall has not been constant. In 1882 the lake rose 2 feet, and this year has risen already over 1 foot (no record is kept at Fort Totten) and is still rising. The average fall for the past twenty-five years has, however, been about 6 inches per year. The cause of this subsidence is not plain. It is not fair to say that it is due to a decrease of rainfall, because other causes may be potent enough to produce the fall. There may be some subterranean outlet. There is a legend among the Indians that some forty or fifty years ago, what is now Stump Lake, about 10 miles east of the east end of Devils Lake was a forest, and was used by them as a winter camp, but that one fall when they went there they found it a lake so deep as to cover the tops of the tallest trees. It is supposed that this water comes from Devils Lake. I have not visited the place, so know nothing of the relative level of the two lakes. Even if it does come from Devils Lake it of itself would not account for one-twentieth of the fall, but it would show the possibility of there being underground outlets to the lake. It may be that the fall is caused by decreased rain or snow fall or increased evaporation, or both, but it does not seem to me that we have enough information about the matter to form any such conclusion. About 7 miles west of Fort Totten there is a chain of small lakes extending some 4 miles south from the main lake. It appears from a hasty examination that the water level in these lakes and in the main lake are the same. All show the succes- sive beach lines left by the gradnally receding waters and the land between them is a porous sandy, or gravelly soil, through which water would percolate freely. The !. between the lakes is in no place inore than 20 or 25 feet above the present water ©Wels * * THE PHREATIC SUPPLY OF NORTH DAKOTA. 103 Extending southwest from the most southerly lake is a long wide draw. The high- est point in this draw, as near as I could locate it with a hand level, is only about 1,500 feet south of the last lake, about 30 feet above its waters, and is a bed of. bowlders much water worn and packed together. The first 2 miles of this draw are dry. It then becomes very marshy, but no running water is seen, probably because the draw has so little fall, this being so slight as scarcely to be detected with the band level. The last 2 miles before it reaches the Cheyenne it falls rapidly and carries SOme Water. * There is no doubt in my mind that this once formed an outlet for Devils Lake, through which its waters reached the Cheyenne, and this at no remote period, perhaps not more than fifty or sixty years ago. It may be that the water flowed here until its influx into Stump Lake. Cheyenne River is a perennial plains stream. It is now carrying at a point due south of Fort Totten about 60 cubic feet per second. Much of this is rain water, but it carries at all seasons a good stream, which is supplied by springs coming from the land stratum before mentioned. Its bed is below the level of Devils Lake to the north and the James River to the south, the latter being merely a storm-water chan- #. i.local drainage is small, almost nothing from the south and but little from the north. There is in this river enough water to do considerable irrigation, but, as in all of the rivers in this region, the fall is so slight that the water can not be taken out onto the land by gravity, and the only crop raised, wheat, will not warrant the expense mec- essary to pump the water. The lift would have to be from 30 or 40 to 100 feet or more, as the valley is rather narrow and rises rapidly away from the river. In some of the draws coming into the river is considerable level land, but it is all or nearly all wet from springs and does not need irrigation. My knowledge of the country to the west of the lake is not sufficient for me to give with any certainty the origin of this water, but I know that there is a high stretch of country some 30 miles wide north and south, and from 75 to 100 miles long, east and west, between the Mouse and Cheyenne rivers, which may be, and probably is, its gathering ground. t THE UNDERFLOW FROM TURTLE MOUNTAINS. The Turtle Mountains (I will call them mountains out of respect to the people of the Dakotas, who have little else that suggests such a name) are in the extreme northern part of North Dakota. The bound- ary line between the United States and Canada passes through the northern portion, leaving about one-fourth of them in Canada. The area embraced is about 724 square, miles, 166 square miles being in Canada and 558 in North Dakota. They are oblong in shape, being longest northwest and southeast, and are about 120 miles in circuln- ference, and surrounded by an open plains country. t There are five or six counties in North Dakota, to the southeast, which are supposed by some to receive their supply of subterranean water from these mountains, and many think the water of Devils Lake comes from this source. It was for the purpose of examining this Sup- posed source of subterranean water supply that I spent nearly a week in driving in the interior and almost encircling their entire base, omit- ting only about 30 miles of the northeast portion which lies in Canada. I had for a companion, interpreter, and driver a gentleman who is a surveyor, and quite well acquainted with the country, and from him and the Indians on and about the reservation I obtained considerable important information. - Topographically considered these mountains resemble the Coteaux of the Missouri. They are about the same elevation above the sea as the Coteaux, which lie to the south and west, but not as high as those on the western side. The mountains have the same undulating surface, with gently sloping hills, with small valleys scattered here and there over the whole interior. The general character of the soil and the 104 * IRRIGATION. material forming the mass is the same as in the Coteaux, it being glacial drift with but few bowlders, and with but little solid rock to speak of. Unlike the Coteaux nearly the whole surface is covered with timber, aspen, oak, and some other varieties, but no pine. Scattered over their surface are perhaps 100 small lakes, which lie in the lowest valleys. In the valleys lying a little higher are marshes with more water and in Wet Seasons these marshes are entirely submerged. The more elevated Valleys, and those which receive but little surface or underground drainage, are covered with a heavy growth of grass, making fine meadows, from which thousands of tons of ilay are annually cut. Nearly all of these lakes, marshes, and meadows are landlocked, hav- ing no outlet. The soil has the capacity to absorb water freely, and in the interior there are no recent water-worn channels. Probably a larger percentage of the water that falls on these mountains is taken up by the soil than on the Coteaux. I am informed the lakes in the mountains are not so readily affected by wet and dry seasons as they are on the Coteaux. The timber which covers the mountains at the present time is mainly of a recent growth. The Indians say about sixty-five years ago it was nearly all destroyed by fire and wind. The age of the timber and the character of the undergrowth seem to corroborate this state- ment. In such places as are protected by lakes and marshes there are Some larger and much older timber. One of the county commissioners of Rolette County reports that he has cut timber on these protected places that was 24 feet in diameter, which must have been at least 400 years old. The Indians also report that the timber that was destroyed sixty-five years ago was not as large as the present growth. This in- dicates that the forests have been at least twice destroyed by fire. It is the general opinion that more rain and snow falls on these moun- tains than on the plains, but from the testimony of those who live in the mountains and those living just outside I judge the difference in the annual rainfall is very little. The effect of the forests on the climate within these mountains is very marked. The timber and undergrowth shade the ground and break the force of the winds. The snows of winter are not blown from the surface, but lie on the ground much later in the Spring and melt so gradually that the water is absorbed by the soil, instead of running off rapidly, as it does on the plains. The cli- matic conditions of even so small an area as this are so changed that farming is successfully carried on here even in seasons where crops are a failure on the adjoining plains for a lack of sufficient moisture. A large percentage of the rainfall is either retained in the soil or col- lected in the lakes and marshes. The loss by evaporation is greatly impeded by the forest protection. With the exception of Willow and Oak Creeks there are no water courses that extend but a short distance into the interior of the moun- tains. The head of Oak Creek is in a chain of lakes which extend back into the interior nearly to the boundary line. During the last few years the surface of this chain of lakes has fallen below the outlet of the creek, and in August the surface was fully 3 feet below. I am in- formed that the situation at Willow Creek is about the same. There are about fifteen other drainage channels on the American side that simply drain the Outer rim. Nearly all of these carry a little water through the whole year. In August about ten were carrying from 10 to 60 gallons per minute, and others from 13 to 7 cubic feet per second. Probably not exceeding 17 cubic feet in all were escaping from the mountains on the surface, and all of this water soon disappears on the This DIVERSION OF INTER-AMERICAN WATERs. 105 plains, none of it reaching permanent surface streams except in times of high water. - The Mouse River encircles the Turtle Mountains on the southwest and north sides, towards which river the surface drainage of three- fourths of the country around about trends. A small area on the east- erly side is drained by indistinct water channels, or coolies,a leading towards Uevils Lake; the remaining drainage is towards the Pembina River. If the direction of the subterranean flow follows the surface drainage, not over 5 or 8 per cent of the ground drainage from these mountains is available for the country lying to the Southeast. The conclusions concerning the Turtle Mountains, as being a gather- ing ground for an underground water supply, are, that while these moun- tains probably receive but little more rainfall than the surrounding Country, they are capable of, and contribute more Water to the under- ground supply than the same area of plains country, Imainly because of the protection afforded by the timber and the small amount of the precipitation that falls on them being carried away by surface water courses. Unless the uppermost strata of impervious material which underlies that country dips in an opposite direction to the surface drain- age (which is not very common) the direction of the greater part of the underflow is to the south and west into the valley of the Mouse River. Possibly one-tenth of it may take a southeasterly direction towards Devils Lake. There are some reasons for suspecting that Devils Lake and the country in that vicinity may be supplied from the underflow from the Mouse River. The elevation of this river will admit of this. It will be seen by referring to the map that the Mouse River enters the United States from the northwest, crossing the boundary about 60 miles west of the Turtle Mountains, and extends into North Dakota nearly 100 miles, when it turns in an opposite direction, forming a bend like an elongated mule shoe. This bend is a very low divide, and it is thought by many that the river at one time flowed on in a southeasterly direc- tion to the Devils Lake country. There are evidences of this theory , found underground in the country east of this bend in the river where wells have been dug which penetrate a deposit resembling that of an old river bed. In these wells have been found driftwood and other débris, which usually marks the margin of a river. These evidences lie 8 or 10 miles easterly of the present bed of the river. The discussion of this question, however, belongs more to the geological branch of the investi- gation. ST. MARYS RIVER, NORTHEAST MONTANA–ITS DIVERSION FROM CANADIAN TERRITORY. An examination was made in September of St. Marys lakes and river with a view to ascertaining if it is possible as well as prac- ticable to divert the flow of this river before it reaches the boundary line, and to lead it out for irrigation purposes by a canal that would be wholly within the United States. The accompanying sketch map (Appendices 15 and 16) shows approximately the location of the lake, river, and the line which the proposed canal would traverse in reach- ing the Milk River drainage. The examination of the line was simply a reconnaissance of the country on horseback with only a hand level and an aneroid barometer to determine levels and elevations. The St. Marys River is the outlet of the lower of two lakes of the same 106 - - T II?RIGATION. name. Its course is 53rtheasterly, and in about 9 miles it crosses the boundary line into Canada. The river is reinforced on its western side by Swift Current, Kennedy, and one or two minor streams. Swift . Current is the main tributary. Its source is in the mountains, and it is the drainage channel of a large area of elevated country extending back to the continental divide. The St. Marys lakes are supplied from Springs, and underflow, and mountain streams, which furnish a perma- ment supply of water. From the outlet to the boundary line the chan- nel of the St. Marys River is through a narrow valley, having a grade of 60 feet to the unile. The discharge from the lower lake in Septem- ber was 520 cubic feet per second. This is its minimum flow. From high-water marks along the bank it is estimated that the average max- imum flow is not less than about 3,000 cubic feet per second. The dis- charge of Current Creek at the same date was 325 cubic feet per second. This is also the minimum flow of this stream. From the two streams we have 850 cubic feet per second, as the minimum amount of water that can be diverted for irrigation purposes. -*. The general plan for the canal and its location is about on the follow- ing lines: To build a low diverting dam across the outlet of the lake, take the water out on the west side, and follow down that side through a meadow and cross the stream with a flume. This is done to avoid a mile or more of very heavy rock work if the canal is taken out on the eastern side. After crossing over the river to the east side the line follows down valley about 3% miles; then it turns out of the river valley and follows along the south side of a broad ravine for about 4 miles; then it skirts along the foot of a hill on the south side of a small valley until it reaches a deep depression or ravine, which has cut down into the narrow divide between the St. Marys and Milk rivers; then following up this ravine 14 miles it reaches the summit of the divide. At this point the water -can either be turned down in the North Branch of Milk River or it may be keep up on grade and carried along on the right bank of the North Branch. If turned into the Milk River channel it will cross the boun- dary line into Canada. If it is kept up on grade from the summit it is quite probable that it will get out of the valley of the North Branch and can be turned southeasterly before it reaches the boundary. This question was not fully determined, for lack of time and proper leveling instruments. If the water is allowed to flow down the North Branch it would have to run over 100 miles in Canada before it would again get back into the United States. If it were kept out of the channel on the North Branch and could be taken from that valley into the valley of the South Branch, it could then, without doubt, be kept on the country between the Marias and Milk rivers, and finally be made to serve the lands wholly within the State of Montana. The estimated length of the canal to the divide is 18 miles. It is proposed to reinforce the canal in times of low water in the St. Marys River by turning a part of Swift Current River into the canal at a point just above where it is carried over the river in the flume. If an attempt is made to divert all of the waters of the St. Marys River, the canal should have a carrying capacity of not less than 1,200 cubic feet per second. I am of the opin- ion that it is possible to turn the water into the North Branch of Milk River, but whether it could be carried on beyond that divide can only be determined by a survey. I am also of the opinion that it will require a close survey for the purpose of making an estimate of the enterprise before it can be pronounced a practicable one. - The diversion of so large an amount of water from the St. Marys .* - Jº f * SOME METHODS OF ARTESIAN IRRIGATION. g 107 River would in some seasons of the year exhaust the river at the head works, and for a mile or so below it there would be a constantly run- ning stream passing the boundary line. It will be observed by refer- . ling to a sketch map, Appendix No. 14, and the maps of Montana, that the water supply of the St. Marys lakes and the river South of the boundary line has its origin wholly within the United States; that is, no part of the river in the United States receives water draining off the Canadian soil; and the diversion of this water for beneficial uses in Montana rightfully belongs to that State, especially so long as it is un- appropriated by the Canadians. It is safe to place the average volume of the river at 1,200 cubic feet per second. A fair average value of a cubic foot of water per Second in perpetuity is not less than $1,000 to the land belonging to the farmer. The duty of a cubic foot of water per second will be about 150 acres, therefore we have a capacity to reclaim 180,000 acres of land by the proposed canal. The increased value of the land thus reclaimed would be at a conservative estimate $10 per acre, or amounting to $1,800,000. I think I am safe in saying that sufficient water is in the St. Mary's River, and I am creditably informed that there is plenty of fine irriga- ble land awaiting only the touch of water to make it produce magnifi. cent CropS. ARTESIAN WELLS, IRRIGATION, AND EXPERIMENTAL WORK. At the beginning of the investigations of the artesian-well problems in the summer of 1890, we found the people in the Dakotas generally guite ignorant of the methods irrigation. Some doubted the policy of agitating the question of the necessity for irrigation and the utiliza- tion of the artesian supply, believing it would be a detriment to the future prosperity of the country to have the world know that irrigation was at all necessary for successful farming operations; others believed that artesian water would “kill and not cure,” and there were plenty of instances cited to us of the proof of this. Some thought that a dry and thirsty soil would take in the water to such an extent that the flow from a well would serve only a few acres at best. Others thought the country so level that water could not be made to flow but a short distance; and others believed that the expense of irrigation from artesian wells would be too great for profitable farming. In fact, the people were generally at a standstill, halting for want of definite knowledge of the practica- bility of irrigation and how to utilize the water. At this time there were scores of artesian wells in South Dakota, the water from which was running to waste and flooding the very fields in which crops were drying up for lack of moisture. It was this condition of affairs that led to the suggestion that a few weeks could be profitably devoted to devising and directing some experimental irrigation work in the Da- kotas. - The plan at first was te establish two or three experimental stations. at accessible points where artesian water could be had, on a farm where the owner would do all the necessary work of constructing reservoirs and ditches, and also to carry on the farming and irrigation operations under our directions, but this plan had to be changed somewhat on ac- count of the lateness of the season when the order was finally given to proceed. The services of Mr. B. S. La Grange, a practical irrigator of 108 – * IRRIGATION. twenty years' experience in Colorado, were secured. He reached South Dakota about the 10th of May last. At that time seeding was nearly OWOr. * - On account of the copious rains that had already fallen the ground Was in better condition than it had been for several years, and the - general opinion was that irrigation would be unnecessary. The great- est fear was that the hot dry winds that had occurred in previous years during the months of June and July might shorten the crop, but on the Whole there was a general feeling of hope in the feeling of security which the fewerable spring weather promiscs, go that many who the fall before had partially planned to make a trial of irrigation were in- duced by the favorable outlook to postpone it on account of the cost of the necessary appliances, and also on account of the uncertainty of the practical outcome of the experiment. The result was that com- paratively few attempts were made this season to farm by irrigationi. The most prominent attempts of this kind were made in Brown, Spink, and Beadle counties in South Dakota, where a half a dozen wells had been put down during the fall and spring especially for irri- gation purposes. The water furnished by these wells was used during the fall and winter for wetting the land in the nighborhood of the wells, which was done without taking much pains with its distribution. Consequently much of the land was excessively irrigated, there being instances where some of the land was covered with ice 3 feet thick, While in the same neighborhood some of it was not wet at all. Mr. La Grange was instructed to visit three or four farms where the Owners were intending to utilize the waters of their artesian wells dur- ing the summer for farming purposes and to select from these two places where the plan of the distribution of water and its applica- tion to growing crops could be made object lessons in irrigation for the benefit of the public. One selection was made in Beadle County, 8 miles north of Huron; the other in Brown County, 14 miles east of Aberdeen. Both of these farms are supplied by wells having a flow of about a cubic foot per second, or 450 gallons per minute. The flow be- ing so small it was found to be impossible to make much progress in flowing the water over the land, besides it being a great waste of water which could not be prevented in attempting to flood it with so small a head of water. To overcome this difficulty storage reservoirs were built at both of . these places, one having a holding capacity of 35 acre feet, the other 15 acre feet. These reservoirs were in every respect a success. The well and farm at the station 8 miles north of Huron is managed by Mr. R. O. Richards, who employed an experienced irrigator as one of his farm hands, and by the aid of his experience and the direction and advice of Mr. La Grange is able to irrigate 300 acres in a very cred- itable manner. Had the storage reservoir been built at the time the well was completed (last fall) at least 400 acres additional could have been irrigated. The experiments on the Richards farm have demon- strated that the amount of land that can be irrigated in the Dakotas with so small a flow of water, by the aid of storage reservoirs, has greatly exceeded our first estimates. The irrigation done during the fall and winter on this farm, as well as on the one at Aberdeen, proves that it is entirely practicable to irrigate in the fall and winter season. On account of the peculiarity of the Dakota soil it retains the moisture that is applied in fall and winter, so that one light irrigation at the proper time during the summer will suffice to carry the crop through in good condition to maturity. $ºr - * INCREASE OF VALUE AND PRODUCTION. 109 The storage of the constant flow from an artesian well enables the irrigator to utilize the accumulated water in large quantities for a few hours, this being a great saving in time, as Well as greatly increasing the duty of water. As -- Mr. Richards estimates that his land, including well, reservoir, ditches, etc., cost $15 per acre; also that every acre of thoroughly irri- gated wheat, if sold at 75 cents per bushel, yielded an income this year of $30 per acre, or double the original cost of the land and improve- mentS. - The following is his report of the method of irrigation, kind of crops raised, etc.: * The irrigated wheat was planted on old land, which had been plowed in the fall of 1890 to a depth of 6 inches. This land was flooded during the months of November and December, 1890, and January, 1891, and was partly irrigated in the first part of June, 1891, as nearly as the capacity of the well would allow, the reservoir not being constructed in time to do thorough work. The seed was Scotch Fife, sowed broad- cast 1+ bushels to the acre, early in April. It was cut with binder the last of July. The best irrigated wheat measured (cut, stacked, and thrashed before witnesses) 53 bushels and 20 pounds to the acre of hard wheat. While the average yield of full fields can not be determined definitely, owing to its being cut and stacked together with spots not irrigated in the same field, the average yield of the whole tract would, however, exceed the nonirrigated in that locality by from 15 to 25 bushels to the a. CT63. - The oats land was plowed in the fall of 1890 6 inches deep. Sowed broadcast May 1 at the rate of 2 bushels per acre of the white Russian variety. The straw was of unusual length, some parts of the field averaging nearly 6 feet. The land was flooded during the preceding winter, and no irrigating was done during the growing season. Average yield was 80 bushels, while a few acres yielded 100 and more. * Work in barley was same as in oats. Sown 13 bushels to the acre. Yield, 55 bush- els to the acre. Land not irrigated during growing season, but flooded during pre- ceding winter. Millet was sown broadcast one-half bushel to the acre latter part of July. Wa- riety, broom-corn millet. Yield of hay, 8 tons to the acre. Yellow Dent corn was planted on ground plowed May 1 and planted immediately thereafter. Land was wheat stubble. Partly irrigated the first of July, and it yielded 40 bushels of good sound corn to the acre. The frost the latter part of Au- gust injured a part of the field where it was not irrigated and ground was dry, but where it was moist it did no perceptible harm. Irrigated flax was sown on breaking about May 15 at the rate of three pecks to the acre. Land was not flooded in the winter, but was irrigated once during the latter part of June, and yielded from 16 to 20 bushels to the acre, according to location and treatment, while unirrigated flax in the same fields sown June 10 yielded but from 2 to 4 bushels to the acre. The potatoes have not been harvested, but the hills run from eight to twelve or more good big potatoes to the hill, promising an immense yield. They were planted the first of June, cultivated like corn, and irrigated but once, the latter part of June. One acre of alfalfa was sown on same land with wheat, and since cutting the wheat and irrigating the land the alfalfa is making a fine showing, experienced irrigation farmers declaring that alfalfa growing under irrigation will be a success. The other experimental farm where Mr. La Grange devoted consider- able time in planning distributing ditches and superintended the irri- gation is owned by Mr. H. C. Beard, of Aberdeen. The well on this place was completed in the fall of 1890, and considerable land was irri- gated that fall and winter. The crops on this farm were put in very late. Some of the land was so excessively irrigated, it was not until the middle of May that it became dry enough to plow, and the season being so far advanced a large part of the crop was put in without plow- ing the land. The wheat was sown on ground that had not been plowed for two years and the only cultivation it had was by a disk harrow run over once to cover the seed. The land.that was so heavily irrigated in the winter and put into crop in this crude way made a very good crop without any other irrigation, 110 - - IRRIGATION. º – - - - - ~ - - • * - - ** - * T while that in the immediate vicinity that was not wet in the winter or irrigated at all during the summer was not worth the cutting. A storage reservoir holding 15 acre-feet was built to hold the flow of this well which admirably served the purpose alld made it possible to at least double the effective value of the well. No detailed reports of the yield of the crops on this farm have been received, as the grain wa Lot threshed at the time of latest advice. - Mr. Beard estimates at the time the crops were harvested that the in- creased yield of the grain that was pi operly put in and irrigated would be 20 bushels per acre for wheat. He ful iiier estimates the value of the increased yield due to the irrigation will be sufficient this year to !. the cost of the reservoir, ditches, and half of the expense of the well. In addition to the time Mr. La Grange devoted to planning and giv- ing instructions in irrigation at these two stations he visited other lo- calities both in North and South Dakota where other farmers were mak- ing their first attempts at farming by irrigation, and giving them coun- sel and advice, which is estimated to be of great value. Since the close of the field work, letters of inquiry have been sent to those who have been experimenting or have been farming by irrigation during the past season. Without exception the replies all show large increased yields over nonirrigated crops, even this season, which has been (with the exception of two or three counties in South Dakota) one of the best years known in the Dakotas. - Mr. J. W. Barker, near Mellette, South Dakota, utilized a part of the water from his well this year. He says: Experience is the thing we need most now. Not knowing anything about irriga- tion it was an experimental season with me. I threshed none of my irrigated grain separately, but as nearly as I can estimate I will have about 600 bushels ablead of what I would have had without irrigation.” Mr. J. P. Day, of Mellette, president of the board of trustees, South Dakota Agricultural College, writes, November 26, 1891: My report for the season of 1891 must be very meager, as my well was not finished till the 20th of April last. There was no time to wet the soil before the seed was sown. Owing to the widespread belief that to flood the land before the seed made some growth would be to bake the soil and prevent its ever coming up, the land was not irrigated till the crop had attained a desired growth, which, owing to the prevail- ing drought. was not fill June. JExperience has taught me that I can irrigate with artesian water whenever the crops want it. The crops that were irrigated even at that late date (and received but one wetting) yielded immensely as compared with those not irrigated. Wheat made 24} bushels one variety and 294 bushels another variety to the acre, while that not irrigated and in the same soil, only separated by a public road, made but six bushels per acre. There was even a greater difference in barley and flax, while millet, vegetables, º: especially an acre of young forest and fruit trees made a most satisfactory Síl OW 11] Qº. I sowed 10 acres of winter wheat in October last and flooded it as soon as sown and saw no injurious effects, though a month's late so wing; it promises well, came up strong, and grew well till freezing weather. The experience of the last four or five years goes to show that farming without ir- rigation, in our part of the State especially, is too unreliable to be followed up, and if the best soil in the world is to be made valuable and yield up its treasures to bless the husbandman and feed the hungry it will be necessary to have at command a supply of water to feed plant life just as it is wanted. I am satisfied that we have never, had, one year with another, sufficient rainfall to bring out the full possibilities of this splendid soil, and, when a general system of irrigation is adopted and large farms are divided up as they must be, the irrigated regions will enter upon an era of prosperity that can never be attained by those parts of the country that are subject to alternate drought or destructive flood. iº * Eighty acres in wheat. ExPERIENCES OF A MARKET GARDENER. 111. I am in hopes that I will be able to make a good strong showing next year, as preparation and experience will both be prime factors in its operations. - Mr. J. M. Miles, of Redfield, S. Dak., makes the following statement to The Dakota Farmer concerning his experience in gardening by irri- gation: I am running a market garden in the suburbs of Redfield. My place has been used as a garden ten years. All the crops used to be magnificent, but they gradually failed, owing to drought, till in 1888 and 1889 they were almost a total failure. Everything seemed to suffer, especially the crops that matured late in the season. Cabbages did not head at all or made only little dried-up heads. The worms and lice nearly devoured them. - Onions grew about as well as anything, but made a very poor yield. Tomato vines grew small and sickly looking, with a few little, half-dried tomatoes, and four-fifths of them had a black rotten spot on them which gradually destroyed the whole fruit before it was ripe. Cucumbers and squashes did not mature any desirable fruit and but little of any kind. The squashes fell off the vines when only an inch or two in diameter. Noth- ing in the garden was of either good quality or yield. It did not require remarkable business foresight to see that such farming would not pay. I figured with windmill companies on the cost of mills and pumps to raise water, as I had the creek nearly around my place and had only to raise the water about 30 feet to the highest point of y land, and then figured the expense of laying a pipe from the artesian well in this city. I had to carry the water 3,180 feet. I found I could put down an inch pipe for albout the same sum I could put up a mill, tank, and pump, and the pipe would flow summer and winter, wind or no wind, and the water would always be warm. My pipe flows 720 barrels a day; this seems like an enormous amount of water, but it is not enough to thoroughly irrigate over five acres, if it will so much. I got the pipe down about the middle of May, 1890. I knew nothing of irrigation. I first tried flooding the land by storing up a head ditch full and letting it out with a rush. My crop was all sowed and most of it up. I soon abandoned flooding, as I found that where the water stood for any length of time, and the ground was not covered with foliage of the crop it baked a crust around the plants or over the seed, and more harm than good was done. Then I tried sprinkling the ground after the sun was low or early in the morning. This was not practical. I then tried running the water along the rows a few inches from the plants. This seemed to be about the most feasible and I followed it up and have ever since. I run the water down little furrows made with a hoe and set all my plants in the furrows, then run the water down on them a few minutes every day for a few days, and then fill up the ditch and make one a few inches away. Then irrigate as I think they need it. In this way I trans- plant all kinds of plants in the hottest weather and all day and never lose any to amount to anything. I tried to cover too much ground at first, but found I must save some of my crop and let the rest take its chances. I confined my efforts to tomatoes, cucumbers, squashes, and cabbages. 1 set my tomato plants 4 feet apart each way and several weeks before frost there was not a foot of the ground that was not covered. The vines underneath were loaded with a great smooth fruit, many tomatoes weighing over a pound apiece. Not one in a hundred had a lolemish where the water hit them as it should. There were in the field some little ridges and knolls that I could not reach without more work than I had time to give them, and they got little or no good of the water. On every one of these places the vines and fruit were exactly like those of the previous two years. Cu- cumber vines irrigated kept me busy every day picking nice fruit, while some not reached gave a few wilted cucumbers and then turned yellow and died. The first squashes all fell off, as I did not think they needed the water and was using it else- where. When I saw how they did I turned the water on them and then every one stayed on and grew till frost killed them, but were too late to mature. I let the cab- bages go till the tomatoes and vines were killed by frost and then gave them atten- tion. This did not give them a good chance, as they had needed water for some time, and though still alive they had not grown as they should have done. They began immediately to grow and made big heads, but not as ripe as they should have been. In this field, too, there were some little places not reached by the water. There the cabbages either were devoured by lice and worms or dried up, and failed to make any heads at all. When the frost struck my vines I had the water running on just as many rows as possible, and every row so watered did not freeze or but very little, and kept on bearing for nearly three weeks more. Those that were dry were killed the 30th day of August. This year's experience is only a repetition of lastyear's, except that I began earlier to irrigate, or rather kept it up all winter, and could reach more ground than last year. I had a good share of my land covered with ice from a foot to 3 feet deep. All land covered in this way gets along with - $ _ > Jr. y * * - = 112 - IRRIGATION. - . . . much less water than the rest. Fruit, currants, gooseberries, raspberries, cherries, plums, and apples have done finely this year and never did before. > At first I was afraid of the artesian water, as I had heard so much about its makin “gumbo,” baking the ground, killing things, etc. But I have used it on every kind of garden crop, and my wife has used it freely and continually on all kinds of house plants, and with only the best of results. It may be possible to get the ground too , wet, but I think I have not been able to do so, as the ground having the most water has given the best results every time. I had so little water I could not experiment for the sake of seeing what I could do, but so far as I have tried it. I am satisfied that irrigation in a sensible, practical way, with plenty of water, is far ahead of the most favorable rains. I don’t know as my way is best or even as good as some other way, but it is way, way ahead of seeing a crop fail. Mr. Miles states that he sold 500 bushels of tomatoes raised on 1 acre of ground by irrigation. None of the tomatoes were sold for less than $1 per bushel. They were pronounced superior to any ever seen in the Dakotas, native or imported. Mr. Miles uses this small flow of water direct from the pipe. With a reservoir holding a two or three days' supply, he would undoubtedly be able to double the area irrigated and could handle the Water much more satisfactorily. TABULATION OF ARTESIAN WELLS DATA, The report of Mr. B. S. La Grange is submitted. In it he gives some practical and Valuable suggestions concerning methods of irrigation in the Dakotas and makes com- parison of some of the irrigation problems in that country with those in Colorado. GREELEY, COLO., December—, 1891. SIR : Receiving a commission on May 7 from the Department of Agriculture as irri. gation expert, I immediately started for the points designated in the Dakotas. Dur- ing the time I was in South Dakota I visited the principal points where artesian wells were located, among others, Huron, Aberdeen, Redfield, Mellette, Woonsocket, Ellendale, and Mandan, and showed those interested how they could take advantage of the artesian supply for irrigation to the advantage of themselves and of the com- monwealth. At several places I assisted in establishing object lessions showing practically the possibilities of irrigation and the increased value and products arising therefrom. The country, though undulating, as a whole is very level, with a fall of only 2 inches per mile, so that the method of carrying water in ditches for any great dis- tance, as in Colorado and other Western States, is not applicable. But with the sup- ply furnished by artesian wells it is not necessary to carry the water any great dis- tance, and there is no difficulty in obtaining sufficient head, even on level ground, to carry water to any point desired. While the principles to be followed in irrigation are necessarily the same as in any country where irrigation is practiced, the character of the supply and the configura- tion of the country necessarily lead to a different system of distribution. Where water is obtained from the mountain streams, as in Colorado, the supply is variable. The streams are high only for a few months in the spring and early summer; conse- 'quently the supply is limited in the latter part of the summer, and the farmer is to some extent limited in his choice of crops to those which mature early in the season. With the artesian wells, on the contrary, the flow is constant throughout the year. Hence, to fully utilize all the water it is necessary to consider such ways as will make it possible to use the water throughout as much of the year as possible, and to save it when not being used. * A3 In Colorado the flow of a cubic foot per second throughout the irrigating season is sufficient for about 100 acres. But with the constant flow from the artesian well the duty of water in experienced hands will be much greater—it is safe to say 200 acres per second foot. The method which I wonld use, were I farming in Dakota, would be to put the well and a reservoir on the highest elevation of the farm wherever practicable. This reser- voir should be of a size sufficient to hold the discharge of the well for from three days to two weeks, according to circumstances. This could be made when work was not ressing, without hiring other labor than that already on the farm, and the cash out- ay would be inconsiderable. In order to lay out the system of ditches, especially if THE REPORT OF EXPERT LA GRANGE. 113 the ground does not have a uniform slope, it would be best to have a careful map made showing the elevations, and establish the system of ditches according to the circumstances. Several main ditches should be run from the reservoir, each one hav- ing a gate in the reservoir embankment , which could be closed when desired. The ditches leading from the reservoir should not be excavated, but built on top of the ground by throwing up embankments on either side, Say 2 or 3 feet high. Some structures might be necessary in the ditch to check the water at any desired point and force it out of the lateral outlets. These outlets should be made permanent by making a small wooden gate, or an opening could be made in the bank at any point desired, and closed when desired. By these means, and by raising the water in the reservoir above the ditch and closing the check, sufficient head can be obtained to carry the water wherever desired. The lateral ditches which would be made by the double mold board plow would be temporary. Small checks or dams could be made in these, as necessary, by throwing up the soil from the bottom of the ditch itself. In general, these should be not more than 20 rods apart. As an illustration of the methods thought applicable to Dakota I will mention one case, that on the farm of Mr. Beard, near Aberdeen, when a reservoir was built on ground somewhat higher than the well, covering about 3 acres, with 5 feet depth of water. The casing of the well was extended high enough so that by constructing a flume the water ran into the reservoir by its own gravity. The reservoir holds about five days' flow of the well. From the reservoir three main ditches lead the water, following the slope of the country. From these, laterals are taken out whenever it is necessary for a general distribution of the water. By the aid of the reservoir and the system of distribution the accumulated flow of the well for days can be used to serve more land with less labor than by attempting to irrigate with the water flowing directly from the well. This is a fairly typical example of what can be done in the James River Valley. There was no difficulty found in distributing the water which was not successfully overcome, so that with similar methods there is no more difficulty in irrigating that country than the plains of Colorado. - Having a continuous flow of water, the crops need not be confined to those which mature before the drought of summer. There should be a diversified agriculture, and crops should be selected which will need water at different periods. The water can then aid directly the growing crops throughout a greater portion of the season and thereby reach the highest duty. But the use of the water need not be confined only to the growing season. Just as soon as the crops are out of the way irrigation and the plow should be started and kept up until frost stops operations. Even then, watering may be carried on by run- ning the water on the ground, and stopping it when the ice has reached a thickness of from 6 to 12 inches. By these methods a large amount of land would become soaked up, and in most cases would have sufficient moisture to grow a crop of cereals with- out further irrigation. In all irrigation much judgment and experience are called for, as well in knowing when to stop irrigation as when to begin. One of the secrets in this, as in growing live stock, is not to allow the crop to stop growing, but to apply the irrigation before it has reached the point where growth has stopped for the lack of moist- ure, for the crop very rarely recovers from such a stunting. Each irrigation when made should be thorough, and will be found to require more water than the inexperi- enced irrigator would suppose. In the climate and soil of Dakota one irrigation will generally be sufficient for the cereals. By the use of the reservoir irrigation can be carried on in the daytime only, during which time the best service can be obtained because of the better opportunity for knowing how operations are progressing. Dur- ing the rainy weather, or when the crops do not require watering, the flow of the well may be stored until it is needed. In many respects the irrigation from artesian wells has advantages over our sys- tem of taking water from the mountain streams, and is even cheaper. The water is practically constant in flow, so far as we yet know. In Colorado the cost to bring water to one's land varies from $3 to $15 per acre. In Dakota the constant flow will allow each cubic foot per second to supply 200 acres under good management. If a well flowing 6 cubic feet per second can be put down for $2,500, the cost per acre is less than it is with us, where we bring our water from the stream in ditches. From what I have seen of the conditions of Dakota, I am firmly convinced that its possibilities of irrigation are great, provided the Commonwealth by a wise system of laws fully conserves its wonderful supply and assumes sufficient control to be as- sured that the public interest is not thrown away by private individuals. The dam- age which may occur through carelessneas in sinking wells, in imperfect casing, in poor locations, in multiplying wells in a district after there are indications that the ca- S. Ex. 41, pt. 2 8 114 . IRRIGATION. pacity of that district has been reached, is irreparable, and must be controlled by - the State by the wisest legislation if it does not wish to see the loss of the vast pos- sibilities of wealth in the artesian stratum beneath their feet. - Respectfully, --> B. S. LA GRANGE, Irrigation Ezpert. E. S. NETTLETON, Chief Engineer, U. S. Department of Agriculture. ARTESIAN-WELLS LEGISLATION. The people of South Dakota have generally become convinced within the last twelve months of the great benefits to be derived from irriga- tion, and of the practicability of u'ilizing the water from artesian Wells for irrigation purposes. Last winter a law was enacted which enables the people of a township to bond themselves for the expense of putting down artesian wells. This law provides that water found in the arte- sian basin shall be the property of the public and dedicated to the peo- ple of the State, subject to appropriation. It provides that when 30 or more persons in a township owning at least 80 acres of land desire to bond themselves for putting down artesian wells, they may notify the State engineer to locate such wells, which shall not exceed nine 6-inch wells, or sixteen 43-inch wells in any township. It provides also that the State engineer shall, within twenty days from the date of said request, locate the desired number of wells and file his report with the register of deeds of the county, who is required to notify the chairman of the board of supervisors of the township, The chairman is required within five days after receiving the notice to call an election for the purpose of voting on the question of sinking the proposed wells. The elections are to be conducted and votes canvassed in the same manner as in all township elections. It provides that the board of supervisors shall, within three days after it shall be found that a majority favor bonding the township, ad- vertise for bids for sinking said proposed wells or any of them. If the contract with the party who bids is accepted it requires him to begin work within ten days and prosecute it continuously until the well is completed. The State engineer is required to examine the well after its completion, and if he finds the contract has been complied with he shall file his report and acceptance with the township supervisors, who Shall attest to the same. - When bonds are issued they are a lien on the property in the town- ship, and in case the township officers refuse or neglect to perform their duties, and a default is made in payment of principal or interest, the holder of the indebtedness may apply to the circuit court of the county, which shall enforce the payment. Those desiring to use water for irrigation shall apply to the super- visors, stating the number of acres to be irrigated, and shall bid for the use of water, an acre foot being the unit. But the users of water shall not be required to pay exceeding 7 per cent pro rata of the amount of the bonds for sinking the well. The townships have a lien upon all the land served by the water for all unpaid rentals. The township treasurer collects the water rents and pays the same over to the county treasurer, who places it to the fund out of which to pay the interest on the bonds. In case the water rent- als are not sufficient to meet the interest the township officers are required to levy and collect a tax sufficient to cover the deficiency, but such tax must not in any one year exceed 3 per cent of the taxable property of the township. & ARTESLAN WATER LAWS AND CLIMATIC CONDITIONS. 115 Townships may put down artesian wells for public use, such as for filling lake beds, streams, and artificial reservoirs, providing that such wells, in the opinion of the State engineer, do not interfere with the flow of the other wells for domestic and irrigation purposes. The better right to the use of artesian water is: First. For domestic use, and the watering of trees, grass, shrubbery, etc., about the house, not exceeding one-half acre in extent. Second. For irrigation and manufacturing, providing the use of it for manufacturing purposes does not diminish the flow or interfere with the flow of water for irrigation purposes. The chairman of the board of supervisors has the care and supervi- sion of the wells, and for such service is entitled to $50 per year. Any person, or corporation, owning land may hereafter sink wells upon their own lands, and use the water for beneficial purposes, pro- viding the use of such water does not interfere or diminish the flow from adjoining wells. Under this law twenty-seven townships have made application to the State engineer for the location of artesian wells, and one hundred and fifteen wells have been located. Out of this number twenty-one town- ships have voted to bond themselves, and two have placed their bonds, and on October 1 sixteen wells have been sunk, or have been contracted for. CLIMATIC CONDITIONS OF THE GREAT PLAINS. From information gathered from the weather service records, from the people in the central and eastern parts of the Dakotas, and from those between the ninety-seventh meridian and one hundred and first in western Nebraska and Kansas, it appears that there is usually rain. fall sufficient in the whole year, if it were properly distributed through- out the cropping season, to make agriculture quite certain without the aid of irrigation. During the last few years there seems to have been a slight falling off of the average amount of rainfall in June and July, which, with the hot southerly winds that frequently occur during these months, have made it necessary to bridge over a short interval by sub- stituting irrigation wherever it is possible. It is the general opinion of the people in this belt of country that the hot and dry winds had more to do with the shortage and loss of crops in the season of 1890 than the lack of rainfall. Farther west the failure of crops seems to be due more to a scanty rainfall throughout the whole year. There are evidences which have come to our knowledge, both from statements of old settlers and from study of the climatic conditions, that must have existed before the settlement of the country, which lead to the belief that there is a recurrence of wet and dry periods which have extended over the country under consideration. We have not been able to fix the probable return of these periods, but they seem to follow each other quite regularly, with intervals of 11 to 14 years. That the past few droughty years were not the dryest that were ever known is proved by the fact that in some of the small lakes on the plains, which were dried up during 1890, old buffalo trails are found in the bottom of these then dry lakes, leading to the very lowest point where water could be obtained. The drying up of other lakes that year shows small dead trees and brush that were once growing in what ––3. - * 116 º . - -- * IRRIGATION. º º ~ * and low water in thousands of lakes in this country marks the occur- rence of both wetter and dryer periods than have existed within the - *'', - ...'. has been a lake for many years. The distinct traces of stages of high. - 34 – † * * past few years. Many of these beach lines are below the present sur- - face of these lakes, but the majority of them are above, and the con- clusions to be drawn from these indications are that the few past years mark the average end of the cycle of dry years. It has been the observation of these people who have lived in the country for some time that the rain does not fall in such torrents as formerly; also that dews ou the grass in the liloruing are seen more frequently than ten or fifteen years ago. New springs of water are showing in many place, and some of the old ones are increasing in their Volume; in fact there are many signs which indicate that the climate is undergoing a gradual change, and that the country is being better fitted for the occupation of man; but the great drawback is the liability of a return of the cycles of dry seasons, when a few weeks during the crop- ping season must be bridged over by irrigation, or be followed by a failure of crops more or less disastrous. It is also observed that the prairie grasses found in the more humid sections of the Great Plains are gradually occupying the country to the west, which was formerly covered by gramma and buffalo grasses. The latter named grasses seem to occupy and mark the country, which is at present doubtful to occupy for agricultural purposes without the substitution of irrigation. On our trip along the hundredth meridian through the State of Kansas we found the gramma and buffalo grasses occupying nearly the whole country, with here and there little patches of the central Kansas grasses growing. These have come within the last few years. Judging from the past history of the westward movement of the limit where agriculture can be safely carried on, on the great western plains in Kansas and Nebraska, we can safely anticipate that with the occupation and tillage of the country along its front, the line will slowly advance, but slower as it moves westward to higher altitudes and to- Ward a country that will always require irrigation. C * ==== --ms - |- º ar: *r = - *isºry ºr * *-* = −- - - = ; \ Srđaac fºrt **----~" I *re------ C H E R * = ** L_*:::= K M B X - L. f * k-----~~ & *; ºr .25 ¢. Tººrºo &es T H Q M A Sºg | ºrexexº~ Zazº, it ºf A.A. *...to 7 M & P H E fl S O N ------T—-- i ſº º - tº |-zº •+ -. rº S E D G W c K ~~ N : gºr" *;2 |- O N -------------- $3. f H. Srtzia, ...” Fº Jº - Philºšš P E R K N S º w: 3: A ºr iºrawe E. L. P 2. "Aſokºrº ..º TJ U N D & 5, wrizº” . -ºšć (; tºyº | S K EA Y I *%a. N! FRAN K LIN paºtºgfort *::::::::# --- O R TºG N 2-rº S.H. EºP A N *R*y Argº Aſsasſićery G - º “º sº R A A M Appendix No.I to the - £irport of the CHIEF ENGINEER ARTEstan and Underflow investigation ºbvited 5tates ijepartment of Agriculture, SKETCH MAP showing Locatio N \Anderſior Lines. *#H#m-e- Üec. 3ſ. IBJJ 344 * j Sº- -º-, - º ºs- nº | -- \\ | 't J-SO-~ NS-S - jºr gº ~, s &o ==º $º: O 6 A N fyºro ºr & 3- * ** 3. 7: c º es &º Røsº N G V E. ; Yºº > W A L L. A C E. 5: rº S vºw. * R U t S H away rº N. E. E. 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S | i ~P-S {} Sºrºs : # * *** fºr ºf † | --~~~~ ~3°, - | \ §§ | § § N >~ *. - f &A*3. Appendix No, IV . ! ; l - / 18 i 6 2 CŞ 42 # 13 ºf 13 #7 1é * & f4 13 & 18 =#=}==S 17 /6 /3' J4. /3 #|s '8 I to th £3. 13 ; f 8 p 7 16 /3 ! 4 (3 | 8 '? ..., | 6 JJ 4. fº | §§ ** º §§ § {} —dº- o I he eport of the i ~~~ * | tº | / § | y / : § /This & lºc ſ ç” 33 . A - # CHIEF ENGINEER fiº } –– § | 27 s/S 7 º ; N-- | } ARTEstan an ! ) | y / are UNDERFLovy investigation .” - 2 2. 23 24 AS 2d N 24 - # - * * †. illnited 5tates jepartment of Agriculture. “ 2^ N _^\ āl; & * * + ºx sº *> .* * PLA T & PROFILE g * = |* * Ši; Kir vola |- &º 3H, sº *—º | * - th -_ _ Wrenchman lime. £1. 2é 2.3" swººſ. 2 S .2 8 2.7 26 2.3" : & sº 2.9 *ś § # *. * - ‘y * • L.- : Horizontul Scale of See? sº *e ~, 3 o 29 - ſº i ſº . I | i I. f i- -º- * . —l * iſ . : : 3. § W º --> ºr cº $ § ſº s & º § I \º * \ sº i.e.”Tºg cºast | * ** frtº ity * | ye & Dº &c. 12 º | *s-- - I 1– ->~ \ & ! * 36 | vºy J2 , Jº J 4. Jºsſ 96 Jº 3.2 wrº- - | sº Jºž vé 1 - -. -* imº-º-º-º: iºn- ºr tº: a ºf J.2 ...g. *:::::: .d. . . . . . . * * * * . º-º - - * * * * * * * * * . . . . . - -, + . . . . - - * : *- : “ . . . . - r * * * * * * * * * * - G-: -" - º º - ºf-tº a " - --F-ºr d --" cº- * F- * * - S Ex...4/... .52 i Appendix No.V. to the £eport of the Cºry ÉNGINEER ARTEsian and UN otRFLovy l Nvestigation *(nited 5tates 3}epartment of Agriculture. PLAT * PROFILE Yāg Spring lime. #º 37 o o 37 o a * $ * *E. § { -3-ºw § - & J. * 3 S 3 i. &b so & r 1. ** & #5 ºt. N: *Jº * @ §§ *4. “S • £wavs. § º > º § $ S$ Šs Šs iſºry S. ; $ots. 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Tºm º ºr mºm; ºr sº Crºgºbiº . f -. fºr, & Š & | \o *. § 2 3 “S *S *º * fº. s s: I > \o *... s Sº $3. & s sº : '' s \ l * * * i *} º = | § * g rºy ** s \ st ro º % * H + | i º R. 24 YN. ~ $ s * § t ** { § 2.É. * *: *. {\ .N. wº * : §: rººf ==º-º-º-º-º-º: ===-5:33:--------------------4---------------------→--4-----------4-------------------------------- +========+=== --T--------T--7--------------T-FF:--T---------------T-------------------------- ----------> F===Tºmºrº Eºſ-mºrº-mº-mºrrºr -º- --ºr-nº d * * | 4–4–4–4–h4!!- 33. * ^ •Y * § T-I-5 ºw . : FEx-T l wº * J[...] [T][]{}}[] §§ *A H#H | $|T][T][I][T][THEI) flº § DJE. *} **} ” *- *y Ç ! .. – ~s. |-l I \ - - - - [T][. R. 16 *— º 5 : *. tº * $ Iſºſºlſ.IIIſ. º \ #ovº Leº V R.?? ſw. + * H -ir-ir-ir-ir-Iſrſ. H---— º * * ...! º \t, \ jº. t § s sº * 3 Oooga Carr i "# e. Š--~ S. § ^: *Y º & §§ ** *. * Y \ N. & Sº § * Appendix No.XI § f $ § * * \ *..., º - \, | / # ić § §§ § \ * to the rport a; the tº: .. +. * . ..., 1––1 ^) | Q * ... --" \ ſ fº. 2 & vºw. - # , ºr - = Hºmº mº ITV.T * F. CHIEF ENGINEER ; I § \ rºw. . 3. | s 3 ty R § 3; º, S $. W t; ARTESIAN AND UNDERFLovv INvestigation ; : n ; *} fy \ & § * ‘p § 3 ; Y - ! * º - - * +3 *ſº ! H \ & 4nited 5tates ſepartment of Agriculture. : | \ & SºN 3. : \ A V * mº º PLAT S& PROFI LE § tº º © ºf & \ 9. i. ,-i, [.. fº * © * 3: * o * N \ S. ro ^d * *: ; ** | + 4 §§ 49 # ſº }= O Eo j/-/55/ Horizontal Scalº 3.5 Fºrk $º / $ § • ; ; ; ; § / º & * * * th. *}. & & Nº. º *; ; 'o *} *. * / * * Pº, º / N * * § $ “ / & 1––––. 3 A$ TS * / S | • lº Sº Ç © - sº-" -- - - - - - mº ** * * *-**=-- **** u,..., - T-I FT-Tº * * * ---T Appendix No. XIII 2- to the £irport orth. Cºngº ENGINEER ARTssian also UNDERFLow INVESTIGATION / +axited giates Jepartment of Agriculture. · xº x43 aC;% 2&cg 2 #42 2:30& 3.22e 23 fºa wo &zavŕ2a§ _{ſ-ſº， º ſiſ ;： 2-Ra 2.dºc verºzºwa^ſ（-y 2.3ad | % 22co 2 fººd ;： autossºſ! % % !· 2.66 a Spºt * №rwa 2.3"º -ºff 28- º trwy Aw � ~ | {{！-}} *+ $wg a*x*yvav! | vºaei， savarvºŽ } | -×oadſøºffſ 2éee 2.220 yzaaeg ºvº awo yogº *-- * © rrr}} Øſø7, ·xº ºvog // * ： | 4 | º º } | 2éne 2-fºo 22dd PROFILE lăne. OA" JNoxiomèqrometric Dec 34-1894. ،o poq_ffff;& } % ‘ą883 ſo eſbos （byłaðA ș• ? $ $ $ $x Trw º ºy rrrºw ºzº， szºrowº-ºły ſºrry， ſºº? ſaev， páry sººrtwººrz §xºrºwº ºwº $ž??ſay-ºop $ºrrow）^øy sºftwaes T;57777755 S???）vlae wzºrºv øº 7，7，7，7 2Ze sºſ：732T == Sºrry， sº?? ） yaz fºtº sº?? ſay «ºf» 2 Ada 5777， ae | | † | } S fº Șrº， ºſº s Šs } szºrºw -ºſº $777Z7I?? fºrfaer_ſºſ $wrºgwe ， 2 #so saeſ? № J Horizontal Scale ºf miles. sºrra w oſº， } 8 *ų. **** SEx 4×2.52 1 —-º- Appendix No.XIV to the #rport of the N CHIEF ENGINEER ARTEs AN AND UNDERFLow I Nvestigation 1|Inited 5tates 3Department of 3-griculture. — Shºe TCP/ MAP Q at tº Southeastern New Mexico. .....,n. $ & s Dax, º/-/68/. i : *a*a 4.4.4:1. º ºf Sr a ré o a R p | g •’ % º f # 32. •, fº -—º * 14 Loavoſ Tºyof Wººf /* */ºrawa Gºver/ r- - r - pop º - B R T 1 s H ~f~~ AME aſ CA c. * --— t NY S larzrraroa’at 80%." ~ * * —º- & e- as a mºnº 4- --------T º º gº • = ** gº ºsmº uº wºmº º • tre *s,. / { lé º , “’ • * "..., as ~ *4, g : NMoaſraaſa * * > 7. *P* tº "", ...”. ºlº. t , , ºf **, S& ...svvery \,, * ..,'"'z, '', ºr ... N gº * § * *s, *: à :t* : *. . : %- *. -\. sº . #: T- ***e º Rywº WITU- & *. ºnceryWºrſ * **, ... • --" gº "errºr”, ee-a- º Appendix No.XV } %, to the £keport of the º, º CHIEF ENGINEER & * * ARTEstan are UNDERFLovv INvest to ATI on `ss, uſnited $tates Jepartment of Agricultuxe. ShºrCH MAF Yoriheraºuiana sº `-s § § # * aſ Larrrver 1 Y- ~~~~ | SHONN \ NG - Tuocqīom as Sīlūary's uakes. - Seale of miles DEC. 3/- /& /. , a gº a 2 o * @ 20 *— 4. C. 8 Ex.44/. 52 1 15 ! 4 ： « .. **°，a,c, ſ • • • ,* • •"ºsumus. , , , * »）,'Jy S Ex.4/.......52 1 • • •�• • • • • • • • . , º • 4,º ºiii...'，'','|}'，* • • •‘‘… • • • • • • •,,,* • • „“ºº • • • •|0ș • • • • •''ı . ı • • • •�ºº， w,�’‘, * • • .^^^^••• • •;:ºrow“，| ''）,,,.,:.，，，….!!!，,,,,…“••eº’‘, !** 44 • • • ” ’ （’’’, , , , ‘’'...'， ，'','!'}; Wººd,,,,,，.，:.，.„…uwº. 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" O N sº - *****,.. º ſº 4. *.... ***, —“ Nº. *** . . !” tº ſº...!!!”, : - ammº Hº º . . ; ; ; – "" ... *** **, * = mºnº ºf * - ## g tº-º-º-º: +& º, ** * *:::: * º, sº tº fº. º * *:: * -: * - ..*.*.* * * r i §§º. ; : w” I - d * * †º ºt. : - **, ...:wºfº ..º f - $1.4 * sº Missº ºº::…º.º. - -- º * sº * º :* |** "; O * nºſºl ſº Maº, lºº 5 * * º tº : & 2 3". sº / 3. /~ & D R K K S Befº - º Fº *o > \, | º, H.--— 2. . | º: N ... i § - ~/ | * j I i. |→ k * *r \, sº y *. f §§ ºr *= =* = Fºº ºf * ====== ** = - }- º x . * Yº a \ \ \\\\". - º E. M. M. O. N. S. #5F 1% §. & _* ſ 3 ºf £Y. * --- - - - ----|--|--|--— - - - - .am ºr sº mºsº sº. } sº {C} º - \º | & M. C. | N: T 0 &S H | sº tº £ D ! : C SK E. *. & @ .* * @ 'N *. £º sº-ſº º: * * B | O R E M A N 's sº ...] Me P H E R s ° N fºãerick ~\ º, V sº *.. §º t 'a. . © - * § f i * t iss” G *T* **-ºſ----- – -— ...— . * . . ——T-1. 4. * * * -* {3} Aſ C *N. g * * .* º *- A. flaw & or Pror,A. ºr sº WRSWS T.I.Y.tº-ºº: *— &Mºš } w A Lwo R T H e D * * * * D O Se Nººna& H A M L N. Ro of N_j H - 3ººse * ſ . * L. A \h E. 49 ! & sº | & tº. sºc. rſt, i. sit 3. & §º w *] - 2\º L. : *-º-º::== F ºr - *Rºlº º º º #: R N | M N, EXF i & ulet º - *śSºft #: tº trºl, H 9J C H Sººyºtº, a news | wºW & ~ ** } & exº cº | ~~ $ wº" º m -------- º - - - ------------ \\ C £pilºt T - º # #355 - ** d * ... " A NAKT O N 9/ d Ndjº \ x * º tºº cº * Appendix No.XVII *s 3. C޺ o°z to the £ieport of the *m. sºcks5;&^^\_º - wº - ſº #. 3 º' Jū ss ovºv - wº CHIEF ENGINEER sº - . ARTssian awe UNDERF Lovy Nvestigation º *inited tºtates ſepartment of *g E B R A. S K A. SA ETCH MAP — | for The Oakoias eas os ſhºissouri River. Q= DEEP Flow in G ARTEstaay Wells. h J#-A 8.9/. Orc Scole of Tºtiles. # tº •wº fin *g º le º + Tº 22ge & aeeve & 44% §§es 2,000 fir Aaayr Sira fºrwri In Zooa ºr asovº Sea Lºve § -º-º-º- (33d * -. Aşoo £8oo S Š sº £8ad tägg º Šs. &. =::==sººra- § = . . . . . . I - S `s ** f | _IZgg A-8 + f Žoo - º - # 700 § | §§ r T º § $5 | +- T 6 600 § & | 1622 | | ; | º - #6 oo § | | | | - S S ºcy & Š + | | f & -ºn Aſoo * The dotted line quove eqeh Yell shows the | (*.*... c. ...” height to m'hich ºrater would be $oreed in | * 84 tº Czar + | A400 a bipe by the closed bressure of the well. | | º **º- i | | I } —---------------------------------.”--- fºgg —ſº- Solº, Carr alº Sawa Ś ! hº 349, Cany k S 8tºr Clay Ş hº § - - A 299 #2da § f*— | k & § * º Aſog F/co. ‘S A/do + & lºt § r- - i loog *E Aooo tºº, 2 F lates rawc _food § s Q) § ltatro rowe Søo Kºde § Soo. *Lºcarov, ºw &oo 1–. - Bøg F. - § Boo g º lawarewe 3 Appendix No. XIX $ § * + g 1j k to the łłeport o? the Zoo i r Żºłę § § º 704 *J CHIEF ENGINEER § S § * S. * ARTEsian and UNDERFLovv INvestigation * * - * * -s: —:3 * * * * l * i # * r § C. ſº ºf Sr. º. tº sty % F- A& "wº &S & k #23 sº ń. M. § k. & J. 12.3 S. fš 3. A° § e. - w Elsº º sº. «P º CŞ s * \g So & —#H# § |X- Ng No § § # º § §§ ; F sº 3. § C. aft. º Sr. F. *Nixo #e 'o *: § § \º § Q :: #5 º - - & N. sºlº # R § $|N. & \g Kj zº & §§ jºš º, tº ºxy rº- J22. 3. & sº if N. S. & *}o tº º : J2f § s * & A* #!, .** * rº- s=G, ſ \ \o s? §§ §§ She "ºft, § #. -—H \ § o 2}. tº º Fºº ~~~~ i iº- - H. º –r- ºr ſº. - - - -º- ºf º sº. º.º.º. º.º.º. -L--—J. * - - S Ex-44/.52 1 19 1922 Fr aeoze ºkayº. * T $ *: $ S. | * Š § Ş - - fögs frare ve.St. Årwrk # 8aa i s º § h º s wo §, •r h - { § Yellow ; S §§ —t Z8 oo Fragovº Sax level - º º Š º: | & § § § ** § § º sº | sº *. —lº- §s A Asº Asº. A & P £º § 68S$ - - + º Šs º: § §§–Š Š §- & $ § d §§ | § §NA Š Š Šºš - NJ R * Š I - º * S$ S$ $ S * º $S ſº Bottornº try Cray § Sºs º sº i. IZºo Š Sº *- * - $ - & - º: $ §§ §§§ Fº §§. A º Aéoo ºf º º $ §§ § Ş A + T - A ZOG º + º §: $ t º $. § ºf º § 3. § | H & *: ** § ! 3 § º § jº zº léoo ! j Sºś § $ i & /& - H tº Q fºgo º º & t. atre roar * * h | - 3 i : T - rº- | ! s * S. § : ; f | § º: § § s } ! f Š—s Aſoo J{} $... " º § | | | - r g º º Ş § The dotted line ºbove eqeh well shows the § : i | | Š * º § *: {5 - - § height to which moter trould be $orced in a *== |- wº ºr | | § 7 &S ----- •- – "T Tº -- - -i-orrºr offstr--- - ki *- - - - A/~.. A4-03 A3ao # bipe by the closed bressure of the reli. smººt-an-e 3. * - ~ --~~~~ º:- Blur Clay * * * * $ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- -- - b. fºgo S$5 + - § sº I * RA ºr Cºar— sº & § * º & * | 8 S$ §§ |- —lºod \. &lacar Swats º § Aşoo º § * | § § #392 3 5 § * *: lº § § }= Haradarr Swats § ă flº & * Afog & § ...” Ǻ Q § frow Arnºrris º § § }= - Aſſoo § § º § - § w - # ty Adoo § §: ſº -Mºar tax dº § Yº º . $ºg:::::::::::::fiew tº: § § food º * § * tº º * === tº : Sa'asroºr-varr Lasºr F.ow § * § º foºd ºod ** § &; § ; f § & § §: tºl 1922 -k- ‘d § $ $ § wº 3oo &oo * t Sandoarovr-Sanaa Atow º º: § # º - sº t CŞ &ao All-Acarave Ž § ; = Stºriar latestowr-ºnau fºow = Sawoe rows-Verr tºwrfiew 8oo ºf º S. § § s § £ 3. s 700 $ tº : Y. : vº : Savoºroºr-wºrks & *: * - § § $ }* H. gº. º & źd ºf * Appendix No. XX &oo & º Mawa ages”. § * à Zoo º i. two. Hºrse ~ § | - - Quiewsawe- - - " ** - (CHIEF ENGINEER dºg § § s & 60 o 1. º 3 Fº *Yarrºd was liair § 5 : Saves rowr-e-ºvaow i ARTEsian and UNDERF Lovy investion Tion 3&º sº - § uſed - ºne- §§ Saxosrows'-aw. #. 8wº ºr C Saaaaraws: #%:ºxaaw Liars §3 anº royº-Aºd ºgry * Fº " * ſº * sawoszewº-3-ºxa riow lº º H- 4tmited #cies Alepartment of Agriculture. *†ºg - 3rssars or turraroa’s $ I sawearoa'e-avo Azow Soaesrows: § sfºg - % - &artoszowc- Sanau. How º i ** El Rorreal Lawsºrcar Firrºr * 46 #ºn Fº PLA T & PROFILE &|" traºrts 3 90 Mray Haro Rocºt Sarles rewr awa&sre $ | *º Sawaaraaye. After ºf avy ; Hawestwoºroºz. Vºytisºn ºesº § : OA! A LINE CROSSłr'G THE Fº * Hºwsºw &Mºr i Sawesroar awaway Aiew *2 | *ºog T}okołq Jºriesiqu Basū &| £coſzaaoº-ºº: 3a*aeroarr Saroszowr º Heavy Atow | Q Qı Qū Q, § 3 Joo Fraseº &ca Lºvri *** "rºotſ&# ‘sº - l - Huncom South Oakół Sºft-re | nºr i F * N \\ 0 Q *:: *o 382&dºgwrºsta Lºvri. Roflu.E C § 6, iš4%’; * A sº + + £k? §ºffs: § $ \torizontal Scole os ſºliles. Eğ sº/ Kwº DEC 34-1891. * + 3 & # 9 * #,” # . # Sº, & § § #### §§§ 23; S / wº ...” *** § §§ §º sº (* & e” * # \º sº § & ſ wº 's º # º eº º s &wsº ****, ,--ari" § | 13 º f t?, *::: *: wwwºws sº Flºriº *. * 2. 3, * | || N E = *E wº ** 114. sº." ºfº, ºt. § * | | *:: wº uſº º #: gºw? sº". * --> % "...Sººº…..” **inst "...S §§ º ºº & º: #P-7; | #3 My sº-3” § * sº § §: *3 º * } *: +r # ***, * # Yº | * - & $ § 6 “z r : sº *...** 3. Vºtº iºr * * * wº W. © d) # * Ǻ > $ <º § .# º º * § $ § 2 Y” k. § 's º, Nº. °. -I * * * y § * * S. º * § q; C. § Nvv. (S $ w 3. S § NAºzº $ jšš Sº cº $ 3 £, St. § K-5 Nſ: 3. $ H. "º: ºS º §/šš sº *A; & º § Gº : $ sºrt ſº $ *r -**::::cs º:- * º *-* - m ** ** | º &#::::A\} \ }; $. ==-º-º-º: * - sº- sº * * * + ºr “... # \ * w 3 * º | 2 : \ * S$ * -T--imº- rºm-----|-- * = * *= ºf ºº º º .*.* = tº a * i. 2: Nºs. > * } |& § º --- —h- tº * * * * —º- i N. Ø ſ E. *:::: If y rººt * Hil *** *h, * * *... 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AV. * º º “...ºf rfºr ** % .* %. * **' *** whº ww.” *. * zºº **. fº fºr # .* # ow’ **** **** 3. +. 2- #2 ºz., | * $ & § § wº * \5 g) & º, ‘olº ; : * *z, *. | \, \* & e ºy “) Sa', Fº º \5 Wy *,\\ry 20 Pºor LED Aſiºd Fradºx Srs frvict t8od & assve Srs lava 17oo , I tºgg | Izae F. | Yrilovº Claw ſ £600 | Lége Biwr Clay ; * téº- H. Sario, Ciaº | & Šs -, * sº Šs § h º sº S’ “ §§ fºod : r £380 gº ÁŠs &T . . . & §§§§ K. -a ºr $: Ş i § Ş Tºſiº Clay sº § º Foo l º * $ºSVTS 3 $ | º Biwr Clar º S$ pass clay * * | § SS S ſºftcºsa-ſo s S $ fºag —alºs ; & 4 fºod sºrº § S. Čvº, # Rºck 3. . Š łº, &º #4ag Fº * § - s Black Swair § ! $5 $ Fºod *DAR W. C. WAY.Y. Rø tº Fº Saºtor SRaas - º •r º Soarrowfºr sº Gwry Sºnic * Catºr ~$SS$ f Fºr a & fºgo ; Hºº...? Addſ, § “’s Jowz Qvaarz, rº º ---, -– # * § + A206 CWA \,\! ; 3 § 1200 | & ./row Pºrtres we iſºtr § º £ººd- -Šarlev Swait º $ Wºrre Sawa ºm $ i. floo i *} § § too Swave º § º: Ifºg Fº Mano Liars rear aws Swat. s § st-att Fº § & $A \l D Roch Y: * twº ºratºrrs are itewar fºod Hawaº : § Wares rewr Hode § ::$woszows-ºnau ſtory $5 - Addº) º § 392.2 S HAV-W. § * § § Sac - &ndas. Fi § º tº —822– Maow fºrms tiarisarºle- jºki, Fiewſ º s sº r :#fff; Pºſ º ºt tº (ºv.ow ) attººl ºf ºil ºffſ, º rººf º dwr Jawo - I. A M 3. sº Boo º H A 1. E *t * * * º -Afaat f ºf Baur Shaar 80c tºº." vvºw J. Stotſk. Quatrary r ; Sawoºs roaſe-A'law flow * Mewa frce ºr 849 ...tº 6 N ºffs wºr wit And EA ºf D. &Aworrowſ. Jºst flow Zºo- Ząg —&– The dotted lime quove eqch well 600 shows the height to which wºer 6 fº would be forced by iHe closed pres- éco Appendix No. XXI Sure oš the well. &2 Aſoo to the #eport at the Joo GHigF ENGINEER 4:29 *oo ARTESIAN and UNDERFLovy INVESTIGATION #oo 4trºtted tºtates Jepartment of Agriculture. Fº —he czasaw scaſia 3oo Aºr: A ºr *3ra Level PLAT $ PROFILE — t słog fºr ascº Sra Levct. Oaſ a tºwe CROSEHMG. Tº tº: * ſº * Tookoła Jºhesiom Bºsì 3. 7?ſhºot/GM g tº ... Jūichell South Dakota. 3. º: ** f: \ok y f g º * * * Oéc. 3/-/8S 1. Herizontal Scale of miles. Sº A. * \ P K. g / § - - ETT. T., 3 T o jº Ç li e- º & _*---. **. # *..... : º: º “j”, -- * A # t tº º *...*... *. \, ***. * r º : § jºš let § g gº; | 3:4. dº. tº: if & §§ **. Hy : §§§4/7 ºf St. arm-º-º- ..º * $ " **** * * * * * 4-F ºn ºr º C # N.v. ..º -: * * 4- tº ------ tº y --~~~~~~~ * * * A3 * & {^ & ºc- # t $º *\. -\} * A gºº 2. \ . . ºi } *. !al 2\" 2A. § * * g º MRol. ** A A: * sº F Ital ; : * 3 § ºf § 5! # * çº (9 *j. -: gººf sº $gs º £ *. ii. i. ºfs $be º § * *º º **t olo 9) * | *, § g *3. r f s F *=7 *|\º Solº, Sº º 3\", § 3: §§ Šlë Q §º }, ſau" 14" |} - º i sEx44/.52 23 #ffffffffffffffff ¿| ||||||#ffffff;% #ffffffff;" ¡¡ #ffffffffffff ¡ |#� #|| ffffff; #ffff; } | } #ffff; | ## || º, Zffſ. № Q|k H-#| | J2}} | Ē*i „Jſſ | · [[]| 1 tº $ H-| � JZ|- >Oſº .| © CT> ... º© & <} f ž （: , ; ， ţ ſă º| \，a. º $ ！<3&» Ho < ' …ž<ș” „-• }={ []3 % ſo º| īſſ < 3 -ºQ Řſ- o–1£| į,"< so–1| 0，_ • { <%# {<Çul -(12 ° § →|? ș ſ-d? Q| 2 ſeet soil, then magnesia and coarse gravel down to 70 feet; then | Soft---------|-------------!-----------------* - - - - - - - - -'s 75.00°]. ---------|-----------------'...l.--------------- | º 'º - ºg ºf ¥. 3, 572 3,466. 3,45 ‘. i A. * * - . . . . . . . . . . " " \ſ. .." . . . . . . . . ' ' || ". . . . . . - not more. . . . . . s | . . . . . . | fine sand; about if feet fine gravel and sand. Below 95 feet is , --- -- | | | 'º. -- - - & ... " - . . . . . - * , , - . . . - * ..º.º i: ig; feet thin º sand; then 6 feet rock + || *—rºl x} 4. . - * , *- * ! . i - | -- - . . . * x : 8]] ët, Sällſl #Ilſl Clay, On rock. . . ". - - -- NE. 3, NE. # Sec. 25, T. 8 N., R. 42 W.----...--. 20 | Nov. 14 A. J. McElwain, Lamar, Nebr. -----------. Oct., 1887 ----. ----do-------- 12 in. diam.. 96 || 90 6 | Cannot lower with bucket...] Yes; 2 feet.....] No.....----. 3 feet ºi 8 ; j bāº. i and gravel to 60 feet; then ----do -------|-------------|--|----------------|---------- 40.00 i----------|----------|- --------- 300 | Stock......--- 3,563 3,473 || 3,467 i - - + º * - - *r. r - | - ſ 2 10 feet clay; * *...* 89 feet; then I foot rock, and then y k • *. SW. # sec. 31, T. 8 N., R. 41 W................ 21 Nov. 14 | D. L. Adams, Lamar, Nebr ------...------- Summer, 1888 -j-...do ...-----|. ---do ------- 108 96 12 | Cannot teli; good supply...|.----------- ------|------------ # * | * * * water in sand and gravel. * † º ºs mr is ºn ºf ſº ºn tº ſº, º is --------------------------- ---do -------------------- • * | * - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - , , s = * * * * = - - I - - - - - * * * * * * - I - - - - * * * * * * : * = m, m ºr ºf ºs = * * : * * * * * * * * * * m = * * * * * * * = i = m. m. m. m = m. m. m. m. m. m. º. + = + 3,553 3, 457 || 3,445 N.E.3 sec. 13, T. 7 N., R. 42 W ----...-----...--. 22 | Nov. 14 || A. S. Allen, Lamar, Nebr. -- - - - - - - - -:: - - - - - - Fall, 1887 . . . . . ----do -------|----do ------- 84 68. 16. Can not lower ... . . . . . . . . . . . o-------------| No.--------. 16 feet Sandy soil; then clay with spots of gravel; water in sand....|----do ------- Windmill...!...] Adams..... --. 4 |------------|--------------------|---------- 1,300 Stock --------. 3, 548 3, 480 || 3,464 ^, t Center of sec. 7, T. 9 N., R. 41 W....-----...-. 23 Nov. 14 || Burlington and Missouri River Railroad, Summer, 1887. Drilled ..... 5 in, diam... 204 124 80 Stood duty test of 80 gallons || Yes; 75 feet..... No.--------. A little rock 15 or 20 feet below surface; red clay and possibly Medium ----| Steam pumi,. ----------------|----------|------------|----------|---------- 4. Tº # = ſº tº º ºs ºn 6,000 | Engines -----. 3, 588 3, 464 || 3,384 * * **** Venango, Nebr. - # • * ' a minute for 1 hour, shell rock on top water. Water said to be in third vein, (4 in). On North Platte line in Nebraska: | i - N.E. # SW. 4, sec. 15, T. 9 N., R. 30 W - - - - - - - - - 24 | Nov. 15 Town of Wellfleet, Wellfleet, Nebr ....... Oct., 1890..... Bored.------- 8 in. diam --- 78 50 28 || Can not say; never been | Not much.......] No.......... 30 feet soil and sandy matter; then about 10 feet clay; then 8 to 10 |...-...------. Windmill....] Dempster-----|----------|--------------------------------|----------|---------. Stock and 2,810 : 2,760 2,732 | This water height is probably too high. - " *k, - tested. º jº, º: º then strike water in quicksand and -. Town. g ', † - * T- Ill --- - Sandy gravel; deepel' the coal-Ser, = * S.E. # SE. 4 sec. 13, T.9 N., R. 30 W. ---------- 25 | Nov. 15 || J. E. Welborn, Wellfleet, Nebr ------------| 1886. ---------- Dug -------. 3 by 3 feet.. 45 41 4 || --------------------------- |------------------|------------- In . . in w º: in Sand all the way down............. Poor. -------|-------------ºl--|----------------|----------|-- - - - - - - - - - - tº im, is ºf m ºf s = = * | * * * * * * * * * * : * * * * * * * * * * | * = R = * * = F * * | * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 2,735 | 2,694 | 2,690 - N.W. 4 sec. 19, T. 9 N., R. 29 W ...--------..... 26 | Nov. 15 || Mordecai Furnish, Wellfleet, Nebr........ 1887. ---------- ---do ------- ----do ------- 12 6# 5%; In Watering stock can bail || Yes; 4 feet...; ..] No.......... 3 feet earth; then gravel and earth ... --...--...- ... ---...------------ Bard ------- Not now in ulel.---------------|----------|------------|----------|---------|----------|---------- Stock--------. 2, 694 || 2,687 | 2,682 | This well in water of Lake Caiion. . i r: 1 ſº 1 foot; then can not - es - - I'...} - -. - - OWeI’, | - ..r- º S.E. : Sec. 13, T.9 N., R. 30 W ---...------...--. 27 Nov. 15 J. F. Welborn, Wellfleet, Nebr.......----. 1883........... ----do ------- ----do ------- 12 9 3 | Small; runs about 2 barrels | No. --...------ …] No.--------. Sand and loam ; struck water in fine, greenish sand. This water | Poor........ Bucket ....! --l.---------------|----------|------ * * = E = i. 1 is a s = * * * * * * T = * * * * * * * * * : * * * * * * * * * * | * * * * * * = F * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 2,721 2,712 2, 709 * 4- i per hour. is probably the same as the water of Lake Cañon; it seems to \ | vary with lake in height; Water in lake las never run out but once m - -*. - in 8 years. , Sec. 15, T. 9 N., R. 30 W -----...--------------. 28 inov. 17 | John R. Davis, Wellfleet, Nebr............! June, 1887..... ----do -------|----do ------. 73 69 4 | Can not exhaust ---...--...-. Yes; 4 feet ... -- No.......... 8 feet sandy loam, 2 feet black muck or loam, 34 feet sandy loam; ....... --...--. Hand------- ºn" ºr ºr m = g º ºs º is ſº º ſº gº º ſº º is I ºf mº m º º sº º ºs º ºr 8.00 |----------|----------|--|-- • -----|---------- EIousehold....] 2,820 | 2, 751 2,747 |, f - 8 feet magnesia limestone (grit), 18 feet sand and gravel, 18 tºr . . . . . . . . i inches clay, 4 or 5 inclies magnesia clay, rock. Water under | % w - : - - | this. Water in gravel. - r - SW. 3 sec. 31, T. 10 N., R. 29 W ........ ------| 29 | Nov. 17 | C. C. Hawkins, Wellfleet, Nebr............ Dec., 1888----. ----do ------- ----do ------- 125 122 3 | Can Inot hoist out with 15- || Yes; 3 feet .....] No. --...--.. 15 feet soil; then broken Imagnesia rock and clay down for 80 feet; [........ -----. Windmill.....] Halladay. ---. 4-6-8 20, 40 40, 00 80. 00 5. 00 6,000 | Stock...... --. 2,853 2,731 2,727 ... ', - i i gallon keg. . * 6#. ºi º * and ºrt hard on top of water; water | tº. - 4. i in hard sand and probably gravel. % º - + S.E. # SE.3 sec. 24, T. 10 N., R. 30 W ---...---- 30 Nov. 18 A. S. Fletcher, Buchanan, Nebr.... ------. July, 1889..... ----do ------- 33 by 33 in.. 198 192 6 Can not lower ---...--...----. Yes; 6 feet ... -. No---------. 10 or 12 feet sandy j 6 º hard soil, 60 feet loose sand (no |-------. nº º is ſº m is Horse--------|---------------- w is nº s = w = |* = m. I is a ºn s r. m. In ºr m = = = # * * * * * * * = m = | * * * * * * * * * * | * * * * * * * * * * 600 ----do --------. 2,945 2,753 2,747 - \. i Qurb), 20 feet soft sand (curb), 92 feet white, dry magnesia, very ; " | - i §. hard, *i. º º º water in magnesia. - - d ", | atéI Càme to the t0p O € 5 feet, Oli Sãºl{1. k . NE. #.S.E.3 sec. 24, T. 10 N., R. 30 W ----..... 31 | Nov. 18 || Jonathan Welch, Buchanan, Nebr. ------. Aug., 1888 ....}....do ..... -- 3 by 3 feet .. I80 173 7 || In good steady wind mill | No...... ---...-. A little de- | 20 feet soil, about 40 º black soil and clay, 4 feetlight sand (curb), ------------- Windmill...}.; Duplex.-----. 4-6 20. 75 60, 00 60.00 i.--------- 800 i.--..do --------. 2,926 2,753 2,746 - 2 . . . can lower 4 feet, but no Cºl.$8, very fine. Then hard, sandy dirt. At 110 feet begins 62 feet of ||, . m - Il Drè. ğ,jº dry and hard, 8 feet gravel, coarser near bottom. - - ...” : àUëT III UEliš. N.E. # S.E.3 sec. 12, T. 10 N., R. 30 W ----..... 32 | Nov. 18 G. A. Schrecongost, Elizabeth, Nebr...... June, 1889 ....|....do .......}. ---do ------- 229 207 22 | Can not lower with mill ....] No... ------...-. No---------- 4 feet soil, 50 feet sand, 3 feet loose sand (curb), 100 feet harder sand ||.............. ----do ---...----| Enterprise, 12 5 60.00 86. 00 80.00 l.--------- 1, 280 |. ---do --------- 2,973 2, 766 2,744 Dug 205 feet and tube 24 feet. Scattering loose * - - - with some clay, 6 feet red loose clay (curb), 10 or 12 feet sand and , foot. - rock all the way down. *... clay, 4 feet fine sand (curb); then clay and sand, with some ' ' . - *-- magnesia, to 192 feet; then 15 feet red clay, little sand, water - tº - - i in sand; coarser as you go down. - S.E. # NE:# see, 6, T. 10 N., R. 29W -...-------- 33 | Nov. 18 Aaron Votaw, Elizabeth, Nebr ---------. | Feb., 1887. --...|. ---do ------- 2; by 2% feet. 234 230 4 || Can not pump out.......... Cannot say-----------, -------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------|- ---do -------- Challenge. ---- 4-6-8 l------------|----------|----------|--------------------|---------------- 2,991 || 2, 761 2, 757 i N.W. 4 NE.3 sec. 25, T. 11 N., R. 30 W ------.. 34 | Nov. 18 || Van Brocklin Bros. & Co., Elizabeth, Nebr.: Spring, 1885-c.|--- do ------. 3 by 3 feet tº . . 202 188 14 | In hard wind mill will ex- | No. ----......... No---------. 100 feet sandy loam; then strata of thin clay. There are scattering |. --...- ........|. ---do ------- {-| Star ------4--. 8 0.70 |. ---------|----------|---------- 3, 200 | Stock -------- . 2,977 2,789 2,775 | 12 inches iron tube in water. Piperiot down far . . . haust in 3 hours. rocks through the ground. At 180 feet strike dipping rock 5 feet - - enough. 24-inch valve, 13-inch discharge. - º + i - thick; then fine sand on top and water in fine gravel. m | N.E. : sec. 26, T. 11 N., R. 30 W - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 35 | Nov. 18 A. B. Orr, Elizabeth, Nebr...--...-----...--.| Mar., 1890..... Bored.-----. 2 in. diam - - - 284 230 54 Can not pump dry ------.... Yes------. º, º mº m is sº No---------- At about 214 feet to 230 feet in magnesia rock; then into fine sand, ...--...--------- ----do ------- Goodhue------|---------- 80. 75 |. -- - - - - - - - 60.00 i----------|---------- Stock and 3,025 | 2,795 || 2,741 || At 269 feet would not furnish enough water; a - … ' and down 54 feet; at the bottom in coarse gravel. i i creamery. 284 feet can not pump dry. * - SW. # sec. 24, T. 12 N., R. 30 W - - - - - - - - - - - - - -. 36 | Nov. 18 || W. T. Bowen, Watts, Nebr................ Apr., 1883. ---. Dug -------- 3 by 3 feet. - 200 175 25 | Can pump down some, but | Can not say.....] No..........] Hard stratum of gray clay, 180 feet down, about 1 foot thick. First --...--....... ----do --------| Eclipse ------- 5-7 ------------|----------|---------. 75, 00 1,600 | Stock ---...- ... 2,961 || 2,786 2,761 * - * . . . . . . - not dry. * - water above this; under this fine sand with a little gravel in bot. * | * x * - F - -. tom as coarse as packers' salt; water in this. - | - N.W.; sec. 24, T. 12 N., R. 30 W ...--...-----. 37 | Nov. 18 George M. Bobbett, Watts, Nebr. ...... -- Summer, 1886.;....do ....... ----do ------- 206 198 8 || Can draw out 18 barrels (586 | No.---------.... Caved in ; ----------------------------------------------------------------------|-------------- Borse--------|--------------------------|----------------------|----------|---------- 1,600 ----do --------. 2,988 || 2, 790 2,782 This well caved in in summer of 1890, and is now ^ - , , ' gals.) before exhausting. not in use. ~ g abandoned. SW. # SE. 4 sec. 22, T. 12 N., R. 30 W. ........ 38 || Nov. 19 | E. R. Sellers, Watts, Nebr................. J)ec., 1887.....|. ---do ------- ---do ------- 245 242 3 || Mill will pump out in 3 } No.............. Decreasing 2 feet soil, 48 feet sandy clay, 8feet soft sand (curb), 50 feet sand and ||. --...--------. Windmill...!. Goodhue...... 3–5–7–10 100. 00 40, 00 90.00 !---------. 650 ----do --------- 3,051. 2, 809 2,806 || The water level is 3 feet lower now in well than hours. a little. clay with smallstones, 10 or 12 feet soft sand (curb); 50 feet sand " . - than when the well was first dug. y T |_. . and clay with small stones, 16 feet soft sand (gurb); 10 or 12 feet hard material; 13 feet sandstone; could break it up with bars; --- * r 5 or 6 feet magnesia rock; then red sandy matter (not curbed) º . . . +- - until Teach water in sand and fine gravel. N.E. # NE. 4 sec. 8, T. 12 N., R. 30 W.---...--. 39 Nov. 19 Francis Montague, North Platte, Nebr. -- May, 1885 .........do ------. ----do ------- 235 225 10 Can not pump dry.--------. No-------------- No.--------- 65 feet earth and sand, 150 feet magnesia cement gravel, 10 feet | Hard ....... ----do --------| Halladay ----|----------4------------|----------|-- # * iF = * * * * ... is m = m, is is m = m, is # * * * * * * * * * | * ---do --------- 3,035 | 2,810 2,800 | 10 feet sand tube in bottom. * ; : - . * mixed material, 10 feet sand and water. (This information as to ſº - tº . magnesia not trustworthy.) SW. 4 N.W. 4 sec. 4, T. 12 N., R. 30 W...------- 40 Nov. 19 J. R. Chopin, North Platte, Nebr.---...-- Jan., 1888. --------do ------- 3% by 33 feet. 222 212 10 | Can not lower with mill No. --------..... No.--------- 4 feet earth, 60 feet sand and clay, hard as one could spade; about | A little hard... ---do ...-----|| Goodhue.----- 4–5–7–10 110.00 36, 00 95.00 l.--------- 5,000 ----do ----...--. 3,029 2,817 | 2,807 , running night and day. 30 feet magnesia cement gravel. There is 55 feet curbing Water - i *r "----- ! - tº º is - in fine sand, coarser in bottom, as large as peas in the bottom. 1. d i NE. # NW. 4 sec. 34, T. 13 N., R. 30 W.----... 41 | Nov. 19 || John Kinkade, North Platte, Nebr. --...-- Nov., 1890..... Tubular ----| 2 in. diam ... 250 200 50 | Can not lower with mill ----| No.-----...--....l.............. 4 feet earth, 60 ft. white and yellow clay with sand, 2 ft. fine sand .--------.....|. ---do ------- + Dempster----. 4–6 80. 65 90.00 ----------|------------------- ---do --------- 3,002 || 2,802 2, 752 || Just started pumping when well was examined, f : (curb), 30 feet hard dirt, 80 feet magnesia cement gravel, 25 feet **- - d - hard sand; then fine sand and water. The well stops in gravel. º º N.W. 4 sec. 22, T. 13 N., R. 30 W ----...--...--. 42 Nov. 19 L. Thoelecke, North Platte, Nebr..... ---. About 1882...] Dug ........ 6 by 6 feet .. 68 53 15 Can not pump dry running | No. ---...--..... No-------------------------------------------------------------------------------. Soft --------|----do -------4 Hazen --------|----------------------|----------|----------|----------|----------|---------------- 2,847 || 2,794 || 2,779 || This well is probably below the magnesia, which - . . . . - mill night and day. seems to be cemented gravel where it crops out, N.E.3 sec. 2, T. 14 N., R. 30 W ------......... 43 | Nov. 20 l.-------------------------------------------|---------------- Bored, wood 10 in. diam .. 98 84 14|------------------------------------- * * = * * * * * = * * * * * * * * * = m = ± = a m = In sand hills; probably nearly all sand-----------------------------|-------------. Bucket -----|----------------|----------|------------|--------------------|----------|----------|---------------- 2,957 2,873 2,859 Cº.; find no one who could give any informa- * CăSing. * Oil, - N.W. 4 sec. 30, T. 15 N., R. 29 W --...-----.... 44 | Nov. 20 |------------------------------------------- -----------|----do ------- ----do ------. 95 87 * !-------------------------------------------------------------- In sand hills; probably mostly Sand.--------. tº ſº nº ºn = H = H = H • - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -, i. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - I - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - * * * * 1 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - || -- * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 2,962 ) 2,875 2,867 N.W. 3 SW. 4 sec. 4, T. 15 N., R. 29 W. ------.. 45 | Nov. 20 | Casper Sivits, North Platte, Nebr ........ Nov., 1889..... ----do ------- 12 in. diam -. 100 92 8 || Can lower with horse; but 10 | No. --...--...--... Diminish. Water in sand, some clay------------------------------------------. Soft -------. | Horse ------4--------------------------------------|----------i----------|---------- 1,000 | Stock...----...-- 3,002 2,910 2,902 * feet of sandraow in well; if ing some. -* * * .* g |'' . Cleaned out probably in- By - r ++ ! .* exhaustible. r g *: N.W. 4 NE. 4 sec. 34, T. 16 N., R. 29 W -------- 46 | Nov. 20 | Joseph Ross, Myrtle, Nebr.-----.......... | Feb., 1887 -.... ----do ------. ----do ------- 1.00 80 20 | Can pump dry by hand, but No.............. No.--------- Sand with streaks of clay; water in sand. The man who dug well ||---..do ....... Windmill....; Dempster..... 4–6–8 20, 60 25, 00 80.00 ||---------- 800 l.--..do --------- 2, 997 || 2,917 | 2,897 r m . - * - * = . . . not with mill thought that gravel would be reached in 20 feet farther. - º ~ SE. # sec. 22, T. 16 N., R. 29 W. ..... -----..... 47 | Nov. 20 W. F. Givins, Myrtle, Nebr...............; May, 1889..... ----do -------| 10 in. diam --| 161 129 32 Cº. inot, º #. with | No-------------- No---------. 12 or 14 feet in 3 or 4 strata; rest sand; 3 feet of clay just above ---.do ...----- Piorse.-------li-------------------------- 75.00 i--------------------|---------- 600 |----do --------. 3,047 | 2,918 2,886 ºr # OTse and 8-gallon bucket. water; then 15 feet sand, 2 feet clay; then sand. * * | - m * SW. # NW. # sec. 14, T. 16 N., R. 29 W. --- - - - - 48 Nov. 20 | David Brouk, Myrtle, Nebr.......... ... --. Fall of 1885 ---|---. do ... ----. 12 in. diam.. 134 116 18 Mill in .# Wind pump | No.---- # = # * is # * * * Increasing a | Top soil and loam, with some clay § 100 feet; then quicksand to |.---do ------. Windmill....if Centennial... -- 6–c 15, 00 50.00 265, 00 (). 75 1,201 ||----do --------- 3,042 2,926 2,908 || Owner dug, well himself;, casing cost $15; he s out in 20 minutes; but little. bottom of the well. + uses mill to run corn mill. * ‘. . . . water probably can not * - ~ * , -- get through point. - - -- S.E. 4 sec. 10, T. 16 N., R. 29 W -............... 49 Nov. 20 B. R. Gibbens, Myrtle, Nebr ... -- - - - - - - - -.jFall of 1885...]. ---do ------. ----do ------- 131 118 13 | Can not pump dry ---....... No.------------- No---------- Sand and clay; owner thinks there is a layer of clay above water; . . . . do - ...... ....do ---------|| Nichols ------- 6 15, 00 20, 00 85.00 ---------- 650 |----do --------- 3,044 2,926 2,913 || Owner dug well himself; casing cost $15. - º | *:::::: flay about every 10 feet; bottom now in clay; water - - m - # ** * - IIl IIIlê Hºà.IIſl. Fºr N.E.3 sec. 10, T. 16 N., R. 29 W - - - - - - - ........ 50 | Nov. 21 W. H. Null, Myrtle, Nebr.....--- ... ------ Mar, 1886- .--. ----do ------. ----do ------- 136 130 6 || Cº. not;jº § buº could | No.------------. No..........| Sand all the way to bottom; bottom in blue clay; water in sand; .... do .......]. ---do -------- Goodhue.----. 4–6–8 45. 00 45. 00 90. 00 (8) 1, 100 |. ---do --------- 3,057 2,927 2,921 raw dry with bucket. no quicksand. § Hy N.W. 4 sec. 25, T. 17 N., R. 29 W --- - - - - - - - - - - - 51 | Nov. 21 | Matt McGue, Dorp, Nebr ................ | Nov., 1889. . . . . Bydraulic . . . 2 in. diam ... 203 80 123 | Can not lower with mill . . . . Yes; 115 feet ... No. -- - - - - - - - 10 *:: soil, 8 or 10 feet soft sand, 4 feet clay, 12 feet sand, 3 or 4 || Hara ----... ----do -------- Challenge----. 6 *0. 75 |.--------- 80.00 ---------. 1,000 ----do --------. 3,020 2, 940 | 2,817 # j - feet clay, alternating sand and clay for 80 feet; quicksand and - - water at 80 feet; 10 or 12 feet sand and then a little clay; alterna- ting sand and clay to 183 feet; then 4 feet sandstone (supposed), 6 : feet of quicksand; 2 feet sandstone, 8 feet gravel; water. This |. i - water rises to lieight of first vein at 80 feet. | * | About. * Per foot. * Per foot, including"pump. *Including pump and mill. *Including pump. ° None in 2 years. 7 In 7 years. 8 None in 23 years. S. Ex. 41, pt. 2—face p. 116—l 24 APPENDIX 25.-RECORD OF ALL WELLS EXAMINED ON THE UNDERFLOW LINES OF KANSAS, COLORAD0, NEBRASKA, AND WXOMING—Continued. - • r . - . - º [Wells examined by W. W. Follett.] i * - - - i | | | | . - - I - }, \ Cost - IElevation Location Nº. When When - t Depth. º Water. J i || - º Maxi- º - º O exam- Name and address of owner. |, put * * - Did water rise Is suppl I i ', H| Ki * IIll IIIl Used for— * well. ined. y j down. JKind of well. Size, To Of | Amount of water. when struck? | Chan#. - Strata passed through. 1 * Kind of mill. Stroke. - Bepairs º º sed for Sur- Bot- Remarks + } - Total. Water. I water. - Quality. |How raised. - Well. Pump. IMill. to mill. pe y. face. Water. tom. . On North Platte line in Nebraska—Continued 1890 , - - *. ', r . * º - * + - • I'eet. | Feet, Feet. Fºr , , , , Inches. + f - Gallons. - Feet. | Feet, Feet. Other deep, holes at North Platte lead to the jº. º Nebr------------ ---| 52 Nov. 21 | W. S. Pennison, North Platte, Nebr......- | Oct., 1887 ----. Drilled.-----| 2 in. diam -.. 197 4 193 Can not pump out ---....... Yes; 193 feet ... No. ----. . . . . Alternating sand and gravel, with layers of clay; veins of water | Very soft Eſand......`--------- ---------- * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * : * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * m m is ºn tº ºn tº ºf ºs ºn tº * * ----------------| 2,798 || 2,794 || 2,601 belief that what is, supposed to be magnesia “ -, -- ~...~. . . . f | - at 4 feet, 69 feet, 90 feet, 145 feet, 197 feet; the lower vein is un- and pure. % ſ I rock are pieces of drift rock in the gravel and * - . der 2 feet of rock, in quicksand and gravel. There is probably r .." : 1 sand. * . . . -- a thin layer of magnesia rock on top of each vein of water except \ , + º - On º in Nebraska: | | | }. r - - .* - the first. - - | {}{3. # º 4. + 2 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * - *H*, * tº - - *. . - - .* , N. R. 21 W. 53 | Nov. 22 S. O. Hall, Lexington, Nebr------------ ----| Aug., 1890 ----| Bored....... 5 in. diam... 94 4 90 Can lower 1 or 2 feet with || Yes; 90 feet....] No.-----.... 5 feet loam, 5 feet sand and muck, 2 feet gravel, and strong vein al- | Soft. --...----|---..do ..... * a sº I m sº s m ms s m = m = * * * * * | * * * * * * * * * = *$0.85 - - - - - - --. * * * * * * * * * * i ºr * tº ºn m = - - E g : - - - - - - * * * * Household.--. 2,385 2,381 2,291 i - : - - hand pump, but no more. kali water. In this vein railroad men had two engines on steam : - - * r f , ‘’ , |: - - pumps, and could not lower; 2 feet fine sand, 1 foot hard sticky ... ". t & "- | - - #. ; then alternating sand and gravel to 30 or 33 feet; then 14 •. º, ; : . - - - | - t eet of hardpan, with 1 foot magnesia in center. From 44 feet to . . • I. t * * 67 feet alternating sand, gravel, and clay, gradually changing to | | | | - } , - W - | fine sand with clay and loam, evidently water-bearing sand, but | | . º | wº... ." • , too hard and firm for water. Then 16 feet hardpan; in center 2 i - 1 . . . . * feet hard magnesia; then into sand and fine matter, growing . . . - - º .# m. - ...; at: º, § into *. ºbtains stratum. This .* ! - N.B. 4 sec. 30, T. 10 N., R. 21 W. ..... ------ - * * * * º | + - º - +* Stratum is probably not over 6 feet thick. - ; E. 4 - N., R. 21 W------......... - 54 | Nov. 24 R. J. Billingsley, Lexington, Nebr. in º º in ºn tº ºr * es. - - - - - - - - - Driven.----- 1% in. diam.. 35 23 12 | Can not pump down........ Yes------- * m = * * * No.--------.] 2 feet soil; then . then sand and gravel.----------------------- Hard ------- Windmill.. --- Hazen -------- 4 l------------|----------4---------. * * * * * * * * * * 400 štook - * * * * * * * * 2,405 || 2, 382 2,370 W. º #: tº: * in wet times S.E. # NE. 4 sec. 19, T. * + -º-º: - -, * 4 I i * * * * * r * : *, * - - # DQUI ches in the dug part. # # Sec. 19, T. 10 N., R. 21 W -...----. 55 Nov. 24 || John Crouch, Lexington, Nebr............ 2 years ago ---|---do ------. 2 in. diam. -- 31 20 11 | Can not pump out.......... Yes; 11 feet....] No.......... 4 feet soil, then clay until water; water in gravel at about 25 feet...} Hºly ----do -------|--| Monitor ------ 6 15.00 $6.00 || $75.00 |. --...----. 1,000 |.---do ---------| 2,421 || 2,401 || 2,390 | Can pump 30 barrels in 6 hours. SW. 3 sec. 8, T. 10 N. . W.----------- -- * -- * - º e alkali. r - ?, t # I R. 21 W.--------------. 56 Nov. 24 B. F. Davis, Lexington, Nebr........... --- May, 1888 ----|---.do ....... 1% in. diam.. 28 16 12 | Cam not lower .............. Yes; 6 feet ..... No---------- 2 feet soil, 4 feet yellow clay, 16 feet darker clay, then sand and | Hard .......|....do ......... Halladay ..... 6–8 15, 00 6, 00 65.00 ---------- 2,400 |.... do ......... 2, 420 2, 404 2,392 SE l | | |, . t t • *er gravel, with water. At 15 to 18 feet is a streak of dark j .# SE. 4 sec. 30. T. * - rºl.º. - - - - aſ , - | r Soil. - ; i | - , *1. # Sec. 30, T. 11 N., R. 21 W - ......... 57 | Nov. 24 || John Mae Lean, Lexington, Nebr......... 10 years ago...] Driven.----. ----do ------. 64 48 16 | Can not pump dry ----------|-----------------. No---------- 2% feet soil, white clay until water; water in sand, their gravel; .....do ...----. ----do -------!--| Wisconsin ---- 6 50.00 ---------- 100.00 | 93.10.00 650 ....do ...... --.j 2,474 2, 426 2,410 S.E. # sec. 19, T. 11 N., R. 21 W --------...-- - t + . . . . . . . . t r r il sand first at about 50 feet. - º: SE. # 1 *-** *** * * * * * * * * * * * * = * * * = . 58 | Nov. 24 || Archie Mac Lean, Lexington, Nebr...... j. ºn., 1889..... Bored. ----. ----do ------- 92 62 30 | Can not lower with pump...] Yes............. No. --------- 50 #º: * ... º ſ ft. gº 4 or º blue º # ----do ------- ----do -------|--| Adams ------- 6 25. 00 17, 00 65.00 |---------. 1,600 ----do --------- 2,499 2,437 || 2,407 , # Sec. 18,.T. 11 N., R. 21 W -...--... ------ - • * * - ... " White Sand with first water, 24 ft. in clay, 2 ft. in gravel; stop. t !' . . - - # 7. 1 W. * * * - - -º * | Nov. 24 |----do -------------------------------...... 9 years ago -- Dug ........ 3 by 3 feet. .. I10 80 30 Cº. P. out in summer, Yes-------------| No.......... ----do --------- ***.*.*.*.*y * - * = º º ºn 4 +*.......p --------do ------- ----do ---------| Eclipse ------- 6 |------------|---------- * * * * * * * * * = I is ºn m = a + - - - - 1,600 ||----do --------- 2, 531 2, 451 || 2,421 Last 12 feet put down by MacLean. SW. # sec. 32, T. 12 N., R. º ‘. + º Ult not in Winter. | | | | * N º jºi. # Rºß #y ::::::::::::::: § §: ;: #. J. º Nebr----------. | Spring of 1888. Hydraulic .. 2 in. diam... 237 || 174 63 Can not pump down -------. Yes, probably---| No.......... Hard material above water; water in gravel -...-------------------.. Soft--------. ----do ---------i Halladay ...--. 6–8-10 *1.15 ||---------- 90.00 | "0.90 | 1,300 |....do ......... 2, 623 2,449 2,386 - * * * * * * * * * * * - ºr m = - - rank Gifford, Lomax, Nebr.-------------| 1881...........] Düg........] 4 by 3 feet...] 15: 145 23 Can not lower with mill ....] Yes; 23 feet ....] No.--...-----| Sandy clay down to water. Just above water thin shell rock, then |...do .......l....do ......... Hazen'........ 8 ------------|----------|----------|----------| 7,000 ----do ---------| 2,586 2,441 | 2, 418 P; ; j † 18 feet of 2-inch pipe. SW. # NW. 4 sec. † † $. !, y - water in gravel rose very rapidly. - ! ÖIllê ĐèC. Jºãº Ilºil. WBll, - # ź Sec. 32, T. 13 N., R. 21 W - ...... 62 | Nov. 24 | Thomas Brown, Lomax, Nebr.----------. .Not yet down . Bored, wood 10 in. diam, .. * !--------|--------|------------------------------|------------------|-------------- 3 feet soil, ãº, §. ºad a little clay down to 180 feet, --------------|----------------|--------- * - - - ºr ºn tº i = - m = + = - ºn m • - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -W - - - - - - - - - - - - - ---| 2,666 |-------. 2, 461 NE - - | : CaSII.g. - t," 25 feet ; still in ‘. º getting softer. Last 20 feet. In seep - - . 13, T. * ... ---ºf ſº-º. ºf s - s = * = - | | | | . w F. * * * water, but not enough to be of any account. r T - # sec 13 N., R. 21 W. ............... 03 | Nov. 24 || Allen E. Conrad, Olax (Oconto), Nebr..... Opt., 1890..... Hydraulic .. 2 in. diam... 258 193 60 | Can not pump dry -----...--. Yes; about 45 | No. --....... 5 feet soil, 5 feet subsoil, 5 feet lº, gumbo, then light clay with | Soft. -------. Windmill-----| Eclipse. ----. • 7# *370.00 ----------|----------|---------- 2,400 | Stock... ------. 2, 672 2, 474 || 2,414 || Another hole was put down here some 400 feet t | | || i feet. little sand gradually changing into sand. At 200 feet about 10 feet - * d •r - deep, but found no water below 260 feet. s t of clay with some magnesia, then sand and gravel to 240 feet, * - NW | #. 3 feet hard clay; tapped water at 243 feet, went into it | | || * .# N.W. 4 sec. 20, T. * ... -º-ºº ºf a ºf T m. m. m. a. º. º. is - | - * * * - - - 15 feet. - r - - * # Sec. 20, T. 13 N., R. 21 W. 64 | Nov. 25 | W. Richard, Olax (Oconto), Nebr.......... Simmer, 1887 - Bored, wood 8 in. diam ... 160 148 12 | *ur fishes but 3 barrels (96 | No.-----------..! Increasing...] 5 feet soil, 50 feet white clay with sand, 100 feet white sand, 2 feet | Medium ....] Horse ................. * * * - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 100.00 ----------|----------|---------- 96 |. ---do --------- 2,632 2,484 || 2,472 NW - . . . . . . CaSIng. gallons) per day. . tº ent gravel, then quicksand and water. Bottom on hard - * SNW. # NW. 3 sec. 5, T. 13 N., R. 21 W. 65 | Nov. 25 | T. P. Buckner, Olax (O - , ' J # - * : * - material. - - | - S.E. 4 sec. 31. T. * - L.L. 4. * +-ºn ºf ºr ºf ºf ºn s : * * * * = º • - - - ſler, Olax (Oconto), Nebr...... - 3 years ago. --- Hydraulic --| 2 in. diam ... 140 120 20 | Can not lower with mill....] Yes...-----...----. No. --------- In second water thick stratum of hard material above the gravel. Soft. -------- Windmill---t: Enterprise.... 4–6–8 *200.00 ---------. 100.00 ---------- 3, 200 ----do --------- 2,564 2,444 2,424 f + # Sec. 31, T. 14 N R. 21 W ---------------. 66 | Nov. 25 | Francis Wilcox, Olax (Oconto), Nebr. ----- Aug., 1884 - - - - Bored, Wood | 12 in. diam .. 145 129 16 Mili will pump out in 30 No.------------. No---------- *. . 126 feet sandy clay, then 16 feet quicksand # water. Very hard--|. •,• . do --------|----do ptº º – º - * = |* 6 12. 00 35. 00 100, 00 (12) 1,600 ----do ------ * - sº 2. 593 2, 464 2, 448 Water in quicksand on hard bottom: º When the j. ' r CaSing -- . . minutes, but runs in The well stopped on hard mäterial, probably clay, Found ajaw; . . . . . . - wind is in the south Mr. Wilcox thinks he can - - *. , quickly. bone of some large mammal in bottom. This is in the “first | - + get more water out of the well than when the ! *. .# | vein” of Water. ſ . . . . . . §: Iłl fºrth. He dug his own well. | N.E. # sec. 31, T. 14 N., R. - - - º - *... - r - *. - F. . . " - Furping cos * º | # 14 N., R. 21 W ----------...-. 67 Nov. 25 W. J. Higby, Olax (Oconto), Neb ---------| Winter, 1887 -----. do ...--. -i----do ------- 112 96 16 Can . pump out, but fills | Can not say.....] No.......... 7 feet soil, then gray sand and clay; at 75 feet 8 or 10 feet black, Hard ....... ----do ---------| Bird.--------- 3-4 50, 00 45.00 i 100.00 i.--...----- 500 l.---do --------. 2,555 2, 459 2,443 This well would supply more than 500 gallons. SE . . . - - . . . . . . quickly. ºlay; under this a little water, then sand. Water in fine * . - .# Sec. 20, T. 14 N., R. 21 W. .........* - - - - - " . .i. - - - - "I'BVēl. - 4. * - - # , R. 21 W. 68 Nov. 25 W. D. Cole, Olax (Oconto), Nebr...........‘i . 7:years ago ---. Dug -------- 3 by 3 feet .. 122 97 25 | Can lower with horse and | Yes; 23 feet ....] No.---- tº m º ºs = Płºś sand; hard layer just above water; probably 1 foot in Medium ----| Horse.--...-i-|---...----. * * * * * * I m * * * * * * m m = 1 * * * * * * * -----|--|-- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 1,000 ----do --------- 2,546 2,449 2,424 *. ‘. . . . ". . . #. jºket. but can not ". gravel. *-- - E. . 3. - - - - • * , ; ' ' ' - * £3. Wr (ITV. . . . . §§§2.W.:::::::: #|Nº. #|#######º:--------. 6 years ago ---|--|--do ------. by 5 feet. 2s is is cºmpout............................ Wo------------------------------------------------------------------ * ------------ Soft ---...--. Windmill.---| Challenge..... 6 |------------|---------- 60.00 H. --...- ----| 900 ----do --------- 2,394 || 2, 379 || 2,366 y ! ---- " ---------------. {}V", • hi. Middleton, Lexington, Nebr......... 7 years ago ---| Driven.----. 14 in. diam.. 21 9 12 ----do --------- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - No.-----------. No---------- 3 feet soil, 2 feet yellow sandy clay, 1 foot sand, 2 feet quicksand in Medium ----| Hand.--...--|---------...-----|..........}.----...----|---....... * * m is mº m 'm gº ºn ſº I nº º ºr ºf F + - M - ſº I is is ºr ºn m ºn tº m m in Household. --. 2, 375 2,366 2, 354 S.E. # Sec. 5, T. 8 N., R. 21W -----------..... 71 Nov. 26 T. W. Bell, Lexington, N. - |''...}. & r - water, then fine gravel. - * , * * -----------------. º • W. Bell, Lexington, Nebr ...-- - * m = m ms ---| Júly, 1890.----| Dug, and ||.............. 38 26 12 Can not pump down ........] No.............. No---------. 3 feet soil, 3 feet light, sandy clay, 3 feet very hard, dark dirt, 9 feet | Hard .-----. Windmill...}. | Monitor ------ 6–8 ſ.-----------|---------- 45. 10 |---------- 1,600 | Stock ---...... 2, 386 2, 360 2, 348 Dug 18 feet and driven the rest of the way. SW - ... driven, + º hard clay, 8 #. light sº º j got, §wºmaterial º . . ' || | § - - - * - * - • . . . . . . . - r - * in nina . ri *O. ... *(i. icksand. . . . . . . . . . - SW. iššº y W ....... # §: ; #. #. §.” Hºgton, Nebr---------|--|-----------. Driven.----- 14 in. diam... 27 17 10 | Can not pump out ---....... No.-----------. No.--------. wºº." vºyº. ºpºlygºng........ ----do ------- ----dº --------| Dempster.--------------------------|---------- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 1,600 || ---do --------- 2, 369 2, 352 2, 342 - } " * -- " ------- s OW, 3. . T. Wallace, Lexington, Nebr ---------, Növ, 1889-----| Bored-------| 1; in. diam.. 38 20 18 ----do ----------------- ------ No.---------- ---. No--------- .# 4 feet soil, 16 feet clay with some sand at 20 feet struck quick- |.......----... Hand----...i. :---------- --------------. ++ 12. 00 5.00 ----------|---.* * * * * * * 500 | Household.... 2, 365 2,345 2,827 N.E. # NE. 4 sec. 22, T. - * = . . ." . -: - | . ." . - - * * sand; water and gravel. - - l - - # # sec 8 N., R. 21 W. ------. 74 || Now. 2. A. T. Axelsol, Lexington, Nebr # = - - - - A - - - †. 4 years ago ...| Bored, wood. 10 in. diam.. 178 159 19 i----do -------. * * m . . . º. º. º. is m ms tº m = m. No------------ F. No.--------. 4 feet soil; then #. Sandy matter; some cave sand; caved in # Hard ------. Windmill!...] Enterprise.... 6 || 60. 00 27, 00 85.00 ||---------. 2, 600 | Stock......... 2,497 || 2, 338 2, 319 S.E. # NE. # sec. 34, T. 8 N., R. | . . . - I - - °, - feet; probably not much magnesia. At 159 feet struck quicksand. ' ' 'i - - # # 8 N., R. 21 W ........ 75 Nov. 26 A. J. Tolberd, Bertrand, Nebr !-----------|3|Years ago.-- Bored, wood ....do ....... 208 178 30 | Can not lower ---------...-. Yes; 30 feet,....] No.----.....] 4 feet º 85 §: finé clay, 85 feet finesand; about 6 feet hard blue ....do ....... ----do -------|-| Bertrand.----- .6 |------------ ----------| 125.00 ---------- 2,400 j...do .........] 2,530 2,352 2,322 * NW - - - * I 1 - - . . . . . . |Fº ... ' - Casling. - . . . . - - clay, 25 feet sand and surface water; 3 feet blue clay, then water ; ; ; ; . J - ', - - - , + - §§§: ******}Y: # Nº. ; *śā- * * * * * * * * * * * - - - - - --- iyears ago ---|----do -------|--- do ------ 280 205 25 | Can not putmp out......… Yes; 25 feet º No.--------. .*.*.* * * * * *----------------------------------- J.----- …]…do -------|--do ----- ... Challenge..... 6 I.-----------|----------|----------|---------- 2,400 ----do ---------| 2,537 2,332 2,307. k 1 : SW, 4 NW. 3 sec. 26 'T. 7 Nº 'R. 21 W.I. 78 || Nov. 26 will º §§ºnd, Nebr. ------------|-6 years ago ---|----do ------ - - - - -do - - - - - - - 186 166, 20 | Can Inot }. down........] Yes; 20 feet ....] No.----- ---. 4 feet soil, 179 feet of sandy clay, hard at bottom; 3 feet gravel....'...] Soft......... ----do --------|-Monitor .-----| 6 11220, 00 |...... ----|---------- (18) 2,400 ----do --------- 2,498 || 2,332 2,312. . . i. I ºr -- ". . ;---, -, *. -------| ov. 4. illiam West, Bertrand, Nebr----------. Mär., 1890:----|---do -------|....do ....... 232: ..., 220 12 | Can not lower with pump--. No.............| No.-----....] 3 feet soil, about 90 feet yellow clay, then loosé šand until water | Hard ....... Hand -----º-; ----------------|----------|------------ ----------|---- ----------------|--...-----|----do.---------, 2, 528 2,308. 2, 296 Wºº. north the water wis ... . ..". NE-3 sec. 1, T. 6 N., R. 21W ...............]. 79 | Nov. 27 | –– º ºvara ºrº- “... hººl - . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . " . ". . . . . H -- ". . . . ºf ". . . . at 220 feet'; then wet sånd and at bottom coarse gravel... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [ _ _ ! ... i. * . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . " …'s | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....] ..., | 1 , ..., |: rise 2 or 8 feet in 2 days. " . . . . . . . . . . . . -ºšWääsecºw:::::::::::::::: ; lºº. #| A. E.;ºpſ:::::::::: *śgo:::::-49:...---|4|in, diam::... .236.4.226.....:4. Small.-- <-----------------|No.----------&lpedreasing-liwaterisanāśronºvº:::::::::......l.º.do.......Windmilis...}...........................----...--------..r.l.…...- ****** {{ſ-lºgº-º-º-34%-23%lºſºlº..…..…..…........a.… . . . * •e * , , as ::R ºw *:::: :---------| s 0. Nov. 27. A.A. eterson, Be trää Neº::::::: § 3 ºl&----|3:...d6, ...----|-6 in diam...] ... 250 jº. 255; º 12 || Can not lower .............. #:::::::: º: 3 feet soil, 90 feet clay with little sand, 70 feet loose sand, then || Medium ....]...do ... :::::: *Enterprise....] A 6 || 125 00: 50:00. I25.00. ** | 1,3001:...doº... ### fºss' #. --~~~~~~~~ º -º-º-º: ." sw. . - . . . . i . . . . . - º -- . . . . . . . . . I l ' ' , , . . . |... ; , . . . . . i ... " , ‘. . . . . . . . . ſ * f | , . . * - ' i , . - . " . . . . . . " 1. . i. ... " , , . ... ', ' |. º º; jº. jºš. *** . . . . . . . . -* r ... * | *, *, ' , A-, | "ſº 2- * , ; , , ' ' '. J." ', m" • .N. . . . . . . . . ~ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ; : . . { \ . ... ' . . . . . . . . . Z ' ' ' ', -, ... }. N.W. . 18; T. 6 N., R. , I vºl. * * . . . . . . . . . . . . [..." - - . . . k - + , , , " . . - - - - , , | ... -- #| -- . . feet 2 feet Wet Sand, then.9 feet of quicksand an eet gravel. ". Nº . . ºf , -, - * | , * ! . . . . " - * *- - . . . - - | ... " ^ . • , # # see 8; T 6 N , R. ow - * * - - - - 81 | Nov. 27 || A. E. Dyer, Bertrand, Nebr...... -------. Jīne, 1890 ----| Tubular ---. 2 in. diam...] 226. 203 ; , , 23 Can not lower with pump...| No. --...-----.... No.---------| 3 feet soil, 60 feet clay, 75 feet i; dry sand, '50 :*. 12|----do -------|---do ----...] Star --------- 6 *120.00 |.--------. 75.00 ||---------- 650 ----do --------- 2,477 2,274 2,251 * \ * - º, SE • . . . - g . - '... . . - r … I . . . . | . . . - º, #. 3 ſº sº º blº, º º: sand and water. [" i j\ . , , ;" | ! i - * - º - . # NE. 4 sec. * - 2 - l v. ' ' | . . . . . . + . . . . - , - | | . f eet is 2 feet of gravel. At bottom 4 feet gravel. - , ſ', - - ‘. - l 1 - # a see 25, T 6 N., R. 1 W .------- 82 | Nov. 27 | W. A. Canada, Dertrand, Nebr.. ---------| Siring, 1885... Bored, wood 10 in. diam.. 207 200 7 | Can not pump down........ SNo---------. ---|| No-------- ...| 4 feet Soil, about 10 feet ; Sand and gravel -...----- grºws ------------ Hard -...--- ----do -------|-| Eclipse. ------ v. 6 70, 00 23.00 100.00 |...-------. 800 ----do --------. 2,467 || 2,267 || 2,260 SW. 4 sec. 6, T. 5 N., R. * * º - ºf , , , CàSlng. - * º r …' º - *. - l - | W - #. N., R. 20 W ... ........... 83 Nov. 27 | Cris, Galladay, Bertrand, Nebr.......... **śears ago...]...do....... ----do ------- 159 || 147 12 Can not lower with pump---| Yes; 3 feet....! No.-----....! 45 feet clay, 50 feet red sand, 26 feet clay with rocks in it, 10 feet | Soft ........ ----do ----->4-1 Star ---------. 6 35.00 i 35.00 90. 00 i.---- -----| 2,900 || -- do --------. 2, 399 || 2, 252 2, 240. S. W. 3 SW. 4 sec. - -. - - ºf . - L r ," | | | | | coarse gravel, 18 feet fine sand, 10 feet coarse gravel. . . - - I N # # Sec. 18, T. 5.N., R. 20 W. . . . . . 84 || Nov. 27 | J. N. Stansbury, Oxford, Nebr ...-- F * * * * * spring of 1884. Dug ...... -- 3 by 3 feet .. 125 117 8 ....do -------. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * No------------- il No.-------- . 4; º 65 feet clay, then º sand. Above §: is 3 *...* Hard ------- ---.do ------ºf: Enterprise....] .. 6 |------------|----------|---- - - ---|---------- 1,900 ----do -------- 2, 348 2, 231 || 2, 223 E. # NE. 4 sec. 25, T. 4 * ~ *- ºi t - sº-c *: - t | of dalk gumbo, 8 feet sand and water, changing togravelin bottom. . . . . . . . . i - A no- # # S ---, T. 5 N., R. 21 W. .......... 85 | Nov. 27 | S. B. Yeoman, Oxford, Nebr.--... - - - - - - - - - -1879.----- •--------do ------- ----do ------- 123 108 15 Can pump out or nearly out. No............. ! Yo---------- Wºº #. * sand. No curbing; walls § without. Clay |....do .......!----do --------|----do --------. 6 1.----------- 45.00 90.00 ---------. 1,600.|----do --------. 2, 330 2,222 2, 207 NW. 3 SW, . 31, T. 5 N. R. - - || 3: . - and sand all the way down. " . . ; , - # # Sec. 31, T. 5.N., R.20 W ......... 86 Nov. 27 | T. B. Miller, Oxford, Nebr.----------...... Jān., 1889..... ----do ------- ----do ------- 94 91; 2#. Mill running all day will | No..............j No.------ ...| 3 feet soil, 70 feet §§ clay, some sand, 8 feet sand, 12 feet |....do ....... ----do -------|--|----do --------- 6 20.00 15, 00 80.00 ---------. 1,000 ----do --------- 2, 276 | 2, 185 2, 182 | v i - - lower, but not pump dry. ! | . º º: M. Ö0IIl{3S ; . H. holes in the - || % - N.E. # SE.; sec. 11, T.4 N., R. * ..." ' - - STOIlò, ere are three Wells on this place all the same. h * , - \ # 3. Sec. 11, T. 4 N., R. 21 W. ......... 87 | Nov. 27 A. Watson, Oxford, Nebr ... • ? - - - - - • - - - - - - 6 years ago ---|----do ------- ----do ------- 73. 63 10 Mill Pº down to 1 foot, Yes; 8 feet.....] No.--------. 3 feet soil, then clay. Water in dark #. in Sandstone, same as |----do -...--- ----do ------...] Bertrand ..... 6 ------------ 15.00 80, 00 (8) 1,000 ||----do --------- 2, 224, 2, 161 || 2, 151 - º - ...} : ' ', Ult then Can not lower. f d No. 86. g v - - Fy NW, # NW. 3 sec. 25.T.4 N., R. 21 W. ........ 88 Nov. 27 | Fred. Huize, Oxford, Nebr.-----------.... 8 years ago --. Bored, wood | 10 in. diam...| 108 94 14 Mill pumps out in half hour. No..............] No.......--| | 3 feet soil, 5 feet yellow subsoil, 52 feet clay, with some sand; 12 feet |....do ------. ----do --------| Bird ---------. 6 || 40.00 35, 00 | 103.00 | 1525.00 300 l.---do -------- - 2, 172 2,078 2,064 Across the road a well on 2 feet lower ground. Dn Grand Island line in Nebraska: j - § ... " Casing. - - - - gravel, dry; 12 feet clay; then water in clay with gravel and . *. - r 114 feet deep is in sandstone. SW. #, Sec. 6, T, 1 N., R. 9 W-...-------- 89 Nov. 30 iš... do d to a 8 || Can not l th Yes: 6 or 8 feet. | N cºnjºy ind ºne... sºn PIand | | | & r 1, 703 | 1, 661 | 1. 653 NE, 3 N.E. + ... R. 10 W.I.I.I. A. A in E... ** - - - * * *.* * * * : - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - :* * * * * * * = * * * * * * * * * * *** A m ºr * * * * * ----ClO - - - - - - - an Inot lower with pump ... Yes; 6 or 8 feet. No. -----.... ay until 48 feet, then sand and gravel ...........-----------...----. Oſt - - - - - - - - - *Ela Eld - - - - - *** -i- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - m s m = * | - - - - - - - - - - - - F - - - - - - - - - - | * * * * * * * * * = | - - * * * * * * * = F * * * * * * * * * * | * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * I j I # #, sec. 36, T. 2 N., R. 10 W. --...----- 90 Nov. 30: A. E. Frazer, Guide Rock, Nebr. - - - - - - - - - - 11 years ago --|--- do ------- ---do ------- 80 72 8 || Can not lower with § p. --! No ------------. No.-------- ... 4 º soil, !. lighter soil down #. 60 {º then Sand to bottom ; at |. ---do -...----. Windmill.......] Eclipse ------. 6 40.00 40.00 90, 00 (*) | 1,300 | Stock ----...--. l, 763 1,691 1,683 + # # * - . . . . . . . K ! . v. 72 feet struck water in coarse gravel, quicksand in bottom. ! I | * F- - sW. # NW. #, sec. 19, T. 2 N., R.9 W. ...... .. 91 Nov. 30 | Samuel Bruner, Gnide Rock, Nebr.....---| Siring, 1886.--|----do ------- ----do ------- 120 110 10 Can not lower ........... --. No.------------. No.--------. 18 feet topsoil and subsoil, then #: #. size of hen's egg down. |....do. ------ ----do ------|-| Enterprise....], 6 75, 00 60.00 105, 00 || 1630. 00 1,000 |... do ...... -- . 1,821 | 1,711 | 1,701 } * . . . - Wºr in gravel and coarse sand; near water was a little quick- . + f J - # * . . . - - - SãIl (i. * h T i - + g . . . SW. # SW. # Sec. 6, T. 2 N., R. 9 W ...... --. 92 | Nov. 30 || W. EI. Thompson, Cowles, Nebr..... * - - - - - dyears ago ---|----do ------- ----do ------- 112 100 12 | Can not pump down.------. No-------------. No.--------. 2 feet soil, 18 feet clay; coarse sand and fine gravel to bottom. No | Hard ....... ----do ------4- Eclipse # * - * * * :- 6 50.00 |, 40, 00 85. 00 1712. 00 1, 300 - - - -do --------- 1, 823 1, 723 1, 711 12 feet of 10-inch galvanized plpe II, bottom. * . . . change in material where water is struck. * *~.-- Fº - SW. 3 SW, 4 sec. 19, T. 3 N., R. 9 W ........ 98 || Nov. 30 John Crawford, Cowles, Nebr............. Spring, 1888 --|....do ------. ----do ------- 91 81 10 | Can not lower with pump ... No.............. No.--------. 3 feet . 20 feet clay, coarse sand and gravel the rest of the way; Medium ....|....do ...... --- Perkins...----. 6 | * $130.00 |----------|---------- (18) 1,300 |----do --------- 1,848 || 1,767 1,757 || Information not trustworthy. +. • | . . . . . * , water in sand javel. r - - - + * - NE. # NE.3 sec. 13, T. 3 N., R. 10 W-----...--. 94 | Nov. 30 | F. H. Gerlach, Blue Hill, Nebr. ............ Fall, 1888 ..... ----do ------- 14 in. diam-. 92 64 28 Can, pump out in leavy | No.---...--. .--. No---------- 3 feet j tºy fººt black soil, rest clay, some pieces of [....do ------- ----do ------4-1----do --------- l 6 34, 00 25. 00 70, 00 (18) • 500 ----do --------. 1,903 1,839 || 1,811 || 1 mile west of this well is a well on about the } - } - wind. i - rock clear to bottom. Water seeps in from sides. - - - same level, 94 feet deep and there is a vein of N.W. # NW. 4 sec. 31, T. 4 N., R. 9 W 95 | Nov. 30 | H *i. ºf . . . , - r | - - T i - - - Water; one can hear the water run. º * † Sºus ºi-, --- ºr i-V s , i.v. iv. W W - - - - - - - - - *] | NOW, enry Grune, Rosemont, Nebr..........- Sºring, 1888. --|----do ------- 10 in, diam.. 80 66 14 cº #. out with mill, | No........... -- - No.--------. 1 foot soil; then all yellow clay to bottom; seeps in from sides; Hard ...----. ----do --------| Halladay------ 6 25, 00 22.50 80, 00 || (19) 800 --- do --------- 1, 975 1,909 | 1, 895 Pºgº # 15 º: ºper as a well t * - . . . . . ut fills in 1 hour. - Some small rock. vº j, | one-half mile north is 1n gravel. SW. 4 sec. 30, T. 4 N., R. 9 W...... tº # * * * * * * * * * 96 Nov. 30 | Louis Schuman, Blue Hill, Nebr.......... 4. ears' ago.---|----do -----------do ...----. 104 91 13 Can not pump down.... .... No.------------, No------- ...] 3 feet *: *...* clay till 101 feet about ; then 3 feet gravel; ....do ....... ----do --------, Monitor.----. º 6 1.-----------|---------- * ... * = * * * * * = i = - * * * * * * * * 2,200 ----do --------. 1,973 1,882 1, 869 * - º # * : * - * • *---- º º - stopped on rock. ". … SW. # Sec. 7, T.4 N., R. 9 W. ---...-------...- . 97 || Dec. 1 || J. C. Curry, Blue Hill, Nebr...----....... II;1883.------.|----do ------- 11 in, diam.. 71 56. 15 Can pump nearly down..... No.------------..] No. --------- 5 feet soil, 25 feet yellow loose º 25 feet yellow clay with sand; Very hard......do ------4------do --------- 6 30.00 30.00 45.00 15.50 1,600 ----do --------- 1.960 | 1,904 || 1,889 - | : - then Some material in water, only soft; bottom well the same. SE. # sec. 30, T. 5 N., R. 9 W.-----!------------ 98 || Dec. 1 | Thomas Jones, Pauline, Nebr...........: H 1878. ------. ----do ------- 14 in. diam.. 150 120 30 | Can not pump down.------. No.----. - - - - - - - - No. --....... 6 feet soil, 120 feet clay with §little Sand; then quicksand and Hard -...... ---do ------.F. Halladay------ 6 60, 00 20, 00 90. 00 (14) 3, 200 .... do ........ -- 1,912 1,792 1,762 - ' ' . - * Water; 10 feet gravel in bottom; stopped in gravel. - | . ' S.E. # Sec. 7, T. 5 N., R. 9 W---...----...------- 99 || Dec. 1 | E. L. Bozeman, Pauline, Nebr.......----. Mar., 1885-----|----do -...--. ---do ------- 120 100 20 ----do------------------...--. No.------------. No.--------. 5 º soil, 55 ...”. clay, 8 or 10 É. sand, 25 feet clay, 5 feet Medium ........do --...-4. Monitor...----- 6 65. 00 35, 00 80.00 (20) 2, 200 j. ---do --------- 1, 865 1,765 | 1,745 - , || L: ' - - r - sand; then water i d and gravel; stopped i avel. - J #;ºw: #|}. |##; ;...º.-----------. 5 years ago.--. Driven.----. 2 in. diam. --| 30 15 15 1. ---do. -----.................. No------------- - No. --------- Pj...'...","..º.º.º.º..........] soft ........ ...do............do ......... 6 1. -----------|--------------------|---------- 1,000 || ---do --------. 1,778 1,753 | 1,748 .# Sec. 30, T. 6 N., R. 9 W ................. 101 || Dec. 1 | H. C. Bunker, Le Roy, Nebr.............. D.c., 1885..... Bored, wood 10 in. diam.. 102 95 7 Can not lower with pump...] No.....--...--....] No.--------- 3 feet soil, 40 feet reddish clay, 20 feet dry fine sand; under this Hard ....... ... --do ------|--| Enterprise. --. 6 27. 00 25.60 80, 00 (20) 1,000 ----do --------- 1,877 1,782 1,775 + ! || | Casing. - - clay again, probably so and above water; water in gravel. - | | | - - * | §: i §: *...º.º.º.º. - - - - ºn º - - - - # #: i ſº † Hastings, Nebr............}.. *:: - - - - - - - - - - ----do ------- ----do ------. 115 109 6 || Can, not pump down........ No.------------. No.--------. wº. # #. i. ...; sand w w w * * º mºve---- | Soft -------- -- do ------#.] Eclipse....... 6 I.-----------|----------|---------- 175. 00 2,800 ----do -------- - 1,888 1,779 | 1,773 Św.? swi secºg, T. 7 N. i. 9'W.I.I.I.I. 104 #. i judg & *ś §: ºr * * * = * * * * * * * * ---| Il 1880-------. ----do ------- ----do -------| 110 100 10 i----do-----------------------. No.------------ - No. --------- At about 50 feet, sand; 15 or 20 feet of sand; gravelin bottom...... Medium ----|--|--do ------|--| Turbine .----- 6 I.-----------|----------|----------|---------- 800 ----do --------- 1,900 1,800 1,790 - * 4 ~ *-** + v. --- * r -i-v - 3 -º-ºws ºf y r → • * * * = . . . . . €{}, udge Gaston, Alma, Nebr.............. - May, 1890..... ----do ------- ----do ------- 112 100 12 ----do-----------------------. Yes; 6 feet .....| No. --------. 4: soil, 4 feet white clay; at 80 feet is caving sand, 3 feet clay; ....do ...----. Hand.-------|--------------------------------------|----------|----------|---------- 250 i....do --------. 1,916 | 1,816 | 1,804 +. + ... . . . 4.--- º "a - then Sand and gravel with water. - - w i I | sº * * * - m º ºſ º ºn * * * * > * * * * - - - - - - - m = * | * *|Hº Gas Well Company, Hastings. His39........ Borel and 18 into 5 in. 1,145 || 10...... * * 1 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * = * * - + tº mº | * * * * = - * = m = m m in ºn m + ºr sº i º º is im º º is m = m = m = m, 1ºtgraveland sand, full of water, .............. -------------|--|----------- - - - - 1 = • * * * * - - - # 1 ºr m ºr in m = m. m ºr * * * | * * * = ºr * * * * * | * * * * * m ºn m = | | * * * * * * * * * * | * * * * * * * - ºn a * * * * * * * * * - E ..... 1,916 1,816 771 . I3, T, 7 N., R. 10 W. € 0.I., || ". w drilled. - + t 4 feet clay with round stones in it, very bard, maybe impervious ; | | | * | - - | . . . i *. matter; 60 feet gravel and sand full of water, 6 feet yellow clay, i " _ " . i i | .* - - 27 feet light yellow ocher, 6 feet gray ocher, gradually changing t º - to soft dark shale, 677 feet blue shale, no water; 1 strong vein ,- * - i salt water rising 640 feet, and giving 50 per cent. saturated soiu. ' ' ' , , * | *: º of salt à 204 º: blue shale, no water. At 1,145 feet bottom | - - | NE, 4 SE. 4 sec. 36, T. 8 N., R. 10 W.----...-. 106 || Dec. 2 | O. B. Hewett, Hastings, Nebr............. Tâ1887.--...--. Bored, wood | 10 in. diam.. 115 100 15 Can not pump out ........ -- No-------------. No---------. wº º ºpºlyvateº ººngm = m = m m ºf m is nº ºr ºn E * ~~~~ Soft--------. Windmill.i.................. 6 ------------ - - - - - - - - - - I - - - - - - - - - - * - ſº E. E. – º 'º - m 150 | Stock ----...--. 1, 903 || 1,803 | 1,788 N.E. # sec. 24, T. 8 N., R. 10 W.---------...... 107 Dec. 2 || W. L. Baird, Hastings, Nebr ... ſil&76 ºng. do - | t 3 d 1,934 | 1,824 1,814 * y # º * = h_sº m *1. ***** * * * * * - * * * * * * * * - - - - - - - - * * * * *-*.*.* * * * m = * * * * * *-*.** * * * * * = 120 110 10 ----do ----------------------. No-------------. No.--------- Saud in bottom ----------------, ----------------------------------- Hard ...----- ----do ------ --| Challenge... --|----------|------------|----------|---------- * * * * * * * * * = 320 - - --do - - - - - - - - - * ... . y , 8 SW. 3 SW. 4 sec. 31, T. 9 N., R. 9 W----...---- 108 || Dec. 2 | E. L. Peabody º Hansen, Nebr------------- 186. m - lº ºn m = m - a. º. Tubular ....] 2 in, diam... 115 70 45 ----do ----------------------- Yes; 45 feet ....] No.--------. 3 or 4 feet soil, 70 feet clay, then gravel, probably clay above water; ... ---do ------- .---do ------|-- Halladay * - ºr Bº sº. 6 *.85 |.--------. 128. 00 (21) 2,500 |....do . - - - - - - - - 1, 946 1, 876 1,831 * : * - Water in gravel, * . + - - N.W.3 sec. 29, T. 9 N., R. 9 w * - - - - - - - - m is m = - ºn m 109 || Dec. 2 | George Grantlan, Doniphan, Nebr....... | 4 years ago -- Bored, wood | 10 in. diam.. 81 70 11 | Can pump out .............. Wo------------- ..] No.--------- 5 feet soil, ãºhite clay down to near water, or about 65 feet; Very hard \!... -do ------ --| Challenge-----|----------|------------|-" * * * * * * m = - 130.00 (14) *300 ----do - ..... --. 1, 938 | 1,868 1, 857 g l ' ' . Casing. then sand and water; bottom of well on clay. } |, | . . +. ‘. NE. 4 SE. # sec. 13, T. 9 N., R. 10 W----------. 110 || Dec. 2 J. F. Cole, Doniphan, Nebr........... - - - - - i. 4-do ---------| Tubular .--. 2 in. diam... 130 75 55 | Can not pump down -------. Can not say..... No..........| 2 feet soil, 8 feet subsoil, 50 feet yº ºgetting yellower as Hard ....-- -|----do --- - - - - - ---do --------. 6 *1.00 ---------. 70, 00 23.75 2, 400 ----do ----. . . . . 1, 956 1,881 1, 826 . * * - deeper, and at bottom whitish; at 60 feet changing to sand, at 70 , ºr | * ‘. . ‘. . . - * | feet | Sand, at 75 feet water in quicksand. Stopped in coarse - f w - | . ? V. F r - S.E. 4 SE. # sec. 36, T. 10 N., R. 10 W .--------. 111 || Dec. 2 | T. B. McCulley, Doniphan, Nebr...... . . . . 13 years ago ..] Bored, wood 6 in. diam... 28 | 6 12 ----do ------------------ -----| No.------------..] No.--------. sºil, is feet sandy clay; then quicksand and water; 2 feet |. --. do ...----. ----do ------|--| Eclipse ------- 6 1.-----------|----------|---------- *1.50 || 3,800 .... do ......... 1, 899 || 1, 833 1, 871 N.E. # SE. # sec. 12, T. 10 N., R., 10 W.----...--. 112 || Dec. 2 J. W. Denman, Grand Island, Nebr ; easing 14 gravel in bottom. t 1,874 1, 870 | 1.860 j # * T F is t º * * * * * * * * | * * *- - - - - - - - - - - - - || - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 4 19 |------------------------------------------------|-------------- Water in gravel; water c to t fg 1--------------------- Soft--------. Hand ----. * * * * * * * * * * * * in m = * * * * .* * * * * * * * * - I - - - - - - - - - - - - I - - - - - - - - - - I - - - - - - - - - | * * * * * * * * - - | * * * * * * - - - - | * ~ * * * * * * * * * * * * * * y H w § ###".º. #! W *- - - m = * - - - ºt #: #. § JE. S. #º Gºnº Island, Nebrº-c-----. 4 years ago ... Driven.-----. 1% in, diam.. 20 9 11 Can not pump down --------| Can not say.....] No.--------. 4 feet, .# i. cº i. ... #: ñºl. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * - - ----do ------- Windmill...}..! Turbine ...... 6 I.--------!---|----------|----------|---------- 2,000 | Stock ----...--. 3,832 1,853 1,843 * + º-' ſ r * - **** -- * * † -º-º's ºf 7 W = * * * * * * - - - ." LJºë. Charles Roberts, Lance Levoix, Nebr. ---. 3years ago.......do ....... ---do ------- 38 6 32 ----do ------------- - * * * * - - - m # Yes; 14 féét ---. No.--------. 8 feet soil, then sand; at 20 feet about 1 foot of very hard material; Medium ....|----do -.....{-. Champion ....] * : 6 20, 00, 25, 00 60.00 l.--------. 3,200 ----do --------- 1, 861 | 1,855 1, 823 º . . . . " I m # then sand under hardpan, and gravel at bottom. '. * , , I r N.W. # N.E. # 8è(?. 18, T. 13 N., R. 9 W .........| 115 | Dec. 3 V. Hrak, San Libony, Nebr.--------------• || June, 1886 ----|----do ------- 2 in. diam. -- 80 74 || 5 or 6 ----do ----------------------. No.------------..] No.--------. 2 feet sº Soil, 8 feet § 6 .# .. then quicksand, first water. | Soft......... - - --do - iº ºf L- - - --!. Enterprise. * * * * * 6 *150.00 ----------|---------- (19) 2, 400 I.---do --------- 1, 870 1, 796 l, 790 r , - n At *: º hº layer about 2 feet thick or more, water in coarse - - \ º º - * * . . - + ". aVel, rest, San (1. i º: INE. # Sec. 15, T. 14 N., R. 10 W - - ---...--...--. 116 || Dec. 3 J. W. Gilman, St. Paul, Nebr.----------. * * 1. years ago .. Bored-...---- ----do ------- 20 10 10 ----do --------- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Yes; 4 feet -----|-------------. 1 #. Soil, 8 feet sand, 5 feet blue clay, water on top of this clay, but |. -- -do ------- -------------|--|----------- * = n = < | * = a m = m = * * * i s m = * * * * * * = m. m . . m = m = m, m = ± = | * * * * * * * * * * | * * * * * * * * * * | * * * * * * * * * * | * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 1, 892 1, 882 1, 872 Jn Great Bend line in Kansas: - l : i. - * ' ' not good supply; 6 feet gravel and good supply of water. ' #. N.W. # NW. 4 sec. 9, T. 24 S., R. 13 W ----...-. 117 | Dec. 8 || Harrison Baker, St. John, Kans. • - - - - - - - - - 5 years ago. -- Driven.----- 1% in. diam.. 36 27 9|----do ----------------------. No.------------. No.--------- 7 feet Soil, 2 feet hardpan, 8 feet gravelly sand, 8 feet fine sand, 2 feet | Hard ....--- Hand.---. 4. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 200 Stock --------. 1, 927 | 1,900 1, 891 SW. 4 sec. 28, T. 24 S, R. 13 W .---------...... 118 || Dec. 8 || S. Van Lien, St. John, Kans I'vear - blue clay, then water in clay changing to sand; point in sand. - 909 | 1, 905 | # - --~~} - ". * - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - | years ago --|---. do ------- ----do ------- 29 25 * | ---do ----------------------. No.---- * * * * * * * * * No.--------- Clay ab : Water in sand . . . . . .------------------. --------- ft. -------. ----do -----4------------- * - m ms m ºr m 'm sº º ſº m im m = , = ºr a m = * * * * * * * | * * * m m ºn a m = m, - * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 180 l. ---do --------. 1,934 I, , 900 N.W.? N.W. 4 sec. 9, T. 25 S., R. 13 W. . . . . . . . . 119 Dec. 8 || H. Curtis, St. John, Kans...... ----------- §ºis. --|----do ------. ----do ------- 62 57 * !----do ----------------------. No-------------- No.--------. 4. .*.*.*. *::::::: **i. 16 feet red hard sand, then #a * - ºn m = # * .---do -----4------------------|----------|------------|--------------------|---------. 500 l. ---do --------- 1, 945 1,888 1,883 - M Softer sand. Water at 26 feet; 6 or 7 feet quicksand, then hard al h l f - -- ſ I "| matter; gravel in bottom, - - - - - - - ] , *In 12 years. *In 23 years. *In all. t is None; 6 years in use *None'; run 3 is º 15 - - - º $ º 21 * . . tº 22 | *In 4 vear 24In 13 vears. - | .r º | ; &L º ; years. None in 7 years. In 6 years. - 16 In 8 years. 17 In 5 º 18 N. in 1% wears. 19 None in 4 years. 20 None in 5 years. None in 63 years. Barrels. n 4 years. º S. Ex. 41, pt. 2—face p. 116—2 f I' - - i. “s “ In a years one in 13 y | y - years - - | l 25 Y. t f APPENDIx 25–RECORD OF ALL WELLS ExAMINED ON THE UNDERFLOW LINES OF KANSAs, color Apo, NEBRASKA, AND Wyoming—Continued. [Wells examined by W. W. Follett.] | S. Ex. 41, pt. 2—face p. 116–3 | No. When Wh t Depth. - . . water. * + Cost. Maxi- Elevation. , Location. wº1. º. Name and address of owner. * - #." Kind of well. Size. To Of Amount of water, º‘...; ; #. Strata passed through. —T Kind of mm. stroke. Repai pº a Used for— Remarks. - Total. Water. Water. Quality. Ełow raisei. *.. WeII, Pump. NMill. fº per day. r #. Water. ; On Great Bend line in Kansas–Continued. £) 1890, º # ~~ Feat. Feet. Feet. * º + , Inches. Gallons. Peet. | Feet. Feet. S.E.3 sec. 29, T. 25 N., R. 13 W ---------------- 120 | Dec. 8 || George W. Robinson, Antrim, Kans...... 12 years ago --| Dug -------. 4 by 4 feet -- 25 21 4 Runs in as fast as can be | No.--------...-. No---------- 4 feet sandy soil, 4 feet red sand, 8 feet blue clay; some sand in Hard ....--. Hand---------------..- - - - - - - - - 1 - - - - - - - - - - I - " - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - I - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 650 Stock......... 1, 942 1,921 1, 917 - + drawn out. the clay; 9 feet white sand, with scattering gypsum rocks; sand I - , , , - * 1 * - . * - t in bottom, with water. - . . ; } r - NE. 4 NE. 4 sec. 5, T.26 S., R. 13 W ---------- 121 | Dec. 8 || H. C. Kipp, Antrim, Kans ----------------. Júly, 1884 -.... ---do -------. 3; by 3% feet. 30 20 10 | Can Ilot pump down-------- Gradually,4feet. Yes; 4 feet | 4 feet soil, then hard clay, with sand. No curbing from 7 to 24|....do ------. Windmill. j. . . . Goodhue....-- 6 $26.00 ||---------. $75,00 ---------. 1,900 ----do --------. 1,927 | 1,907 1, 897 + l - J higher now. feet; water in gravel and sand. -- NE. 4 sec. 17, T. 26 S., R., 13 W.--------------- 122 | Dec. 8 || P. Williams, Iuka, Kans ..................| Mar;1888.----|---do --------| 3 by 3 feet. 50 44 6 Can lower 1 foot, but no | No.............. No.--------. 2 feet sºil, 10 feet red sand; 25 feet sandy loam, with a little clay; Soft ........ Hand.....!.....!-------------|----------|------------|----------|----------|---------. 1,300 ||----do --------- 1,938 1,894 | 1, 888 - * . *. | more. r 5% feet white clay; gypsum clay; 13 feet cement gravel, then finé '. 's ſº * * * sand and water. At the bottom the sand is getting coarser. - - 1 - l S.E.3 sec. 32, T.26 S., R. 13 W.--------------. 123 | Dec. 8 D. P. Todd, Pratt, Kans -------------------|---------------. Tubular.... 2; in. diam.. 76 64 12 | Can not pump down........ No------------- No.--------. 5 feet soil, then very hard sandy clay; cannot tell how deep; water |....do ....... Windmill.'"...] Goodhue.----. 6 ------------|----------|--------------------|---------- ---do --------- 1, 948 1,884 1,872 The man on the place was a renter, and had r *. t is in sand; bottom in gravel. This is first water. - * . been there but a few days, so could give but :* r º . . . . - + -- * f * * - . little reliable information. SW. 4 sec. 33, T.23 S., R. 13 W --------------. 124 || Dec. 9 i J. H. Smith, St. John, Kans-----...----...--. Oct., 1885..... Dug for 16 || 3 by 3 feet .. 22 16 6 ----do ----------------------. No.------------ No---------. Sand all the way; there is some clay in most of the places in this Medium ........do -----.... Champion .... 6 ------------|----------|----------|----------|-------------------------. 1,911 1, 895 | 1,899 - * ; then 6 w ºrhood, but Inone here. ater in Sand; pipe gets into . . . * - # *. i 1Inch pipe. . Tà V (21. . N.W. # sec. 21, T. 23 S., R. 13 W --------------- 125 || Dec. 9 || Chris. Butler, St. John, Kans....... * - Wº tº +, ºr * Fall, 1889..... Ug- - - - - - - - - - - - do -------- 12 9} 2}| Taking out 1% barrels will | No.----......... No.---------| 4 feet soil, 4 feet sand, then hard gravel and gypsum to bottom; ....do ....... Hand--------|----------------|--------------------------------|----------|---------. 320 Stock--------. 1,897 1,888 | 1,885 k * . bail down to 1 foot, but '. Water in this. º r *. - * * Tuns in in an hour. r º N.W.; SW. # sec. 4, T.23 S., R. 13W ---------. 126 || Dec. 9 G. W. Taylor, St. John, Kans.............. 8 years ago ... Dug. 30 feet, [...do -------. 44 29 15 | Can not lower with pump. ; No.............. No.---------| 3 feet soil, 2 feet clay with sand, 12 feet yellow sand, 14 feet lighter | Hard ....... Windmill.....| Champion .... 6 |------------|----------|----------|---------- 3,200 |----do --------- 1,913}| 1,884 1,869 | Well out of repair and not in use. tà - then 14 feet A. Sand, then water in Sand, and sand to bottom, but coarser in bot- | + - - of pipe. i tom. The bottom of well is on hard Imatter, supposed to be ' | " |. - * * * * clay. . - . . . ~ -- - SW. 3 SW, 4 sec. 28, T. 22 S, R. 13 W --------. 127 | Dec. 9 W. H. Davis, Kenilworth, Rans............ 43 years ago .. Dug, for, 36 3 by 3 feet 52 30 22 || Mill will lower 14 feet, but | No.----...- .... No..........] 3 feet soil, 3 feet hard clay, with sand; 24 feet sand; 6 feet quicksand, Soft -----...}. ---do ------ ...; Halladay ..... 6 50, 00 $15.00 95.00 ---------- 640, i.---do --------. 1,919 | 1,889 || 1, 867 | It is probable that the screen fills with sand is - , , ºr - feet, then and 1 in. Ilò III OTê. with water; 9 feet gypsum in sheets with cement and gravel; 7 i § the reason water pumps down. bored 16 ft. diam. * . feet fine gravel in water. - N.W. # N.W. 4 sec. 4, T. 22 S., R. 13 W------...-- 128 Dec. 9 || C. F. Wells, Seward, Rams ---------------. 2 years ago - .. lig- - - - - - - - - 2; by 23, feet. 22% 20 2% 2 barrels water will pump No M – E - ſº º is º # = m + m ºr No.--------. 3 feet sand; 3 feet clay gumbo, hard. At 12 feet 2 feet loam full of Medium ---. Biand -...---- ! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - I - - - - - - - - - - 160 ----do --------- 1, 900 1,880 1,877 * \, , it dry. seashells; 2 feet gypsum just above water; 2 feet quicksand in r; . # * * * F - water, then hard magnesia clay. t J.--" - N.W. 4 NW. 4 sec. 33, T. 21 S., R. 13 W -------- 129 || Dec. 9 || P. G. Hufford, Seward, Kans............... Aug., 1890..... Driven.----. 2 in, diam. 62 24 36 | Can not pump down. --...--. Yes; 36 feet ....| No.----...--. 2 ft. black soil; 6ft. Subsoil; 1 foot hard clay gumbo; 18 ft. hard mat- |----do -------|. -- do ------|--|----------------|---------- **7.00 l----------|----------|----------|---------- House.------. 1,908 1,884 1,848 * - ter, probably gypsum or magnesia (grit); 2 feet sand and a little - - * - - - d water; 16 ft, hard matter, probably magnesia or cemented gravel. is N.E. : NE. # sec. 20, T. 21 S., R. 13 W. --------- 130 | Dec. 9 D.C. Luce, Great Bend, Kans........-----| 2 years ago ... Dug --------| 3 by 3 feet -- 20 12 8 i Can § out, but fills again Yes; 4 feet ..... No.--------. 3 º:ºº::...º.º. hard; 4 feet gravel and sand [....do ....... ---do ----- 4. ... • H- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - | * * * * * * - - - - | * * * * * * * * - * * * | * * * * - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - I - - - - - - - - - - 1, 000 | Stock....----. 1, 904 1, 892 | 1,884 . . . Qū1CKly. - water; o ; ºr I’. - #. . . . SW. 3 SW. 3 sec. 4, T. 21 S., R., 13 W - - - ------ 13) | Dec. 9 || John Saul, Great Bend, Kans. ........... Oct., 1888 . . . . . Dug 22 feet |.--. do ------- 33 18 15 Can not lower with pump --| Yes; 13 feet. ...| No. ---...... 2 feet soft Sand, 6 feet joint clay or gumbo, 6 feet gypsum, then | Soft . . . . . . . . Windmill.....| Perkins------- 6 ||------------ 10. 00 70.00 l.----...--. 3,200 || ---do --------. 1,895 || 1,877 1,862 | Owner dug well himself. - .. then driven. w" sand down to 25 feet or 11 feet sand, 6 feet hard matter, then º . . . - f , º º - +. * º water in 2 feet gravel. I ". 4. - - NE. # NE.3 sec. 16, T. 20 S., R. 13 W -...--..... 133 || Dec. 9 || M. J. Belcher, Great Bend, IKans.......... 7 years ago ...| Driven.----. 1% in. diam...} 25 21 4 | Can Ilot lower ---------..... No.------------- No.--------. Water in gravel; well does not go down through gravel; hard | Medium ....] Hand...... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -|- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - * * * * - - - - - 1,280 ----do --------. 1,873 1, 852 1,848 || Mr. Belcher was not on place when well was d *. - : - - - - . º matter above sand, say at about 16 or 18 feet. - - put down. l N.W. # NE. 4 sec. 9, T. 20 S., R. 13 W. ... ------ 184 Dec. 9 || G. W. Hart, Great Bend, Kans ............ 10 years ago --|----do ------- 13 in. diam-- 63 , 8 55 ----do --------------------- Yes; 55 feet ..." N9.....----- 4 feet soil, 2 feet subsoil, 4 feet hardpan; 4 feet yellow sand, 26 feet |....do .......}. ---do ---------|--------------------------|------------|----------|----------|----------|---------- House -------- 1,855 | 1,847 | 1,792 | Not certain that the water Irises as high as stated, * quicksand and sheet water, then hard sand with thin layers of | : k although Mr. Hart is positive in it. ºt ! . º - very hard material. . At 62 feet gravel and second water, softer * , - r || | i - than surface water. - ſ , NE. 4 NW. 4 sec. 21, T. 19 S., R. 13W......... 135 | Dec. 10 || William Hossock, Great Bend, Kans......] Summer, 1889. Bored. ----- - 5 in, diam... 198 ||------...--------|------------------------------|------------------|-------------. 7 feet blackºlay soil, 12 feet sand with inexhaustible vein of hard ||..............|............. +--|---------------- * * * * * * * * * * : * * * * * * * * * * * * : * * * m m is a mº m ºr | * * * * * * * is sº tº | * * * * * * * * * = | s m = ± = * * = n = | * * * * * * * * = F * = − = r = 1, 847 -------. I, 649 This well was put down by a Dr. McCormick for ** water, 13 feet blue clay, 14 feet coarse sand with small white peb. | || oil, coal, and petroleum. | bles, and large quantity of water, 20 feet mixture of soapstone | x º ână"a little blue clay, 12 feet fine †. with water (called - “soft water vein.”); 12 feet hard layor, not rock, perhaps fire- clay, 8 feet very fine Sand with water, 62 feet blue clay with sand | . and hard strata, 2 feet very hard rock; cut glass but did not dull º | drill. At 162 feet water was colored a reddish cast, përhaps by i. : r ºt 36 feet blue clay with sand and hard strata, 4 feet strata r l - w Of WätéI’. tº - - * - - SE. # S.E.3 sec. 32, T. 18 S., R. 13 W. ---------. 135 | Dec. 10 | L. P. Bloss, Great Bend, Rans...--- * * * * - m ºn 15 or 16 years Dug -------- 43 by 43 feet. 45 42 3 Can pump out 7 barrels at No.............. No.--------. Yellow clay with, sand; water on top sandstone, probably some | Soft ........ Hand ------ i--|----------------|----------|---------------------------- ---|---------- 1,000 Stock.... ---. 1,884 | 1,842 | 1,839 || Will fill up immediately even if pumped out - = r ago. once; fills again in 2 hours. sand on the sandstone, bottom of well on sandstone. *: *. every 2 hours. S.E. : Sec. 8, T. 18 S., R. 13 W. -----------...--. 137 || Dec. 10 || J. C. Baker, Hoisington, Kans.-----........--------------. ---do ------- 33 by 3% feet. 18 15 3 | Can *: about 50 barrels | No.............. º Water in Sandy clay, not down to rock------------------. * - - - - ºr m sº sº, ſº • Wery hº Buckets ------|----------------|----------------------|----------|----------|---------- 1,300 ----do --------. 1,808 1,793 1,790 Probably could not be pumped out if cleaned out. * } * * per day. Weil Tilled up strongly J.; " . . m with sand. + alkaline. , º ', --- Sec. 5, T, 18 S., R. 13 W. ---------------------. 138 Dec. 10 | Missouri Pacific R. R., Hoisington, Kans--i Jan., 1888 - - - - - ---do ------. 20 feet diam- 47 31 16 Can pump out, with steam | No...... ---..... 0 - - - - - - - - - - 10 feet black loam, 37 feet red sandy material, with some clay, red- | Soft ...----. Steam pump-----------------|----------|------------|----------|----------|-------. . 90,000 || Locomotive. --| 1,820 1,789 || 1,773 | Probably 8 or 9 feet to sand rock. Another well * - pump, but will fill quickly. der as deeper. l i - near by put down to sand rock showed about 6 - - - * º - - - * , . inches of light gray shale on the top of the rock. SW. 4 SW. 3 sec. 28, T. 17 S., R. 13 W ......... 139 Dec. 10 J. D. Brown, Hoisington, Kans... ---...- - 7 years ago ...|----do ------. 4 by 4 feet.. 42 40 2 100 to 125 gallons will bail No. --------..... No.--------. 2 feet top soil, 2 feet hardpan,28 feet Sandy clay, 8 feet white clay, Medium .... Bucket ....!--|-----...--------|------...--|------------|----------|----------|----------|------.... Stock --------. 1, 874 1, 834 1, 832 - - ,- lº dry; run in again in 2 feet clay and sand with a little gravel; water in this. *. *- - I !, 10 El OuTS. - N.W. 3 sec. 9, T. 17 S., R. 13W ------.......... 140 Dec. 10 -------------------------------------------- 2 years ago ...|----do ------- .---do ----.. 20 17 3 | Can bail well out in one-half No.............. No.-------. 8 feet black soil and clay, 2 feet magnesia and cement gravel, 10 feet | Soft ........|.... do ------:------------------|----------|------------|--------------------|---------. 1,600 ----do --------. 1, 865 | 1,848 1,845 f - hour, but will Tun in again sand with water. - * ~ - + | S00It. + 1 * . º NW. # SW.4 sec. 4, T. 17 S., R. 13 W ---...----. 141 || Dec. 10 || John A. Coons, Hoisington, Kans----...--. 10 years ago ..|----do ------- ----do ------- 30 22 8 Call not lower with pump--| No.----------...] No.--------. 4 feet soil, then white clay with some float magnesia rock. The Hard ...----... --do ---------|----------------|----------|---- * = * m m m m + 1 = * * * * * * * * * : * * * * * * * = = * : * * * * * * * * * * 2, 240 ----do --------- 1, 876 1,854 | 1,846 | A short distance below here in another side ra- - i water is in clay with perhaps a little sand shale in bottom. * . vine sand is found, but no sand here. SE. : SE. 4 sec. 20, T. 16 S., R. 13 W --...----. 143 Dec. 10 ----------------------------------------------------------- ID §ne.” 3 by 3 feet.. 74. 68 6 |------------------------------|------------------|-------------- Shale lying on the gravel------------------------------------------|................ --do -------|--|----------------|---------|------------|----------|---------|----------|----------|---------------- 1,957 | 1,889 | 1,883 || Place abandoned. l &l - . - N.W. 4 SW. 4 sec. 16, T. 16 S., R. 13 W -------. 143 | Dec. 10 || W. H. Shaw, Werbeck, Kans .............. 7 years ago ...| Lug --------. 3} by 33 feet. 43 35 8 When bailed out takes a | No. ---------.... No.--------. 4 feet black soil, 3 feet blue clay, 7 feet, clay with magnesia, then | Hard ...-----|.. … • * * * * * * - - - - - - - - - I - - - - - - - - - - I - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - I - - - - - - - - - - 300 | Stock ----..... 1,932 1,897 | 1,889 º week for well to fill up. clay to bottom. There is a weak yein of water at 21 feet, but drys + j :- - i up in dry weather. The vein furnishing water is at 39 feet. i & - - -- ºr - # Shale in bottom of well. . . - ... I ‘. . . .'; . . . . . SW. 3 SW. 4 sec. 4, T. 16 S., R., 13 W ..... -- - - - 144 Dec. 11 C. L. Townsend (informant), Verbeck, 4 years ago ... Bored------- 6 in. diam... 248 143 75 Can not lower with mill....] Yes; 75 feet ....| No.......... 4 feet soil, 20 feet black gumbo, and a very little seep water, 101| Salty (stock | Windmill...... Adams ------- 6 2.75 100, 00 100.00 28310.00. 1,600 ----do --------- 1,912 1,769 | 1,694 | There are several of these deep salty wells on # 4. f j º y y * Rans. feet blue shale, 5 feet sandstone. From 180 feet, down, yellow drink it). | t this table-land. - *| . . . clay or ocher; probably 19 feet sand and fine gravel in bottom. - . * * * N.W.; NE. 3 sec. 33, T. 15 S., R. 13 W ........ 145 || Dec. 11 William Berry, Bunker Hill, Kans........ 11 years ago -- Dug -------- 4 by 4 feet.. 25 20 5 | Not over 60 gallons per day. No. --...--....... No---------. 4 or 5 feet sºil, 15 fººt White, ºlay. At 15, fºet is a thin layer of Medium ....| Hand..............-----------|----------|------------|----------|----------|-----...--. 60 |----do --------- 1,877 | 1,857 | 1,852 f r *. - - - rock; i. 20 feet 1 foot sandstone, then white clay; water on top , - ". . of sandstone. . . . . . . . . * SW. 4 N.W. 4 sec, 34, T. 14 S., R. 13 W ---...--. 146 | Dec. 11 James Cullen, Hawley, Kans -............ July, 1888.....] Bored. ------ 6 in. diam... 62 52 10 | Can bail dry, but runs in || Yes; 5 feet ..... No.--------. 4 feet soil, then soft sand rock, alternating sand rock and clay;| Hard ...----. Buckets.-----|----------------|----------|------------|----------|----------|---------. 650 Household....| 1,694 | 1,642 | 1,632 || At 35 feet is a weak vein of water. - again quickly water in reddish clay right under Sandrock. The rock at bottom . . . . . - - - . is darker and harder than on top. º On Dodge City line in Kansas: * | . 4. 4. º º | * SW. # NE. 4 sec. 14, T. 26 S., R. 25 W ......... 147 | Dec. 12 S. # Kincaid (informant), Dodge City, Feb., 1889..... ---do --------|--- do --------| 120 108 12 Can not lower with pump...] Does not think | No........... Some clay; water in Sand-------------. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * = = = = * = a ---do -------- Hand -------|--|----------------|----------|------------|----------|----------|---------. 160 | Stock. -------. 2,585 2, 477 2,465 311)|S. - - t .. 80, i ' *. - N.W. # sec. 6, T. 25 S., R. 24. W ... --......----. 148 || Dec. 12 W. H. Pogue, Milroy, Kans---------------. July, 1883..... Dug -------- 3 by 3 feet.. 24 23 1 | Varies with height of Saw | No.----------...|--...--...----- All sandy clay; water in Sandy clay---------------------. * * * m º º ſº ºn m = ---do --------|- ---do -----|----------------|----------|------------|----------|----------|----------|---------. House .------. 2,415 || 2, 392 || 2,391 || Water comes right from Saw Log Creek, Well - ; . . . . Log Creek. - : r is on a point befween two bends of creek. - { I # When digging well the owner found a jaw- * * * * . •. | - bone of a largé mammal in the bottom. NW. 3 SW. # sec. 30, T. 24 S., R. 24 W ... ----- 149 Dec. 12 || A. H. Tinklepaugh, Milroy, IKans --------. Sept., 1888 --- |----do -------|----do ....... 11 7 4 Can Inot lower with buckets. Yes; 3 feet.....] No.......... 2 feet soil, 6 feet clay, 15 feet gravel, 13 feet clay; clay in bottom...] Medium..... Buckets...------------------ * * * : * m m. m = ± = * * = 1 m = * * * * * * * * * * * * * = * * * * * * * i = m = m, m = m = m = 1 - m. m. m. m = , = * * 320 | Stock......... 2,449 2,442 2,438 || This is a strong vein of water in a draw. There - - º - ". ; : * * is a spring in a milk house near here about - .* - . . . . . . . - - i. level with water in well. N.W. 3 SW, 4 sec. 8, T. 24 S., R. 24 W ........ 150 | Dec. 12 Sylvester Evans (informant), Holbrook, years ago...-----do -------|----do ------. -63 61 2 | Can draw out, but fills again No.------------- No.--------- 4 feet soil, 15 feet magnesia or gypsum ; then sand rock soft enough Hard...---- --do -------|--|----------------|----------|------------|------------------------------ 3,200 ----do --------- 2,500 || 2,439 2,437 All wells on this divide the same as this. allS, - quickly. r to pick and wedge; water in sand rock. º, - ! - SW. 4 N.W. 4 sec. 32, T. 23 S., R. 24. W. ...... 151 | Dec. 12 | S. M. Holbrook; Holbrook, Kans.......... feb., 1889-.... ----do -------|-- do ------- 53 52 1 foot Can bail out, but runs in No. --...----...-. No. --------- 4 feet soil, 11 feet gypsum and soft clay, 30 feet gypsum rock, 6 feet |... --do - ......|. -do ---------|----------------|---------- *1.00 ----------|----------|----------|----------. ---do --------- 2, 481 2,429 2, 428 When well is bailed dry veins run 1 gallon per * . . . . • 3in. quickly. sand, 2 feet clay; water in seams in clay. - - } ciº minute. - NE. : S.W. 4 sec. 5, T. 23 S., R. 24. W ...----. -- 152 | Dec. 13 || W. G. Hann, Jetmore, Kans.........-------| Fall, 1885 ----. --- do -------|---. do ...----- 23 I7. Two men can bail dry in one | Yes; 6 feet ...--| Possibly in- || 6 feet soil, then coarse gravel, no rock; water in gravel; bottom in ....do ....... Pump---------|---------------- * * * * * m = m = = | * * * * * * * * * * * * : * * * * * * * * * * : * * * * * * * * * * r * m m m. m. m. m. m. m a. 650 ----do --------- 2,317 2, 300 2,294 | This water may be level with water in Buckner - I. - half day, but can not pump - iºns 3, gravel. - *. ; “|. º, I Creek, but does not rise and fall with it. y * Out. ittle. + - . . . . . . .. S.E. # NE. 4 sec. 19, T. 22 S., R. 24W -----.... 153 | Dec. 13 | Lewis...------------------ ---------------- 4 years ago....] Drilled and | 3 by 3 feet 220 70 !-------- Can not lower -------------- Probably; yes...| No.......... 85 feet soil, 35 feet.clay. With sºme sand; then shale; bottom in M in era 1 | Old windmill.-----------------|----------|------------|----------|----------|- * * * * * * - - - - - * * * * * * * * m I → ---do --------- 2,490 ---------------. Information concerning this well unreliable. | - du g (25 and 6 in. - shale. Water vein said to be in the shale about 110 feet below (stockwill r || Southwest of this well about 800 feet and in a . . . . . feet). diam. surface of ground. drink). º + draw is a strong vein of pure water at eleva- d - - - tion 2,390 feet about. - N.W. 4 sec. 17, T. 22 S., R. 24 W .--.......... 154 || Dec. 13 | H. D. Shaver, Jetmore, Kans ...-----------. ;Fall, 1890...... Dug -------- 3 by 3 feet .. 28 25; 2#|----do ----------------------- No. ------------- No---------. fi feet Soil, 22 feet pure fine Sand; water in this sand.--------------. Soft.-------- Hand pump.'...}--------------------------|------------|----------|----------|---------- --------------do --------- 2,447 2,422 ( 2,419 This ſº to be a sheet of water; well is in a . . . t - - - ittle draw. SE. # S.E., 3 sec. 29, T. 21 S., R. 24 W - - - - - - - - - 155 | Lec. 13 George Warner, Jetmore, Kans ----------. uly, 1885- - - - - ---do ------- 3# feet diam. 65 61 4 | Can not bail dry * = m ºn m ſº º ſº, º ºf ºn º Yes; 4 feet ..... No---------- 8 feet soil and dark loam; 12 ſeet loose sand; 20 feet cement gravel, ----do ------- Buckets.---- -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - sº ºr sº ſº º is m = a mº m 'm m im ºn 4 m ºn tº m + 1. - " ºr º # * * * * | * * * * * * * * * ºr I = m. m. m = m = * * * 500 ----do --------- 2, 427 2, 366 2, 382 Could not get down into gravel; water came in • § # W * ... r with a little sand. At 40 feet 4 feet loose fine sand; 17 ft. cement - . . . --" too fast. - ! * - l - gravel; 4 ft, joint clay and sand; then water in gravel and sand, Y | ' " , is, - - - N.W. 4 NW. 3 sec. 23, T. 27 S., R. 25 W. ...... 156 || Dec. 15 A. Fasig, Todge City, Kans ----------, ---. 5 years ago....] Bored------- 8 in. diam--- 84 78 6 | Can not lower with mill ....] No.----------... Perhaps in- || 8 feet soil, 45 feet hard sand, 25 feet clay and sand, 6 feet quicksand ||....do ...----. Windmill.....] IXL ---------- 6 2.50 6, 00 100.00 (25) 4,800 |. ---do --------- 2,566 2,488 2, 482 Mr. Fasig is putting in four wells and mills to 4. f * - - # *. - - - creasing a and gravel; gravel getting coarser as depth is gained. - i ºf - pump water for irrigation. The wells are 150 - Fºx- “l little. l . . . . feet apart on the four corners of a square -º- f ] reservoir 9 feet deep. He will use upper 6 feet rº- . r f for irrigation and lower 3 feet for fish culture. NE. # NE. # sec. 34, T. 27 S., R. 25 W ...----- 157 Dec. 15 ----------------------------------------- ---|--|--do..........] Tubular ----| 2 in. diam...| 133 128, 5 H----------------------- - - - - - - - ; * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * - I - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 4 feet soil, 25 feet sand, 10 feet clay, and then sand; water in gravel. --------...-----|-------------- • * : * ~ **- - - - - - - - - - - - - || -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - I - * * * * * * * * * | * * * * * * * * = + || || || - is ſº ºr º 'º - m m = m. m. m. mº m = * * | * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 2,615 2,487 2,482 Well not in use; the sand point was not prop- 4. 4. # ! - | --- * . - erly set, so that well never furnished much - - " ; , - - h - . . . . i - Water. N.W. 4 NW. 4 sec. 2, T. 28 S., R. 25 W.------. 158 Dec. 15 | Thomas W. Bell, Dodge City, Kans ....... bring 1886...] Dug -------- 3% by 2% feet. 148 145; 2#| Can be pumped down, but No.------------- No.--------- 4 feet soil; 71 feet mixture sand and clay; 4 feet gravel and coarse | Hard ...----. Windmill.i..] Homemade ---|------...- 110, 00 45.00 i.---------|---------- 1, 100 Stock ---...--- 2,627 2, 482 2, 479 4 sºv: - i - - - | probably if sunk a little r- sand; then mixture sand and clay with sand increasing as depth . . ; "i". . - - - - - - ..]" . . . - r deeper could not. is gained; 25 feet sand in bottom with the water; very fine sand. 1 ‘ſ. i • * + º- NW. 3 SW. 3 sec. 16, T. 28 S., R. 25 W ------- 159 Dec. 15 G. W. Hobbie, Dodge City, Kans --------- ..] | years ago....|----do ------- 3 by 3 feet... 72 65 7 Can not pump out ---------. No-------------- . No---------- 2 feet soil; then hard clay with some sand. At 25 feet is a thin |....do ------- Pump------|--|----------------|----------|------------|----------|----------|---------- 3, 200 ||----do --------- 2, 545 2,480 2, 473 || 7 feet of 13-inch pipe in bottom. 4. i 5 - l . ." - * - - - | - - layer of sº * º, ; sand begins and runs on down, chang- -, - - '''. . . - r • . - ſº . . . . - - - ". ing to gravel in the bottom. - - . . . . . . . . . - r * - SE. 4 NE. # sec. 5, T. 29 S., R.25 W.---...--. 160 | Dec. 15 F. M. Wakeman, Dodge City, Kans....... ſarº, 1886.....|----do ------- --do ------- 130 120 10 || Could not draw dry with Yes; 10 feet . ... No. ---...--. 2 feet soil, then yellow sandy clay with some gypsum bottom of Medium ....| Windmill....|Waupau ------, 6 2. 50 15.00 80.00 l.--...----- 1,600 ||---. do --------- 2,615 2, 495 2,485 | This water is from a strong vein and rises to … . f 1 . r - ' , | {i. * , . " - horse and 30-gallon cask. . . ; well is in gypsum and clay. º, - ' ' ' - i. r. -. - - * I level of the water above it in a weak vein. It .* *. - | | | | . . . . " • " . * l - n . º, * ... . . . . . . . - cömes up through a hole; is probably from - . | . . . . r * ſ l ... • * * - - - S. #'ſ. s .# º filled 800-gallon tank in 2 hours in • * , – - . - | . . ; . - . . . . | | |{* , , . - . . . • . - , • -- . . . . . . * – . ." . . . . . . . . . . - , - *- : * .” - - +ſ good wind. - ... " t T. 1. f -- . ... ....| 161 || Dec. 15 . H. Knoy, Wilburn, Kans---------------| Fall, 1890 ..... ---do ------- 4 by 4 feet -- 56%l 54 2 | Can bail down but not out..., | No.------------| No. --...----. |2 feet soil, 10 feet clay and sum, then loose sand with, one or ....do ...--...- *ISucket ...... - |- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .... do ---------|- 2, 563 |& 2, 509 2, 506 | This is a new well; 250 feet east of it was an . . . . NE. # NW.4 sec. 30, T. 2 9 S., R. 2. w. -------|--|----- c. * - - *- y ~~~~~~ --~~~~ ſº --~~~~~~~ g y pump. Nº. iñere is no hard stratum above water, although water | “. t t | | | ( - y * - - - raised. . - { | . . . - 173 Dec. 17 l. ---do -------------------------------- ----- Sept., 1886 ....] Dug for 240 3 by 3 feet and 337 202 135 | Can not lower with pump...| Yes; 135 feet. --- Perhaps in- 80 feet soil and cement gravel, 80 feet loose sand, 164 feet blue clay, [....do........}. ---do ------|--| Monitor ------ (28) *3,000.00 ----------|----------|---------. 10,000 Town..... --.. 2, 925 2,723 2, 588 This information is accurate. Mr. Wore (in- S.E.3 sec. 36, T. 28 S., R. 33 W ---------------- €0 º . . - *i. drilled 2 in. diam. +. creasing. 13 feet blue limestone; water in “jumping sand.” A tºo fººt . . i. g f - - formant) worked on well and was in it when - - to 337 feet. is a little seep water in a very thin layer of sand. Perhaps same ſ'. water was struck. Wells Nos. 172 and 173 are b r is vein as No. 172. # , º - 800 feet apart east and west. - NE. 4 NE, 4 sec. 25, T.29 S., R. 33 W. 174: 1 Dec. 18 l--------------------------------------------| Spring, 1886... - Drilled ---.. 2 in, diam ---| 202 200 2 Can not pump down -------- No.------------- W. * No blue clay; probably all sand---------- * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ----do --------------------|--|--------------------------|----------------------|----------|---------- 1,000 Stock and stage 2,908 || 2,703 || 2,701 This well has been abandoned; casing pulled up. # * 4. º º 4 º' --º- ºr tº lº T is . . . . . ; # ºn tº º 'º - - ; : ... * * QIl{}{1. º º, º - - NW, 4 sec. 12, T, 30 S., R. 33 W .... 175 Dec. 18 Wm. McCoy, Santa Fe, Kans ------------- #years ago.---| Dug ---..... 3 by 3 feet .. 210 207 3 | Can Inot Ibwer with pump -- Yes; 14 feet ----| No.-----.... 5 feet soil, 15 feet red clay, 30 or 40 feet loose sand, 10 or 12|--..do ...----. Windmill.-j-. Woodmanse .. 6 ----------------------|-------------------. 1,300 | Stock -........ 2, 911 2,704 2, 701 || Informant, W. W. Rinehart, Santa Fe, Kans, y • 4 sºvve “” --- * •; -w- - - - - - - - - - - - * l - - t feet blue clay, 20 feet hard earth, and almost same as soil; . . . - g º loose sand, 10 feet blue clay, 2 feet sam', and gravelin | ". k - - 'Watjēr. - i º .. 176 . 18 E. W. Merritt, Santa Fe, Kans. ------------|- !..do m ºr * * * * * * * : * ---do ------- ..do ------- 196 193 3 | Can not lower with 2-inch | No............|--| No.--------- 4 feet soil, 40 feet red Sandy clay with some cement gravel in upper |....do ------- lºngine ----i------------------|----------|------------|----------|----------|---------. 6,500 S to clº and 2,893 || 2,700 2,697 - NE.; NE. 4 sec. 36, T. 30 S., R. 33 W. at Loco. 176 Dec. 18 | f | §: . r Steam pump. portion, 4 feet clay mari sã feet loose sand and gravel, 5 feet º: % ſ y to Wn. ſ | * # and cement gravel, 60 feet loose sand, 12 feet dry loose sand, 6 feet I * * * f #. sand and gravel. At 186 feet 18 inches º feet) of rock—a rock, • • - “, “S., i - - * ; : . - Inot a ledge—8 feet sand, 2 feet gravel and sand in water. +. º ... \ g - - - - SW. # sec. 7, T. 24 S., R. 32 W.---------------. 177' | Dec. 19 || T. L. Diesem, Garden City, Kams ---------- Apr., 1890...--. ----do ------- 8 feet diam... 13 10 3 Can pump down in heavy | No.--------..... No.--------- 3 feet soil, 1 foot gray clay, then sand all the way down ............ Hard . ------ Windmill..... Halladay ..... 12 8 in. 100.00 100.00 || 100.00 -----...--. 100,000 Irrigation. . . . . 2,841 2,831 || 2,828 Mr. Diesem, stated that the water in the well # "...--~~~ - - ~. ... i - wind; pump will throw - l - r cylin- rose and fell with the river, but went down "j, 80 gallons per minute. * * der. in the well and stated that he could detect no . - Y. . i * rise in the past 6 weeks, although the river * | - liad risen at least 2 feet. About one-half mile i. west of here is a gas well 12 feet 10 inches by - º . . . . 8 feet 6 inches diameter, between 800 and 900 h B Garden City, K - } is ago. i 4 by 4 feet 35 22 13 Can not lower with buckets. | No In creas - || 2 feet soil, 22 feet clay, getting harder as it goes down, with so do Buckets. § 650 | Stock 2,873 2,851 || 2,833 º deep, still in º gravel. 178. # Lathringer Bros., Garden Ci anS - - - - - || 5 years ago. -- • (10 - - - - - - - y 4 Teel, ... 3] S. l tº 0- - - - - - - - - - - - - - T tº: €0.5 SOI .” W] IIlê | - - - - C10 - - - - - - - • * * * * | * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 1 - - - - - - - - - - i = * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * • * * * * * * * * * } = < * * * * * * * * | *Jiřº I kº Lº M.J.K. - - - - - - - - - j y is water is rising in t }l. U SW. 3 SW. 3 sec. 31, T.23 S., R. 32 W --------. I}ec. 19 ling Y; | years ing, º: re. little gypsum pieces,” feet sand, 4 feet graveſ and water. - - l ago §. ..", º the R.:” %. - } . - IIł8,I’KS. - i. * , | , l here is irrigated. l # I). J. Bell, Garden City, Kans., box 393 - - - -] in 1884. -------|---. do -------|- --do ------- 40 29 11 Can Inot lower with pump. --| No. ------------. Has raised 6 |2 feet soil, 26 feet hard clay with some cement gravel, 7 feet fine ....do ...----. Pump ---.. |--|-- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ------ - - - - - - , m = ± = * * * m ºn ºf 1 a. º. º. º. º. º. º. º. ºº is is sº m is nº ºr * * * * 2, 400 |.--. do --------. 2,871 2,842 2,831 Thi ter h º 6 * "S, SE, 4 NE. 4 sec. 24, T.23 S., R. 23 W.--------- 79 || Dec. 19 W, 3. O feet, * sand, 5 feet coarse gravel like rivergravel, only coarser. s . . . . * 3. º #. feet in 2 years. Land - - *::: - - - - --> remarks, - 'w - + i. -** * h - NE, 3 SE.3 sec. 24, T. 22 S., R. 33 W ---------. 180 | Dec. 19 || Joseph Williamson, Garden City, Kans---j} years ago. ---|....do ....... . . --do ------- 27 23 4 || Can not lower with mill ----| No.-------------| No.......... 8 feet soil, 12 feet clay, 7 feet sand; no gravel in bottom............,].. --do ------- Windmill.....] Duplex. ------ 6 |------------|----------|----------|---------- 7,000 |. -- do --------. 2,805 2,842 2,838 This well and place are practically abandoned. # * º I - . . . . . . . - . . . . . - Well has filled up 3 feet. Depths given are - |k-- + - - - * * Y pº what they were when in use. - SE. 4 SE.4 sec. 12, T.22 S., R. 33 W. 181 Dec. 19 || W. A. Thompson, informant, Garden City, Spring, 1887. --|--- do ------- 3 by 3 feet -- 33 30 3 Can not lower with pump...] No.-----........ No.-------- 30 feet soil, 3 feet earth and Sand; not a sign of gravel............. º:: º Buckets --4------------------|----------|------------|----------|----------|---------- 650 |. --. do --------. 2,882 2,852 2,849 - r -- º - * . * * **, we ºf war w y = * * * * * * * * * * Kans, ...] . . - - * * a little Salty. … . ; º - SW. 3 sec. 25, T. 21 S , R. 33 W. 182 | Dec. 19 Town of Terryton, Kans ----------------- 5 years ago....| Dug 27 feet, --- do ------- 37 27 10 | Can not pump down -------. No.-------------| No.--------- Nobody knows anything; probably Sand at about 27 feet.-----...- Hard ------- Band Pump --|----------------|----------|------------|----------|----------|-- - - - - - - - - 2, 200 | Teams -------. 2,890 2,863 2,853 º - - * ...w- **** * * - - - - - * * * * * * * * * - - • , - . the n 10 - - - y *- feet pipe. - - - tº º º” ... [. SE. 4 SE.3 sec. 31, T.20 S., R.32 W . ...| 183 || Dec. 19 L. A. Sparks, Terryton, Kans -------------| Summer, 1890. Dug ºpe. , by 4 feet -- 33 30 3 | Can not lower with mill ----| No...... --...----| No.--------. 29 feet sandy soil and clay, 2 feet sand with layers of clay, 2 feet ....do ....... Windmill. ...| Homemade ... 5 |------------|--------------------|---------- 6, 500 | Stock......... 2,917 2, 887 2,884 Will pump down to 18 inches, but won't lower * º • *.s 1 -º-e * * *-* - m m is m is ºf ſº m ºf a wº . . . . . . . . . | CO:ll’SE SHIR£1. . . . . . º .* * - below that, even in heavy wind. - NE. # NE. 4 sec. 25, T. 20 S., R. 33 W 184 || Dec. 19 || George Thinkenbinder, Scott City, Kans...} July, 1886..... ---do ------- 3% by 3% feet. 32 28 4 || Millwill pump out in 6 hours No. ---...--...-. Perhaps in- ; Soil all the way; a little red clay where water is; bottom on sand. ... --do .......|- ---do --------|Joker.-------- 306 10.00 20. 00 35.00 ------...-. 8,000 || --.do ..... ---. 2,927 2,899 || 2, 895 il y .# - * * * * * .., xv. v., " " - - - - - - - - - - j good wind, but will come creasing a t - ; . . . . . §§ + i . - }.' . - cº';*::::::::::...] N *......lºstºn, wrºtynovely with a lin tº gravel, 6% feet | Soft Buckets. i 1,600 [....d -- .L. Eic , Scott City, Kans.----- Spri g, 1886---|----do ------- 3 by 3 feet -- 31 28 3 an bail out wit uckets 0- - - - - - - - - - - - - - 0- - - - - - - - - - eet soil, 20 feet yellow clay With a e cement gravel, €e Oft - - - - - - - Ilokºtº --|--|-}: - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -|- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -|- * * * * * * * * l - - - -ClO - - - - - - - - - | 2, 949 2, 921 2, 918 SF.4 Sec. 25, T. 19 S., R. 33 W ----------------- 185 | Dec. 20 W. L. Eichelberger €0 1Uy, n - * (LO y {} || in 3 hours. sand, º 1 4 feet d d littl l 5 feet d Med - Windmill º P - ki y Milton Chromster, Scott City, Kans....... May, 1885..... ---do -------| 4 by 4 feet -- 27 22 5 Can pump down in 3 hours | No. ------------. No.--------. 2 feet soil, 16 feet sandy clay, 4 feet sand and a little clay, 5feet sand; edium ....| Windmill.i...] Perkins....... 6 ----------------------|----------|---------- 650 |- - - - do --------- 2,942 2,920 | 2, 915 This well appears to be through sand stratum N.E. 4 SE. 4 sec. 13, T. 19 S., R. 33 W ---------. 186 || Dec. 20 | Milton y | s -- y º runs in in one - the bottom is on hard red clay. ! H . : r a ! to the º: Clay. E. † - - | #. alf Gay. - … … º - * - - -tº, º ºr ºf it is sº ºf ſº º ſº º m 'm nº 87 || Dec. 20 Missouri Pacific Rwy, Scott City, Kans -- issi. • - - - - - - - - - I - ---do ...-----| 9 feet diam-- 72. 50 22 | Can pump down in 5 hours, No.-------------| No. --------. 45 feet soil and sandy clay and cement gravel, 27 feet sand with a | Soft ........ Steam pump :-----------------|----------|------------|----------|----------|---------. 20,000 || Locomotives. 2,971 2,921 2,899 || Informant, Thomas C. Carroll, Scott City, Kans. N.W. 4 SW. 4 sec. 18, T. 18 S., R. 32 W 1 BG Y., y, º * but will filiin 24 hours.” little gravel. * Mr. Carroll thinks that if two or three holes - - k were put down 15 or 20 feet, no pump could i. '. .” pump it out; that the vein now drawn from is + - - 6 2# C t lower with mill N N 5 feet soil and subsoil, 37 feet light yellow clayey soil, 14 feet sand, 3 d Windmill....] Homemade 5 50, 00 33. 00 30, 00 2,500 Stock 2, 973 || 2, 91 2.914 Inot sheet Water but seep water. Ł, a -º a * ns ----------. ** - - - - I - - - - (10 - - - - - - - ºr - With IIllil - - - - N 0. - - - - - - - - - - - - - O- - - - - - - - - - I 7 Ig - . (10 - - - - - - - IIIll: ;--- - - - º º * * * : * * - - - - - - - - i OCK - - - - - - - - - * * 2, 917 y N.W. 3 SW. 4 sec. 31, T. 17 S., R.32 W--------. 188 || Dec. 20 | J. F. Pancake, Scott City, Kans - pes 1889. do 33 by 33 feet 59 56# # Can not lower wi feet gravel and sand; water iń gravel. ; y - t i ; tıl i *None in 3 years. 26Flow8. * 6-inch stroke, with 2-inch cylinder. 288-inch stroke, with 3-inch cylinder, 29With -r and engine. ºf *13-inch pump and 33-inch cylinder. 26 APPENDIX 25–RECORDS OF ALL WELLS EXAMINED ON THE UNDER FLOW LINES OF ICANSAS, COLORADO, NEBRASKA, AND | r f WYOMING—Continued. º [Wells examined by W. W. Follett.] {I. . I * * *- - - - - - º ; : - Depth. - Water. Cost. Maxi Elevation. L * No. When - - f when put * º - I)id water rise | Is supply + ‘. . . - i. ocation. of | exam- Name and address of owner. d Eind of well. Size. F - Amount of water. when struck? . . changing?, Strata passed through. * IKind of mill. | Stroke. d TJsed for— Remarks. well. ined. - down. , Total. 49 Of W - 3 **** * , +. ... . . . . in Repairs | }.}. Sur- ter. Bott ,’ ” # , * water. water. Quantity. How raised. * Well. Pump. Mili. to mill. P* day. #. Water. Bo om. On º line in Wyoming: 1891. i - || ; Feet. | Feet. | Feet. t * * \ - : Inches Gallons. Feet, Feet. Feet. SW. 3 SW. 3 sec. 32, T. 13 N., R. 66 W ...... 192 || Mar. 13 | David Morice, Cheyenne, Wyo............] Summer, 1890 | Dug ........ 3 feet ------- 55 49 6 | Can not pump dry ------...-- Yes; a little.--. No---------. 7 . . and Mºte earth, then Sandy clay and sand; bottom 'Soft ........ Pucket --------------------------------|----------------------|-------------------- 165 Stock...------ 6, 149 6, 100 6,094 - ... }, ' ' ' l - * proba IIl QT8. Wöl. | ' . + | N.W. 4 NW. 4 sec. 17, T. 13 N., R. 66 W ..... 193 || Mar. 13 | Riner & Johnson, Cheyenne, Wyo........ Spring, 1884...; Bored -----. 3% inches --- 180 | Flows.i........ * gº per minute, or || Yes; to top ..... No---------- 8 feet earth; º º: h; White clay, with some thin veins of sand; i.-- do .....--|-------..........-----..........}.......... $425.00 ----------|------------------------------|---------------- 6,006 6,006 || 5,826 This is a flowing well, and has been since dug. - * . + } lillº lºSS, Č0äl'Sé gravel at bottom. - t k - N.W. 4 N.W. 4 sec. 31, T. 14 N., R. 66 W ...-- 194 | Mar. 13 | Henry Hoffman, Cheyenne, Wyo.-------. Spring, 1886...] Dug -------. 3 feet Sq - - - - 33 |-------. To top. Can pump º 4or 5 hours || Yes------------. No---------. 8 feet soiſand gravel, 17 feet clay, 5 feet soft sand rock, 3 feet hard ||....do ------. Pumped -----4----------------|----------|------------|--------------------|----------|---------- House -------- 6,088 6,088 G,055 In July the water is lowest; then about 8 feet - º in uly; fills tl]? quickly. i rock; Water in rock. - 1. of water in the well. In the winter and ºriº r - *, it is full to the top, but does not run over. It - - d - • * -- i | - + - is typical of the wells at Cheyenne. N.E. # NE. 4 sec, 16, T. 14 N., R. 67 W....... 195 || Mar. 13 M. P. Keefe, Cheyenne, Wyo.............] Summer, 1885 | Drilled ..... 4 inches .... 150 90 60 Can not pump dry ----------|------------------| It may bein- 30 feet sand and clay, 40 feet § Tock, 15 feet bowlders' in moist |....do ....... Mill ---------- Eclipse ------- 6 | 1,000.00 --------------------|---------- 230 | Stock and 6,235 6, 145 || 6,085 he main vein is near bottom; cylinder of pump - r - \ . . . . 1. - n ! Qºsing a | clay, 5 feet sand and gravel with some water, 45 feet clay, 15 feet .' - * trees. down 110 feet; can not lower water more than - - little. White Sand; some gravel in bottom; strong vein of water. \ | ; ; ; can fill 10,000-gallon tank four times in r - - h - | s - ... ' # * Olli S. NW. 3. NE. 3 sec. 29, T. 15 N., R. 67 W ...... 196 || Mar, 14 Mrs. W. C. Selig, Cheyenne, Wyo.-------| Winter, 1889- | Dug........ 3 feet ------- 80 70. 10 H.----- do --------------------- Yes; 5 feet ..... No.--------. 3 feet soil, then rotten lime and clay rock with streaks of gravel; 5 |....do -------|. ---do ----- --- ----do --------- 6 70.00 $150.00 $125.00 (3) 4,000 to | Stock.-------. 6,356 || 6 285 6,276 | A hole has been put down 200 feet here; still in - - - * | 1890. f feet quicksand in bottom, with strong vein of water. r 5,000 quicksand. The pipe got fast, and well was .k . abandoned; waterrose 30 feet above vein; at 80 - • , , i ! ‘. feet was struck some rotten wood and old bones. SW. cor. N.W. 4 NE 4 sec. 32, T. 16 N. R. 67 W. 197 || Mar. 14 || R. C. Payne, Cheyenne, Wyo............. Feb., 1889..... ----do ------- 3 by 3 feet .. 111 102 9 || Fair vein; Inot tested....... No--------------| No----------| 3 feet soil, thenrotten lime and clay rock with streaks of gravel. At |....do ------- Hand-------------------------|---------- 80.00 l----------|----------|---------- (*) ---------------. 6,343 6,241 6,232 - r ! . . . . . - | 65feet to 73 feet, 8 feet of clean gravel. Then hard material (sume as - - - ! - above). At 102 feet is a thin vein of sand with some water. Then - - . . . . 4 feet hard material, and 5 feet sand, and large amount of water. ‘. - + * * S.E.: SW. 3 sec. 28, T. 18 N. R. 67 W -...---- 198 || Mar. 14 | Isaac N. Bard, Little Bear, Wyo.......... J877----------- ---do ------- 8 feet diam.. I6 14% 13 Can not pump dry ....... --- No--------------| Decreasing | Drift material; 4 feet sand in bottom; bottom on solid rock. When [....do ....... Pucket -------|----------------|----------|----------------------|----------|----------|----------|---------------- 5,934 5,920 5,918 . This well is on Little Bear Creek. Until four w - r SOIll{}. dug a buffalo skull was dug up from near the bottom. ! . - - years ago the creek run by here, but it then •. . - Went dry. It Inow sinks a mile above here, and 1. .* ...sºrº -- \ rises again 1 mile below. This well simply ‘’ strikes, the underflow in the creek bottom, and º s -* is not in a stratum of water-bearing material . . . . . . . . - - I - * reaching out of the creek bottom. NE. # NW. 4 sec. 31, T. 21 N., R. 66 W ------ 199 || Mar. 15 || Al Bowie, Chugwater, Wyo......... -----| Summer, 1876 |....do ...-----| 8 by 8 feet -- 14 11 3 |------ do --------------------- No-------------- No.--------- Drift material; 3 feet gravel and sand in bottom; bottom on sand --|....do ....... Hand---------|------ • = - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 3,000 | Stock.--------| 5, 270 5,259 5,256 This well is in Chugwater bottom, and is in creek - - ºl--~~ * , * water. The Union Pacific Railway put down .' ' , lº, 'A t a well about 800 feet northwest of this well on | 7 feet higher ground 100 feet deep; smallamount *. * of alkali water; well abandoned; shows that - the water in well 199 comes from creek, and is * - w + - *- local, as in 198. N.W. # NE. 4 sec. 36, T. 23 N., R. 67 W ...... 200 | Mar. 15 J. H. Houser, Bordeaux, Wyo.----------.jSummer, 1882 |....do ....... 4 by 4 feet .. 17 15 2 Can pump out in 1 hour-...-- No-------------- No---------- Sandy clay, getting harder as deeper; water in clay ---------------- Hard ------- Pump --------|----------------|----------|------------|----------|----------|---------- 200 ------ do ------- 4,877 || 4,862 || 4,860 | Bottom well level with water in creek (Chug. | - ' ' ', k * . water); well close to creek; creek goes dry, + "... f. . . 4. ºl I | except pools and spri ; *W. #Sec. 14, T. 24 N.R.66 W. (Eagle's Nest)| 201 || Mar. 15 John Hunton (informant), Fort Laramie, fig77 and 1878......do .......] 3 by 3 feet. 122 121 1 || 50 gallons per day ---------- No------------ “| Well filled 20ſeet clay, with some sand; then clay marl; sandy marlin bottom-l................................------------...................-----|..........]--------...-----.....!----------|---------------- 4,988 4,867 || 4,866 | This well was put down by the old Fort Laramie r sº Wyo. * , i.” J up. | | Stage Company, but never furnished much , . - l - - \ Water, and is now abandoned and filled up. S.E. # Sec. 35, T. 26 N., R. 65 W ------........ 202 Mar. 16 || Mrs. U. A. O'Brian, Fort Laramie........ imſar, 1885 --------do ------- 6 feet diam-- 37 35 2 || 5 barrels; hole dry, but runs | No-------------. Decreasing - Sandy clay until water is reached, then sand and gravel.----------- Soft -------- Puckets ------|----------------|---------------------------------------------------- 320 | Stock... ------ 4,860 || 4,325 4,323 This well is on the bank of Sixmile Creek, and - - . . . ; - , in quickly. - # - L the bottom is probably level with it. On Loup line in Nebraska; . || || - *..., - +. SE. : S.E. : Sec. 9, T. 14 N., R. 21 W.-----...--- 208 || Apr. 1 | F. Zimmerer, Tuckerville, Nebr -------....|Summer, 1883. Bored; wood} 10 in. diam. 54 52 2 | 82 gallons per hour.......... No-------------- No---------- 10, feet soil, 40 feet Sandy clay, 5 feet blue clay, 4 feet quicksand; Hard; varies|| Bucket .......................i.......... * 80 l---------, -------------------- 320 i Stock --------- 2,486 || 2,884 2,382 | The bottom of this well is 8 feet above water in - t " || ". Casing. r bottom on quicksand. South Loup River, but 250 feet from it. . Near - F | ' - - - this is well 203a. When the wind is in the . . . - i South but little water in this well; when in the t north more water, but muddy. There is most * Water When no wind. . Nearly all shoal wells * - + - y feet + f I .* 8 Irrigati 2,463 2, 387 2,381 in this valley affected by the wind. - 204 || Apr. 2 | W. C. Chenneworth, Olax, Nebr...... -----' S 1884 -|----do ------- ----do ------- 92 76 16 | Can get 7 barrels at a time..] Yes; 10 feet ----| No.--------. 90 feet clay, 2 feet gravel........... ºf nº ºn tº nº ºn ºn m ºn tº * * = m = m = * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Soft -------- Windmill..... ise--- 4-6-8 35, 00 '35.00 90.00 (5) 00 Irrigation ----| 4, § ! * l r SW. # S.E. 4 sec. 25, T. 15 N., R. 21 W ---...--. 205 Apr. 3 || A.'s Voorhies, iroken Bow, Nebr.-------. jº# ---. Dug -------. 3 feet diam.. 32 30 2 | Can #. loº...] Yes; 2 feet......] No.......... 6 feet soil, then Sandy clay and clay; coarse sand in bottom -...---. Hard ------- Bucket ------- ºntºprise: * * | * * * * * * * * * * 20.00 ----------|----------|---------- 960 | Stock --------- 2, #| 2,405 2,493 º * S.E. # SW. # Sec. 4, T. 15 N., R. 20 W .......... 206 || Apr. 3 | Elias Burnett, Broken |Bow, Nebr.. ---- --- Tall of 1890 - - -] Bored; wood 10 in. diam -.' 200 ---------------- Practically IløIlê ... - - - - - - - - -] " - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - * * * * * * * * * * * * 30 feet soil and subsoil, 20 feet sand, 50 feet clay with some sand, * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *- - - - - - - - -...-............!--- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - --|- - - - - - - - - -|-- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -]**** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ****** 2,686 |-------- 2, 436 || This well not yet down to Water. --------- Casing. 40 feet dry laminated clay marl, 10 feet red clay with very little |---- * | } water, 35 feet sand, 3 feet rock (seems to be clay-rock with fine f SW. 4 NE, 4 26, T. 16 N., R.20 W A. 4 . . . . 114 Yes: 10 feet N 10.º in iº. ; ÖIl º º *::::: 15 feet red tough . * l 73. 0 1,300 | Stock 2,512 || 2, 398 || 2, 368 Th terstruck in th d rock is hard, but # . 3. SèC, 26, 'l'. • ? --we sºv w w w = * * * * * * * 207 T. T. B. Morris, Broken Bow, Nebr........... ivºr:-4. * I tº tº º is º. ºf s m = m = - - ---do ------. 144 30 | Can not lower with mill..... €8; 600 - - -, O- - - - - - - - - - feet Soil, 100 feet yellow clay with a little san €et red tough | Hard ....... indumill-----| Trinlay . 00 52, 50 70, 00 3. 00 y 0CR - - - - - - - - - i. * e water struck ºn the sand rock is hard, but a p lorris, Broken Bow r. .' winter, 1889. do - * y §º º 3 ſº ; { { $º ” (sandy), 3 feet white samá 7 Hard Windmill Duplex.------ 6–8 70 - y ºn vein struck in the sand above the rock is !. | , . . . . . eet gravel, 6 feet sand rock. - * * * SOIt. * * * º S.E.: SW. 4 sec. 7, T. 16 N., R. 19 W.--....... 208 Apr. 4 || I, N. Atkinson, Berwin, Nebr.........----. Spring, 1884...] Dug.------. 3 by 3 feet ..| 20 14 6 | Can lower 23 feet with mill; No----------- ---. No---------- Soil and clay; watercomes up in clay; 1 foot coarse gravelin bottom-l....do. -----. ----do --------- ---do --------- 6 ------------------ ...- 60.00 82.00 4,800 ----do --------- 2,410 2,396 2,390 Tº ..º. #; . ;: f -----|-----e. | - Itô ITIOTO, - r .." --~~~~ Teek, Wnløn 1S above €6t; SOTITIl Of the Well. N.E.4 NW. 4 sec. 4, T. 16 N., R. 19 W ----..... 209 | Apr. 4 || R. W. Barton, Berwin, Nebr--------------. In 1882........] Bored; wood | 10 in. diam.. 218 200 18 Small----------------------- Yes; 2 feet...... No---------. Soil changing to clay, then sandy clay and sand in bottom; no rock | Good ....... ---do --------- "Monitor ------ 4 100.00 40, 00 85. 00 *5.00 l----------|- ---do --------- 2,593 2,393 || 2,375 - - 1– i s nor gravel. ' - - º N.W.; SW.; sec. 34, T. 17 N., R. 19 W -------. 210 || Apr. 4 || C. W. º ---------Ishri CaSII.g. ----do ------. 2 118 10 - Only a little ---. No.......... Alternating layers sand, clay, and sandy clay; water in sand; bot- | Soft ........l....do ......... -6-8 ------------------------------------------ 6,400 to Irrigation....] 2,518 2,400 2,390 This well is in “first water.” There is probabl # n pr C. W. Ball (renter), Berwin, Nebr. ----. Spring, 1886. i-l----do ------- O 128 + Cº.º pump dry when y O tom on *ś , Clay, y Clay; Soft -------- ...do - - Bird ------- --- 4-6-8 l------------|---- * , 000. f 10 feet or 12 feet of this hardpan. The “s .# , is . . . . . - * * water” in gravel and rises to the top of this ... i < * * * + + | 2, 481 || 2,390 tº “a N.W. 4 N.W. 4 sec. 26, T. 17 N., R., 19 W -...--- 211 | Apr. 4 . Pimie - -------------|Snri * * * * * * tº # = ±1 ± = * * 91 • 6 il out ----------- No--------------| No.--------. Nearly all sand; some clay near bottom; water in sand............. r ----->| |---------------------------------------------------- 1, 100 Stock --------. 2, 384 his well is in “first water;” was originally 102 # + $ pr Alex. Pimie, Berwin, Nebr # * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * spring 1890---|----do ------- do 97 Can not pail out ------------ No y y i ---do ------- Bucket ---------------------------------|------------ - - 3. 3. 1. ºleep. but has filled up 5 feet § §: ** - - - ||''', r J - | . SºlItſl. S.E. 3 SE, 4 sec. 12, T. 17 N., R. 19 W. .......... 212 Apr. 5 || John Wolford, Elton, Nebr................ d ----do ------- 32 23 9 | Can draw dry............... No-------------. No---------- 3 feet soil, then clay; water in sand--------------------------------- Hard ------- Hand-----------------------|..........l.....-------|--------------------|---------- 500 ----do ------- --| 2,399 || 3, §§ 2,353 SW. 3 SW. 3 sec. 32, T. 18 N., R. 18 W......... 213 Apr. 5 John Campbell, Westerville, Nebr......... #:::::::::: ‘ī. bored 3 by 3,and 10 84 66 18 Can pump ãºw. with mill, | Yes ------------ No---------- 5 feet soil, 70 feet clay, 1 foot “magnesia,” marl, 8 feet gravel and ...I do III. Windmill.----|Halladay.....] A-6-8 ............]----------|----------|---------- 6,500 | Stock and irri. 2,446 2,380 2,362 * -- g - . . . . ić'feet in i. in but not dry. sand, and water. - - : . - gation. - . , 'I'l- ‘... " Ottom. - * - - - º * - - N.E. # NW. 3 sec. 33, T. 18 N., R. 18W ..... ----| 214 || Apr. 5 | Charles Westbrook, Westerville, Nebr....|spring, 1882... Bºod 11 in. diam ... 138 126 12 Can not pump dry .......... Yes; 6 feet...... No---------- 5 fºet soil, 131 feet red clay, 6 feet sand somewhere in the clay, 1 | Very little; ....do ........- Monitor 4–6–8 80, 00 40.00 85.00 |------- ---| 1,600 | Stock --------- 2,501 2,375 2,363 This well is in second water. The first water - - | | || e casing. foot hardpan, very hard; 6 feet gravel. - - ard. ‘ī; . . ------ - - vein seems to have pinched out here. S.E. # SE. # sec. 21. T. 18 N., R. 38 W ...----...--. 215 Apr. 5 | Z. D. Amos, Coburg, Nebr -----------------| 889...............do ...... 10 in diam -. 164 . 130 34 Can pump out with mill in | Some ----------. No---------- *:::: soil, º i. and sº 25 feet hardpan, 4 feet Sand with Hard ...... ----do --------- Halladay 4-6-8 9. 35 50, 00 || 100.00 (8) 960 ----do --------- 2,497 2,367 2,333 fºr:-- | III'S, - ittle gravel; bottom on gravel. “” -----| t is tº S.E. : S.E. # sec. 11, T. 18 N., R. 18 W---...----. 216 Apr. 5 J. D. Cole (informed), Coburg, Nebr.----- .. 1883 * * * * * * * - ſº tº M Dug -------- 3 by 3 feet .. 42 34 8 Can . pump dry ---------- Yes------------- No---------- Sandy º *... and stratim magnesia or hardpan on top gravel; - ſ 5,000 sº and irri-| 2,377 || 2,343 2,335 - * ' . . . . . . . . . gravel in bottom. gation. SW. # SE. 4 sec. 1, T. 18 N., R. 18 W. -----..... 217 | Apr. 5 |.....----.*- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ----------------- 1881 do.......!----do ------- 88 86 2 Small----------------------- No--------------|-------------- Pottom probably in quicksand.-------------------------------------|-------------.l....do?-----...li’, as . [..........]------------|---.......l....................!----------|---------------. 2,415 || 2,323 2,326 | Nobody on place. §§ N Yá §§ # º * R. 17 W --------- 218 Apr. 3 || Jesse Kyle, Wescott, Nebr................|ſſii, iggð.I.I.I. ... do III. ----do ------- 32 30 2 | Can pump out -------------. §§ * * * * * * * * * * * * * * No---------- *::::: º º ; feet º clay; º i. º,yº, à. º, º 1, ; sº * * * * * * * * * ; ; ; § ; § This is the onl l] this high - Th .# Sec. 2, T. • ? --va -- F - I - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 219 Apr. 6 || Martin Weverky, f, d, Nebr.-------|Faii.1338...... * * * 24 by 24 feet. 236 235 Small ----------------------. 0- - - - - - - - - - - - - - No---------- eet soil, 70 feet clay, 133 feet sand and clay, 6 feet gravel, 8 feet | I - - - -010 - - - - - - - - - y 1 & ! is is the only well on this high mesa. € I} àI' everky, Longwood, Nebr ...'. --- ----do ------- 23 by 2% # # º º . i5 feet gravei, bottom on hard rock, water just d OWner is a Bohemian. - . . ]'. . . - * on top this rock. *-*. * † . ... ſlº." I l -- 114 No--------------| No.--------. 8 feet gravel in bottom; Water in gravel ----------------------------| Soft .... ----|--|--do ------...l.” A., | |------------|--------------------|..........!-------------------------. 2,323 2,209 || 2, 206 || Mr. Jack is Bohemian; , can't talk English; so - 220 | Apr. 7 || John Jack # * * * * * * * w - - - - - -----------------|--------------. ----do ------- 3 by 3 feet 117 + 3 Can not pump dry ---------- NO § º g y little information obtained. 3- 3. SW. 3 SW, 4 sec. 9, T. 20 N., R. 16 W - - - - - - - - -. 221 | Apr. 7 | Carl Kriewald, Burwell, Nebr............. $pring 1889 do -- ---do ------- 185 182 * !----do ----------------------- No-------------- No---------- 58 feet soil and clay, 30 feet sand, 50 feet clay, 20 feet sand, 3 feet |. 150 Stock --------. 2, 440 2, 258 2,255 ! r lººp. “e. * * * | * - * * *...*.* * * * * * * * | * , clay, 24 feet coarse gravel; bottom in gravel. - | NW. 3 SW. # sec. 35, T. 21 N., R. 16 W. ........ 222 || Apr. , 7 || Adam Bohn, Burwell, Nebr ............... Šping 1884 do --do ------- 100 97 * !----do ----------------------- No-------------. No---------- **ś, ; bottom 3 feet cemented gravel; water comes in . . . . 800 ----do --------- 2,265 2,168 || 2, 165 t l ---, ... " Ire…e. -------------------- through hole in it. m * º º SW. 3 SW. # sec. 25, T. 21 N., R. 16 W --....... 223 Apr. 7 || John Matley, Burwell, Nebr.......... -----|Summer, 1888. Dug; 10 feet |... do ------- 57 46 11 ----do ----------------------- No-------------. No.--------. *ºtº sand, becomes quick at water, 2 feet 3,200 ----do --------- 2, 198 || 2, 152 2, 141 This well in North Loup Valley. y y . . . . . ,----, - . - l - - ravel; bottom on gravel. -- SW. 4 SE. 4 sec. 24, T. 21 N., R. 16 W.......... 224 Apr. 7 L. Beckwith, Burwell, Nebr............ ‘...l. Spring, 1886 Dº º ---do ------- 28 24 4 | Could lower, but not pump | No.------------| No.......... 8 ; * i. clay su ºil; then sand with streaks of gravel to bot- 820 ----do ---------|- 2,167 2,143 2, 139 Do. f 4. --> º , - ||-- - * * i -ºº ºl. º. ºf m = m = * * * r | - om; bottom on gravel. - on Sºgº in §N R. 52 W. | - - dry. N A , f r f f d : b l ^, 3, 932 || 3, 905 ! 3, 900 | N }n place t inf tion fr W. 3. #. # Sec. 16, T. 8 N., R. 52 W. ---.... * Apr. 10 -------------------------------------------. '#', - 3 feet, square 27 5 t pump dry- - - - - - - - -. 0------------- | No.......... 4 feet soil, 26 feet clay, 2 feet sand; bottom on sand-----------------' Hard -----...} Pumn -------.I.' ' '. . . . . . . . . . ---------.......!..........!---------...-------................. 3, , ºut) T o ºne on place to get information from: Swisec. i., §§. R. § W......I.I.I. 226 †. 10 | Richard Harris, Sterling, Colo............ išiš. IDUI o ....... 3 by 3 * ; 50 25 § º "ß in 2 | No-------------| No.......... 10 feet soil and subsoil, 5 feet hard white clay, iſ foot gravel, 35 feet 820 i Stock -------- ,954 3,904 || 3,879 || In the summer this well will furnish only about * ! y - spring issº.--|---ao ------. I r hours in summer. | hard white clay, then blue clay marl with thin stratum of rock 250 gallons in 24 hours. | f || ". | every 6 feet or 8 feet; a little seep water on top each rock; bot- | t * N INE N., R. 52W ... ' ' ' ' || N º ‘... ſº º i. d; wat sand 3, 200 St. i k a d 4,017 | 4,005 || 4,002 || 0 h - 3d all d th ll but E. .# Sec. 32, T. 9 N., R. 52W ----...- - - - 2 - + • * + -------|Summer * - - - 12 Jan Inot Dump dry. --------- 0- - - - - - - - - - - - - || No....... - - - 12 feet Soil and Subsoil, then Sand; Water in Sand.------------------ ock and ir- 1 wner, has pumped, a ay on the we l]. . # 4. | 27 | Apr. 10 || George E. McCauley, sterling colo --. Summer, 1888 - Drove - - - - - - 13, inches 15| r 3 Can Inot pump dry. • . | No e g - - - * Tigation. i --- 1 couldn't lower. This wellis in a draw and is ' ' ', . . * * l 3 l * | 'ºis & - - t | . \ + . * . . . 92 - probably a local vein. : + S.E. : S.E.: Sec. 20, T. 9 N., lt. 52W - - - - - - - - - -|--| 228 Apr. 10 hanan, Sterling, Colo........--Ailiš85...........] Dug........ 3 by 3 feet .. 32 128 Large --------------- -------|---------- --------------------- Gravelin bottom ----------------------------------- ---------------- * nº gº ag m = * * * * I am m = m = m + º- ºr m ºr * * * * * 3,924 3,892 || 3,864 f ... " §º T. 9 N., R. 52 W. . . . . . . . . . . 229 †. 10 º § §§§ Colo--------- išiš. º o....... .*.*. * = = = * * * ; , 35 a 10 §: out, but fills up A little; say 3. No.--------- .4 feet soil, 19 feet subsoil and magnesia, then clay to bottom; may be 500 | Stock.........|| 4,020 | §§§5 || 3:575 ... " I . . . º - . . - ; : Jºe. “.. I ' ' . . . -- I - - quick. \ . . . . eet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a little sand in the clay at bottom; water comes in through clay. - * |: .. -- . . ." SE. # NE.3 sec. 32, T. 10 N., R. 52 W---------| 230 Apr. 19 |------do ---------------------------------. $pring 1886.......do------- ----do-------| 53 26” 27 | Strong vein---------------.. *:::: about 22| No..........], 4 : soil, ºt subsoil, and magnesia, 36 feet clay, 3 feet sand; . !." 500 ||----do ---------|| 4,067 || 4,041, 4,014 |, . . . . . . . . ‘. . . ... " . . . . . • . it ".. ‘. . . . . . º , , - * * * r - t - - y ! º 1 * , , , - I - - - ſº º ,' n . . . . . ' ‘. . - i ~. || - - . , ... . i. 4. ', 1 * * ... º t € .' . /... .'; . . . '. ! l wa er in San * , , , r - . . 1 . 1 t ... ', } , - * ... • j * , l “... ... ." * - .. i 1. r" ‘. . . ...; i . . º al º ...' . ; : ... " 3:…' • . . " , . . ... 4. . . . . . "..., - - º N.E.3 SE; 4 sec. 8, T. 10 N. Rºw............ 2314 Apr. 10 || Karl Hirlsher, Iliff, Colo.................: ºws 1887 |....do .......|4 feet diam--|- 17. . #15. V. 2 || Can pump dry, but fills up: No-º:--------##|No. 4 feet soil, 7 feet clay,6feet quicksand.------------------------ ---. - : . ...----|... 1:920. Irrigatiºn, &#| $4,197.|.4,182 || 4,180 | Probably local vein in draw. . . . . . . . . . ...'", º, ºgº; ...;;.... ..., \,, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . º ºſº.' . . . . . . ºf ... .º.º...! sº, ſº lº', ; ; ; , ; ; in #iffiduº ºf ººlºº. lº.º.º.º.º.º.º. ººlºº º 3:...º-º-º: lºaºr:#;"|##########|-ºº-ºº-ººººººº-ºº: :*::::::::::::::: iºššāšegiātā2 sºftw3-4-------|-232; Apr. 11:ligeorge B. Gunder; Sidney, Nebra..…; wińsº §do.::::::::::doši.ºgg|#94 ºz. isºtºpiary:Hyes rºot **}[Nö......: ºº: and Hard 'sand, Tºet 160se sånd. ... . ......I. iść 'Stock::::::::A;5.9FM;315|º. º ... 3 ſº º, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . º.º.º. º.º.º.º. ººjº, ºf . , ſº ..., | **, ºff. Tº Tº...º.º.º.º.º.º.) -in bo tºm; bottom on hºrd gan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . tº : "' . . . . . . . . . . " ' ' ||, . . . . . . ..., | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ' º ... NE3 NW 3 sec. 6, T-12N.R. 51W.---------| 283 |Apr. 11 || Charles Brashor:Sidney, Nebr............ $pring i889.......d6, ...... ----do -------|... 114 || “109 || “. . ; 5. goodsupply.......... … Yes; wide: No..........|| 6 feet, soil, º 3. º *ging to hard pan; water in mag- |... §4. ----------|--...-----------|| 4,499 || 4,390 || 4,385 \ 1 * . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ‘. w i *. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . *. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . r . . . . . . . . --> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .” - || ". . . . ." | mesian rock 9T clay marl. . . . . - i i i. - - - - + - 'H. . . . . . . i S.E.3 N.E.3 sec. 18, T.13 N., R. 51 W. --------- 234 Apr. 11 , Sidney : ............lºwinter 1. .. || 3 by 3 feet -. 72 8 -- ith || Yes; 8feet....!!!No..........] 23 feet soil and sandy subsoil, then hard pan clear to bottom; wa- |. º 3,200 to Stock. --...... 4,300. 4, 228 4, 220 - w º # Sec --~~~ l, pr. Charles vernon, Sidney, Nebr ------…] winter, 1888. * - ..do ------- y ... i 80 - i º, .# mºmp dry witn || - , No ter probably in seams in magnesian hard pan or clay marl. • 4,00 f - I ..., N.W. 4 SW. 4 sec. 4, T. 13 N., R. 51 W -------- 235 | Apr. 11 |. , . ' ' " I -º- . . . . . ..!----do ----do ------- 71 70% #| Very small------------------ No-------------. * * * * * * * * * * * * * 14 º soil º i. then clay changing to magnesian hardpan --|.......-------..!----------|------------|----------|----------|----------|----------|---- ------------ 4, 290 4, 220 || 4, 218 || Place abandoned. 1 f - + - - - . . ." - . or clay marl; Dottom in Same. ! . . - - ; : . . . º º . ...' - º NW, 4 Sec. 6, T. 5.N., R. 52W --..... ---------. 236 Apr 4 feet diam.. 13 12 1 | Good supply. --------------- No-------------- No---------- 3 feet soil, then Sandy subsoil to bottom; quicksand in bottom------ Hard ------- Bucket ------- i., '- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - = n = * * * * * = = m = , = m = * * * * * - - I - m = m, ºr * * * = = 1 = = * * * * * * * * : * * * * * * * * * * | * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * = 4, 167 4, 155 4, 154 This well in same draw as Buffalo Springs, and. - - - - - w L - i ----------------------- - r : 5 Płº Hºly É.i.from them. te. Stand N.E. # Sec. 8, T. 2 N., R. 52W ----------------- 2 10 feet diam. 65 38 i 12.000 gallons per dav....... No--------------| No.......... 25 feet soil and subsoil, 40 feet cemented gravel, not solid enough | Soft......... se-power.---------------| 63 by 24!----------------------|----------|---------- 12,000 | TOWn-...------ 4, 639 4, 574 4, 536 | Pump wi ow 140 gallons perminute. Stand- 4. - - 37 Apr 103 38||12,000 gallons per day d No to biasti foot sand, with Sº little º,á. 37 feet fire clay; § | Soft º !--------------- º: - , vvº. * 3. pipel4 feet diameter,75 feet high.92 feet below y i i tom on fire clay, and a borehole 25 feet deeper still in clay. 24 inch cyſ. . . tical). surface; a tunnel 4 by 5 feet was run out ana inder, . . . . . up 100 feet, tapping sand vein 65 feet below t . . . | surface. Two lateral tunnels 4 * 4 feet, 40 - ' ' '..It I - and 25 feet long run out of this. These tun- k - || " : - i --- . . . . . Inels furnish the water. SW. # NW. 3 sec. 27, T. 3 N., R. 52W ......... * | Apr. 14 |-------------------------------------------- #888.... ----do --- 3 feet diam.. 56 52. * !------------------------------|------------------|-------------. 10 feet soil and subsoil, then magnesian clay, and cemented gravel |....do ....... Buckets --------------- ..----|----------|------------|----------|--------------------|-------------------------. 4, 586 || 4, 534 || 4, 530 Place abandoned. ſº 2---------------------- - 110 IN in §º: sº 2 feet Cl l: 4 feetl w . . . . 4, 585 || 4, 475 i 4, 395 - SW. 4 SE. # sec. 15, T. 3 N., R. 52W ---...-...-- 239 . 14 illia † "Oil, CO10- - - - - - - - - -----'l'A - 2 inches ----| 190 110 | 80 |.............................. Q- - - - - - - - - - - - - - No. --------- 8 feet soil; $feºff soil, glºy, and grayel; *** **argrayel;4 feeblime- |....do .................................------|-------...]................................]..........]----------|---........----- 4 4. ! y Apr William Joite, Akron, Colo . . . ; ug., 1886 ---- Drove ------ - * 190 80 º -. No A stone (soft), then yellow clay to bottom; water in clay; Smallvein do A. - - y - 3. y - - |#: , , r at 110 feet. - ! SW. 4 SE.3 sec. 11, T. 3 N., R. 52W - - - - - - - - -. 240 | Apr. 14 '011, CO10 - - - - - - ----------. º ... *. 3 by 3 feet -- 68 i No--------------| No. - - - - - - - - - 4 feet soil, 4 feet magnesian rock, 53 feet soft cemented gravel, 7 |....do ....... Bucket -----. +------------------------- 50.00 ----------|----------|---------- 100 | Stock--------- 4, 562 4,494 || 4, 486 3. 4. | pr Isaac Moore, Akron, Colo . . . July, 1887..... Dug -------- y 76% # 8 || About 100 gallons per day -- No feet time conglomerate, very hardſ, 8 feet soft clay marſ; water do ucket | | | | - f ! * * } " fºr - * - in this. | - S.E.4 NW.4 sec. 1, T. 3 N., R. 52W ----------- * | Apr. 14 |--------------------------------------------his87.... do .......] 3 feet diam.. 65 58 * !------------------------------|-------------------------------. 4 feet sº .# then hard Sandy Clay; some magnesia; bottom ....do .......... do ----------------------'...l----------------------|----------|---------------------------------------------- 4, 532 || 4,474 || 4,467 - - - Liº.---------- * * * **** * * * * * * * : h ºf Lºſ r * m * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * i = a- ºr * * * IIlā; e in Sand. - - ,l}, - * * N.E. # SW. # sec. 35, T. 5 N., R. 52 W--------- 242 Apr. 14 || R.P. Sleddom, Akron, Colo-...----------. } et, 1889 -.... ----do ------- ----do ------- J.5 10 5 | Can be pumped dry, but fills ------------------|-------....... 4. i.soil, 4 * clay, 7 feet fine sand; little coarser at bottom; bot- Medium ....H. Handpump... !* = m = s. s. s. m. s. s m = a + i s m = ± = E = a m = { * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * | * * * * * * * * * * | * * * * * * * * * * 700 Sheep -------. 4, 324 4,314 || 4, 309 Tºll IS * # mile above Buffalo Springs - - : . . . - ilp quickly. - 9m on sand; - *, - 1. In ºne SãIIlò (II'ºw. * N.E. # NE. # sec. 8, T. 7 N., lx. 50 W. . . . ... ----- - . 15 Solo----------------!----| Amr . 33 by 33 130 5 º ill. No-------------- r in- || 60 feet soil, subsoil and clay; 20 feet grayel; then sandstone clear | Soft......... ill -------- - - - H.A.&TIn Otor..... 90, 00 60.00 75, 00 13 1,000 | Stock, and 4,387 || 4,257 || 4,182 | First water at 100 feet; strongest vein at 120feet º 3. SèC. S, 243 Apr. 15 | H. M. Day, Leroy, Colo. ---. *}. pr. lsº...; Pºlº ſº inºs. 205 75 | Can not pump dry with mill º to bottom; bottom in ºi. At 120 feet a very weak vein of Soft Mill r "a Aermotor 8 (18) | threshing. y f unjessitcomes from bottom which is on gravel. gr * "f . feet r water in marl. § Å, Well was first bored to 205 feet, but only gave r #: . . . * |} \, 2 barrels per day. Mr. Day thinks he is on top - º #. . . ... + d clav, 2 f l: th d * . || || of sheet Water. N.W.; NE. # sec. 9, T. 7 N., R. 50 W .......... 244 . 15 illiam Wood. Lerov, Colo......... ------| Mar 3 feet diam - 128 * No -------------| No.......... 3 feet soil, 47 feet subsoil and clay, 20 feet gravel; then, sandstone ....do ........ EI ower-----------------|---------- 80.00 |--------------------|---------- 320 | Stock......... 4, 380 4, 352 || 4, 237 Ž IN Jiu. 3. - Apr William Wood, Leroy, Colo # , ar, 1890..... Dug -------- 143 15 Furnishes 320 gallons per day No to bottom bottom on same. Wateratiº feet comes in through O orse power...] 3. 1 th - || 1 **ś, son of cºmmon lºot and 12tect sub i | ||. 0 ----d 4, 202 4, 182 SW. # SE.3 sec. 2, T. 7 N., R. 50 W........... 245 . 15 Jolo --------------linov. ----do ------- 73 9| Can not lower -------------. Yes; 18 feet..... JN 0 - - - - - - - - - 4 feet soil, 2 feet stony soil, 6 feet subsoil, 1 foot san €6D Sub- |....do ....... Horse --------|---------------|----------|-- * * * * * * * * * * : * * * * * * * * * = | * * * * * * * * * * | * * * * * * * * * * 1,800 ----do --------. 4, 375 , 18 $. 4: 4 JV Apr Ernest Garfield, Leroy, Colo l Nov. 1890.....I. ---do ------- 193 2 Can not lower - No soil, 15 feet gravel, 8 º: hard black earth, 20 feet gravel, 8feet clay, OTS . . . - . - * j f ! º - 10 feet black gravel, 10 feet hard earth; then alternating layers f y \ i. : - - gravel and earth for 62 feet; 10 feet fine gravel, 25 feet soft sand- j." d º . . . … 145 aſſºi, amºn, a tº d, 20 feet rot || | 0 i----d 4,220 || 4,075 4,066 | Place abandoned N.E. : S.E. 4 Sec. 3, T. 7 N., R. 49 W ............ 246 . 15 - in ºr lº i ----do ------- 9 t - Yes; 9 feet -----| No ......... eet soil, 20 feet magnesia SubSoil, eet, 100Se sand, 600 TOt- ....do ....... Bucket ------- !---------------|---------- 150.00 ----------|----------|-- * * - ºr - - - - 800 i----do --------- 20 3.00 all]{{Il{101.10:01. * * *-*-* * * y Apr Cºlº Hanson (informant) Fleming, Fan, 1888-...-. ----do ------- 154 º* lower with horse | Yes; No ten lime rock, 12 feet loose sand; then rotten lime rock to bottom. nok ‘.… y † - - - " ; ; ; - - - Water º º through º: §§ t I - + 008 || 4 Th llis in “sheet Wat ll wells in vicinity S.E. : NE. 3 sec. 7, T. 7 N., R. 48W ............ 24.7 . 15 ing, Cólo---------------...ſºſa 2% feet diam. 151 Cºll - lº LP +A Allll ...A. W.H.J. * * * * * * * * * * * No-------------- No --------- 8 feet soil, 1 foot magnesia, 2 feet dark Subsoil, 2 feet coarse gravel, |....do ....... IEI OWºr--li---------------|---------- 100.00 ----------|----------|---------- 820 ----do --------. 4, 159 || 4, 00 005 || This wellis in “sheet Water,” all Wells in vicini # ~. i Apr. 15 || C. Murray, Fleming, Colo... :-- Jan., 1891----- ----do ------- # 154 3 Can not pump dry.... No . 32 feet hard yellow sandy clay, 3 feet gravel, 26 feet white ce. O orse power l 4 go into Same. y +. r |} . . . . W mented “magnesia,” 3 feet grayel; then alternating thick lay- * : " . r - , || ". . °. ers hard magnesia and gravelſ; 3 feet fine sand inwater at bottom. | < * , • S.E. : S.E. : sec. 11, T. 7 N., R. 48 W ........... 248 || Apr. 16 || H. A. Groff, Hacton, Colo.-----------------|Summer, 1889. Hydraulic ..] 2 in diam ---| 213 | 208 10|------ do --------------------- Yes; 75 feet-----| No -------- Cº. rock º *. Rock just above bottom. Water comes | Hard ....... Mill ---------- |Star ---------. 4-6-8 300, 00 50, 00 60.00 || 14 $1.00 3,200 ----do --------- 4, 135 3,932 3,922 - ' ' ' tº . . . i - om gravel in pottom. . r I º - | SE. # SW. ź Sec. 17, T. 7 N., R. 47W ----------. 349 Apr. 16 Frank O. Peterson, Hacton, Colo--------- Summer 1888. Drilled ..... 6 in. ; sheet- 187 184 3 || Mill will pump dry * * = Eh ºn tº m is tº No-------------- No --------- 3 feet soil; then magnèSla. No rock, but, good deal magnesia. | Soft......... ---do ---------| bertrand ..... 4-6-8 ; 140.00 50, 00 75.00 i---------. 600 ----do --------- 4, 062 8, 878 3, 875 ; - “…” iron. - r - ;: º water. Wºr IIl *in littl l, 20 feet , *. *. {} d - 75 771 i SW. # Sec. 33, T. 8 N., R. 46 W ---------------- 250 | Apr. 16 || J. C. Sykes, Holyoke, Colo ................ --- ~ * 3 by 3 feet -. 128 in 2 hours. ------ No-------------- .......] 3 feet soil, 4 feet magnesia, 3 feet Sand with a little grave 9°t |----do ------- Horse power-li---------------|---------- 75.00 ----------|----------|---------- 640 ----do --------- 3,903 || 3, 7 3, } , 4. 3. pr J. C. Sykes, Holyoke, Colo i Spring 1877---| Dug -------- y 132 4 192 gallons in 2 hours. No .. * Fº hard clay, then #.à ani :* Sand and clay, &lay, GT p - - - : k ... . . . - | * sº Water. Wº: * Sæll i, 50 feet cl l, 3 feet { d 43 NW. # NE. # sec. 3, T. 7 N., R. 46W........... 251 | Apr. 16 || C. Choney, Holyoke, Colo -----.......... ...] WTi ---do ------- 187 | 4 || 260 gallons per hour........ Yes; 4 feet------| No ..... 3 feet soil, 8 feet magnesia, 4 feet gravel, eet Clay marl, 3 feet | Hard ------. Bucket -------|---------------|---------- 75.00 --------------- * * * * * : * * * * * * * * * * 640 ----do --------- 3, 884 3, 747 || 3, 7 I º W. # # pr C. Choney, Holyoke, Colo r Fuly, 1887..... ----do ------- 14.1 4 260 gallons per hour. . No - ---- sand and 10 feet ; marl, alternating to bottom. #. Imaterial * , § J º ; , , - I * - above water. º gº yº, ; † k ; : S.E. : S.W. 3 sec. 35, T. 8 N., R. 46 W........... 252 Apr. 16 || G. W. ------------lºan. 3 feet. ------ 137 .......] No-------------- 6 feet soil, 8 feet subsoi êet Cemented gravel, 3 feet hard rock, I....do ....... ----do ---------|---------------|---------- 225.00 ----------|----------|---------- 480 l----do --------- 3, 870 3,733 3,720 * 4. ! Dr G. W. Huffman, Holyoke, Colo || an., 1887 --------do ------- 150 # 12#| 480 gallons per day ......... No----------. No --------- 95 feet sanº and †. el, then clay, § yº. I I - * ; i N.W.; NE. : sec. 22, T. 7 N., R. 45W......---- 253 | Apr. 16. S. W. EI ----------------| 3 by 3 feet... 169 º ill....] No ------------- º ! 2 feet soil, 3 feet white magnesian clay, eet fine gravel, 3 feet | Medium ....] Mill ..... -----limprovéd Cali- 4–6–8 150.00 42.00 60.00 (18 2,000 || Stock and 3,775 3,606 3,602 --~~ # pr S. W. Beggs, olyoke Colo t" | une 1887 ------. do ------- y 173 - 4 Can not lower with mill ... No --------- hard fine sand, 2 feet hard white magnesian rock, 6 feet red Sand, - }. ) y irrigation. * f f ' ' ' ' ' ' 4 feet white rock, 15 feet red sand with some clay, 15 feet dry :- d I | - fine loose gravel; then alternating Sandy clay and gravel; 34 feet * d S N r , , ; - ºśava, wrºteia, with * * 15 SE. : S.W. 4 sec. 12, T. 7 N., R. 45W. -----..... 254 || Apr. 16 || A. T. Guthri lyoke, Colo-------. ------Thet. º 10 in -------- 154 -------- No-------------- 50 feet soil, subsoil, and clay; 25 feet loose gravel; 64 feet clay with Soft......... ----do --------- Aermofor..... 4–6–8 90. 00 20.00 60.00 (15) 1,000 | Stock.......-- 3,753 3, 599 || 3, 591 t 3. # y - pr A T. Gut, ne Holyoke, Colo . . . . o ot, 1889 ----. Bºxood I62 - 8 || Can not pump dry.... No --------- some gravel; 23 feet loose gravel getting cleaner as down. Clean ' ' || OT 3. ; i ! - + { , || - 5 * - at water. Bottom on same. | | | | º At Holyoke, sec. 7, T. 7 N., R. 44 W --...----- 255 Apr. 16 IBurlington and Missouri River R. R., Sept., 1887 ----| Bored. ...... 6 in. gas 187 130 57 | Can not lower with steam Yes; about 50 |.............. At 157 feet strike first vein; not enough; go on through 25feet hard ....do ....... Steam pump--|----------------|----------|------------|--------------------|---------- 85,000 | T own pur- 3,734 3, 604 3, 547 * i Holyoke, Colo. , , || “. ". * pipe. pump. * - material down to gravel, Bottom on gravel. poses. S.E. : S.E.3 sec. 8, T. 7 N., R. 44 W------------. * | Apr. 17 --------------------------------------------|Spring, 1888...] Bored; wood | 10 in -------- 120 | 112 8 ------------------------------|-------------------------------- Iłottom probably in gravel -----------------------------------------|--------------|----------...... ** * * * * * * * = * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * I m * * * * * * * * * * * I s = * * * * * * * * I m. m. m. a. º. º. ºr m ms = | * * * * * * * * * * : * * * * * * * * * * : * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 3,716 3,604 || 3,596 |'' , r Casing. - - - S N.W. # NE. 3 sec. 14, T. 7 N., R.44 W ......... 257 | Apr. 17 J. C. $4-rº fºr.ºr.-- l r ...l. A - sº ----do ------- 105 No-------------- 6 feet soil, 13 feet clay with magnesia, 3 feet sand, 83 feet of yellow Soft.-------. Pucket -------|----------------|----------|------------|----------|----------|---------- 320 | Stock ---...... 3, 688 || 3, 583 3, 566 || Place abandoned. 4. 4. - ar. 17 J. C. White (informant), Holyoke, Colo Apr. 1888 ----- ---do ------- 122 17 | Can not pump dry ---------. O No.--------- clay with streak $ºd, 17 fºtsand in bottom, coarser in bottom. . . + - º $ S.E. : S.W. # sec. 12, T. 7 N., R. 44. W..... ---... 258 || Apr. 17 | A. A. Shafer, Holyoke, Colo-...------. ----|Dec.,1887..... Dug -------- 2% feet diam | 110 106 * ------ do --------------------- Yes; 2 feet ----. No --------- 8 feet soil, 15 feet subsºil, 27 feet clay with some gravel, 2 feet loose |....do ....... Mill ---------- Goodhue------ 4–6–8 55.00 25.00 || 70.00 (18) 640'l----do --------. 3, 676 3, 570 3,566 - - f i ". . - gravel, then, clay with gravel and occasional layers of magnesian } . t - tº w - - rock, 6 inches hard magnesian rock on water, then clay and gravel . * ; * . changing to gravel; grayel in bottom, . - ' ' - ! N.W. 4 N.W. # Sec. 19, T. 7 N., R. 43 W.-------. 259 Apr. 17 | Fred JBorland, Iſolyoke, Colo--------- * * * * * Apr., 1887..... Bored; wood 10 in -------- 96 90 6 do --------------------- Yes; 3 feet ------------------. 8 ; 1 foot magnesia, then clay with some gravel to Water |....do ------- ----do --------- Star ---------- 4-6-8 l------------|--------------------|---------- 2,500 Stock, sheep --| 3, 659 3, 569 3,563 - - * . . l ; : " - “I ~~ | | - I - - - - - -v-v - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Ottom ill gravel. - N.E. # NE. # sec. 32, T. 7 N., R. 43 W. ....------ 260 Apr. 17 | H. W. Wakeman, Wakeman, Colo. -------. June 1890....l.º.... 12 in........ 72 60 12 do --------------------- Yes; 5 feet...... No---------- 3 feet soil, f foºt magnesia, then, clay and gravel to water at 65 ....do....... ----do ---------|---------------|---------- 50, 00 30.00 70.00 | None ---| I, 600 | Stock......... 3, 620 i 3, 560 3, 548 - * - - 1 * | * - - * * * *-*.*.* * I - || || -- 1------ ~ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - I - J - - feet, then sand and gravel changing to gravel in bottom. * * S.E. : S.W. 3 sec. 30, T. 7 N., R. 42 W........... 261 | Apr. 17 | John Buck, Holyoke, Colo -----........... July, 1886.--. Dug ........ 4 by 4 feet .. 5] 43 * !------do --------------------- Yes; 4 feet------ No --------- 5 feet soil, 8 feet coarse gravel, with some clay, 5 feet loose gravel; ....do ...----- Pucket -------|---------------|----------|----------------------|-------------------- 960 ----do --------- 3, 563 3, 520 3, 512 º f * - 3 = , -- - --------------- 22 feet magnesia and gravel mixed, 4 feet gravel, 1 foot hard pan, r - •r . . . - - - tlien gravel to bottom, bottom on hardpan. º i S.E. 3 SE. 3 sec. 29, T. 7 N., R. 42 W -.......... 262 | Apr. 17 | Jacob Endicott, Lamar, Nebr ............. Apr., 1887.....] Bored; wood | 10 in -------- 55 45 10 Can not lower with bucket. Yes; 5 feet...... No --------- sº of º º some gravel, bottom probably in gravel | Medium -...}. ---do .........]. ;* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * m m iº, º m = ± m ºn ºr * * * * * * * * * | * * * * * * * * * * | * * * * * m ºn m = m, I + ºr * * * * * * * * 820 to 380 ----do --------- 3, 541 || 3,496 || 3,486 || “. - casing | t - under rock or clay marl. # , º - ºr - SE. 4 SE. # sec. 25, T. 7 N., R. 42 W. ... --------- 263 || Apr. 17 | John Breese, Lamar, Nebr................] : 3-----| Dug ----- 3 by 3.5eet .. 9 H. L. J. ºf J , \, . . . . . . . . .” W.M. . . ºf + tº º mº ºf m is s is ºn No-------------- ºr ... ... 4 feet sand gravel, 4 feet magnesia, 4 feet gravel; bottom on gravel. Hard .......|. ---do ---------|--------------------------|------------|--------------------|---------- 320 ----do --------- 3,484 || 3,475 : 3,472 This well is in the dry bed of Frenchman Creek, ii., §..sec. 34. T.; N. º.º. w......III. #|###|**… :::::::::::::::: |#. #......”...] §§. ; 54 : § º* * * * * * * * * * * * #..............]. *::::::::: ś...” “...........".........]: !-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3,531 3,477 || 3,471 Place abandoned. - J.; - #. - * . -º- *Including mill and pump. * Per minute. * None in two years. * Not used much. *Per foot, including casing. * Nothing. *In four yearS. *In two years. 9 Not in use. 10 None. 11 Dug himself. *None in 3 years. is None in one year. 1*In two years. 15 None in six months. *None in one and a half years. S. Ex. 41, pt. 2—face p. 116—4 ... ". f •r 27 IT IN A T, (HEOLOGICAL REPORTS OF THE ARTESIAN AND UNDERFLOW INVESTIGATION BETWEEN THE NINETY-SEWENTH MERIDIAN OF LONGITUDE AND THE FOOTHILLS OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS, TO THE SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE. MADE BY PROF. ROBERT HAY, F. G. S. A., Chief Geologist, Office of Irrigation Inquiry, U. S. Department of Agriculture. Senate Executive Document No. 41, Fifty-Second Congress, First Session. IN FO U R PARTS. P A R T III. /* WASPHINGTON: GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE, & - l 8 9 3 ſº LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL. U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, OFFICE OF IRRIGATION INQUIRY, 3. Washington, D. C., December 1, 1891. DEAR SIR: I have the honor to transmit herewith my report as chief geologist of the artesian and underflow investigation, made under your direction, and by order of Congress. The report is accompanied by those of my assistants, Prof. G. E. Cul- ver, whose work has been in the Dakotas, Prof. L. E. Hicks, in Nebraska, and Prof. Robert T. Hill, in Texas and New Mexico. All are illus- trated by maps, geological sections, and other drawings, that will help to the understanding of the subject investigated, viz: The source, volume, and availability of the underground waters of most of the area of the Great Plains. Besides acknowledging the encouragement received in my work from the Department in Washington, and my colleagues in the field, I wish to recognize the value of services and information spontaneously given throughout the broad area of the field of investigation, by citizens in their private character, as well as by State, county, city, and railway officials. Effort has been made to give scientific accuracy of statement as free as possible from scientific verbiage, and I trust in this as in other re- spects the report will meet your approval. I am, dear sir, very respectfully, ROBERT HAY, Chief Geologist, Artesian and Underflow Investigation. Hon. J. M. RUSK, Secretary of Agriculture. 3 © TABLE OF CO N T E N T S. Page. Letter to Secretary from Chief Geologist.------------------------------------- 3 General report: - Plan of work ------------------------------------------------------------ 7 Geology of the plains------------------------------------------------------- 8 Water-holding rocks ------------ ---------------------------------------- 11 Reconnoissances in Montana and Wyoming------------------------------ 12 Topography of the plains: Increment of elevation westward -------------- ------------------------ 13 Rivers separated into two classes as to their source, mountain rivers, and plain rivers----------------------------------------------------------- 14 Western escarpment of the plains --------------------------------------- 14 Water supply of the plains: Rivers of the plains ---------------------------------------------------- 15 Origin of their waters -------------------------------------------------- 16, 18 Special description of the Smoky-Republican region...------------------. 18,21 Wells in the interfluvial spaces ----------------------------------------- 22 Measured flow of some of the rivers-------------------...----------------- 23 North Dakota: - Classification of artesian wells by depth and pressure. -- - - - - - - - ---------- 24 The Red River region, its low altitude and smooth contour ------ - - - - - - - - 26 Character of the water in the wells -----------------...------------------ Extension of artesian areas discussed -----------------...---------- ‘e s = - sº s 27 Geology of the glaciated area.------------------------------------------- 29 The Turtle Mountains ----------...--------------------------------------- 30 Variation of lake levels------------------------------------------------- 31 The underflow : .* Common use of the terms in the West------------------------------------ 32 The facts of the underflow---------------------------------------------- 34 Restriction of the term to its proper range ------------------------------ 35 Artesian wells: Increased number of wells in the principal basins -----------...--------- 36 Source of supply of the Dakota main basin ------------------------------ 37 General conditions of artesian flow.-------------------------...----------- 38 Other causes of flow besides hydrostatic pressure -----...-----...--------. 39 ILL U S T R ATION S. Map, showing Smoky Hill—Republican River system - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Profiles and sections of one hundred and second and one hundreth meridians, across Kansas ------------------------------------------------------------ “, sº #ºn Mouse River to ninety-seventh meridian, and Cheyenne to Steele, • Dark - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Draw on Llano Estacado---------------------------------------------------- Artesian wells, conditions, diagrams of, 20 and 21 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Conditions of water-bearing strata, diagram of ------------------------------ Rivers of the plains: The Kaw at Fort Riley, Kans ------------------------------------------- The Republican, near Scandia, Kans ------------------------------------ The White River, Nebraska ---------------------------------------- ----- Frenchmen's Creek, Nebraska--------------------. ---------------------- Red River of Texas----------------------------------------------------- Tower City (N. Dak.) Well-------------- ----------------------------------- Armour City (S. Dak.) Well------------------------------------------------- Red River escarpment, Texas ----------------------------------------------- Thompson’s Butte, S. tak........ ........................................I. Pine Ridge escarpment, N.W. Nebr ---...---------...-------------------------- Summit of Missouri, Mt. Steele --------------------------------------------- Lakes on Coteau du Missouri section ---------------------------------------- 6 Page. Rivers of THE PLAINs. The KAw AT Fort Riley, KANsas. ARTESIAN AND UNDERFLOW INVESTIGATION BETWEEN THE NINETY-SEVENTH MERIDIAN AND THE FOOTHILLS OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. By Prof. R. HAY, F. G. S. A. GENERAL REPORT. In beginning the investigation at the time of the year necessitated by the date (October 14, 1890) at which Congress passed the appropria- tion for this work, it became necessary to consider the most economic Way of distributing the force available so as to make the season for field work in each part of the district as long as possible. The fact that assistants were to be had who had special knowledge of certain parts of the field made it desirable to use them at such time as would give the greatest scope for their abilities. It being already too late for any work in the Dakotas or northern Nebraska before winter, it was deemed best that the work to be done by Prof. Hicks and Prof. Culver should be postponed till spring or early summer of 1891. On the other hand Prof. R. T. Hill would be able to work out of doors nearly all the winter in Texas, and the neighboring parts of New Mexico, southern Colorado, and Oklahoma, while it would be possible for myself to do con- siderable field work in parts of Kansas, Nebraska, and Colorado before the winter set in. That plan, therefore, was decided upon and Prof. Hill began forthwith to visit parts of the region he was least acquainted with, the writer at the same time making reconnoissances, to connect districts visited during the short investigation of the previous season with each other and with places formerly known. In this way the chief geologist examined a large part of the Republican Valley in Nebraska and Colorado west of the one hundredth meridian, Crossed the divide to the South and North Platte rivers, and returned through Colorado to northwest Kansas. Then, in company with Col. Nettleton and Judge Gregory, he made a journey across the State of Kansas on the one hundredth meridian. Afterwards he was on the same meridian on the Red River of Texas and, with Prof. Hill, made some reconnois- sances in the Panhandle of Texas. Valuable observations were after- wards made in the foothills of the mountains from Trinidad to Pueblo, and these were only stopped by heavy snows in January. Later Ob- servations in the foothills were continued in the neighborhood of Colo- rado Springs, Golden, and Fort Collins, and west of Cheyenne in Wyoming. Then, in the spring, a journey was made, starting at Fort Collins, to connect with former observations on the plains in longitude 102, and the divide between North and South Platte was examined in several counties of Nebraska, and, crossing the former river at Camp Clarke, Box Butte County was explored and the descent of Pine Ridge T 8 . IRRIGATION. to the White River Valley was examined. Here Prof. Hicks was in company for a few days, he having then just taken the field. My jour- ney was then extended to the Platte River Valley in Wyoming as high as Fort Fetterman, where for several days I had the advantage of as- sociated work with Hon. Elwood Mead, State engineer of the State. Then a reconnoissance in the region where the Chugwater leaves the foothills, and the circle was completed to Cheyenne and to the South Platte in Colorado. - As with Profs. Hill and Hicks I also worked awhile with Prof. Culver; this was in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Then, going north, I spent the whole month of July in North Dakota, with some days in August. A short trip into South Dakota in February, and a shorter one as far as time is concerned in Montana in August, with a few - short trips taken while engaged on my report, make up the record of my field work. The results of it will appear in the pages further on. The work of Prof. Hill extended through nine months; that of Prof. Hicks through ninety of the long days of summer, and that of Prof. Culver through ninety-five. It should be added that each of these gentlemen gave additional time beyond that called for by their com- missions—from ten to twenty days each—for the purpose of making the report more complete than it could have been in the exact time allowed. The reports of these gentlemen here with appended will speak for themselves. The information given may be relied on as accurate. Where there is deficiency it must be attributed to the largeness of the region investigated. It has been judged best to work out the various forms of the water problem in some districts thoroughly rather than pretend to do the whole region and to do it perfunctorily. The regions selected for this work are largely typical, so that persons residing in other similar districts may be able to use the information given, though the localities described may be different in some respects from those with which such persons are familiar. The descriptions by myself of the Republican Smoky Hill region and by Prof. Hicks of the region of the Loup rivers will be of service to persons residing in Wyoming, Southern Kansas, the Panhandle of Texas, and elsewhere on the Great Plains. The detailed account of the conditions under which phreatic Waters are found in northeastern North Dakota will aid in an under- standing of the phenomena in South Dakota and elsewhere where sur- face conditions are of the same glacial type. The account of the struc- ture of the Black Hills by Prof. Culver is the key to the artesian condi- tions that may be looked for in parts of Wyoming, Montana, and else- where on the east flank of the Rocky Mountains. It will be noticed by the readers of this report that technical words are Very sparingly used. It has been the purpose to make it as read- able as possible. Prof. Hill has given definitions of the technical words used by him, and to his list may be added the new word phreatic,” which is a Very convenient term for underground waters which can be, or which it is hoped may be, reached by wells or other sub-ground works. GEOLOGY OF THE PLAINs. The geological terms necessary to a proper understanding of the whole of these papers, not previously explained, will have their names fully made known by the context. * .* This word was first used in American hydro-geologic investigation by the Arte- sian and Underflow Office in 1890. Rivers of THE PLAINs. THE REPUBLICAN NEAR SCANDIA, KANSAs. THE SIMPLICITY OF THE PLAINS’ GEOLOGY. 9 The strata in the earth’s crust that it is necessary to know the names of in this investigation are arranged as groups and sub-groups, as fol- lows: Cenozoic : Mesozoic—Continued: Quarternary or Pleistocene: Jurassic. Drift. Triassic. Loess. Paleozoic : Tertiary: . Carboniferous, including Permian. Pliocene. Devonian. Miocene. Silurian. Eocene. Cambrian. Mesozoic : Archaean: Cretaceous: Schists. Laramie. Gneiss. Montana. Granite. Colorado. Dakota. Trinity. The Montana formations are subdivided into Fort Pierre and Fox Hills, and the Colorado group has an upper member, the Niobrara and the Fort Benton lower, and these names will be occasionally used. The Niobrara in some regions has two members, the Yellow Chalk (upper) and the Blue Shale (lower). In the regions where they occur the in- habitants will recognize them by these names. Some principal names are omitted in this, as the rocks they designate do not occur in the region, and the subdivisions of only one of the Mesozoic have been given as being all that is necessary. It is neces- Sary to have names; these are not difficult ones and they have all a distinct signification, based on localities where the rocks they desig- nate Were first examined. The left-hand column has its terms based on the remains of life; fossils found in the rocks. These are sometimes of great importance in recognizing the order. All the following pages may be understood by the unscientific reader who will simply remember that these are names of strata in the order of their formation or age ; the Quaternary are the newest formations, the Archaean the oldest, the others in their order. If the lowest is on the surface of the ground all the others are missing. They have either been eroded away or never were there. If any higher—for example the Dakota—are on the surface, all the others may be under, or some of them may be missing, as there Were periods of erosion between some of these formations. On the flanks of the mountains the strata have been, by the forces of mountain- making, turned up on their edges; but throughout all the region of the Great Plains the strata are nearly level, a dip of only 5 or 10 feet to the mile being quite common, while dips as high as 100 or 200 feet to the mile are scarcely known. The plains' geology, then, is, on the whole, simple. When strata are found outcropping in ravines or bluffs; what is below them may be inferred with considerable certainty. The difficulty of geologic investigation is, that certain late formations are spread out in great sheets over thousands of square miles and hide the more regularly stratified formations below. - Erosion has cut valleys and ravines in these later formations, and the exposures of the older rocks must be sought for there. To make this clear let it be understood that after the Cretaceous formations were laid down there was a period in which the region of the Great Plains was dry land and its surface was worn down by rivers, rains, and winds as the present surface is being worn, and that at that time the Rocky Mountains began to be elevated and bending of the 10 $ IRRIGATION. Cretaceous rocks was the result. The Black Hills were lifted about the same time with the same result. After the erosion the plains Were again under water and Tertiary formations were deposited over a great part of the area. These are the softer beds that hide the old erosion. They are both Pliocene and Miocene in age, and some near the moun- tains may be Eocene. In northeast Dakota these do not seem to have been deposited, and later beds—drift and loess—cover up the under- lying shales. In parts of Texas and Indian Territory erosion prior to the Tertiary deposits had reached down to Jurassic and Triassic rocks and the Miocene grit, of which frequent mention will be made, rests on those early Mesozoic rocks. In a few places in Kansas the same Miocene deposits rest on Carboniferous formations, erosion having re- moved all other deposits that might have been placed there before mid- dle Tertiary (Miocene) time. The section on the one hundred and second meridian shows these tertiaries resting on bed rock of different ageS, - * The tertiary formations in the southern plains and the drift forma- tions in the Dakotas have much to do with the water supply. All the phreatic waters available without very deep borings are found in them. Their arrangement is important to be understood. In the Dakotas and eastern Ransas and Nebraska, there is a sandy marly formation known as the Loess, which in large areas overlies the drift and in others rests on bed rock of the district, Cretaceous or Carboniferous as the case may be. In the plains from the White River of Nebraska to the Panhandle of Texas there is a similar formation, varying slightly in texture and substance, as sand, lime, or clay predominate, which makes the smooth surface and the deep subsoil of the prairie. Its oldest parts are un- doubtedly of tertiary age, but its formation lasted probably through the drift period, and its latest beds are probably contemporaneous with the Loess. We call it the plains’ marl. Beneath the plains marl, with occa- sional exceptions, is a lower tertiary formation of Miocene age, which in this connection we shall call the tertiary grit. It has often been described. It is nowhere quite free from siliceous matter and mostly sand is present in quantity. In places it has become a gravel loosely held together, and again the material is more coherent, being a coarse gravel—some pebbles as large as the hand—but firmly cemented by lime and iron so as to form a firm conglomerate. Where the lime preponderates it looks when broken like chunks of hard mortar. Hence it is known extensively as the “mortar beds.” Sometimes there is scarcely any sand, and the lime gives it a white smoothness that makes it serviceable for plastering cellars. In the northern parts of the area it is known as “plaster” and “native lime,” and in the south it is the “terra blanca” or “white earth’’ of New Mexico and the Llano Estacado. This tertiary grit, or simply the “grit,” as we shall sometimes call it, whether as conglomerate, mortar bed, or gravel, is very absorptive of the rainfall where it is on the surface and very capable from its porous nature of retaining Water, and in all the region named it is the source of the phreatic waters which supply the wells of the level or gently sloping high prairies which have for their surface the plains marl, whose less porous sheets cover much of the region. The gravels of the drift region of the north have a similar office and are the source of the Sup- ply in all wells that do not penetrate the bed rock below. In the drift region beds of clay above the gravels aſid similar beds—locally modified plains' marl—in the South produce artesian conditions that are repeated over large areas in the valley of the Red River of the North and are ex- emplified in the valley of Crooked Creek, in Meade County, Kans. Rivers of THE PLAINs. WHITE River, NEBRASKA. Red River Escan pºst, Palo Duro CANox, TEXAs. Tertiary grit showing under the Plains, * CAPACITY OF ROCK AND STRATA To HOLD WATER. 11 Similar occurrences may be expected, and indeed are found, in the val- ley of the Pecos and elsewhere, but the phenomena will always be local. The Denver artesian wells are also from tertiary formations, but possi- bly of earlier age. Of the deeper seated rocks the capacity for holding water depends on the same quality of structure, viz, looseness or porosity. Sandstones, therefore, and conglomerates rank first as water-holders. Prof. Hill has pointed out in very distinct form which are the water-bearing rocks in Texas, while Prof. Culver has shown that the sandstones of the Dakota formations are the holders of the artesian supplies in the James River basin, and these same Dakota sandstones give the artesian waters of Coolidge in the Arkansas Valley. The Jurassic beds are also largely Sandstones, and they may be added to the Dakota beds as part of the James River basin supply. They may run out before they reach that region, but they are in contact with the Dakota in the outcrop in the Black Hills and also in the region of the Upper Missouri in Montana. There are incoherent (loose) sandstones, or perhaps it would be better to say hard compacted beds of sand in the upper cretaceous (Laramie) formations in west Western Dakota and Montana, which also hold phreatic waters where they are not broken into “bad land” topography, as On the Little Missouri. In the Yellowstone the conditions are such as to supply a limited area with artesian pressure. It is quite possible that such areas may be repeated. In the region of Great Falls, Montana, the lower Cretaceous and Ju- rassic or Jura-trias sandstones are developed in favorable conditions for receiving the rainfall, and owing to the descent beneath higher Cre- taceous shales easterly, probably could be made available for artesian Wells in the Missouri Valley and to limited heights on the higher table- lands about and below Fort Benton. That they allow water to pass freely through them is seen by the enormous flow of the Giant spring, one of a series of springs in that region, which flows to-day as it was º by Lewis and Clarke eighty years ago. Their description is as follows: After descending the fall (Black Eagle or Upper Fall) and passing the Cottonwood Island on which the eagle had fixed its nest, the river goes on for 532 poles over rapids and little falls, the estimated descent of which is 13 feet and 6 inches, till it is joined by a large fountain boiling up underneath the rocks at the edge of the river, into which it falls with a cascade of 8 feet. It is of the most perfect clearness and rather of a bluish cast, and even after falling into the Missouri it preserves its color for half a mile. (Lewis and Clarke's Travels: Paul Allen's Edition, vol. 1, p. 276.) I estimate that this spring gives not less than 100 cubic feet per second, possibly much more. Its water is supplied from fissures in the porous strata and possibly may come from the river itself some miles higher up, and its position gives it an outlet into the river valley. The continuous strata below must convey much water by slow perculation and by worn fissures much further east, to augment the supply of the James River basin or to be tapped by springs or borings before it reaches there; by springs if impervious clay shales properly disposed force it to the surface, by borings if these shales hold it down as they certainly do for hundreds of miles. - Similar remarks apply to that part of South Dakota which lies east of the Black Hills. Experiment alone can certainly determine, but it is highly probable that artesian water may be had, at least in parts of the valleys of the Cheyenne and White rivers and in portions of the Mauvaises Terres. * 12 - IRRIGATION. Of the widé region from the Black Hills north and northwest to the Yellowstone and the Missouri, no examination has yet been made. So far as it is known to the reader he may apply remarks made concerning districts that resemble it. If deep-seated waters are found here con- nected with the montanal Source which we predicate for the James River artesian wells, it will depend on the altitude whether they can be brought to the surface by hydrostatic pressure. WYOMING. The southeastern part of Wyoming belongs to the region of the plains, as described in Nebraska and Colorado. The plains are cut deeply by the North Platte and some of its mountain tributaries, as the Laramie and the Chugwater. The part east of these gives rise to some of the rivers of the plains. Notably on the north of the Platte near the Ne- braska line are the head waters of the Niobrara (Running Water) and the White River. South of the North Platte, the plains proper attain their highest elevation. At Cheyenne they are 6,000 feet, and a long tongue West of that place, forming the divide between streams of the plains, running north and south, carries the plains, formations, principally the loose conglomerate, and a compact mortar bed, across the upturned Cretaceous and Carboniferous strata on the flanks of the mountains to rest on their primeval granite. This is the most notable instance of the actual contact of the plains tertiaries with the east slope showing that these late formations were laid down in waters that covered the plains region after the uplift of the mountains. That erosion has cut away the connection of the plains formations, with the mountains is nowhere bet- ter shown than in the lower valley of the Chugwater, where the Tertiary gravel of the plains rises to a height of 1,000 feet on the east and the upturned Mesozoic and Paleozoic strata rise on the west in foothills from 1,200 to 1,500 feet. A more detailed account of the surface of the region will show how the present conditions are related to the geology already presented. TOPOGRAPHY OF THE PLAINS. The region defined by Congress as the area within the scope of this investigation from the ninety-seventh meridian of west longitude to the eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains is emphatically the region of the Great Plains. Forming as it does the greater part of the western slope of the Mississippi Valley, no part of it is below the 1,000-foot level, except a part of its western limits near the Gulf of Mexico and some of its northeastern part in the valley of the Red River of the North. Technically then it is a high plain or plateau, or rather series of plateaus, but the English word plain has been practically applied in its plural form to the whole region, and the French word prairie and the Spanish llano have also been similarly used for its various parts. To us it will be the Great Plains; parts of it to the north will be spoken of as the high prairie, relatively to the neighboring valleys, and in the Pan- handle of Texas we shall use the term Llano Estacado, palisaded or walled plain, from its abrupt outline to the valley of the Canadian and that of the Pecos. * s A large part of the region has been characterized as the American Desert. Yet its grassy surface has been invaded by agricultural set- A DESCRIPTION OF THE PLAINS TOPOGRAPHY. 13 tlers who in a few years demonstrated the capacity of the alleged desert to grow abundant crops. A few more years of less rainfall again set up the claim that it is not suited to agriculture, but the proved fertility of all its soils from Dakota to Texas has made the settler of the Anglo- Saxon race or of any other of the many peoples included in the name American, loath to yield back to nature so glorious a domain. The rainfalls often fail for three out of five years to be sufficient for grow- ing crops at the critical time of greatest heat in July or June. But the Settler is persistent in desiring to know whether there is not water be- low ground sufficient to eke out the rainfall so as to insure average agricultural success. To enable the people who desire to be informed about this vast part of their country, one-fifth of its whole area, to understand the problems to be propounded, a somewhat general ac- Count of the region must be given, with such typical details as will give explicitness to the generalizations. Looking then at the region as a whole, either by studying the best maps or traveling over its various parts, the investigator can not fail to note two prominent facts: (a) While the region is without mountains and has but few hills, there is a general increment of elevation west- ward or west by north. The 1,000-foot contour line crosses the Ar- kansas River about the ninety-seventh meridian and the Missouri River 200 miles farther north, near the ninety-fifth meridian. The other contour lines are approximately parallel to this, but do not rise So rapidly in the Missouri Valley as in the Arkansas. On the latter, the 2,500-foot level is reached at the one hundredth meridian, and 4,000 feet is crossed not far from the one hundred and fourth meridian. Farther north, between the Smoky Hill and Republican rivers, the 4,000 feet is reached at the one hundred and second meridian and the plains generally rise to a greater height to the northwest, reaching over 5,000 feet in northern Colorado. Again, the valley of the Platte cuts down the level as does the Arkansas Valley, and in Wyoming the plains rise to between 6,000 and 7,000 feet. South of the Canadian there is also increment, the Llano Estacado of Texas being 4,000 feet in the region of the one hundred and first meridian. (b) The rivers of the region are of two classes; note them. The Missouri, the Platte, the Arkansas, the Canadian, and the Rio Grande all have their sources in the mountains to the west. Their courses are across the plains, east by south and Southeast. The most cursory examination of the map will show that there are numerous other rivers whose beginnings are not in the mountains. The mountain rivers before mentioned get around their heads and shut them off from any share in the snow-melt- ing of the high Rockies. The short mountain river, Cheyenne, whose source is the Black Hills, effectually cuts off the White River from mountain waters. The Niobrara and Loup rivers in Nebraska are rivers entirely of the plains. The Smoky Hill and Republican group have their head waters in sandy, gravelly arroyos between the one hundred and first and one hundred and fourth meridians, the trenches of the South Platte and the Fountain, a tributary of the Arkansas, lying between them and the foothills of the mountains. So the Pecos and -the Red River are cut off from montanal connection by the higher val- leys of the Canadian and the Rio Grande. Other rivers of Texas and Indian Territory are seen to have similar origin, though some have What may be called a mountain supply, as they rise near the isolated mountain groups of the Sierra Blanca and the Wichita mountains, as the Cheyenne above mentioned takes the waters of the Black Hills. These rivers of the plains then form a topographical feature of great 14 - - IRRIGATION. importance and, as we shall see farther on, directly related to the water that may be available for irrigation. They have their origin and course entirely in the plains. The sides of their valleys show the outcrops of the rocks which form the foundation of that region. This is true also of the mountain streams that intersect the plains. In the plains they have the characteristics of rivers of the plains, in addition to the quantity of water they carry from the mountains. Between the Missouri and the Canadian no river valley, except those of the mountain rivers near the mountains and the Valley of the White River in northwest Nebraska, is more than 500 feet below the highest point of the plains immediately north or south of it; usually they are much less. Almost invariably the steep side of the valley is the south side and the tributary valleys there are shorter than these on the north side. These tributaries have all an eastward trend, some more east than south or north. The profiles given show this, and if all the smaller tributaries were marked on the maps it would be conspicuous there. The cutting off of the rivers of the plains from the mountains, as men- tioned above, produces another marked topographical feature. The plains have a steep west escarpment. This is not manifest everywhere, for in places it is hidden by sand hills abutting against it. In others a gentle slope is seen. Still, the steep westerly front of the plains is a marked feature through great distances. It is conspicuous north and south of Colorado Springs, and is seen in the neighborhood of Denver. The traveler by the Cheyenne Northern Railway going southward from the confluence of the Laramie River and the Chugwater sees to the west the bold mural front of the foothills of the Laramie range—the up- turned Dakota sandstones resembling nearly vertical trap dikes for long distances, and on the other side there is a front of what seem rocky ledges lying horizontally, or nearly so, and rising nearly as high as the foothills. These rocky ledges are the hard conglomerate parts of the immense Tertiary gravel deposits of the plains, under which are beds with few pebbles and much lime and clay, which in places stand alone as white walls, suggesting ruined castles and cathedrals and sometimes making great mounds and promontories. These gravel and marl mor- tar beds are the west escarpment of the plains. As you proceed to- wards Cheyenne you rise in the valley to near the top of the high plains, having only a very slight abruptness to the east, and the mountain escarpment is further away. South from Cheyenne, on the Denver Pa- cific, the same thing is seen recurring, the eastern escarpment more dis- tant is seen beyond the valley of the South Platte, which here has its upward southerly trend well developed. The escarpment is also accom- panied by some outliers, of which Fremonts Buttes, rising 700 feet above the Platte Valley southwest of Sterling, are conspicuous examples. The Burlington and Missouri Railway, 3 miles west of Akron, makes a big cut to begin its descent from the plains to the sand-hill regions, which there abut against them. # a This western escarpment is also conspicuous on the west side of the Llano Estacado in Texas, as is shown in the report of Prof. R. T. Hill. The position of the Black Hills also gives, in western Nebraska, a north- ern escarpment to the plains of that region. Pine Ridge is the north- ern front, and it rises boldly 900 feet above the White River Valley. Some of the outlying buttes are 700 feet above the river. The very slight depression of Crow Creek at Cheyenne, in Wyoming, is all in the plains formation, and in the tongue of land up which the Union Pacific Railway runs west from Cheyenne to Granite Cañon we have PINE RIDGE EscARPMENT, NorthwestERN NEBRASRA. THE RIVERS AND WATERS OF THE GREAT PLAINS. 15 perhaps the sole illustration of the fact the plains formation did once rest against the base of the mountains. We see here the plains sloping upward and their mortar-bed conglomerates lying over the upturned foothills strata and reaching beyond to rest on the granite. Fragments of the plains mortar-beds also show at the entrance of the Royal Gorge above Cañon City, and traces may be noted at other places on the flanks of the mountains, but with these exceptions the great fact is that the plains formations are now cut off from all contact with the moun- tains, and for long distances they present a front to the west of steep, bold bluffs. VVATER SUPPLY OF THE PLAINS. Though this investigation is mainly concerned with the subterranean Waters of the region examined, yet a consideration of the visible waters in the beds of rivers and creeks is to some extent a necessary prelimi- nary, as in some instances there is a direct relation between the invisi- ble sources of springs and wells and the visible water running in the river beds. A consideration, therefore, of the river systems of the plains region is very important if a correct understanding of the water sup- ply is to be obtained. Having, then, already presented some general account of the region topographically as well as geologically, a more detailed account of the hydrography is in order. We have already noted, and it will be seen even by a cursory inspec- tion of the map, that there are many rivers whose source is not in the mountains. The great rivers—Missouri, Yellowstone, Platte, Arkansas, the Rio Grande, and the Canadian—have sources well up in the high val- leys of the main range of the Rocky Mountains, and they also have im- portant affluents carrying to them the waters of the foothills. These streams carry the melted snows of the mountains in deep channels across the plains to their great outlet in the Mississippi. There are more numerous rivers which, being shorter, have no such source for their waters and yet some are no mean affluents of the Father of Waters directly, or by increasing the volume of the mountain streams them. selves. Such streams are the James and Red rivers in the Dakota. system, the Loup rivers in Nebraska, the Republican and Smoky Hill, the Cimarron, the Red River, the Neuces, and Brazos, besides many others tributary to these and also tributary to the greater mountain streams. These rivers are distinctively rivers of the plains. They have both their source and their course there. We wish to give a clear impression of them, and it must be borne in mind that the streams that come from the mountains and course through the plains are similar in their local surroundings, and therefore much of what is said of the former will also be true of the mountain-fed rivers. Looking again at the map, it will be seen that the mountain-fed afflu- ents of the large mountain streams almost surround the head waters of the rivers of the plains. The latter are shut off completely from having any share in the melting of mountain snows. Observe how the Rio Grande and the Canadian get round the heads of the Red River and the Pecos. Notice how the Platte and the Arkansas, with its tributary, the Fountain, cut a trough between the mountains and the head waters of the Republican and Smoky Hill and their numerous affluents. This is repeated on a smaller scale in Dakota, where the Cheyenne takes all the streams from the Black Hills and leaves the White River to be a river of the plains. Again the process is repeated by the plains' rivers themselves, the Neosho being so headed by other affluents of the Mis- souri and Arkansas. 16 * IRRIGATION. Remember the slope of the country is to the east, but that in going from the plains to Denver or Pueblo there is a descent into the valleys of the mountain rivers. It is in the high plains east of the one hundred and fourth meridian that the rivers of the plains have their source. We have described the geologic formations of the plains as Tertiary and post Tertiary. These terms will have to be used in describing the river valleys. In the eastern part of the region some of the river val- leys in their origin are vastly older than the Tertiary period, but in their present form no part of the plains is older than late Tertiary or even post Tertiary. The river valleys are new channels cut by erosion since the close of the Tertiary period, though many of them are on lines that had been eroded before the last Tertiary formations had been deposited. All water-bearing rocks, then, of the later formations on the plains have their water from the rainfall of the region. The plains' marl as formerly described, and the immediately subjacent Tertiary grit, take in what of the rainfall is not evaporated or hastily run off in the storm-used arroyos. Where the gritis exposed it readily absorbs moisture. Proba- bly three-fourths of the rainfall sinks into it. A heavy rain scarcely seems to wet its surface, so rapidly is it absorbed. The areas of such exposure are, however, small as compared with the whole region, though in the aggregate they are thousands of square miles. The plains marl absorbs much less rapidly and more runs away, but the area of its ex- posure is immense, and since its surface has been broken by the plow to the extent of hundreds of thousands of acres, it is much more exten- sively absorptive of the precipitation, which it conveys downwards to the grit lying below it. The grit, then, is the great water holder of the plains. It may be considered as an immense reservoir wherever it is un- der cover. Where valleys are cut into it, springs are the signs of its pres. ence; they are the overflow of the subterraneous basins. When the val- leys have cut through it, the aggregation of the Springs makes streams. These streams are the rivers of the plains. Not one of them has perma- ment water inits channel till it has cut deep into the grit. In the Panhandle of Texas the Red River cuts hundreds of feet deeper into the body of the plains than the base of the Tertiary grit, but very little water enters the stream from Springs below that base. It may be that some sand- stones below (probably Jurassic) contribute something, but a ramble of miles over these broken surfaces in rugged cañons showed only a few very small springs. In a large part of the plains area the grit rests, as we have already shown, on shales, which are largely argillaceous, and so its base is impervious to water. The Tertiary beds also thicken as we go north and northwest, and in the region of the White River the gritis underlain by a series of Tertiary clays and marls, which throw out springs from their upper surface. They are as impervious to water as the subjacent cretaceous shales. The plains' marl has some clay in it. In weathering much sand is left behind, the clay being dissolved out and the lime leached away. The weathering of the grit also leaves much sand behind. Near the mountains the weathering of the Laramie formations forms also great Quantities of loose sand. The sand from all these sources, which is car- ried down the valleys of rivers of both mountain and plains origin, is acted on by ačrial currents and carried up the slopes of the divides, form- ing the eolian dunes whose position has been previously noted and whose aggregate area is considerable. These sand dunes are more receptive of moisture than even the exposed surface of the grit, and very little of the rain falling on them is given off by direct evaporation. Some of it. " is retained and makes damp or wet lake-like areas, which have a more "saervºr. I ſinu. No into xurvivintº）, º NL.worisºsoisotrºſ RAPID IMBIBITION OF THE LOCAL RAINFALL. 17 or less impervious floor, and in dry years the hollows of the Sandhills have yielded crops when the level high prairie has been Sterilized by drought or hot winds. But it is probable that most of the precipitation absorbed by the Sand- hills finds its way down to the reservoir of the Tertiary grit. Between the one hundred and second and one hundred and fourth meridians many of the rivers of the plains have not cut down to the grit. Few have permanent water in their channels. They are gravelly or sandy arroyos where water may be had by digging. The Whole of this region may be therefore considered as gathering ground for the supply of the underground reservoir in the grit, except in the channels cut across the region by the mountain-fed rivers. East of the One hundred and second meridian most of the streams have cut below the grit—the Republican as far west as the one hundred and third—and the area of the valleys of the rivers must therefore be deducted from the area of the gathering ground of the great grit reservoir. The Water Supply of these valleys will be separately treated. This great underground reservoir—or, more correctly, Series of reser- voirs—has its source of supply in the rainfall of the region. This is the region of deficient rainfall—deficient as to the supply of rain for agriculture. Is the reservoir, therefore, large enough to give back for irrigation what has escaped from the surface, and so make good over a sufficient proportion of the area the deficit of precipitation ? Is the rain- fall sufficient to replenish the reservoir as fast as its waters may be so used for irrigation ? Answers to these questions approximately correct are only partially possible at present. Observations on the quantity of rainfall have only been made at comparatively few places widely separated, and no exper- iments at all have been made on evaporation as related to the absorp- tive character of the soil. Still it is possible to form some opinions that will serve as working theories till more facts are accumulated. Prof. Van Diest in his report on artesian wells (Senate Ex. Doc. No. 222, 1890, p. 96), says: It is not an exaggerated estimate to suppose that half of the rainfall in eastern Colo- rado, and probably also in eastern New Mexico, sinks into the ground. In eastern Colorado this will not be less than 5 inches over an area of 32,000 square miles, which is equal to 784,080 cubic feet of water disappearing per minute. If this amount could be redeemed from the subsoil it would be sufficient for the irrigation of 1,200,000 acres or one-seventeenth part of the above-named area. As the rainfall at Denver and in its longitude is about 13 inches per annum, and the rainfall in western Kansas and Nebraska is 18 to 20 inches, Prof. Van Diest's estimate is as he says certainly not an exag- geration, and between the one hundred and first and one hundred and third meridians—at least north of the Arkansas—the average quantity absorbed by the surface and carried down to the underlying grit is not less than 30,000 cubic feet per acre, which with the rainfall would suffice if restored to the surface to irrigate probably twice as great a ratio as that suggested by Prof. Van Diest. We shall have something to say farther on about raising this to the surface, and the engineering report will discuss more completely the various feasible means. That the Tertiary grit is a water holder of great importance has been inferred from its porous nature, and the impervious nature of the for- mations immediately beneath it. That it is actually so is known by the wells that all over the plains have been dug or bored to it. The level region of the Texas Pan Handle has water from wells; the plain be-, tween the Cimarron and Arkansas has water; the divides between the S. EX. 41, pt. 3—2 18 - IRRIGATION. the Republican and Smoky have hundreds of wells; away up on the Niobrara the high prairie has wells. They vary in depth, but each di- vide has a uniform depth for long distances or they increase gradually in a given direction. At Washburn, Tex., they are 150 feet deep ; at Richfield, Kans., and east thereof for 70 miles they are 80 feet deep. North of the Frenchman, in Nebraska, they are over 200 feet on the Colorado line, increasing to over 300 feet 40 miles east. The wells throughout the region that reach the grit are considered inexhaustible; that is, they have so far stood every strain that has been put upon them. Im some cases hundreds of cattle have been constantly watered from one well with a windmill to fill the troughs, in others a thousand sheep. At Cheyenne Wells all the railway shops and all the town is supplied from this source by two wells 260 feet deep, the water being lifted by steam pumps working day and night. Where a windmill already exists some few acres may be irrigated. A more powerful windmill pump and a small—one or two acres—res. ervoir would allow more water to be raised, and the farm redeemed at once from aridity and mortgage. It is not expected that more than 15 or 20 acres can be thus irrigated on any quarter section, and on large areas the average will not perhaps be more than ten acres; but the high divides and the body of the great plains must be thus irrigated if any large part is to be redeemed in the next quarter of a century. En- ergy and some capital will do much in ten years. The underflow of the valleys and arroyos will allow their neighboring slopes to be irrigated from that source; but this underflow will be discussed further on. We have seen that the water in the Tertiary grit, buried from 50 to 300 feet below the plains and cropping on the sides of ravines in gush- ing springs, is the main reliance of the plains region ; it is the sole re- liance of immense areas lying back from the valleys, the only reservoir on which these wells can draw to irrigate the land. We have seen that it is the source of the waters of the rivers of the plains, and adds to the volume of those whose origin is in the mountains. We have shown that its source is the rainfall of the region, varying from 18 or 20 inches on the one hundredth meridian to 12 or 14 inches on the one hundred and fifth. These conclusions are based on observations made from the Rio Grande to the Yellowstone. The facts have been slowly and with much pains accumulated. The result is stated in a few words. To give the reader—the Western settler or Eastern investor—an insight into the heart of the matter, we will treat in detail the facts of one sub-region, a typical part of the Great Plains. THE SMORY HILL–REPUBLICAN AREA. The region which is the basin of this river system has been selected for this detailed description because of its typical character. It forms part of three States. It has much high, level prairie. It has valleys cut to and below the grit. The reader should make constant use of the map which illustrates this part of the subject. The necessities and the possibilities of the region will be made plain. Colleagues of the writer . will give similar information about other river basins. The total will show a multitude of facts and justify the géneralizations about the Great Plains. The Smoky Hill River and the Republican River come together some ten miles east of the ninety-seventh meridian, at Fort Riley, in Kansas. Together they form the Kaw or Kansas River, which empties into the Missouri at Kansas City. They were formerly spoken of as the Repub- * !, MAP SHOW NG TH E. SMOKY HILL-REPUBLICAN SYSTEM OF RIVERS IN THE MIDELE REGIONS OF ‘I’Iſ F, GREAT PLAINS and Zºe distri/d/or 9///e PLANs Fof MATIows WEST of THE 98th MER}}|AN BY H. O. E. E. RT HA, Y CHIEF GKCLogist Lººkº O. 4 ºutsºar. §§§ Zazºxy &zit Az7?s fewea & Avezayera. lºw quay | l ...] | G E. E. i----- | $ Fºr: Cr A WO Rivers of THE PLAINs. ResERvon FED BY UNDERFLow, FRENCHMEN's CREER, Chase County, NEBRAska. INTERLOCKED DRAINAGE AND ABSORBED STREAMS. 19 lican and Smoky Hill forks of the Kansas River. Their size fully jus- fies the dropping the word “fork.” The high prairie of eastern Colo- rado is where they both have their origin. A short drive takes you from springs in the bed of the South Fork of the Republican to deso- late arroyos descending to the North Fork of the Smoky. There is permanent water in the beds of the north and south forks of the Republican west of the one hundred and second meridian, but not in that of the middle fork (Arickaree), whose springs are soon lost in the deep gravel and sand. Neither is there water in the North or South Smoky, though there is within a dozen of miles further east. These statements illustrate the fact that the rivers of the plains, having Water have cut deep into or below grit before they have permanent Water. It is also true that these rivers do not have permanent water in sight till some distance below where it might be expected from the position of the grit. This is because the channels are so filled with Sand and gravel—the débris of the two Tertiary formations—that the Water is out of sight for miles and shows at last by virtue of its quan- tity and the nearness of the subjacent shales or other bedrock of the region. In Cheyenne and Sherman counties, Kans., gentle depressions are the beginnings of the valleys which further down have the Beaver and the Sappa creeks, which run northeast to the Republican. In Thomas County similar depressions are the heads of the Prairie Dog, the Solomon, and the Saline, the first also running to the Republican in Nebraska while the others, running nearly Straight east, eventually reach the Smoky. The watershed between the two main rivers of the system is therefore (as indicated in the map by a broken line) an irreg- ular line through the south part of the northern tier of Kansas coun- ties. In places this line is very sinuous, where, by headwater erosion the affluents of the streams have worn away the highest prairie and the drainage is interlocked. The phenomena of interlocked drainage is repeated in the divides of smaller streams. As with the main streams, so with these tributaries, there is no per- manent water till they have cut through the grit. With the Prairie Dog and Saline this is near the Thomas-Sheridan County line. With the Beavers and Sappas (there are several forks of each), it is some- what further west in Rawlins or Cheyenne. The Smoky has only one important affluent from the south, the Beaver in Scott County, but the area of the joint basin is considerably enlarged by northern afflu- ents of the Republican. Of these the most noticeable are the French- man (or Whitemans) Fork, the Red Willow, and the Medicine. The first of these merits special description. Like the others above-men- tioned, the Frenchman has dry arroyos for its upper water courses for a score of miles or more, and in these are deep beds of coarse gravels and sands, in which at variable depths is found abundance of water which probably has a slow flow in the general direction of the valley. This is the condition of the main valley through all its Colorado extent, except that some 30 miles Southwest of Julesburg there are in it two pools of water which are said to be always clear and cold. As these pools were on a well-worn cattle trail heading towards Julesburg, they are known as the Julesburg water holes. Which of the various phe- nomena dwelt upon as to the position of these Western waters account for the permanent water in these holes, will, perhaps, be apparent as the discussion of them proceeds. Near the Colorado-Nebraska line the main channel of the Frenchman begins to have running water, and in a very few miles the stream attains considerable volume. It runs thence to its confluence with the Republican at Culbertson with undi- 20 IRRIGATION. minished force. A remarkable fact, about which the testimony of all settlers is uniform, is that, while not diminishing, the volume of the Prenchman never increases. The heaviest local rainstorms or rapid melting of snows do not raise its surface an inch. Perhaps long- continued, accurate observations, might show greater variation than is indicated in this account, yet the phenomenal fact is true that in the matter of floods the Frenchman is unlike its congeners, the rivers of the plains, wherein rapid and disastrous floods are as well known as their average scarcity of water. Without here affirming absolutely the causes of the steady flow of the Frenchman, I will note one or two facts that have a bearing on the matter: (a) The bed of the Frenchman, or rather its valley altogether, from where it has its first water, a few miles above Champion to near Palisade, is cut into, bounded by, and based on the Tertiary grit, which in this region attains great thickness, probably reaching in places 200 feet. (b) In the region of many of its affluents, all gravel beds, the Tertiary grit forms over hundreds and thousands of acres the floor of the slopes, and of considerable parts of the high prairie itself, without the usual covering of the plains marl. It is evident, then, that the porosity of the grit readily absorbs the rainfall, rather than allows it to run off in floods, and that which first reaches the stream from this cause is followed by the water which has had longer percolation through the marl. (c) The last 15 or 20 miles of the river's course is at or below the bottom of the grit, so the large body of sandy alluvia may take much of the water as an underflow con- tributary to that of the Republican Valley. Cutting down through the water-bearing grit, rivers of the plains reach in their easterly course what may be called bed rock. Usually this bed rock is of much softer material than most of the water-bearing grit. It is the shale, the chalk, or the limestone of the Cretaceous formations. South of the Arkansas the Dakota sandstones and shales are immediately subjacent to the grit, and farther south still the Juras- sic for the Neocomian] is in that position, while farther east the Juras. sic is missing, as in the valleys of the Canadian and Red River east of the hundredth meridian and the “red beds” are found there lying im- mediately under the Tertiaries. On the high plain of West Texas— the Llano Estacado—the Red River has cut a gash 1,000 feet deep, which shows this descending order of formations: Plains’ marl. Tertiary grit. Jura-Trias. Triassic or Permian (“red beds”). Taking a series of exposures in river valleys we see how they vary from this and approximate it as we come from the north. In Norton County, Kans, near the fortieth parallel on the one hundredth meridian, the Pairie Dog Valley shows this order: Plains' marl, Tertiary grit, Yellow chalk Blue shale, y {Niobrara. Farther west towards the Colorado line in Kansas and Nebraska the section is about this: The plains' marl. Tertiary grit. - º Carbonaceous and clay shales (Fox Hills or Pierre). THoMPsox's Butte, South Dakota. TERTIARY GRIT LEFT by Erosios. Q. > * º º . Fig, X, Profile and Section from the Platte River to the Arkansas nearly coincident with the eastern boundary of Colorado, ſ 1–507000 Horizontal ©º © cº tº a tº º g § # & 5 º (102nd Meridian), showing the surface developement of the “Plains' Marl” and the position of the water-bearing “Grit.” Scale 9600 Wertical e. : o: * s 2 |a. Plains' Marl. [== 6. Tertiary Grit. c. Montana formis. EE d. Solºrado Gp, e. Dakota Group, 33-f. Trinity Sands. & Red Beds. 3 o: Cz # aſſ|||||IIITſIIITITUTE =5 É : C-> - &e= 5 % § 5 : 5 # : ; #3 & º ſ • - - ** =b+. 3 # § 3 ; E & O #s * : . # # Illſº sº º, # amſſ|imºs S$ *m. 3. Cº. 5 IIIllili re-drºſſIIIHTITIIITIIIHITLºs # 3600 ; fºss. #3_mſº #ºséx-s: mº-T-5–=-sºng[ſ]]|lllllllllllimº ETF ==Elºğ: E, sº sº. 3 %;º ####s sº ºf 2:13 º &RS <= º(Tl|||||||I|Immºtº S3400 §ºs; º; §§§Nº. Fig, XI, Profile and Section from across Kansas on the 100th Meridian showing more rugged topography than further west and the outcrop of the subjacent Gretaceous formations making breach of continuity of the water-bearing "Grit.” Scale and connections same as in Fig. X. By Róbert Hay 5 ©º E co * > ſº º # £ 2700 or -3 Ǻ c) G- sº *. o O ° I III ſnº ºſſilliſh -sº ºfſiſ; º 2500 5 § *R::==#v=º: LTTE: Tº Tº-T-4 FIrrrºr-º-Tº-Tº-E-E-ſºº. TEE---→tºl-1-r-i-º-Tº-FN, R_3=====E\ –-ºº: ſtirruſII liſh #sº-áēA:\% ſtºod * a - * † - E bº ſo : $º;&#. §§ º: - - CE--L------L--TLV- H-T-T-Tº-Tº-TT T. K. § 15/º º 3 ºpº 8-c štº $3. * * * * * * : * . . . . . .” £º: FºE Hºrrºr:#-Prº-> -lºsºl.J.ſ "T"-Tº- |- 2100 .S. 144 <& *ść: º ſº §3. º * g ... .º.º.º.º.º::::::::::::::::-rº- * ** * * zºº. . . . vº.rs...". . . . 3.- ... . .” --> —º 3::::::::::::#2 #:& §§ º;;§§ tº Žº º: º º # sº §:3&sº $$...'. §: *::::: Fº:::::::::::::::::::::::: *::: Kºś::::::::::::::::: :32 ,1900 S Ex. 4 i 52 1 STRATIGRAPHY OF THE REPUBLICAN BASIN. 21 On the White Woman, farther south, as also on the Smoky, in Kan- sas, the order runs— Plains’ marl. Tertiary grit. Chalk g Blue shale, : Niobrara. On the Arkansas the section is— Plains' marl. Tertiary grit. Benton ledges. On Bear Creek it is— Plains’ marl. Tertiary grit. Dakota. On the Cimarron we get— Plains’ marl. Tertiary grit. Trinity sands. - (See profile and section of the 102d meridian.) The chalk and the soft limestones will hold considerable water, and sometimes the springs of the regions, where these outcrop, come out of them, or at the bottom of them, running off the underlying shale. The Niobrara, having more shale than chalk, is mostly a poor water-holder, and the waters of the river valley where the shales are cut, are all in sight or hidden in river alluvia. The north and south profiles and geo- logic sections will make this part of the subject readily understood, and the channels of the streams deeply cut into the subtertiary shales are seen to cut off connection between the sheet water of one divide and that of others, and this most decidedly as we proceed eastward. The dip of the subtertiary strata is not easy to make out in the region west of the one hundredth meridian, because of the covering of the Tertiaries, but exposures in the Arkansas Valley, in the Solomon Valley, and in the Re- publican Valley in Nebraska show slight inclination to the south and east. In the whole of the region the most important and most numer- ous springs are on the north sides of the larger valleys, and in the smaller lateral valleys on the same side. The dip, therefore, with some undulations, is probably on the whole to the south of east, which is the general slope of the surface of the country, as noted in the chapter on topography, making a general slope from Wyoming to the east of the Indian Territory. º It will be seen, then, that the rivers of the Smoky-Republican series are aligned to this general slope and stratigraphic dip at somewhat di- verse angles. The southern forks of the Republican and some of the tributaries farther east on the same side run north of east. This is somewhat across the dip. That this fact is related to the character of these streams differing from those of the North Fork of the Republican and the Frenchman is quite possible, though the relation is not made out, and that it exists at all may be doubted, as there is marked resem- blance between the valley of the lower Prairie Dog and that of the Red Willow (on opposite sides of the main stream and running nearly at right angles to each other), both in depth and narrowness of the chan- nels and the quantity of water. * In treating of this area of the Smoky Hill-Republican basin, the high prairie between the river valleys must be specifically noted. They are of all the kinds referred to in the topographic chapter. Between the 22 IRRIGATION. highest arroyo of the Frenchman and the head waters of the North Fork of the Republican is a region of sand dunes with many basins having no outlet. A little east by north in Nebraska on the north side of the Frenchman is as smooth aprairie as is seen in the West, and this too has its inclosed basins. Farther south the divides are narrower, but in eastern Colorado between the forks of the Republican are fine examples of the level high prairie with basin-like depressions having no outlet. East of the one hundred and first meridian the narrow divides have the same smooth surface on top; and taken in the direc. tion parallel to the bounding valley, a plow might be run without lifting from 50 to 100 miles. Between the 100th and 102d meridians the valleys and their immediate slopes occupy fully half of the region, but between the latter and the 104th the high prairie occupies fully three- fourths of the region, and a large part of the other fourth is gently roll- ing toward narrow, deep, but not precipitous, valleys. In all the valleys water is found at comparatively small depths, 3 or 5 feet to 50 or 60, according to the texture of the various alluvia. On the high prairies it is different, and on the higher edges of the slopes occasional wells are found without water. On the divide between the Stinking water and Frenchman the depth to water in wells is 200 to 240 feet near the Colorado line, increasing to 350 feet, 40 miles east. South of the Frenchman the prairie wells are 150 to 250 feet. On the south of the Republican the divide between Sappa and Prairie Dog has wells from 75 to 85 feet deep. Between the Sappa and Beaver the wells are a little over 100 feet on the average, while between the Solomon the Saline and Smoky, a little less than 80. East of the one hundreth meridian each main stream has many tributaries, and the divides are narrower, accompanied by more irregularity in the depth of the Wells, and there is more outcrop of the cretaceous strata where scarcely any water is found. There are, however, sufficient examples of the grit as the main water-bearing stratum which serve to illustrate the facts, which are more uniform farther west. 4. This grouping of rivers and the interfluvial plains is illustrative of the condition of rivers and the relation of their water supply from Texas to Dakota. The group included between and including the North and South Forks of the Red River of Texas differs from the group described only in greater elevation of the plains cut into and the geologic forma- tions subjacent to the Tertiaries. The Loup rivers and the northern Cimarron, the Niobrara, and the White River are in many respects the same, the last rivaling the Red River in the depth of its valley. The depth of wells in the interfluvial spaces, the relative height of the water of these wells as related to that of the river valleys, are the main differ- ences that interest the reader of this economic investigation, and this is well shown in the profiles given in Col. Nettleton's report of January, 1891. The variation of rainfall, too, must be taken into account, and a fair estimate then may be made of the expectation of the number of acres for which water is available for the irrigation either of the high lands or valleys of any of the river basins of the plains. MEASURING THE NORTH PLATTE AT DOUGLASS. 23 *** . The volume of some of the rivers of the plains is given in the follow- ing table, with that of the Missouri and North Platte, for purposes of Comparison: Date of Yº. º • ate of meas- | (cubic feet River. Locality. urement. per sec- ond). Missouri --------------------------- Fort Benton, Mont. ------------------. Aug. 12, 1891 20, 700 North Platte ----------------------- Douglass, Wyo. ----------------------. June 3, 1891 10, 130 Do --------------------------- Camp Clarke ------------------------. May 29, 1891 8,075 White River ----------------------. West of Chadron - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ... . . . June 1, 1891 123 Poup River -----------------------. Near Columbus. -------, - - - - - --------- June 24, 1891 7,065 Red Willow.--...-----, * * * * * * * * * * - - - - Red Willow City ---------...-----------|-------------- 52 Frenchman ------------------------ Culbertson. --------------------------. Dec. —, 1889 310 Do --------------------------- At Palisade-------------------------- Dec. —, 1889 240 Republican. ------------------------ Scandia, Kans -----------------------. June 10, 1891 1, 534 Do --------------------------- Junction City, Kans. ----------------. June 15, 1891 2,045 Smoky Hill.------------------------ Bllsworth----------------------------. June 8, 1891 360 Do --------------------------- Southwest of Junction City - - -...---- June 15, 1891 961 Raw ------------------------------- Fort Riley ---------------------------- June 18, 1891 6,961 Solomon---------------------------- Beloit--------------------------------. June 19, 1891 270 Saline ------------------------------ Lincoln------------------------------- June 8, 1891 125 Running Water-------------------- Dawes County, Nebr.--------...----. Sept. 4, 1887 98 This table, while giving the flow of the rivers approximately correct for the dates at which they were taken, suggests also defects in our knowledge on this subject. The measurement of the North Platte at Douglass was made by Prof. E. Mead, the State engineer of Wyoming, the writer assisting. The river was high, but not at its highest. At that point there is little or no underflow, as the river is cutting bed rock, or having the bed covered but thinly with sand or gravel. The high water had not reached Camp Clarke when the measurement was made there by myself and Prof. L. E. Hicks, of Nebraska, and at that place there is a wide sandy Valley and stream bed which must have consid- erable underflow. Again the flows of the Republican and Smoky Hill, taken June 15, a few miles east of the ninety-seventh meridian and some miles above their confluence, give a total of 3,000 second feet. A few days after the measurement of the Kaw (the united Smoky and Repub- lican) gave more than double that within half a mile of the confluence, much rain having fallen in large parts of the area of the basin in the interval. Still the Kaw has been much higher than at that date, and I estimate that the Smoky as far west as Ellsworth, when in flood, carries more than ten times what it gave at the time of measurement there. A similar estimate would probably be true of the Republican at Scandia. The width of water was 196 feet, with an average depth of 34 feet. An increase of 1 foot in depth would double the width of the stream, and it has been 6 feet higher than at that time. The large volume of the Loup is also lagely increased in time of flood, as is intimated in the report of Prof. Hicks, who made the measurement. The measurement of the Missouri was made when it was 2 feet above low water, and it was nearly 6 feet higher in July. It was a foot lower in September. The measurements of the Frenchman were made by Mr. Wildman, of Cul- bertSon. t The measurements of the Loup, Republican, and Smoky were made where they had passed out of the drier parts of their courses. Their waters to be used for irrigation, would have to be tapped much farther west and before they have acquired such volume. The tributaries of their lower courses come out of caſion-like valleys, where they are very slightly available for irrigation. - % 24 IRRIGATION. NORTH DAKOTA. In North Dakota there are three classes of artesian wells arranged in order of their depth and pressure. At Jamestown, the well, the deepest in the two Dakotas, is by its depth (1,483 feet) and its pressure (97 pounds) allied directly to the deep high-pressure wells of the James River Valley, which are so well developed in South Dakota. Its pressure being less than that at the Woonsocket, Mitchell, or Hitchcock wells, is referable without doubt mainly to the higher elevation of the surface. We consider it as hav- ing its Water from the same source as the wells of South Dakota. It is therefore a part of the James River Basin, and what is said in the report of Prof. Culver and elsewhere on the deep wells of South Dakota will in the main be applicable to the Jamestown well and others that may be sunk in the neighborhood. We have spoken as if there were but one well at Jamestown. The well at the asylum near there has failed, apparently through some defect of the casing, or from falling of the sides. It will probably be in due time flowing better than before. The well at the city has slight variation of pressure and flow, as com- pared with last year. This will appear in the chief engineer's report. Whether the variation is due to causes in the tubing or in the source of supply is not certain. That it is slight is indicative of the general per- manence of conditions. º So far, I am inclined to think this is the northern limit of the basin, but I should not be surprised if wells of some force were obtained at somewhat greater depth as far north in the James River Valley as Car- rington. The tendency of opinion a year ago was to consider the Devils Lake well as in this basin. A consideration of certain facts which were collected last year, but could not be fully discussed in the limited time of that investigation, leads me now to place that well in another class, as will appear farther on. With regard to the extension of the James River artesian basin east and west, in this its northern prolongation, it is not easy to determine certainly. The probabilities will be ascertained by a careful consideration of the following facts: A deep well at Fargo, in the Red River Valley, 500 feet lower than Jamestown, failed to give any water that reached higher than the surface, and the water that came was from a much less depth. A deep well at Bis- marck, on the Missouri River, failed to give flowing water. The pres- sure of the water at Jamestown would barely suffice to raise it in a closed pipe a little over 200 feet. The Coteau du Prairie east and the Coteau du Missouri west of the James River, on the Northern Pacific Railway, rise to considerable height above the level of the valley. Of these known facts only one is favorable to the expectation of finding artesian flows east or west of the Jamestown well from the deep-seated water-bearing stratum ; that is the pressure and flow of the James- town well. East or west of that well, at elevations not exceeding 200 feet above it and not at any great distance, we should be warranted in expecting the drill to give artesian water at depths similar to that of Jamestown. West of Jamestown the strata lying above the water- bearing zone are probably thicker and the well-boring would have to be deeper, besides the extra depth due to increased elevation. East- ward it is probable the reverse is the case, and that the water Zone would be reached at a less depth than that indicated by the increased elevation. & The profile and section along the line of the Northern Pacific Railway from Valley City to Steele will indicate this to the eye (Fig. XVII). 'pag-tºņºſ arºſsº??ły ‘o ‘ spºgsno32279，9Jogºn‘q’?/?«/* 2> ��ſpay?（floºy （ºff-row ynon pryweº/ %27ewąwozºſºpusſyynogºyooyºoyonyovyººyº ºyu.az/uongoºgZZMXC3?/ §§Ș~5 ޺ş&Șº 90 § &șș și�N, ș $ Śº g 2×73% ſóg arº poureușuato? zºſyo ºy/ sy/W 977-rº/ 2?? prºvyſoy yºnory? Jaaºgy ºsno/yºgyo? º.rººpazºv， ??(6277naar/?troņpag ·JAX ºſy nimmiſſIIIſº-_·ænum：0*8ogofóoqºyºp ‘eqarys2,90%/vuouo7'o’sayºffg ºnoaoay249Joºm‘q’%，7°? şºşºse）：）^aeº?ſú%04 N§.$Ķ)*№ģśźś%Źźſºſººfºº（ºae2/0021 §-§$y）Qī āTT，Saeſº，?* &Ķ*<5%ņ/ſoap §șȘ{)$%$$§ȘŠĒģ� ş Ș ș º ſº sQșșŠÈ ºſôoss șș& § §: ș BASIN–SUPPLY AND WELLS OF NORTHEAST DAKOTA. 25 If experimental borings were to be made on this line, the points to consider in locating the well would be— (1) Elevation above Jamestown. (2) Freedom from the surface (glacial) deposits. (3) Availability of neighboring land for irrigating purposes. The second class of wells in North Dakota are those which have a depth of from 200 to 400 feet and a pressure of 10 to 30 pounds to the Square inch. In this class are wells at Hamilton, Grafton, and at Devils Lake. These are usually spoken of as deep wells because the borings were made to depths from 900 to 1,600 feet. It was therefore assumed that their source of supply was the same as that of James River Basin. But it is a fact that the water does not come from the bottom of the Wells, and that the pressure is so much less than would be expected if the source were the same. This will be understood when it is known that the elevation above sea level at Woonsocket is just over 1,300 feet and the elevation at Hamilton and Grafton a little over 800 feet. If the wells at these places were supplied from the same source the surface pressure at the lower elevations would be much the greater. The Very reverse is the fact. Hamilton has a pressure of 26 pounds, Grafton of 11 pounds, and Woonsocket 147 pounds, to the square inch. There are numerous wells in the Red River Valley with pressures ranging from less than a pound up to the pressure of Hamilton. These deeper ones seem to have their supply from a horizon or horizons be- low the highest of the shale beds, i. e., within the Cretaceous formations, and it is probable that the shales have been cut away somewhere in the region and allowed the waters from gravels and sands of the drift which overspreads the region to reach lower beds, from which otherwise they Would be absent. The wells in the neighborhood of Grafton vary from 200 to 360 feet, and have a very nearly uniform pressure of 10 or 11 pounds. The deep city well is 917 feet deep, but the water flowing from it is from the depth given above, while the more saline supply found deeper is not used. These wells, and all the wells of the Red River Valley, including the new ones near Hillsboro, have their water from Pleistocene gravels. This great valley is the bed of an ancient lake, known to geologists as Lake Agassiz. When the great ice sheet that overspread this part of the continent was retreating northward, the high lands of Minnesota and the Pembina Mountains with continuous higher land to the South, formed the east, south, and west shores of a sheet of water exceeding in size the present Lake Superior, whose northern boundary was the wall of ice. As the wall retreated north the level of the lake was lowered, and when the ice was nearly all gone the drainage to Hud- son's Bay was established and present conditions began. The great ifertility and smoothness of this Red River Valley is due to the deposit of comparatively fine sediment from this lake. These fine sediments lie over gravels and bowlders and clays which were deposited while the ice was present, and these gravels are now charged with water, which finds its way down from exposures on the shore lines of the old lake. . People in the region sometimes imagine that the water in these Wells derives the force which brings it to the surface from higher bodies of surface water—as the Devil Lake—or from such higher land as the Pem- bina Mountains. But the low pressure of the wells forbids such as- sumption, and only a few miles west of Grafton there is a ridge where the water barely rises to the surface. It is to that ridge itself, and to the exposures of gravel and other porous strata upon it, that we must look for the avenue by which the meteoric water reaches the subterranean 26 - IRRIGATION. reservoir beneath the level plain of the Red River. The designation of level, while not absolutely exact, is seen to be sufficiently accurate from the following table of elevations above sea level taken from Gannet's “Dictionary of Altitudes,” second edition: Feet. Feet Fargo------------------------------ 905 Grafton ---------------------------- 834 Hillsboro--------------------------- 901 Hamilton -------------------------- 831 Grand Forks ----------------------- 837 Neche------------------------------ 838 Manvel ---------------------------- 827 These show the slight descent of the valley to the north through a dis- tance of 160 miles, Neche being close to the Manitoba boundary. The width of the lake is east and west across the Minnesota-Dakota State line. The ridge before mentioned west of Grafton shows itself at a varying distance from the river all the way south to Tower City and beyond, and there is a general rise westerly till the valley of the Sheyenne is reached, and north of the great Northern Railway this valley does not exist, but there are local depressions towards the valleys of Park River and the Tittle Pembina, which make decided scarps on their western sides, the escarpment known as the Pembina Mountains. This escarp- ment has a rugged eastern front, with much timber, and looked at from the east its appearance justifies the term mountains; though, when ascended, its three benches have only a total height of 200 to 300 feet, and its top is a smooth, level prairie, with black soil in old depressions, while in places numerous glacial bowlders show through the sod. All along the escarpment, and back into the upper plain along the valleys of the Park River, the Tongue River, and the Little Pembina, there are outcrops of Cretaceous shales, so that the waters of the gravel beds are drained away, and some probably sink to lower levels in the gravels of the eastern ridge towards Hamilton and Grafton. The Pembina Moun. tains are clearly not the origin of phreatic waters of the Red River Val- ley, but the coming to the surface on their flanks of the underlying shales points out the fact that waters on the surfaces of the shales will be forced eastward, and the supply will be kept up on the edges of the valley. The third class of wells are those of less depth than the preceding. The source of their water is without doubt the local gravel beds, which at different depths show the irregular surface of the underlying shales and the varying thickness of the gravels themselves and the clays that cover them or separate the different beds. The clays in places are continuous sheets for some distance, and elsewhere are of very limited extent. Sometimes they represent a deposit made under the glacier; elsewhere they are patches that have been torn up and transported by the glacier. These are the smaller ones. In sinking a well the succession of sand or gravel and clay may give several water-bearing horizons, the flow from each of which, however, will rise to one level. This indicates that the impermeable strata [clays, &c.] which separate the waters are limited in area, or have breaks in them allowing the waters to flow around or through them. This is illustrated by Fig. XV, in which it is manifest that wells at a, b, and 0 will have flowing Water from the same porous bed g, that at a hav- ing only one flow, while b and c will have two flows from the differ- ent depths, the pressure at the surface being practically the same. This will be true of wells so placed whether the distance between them as represented in the figures be several miles or only a few yards. This is an ideal section, but its theory fully explains the occurrence of wells with these circumstances, and it is as true of wells of Nebraska and Colorado, where the water-bearing gravel is not of glacial origin. SMALL ARTESLAN WELL, SouTH FROM ToweR City, North Dakota. South Dakota, WELL At ARMour, N ARTEsia NTER. I IN. W. SUMMIT of Coteau du Missouri, East or STEELE, North Dakota. CHARACTERISTICs of RED RIVER ARTESIAN BASIN. 27 Actual exposures sometimes give the order of formations we have here assumed, and one such is represented by an engraving in the final re- port of the Geological Survey of Minnesota. The sources of the waters, then, are not far to seek. They are in the gravel ridges on the sides of the Red River Valley—the old basin of Uake Agassiz—which receive the rainfall and pass it through their porous beds to similar beds beneath the more compact silt and alluvia of the old lake bottom. T THE CHARACTER OF THE WATER. The water of the well at Hamilton is highly saline. Water from some Other wells is also more or less impregnated with salt and alkaline minerals. There are very few wells, however, whose contained minerals are sufficient in quantity to do any injury to vegetation, and in those it is believed that much of the injurious matter will be eliminated if the Water were stored in a reservoir and exposed to sun and wind before being used for irrigation. It should also be remembered that some water which would injure a tender leaf will be of great benefit if applied to a root. The season of 1891 has been very favorable for the growth of crops, but it is good to find some of the owners of artesian wells are intending to be ready next year to irrigate from 5 to 20 acres from the artesian wells they own if the zain should fail. EXTENSION OF THE AREA OF ARTESIAN WATERS IN NORTH ID ARCOTA. . The conditions described of the flowing wells in the Red River Val- ley will probably be found to exist under the bottoms of Park River and Sheyenne River valleys, as well as others that may be extensions of the ancient Lake Agassiz; but owing to probable breaches of con- nection in the water-bearing strata it is possible that some areas will disappoint the well-borer where surface conditions are all that can be (lesired. The general appearance of most of the land in North Dakota, from the Park River to the Mouse River and from the international bound- ary south, is a wilderness of ridges of gravel and bowlders inclosing nu- merous lakes, some of great extent, as Stump Lake and Devil Lake, and more numerous old lake beds, varying in area from half an acre to several square miles. These lake beds are grassy meadows of great fertility. Some of them are but recently dried up, and are alkaline flats, of which the beach is the first part to become captured by vege- tation. In many cases the first vegetation is the well-known squirrel- tail grass (Hordeum jubatum), and standing on a ridge of gravel over- looking some of these lake beds the beach lines can be traced for long distances by this grass. - The structure of the country may largely be described as without drainage. There are large areas between the valleys of the Red, the James, the Sheyenne, the Mouse, and the Missouri Rivers, whose drain- age only flow to neighboring lakes or lake beds whence it is absorbed or evaporated before it rises high enough to overflow a river channel or other lake bed. Many small lakes have dried up since the settlement of the country, and others that formed part of connected chains have shrunk so that they no longer flow. Devil Lake has shrunk many miles in area, with a considerable depression. Stump Lake, with steeper banks, has also subsided about as much. This form of topography is due to what geologists know as glacial 28 IRRIGATION. * action. The whole region was covered, as a large part of Greenland is to-day, with a sheet of ice probably several hundred if not thousands of feet thick. This came from the north, and brought with it embedded in its mass great quantities of clay, sand, gravel, and bowlders, which it took up as it ground its way southward and dropped out as the ice melted with seasonal changes or left behind as the edge of the ice finally melted away and retreated to the far north. Water under the ice and water along the front of the melting ice aided in placing and modifying the deposits, and the varying action of wind, frost, rain, sun- shine, and vegetation have since aided in producing the forms as we See them. There are beds of clay with bowlders and pebbles that owe their origin to the glacier, but the more prominent forms of the landscape in this part of Dakota that may be attributed to this cause are (a) moraines, (b) osars, and (c) kames. Without going into details, it may roughly be stated that where great deposits of large bowlders, each more or less angular, are found together or strung out in ridges, sometimes concentric, the topography may be said to be morainic. Where there are more or less elongated ridges of gravel and sand, with some bowlders, the form is of the osar type. When, in the language of President Chamberlin, our great authority on glacial phenomena, we have “assemblages of conical hills and short, irregular ridges of discordantly stratified gravel, between which are irregular de- pressions and symmetrical, bowl-shaped hollows that give the whole a tumultuous and billowy aspect,” we have kames. Besides these there are well-marked beach lines, and in some cases the osars have been the original shore lines of lakes. # Inhabitants of or travelers in the Turtle Mountains will at once rec- ognize the kame-like forms of that region. Those familiar with North Dakota, or only passing through it on the main lines of railway, will have seen all these forms of topography. The loose materials of these formations are very absorptive of the rainfall, so that a comparatively large amount must find its way to considerable depths below the sur- face. These glacial deposits are from 10 to 100 feet thick. It is proba- ble that under the surface of old lake beds artesian water may be found whose source is in the ridges of the osars and the kames that bound the lacustrine areas. To the northeast of Churchs Ferry there are Wells whose Water rises nearly to the surface. They are situated on the slopes of ridges which form the boundaries of the recently dried-up Lake Irvine and Lac au Morts. Besides this water that may be found beneath old lake beds and will rise in wells, there is some that would possibly justify the term underflow. This would be in limited areas, which have been in the channels of old water courses connecting pres- ent or extinct lakes. As the depth is not great to any such underflow, the “sub-canals” by which it could be made to reach the surface would not have to be long, notwithstanding the fact that the general surface of such districts is not highly inclined. In all the region that may be called the glaciated area there are few places where water is not accessible at comparatively short distances from the surface. Where it has not artesian force it may be raised by windpumns or horse power in quantities sufficient to irrigate 5 to 10 acres, or in some cases more. The irregularity of the glacial deposits makes it impossible to determine in advance what would be the result of experimental boring at any particular place, but geological investi- gation before such experiment would indicate with a high degree of probability where the best results might be expected. RIVER's of THE PLAINs. RED RIVER or TEXAS, IN THE CANoN. THE SHALES OF NORTH DAKOTA AND WELLS THEREIN. 29 What has been said previously is sufficient as to the probability of Waters being obtained from wells that go deeper than the drift, but the character of the formations immediately below the drift has to do with the water supply of the drift formations. We have mentioned that beds of clay sufficient to hold down the waters of the gravels beneath are formed in the drift itself; but under nearly all the drift of Dakota. the bed rock consists of the shales of the Cretaceous formations. In the Turtle Mountains and the region south of the Mouse River these Shales belong to the highest Cretaceous or Laramie formations. Else- Where they belong to older Cretaceous formations, the Montana or even the Colorado group. But they are mostly clay shales, and so fulfill the duty of holding the percolating meteoric waters in the drift formations above. Some of them are alum shales and others gypsifer- Ous as well as calcareous, so their presence must be reckoned upon in accounting for the minerals found in the phreatic waters of the drift region. As the drift covers so much of the area of the two Dakotas, the pre- cise kind of shale or other rock beneath is not easy to infer without extended observation. “How do you know these shales are here?” was a question put to the writer by an intelligent citizen of North Dakota while in the field. We will answer it here as we answered it then : -- (1) The shales crop out in great thickness on the Missouri River above and below Bismarck. (2) The shales are found with included seams of coal at Minot and in the Turtle Mountains. (3) The shales crop out along the east front of the Pembina Moun- tains and in the bluffs of the Park and Little Pembina rivers. (4) The shales—a hard, slaty kind, without fossils—crop out on the east bank and on the bottom of Stump Lake. (5) The shales crop out in the bluffs of James River near Jamestown. (6) At Lakota, Churchs Ferry, and numerous other places chunks (bowlders) of shale are found in digging wells. (7) In railway cuts and stream escarpments similar chunks are found in the gravel and sand beds. (8) The shales are reached under the lake and drift deposits in deep wells at Park River, Hamilton, Grafton, Fargo, and Northwood. (9) The inference, then, that these Cretaceous shales underlie the whole country is reasonable. (10) Where they (the shales) are near the surface the water in the drift gravels is forced out in the form of springs. How far preglacial erosion has worn away the upper beds or cut into the lower ones it is not possible to say, except where there is actual ex- posure, or where shales from borings deeper than the drift contain fossils that would reveal the age of the formation. It is a curious fact that Cre- taceous formations which in Kansas and Colorado are lithologically greatly differentiated are in the Dakotas scarcely to be distinguished in their structure from beds hundreds of feet above or below them. They are only to be distinguished by their fossils. It is these beds of shale that have to be penetrated to reach the more porous water-bearing rocks of the James River Basin. It is these beds of shale that probably form the bottoms of lakes in the Turtle Mountains and elsewhere, as at Stump Lake. It is desirable to say a few words specially about the - 30 . . IRRIGATION. TURTLE MOUNTAINS. This region is irregularly oblong or rhomboidal in form, having its greatest length from east to West, and a sharp ascent from 100 to 400 feet above the immediately surrounding glacial plain. It rises higher to the interior. It has numerous lakes and dry lake beds from an acre to many miles in extent. Much of its surface is covered by dense forest or undergrowth. In summer most of it is absolutely impenetrable. In winter lines of travel are made over the frozen lakes. The writer has penetrated short distances into this wilderness at its southeastern edge. Also from the center of its southern boundary, near Dunseith, he has en- tered more than half way to the international boundary to the lower end of Willow Lake, a sheet of water several miles long, which gives rise to Willow River, which, running southwest from Dunseith, becomes tributary to the Mouse River. Here, as well as where the river enters the plain, I found the shales in position with coal. Further west I en- tered the mountains again and ascended Butte St. Paul, probably the highest point in the region. Its top is bare and crateriform ; it rises 500 feet above the first bench of the plain, and is said to be 800 feet above the level of Lordsburg Lake, some 2 miles farther south on the plain. It is 170 feet above its immediate base on the east side, and 200 feet on the west side. From its top twelve lakes are counted, and in- numerable lake beds recognized now as flat, grassy meadows. I skirted these hills along their west flank and struck through them to Fish Lake. In this part there are settlements and a passable road. But north, west, and east of Fish Lake the forest is practically impenetrable. A track has been forced through to Deloraine, in Manitoba, and the inter- national boundary was at one time cleared of obstruction, but is now densely grown with underbrush. The writer, with a stout guide, forced his way on the boundary for 4 miles, taking three hours to do it. These excursions showed that the whole region is glacial and underlain with Laramie shales. The distinctness of every ridge, the shortness of the ridges, the depths and forms of the basins, and comparative scarcity of bowlders show that the whole topography is made of Kames and Osars, and the sharpness of outline suggests that the ice sheet lingered here till the trees were ready to grow and preserve the forms that it left. Willow Lake is 400 feet higher than the town of Dunseith. Fish Lake, which, as a translation of its Indian name, ought to be called Oak Lake, is more than 500 feet higher than Bottineau. These are large bodies of water, and this elevation suggests that these waters and those of other lakes in the mountains might be used to irrigate portions of the plain below. The engineering difficulties in the way are certainly not insur- mountable, though they may be too costly. The presence of the Cretaceous shales is announced along the south front of the mountains by the issuance of numerous springs. The principal are at— (1) Steele's ranche. (2) The old Dunseith brewery. (3) The mineral spring near the outlet of Willow River. (4) McBrayen's spring, north of Bottineau. The first of these has a measured flow of 286 gallons per minute, which is possibly below the actual amount of water, as the minerals have formed round it a vegetable tufa that will allow some to escape unseen, especially during measurement. The tufa at well No. 2 has built up spongy wet ground all around the well, and it is scarcely pos- sible to say where the spring is. The wet ground is several hundred LARES IN THE Coteau du Missouri SECTION, THE CHANGES RECORDED IN LAKE LEVELS. 31 feet in extent. At well No. 3 the tufa is a mound 30 feet high and more than 100 feet across. A stream escapes near the base of the truncated Conical mound, but the main spring is near the top. A considerable amount oozes out also in small quantities all over the mound. The tufa is black and smells sulphurous, and the water evidently derives its minerals from the shales in the neighboring hills. The two principal flows were carefully measured. They give 42 gallons per minute. Ies- timate that the escape elsewhere would double the amount, and if the mound were tunneled, so that the water could flow at a lower level, it is probable that there would be 150 gallons per minute or more. At Well No. 4 the conditions preclude measurement. A spout, pos- sibly carrying one-fourth of the water, discharged 16 gallons per minute. This water was mineralized also, but not sufficiently to injure vegeta- tion. Neither would that at Steele's spring. The mineral spring No. 3 fosters certain kinds of vegetation. Only Steele's spring is situated fa- vorably for irrigation. It fills a lake of several acres, more than a mile a Way. WARIATION OF LAIKE LEVELS. For several years past the climate of the Dakotas has been becoming drier. It would be well worth inquiry to determine whether this is a Variation that will reach a maximum and then change to the other di- rection, or whether it is all in one direction with slight fluctuations. It is probable that more evidence is within reach of persistent investiga- tion, but we took such as came in our way. Let us note some of the evidences of increasing dryness from the region of Devils Lake. Capt. Herman, the owner of the steamboat on that sheet of water, built piers and other works that when built were at water level, but now are far above it. In 1883 he had the level of the lake carefully marked. Till the autumn of 1890 it had fallen 7 feet 3 inches. There is a beach also at a higher level, where the lake must have been and probably stood for several years, that, judging by rings of trees since grown, must have been sixty or seventy years ago. Stump Lake, to the east of Devils Lake has at its its eastern extremity a well-marked beach line cut in the hard shale from 3 to 5 feet above the present water line, and only a few years ago the lake was on that beach. Only five years ago Irvine Lake and Lac au Morts, to the northwest of Devils Lake, were extensive sheets of water, several feet deep. Now grasses are en- croaching on their dry beds. These two lakes were connected with Devils Lake by a broad stream between 400 and 500 feet wide, which gave rise to Church Ferry, where a town, but no ferry, is now. Numer- ous other shallow lakes of six or eight years ago are now hay meadows, and some have been plowed. In the Turtle Mountains instead of twelve lakes fifty were formerly counted from the top of Butte, St. Paul. The present year has been wetter. Some alkaline flats of last year are shallow lakes this year. Some lake meadows have water too deep to allow the grass to be cut. The melting of the snow raised the water of Devils Lake, according to Capt. Herman's testimony, 9 inches, and the rainfall since had kept it at that level till August, when I was there. This is a fluctuation that may be simply seasonal, or it may be the turning-point of a number of seasons. There are two facts that seem to point out that there have been drier times than the last few years. Stump Lake is said to have derived its name from the stumps of trees, standing as they grew, in the bottom of the lake. A similar phenomenon Is seen in one of the bays of Devils Lake. If these should be shown not to be caused by landslides, it would be certain in past times there 32 , • IRRIGATION. had been periods both of greater dryness as well as of greater humidity, and it may be that the recent dry years may be merely a variation in a curve of increasing humidity. If this should prove to be the case we believe that before the great Curve again persistently descends the condition, caused by settlements— the occasional irrigation, the general tillage of the surface, the proper attention to forest growth—will make the region permanently habitable. THE UNDERFLOW. The word “underflow” is in the act of Congress which prescribes the work of this investigation. The writer and his colleagues have given attention to the underground waters of the plains region, and an exam- ination of general results enables us to define what is properly included in the word “underflow.” In those parts of this report relating to North Dakota, as well as to western Kansas, Nebraska, and eastern Colorado, the term has been used, and it will be found also in Prof. Hill's discussion on the basin regions of the Southwest, as well as in Prof. Hicks's report on Nebraska. We propose briefly to summarize the matter and indicate the right use of the term, as well as the extent of the thing itself. That the term should be in the act of Congress indicates that those who were interested in promoting the bill represented the common Western belief to the effect that what was meant by the common use of the term exists and might be made more useful than it is at present. We have heard speakers, dilating on the advantages of the semi-arid regions, re- fer to “the mighty underflow of the plains.” In reference to particular valleys, we have met the statement that the “underground Platte” and the “underground Arkansas’ are greater streams than the visible streams that bear those names. The underflow of the latter river is spoken of sometimes as being 50 miles wide, and sometimes the subter- rene waters of the plains, both valleys and uplands, have been spoken of as one great underground ocean, with a general movement to the south of east. That these terms are used by intelligent people over wide regions would indicate that there are facts that warrant at least their local application and justify an investigation as to the extent of the region or regions in which it is proper to use the term “underflow " for underground waters. Some of the ideas of the underflow are clearly extravagant, but even these have had a basis in facts, and a not illegitimate desire to explain these facts. The most extravagant form under which we have heard the underflow defined and explained is about as follows: There are heavy snows on the Rocky Mountains and subordinate ranges; these are melted every summer. There is a large body of water supplying wells on the plains in Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas, and Texas. There is a general slope of the country from the northwest to the south- east. There are immense springs in a line across the State of Texas. There are springs of fresh water rising in the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. Therefore, there is a vast body of water under the plains, moving from the mountains toward the sea, capable of irrigating the whole country, and, as one person said, “It is God Almighty's method for the redemption of the arid region.” Of the facts alleged in the above statement, most of them are as stated. The extravagance consists in connecting things in the mind- THE PLAINs. A DAMMED DRAw on THELLANo Estacapo. 65 oeſt. & *A*-* .# &: #ſºft||| º - Fºllº [. + Jº § d -- #lſº * Wºº - s - º º #ſº * º º º - - - & º - e Hiß Co., Aº X// Arofeſſow the AſockyAſts. West of 4/enverthrough the oorthern #eroºnsas Counties to 6e/ew4% Aſ of 98°meroºn. 62 ſº Q: *ěoo Jºsue #4: *% :* 4:...” * º e - 45 *- : . . ſº &^sº 3 Werffca/y Sè- S - # * , S; Q: a colºredº Verðarves ofte4ervezºtocºoëasio 4./ºws marſ. c. 73rday&ve of theerdºvéeoeuvs.e4-º'cretscrousCaſerek Grove). sº º • * ~ * * * * * vº 4024 ota g. Jurw-7′ees i.Arcáawn. sjº 42sooº. ... .º Sº ~ i * . *ś § \º º w § Nº. $. e <--> RS 6 w º # +2sooë. NS NN ==º $ § fºoofs Bºis 3. § -pºsuo tº- Hºriº ºu tº Uº. Hºrtºg. - º S 42/oo $ § #: ' ޺st & - 4900 $ § Strº ... ºr , s: , , , , ººzºº A 6', ' - § § Stºßtrºß S ºre Arvºy ºfºul Cº-ºtº, Agº -$ºooº adove Jive/eve/ S Ex.4/. .....tº 1 WHAT GEOLOGY SHOWS AS TO THE UNDERELOW. 33 that are not connected in nature. The proper relation of these facts is shown in various parts of the report and their great actual value realized. On the other hand, some facts that are relied on as helping the doctrine of underflow as above given are shown to have no relation to it. In Prof. Hill's discussion of the geology of middle Texas it will be seen . that the waters of the great Texan springs are fully accounted for with- out any recourse to the distant mountains. In Prof. Hicks's report it will be found that the great volume of the Loup rivers of Nebraskā and of the wells on the interfluvial uplands is referred, without any possible contradiction, to the rainfall of the plains themselves. I have shown, in the general discussion of the topograghy of the plains region investigated, and Prof. Hill in considering that part known as the Llano Estacado, that the great body of the area of the plains is cut off from Contact with the mountains by deep river trenches, which make it im- possible for them to receive any benefit from the melting of the moun- tain snows. (See Fig. XII.) - But the fact remains, that under the alluvia of the great river valleys, and under the surface of the high prairies where nothing has grown but Khort grass or desert plants, there is water in great abundance, which, by natural or artificial means, may be put on the surface and redeem a large part of it from aridity. Let it be understood that all rocks (this term includes clays, sands, and gravels, as well as limestone, granite, and the other consolidated materials) will hold some water in their pores as well as in fissures and Cracks, but when full they will hold no more. That is, they reach a point of saturation. Water from the surface that is not evaporated gets down into the lower strata, which hold more or less according to their porosity; and, according to the character of surface strata and dryness of climate, a line of Saturation is established at greater or less depths. This water escapes as springs or underground rivers (as in Kentucky Mammoth Cave), which reappear as surface streams. They are carried to the sea or evaporated. The supply from rainfall and the ºscape by springs implies an underground motion, a flow. This is by percolation and sometimes only capillary percolation, and must in most of its course be very slow. The estimate of velocity made by Prof. .EHicks for the Loup River region, while approximately correct for these divides and others on the Republican River, is probably the highest rate of underground percolation that will be admitted by investigators. In Talleys the direction of underflow may be assumed to be the same as that of the surface streams, but its rate of motion is yet a very uncer- tain quantity. The report of the chief engineer may be consulted on this head. That the subterrene waters of the plains formations (and this is not to be understood of the deeper waters that supply the artesian wells of the James River Basin in the Dakotas) are cut off from mountain sup- plies has been already shown. An inspection of this section, and pro- tile across Kansas on the one hundredth meridian and the shorter one on the one hundred and second, will show that there also the waters of the valleys are cut off from connection with the waters of the divides by the outcrop of the bed rock—chalk and shales. This is true farther west also, though the areas of the divides are larger there, and west of the one hundred and second they interlock. But the trenches of the great rivers, Platte and Arkansas, cut down also to bed rock; so that for the subplains waters north of the Platte and between the Plattes, and the divides between the Platte and Arkansas, there is absolutely no connection, and the plains of Texas are again separate S. Ex. 41, pt. 3—3 34 - - IRRIGATION. from these. That is, each region of the great plains as separated by the mountain rivers is an independent area as to the source of its subwaters. That source is in each case the rainfall of the region itself. The water-holding bed beneath the high prairie is in each case some form of the formation we have called the Tertiary grit—the mortar beds, conglomerates, or gravels. . In the eastern Dakotas the somewhat similar post-Tertiary gravels and sands serve a similar purpose, to conserve the waters which supply the shallow wells, artesian and other, of that region. If, then, all these facts were kept in mind, and the term underflow were used for the phreatic waters of the plains, we should not object. But, as the term has led to exaggerated ideas of its quantity and erro- neous ideas as to its source, we should prefer to limit the use of the word “underflow” to the waters of the great valleys found in the al- luvia under the beds of the streams, and to a limited extent under the fertile bottoms which bound the stream beds. We would speak of the underflow of the Yellowstone, the Platte, the Niobrara, the Frenchman, the Republican, the Arkansas, the Cimarron, the Canadian, and any streams in which experience had shown its presence or the structure warranted the expectation of it. The Prairie Dog, the Smoky Hill, and other plains rivers will certainly have underflow in some part of their valleys. It is also mentioned in another place that underflow will probably be found beneath the old channels that connected extinct or existing lakes in the glaciated areas of the two Dakotas. With regard to the width of the underflow belt in the great valleys the following facts should be borne in mind. That it can not, on the average, exceed that of the bottom land adjoining the river, but that the underflow may be fed, as the visible streams are, by the coming in of lateral valleys, and where a large tributary valley comes in there may be a larger apparent breadth in the main valley. There are cases also where a tributary stream is lost as it enters the alluvia of the main valley. This may increase the general area of the underflow of the val- ley, or it may simply follow an underground bed of sand or gravel that fills what was the original channel of the affluent which is now hidden by post-Tertiary detritus. As far as the proved width of the underflow is concerned, it should be remembered that the sub-flow ditches (tech- nically called sub-canals by the engineers of this investigation) on the Platte above Ogallala, on the Fountain, north of Pueblo, on the Arkan- sas, at Hartland and Dodge City, have each kept close to or under the actual beds of the streams. Wells that utilize the underflow for the supply of cities are in every case close to the beds of the streams, and this is economically correct. It is best always to act where previous experiments have demonstrated there is water, and leave further ex- perimentation for future needs. It may here be noted that work has begun at a point near the Colorado-Kansas State line to utilize the underflow of the Smoky Hill River, and near Limon, Colo., works are under way to tap the underflow of the Big Sandy. The existence of old river beds now filled with Tertiary or post-Ter- tiary gravels has been revealed in Nebraska and other localities, and these may give a supply of water from an underflow where it would not be suspected from surface conditions. On the other hand, there are places—notably in the valley of the Yellowstone and the upper Bepublican—where the subjacent bed rock comes near the Surface and almost pinches out the underflow altogether, decreasing its width and reducing its depth. Where any large attempt is to be made to utilize the underflow, a geological examination of the immediate locality should precede the work, to detect these conditions if they exist. CONNECTION OF HIGH DIVIDE AND WALLEY UNDERFLOW. 35 We have shown above that the phreatic waters of a high divide are not connected with those of neighboring divides from which they are separated by deep river valleys, and this is made plain to the eye by the profiles in the “Progress Report” of the chief engineer in January, 1891. Yet it is true that the valley underflow as well as the visible streams are fed by the waters under the higher plains. This will ap- pear from the fact elsewhere brought out that the rivers of the plains have their permanent water after they have cut to and into the Tertiary grit which is the holder of the phreatic waters of the high prairie. This connection is also seen in the September rise of the Loup rivers, and the October rise of the Republican, and the steady perennial flow of the Frenchman. In estimating the volume of the underflow it is very easy to be mis- taken. Loose sands and gravels will hold more water than compact Sands or sandy clays. The measure of a flow in a valley is that which Will pass through the more compact parts of the alluvia. The looser textures hold more, but if they are surrounded by the closer beds they Will be as large reservoirs with an insufficiency of escape pipes. The data on this part of the subject supplied by the chief engineer of this investigation should be carefully studied. i In conclusion, we would repeat that it would be best to restrict the term underflow to the proved subwater of alluvial valleys and possibly to that of some of the basin regions of the Southwest. The common, Well-digger’s term, sheet Water, may very appropriately be used for the bodies of water which are so abundant under the higher levels of the Great Plains. - ARTESIAN WELLS. The proved artesian basins in the Great Plains have not been in- creased in number since the report of the brief investigation last sum- mer, but important increments have been made to the areas of some of the principal. The regions having the largest wells and the largest areas are, as was previously reported, the James River (Dakota) Basin and the Fort Worth-Waco Basin in Texas. The latter has had a great increase in the number and volume of its wells, and the report of Prof. Hill gives definite information as to the geologic source of the water and the limits beyond which water can not be expected to be obtained. The Dakota Basin has had many additional wells sunk and its area extended by the obtaining of water at Armour and Chamberlain. It was in this westerly direction that the extension was expected, the great pressure of the waters at Woonsocket, Huron, Hitchcock, and elsewhere war- ranting the prediction that it would be found, to reach the heights of the western coteau. Examination in western South Dakota in con- nection with this extension warrants the expectation, elsewhere ex- pressed, that the area of the artesian region will be extended on the west side of the Missouri toward the Black Hills, and that the name James River Basin must give way to the more extensive one of the Dakota Artesian Basin. Interesting details of the new wells and re- measurements of old wells, with an account of the irrigation experiment at Aberdeen, will be found in the report of the chief engineer. Whether the facts recorded show any falling off in the product of the wells owing to the increased number or otherwise, it will be wise to use the caution suggested by the wells at Denver and Fort Worth, not to bore the wells too close together, as no matter how large the under- ground reservoir may be, it can be drained by persistent tapping. 36 # IRRIGATION. The small artesian areas in Kansas–Meade County and Hamilton County—show no falling off in the yield of water, while further exam. ination confirms previous views as to the source of the latter, viz, that it.is from breaks in the surface strata admitting meteoric waters, in a region not very far to the west of the artesian wells. This is also true of the Denver Basin and other regions of limited artesian capabilities mentioned in last year's report. Statements of Prof. Hill's report sug- gest the possibilities of artesian water in proper localities of New Mex- ico and west Texas, which emphasize remarks on the failure to obtain water near Santa Fe. If that experiment were made farther down the slope it is possible that a flowing well would be obtained. The question of the source of the waters of the shallow wells of eastern South and North Dakota is answered, practically for both States, in the chapter on North Dakota (see ante), and such a description of the glacial deposits of the region is given as will enable any intelligent reader to understand the formations of that part of the country and their relation to the supply of phreatic waters. Returning to the question of the source of supply of the artesian wa- ters of the great Dakota Basin, we have to say that there is nothing yet learned to suggest any other origin than that given last year, viz, the Outcrops of the Dakota and other sandstones on the slopes of the east- ern foothills of the Rocky Mountains and subordinate ranges. The ex- amination of the east front of the Black Hills, and of an exposure of sandstones north of the North Platte in Wyoming, and of the same for- mations with others east of Great Falls in Montana, all confirm the pre- Vious opinion. It is to be expected that examination of the region east of the foothills from the North Platte to the Great Falls of the Missouri Would probably make the opinion absolutely certain. There has been a Suggestion that the Missouri River is the source of supply, but this Will be dismissed as soon as it is considered that to raise water to the height which the pressure at Woonsocket shows, the supply would have to come out of the river much farther up than Bismarck, because water will not rise higher than its source, and the elevation of Woon- socket is 1,308 feet and that at Bismarck is 1,618 feet above sea level, the pressure at Woonsocket wells being such as would raise the water 350 feet higher than the surface there. If there were leakage from the Missouri up there sufficient to support the flow of the Dakota wells, now several years old, it would be apt to show itself in some decided manner in the river bed. f We have previously observed that the wells at Coolidge, in the Arkansas Valley, have their water in the same Dakota sandstones, but that they do not get it from the mountains to the west, on the flanks of which the same sandstones are upturned. At Oberlin, in northern Kansas, a deep boring has penetrated the same beds, but without get- ting any supply of Water that warrants the supposition of a mountain Source. (It is probable that it rises not by hydrostatic, but by gas pressure, of which other examples are given below.) The explanation of this is probably found in facts which are referred to in the report of Prof. Hill. This is, that it is not in mountain uplift that we find the best Sources of artesian waters, but rather in the exposure of porous strata lying at comparatively low angles of bedding, giving wide areas in which to absorb rainfall and without breaches of continuity caused by the faulting or folding of mountain structure. The upturned strata (cretaceous) on the flanks of the mountains west of Kansas and south- ern Nebraska dip at a high angle—sometimes quite vertically—giving Small area of absorption, and probably below the surface are so flexed and broken that they can not carry far the waters they do absorb. On º • * * s 'e - •.º." • *.*.* • * * * * , • *...** *** * * * * * * * * * * * * :*:: * ~ ** * * * * * * © - s e a " e * , • * * & gº º %* * º: 4 *s & º ſº * ": *::. º; • e º 'º ey. " a &n :* º • * • • * ºr a ſº & . . .”.º...","...º.º. 2" . . . . . es e_* * * * * * * * * * * * .."...? wºn 6 "> • **** * : * * • * * *.* * * , º • , *-* º . . . . . . ; *... ???-? º º, e - sº "? ---tº-" s”" . . .” - º ****** **-K3. tº s 1... . . . .';** : * > * * > : º *"º &.. & *A* * - ... ºsmºs, * *... . * *º- *º- **** /7; XV.5%owing cozoºoms of wateróeºr”g serges in re/séſozºo other formečoos/ot/e6/ºciated/areas a We/with one water/eve/ 6 c. We/s with two water/eve/so:/772erwowscaygwateróear”ggrave/ A.S./6/scené zrnaerwoos 34.9/es • * ..., S Ex.4%.52 1 ºf 3.xx. Conditions of Artesian We/As in. terséesring rvious Stºfa enclosing wat n §§ iºgeºg” º §§ |Hil º ºr #º §§ * | * * || - | HIH IT? sº §§º • , iſ ſº %:##!!!! |; §§§ § § É3; /* * an Coad/tions §§ //g}(X/, /ºi/ure of Artesian §§ * • e s a sº ::: * * : *...* Prº Sºlº e º w tº e º & *5. sº ous éeo's, x. Areach of contºn&ſty of upper ſmaervous 72°5treča. Areach of continuity of water-6earing's Y. Z. S Ex.4/.52 1 a. 6. and c. 3s in Æg AX. CONDITIONS THAT GOVERN ARTESIAN FLOWS. 37 the other hand, the strata on the flanks of the Black Hills dip at com- paratively low angles, while those examined in Montana and Wyoming have still more gentle slopes to the eastward. It is possible that artesian areas like that at Miles City, Mont., whose source of supply is the Laramie sandstones, may be multiplied where there are regions sufficiently large, not cut up into “bad lands” by the drainage. We would repeat the conditions that are necessary to have a flowing well, So that they be permanently within reach for reference in the semi-arid regions. (1) The water-bearing stratum must have a continuous dip in one jºion, or it may have a synclinal or double dip to form a trough or a Slſ. (2) It must have an impervious bed (shale or clay) below it, to pre- vent the water escaping to a lower level. (3) There must be an impervious bed above the water-bearing stratum, to confine the water to the porous bed. (4) The water-bearing stratum must be exposed to rainfall at its highest part. (5) The surface of the land where a flowing well is expected must be lower than the exposed area of the porous stratum. " These conditions are all shown in Fig. XX, in which a well at w will flow with a force dependent on the difference of elevation of p and w. If the climate at p be very humid the last statement will be entirely correct, but if it be somewhat arid the surface point of saturation will be the level from which force will be transmitted to the artesian flow in the hollow of the basin. ** There are circumstances in which the artesian conditions seem to be present when no flow rewards the labor of the well-driller. These are represented in Fig. XXI. The first is indicated at a, where a ravine cuts through the superior impervious beds and allows the waters of the porous stratum to escape by springs or mere oozings. Then the porous stratum itself may be pinched out as at y, and pinching out, or giving place to a clay shale is not uncommon in sandstone formations; ; or the lower impervious bed may be broken and allow escape of they waters to a lower level as at 2. Should any one of these conditions be present there will be no flowing well at w, though the record of the drilling might show identical series of strata passed, through as in the flowing well of Fig. XX, and the elevation might be even more favora- ble as compared with p. The breach indicated at a might exist, and the ravine be filled up with porous material that would carry off the springs to a great distance so that their connection with the porous straca exposed at p would never be known. Wells do fail where the conditions seem favorable. The failure is due to Some such causes as are here indicated, but which, from the nature of the case, can not cer- tainly be known. - The conditions as shown in Fig. XX, are almost exactly those that would be shown by a carefully made diagram of the actual levels and stratification from the Black Hills to the James River, and across the region of the Fort Worth-Waco Basin of Texas, as well as other regions of proved artesian supply. The geologic formations which have yielded artesian Water in the west were enumerated last year, thus: The glacial drift. The Tertiary formations, The Laramie. The Dakota. The Triassic or Permian “red beds.” 38 - rº IRRIGATION. To this list must be added the “Trinity sands,” which lie between the Dakota and the Trias, and we ought to emphasize the remark formerly made, that the combined Jura-Trias (of Montana and the Black Hills) must be regarded as auxiliary to the Dakota formation in giving area to the gathering ground and depth to the subterrene reservoir of the Dakota Basin. Another point of note is one we have communicated to some scientific publications (Transactions Kans. Acad. Sci., Vol. XII, and Am. Geologist, Vol. V). There are flowing wells that are not artesian. We are not referring hereto what have been called negative artesian wells in which there is a decided rise of the water in the tube but not reaching the sur- face. We refer to wells that flow from the surface, but which do not owe their flow to hydrostatic pressure, which is the cause of the flow of most wells. There is a well at Mound Valley, in southeastern Kansas, and another of small flow at Lawrence in the same State where the force that lifts the water appears to be gas pressure, there being a quantity of gas sufficient to produce the result, and there being no evidence of . the existence of the necessary hydrostatio conditions. Another cause also exists for flowing wells which we call rock pressure. All rocks in the earth's crust contain some water. The more porous rocks contain the greater quantity. At a distance below the surface the superincumbent strata subject the rock masses to enormous pressure... If we assume that the rocks of a region to a depth of 1,000 feet have an average specific gravity three times as great as that of water, we are probably within bounds, although limestones and sandstones are usually somewhat less, the presence of iron in many of the beds will bring up the average considerably. On this basis a prism of the rocks to the depth of 600 feet and 1 inch square would weigh 781 pounds, which is equivalent to a pressure of 52 atmospheres. If, then, 25 feet be taken as the measure of a column of these mineralized waters equivalent to 1 atmosphere, the rock pressure would be more than the equivalent of a column of water twice this height. Let a wafer-bearing stratum at a depth of 600 feet, as at Richfield, Kans., be pierced by the drill we should then have the rock pressure of 52 atmospheres squeezing the water out of the rock pores, and, granting sufficient plasticity in the rock and a sufficient quantity of water, it must rise in the tube which has only the pressure of 1 atmosphere upon it. A large bore to the well and a small supply of water would be against its reaching the surface. On the other hand, a bed rock with mobile molecules at or near satu- ration under this enormous pressure must cause in a narrow tube a flowing well. * * * At 300 feet the rock pressure would be only half that given above, or 26 atmospheres, and the column of water to be supported will be diminished in propor- tion. At other depths the same proportions will hold good. It will then be of service to persons prospecting in new regions for artesian water to be guided by all the facts at command and to make therefrom the correct inferences. Thus if a flowing well exists which has but a small volume and force, it does not follow that there is an artesian basin there. If it is a deep well it will be possible to attribute the flow to rock pressure, and in some cases to gas pressure. Let it be decided that it is one or the other, and it will be a proof that hydro- static-pressure wells will not be found in that district at that horizon. There is one matter that is encouraging in reference to the use of artesian water for irrigation. If the caution previously suggested is attended to with regard to the avoidance of too great proximity of wells to each other, the Supply is likely to be continuous and not to vary with seasonal rainfall in the region of the outcrop of the water-bearing strata. This will be the more marked the further the wells are from that outcrop. On this We may quote the following from last year's report: The report of Prof. Carpenter gives the records of the variations of two intermit- tent wells at Denver whose variability seems directly traceable to variations in rain or snow fall of the neighboring mountains. Observations on the subject of rate of flow of underground waters have recently been collated in England, but the results obtained are yet only distant approximations to verities which when accurately SANDSTONE DIKES OF CALIFORNIA AND DAKOTA. 39 known, will be of great value. It is pointed out in another report that irrigation from artesian wells or other subterranean waters will always possess a value, due to the distance of the outcrop and slowness of the percolation, which does not attach to irrigation from surface waters. It is this, that it is not likely to fail in a dry season, as the effects of the dry season will probably not be felt on the wells for one or two seasons thereafter. It is probable that in wells very distant frca, the outcrop of the water-bearing strata there will never be any variation due to seasonal variation of rainfall, as the character of the percolation may establish a constant, instead of Variable outflow, even as the flow of blood in the veins of the body is a steady stream notwithstanding that that of the arteries is a movement of pulsations. At the winter meeting of the Geological Society of America in 1890, Mr. J. S. Diller described a series of sandstone dikes in California. That is, dikes or walls of sandstone protruded from below—through Other strata. Mr. Diller considered them due to earthquake action as far as the formation of the fissure is concerned, and the filling was by Subterrane waters highly chapged with sand. Dikes of this kind are new to geologic science, and a great deal of interest was attached to Mr. Diller's paper, as to a curious fact in earth history. It may be that an economic value will be attached to it almost immediately. Three of the geologists of this investigation have found similar sandstone dikes in northwestern Nebraska, near Chadron, and Prof. R. T. Hill reports the existence of one in Texas. Many of the artesian wells of Dakota, notably at Aberdeen and Jamestown, give out large quantities of sand. If instead of the open- ing being made by the drill a fissure were cut in the superincumbent rocks by an earthquake, the water and sand would spout as they do now, and it would not be improbable that the fissure might in time be choked with the sand and ultimately the flow would cease. In personal conference Mr. Diller says the Californian dikes are in a region favor- able to artesian conditions. The Chadron dikes and some others of which the writer has heard, in the Bad Lands of South Dakota, are between the known area of artesian waters pf the main Dakota Basin and of the outcrop of the water-bearing formations in the Black Hills region. If, then, the suggestion that the existence of the dikes is con- nected with artesian conditions is anything more than a guess—which it may turn out to be—their existence in the region referred to is con- firmatory of the suggestion already made on other grounds, that prob- ably, artesian water will be obtained by boring in the region of the Great Sioux Reservation, between the Missouri River and the Black EHillS.* § - *These dikes are described and illustrated in “Proceedings of Geological Society of America,” Vol. II, by J. S. Diller, and in Vol. III, by Robert Hay. ON THE WITNE OF MININ AND THE INHERN WMS * IN TEXAS, EASTERN NEW MEXICO, AND INDIAN TERRITORY, WEST OF THE NINETY-SEWENTH MERIDIAN. BY ROBERT THOMAS HILL, Assistant Geologist for Texas, West of 979, the Indian Territory, - and Eastern New Meacico. 41 , C O N T E N T S . | - Page INTRODUCTION: Letter to chief geologist.-------------------------------- 47–48 I. The occurrence and availability of underground water ------------------ 48–52 Influence of topography upon distribution of underground water.-- - - - - 52–53 Water conditions most favorable in the later (newer rock sheets) -- - - - - 53–56 II. General outline of the Texas, New Mexican region. ---------------------- 56 The eastward division of the coastward incline - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 57 The mountain systems -------------------------------------. ---------- 57 Remnantal plains of the Llano Estacado type ------------------------- 57–58 The plateau region --------------------------------------- * * * sº gº tº sº is sº ºn s sº ºn 58 The basin plains of the Great Basin and Mexican plateau region - - - - - - - 58 III. Artesian conditions and structure of the eastern division or the coastward incline ------------------------------------------------------------- 58–61 The coastal prairie---------------------------------------------------- 61-62 The Washington or Fayette prairies ---------------------------------- 62–63 The east Texas forest region ------------------------------------------ 63–64 The plateau gravel. . . . .----------------------------- s sº ºn e º ºs º ºs º ſº tº º sº gº º sº gº 63 The river terraces ---------------------------------------------------- 63 The Cretaceous prairies, including the cross-timber regions. -- - - - - - - - - - 63–66 The main Black Prairie region.--------------------------------------- 66–67 The northern division ------------------------------------------------ 67–68 The Austin Dallas chalk-------------------------------------------- 67–68 The Eagle Ford prairies ---------------------------------------- as º º º 68 The lower cross timbers----------------------------- ---------------- 69 Geological substructure of the Black Prairies. ---. • sº se tº sº gº is nº sº gº º ºs º ºs e º 'º tºº & 69–75 The Grand Prairie region, including the upper-cross timbers—general outline and comparison with the Black Prairies ----------- • - - - - - - - - - 75–77 The Indian Territory division.---------------------------------------- 75–77 The Central or Fort Worth division----------------------------------- 77–78 The Southern or Edwards Plateau division.--------------------------- 78–80 The Stockton division --------------------------------------------- & as s 80 The altitudes of the Grand Prairie ------------------------------------ 80 Geological structure of the Cretaceous Grand Prairie. ... -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 81 - The Trinity division-------------------------------------------------- 81 The Trinity or Upper Cross Timber sands - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ... - 81–82 The Glen Rose or alternating beds ------------------------------------ 82–84 The Paluxy Sands ---------------------------------------------------- 84–86 The Comanche Pe& division or impervious beds. -----...--------------- 86 The Gryphaea rock and Walnut clays---------------------------------- 86 The Comanche Peak chalk ------------------------------------- - - - - - - 86–87 The Caprina limestone ----------------------------------------------- 87–88 The Washita division. -----------...---- tº e º ºs º ºs º is as ºs º ºs º ºs e º sº, ſº gº tº s se m º ºs º ºs & Hº tº 88 Topographic expression of the Comanche series-------------------------- 89–90 Water conditions of the Black and Grand prairies. ---------...--------- 90 The rivers of the Grand Prairie -------------------------------------- 90–92 The Mammoth Springs of the San Antonio system, or natural artesian Wells -------------------- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 92–95 The artesian waters of the Black and Grand prairies.----------------- 95–96 Availability of the water sheets of the Black and Grand Prairies.----- 96–97 The water-bearing strata.---------------------------------- & sº tº º ſº º sº, º sº º tº 97–99 The availability of the water-bearing sheets -------------------------. 99–182 43 Q $ tº 44 IRRIGATION. - Pagé III. Artesian eonditions and structure, etc.—Continued. The Dallas-Pottsboro Group or wells of the Lower Cross Timber flow... 102-104 Extent and limitations of the area--------------------------------- 104 Wells of the Fort Worth-Waco system ------------------------...----- The shallower wells of the Paluxy flow ...----------...----- - - - • * * * * * 104–106 The deeper wells of the Trinity flow (Fort Worth-Waco) -- - - - - - ---- 106–107 Development at Fort Worth and Waco ---------------------------- 107–112 . The wells of the Glen Rose Group ----------------------- * * * * * * * * * * 113–115 IFIve hundred-foot wells of the Morgan Group- - - - - - - - - - - -----...--- 115–116 One thousand-foot wells of the Fort Worth-McGregor Group ------- 116 Deep wells of the Waco-Dallas Group.----------------------------- 116-117 Artesian failures in Grand and Black Prairie regions'. --------- ---- 117 Conclusions, etc., of artesian conditions in Grand and Black Prairie Regions -------------------------------------------------------- 117–118 Artesian conditions south of the Colorado...------...--------------- 119–120 IV. Water conditions of the Rio Grande embayment ...----. w tº gº º º ſº me sº sº us tº dº º º º 120-126 V. The water conditions of the central denuded region.--------- ** - - - - - - - 126 VI. The Red Beds or Concho-Abilene country--------------------------- 127-128 Extent and conditions of the Red Beds country - - - - - -...------------- 129–130 The Texas Oklahoma division ---------------...---- gº a sº is e º ºs w = * * * * * * * * 130–131 The Pecos-Canadian division--------------------------------...----. 131-13? VII. Water conditions of the Llano Estacado region . ----...-...----...----- 132–133 Extent and structure.--------------------------------------------- 134 The great water-bearing cap sheet, or Llano Formation ------------ 135–136 Artesian possibilities of the Llano Estacado ------------------------ 136–138 VIII. Water conditions of the Trans-Pecos Basin region.-- ... -------------. 138–151 IX. Water conditions of the mountain region ---------------------------- 151–153 The Raton Las Vegas or plateau region.--------------------------- 153–155 The Malpais or volcanic regions of New Mexico.----...----------. -- 155–158 X. Water conditions of Indian Territory, including Oklahoma. ---------- 159–162 Water conditions of the hard limestone regions and other exceptional º area.S - - - - - - - - - - - - - - * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *e - m as me as ſº º ºs º ºs tº 162–164 Springs of the Washita and Arbuckle Mountains-------------------- 165 Ö Plate ILLUSTRATIONS. --º-º-º-º: sº-º" Page. 1. Map outlining geographic features of Texas region.----------------- 48 2. Diagram of Water-bearing strata ---------------------------------- 52 3. Ideal profile from New Orleans to Rocky Mountains - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 167 4. Geologic profile from Dublin to Waco, Tex- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 167 5. Geologic profile from Millsap to Terrell, Tex... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 167 6. Geologic profile along the Colorado River, Texas. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 167 7. Flowing wells at Waco, Texas. ------------------------------------ 106 8. Profile through Marble Falls, Texas - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 126 9. Map of Austin, Tex., and vicinity --------------------------------- 117 10. Outline sketch of the Llano Estacado ----------------------------. 132 11. Ideal cross sections of structure of above. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 132 12. Section of Red Bed Hills on Big Wichita River - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 127 13. Cañon of the Rio Grande------------------------------------------ 120 14. Basin Scenery along Mexican frontier. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 138 15. Profile of Eagle Flats Basin.--------------------------------------- 149 16. Fisher's Peak, Trinidad, Colo ------------------------------------- 151 17. Simpson's Rest, Trinidad, Colo ------------------------------------ 155 18. Outline map of Indian Territory ---------------------------------. 159 19. Geologic section of Southern Indian Territory ... ------------------ 161 I N T R O D U C T I O N . DEAR SIR : I present here with my special report upon the under- ground waters of southern Indian Territory, eastern New Mexico, and the State of Texas. - The region covered is so vast and embraces so many diverse condi- tions influencing the water supply that I have been able only to treat it most briefly. I feel, however, that in the accompanying pages I have at least outlined the underlying principles of the water supply and pointed out their availability. The region assigned to the writer for investigation comprised Indian Territory (including Oklahoma), Texas, and New Mexico west of the ninety-seventh meridian and east of the Rocky Mountains, including over 300,000 square miles. This area is such a vast extent that it was impossible to traverse it thoroughly, even in a rapid manner, in the time allotted to the work. The writer, however, has fortunately spent many years in its previous study, but still feels that this report can only be considered, with the 'exception of the Grand Prairie region, as a preliminary outline of the water conditions. z' The area has been so little studied by geographers and geologists that much time had to be devoted to tracing out and classifying its elemen- tary geographic features as a fundamental step to the geological and economic studies dependent thereon. Even the western limit of the investigation, as defined in the organization of the work, is still prob- lematical, for the Rocky Mountains proper cease to be a clearly defined feature south of the thirty-third degree of latitude, and are succeeded by an undefined system of unconnected mountain blocks and plains which have not yet been satisfactorily classified. The reader of these pages should remember that the regions discussed are radically different in most natural aspects from the older inhabited portion of the United States. It is far more different from New Eng- land than is Japan. It has more points in common with Europe than with the great Mississippi Valley. The chalk lands and downs of Texas are more related to France than to the rocks of the adjacent Arkansas and Missouri States. This region of Texas, embracing nearly a third of the whole area of the artesian investigation, has more diverse geo- logic features than most of the remainder, which necessitates a dispro- . portionate amount of consideration. The writer has endeavored to give only the laws of the occurrence and distribution of water, leaving to the engineers the discussion of its utilization. Neither is it within the province of this investigation to enter into an elaborate discussion of the minute geologic structure of this immense area, but in order to comprehend its water conditions it is necessary that such features be briefly described. 47 48 - - IRRIGATION. I have not made this paper a statistical one, for Prof. F. E. Roessler, in his excellent report, has so completely covered that field that it would be useless to do otherwise than to refer my readers to his paper for all possible information in that line.* s - I wish to return thanks to the people of the region for their kind and unstinted assistance, and above all to express my gratitude to you for the liberal manner in which you have permitted me to conduct this in- vestigation, and hope the report will be worthy of your approval and useful to the people. Respectfully, RoBERT T. HILL, Assistant Geologist for Teacas, New Mearico, and Indian Territory. Prof. Rob ERT HAY, Chief Geologist, Artesian and Underflow Investigation. I. THE 000URRENCE AND AVAILABILITY OF UNDERGROUND WATER. No substance is so universally essential and so widely distributed as water, yet the laws of its occurrence beneath the earth's sur- face are little studied and understood. Although everywhere de- sired and sought for by man to satisfy the necessities of industry, transportation, and agriculture, the art of search for it has hardly risen above guess work or the superstition of the divining rod. Water is too abundant in the Eastern States to excite much atten- tion, although the threatened famines of this commodity warn us that the law of its occurrence is worthy of serious scientific investigation, even in the humid region. In the western half of the United States, however, the water question is not only serious but paramount to every other consideration, for there are vast areas as large as all New England, such as the great Llano Estacado, without a single brooklet, river, or permanent pond upon the surface, while there are other areas, aggregating one-tenth of our Union, which, together, do not possess a stream of the volume of the Mohawk or Connecticut and are utterly lacking in the accompaniments of frequent laterals and springs. Great railway lines—for example, the Southern Pacific—are obliged to haul water hundreds of miles for their engines, and have spent millions in not always judicious experiments to obtain an underground supply. Methods for the utilization of surface waters have been developed, and it only remains to put in practice the knowledge we now possess to save and apply every particle of the available surface water of the land. The laws of distribution and utilization of underground waters are almost as simple as those controlling surface distribution, but the pop- ular fallacies concerning them are appalling, believed as they are by men of more than ordinary intelligence in other walks of life. The * Report on the preliminary investigation to determine the proper location of arte- sian wells within the area of the ninety-seventh meridian and east of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, Fifty-first Congress, first session, Ex. Doc. No. 222. PLATE I. " * -- - - - - * * * † º • * * * * * * * * * *. : . . . . . . . . . . .** *. . . . . . . ." *:: * H * # is # * * º m 1. * = *- ... = * * * * * * * * * ~ * * * * * * * * * * * * ** a + + * .”.” ". . ." . . . . . . . ." . . 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" * * = r g º * + x - - * * - * * + + " * - - ! , * * * * * * - g + s " .. • * • * . . . . . |. º * . . * * * . # , g º * * * º # # º * * tººk tº. * * º * º º g th | | | | ****A *, * * * m | | mº ſ | j s ſ | . *** * * º, ...: :::::: *, ::..º. - • ?:...º. :*::::::::::::: ** * * | º: *. † Tº *"... ll ! º l * §§º-E * .*.*.* **º- :*: rº- *.*.* : :::tº: Ek * º-. º: **** *-** *** *===-nº sºrrºs §§ ** 2: *H* †. --> 3: 2: ~~ £g * à * % º º: *** º* 3: H sº * : 4. >~~ ...” } § * º *: º If 5* 5 # º *2. º-ºº: §§Hº: § #H º r º GEOGRAPHic FEATUREs OF THE TexAN REGION. 5* R.T. H. LL. Grøzzáe. S Ex.4/.52 1 CONDITIONS OF SURFACE AND SUBTERRENE waters. 49 most current of these erroneous ideas is that all underground water flows in streams “like the circulatory system of the human body,” as all intelligent citizen once expressed it. The underground rivers are thought to supply every well and spring, and it is a Curious sight to See the water witch or switch fakir plod over a farm with his forked Stick trying to locate the “ current.” In the vast areas between the Rockies and the Mississippi the belief prevails that all the wells are Supplied from precipitation upon the mountains, whose waters are sup- posed to disappear beneath the surface to rise again a thousand miles away along the coastal plain (The Galveston News, November 7, 1891, p. 4, top of 4th column), while beneath the vast intervening region is an inexhaustible store of water, waiting for some invention of man to bring it to the surface. This doctrine of the “underflow,” as it is called, proved so contagious in Kansas a year ago that whole commu- Inities indulged in most exaggerated anticipations of its development. In view of these facts would it not be well to examine the simple laws Controlling the distribution of underground waters: Surface waters are useful for commerce, industry, and navigation, but for agriculture underground waters are the sole dependence; even When surface water is used for irrigation it must first become earth Water before it can become available for the plant roots. For this rea- Son the farmer plows the earth's crust—to increase its capacity to im- bibe and transmit water—or drains his field to remove a surplus of moisture. The source of all underground water is the rainfall, but with few ex- ceptions the underground supply in any region is not proportionate to its rainfall. Of the rain which falls upon the earth's surface, part is evaporated or quickly drained to the sea; the remainder is absorbed by the soil and other rocks. All the materials composing that portion of the earth’s structure visible to human inspection, inappropriately known as the crust, are more or less saturated with water. In arid regions or in times of drouth this may not be apparent or at the immediate surface where the moisture is dried by evaporation, but a fresh excavation—a post hole, a plow furrow, a blast in a quarry, or a newly dug well—will re- veal the contained moisture of the earth’s crust. This moisture or earth water may be scarcely visible or may occur in great abundance according to the compactness or porosity of the rocks, the number of fissures, joints, and crevices, and their topographic sit- uation. If rainfall be long continued the portion of the crust upon which it falls becomes completely saturated. Upon cessation of the rainfall evaporation or drying begins at the surface, thus causing the line of visible moisture to become deeper and deeper. The line of visible moisture is known as the line of saturation or earth water, and its depth in any area decreases with the rainfall and increases with evaporation (temperature and wind movement). - Thus it is that in the eastern part of the United States, where rainfall is excessive and evaporation slow, the line of saturation is usually near the surface, while in the arid regions, like the Llano Estacado and the great basins, it is often several hundred feet below the surface. Although the belt or portion of the earth’s crust between the sur- face and the line of saturation may be apparently dry, evaporation is constantly going on, the soil serving, like the wick of a lamp, as a me- dium of capillary attraction, by which vast amounts of moisture are conducted to the surface and evaporated, S. Ex. 41, pt. 3—4 50 * IRRIGATION. The percentage of the water of the earth’s crust that escapes by evaporation is not definitely determined, but, owing to the surface ex- posed, it must far exceed the amount escaping by all other methods. The water evaporated is of no direct application to man and is not further considered here. If the earth's surface were of uniform porosity, temperature, and composition the water it contained would be uniformly distributed through it, as is the water in a well-soaked sponge. This is not the case, however, for the outer portion of our globe is composed of rocks of much greater porosity and less density than the interior, while the downward percolation of surface water can extend but a short distance, because it encounters the Superheated matter of the earth’s interior and is either forced back towards the surface as steam (as in the case of geysers and volcanoes) or enters into mineral combinations. Hence we must conclude that the earth water is con- fined to that portion of the earth’s crust between the lines of heated s interior and surface evaporation. Even in this narrow belt the distribution of water is very irregular, for in places, as on the Llano Estacado, holes 300 feet deep can be drilled through soil and rock as dry as powder without reaching water, While in New Orleans water is so near the surface that graves can not be dug for the dead. The unequal distribution of water in the saturated portion of the earth’s crust is due to the difference in porous texture of the different rocks which compose it, their arrangement relative to one another, the amount of rainfall and surface evaporation and the relative altitude above or below the adjacent drainage level. - All rocks imbibe water in proportion varying with their physical structure, a fact which can be demonstrated experimentally by satu- rating familiar types of rock, sand, brick, chalk, glass, marble, and granite. The glass is similar in water capacity to large areas of vol- canic and other igneous rocks, and will absorb no perceptible amount of moisture; marble will drink in a slight quantity; the chalk, sand, and brick will absorb nearly their own weight of water. The manner in which rocks imbibe water is simple. In most rocks, however compact to the eye, there exists interstices, cavities, and other spaces between the minute particles which compose the mass, in which Water may enter and be stored. This is especially true of all sedi- mentary rocks, which compose ninety-nine one-hundredths of the earth's crust. A fine sandstone, whose grains and intervening spaces may be indistinguishable to the eye, when placed under a microscope resembles a load of cobblestones, in which the spaces occupy as much of the ag- gregate mass as the solid stones themselves. Into a gallon measure of dry pebbles, varying in size from an egg to a pin head, may be poured half a gallon of water. Crystalline rocks, as a rule, are more compact and less adapted for the storage and passage of Water than sedimentary rocks. Nearly all the minerals which compose them are impervious, as is readily seen in a large crystal of quartz, feldspar, mica, and others. Hence, if a rock is composed of closely Woven crystals of massive rocks—quartzite, granite, basalt, lava–its water receiving and transmitting power is minimum. But nearly all sedimentary rocks are composed of minute fragments of other rocks, which have been broken, transported, and arranged by the water according to their size. Most of these fragments are minute crystals or pieces of crystals, and therefore the water con- ditions of the rock depend upon the size and abundance of spaces be- tWeen its particles rather than upon its composition. THE CAPACITY OF ROCKS TO ABSORB WATER. 51 The different capacities of rocks for holding water have been tabu- lated by M. De Lerse, of France, and others. [Proportions of water absorbed by 100 parts stone.] Great oblite, Bath.---------------------------------------------------------- 31. 20 Sandstone, pure quartzose ---------------------- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 29.00 Chalk of upper horizon, pure. ----------------------------------------------- 24, 10 Calcareous freestone -------------------------------------------------------- 18. 03 Sandstone (Gres de Beauchamp) -------------------------------------------- 13. 15 Sandstone, impure ---------------------------------------------------------- 4. 37 Coal shale ------------------------- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - * = as * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 2, 85 Porphyritic trachyte------------------------------------ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 3. 70 Basalt ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 0, 8:3 Siberian slate. -------------------------------------------------------------- 0.19 Granite (fine grained). ------------------------------------------------ *- - - - - 0. 12 Hornblendic granite -------------------------------------------------------- 0.06 Rocks which have imbibed all the moisture they can contain are in a condition of saturation, and all water in excess of this amount will pass off by aid of gravity, capillary attraction, or evaporation. The excess of water in rocks above the water of saturation is available as the source of springs, wells, and artesian supply. If experiments with these materials are continued, each rock will be found to possess a different capacity for the transmission of the water which it has imbibed, and the capacity for transmission is entirely dis- tinct from its capacity for imbibition. If the component particles—for instance, the quartz pebbles of a loose conglomerate or the grains of a sandstone—present a smooth impervious surface, water will cohere to the individual surfaces until the entire particle is enveloped in a coat of water. If the interstices are smaller than the average drop of water the resistance of cohesion to the free transmission of Water will be greater; hence a chalk or a fine-grained brick will drink in much water but transmit little, while water will pass freely through coarse gravel. Capacity for transmission in variously grained rocks and the accom- panying cohesion is similar to that seen in passing water through sieves of different mesh. Thus some chalks with exactly the same capacity for imbibition as sandstones transmit water six hundred times slower. These materials with radically different capacities for imbibition and transmission of water have been sorted into definite sheets or strata by the water which deposited most of them, so that another important factor in the question of underground water is introduced, the stratifi- cation or arrangement of the rocks relative to one another. Earth water percolates downward through a porous stratum until an impervious one is reached (Figs. I and 5), while an impervious stratum at the surface will prevent the saturation of a pervious one below. & Stratification performs the important function of controlling the dis- tribution of earth water, of resistance, transmission, and storage. If the rock stratum is pervious and horizontal it will simply serve as a sponge to hold whatever water it receives until distributed by evap- oration or seepage, unless the supply is constantly renewed by rainfall. (See Pl. I, Fig. 1.) - If an impervious sheet is above an outcropping porous stratum it opposes the tendency of water to rise by hydrostatic pressure, and if below, it opposes the force of gravity by preventing the water from per- colating to greater depths. If vertical enough from faulting or folding, the strata cut off the horizontal transmission of underground water. If strata are inclined, water is transmitted by gravity in the direction of inclination, i. e., with the dip ; and if the topographic conditions are 52 i. IRRIGATION. favorable flowing wells can be obtained at points more or less distant from the outcrop. (See Fig. 2.) * If the strata incline in a direction opposite to the general slope of the country, no matter how favorable the conditions may be, they will fur- nish no flowing artesian supply, for water can not rise above the height of the receiving area. (Fig. 3.) If strata are excessively inclined, as in most mountain regions, arte- sian wells are improbable, if not impossible, over any wide area. In folded, mountainous regions the strata will soon dip below all available boring; hence the generally accepted idea that artesian wells are pe- culiar to regions of great stratigraphic disturbance is fallacious, except when the condition exists as in Fig. 4. A dip of 1 per cent is hardly visible to the eye, but it will carry a stratum downward 52.8 feet per mile, or 528 feet in 10 miles. A dip of 10 per cent, which is clearly no- ticeable, will carry a stratum 528 feet in a mile, or 5,280 feet in 10 miles. A dip of 45 degrees will carry a stratum deeper in a mile than any drill has yet penetrated. It may now be said that the most favorable and usual condition for artesian wells is that of strata inclined slightly at an almost impercepti- ble angle with the surface slope. This condition prevails in gently sloping regions and not in mountains. Theoretically, this arrangement affords a large exposure of the receiv- ing stratum for the imbibition of water and underlies an extensive area in which wells can be obtained. All the great artesian well areas of the United States are of this type, that of the Atlantic Gulf coast of Dakota, and of Texas. 4. The receiving area of an artesian system is the area of outcrop of the water-bearing stratum. Its extent is proportionate to the thickness and inclination of the stratum, and its value for receiving and transmitting Water depends upon the area of its outcrop and its porosity. The out- crop may be of any topographic form, but is usually in a valley of strati- fication which is topographically higher than the outcrop, as in the arte- sian areas of Texas (See Fig. 1), New Jersey, and elsewhere. Most sedimentary rocks occur in definite succession, i.e. sands over- laid by clays, and these by limestones, representing the deposits laid down at shore, in shallow water and at the nearer shore or moderate depths, respectively; hence when a well is begun in rocks of the lime- Stone group a great volume of water must not be expected until several strata of clays are passed through and the basal sands penetrated. This sequence or triple succession is not always present, for often the upper limestones and clays have been removed, but the lower mem- bers may usually be expected, for it is very exceptional that a clay or chalky limestone is deposited unless preceded by sand. INFLUENCE OF TOPOGRAPHY UPON DISTRIBUTION OF EARTH - VVATER. If the surface were a dead level not grooved by river drainage, and Were a homogeneous mass, earth water would sink to the line of com- plete Saturation, which would be at a uniform depth, as it is in a flat, undrained field. But the earth's surface is broken into mountains and plains and the plains are Scored by Valleys, just as the farmer's flat field is marked by drainage ditches; therefore, through the percolation caused by gravity the line of saturation sinks towards the level of the lowest adjacent drainage valley whose streams are usually fed by the water of saturation escaping at their level. (See Fig. 7.) PLATE ||. - - - - - - - - - - - - -- * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ---------------- - - - - - - -------------------------- * ~ * ~ *-* -- ~~~~" " " " " " " " " " TTT T. -- - - - - - - - - - --- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - * * *** * * * * * * * * * *** * * Ž º % & ILLUSTRATING ARRANGEMENT OF STRATA. ^, TRANSMITTING POWER OF ROCKS AND WATER. 53 There are two kinds of valleys in the West—stream Valleys and basin valleys. The former are the product of erosion through the rock mass, caused by running streams seeking base level; the latter are the filled- in depressions of vast intermountain areas, like Salt Lake Valley of Utah. The stream valleys reduce the line of saturation of the adjacent regions to their level and carry the earth water to the Sea. Basin val- leys store the surface water of the adjacent mountains by imbibing and retaining it in their loose, porous strata. (See Fig. 6.) Topographic irregularities have important bearing upon the success or failure of artesian wells, but not as great an influence as is popularly supposed, for the receiving area of artesian districts is more often a level or valley of stratification than a protuberance. In mountains of disturbed strata, not horizontal, water level is re- duced toward that of the surrounding plain. Mountains, in general, owe their existence to the compactness and imperviousness of their structure, conditions which render them of sec- ondary importance in a discussion of underground water, since they are quickly drained of their rainfall, except that which becomes crevice water or is retarded by vegetation. Impervious mountains are often important in concentrating the drain- age of a large area upon the porous surface of a basin-shaped plain occupying their center (Fig. 6); they actually double the efficiency of the rainfall for the basins; this fact is of especial value in the south- west, where the country is of impervious mountain and porous basin Structure. In the case of buttes and mesas, which usually consist of horizontal strata, the line of saturation is reduced by gravity towards that of the plain or valley which surrounds them (Fig. 6). As a rule, the degree of consolidation of an impervious stratum has little bearing upon its function in artesian wells, soft clay shale is prac- tically as impervious as a hard slate; hence the incorrectness of the popular idea in the West that a hard rock must overcap the water- bearing stratum. Consolidation, however, does decrease the trans- mitting capacity of pervious strata, since this power is produced by pressure which decreases the interstitial spaces of the rocks, or by min- eral cement which fills the pores; hence, most of the great water-bear- ing areas are composed either of loosely cemented or unconsolidated Sand. © wATER conDITIONS MOST FAVORABLE IN THE NEw ER (NEo ZOIC) FoRMATIONS. The older formations of the earth are more consolidated, metamor- phosed, and disturbed than the newer, and hence they occur in but few places in the continuous sheets necessary to great artesian development. The newer rocks (post-Carboniferous) are less consolidated, less dis- turbed, less metamorphosed, less broken, and therefore are better adapted for imbibition, percolation, and transmission of water. Thus it is that with a few exceptions, the great artesian areas of the world are in the Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous, Tertiary, and Quaternary rock . sheets, most of which, as will be shown, play an important part in the region under discussion. A section from the Gulf coast to the Tocky Mountains, say from New Orleans to Las Vegas, will illustrate the principles I have endeavored to explain (see Profile No. 3). From the coast to the ninety-seventh meridian is a large series of porous sheets of strata inclining with the 54 IRRIGATION. surface at only a slightly greater angle. This represents, with one or two exceptions, the condition of the entire Atlantic seaboard. These Strata constitute the rocks from latest Jurassic to present time and rep- resent a series of ancient coastal deposition plains; nearly every where ºghout their extent artesian wells are obtained from New Jersey to €X3.S. y This series rests upon another of older rocks which incline to the west. Ward and against the topograpic slope and outcrops between the ninety- eighth and one hundretl and first meridian. No successful artesian Wells of large volume have been or are likely to be obtained in this re- gion. A similar negative condition exists in that portion of northeastern New Mexico which I have termed the Las Vegas shoulder; experimental Wells of great depth have been drilled without success at Trinidad and Las Vegas. - The principle that greatly disturbed or mountainous areas are not fa- Vorable artesian areas is illustrated in the dip of the strata of the Rocky Mountain front, south of the Arkansas, the excessive angle of which almost immediately carries them beyond the reach of man. The influence of structure and imbibition is shown in the basin plains." (See Fig. 6.) These vast stretches of land in the arid region have been looked upon by the professional geologist as unworthy of experimentation for artesian water, owing to the absence of consolidated strata and the prevailing fallacious idea that the “upturned edges of the adjacent mountain regions were the receiving area of all underground water.” Although unconsolidated, the rocks of the basin plains are alternations of porous and impervious beds and hence are valuable artesian areas; by experimentation in boring in properly selected sites considerable water may be obtained. Non-flowing wells have been secured in many of the most unpromising plains, even in Death's Valley; as furnishing water for stock, these wells are very important. The geological age of strata is of secondary importance in determin- ing the occurrence of underground water, although it is a remarkable fact that with two exceptions the underground waters of our country are obtained from the Neozoic or later formations and from these only where they occur in gently sloping plains or basins, and not as upturned mountain rock. From these fundamental principles of the occurrence of underground Water it is seen that the whole question of distribution is primarily a geological one, and hence a properly constructed geological map would illustrate the underground distribution of water. For instance, a good strata map of the country would show the relative capacity of different Subareas for imbibition. - - - This would be practicable on an extensive scale in the West, espe- cially in the Texas region of the United States, where the formations have great areal development. Approximately the same amount of rain falls upon a great diversity of country, some of which contains great stores of water while others are entirely lacking in this essential. Tor instance, the mountains of the Trans-Pecos region are mostly com- posed of hard, impervious rocks—compact limestones, quartzites, and eruptive rocks. Less than 1 per cent of the rain falling upon these rocks is absorbed, except such as finds its way into the structure by Cracks and fissures or along lines of contact. As a result of this condi- tion, the water, after every shower, quickly flows down the slopes to the extensive flats which occupy the valleys between the mountain ranges. These flats (see Fig. 6), as well as the entire surface of the Llano Esta- Cado, have a structure entirely different from the adjacent mountains } ſ PHREATIC WATERS OF THE LLANO ESTACADO. 55 and are for the most part, composed of loose, porous sands and gravels so that every drop of rain that touches their surface is immediately absorbed and does not flow off in streams. This explains the utter ab- sence of running water on the surface of these flats and its abundance stored in the structure beneath. Not only does this basin and plain for- mation (see Figs. 1 and 6), imbibe all the rain which falls upon its Surface, but the great torrents which pour down the mountain sides and Cañons disappear immediately upon reaching the plain, being im- bibed by its porous structure. The constant streams, also, which flow from the Snow-clad peaks or mountain springs, such as the Seven Rivers, the Tularosa, and the numerous lost rivers of New Mexico and Texas, Quickly disappear upon reaching the plain. Immediately underlying the porous beds of the Llano Estacado, which is the latest and capping formation of the area, is an impervious forma- tion consisting of red clays called the Red Beds (Fig.1). These consti- tute the surface of a large area of country east of the Llano in Texas, known as the Concho-Abilene country. This formation does not imbibe water freely like the Llano Estacado. Consequently its waters drain off rapidly and its surface is eroded with many dry creek beds or arroyos Which contain running water. The rainfall upon these clays quickly flows away to the rivers and from the rivers to the sea, so that the people of eastern Texas often see great rises, usually disastrous overflows, of the red Waters which quickly follow rainfall in the Abilene-Concho Country. Again, to the eastward there is a vast area of country known as the Black Prairie and Grand Prairie regions. These are underlaid by chalks, chalky clays, pseudo-oëlites, and chalky marls. All these for- ‘mations, except the clays, are nearly as porous as sand and imbibe nearly as much water. This region, too, drinks in much of the rain- fall, but not as much as the Llano. - If it were possible to view this region of mountains, Llano Estacado, Red Beds, chalks, and sands while a rain was falling uniformly over the whole region, the following diverse phenomena would be seen: First, torrents pouring down the impervious mountain sides to the plains and there disappearing beneath the level surface; second, the level surface of the Llano, void of streams or surface drainage, immediately absorb- ing the water or temporarily collecting it on the surface in lakes, like liquids in a chemist's filter, until it can pass downward; the impervious Red Bed plains, like the mountains, covered with rills, rivulets, and tor- rents laden with sediment, which soon flow into the arterial drainage of the Red, the Brazos, or the Colorado. The rainfall upon the chalky regions and the oëlites is imbibed almost as quickly as upon the Llano, except in the clay areas. * After the rain ceased an observer would be impressed by the fact that the representative rocks of the different areas exhibited capacities dif. ferent not only for imbibing water, but also for transmitting it through their structure by percolation, and those rocks which imbibe the least water, like the limestones, porphyries, and quartzites of the Organ, the Guadaloupe, and other trans-Pecos mountains, most slowly transmitted it, so that for days, perhaps months, springs and seeps flow from the crevices and contact plains of the high mountain slopes, keeping alive delicate ferns and rare plants. On the surface of the Llano, except where slight quantities of clay are mixed with sandy loam, in an hour or two there remains little evidence in the dry surface that a shower has fallen, the water having quickly penetrated to depths beneath. The chalks, the oëlites, the marls, and the sand exhibit similar phenom. 56 * IRRIGATION. ena with slight variations. The red beds and clay areas, such as the Black Waxy and Abilene countries, which have much clay in their structures, although imbibing much less water than the other regions, are wet and moldy for many days, according to the amount of clay they contain. 4. These great differences are due to the different degrees of porosity or percolation of which the rocks are capable. In conclusion, it is well to consider the application of these principles to obtain underground water in the vast arid regions of the United States and Mexico. First, it is apparent that the best conditions for securing underground water are not in consolidated or mountain rocks, as shown, by the futile experiments of the Government well borings under Capt. Pope in 1858 and the numerous failures of the Southern Pacific Road— all of which were drilled with the idea that the earth water came from the mountains. But, on the other hand, the most sterile sandy upland plains, like the great Jornado Muerto, or filled-in river valleys, like that of the Rio Grande, are the most favorable locations for imbibition and storage of underground water. * By taking advantage of this law hundreds of wells, nonflowing it is true, have been obtained upon the greatest of our supposed waterless plains, such as the Llano Estacado and the Organ-Hueco basin north of El Paso. e The artesian wells throughout the arid regions also demonstrate this principle—especially the wells of the great basin—plains of Utah, Colorado, and California. * wº The supply of underground water is sufficient to reclaim for agricul- ture by irrigation only a very small fraction of our desert lands. Yet, by applying these principles, thousands of wells can be obtained upon areas now absolutely waterless, which would be of great value to over- land commerce and to herders, and would save large amounts of money now wasted in unprofitable experiments. II. * GENERAL OUTLINE OF THE TEXAS-NEW MEXICO REGION. The areas treated in this paper are so vast and differentiated that it. is possible only briefly to define them, including as they do portions of most of the conspicuous topographic features of our Country accompa- nied by their diversities of climate, geologic structure, and cultural pos- sibilities. (See Pl. II.) º * Topographically the whole region consists of a series of extensive elongated parallel dip plains and plateaus (see Profile 3), extending approximately in a north and south direction, and abruptly terminating at each end by a great mountain system, extending at right angles to them—an arrangement comparable to a wide stairway, in which the steps are represented by the plains and the walls by the inclosing , mountains. • This analogy can not be carried too far, however, because great irreg: ularities and depressions will be found in the width and trend of the steps, and the structure of the two mountain systems which represent the inclosing walls is of two entirely different types and periods of archi- tecture; moreover, the escarpments of the steps in most cases face Q * IHYDRO-GEOI,OGICAL OUTLINES OF WESTERN TEXAS. 57 westward or upstairs, while the plains successively dip beneath each other. The wear and tear of time Ilas scarred and disfigured the region, leaving depressions where the drainage or other erosion has crossed the plains and worn the mountain walls. I have previously shown” the most salient features to consist of the following subdivisions, whose details will be discussed in the succeed- ing chapters: * 1. The eastern division.— A series of present and ancient coast depo- sition plains, consisting of strata of Trinity and later age, cover the eastern half of the State, and collectively form what I call the coast- ward incline. This includes the coast prairies, the Washington prairies, the co-lignitic or forest region, the Black prairie, the Grand prairie, and the two cross timbers. The Llano Estacado may be genetically classi- fied with this region, but for the present I prefer to treat it separately. This division includes a great variety of surface aspects, and occupies the eastern third of the State of Texas. This can be shown by a line drawn through Montague, Millsap, Stephenville, Comanche, Lampa- sas, Burnet, and Del Rio. Its total area is about 172,800 square miles. The eastern half of this division is essentially similar to the adjacent lowlands of the Gulf States. The western subdivision or Black and Granid prairies are uniquely Texan and are the chalk region of the United States. 2. The central denuded region, founded upon the great Paleozoic and early Mesozoic rock sheets which dip Westward, rest unconform- ably beneath the group of the coastward incline and are exposed by the removal of the latter by erosion or by being upturned in the two great mountain systems which limit the region—the Ouachita on the north and the basin ranges of the trans-Pecos country and northern Mexico on the west. This division is between the eastern division and the great Llano Estacado, and may be classified into three principal subdivisions: (a). The country of the Coal Measures, underlaid by the peculiar sands, clays, and limestones of the Carboniferous system of rocks. It includes nearly all the eastern half of the Indian Territory, except along the Red River border, and much of the counties of Jack, Young, Palo, Pinto, Montague, Stephens, Shackelford, Eastland, Erath, Brown, Parker, Coleman, McCulloch, and San Saba. (b). The Burnet- Mason country, consisting mostly of granite and metamorphic rocks and older limestones. (c). The red bed region, including the peculiar red lands of the Concho, Abilene, Wichita, and Oklahoma regions. 3. The mountain systems.--(1) The Ouachita system of Arkansas and Indian Territory is older than the plains of the coastal system, which were laid down against it, and separates the Texas region from the Ransas. (2) The Basin Mountains, west of the Pecos and south of the Rocky Mountains proper (which end near Santa Fe), are composed of the uplifted, folded, and crumpled southward edges of the earlier of these plains, i. e., those found on rocks of Cretaceous age. The Rocky Mountains proper form the northwestern limit of the region and are not discussed in this paper. 4. Remnantal plains of later or allied age to the Rocky Mountain up- lift.—These surround the southern and eastern border and may be * The writer has made preliminary definitions of this region in three earlier papers: 1. “The Neozoic Geology of Southwest Arkansas,” vol. 2, First Annual Report of State Geologist of Arkansas. Little Rock, 1888. 2. “Classification and Origin of the Chief Geographic Features of the Texas Region,” American Geologist, Jan. and Feb., 1890. 3. Bulletin 45, U. S. Geological Survey. “Present Condition of Geo- logic Knowledge of Texas.” 58 IRRIGATION. classified as the eastern continuation of the plateau region of the West. They include the Llano Estacado and the Raton Las Vegas plateau and were once continuous with the eastern division, but have been separated by the great denudation which laid bare the central denuded region. These plains occupy 91,200 square miles of northwest Texas and New Mexico. 5. Basin Plains lie between the mountain blocks of the Trans-Pecos. region and are continuous in genesis and physical aspect with the Great Basin region of Utah and Nevada and the so-called High Pla- teau of Mexico. The Pecos and Lower Rio Grande, from Santa Fe, N. Mex., to Brownsville, Tex., marks approximately the eastern border of this great division. The country from Idaho to Tehuantepec is essentially Mexican in physical aspects. -- Each of these five grand divisions has its own peculiar features of topography, climate, geologic structure, and Water conditions. III. THE ARTESIAN CONDITIONS AND STRUCTURE OF THE EAST- ERN DIVISION, OR THE COASTWARD INCLINE. The half of Texas east of a line drawn irregularly from the western edge of Cooke County southward to the Southeastern corner of Burnet County, and from there westward to the Trans-Pecos Mountains, pre- sents a remarkably simple arrangement of its stratified rocks, so that. its artesian conditions can be easily determined. This vast area em- braces a great diversity of country and of accompanying economic con- ditions. It also has every diversity of climate, from aridity at its south- Western corner to abundant and even excessive rainfall to the eastward. In fact, its only common feature is the favorable inclination of its vari- Ous strata—Sands, chalks, clays, etc.—a most important feature in Water conditions. - This inclination coastward with the topographic slope is contrary to that of the adjacent Paleozoic and Red Bed areas (see profiles) which incline usually to the west and against the topographic slope. It is also different from the Trans-Pecos Mountains, whose rocks dip at ex- Cessive angles. If one begin at the coast and travel westward across this region he Will find that, while constantly ascending above sea level at a slight gradient, he will be descending geologically; that is, he will cross suc- cessive belts of country, each with its peculiar soil, rock, and flora, and will see that each of these different aspects is due to the rock sheet upon which the country is founded. (See profiles appended.) The soil and other surface débris, which are the weathering of the underlying rock sheets, are sandy and covered with timber, and wells are abundant if the underlying rock is sandstone; but if it is marly (chalky) clay the soil will be black, sticky, and treeless, and the water poor and SC3bPC®. The outcropping sheets of these various strata, owing to their diverse physical and chemical composition, have weathered into diverse char- acters of country, forest and prairie, broken or level exactly as the sub- structure permits. Among those subdivisions of the coastward incline ARTESLAN CONDITIONS OF EASTERN DIVISION. 59 are the following familiar belts, each of which is as different from the others as the soil of Virginia from that of Arizona: (1) The Coastal Prairie. (2) The Washington or Fayette Prairie. (3) The East Texas Timber Region; and (4) The Black and Grand Prairie Regions and Cross Timbers dis- cussed in the succeeding chapters. This great series of rock sheets, a table of which is given on the accompanying plate, is composed of alterations of pervious and im- pervious layers presenting magnificent conditions for an artesian water Supply, which will be next discussed. & These sheets, consisting of sediments deposited in and around the Gulf of Mexico during its various epochs of expansion and contraction through continental subsidence and elevation, all incline coastward at very slight angle, a little greater than the surface gradient, producing long and gentle inclinations very favorable to artesian conditions. The former western continuation of this system towards the Rocky Moun- tains has been degraded and destroyed by erosion and mountain fold- ing and later formations deposited over much of it, while other por- tions have been entirely removed, exposing the differently inclined rock sheets of the Red Beds and the central Paleozoic areas upon which the eastward system rests unconformably. (See profile, Plate 3.) By this erosion the present western edge of the main area of the coastward incline, the western border of the Grand Prairie and Upper Cross Timber regions, is constantly receding eastward. It will greatly assist the reader to grasp the arrangement of these rock sheets if the order of succession of the main beds or formations which constitute the explored crust of the earth be kept in mind. The various strata which constitute the coastward incline are superim- posed upon each other in definite order. * The arrangement of the formations of the group constituting the coastward incline may be illustrated by a package of cardboard (see Fig. 8, Plate 2), which may be imagined to represent the strata or rock sheets. When properly placed on the table, the topmost sheet repre- sents the newest geological formation or coastal prairies. A few sheets immediately beneath represent the strata of the underlying Washington prairies. Each cardboard in turn represents an older rock sheet until ...we come to the bottom card, representing the Trinity sands resting on Paleozoic rocks. Place the pile in a northwest and southeast direction, so as to uncover the upper surface of a large number of sheets, and a very correct idea of the manner in which the various geologic formations occupy the surface of the eastern half of Texas is then obtained. A is the top sheet of the pile and Z is the bottom one; and yet both are visible. If the hand is passed from A to Z along the extended pack, it must in turn traverse the exposed surface of each sheet, until it arrives at the bottom one. Further, if instead of looking from above down upon the pack, we look at the side elevation, it will be seen that the cards are no longer horizontal, but slightly tilted from northwest to southeast; in other words, they dip to the southeast. The position of the cards may be used to illustrate the succession of various kinds of soils and waters in the region under discussion. Anyone who travels across this region in a northwesterly direction, will pass over the various strata forming the surface in a similar manner. All these strata dip towards the southeast and all crop out towards the northwest. The suc- cession and outcrops of the various strata are shown in the section of 60 IRRIGATION. the country from the coast to the central denuded region. The newer formations are on the southeast, and the older formations successively occupy the country until we arrive at the Paleozoic sandstones and shales of the central region. This is the key to the succession of the various kinds of rocks in the coastward incline. - It will also be seen by beginning with the bottom sheet that the ex. posed face of each sheet forms an inclined plane of stratification, which is terminated to the eastward or lower-edge by an ascending escarp- ment formed by the edge of the next higher sheet, and upon its western or highest edge by a step-off or descending escarpment formed by its own edge. This inclined plain is known geologically as a dip-plain, as distinguished from a mesa or plateau, in which all the edges are free escarpments. All the parallel belts of country of the coastward incline ap dip-plains. The valley where the escarpment meets the dip plain is known as a valley of stratification; and there are many of these in the region under discussion, the most conspicuous of which is that of the Upper Cross Timbers. Furthermore, in traveling across these escarpments and dip-plains it will be evident that while the descents of the sudden escarpment faces are great, the gradual ascents of the dip-plains are greater in the ag- gregate, so that while the last valley of stratification is several hundred or thousand feet lower in the geological series, it is also several hundred feet higher in altitude, thus illustrating the paradox that the receiving areas of artesian well systems are often valleys. Finally, if by some great strain there should be a great fracture ex- tending across the whole pack of cards as though cut through by a knife, and one side dropped down or raised up, this would be a fault. If this fault were in the direction of the ends of the outcropping cards, it would be a strike fault; and if with the edges or the long direction of the pack, it would be a dip fault. If the dislocation or throw of these faults is great, then it will be seen that the continuity of the transmit- ting strata will be broken, thus seriously affecting the artesian condi- tions. If the down-throw be interior-ward, the receiving area may be reduced too low to afford pressure at the point where a well may be de- sired. g Now, it happens that throughout the vast region of the Grand and Black prairies there are two of these great fault lines—one of each kind— the first of which extends from near Dallas to Del Rio, via Waco, Aus. tin, Heliotes, and Uvalde, and is a strike fault which downthrows to the eastward; while the other, which extends from near Marietta, Ind. T., southeastward through Preston, Denison, and south of Paris, Tex., is a dip fault, with its downthrow interiorward, reducing the receiving area below the altitude of most of the Red River counties of Texas, where water would be desired. - This is the simple geological structure of a country embracing the whole eastern half of Texas and southern Indian Territory, an area of over 170,000 square miles, and including all the humid and semihumid regions of the State. * It is the inclination and outcrop of the different strata that produces all the various belts of country as shown in the map accompanying this paper. Especially marked is the relation of timber to structure in this eastern division of our territory. Wherever the country is an Open prairie it is underlaid by compact formations with little sand, such as clays and chalks. The coastal prairie, the Fayette prairies, the Black prairie belt, the Eagle Ford prairie, the Grand prairie, and the red bedt, are all of this class. Wherever the formation is sandy there are forests, COASTAL INCLINE AND ITS ARTESIAN BASINS. 61 as the east Texas pine woods and the lower and upper Cross timbers. Each of these different strips of country has a soil radically different from that of the others, for the soil is the surface residuum of the un- derlying structures. tº In addition to being the fundamental cause of all natural and eco- nomic differences of the coastward incline, it will be found that these different rock sheets present a very great diversity of water conditions, in accordance with their capacity for imbibition and transmission of moisture. For instance, throughout the great Black prairie region shal- low wells are difficult to obtain, owing to the poor water capacity of the º while in the sandy regions well water can be secured wherever dug for. It will also be found that within this system of rock sheets of the coastal incline are several great sheets of sand, which become the re- ceiving areas for vast artesian systems, so that throughout much of the area artesian wells can be obtained, as I shall show more specifically in the following pages. There are at least five groups of artesian water- bearing strata with corresponding artesian areas as follows: No. Artesian group. Receiving area. 1 || Coastal wells of Galveston, Houston, Gonzales, etc. ... - - - - Fayette sands. 2 | East Texas or timber belt wells, Marshall, Robertson, oto. Eo-lignitic and glauconite sands. 3 | Dallas, Denison, and Pottsboro wells...... --------------- Lower cross timber sands. 4 | The Fort Worth Waco system : Upper division.--------------------------------------. Paluxy sands. Lower division---------------------------------------- Tº Trinity sands and alternating t 6018. Each of these systems is of great importance in the economic welfare of the State, and therefore a minute description of them will be at- tempted in the succeeding pages. THE EASTERN DIVISION CONTINUED. THE COAST PRAIRIES. The coastal portion of the main land of Texas, from the Louisiana to the Mexican border, extends inland from 50 to 100 miles; and consists of a flat usually timberless plain, elevated at its interior margin not over 200 feet above the Gulf. It dips so imperceptibly eastward that it appears to be a landward continuation of the great submarine bench of the Gulf of Mexico. From the deficient drainage, the inconspicuous- ness of its waterways, and its absolute uniformity of surface, it is evi- dent that this plain is a newly-developed surface feature which has not long been reclaimed from inundation, a fact which is further attested by its want of consolidation, its substructure, and the occurrence among its fossil remains of species still existing in the adjacent waters of the Gulf. Although but a fraction of the total area of the State of Texas, this prairie is an extensive formation, occupying many hundred square miles. It is perhaps the best example of a newly-emerged coastal plain in this country. This feature can be studied along the lines of the Southern Pacific and Texas Central railways, between the Sabine and Hempstead, Tex. Stratigraphically this formation has been but little studied. The absence of timber is due to poor drainage and to the sa- linity and compactness of the structure. Its evolution and history are 62 t IRRIGATION. not pertinent to this discussion, but its age is late, Quaternary. Its in- terior margin is rolling and its transition into the next feature is abrupt. The formation, in itself, is poor in water transmission. Beneath this plain, however, there are several sheets of artesian water- bearing strata, being the same as those constituting the surface of the next regions inland, and from which Galveston, Houston, and many other places have secured artesian water. At Houston a great number of these wells have been bored, and the city is supplied with them. They are of shallow depth there and increase towards Galveston, but at the latter place they have not been so successful as at Houston in securing pure water. There are no doubt many of these water-bearing strata beneath the Coast Prairie, for there are several thousand feet of porous sands at slight intervals, of the Fayette sands and Eocene systems, and future experimentation will yield magnificent results as yet unattained. While the portion of the coastal prairie in the longitude of Houston is abundantly supplied with rainfall it is an interesting fact that its southern end deflects westward into a more arid region, where no doubt the same artesian cónditions exist, and will prove an inestimable bene- fit to the coastal country known as “southwest ' Texas, where water and irrigation are greatly needed. More is said concerning this region under the head of the Rio Grande embayment. THE WASHINGTON COUNTY BLACK PRAIRIES, Immediately westward of the coastal prairies (which it will be remem- bered are composed of clay and silts) there is another region, the chief characteristic of which is its rich black sandy soil, derived from the disintegration of a friable sandstone, composed mostly of grains of quartz cemented by calcareous matrix—a great water-bearing formation, which dips beneath the coast clays and supplies the artesian waters of the Houston-Galveston system. These prairies have been mapped out by Dr. R. H. Loughridge (see re- port on cotton production, tenth census) and the underlying formation described by Roemer, Shumard, and IPenrose, the latter having proposed for them the name of Fayette sands. These sands have a remarkable resemblance to the deposits constitut- ing the Llano Estacado and contain also the peculiar opalized wood, fossil bones, and leaves resembling those of that formation, and I am inclined to believe them the same or closer allied terranes, which once extended continuously over the entire region; and I agree with Shu- mard”. and Roemer that they are of Miocene or Pliocene age rather than Pleistocene, as has been asserted. - This formation is of great importance in that it is not only a water bearing, but throughout the area of its extent artesian wells ought to be secured from the underlying Eocene sands. The sandy strata are so pervious that they will no doubt supply the whole coastal prairie * Dr. B. F. Shumard, in 1861, announced (see Transactions St. Louis Academy of Science, Vol. 2, pp. 141,142) “that the discovery in Washington and adjoining coun- ties of an extensive development of Miocene, deposits of the Mauvaisse Terre, forma- tion of Nebraska (White River or Loup Fork?), which have yielded such a wonderful profusion of extinct mammtalians and chelonians. The Texas strata consists of cal- careous and siliceous sandstone, and white pinkish and grayish siliceous and calca. reous marls. The calcareous beds are almost wholly composed of finely comminuted and water-worn shells, chiefly derived from the destruction of Cretaceous strata, and in places abound in fossil bones (and plants) closely allied to Titanotherium, Rhinoc- eros, Equus, and Crocodilus.” - INTERESTING EVIDENCES OF EARTH WATERS. 63 region with water, especially in the more arid southwest portion. Sur- face wells are also easily obtained in this formation. As shown upon the map, these prairies extend across the State and occupy large areas of the southern counties immediately interior of the coast prairies. - OTHER ROCK SHEETS ALLIED TO THE COAST CLAYS AND WASH- INGTON PRAIRIES. ! The geology of the coastal prairies and the Washington prairies is still unraveled, but there is no doubt that each represents a coastal plain rescued in comparatively recent geologic time from the Gulf. Neither the areal extent nor the thickness of these formations has been studied and their interior margins are especially involved in obscurity. Where these margins theoretically ought to be there is evidence of shore lines, in great sheets of gravel, débris, and estuarine deposits of rivers, about which, in order to make a more complete geologic under- standing of the region, a few words will be said. • The plateau gravel.—From Arkadelphia, Arkansas, due west to Eagle Town, Indian Territory, twelve miles west of the Arkansas line, and thence southwestward across the State of Texas, via Cameron, Aus- tin, San Antonio, and thence around the Rio Grande embayment, there is a great sheet of shore gravel, except where worn away by more re- cent erosion. In Arkansas this gravel was a beach line along the south- ern slope of the Ouachitas. In Texas from the Red River to Austin the shore line was the level region of the lignitic Black Prairie and Grand regions. Southwest of San Antonio the shore was the great escarpment of the Edwards plateau, the margin of which is indented with the ancient estuarine valleys filled with gravel. In Northern Mexico great benches of this gravel are found against the Santa Rosa and its kindred mountains, bordering the southern line of the Rio Grande embayment, across which many areas of the gravel are still found preserved from later erosive destruction. This gravel has no im- portant bearing upon the artesian question, because it does not dip be- neath an underlying impervious formation ; but it is often a valuable source of spring and well waters The river terraces.—The second phase of interior detrital formations is the great second bottoms or terraces of the older river valleys through the Black and Grand Prairie regions. These are especially well de- veloped in the Red, the Trinity, Little River, the Brazos, the Colorado, and the Rio Grande. They represent estuarine conditions when the Gulf shore was very near the Western margin of the coast prairie. These terrace deposits, as seen at Denison, Dallas, Austin, Piedras Negras, and elsewhere are often 100 feet in thickness and form a fair reservoir for the Storage of Water. Springs are abundant at their con- tact with their underlying formations. THE EAST TEXAS TIMBERED REGION. Immediately interior of the Coast and Washington prairies, north of the Colorado, there sets in a region of country entirely different in most of its geologic and cultural aspects. This is the region of the great Atlantic Timber Belt, which marks the interior of the coastal plain from New Jersey to Texas and is well known in eastern Virginia, Mary- land, the Carolinas, Georgia, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, and 64 IRRIGATION. Texas, to a slight distance beyond the Colorado. The soil is the same, loose sands, clays, and gravel, with its red and white tints (dependent on the oxidation of the iron), and most of the flowers, trees, and shrubs are the same ; so that the traveler in portions of the District of * Columbia, Virginia, or other States mentioned need not stretch his imagination to believe that in his surroundings he sees this portion of the Texas region almost as well as if he were there. This region penetrates the northeastern portion of the State from Arkansas to Louisiana and continues Southward across it towards the Rio Grande, but becomes less conspicuous and almost disappears south of the Colorado River, where the climatic conditions are more arid and later formations extend further inland. The Western border of the for- est belt terminates as abruptly as if stopped by some great topographic barrier, such as a lake or a desert. The abrupt termination of the for- est is explained by the radical change in the structure and composition of the underlying formation; the western border coincides with the geographic extent of the pervious soils of the sandy formations and ceases where the compact Supercalcareous marls of the Black prairie region begin to occupy the surface. Although mostly concealed by forest, this area of northeastern Texas has an interesting topography. In riding over it, with the view obscured by dense timber, it at first glance appears to be a succession of rounded hills; but a comparison of these with an occasional flat-top drainage divide proves that the whole country is the remnant of a great degraded but still distinguish- able plain, of which the valleys are the drainage slopes. The drainage basins, because of the readiness with which the unconsolidated struc- ture yields to erosion, Occupy a far greater area than the remnants of the ancient plain in which they are carved. The present level of the rather sluggish streams is from 100 to 200 feet beneath the divides. Their flood plains or bottoms are wide and somewhat unstable. A few feet above these bottoms are the inevitable accompaniments of all the major streams of the southern cotton belt, known as second bottom, often a mile or more in width, while still above and beyond these, mark- ing the edges of the valley, may be one or more benches, usually incon- spicuous because of the unstable conditions of the unconsolidated struc- ture and the resemblance between the transported terrace material and that of the underlying beds. The flat divides and wide valleys charac- terize the whole extent of the region, which, like the entire Atlantic coastal slope, is an ancient plain, whose individuality has nearly been destroyed by erosion in its reduction to the present base level, and by the elevations and subsidences which it underwent in post-Tertiary times. Within this timbered area there is a great diversity of minor topographic and geologic features, similar to those mentioned in my Arkansas report,” the most conspicuous of which are the minor prairies and gravel beds or the Overlap or remnant of the interior extension of the Coast and Washington Prairie formations. The prevalent structure of the lignitic area is alternations of uncon- solidated sands and clays of a thousand or more feet in thickness, of the extensive formation known as the Eolignitic or basal Tertiary. These sands contain minute black specks of glauconite or limonite, which from the porosity of the formation quickly undergo oxidation, lixiviation, and Segregation, giving the country its colors and producing stratified bands of iron ores. - Although mostly east of the limits of this investigation, it is appropri- * See report of geological survey of Arkansas, vol. II, 1888, THE SUB-WATERS OF THE COASTAL INCLINE. 65 ate to speak a few words concerning the water conditions of this region. The structure, being alternations of loose sand and compact clay, pre- sents every condition for an ample supply of water, especially when we remember the abundant rainfall. This water comes to the surface as mineral springs, many to every square mile, while wells are always obtainable if located with reasonable intelligence. Artesian wells have already been secured in many places from this formation and can be secured in others. Success is merely a question of topográphic locality, for the pressure is not sufficient to cause a flow upon the high divides except along the western margin of the area, but good flowing Wells can no doubt be obtained in all the lowlands. THE CRETACEOUS PRAIRIES, INCLUDING THE CROSS TIMBER REGIONS. The chalky prairies of Texas and Indian Territory are one of the most unique and extensive geographic features of the United States, and entirely different in every scenic and cultural aspect from most of the western plains. They begin immediately west of the great Atlantic timber belt (or Eolignitic region) in Indian Territory and Texas, and extend westward to the Coal Measures and Red Beds west of the upper Cross Timbers, north of the Colorado River, the Trans-Pecos Mountains, and the basins west of that stream. Northward these prairies are lim- ited by the Ouachita Mountains of Indian Territory. Their southern border is buried beneath the Quaternary débris of the Rio Grande enu- bayment as far as Eagle Pass and the mountains of Mexico. This region, with its different prairies, each covered by its peculiar vegetation, its sweeping plains, and diverse valleys, its undulating slopes clad with mottes of live oak, its narrow strips of cross timbers, its ragged buttes and mesas, presents a landscape varied, yet possess- ing as a whole an individuality peculiarly its own. All these features, with their different tints of soil and vegetation and their varied condi- tions for human habitation, are but the surface aspects of the system of chalky rocks (chalky sands, clays, and limestones) upon which is founded and to which is primarily due every physical quality of the country. It is the great chalky region of the United States, This prairie region is also by far the most important and fertile por- tion of the State, and is the seat of its densest population, owing to the great productivity of its calcareous soils, upon which are situated the most important inland cities, such as Paris, Bonham, Denison, Sher- man, Gainesville, Fort Worth, Dallas, Waco, Weatherford, Taylor, Bel- ton, Temple, Austin, New Braunfels, San Marcos, San Antonio, Uvalde, and Del Rio. To these strata the State owes a large part of her agricultural and general prosperity, for they are the foundation of the rich black-waxy and other calcareous soils of those regions. In addition to their agri- cultural features, they are the most productive source of building ma- terial; while adjacent to their lines of strike, extending the entire length of the State and dependent upon their stratigraphy, is a re- markable area of natural and artesian wells, as seen at Fort Worth, Austin, Waco, Taylor, San Marcos, and elsewhere. This country is uniquely Texan as far as the United States are con- cerned, constituting a distinct geographic region, which, in every topo- S. Ex. 41, pt. 3—5 g 66 IRRIGATION. graphic, economic, and cultural aspect, should not be confused with other portions of our country. It coversan area of over 73,512 miles, or over one- fourth (28.27 per cent) of the total area of Texas; forming a broad belt offertile territory across the heart of the State, from the Ouachita Moun- tains of the Indian Territory and Arkansas to the Mountains of northern Mexico—an area larger than the average American State, and equal to the combined area of all the New England States. One-third of this region lies north of the Colorado River, and the remainder to the south- West. - These formations belong to two great rock systems, or series, an upper or Gulf series and a lower or Comanche series of Cretaceous age. THE MAIN BLACK PRAIRIE REGION, Immediately interior to the sandy lignitic area, and radically differ. erent from it, lies the main Black Prairie, the richest and largest con- tinuous body of agricultural land in Texas, and hence the most important in cultural as well as scientific aspect. This occupies an elongated area extending the length of the State from the Red River to the Rio Grande. The eastern border of the Black Prairie is approximately the southwestern termination of the great Atlantic timber belt. The Missouri Pacific and the International railroads from Denison to San Antonio, and the Southern Pacific from San Antonio to Del Rio, approximately, mark the western edge. A little south of the center, along the Colorado River from Austin east- ward to the Travis County line, near Webberville, the Black Prairie is restricted to its narrowest limits. From this point it widens in both directions until its broadest margins, over 100 miles in width, rest near the Red and (Rio) Grande rivers. The topography of the area was well defined some forty years ago by Dr. Ferdinand Roemer as the “sanftwelliges Hügelland,” or “gently undulating regions.” Viewed from a distance it is apparently level, but closer inspection shows it to consist of many gentle undulations which differentiate it from the topography of other prairies. Westward the Black Prairie is succeeded by a region with some superficial resemblance to it, and usually confused with it, which, how- ever, on closer study is found to differ from it in all essential points. This is the Grand or Fort Worth Prairie, or “hard limerock region,” described elsewhere. The so-called mountains west of Austin are the remains of the Grand Prairie. In general, the Black Prairie region consists of a level plain, imperceptibly sloping to the southeast, varied only by gentle undulations and deep wide drainage valleys, void of pre- cipitous cañons. It is cut through at intervals by larger streams, the valleys of which make indentations into the plain, but not sufficient to destroy the characteristic flatness of its wide divides, remnants of the orginal plain or topographic level which have not been completely scored by the later and more youthful drainage system. The altitude of the plain is between 400 and 600 feet. The surface of most of the Black Prairie region is a deep black clay soil, which when wet becomes excessively tenacious, from which fact it is locally called “black waxy.” The soil is rich in lime, which, acting upon the vegetation by compli- cated chemical changes, causes the black color. The region is exceed- ingly productive, and nearly every foot of its area is susceptible of a high state of cultivation. Large quantities of cotton, corn, and Iminor crops are annually raised upon these fertile lands, and if there were facilities for water and proper transportation it would soon be one of the leading farming districts of our country. THE BLACK PRAIRIE AND ITS WATER SUPPLY. 67 With the exception of streams which rise in other regions to the westward, and cut through it, the Black Prairie region has few running Water-courses; so that along with its excellent soil it has the draw- back that for domestic purposes its inhabitants have mostly depended upon cisterns or ponds, both of which have proved most unhealthful. The reason of this absence of surface waters, as will be shown later, is the great imbibing capacity of its soils and rocks. This region in Texas is very conspicuously divided into two sections, the larger and more important of which is north of the Colorado, while the other occupies the great embayment of the Rio Grande in Texas and northern Mexico. The main Black Prairie proper does not appear in Indian Territory. A small area of the Eagle Ford Prairie in the Chickasaw Nation, known as Carriage Point Prairie, north of Denison, has been erroneously classed with it. There are also small spots of itin southwest Arkansas, as described in my previous report on that region. (See Neozoic Geology of Southwestern Arkansas; vol. 2, Report of State Geologist. Little Rock, 1888.) THE NORTHERN DIVISION OF THE BLACK PRAIRIE. The division of the Black Prairie north of San Antonio is subdi- vided longitudinally into four parallel strips of country, differing slightly, and distinguishable only by slight differences in topography and in the underlying rocks. The easternmost of these divisions north of the Brazos River is distinguished by the occurrence of sand in its black soil, and occasionally pure belts of sand. Between the Brazos and Colorado rivers, however, the sand is hardly perceptible, while in the southern division, or Rio Grande embayment, it attains great de- velopment. Immediately interior of this strip is located the largest and most characteristic belt, which is marked by the stiffest of the black-waxy calcareous clay soils. Upon digging throughout this area, the substructure is found to consist of a light-blue marl, called by the residents, “soapstone” and “joint clay,” from its jointed and laminated structure. The surface, especially of the high undrained divides, is also accompanied in many places by minute depressions known as “hog wallows,” which are produced by the drying, cracking, and dis- integrating character of these excessively calcareous clays in poorly- drained places. This, the main portion of the Black Prairie, consti- tutes fully two-thirds of its total area. The cities of Greenville, Ter- rell, Corsicana, and Kaufman are situated near the eastern border of the sandy and black-waxy strips. Manor, Clarksville, Cooper, Taylor, and Temple are all situated in the main black-waxy belt. An outcrop of “white rock” or chalky country, forming a narrow strip averaging 2 miles in width, extending from Sherman to the Rio Grande east of Del Rio, succeeds on the west the main black-waxy belt. This chalk belt is marked by a topography more rounded and more deeply incised, but still devoid of the sharper lines of stratification which characterize the Grand Prairie region. It is occasionally marked by clumps of handsome evergreens and oaks. The western edge of the chalky belt, as seen at Oak Cliffs, near Dal- las, and at Sherman, Hillsboro, and other places, is an escarpment over- looking a valley containing the minor Black Prairie and lower Cross Timber strips. This escarpment is continuous, except where cut by rivers, above the depression occupied by the Cross Timbers to the west, from Austin to Denison, 200 miles. Like every.other slight inequality of 68 IRRIGATION. the earth's surface in Texas, this scarp is locally called “mountains.” I propose for this scarp the name of Oak Cliffs or White Rock scarp. This escarpment can be distinguished upon even ordinary maps by the small fringework of minor streams which rise at its summit and drain the dip plain to the eastward, and by the streams deflected by its strike and flowing at its base. The chalk or white rock forming the summit of this scarp is the immediate geologic antecedent of the marly clays underlying the main black-waxy area, and the one succeeds the other by easy transitions; hence I classify the white rock as a subdi- vision of the Black Prairie region. The chalk marks the western bor- der of the main body of the Black Prairie region throughout its ex- tent, but seldom has an areal outcrop of more than 1 or 2 miles in width. - THE EAGLE FORD PRAIRIE REGION, Immediately west of the Oak Cliff scarp and in its valley there is, especially north of the Colorado, another long, narrow, black waxy strip of country. This is especially conspicuous in Hill, Dallas, Grayson, Collin, McLennan, and Bell counties. (The Sixth ward of Austin is typical of this subdivision of the Black Prairie.) It is intermittent in Travis County, and occurs along an exceedingly narrow north and south, line in eastern Williamson, central Bell, and central McLennan counties, the south Bosque marking its extent in the latter county south of the Brazos. North of the last-named stream it begins slightly to widen in area, and continues as a narrow belt, averaging 10 miles in width, northward through eastern Hill, eastern Johnson, western Dallas, west- ern Collin, and western Grayson counties, for 180 miles, to the Red River. This prairie increases in area northward from the Colorado River to Red River, lying west of the White Rock scarp, and east of the Lower Cross Timbers. In Grayson County the belt abruptly turns eastward at a right angle, and runs down the upper slopes of the Red River Valley, through Grayson, Fannin, and Lamar counties, to the eastern edge of Red River; Sherman is situated at its inner angle, and its Southern margin here is approximately marked by the transconti- mental branch of the Texas Pacific Railway, from Sherman to a few miles east of Paris, in Lamar County. The southern border of this eastern Red River area is not marked by an escarpment, but by an inconspicuous fault line. Some of the richest agricultural lands in Texas are located upon this inner Black Prairie region, and its soil is usually fertile in most places. The portion of the Black Prairie southwest of the Colorado presents many radical differences from the portion north of that river. It de- flects westward into a more arid country, and instead of ending with a descending escarpment to the westward it is abruptly terminated by an ascending one—the great eastern escarpment of the Edwards Plateau. Besides these differences the whole region is covered with a thin sheet of sandy and gravelly débris, the remnant of the sea beach which in very late times extended from the southwest corner of Arkansas acroSS the State of Texas via San Antonio to Del Rio. Owing to the pres- ence of this Quaternary débris, and the great development of Sand in the beds of the Cretaceous, together with marked differences in the other physical aspects, I have separated this southern region from the Black prairies, and discuss it separately under the caption of the Rio Grande Embayment. WATER VALUE OF THE CROSS TIMBERS REGION. 69 THE LOWER CROSS TIMBERS. The western and northern border of the northern division of the Black Prairie region is terminated most abruptly by a narrow strip of timbered sandy land, extending from the Brazos to Red River, and thence down the valley of the latter stream nearly due east to Red River country, known as the Lower Cross Timbers. Although seldom exceeding 10 miles in width, this remarkable belt of timber is nearly 180 miles in length from south to north, and over 100 miles east and west from its great bend in northwest Grayson County. - The occurrence of this peculiar ribbon of upland timber between two vast stretches of prairie had long been a subject of inquiry until the writer, in 1887, investigated and published * its geology, and showed that the cause of this forest growth was the sandy soil and substructure, which Was the outcrop of a rock sheet marking the beginning of the Black Prairie series of rocks. The Lower Cross Timbers are composed of white sands and sandy clays, oxidized at the surface into ferruginous masses. Viewed from the Oak Cliff or White Rock scarp, looking westward, these timbers appear to occupy a valley, but when observed from the westward, as from Fort Worth or any point on the eastern margin of the Grand Prairie region, they apparently occupy a higher level to the eastward, appearing as low, rounded, wooded, mamillary hills. The Lower Cross Timbers and the sands in which they grow, for Some unknown reason, disappear south of the Brazos. From that stream they extend due northward to the bluff of the Red River, in Grayson County; thence they extend due east down lted River, first touching that stream in eastern Grayson County. Prom this point the river flows in the line of the timber to Pine Bluff, Lamar County, ap- parently finding in the soft Sands and clays an easy passage way for its winding channel. wº By the peculiar fault north of Denison the northern member or nar- row east and west belt of the Cross Timbers in that country is split in its length, the northern half appearing 30 miles distant in Indian Ter- ritory, extending south of old Fort Washita from the Washita River to the Boggy. The Lower Cross Timbers are admirably adapted to fruit-growing, and, as will be shown later, play a most important part in the question of artesian water. To appreciate the water conditions of this wast region it is necessary , for the reader to know the sequence of the great rock sheets of the Black Prairie and Lower Cross Timbers that compose it, their water bearing and transmitting capacity, as well as their elementary topog- raphy. GEOLOGICAL SUB-STRUCTURE OF THE BLACK PRAIRIE REGION. The rock sheets of the Black Prairie region are epitomized in the vertical sections before given.f The sandy soil of the eastern margin is the outcrop of the upper Arenaceous or Glaucomitic division, No. 5 of our section; the main Black Prairie division, the surface of the chalky clays, called Penderosa marls, No. 4; the White Rock escarpment, the * (See Geology and Geography of the Cross Timbers of Texas, American Journal of Science, April, 1887.) - f Foot note, p. 81. 70 IRRIGATION. outcrop of the Austin-Dallas chalk, aggregating about 300 feet in thick. ness, No. 3; the Minor Black Prairie, No. 2 of our section, is also com- posed of a sheet of clay, somewhat like those of the main division, and hence the similarity of its topography with that of the Lower Cross Timbers, No. 1. These are the rock sheets for which I have chosen the name of Black Prairie series. These sheets with their water capacities will now be described in ascending order, beginning with the lowest beds of the series. THE LOWER CROSS TIM BER BELS, OR DAKOTA SANDS. From the Brazos River northward and eastward along the Red River the base of the upper series is composed of a brown, more or less fer- ruginous, predominantly sandy deposit, resting unconformably upon various horizons of the beds of the Washita division, or top of the Comanche series. These sandy deposits present an infinite variety of conditions of cross-bedding, clay intercalations, lignitic patches, and vary in minuteness of size and angularity of the uncemented particles, characteristic of typical littoral deposits, while occasionally there are found fossiliferous horizons. * - The beds are well displayed along the line of the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas roads, between Denison and Whitesboro, Denton and Lewis- ville, and Alvarado and Fort Worth. There are also many bluffs along the Red River where the sand appears to advantage, as Pine Bluff, Sowell's Bluff, and others. These sands differ from those of the Upper Cross Timbers, to be dis- cussed later, in that they contain much more iron and mineral salts. In the southern and Western suburbs of Denison these sands are greatly developed. South of the Brazos River, and at Austin, they are entirely missing, a fact that may be explained in connection with certain changes of level which took place just after they were laid down, exposing them to erosion before the next division was deposited. The Lower Cross timber strata decompose at the surface into rich sandy soils, which have not been studied minutely. These support a vigorous timber growth, its structure being especially favorable for deep-rooted plants. In age and character these sands are the same as the celebrated Dakota sands of Kansas and Dakota, and equally valu- able in relation to the water supply, since they possess great capacity for imbibition. They are the receiving area for the artesian wells at Pottsboro, Dallas, and Midlothian, and when properly understood many other wells will probably be found, as will be discussed later. They in- crease in thickness toward the north and become more frequently inter- calated with clay. +4 The artesian wells at Dallas have penetrated as yet only about 50 feet of them, but at Denison they are at least 200 feet thick, while at Paris they are still thicker. The area, extent, and variations of this rock sheet are important fac- tors, since it is the present water-bearing stratum of the Black Prairie region. .r- The Eagle Ford or Benton clay shales.—These lie to the eastward and immediately above the Lower Cross Timber Sands, from which it is difficult to separate them, and are the foundation of the minor Black Prairie strip. Beneath the scarp of the White Rock (Austin-Dallas) chalk at Dallas and extending westward through the Mountain Creek country to the Lower Cross Timbers can be seen typical localities of this division, the Fºr THE ARTESIAN SUPPLIES OF CENTRAL TEXAS. 71 thickness of which I estimate at 500 feet. In their medial portion they are dark blue and shaly, highly laminated, and occasionally accom- panied by gigantic nodular septariae, locally called turtles, which have often proved a serious obstacle to well drills. The uppermost beds be- come more calcareous, grading rather sharply into the chalk. There are also occasional bands of thin, impure limestone, which are readily distinguishable from all other cretaceous limestone by their firmness and lamination. Fossil remains of marine animals are also found in these clays, including many well-preserved species, the delicate color and nacre of the shells being as fresh as when the animals inliabited them. At Austin these beds occur with less thickness, and at One place where Tenth street crosses Shoal Creek they are entirely missing, the chalk resting upon the Shoal Creek limestone. The northwestern part of the city is underlaid by these clays, which are here more calcareous and accompanied by beds of laminated limestone. South of the river, along the International Railroad, they are finely displayed in Bouldin Creek, with the characteristic blue color on fresh exposure. They also appear at San Antonio, near the cement works, and at New Braunfels, Uvalde, and other points. At Waco they form the bluffs of the Bosque, at Prather's farm, and the fish pond. North of Waco they increase in extent and thickness, forming extensive black-waxy areas in Hill, Johnson, Ellis, Dallas, Lamar, Fannin, and Grayson counties, west of the White Rock scarp. This formation is a retaining or impervious rock sheet, overlying the sands, and is not a receiving area for water. The chief economic value of the minor Black Prairie will always be its magnificent black, calcareous, clayey soil; while some of the chief geological considerations are the ascertainment of means to make this soil more easily handled and less tenacious by devising suitable mix- tures, the discovery of road-making material, and the increase of water for agricultural and domestic purposes. Owing to its clay foundation the soil now retains for plant use treble the quantity of moisture of some of its adjacent sandy districts, but surface and flowing water is almost absent. Fortunately, however, this district is also within the Central Texas artesian area, and an abundant supply of water can always be obtained south of Sherman at a depth of less than 1,500 feet; as has been seen in the course of our investigations. When this fact is fully appreciated ~. the region will be one of the most prosperous in Texas. In the valleys of most of the streams running eastward across the east half of the minor Black Prairie, another flow of artesian water, the same as at Dal- las, can be obtained at from 100 to 600 feet. The source of this water is in the Lower Cross Timber sand. - The medial and lower portions of these shales are at places bitumi- nous, as at Austin, Fiskville, Waco, San Antonio, and frequently an appreciable amount of rock oil, appears upon the surface of the waters obtained from them ; but so far there have been no indications to justify expectation that this soil occurs in any commercial quantities, the fact being rather against such a conclusion. The clays increase greatly in thickness to the northward, growing gradually less distinguishable from the Cross timber sands in the Red River country, where they can be seen in many places from Bell to Paris. At Dallas they are 525 feet thick. The Austin-Dallas chalk.-This is the thick stratum of white rock or chalk occurring in the Scarp along the western border of the main Black Prairie and separating it from the minor Black Prairie region. 72 +- IRRIGATION. The outcrop of this chalk begins in the southwest corner of Arkansas, but is not found in the Indian Territory. It crosses the Red River, but owing to the faulting does not appear westward up the south side of the Valley of that stream until reaching Sherman, from which place it de- flects southward, passing near McKinney, Dallas, Waxahachie, Hills- boro, Waco, Belton, Austin, New Braunfels, San Antonio, and Spofford Junction, beyond which it bends northward, appearing in the true mountains in the vicinity of El Paso and New Mexico. It is distin- guished above all by its peculiar chalky substructure, and so resem- bles some of the beds of the underlying Comanche and of the overlying Upper Cretaceous that until recently they have not been distinguished from them. Upon close examination, however, it is noticeable that the Lower Cretaceous beds of the Grand Prairie are more distinctly strati- fied and very much harder and generally more crystalline through pressure, solution, and redeposition of the carbonate of lime in the chalk. The topography of the Austin chalk beds is also of a milder type than that of the Comanche series. Above all, it is distinguished by its Softness and by its entirely different fossil remains. It is also distinguished from the other chalky beds of the upper Cretaceous by its greater firmness and by a higher percentage of calcium carbonate. The rock of this formation is massive, nearly pure, white chalk, usu- ally free from grit, and easily carved with a pocketknife. Under the microscope it exhibits a few calcite crystals, particles of amorphous calcite, and innumerable shells of foraminiferae. The air-dried indurated surfaces are white, but the saturated subterranean mass has a bluish- white color. The rock weathers in large conchoidal flakes with an earthy fracture. In composition it varies from 85 to 94 per cent of cal- cium carbonate, the residue consisting of magnesia, silica, and a small percentage of ferric oxide, as can be seen from the following analysis of random specimens, while the upper Cretaceous beds have only from 20 to 50 per cent : Rocky Texas. comfort. Calcium carbonate -------------------...-- * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ~ * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 82. 512 84.48 Sºlica and insoluble silicates ----------------------------------------------------- 11. 451 9. TT Ferric oxide and alumina -------------------------------------------------------. 3. 648 1. 25 Magnesia ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. 189 Trace. The thickness of this chalk is about 300 feet. As far as observed in Texas it averages the same thickness at Austin and Dallas. It is of great uniformity throughout its extent, but there are a few local differ- ences in hardness, which are sometimes due to surface induration and to igneous action, having been converted into marble at Pilot Knob, South of Austin. In the vicinity of Austin the soft chalky structure is somewhat de- stroyed by erosion and volcanic disturbances of the vicinity as the deposition of volcanic débris, and excessive jointing and faulting show, but it maintains its pure chalky aspect elsewhere. - A great portion of the former extent of it has been destroyed by ero- sion, and its western border in central Texas is now receding eastward under the influence of excessive atmospheric decomposition and denu- dation. - This chalk is the white rock which underlies Fairview Park an most of the city of Arstin. Waco is also built upon it; the Lovers Leap west of that city oeing one of the finest chalk bluffs in America. THE CHALKY MARLS AND THEIR ECONOMIC VALUE. 73 Oak Cliffs, the suburb of Dallas, as well as that city are built upon it, and also Sherman. It imbibes considerable moisture, but transmits none to speak of. Its chief value south of Dallas is that it is a land- mark by which artesian wells can be located and their depth predicted with much certainty, as will be shown later. The Taylor (or Eaogyra ponderosa) Marls.-The eastward continua- tion of the Austin-Dallas chalk is covered by one of the most extensive and valuable, but least appreciated, geological formations in the United States, a remarkable deposit of chalky clays, aggregating some twelve hundred feet in thickness, according to reported well borings and esti- mates of the normal strip. In fact these clays are so little known that no popular name has been found for them, and hence they are called from an immense fossil oyster which is found in them. They occupy the whole of the Main Black Prairie region east of the Austin-Dallas chalk, and form the basis of the rich, black, waxy soil. Notwithstand- ing their areal extent, good outcrops of unaltered structure are seldom Seen, owing to their disintegration. Usually they are seen only in ra- Vines, creeks, or fresh diggings. However, at the Blue Bluffs of the Colorado, 6 miles east of Austin, a good exposure is afforded, where these clays can be readily studied and diagnosed. They are of fine con- sistency, unconsolidated, and apparently unlaminated until exposed to weathering, when their laminated character is developed. They are light blue before atmospheric exposure, but rapidly change into a dull yellow, owing to oxidation of the contained pyrites of iron. Their ac- cessory constituent is lime in a chalky condition, and they make a black calcareous clay soil, characteristic of chalk and chalky clays, whenever their excess of lime comes in contact with vegetation. Their middle portion is apparently void of all well-preserved fossils, yet impressions are abundant in places. Toward the top, as seen one mile north of Webberville, ten miles east of Austin, they become slightly arenaceous and concretionary and very fossilferous, indicating graduation into the glauconitic division. The fauna of these concre- tionary clays at Webberville, Corsicana, and elsewhere begins to par- take of the character of that of the glaucomitic or New Jersey division, and yields an abundance of fossil species. Although not the top of the Cretaceous system, the Webberville beds are the highest exposures seen along the Colorado River section, for at that place they are overlaid by the lignitic or basal division of the Eocene Tertiary. To the north of Webberville, these sands become more extensive. The economic value of these chalky clay marls lies in the fact that they are the foundation and source of the rich soil of the main Black, Waxy Prairie of Texas, the largest continuous area of residual agri- cultural soil in the United States, apparently inexhaustible in fertility; for as the farmer plows deeper and deeper he constantly turns to light the fertile marls which renew the vitality. s As before remarked, the water conditions of the formation are very poor and the absence of a healthful domestic water supply has been one of the greatest drawbacks to the region. The very characteristics of the formation that constitute its chief value for agriculture decrease . its water conditions. The thick clays can imbibe moisture but slowly, and when saturated retain it, instead of transmitting it, as would a more sandy sheet. The surface wells are difficult to secure and the streams are sluggish and dirty. Artesian water is the great need of the main Black Prairie region, and to reach even the first water-bearing sand (that of the lower Cross 74 - IRRIGATION. Timbers) will require the penetration of two great impervious sheets, the Austin chalk and the Eagle Ford clays, in addition to the depth of the ponderosa marls, beneath the desired locality. Upon the extreme eastern edge of the outcrop (its thickest portion) two wells, one Terrell and the other Thorndale, have penetrated 2,100 and 1,700 feet, re- spectively, without reaching the bottom of the Black Prairie series. The Uppermost or Glaucomitic Division.—This division is the upper- most continuation of the Ponderosa marls. its chief difference being that the clays, chalks, and sands become glauconitic as we ascend, and that there are conspicuous changes in the fossils, which become more plen- tiful, the species of fauna partaking of the same characteristics that distinguish the Cretaceous of the New Jersey and Alabama regions, which are of the same formation. This division as it occurs in South- west Arkansas has been minutely described in my Arkansas report, but its whole detail remains to be developed in Texas, its occurrence having been affirmed only in one or two places without specific, detailed study. The glauconitic or greensand beds are mostly concealed beneath the overlap of the Tertiary and Quaternary beds, throughout their whole extent, from New Jersey to the Rio Grande, and in general it is only where these have been eroded away that they obtain an outcrop. They are first seen in two small spots in Bowie County, north of De Kalb Station, upon the Friese place, where they occur beneath the overlapping Tertiaries. This mode of occurrence is geologically known as an “inlier,” and there are several more of these glaucomitic inliers to the eastward as far as Smith and Anderson counties, all of which are in the direct line or strike of the Arkansas beds, which they resemble in every detail. To the westward, however, these beds become more conspicuous, and they attain considerable development in the southern half of the Red River tier of counties as far west as Bonham, whence they deflect southward, constituting the eastern margin of the Black Prairie as far south as Webberville, on the Colorado. Commencing in the eastern Red River country, they extend westward to the sandy beds of the division, outcropping as far west as Ladonia, Fannin County, and covering much of Delta, Hunt, Rockwall, and Na- varo counties, the brownstone marls outcropping interior of the Sands in Rickapoo, Red River country, and south of Paxton, Lamar County. The chalky beds of the glauconitic division (not to be confused with the Dallas chalk) and the similar chalks (the White Cliffs chalk and sub chalk of my Arkansas section) outcrop from Clarksville, via Paxton and Honey Grove, nearly to Bonham, but do not persist southward. In the Rio Grande embayment, southwest of San Antonio, east of Dei Rio and the Santa Rosa Mountains of Mexico, these beds again attain an enormous development, but entirely different in detail from the north Texas extension, indicating vast difference of condition in the region during the closing epoch of the Cretaceous, and resemble very much the Fox Hills and Laramie beds of the Northwest. These beds are well displayed from Eagle Pass to the Webb County line in Texas, and south of the Sabinos, between Santa Rosa and Tam- pico, Mexico. They consist mostly of the glauconitic sands alternating with limestones, clays, and beds of lignitic coal. At Eagle Pass they are fully 700 feet thick, and the whole formation may be even greater. The beds abound in fossil wood and bones, and are of great economic value as coal-producers, the mines at San Felipe, Eagle Pass, and Santa Rosa being of this formation. GPOLOGICA1, STRUCTURE OF THE REG1ON. 75 "THE GRAND PRAIRIE OF TEXAS AND INDIAN TERRITORY. This geographic feature is characterized throughout by the peculiar limestones and clays of the Lower Cretaceous formation, upon which it is founded. It differs from the Black Prairie region proper in nearly every physical feature. In general it is more elevated, its plateaus are flat instead of undulating, and its valleys are more precipitous, being benched and terraced through the unequal resistance and varying hard- ness and its alternate stratification. Its soil, except in valleys, is generally shallow and rocky, while its color tends to yellow and choco- late brown, instead of black. The chief difference however is in the hardness of the underlying rocks, which are the foundation of all the above features. These compose a beautiful substructure, whose hun- dreds of feet of white chalk and yellow magnesian layers of alternat- ing degrees of hardness give to the landscape individual tone and topog- raphy not found elsewhere in America. The western border of this region is carved into a rugged scarp accompanied by outliers of ter- raced buttes and mesas. Its interior margin begins at the Arkansas and Indian Territory line at the crossing of Little River, and extends westward 165 miles in the Territory along the southern slope of the Ouachita Mountains to the west of Marietta, from which point it turns gradually due southward across Texas. The stratification of the central area of the Grand Prairie is almost horizontal, dipping eastward less than 1 per cent, a slightly greater angle than the topographic slope. In the region of the Edwards Pla- teau the dip is less, and approximately corresponds in inclination with the surface of the plateau. In color, composition, and Scenic effects these rocks and their stratification resemble no other region of North America, but they are said by those who have seen both regions to be identical in appearance with the Cretaceous and Jurassic rocks of east- ern France and Switzerland. To this structure and its methods of disintegration is due the individuality of the topography of the Grand Prairies. After each season or rainfall the ordinary hue of dry grass is suc- ceeded by varied flowers of indescribable beauty. The Soil is usually shallow and is the residuum of the chalky substructure, which is of varying degrees of induration. Its prevalent color is dark chocolate, which readily distinguishes it from all other limestone soils in the State. Although differing in altitude, topography, and structure from the Black Prairie region, this section is not distinguished from it by some people. Owing to the shallowness of the soil and the different condi- tions of rainfall, but few upland areas of the Grand Prairie are adapted to agriculture, while nearly every acre of the Black Prairie can be util- ized. The underlying structure of the Grand Prairie is that of the Comanche series, consisting of alternations of chalky limestones and marls of varying degrees of induration and thickness. These rocks are so much harder than the Upper Cretaceous sediments underlying the Black Prairie region that the region has been appropriately called the hard lime-rock region. In Texas the eastern margin of this plain, separating it from the Black Prairie region, extends almost southward from Denison, via Whitesboro, Denton, Forth Worth (6 miles east), Cleburne, McGregor, Belton, Georgetown, Round Rock, and Austin, to the Colorado, whence it sweeps south and westward, approximately west and north of the line of the International and Great Northern and Southern Pacific railways. From Denison southward the line is marked by the western 76 *. IRRIGATION. border of the Lower Cross Timbers as far south as Waco, and thence on by an ascending escarpment (that of the Austin chalk). South of this line the margin of the Grand Prairie is marked by a descending escarpment, the Balcones fault, overlooking the Black Prairie and the ancient embayment of the Rio Grande. *. The interior border is more jagged and irregular in outline, but every- where, with the exceptions of the western border of the Stockton divi- Sion, is marked by a descending escarpment overlooking the escarpment valley of the Trinity Sands (upper cross timbers) or other lower forma- tions upon which it rests. This line is rapidly receding eastward, from the destructive erosion, thereby producing the serrated and irregular appearance. The edge of the surmounting plateau is from 300 to 500 feet above its base, and everywhere overlooks the lower and different Paleozoic region, upon which it borders. Owing to innumerable alter- nations of hard and soft layers, it presents a series of alternate benches and terraces of stratification, which are of uniform contour and extent through long distances and greatly resemble water-made terraces of lake shores. The line of this escarpment is very irregular, forming innumerable curves and points. Sometimes it follows the crossing rivers until almost the eastern margin of the region is reached, as at the valley of the Colo- rado near Austin. The entire length of this scarp, with its principal meanderings across Texas, can be little less than 2,000 miles. Accom- panying this scarp are innumerable circular flat-topped buttes, outliers of the main plateau, which have been completely separated from it by atmospheric erosion and now fringe the entire margin. These are typical “buttes,” the level mesas or tops of which are capped with the identical stratum and geological horizon which surmount the main plateau of the Grand Prairie. In symmetry of proportion and hori- Zontal position of the composing strata and in clearness of every detail of Structure, there are no grander or more unique examples of atmos- pheric erosion in our country. Often these buttes, like Double Moun- tain, in Stonewall County, are 40 to 100 miles from the main area of the Grand Prairie, ans invaluable landmarks in tracing the history of its degradation. Among the most characteristic and typical buttes are Comanche Peak, Hood County; Double Mountain, Johnsons Peak, Round Mountain, Santa Anna Mountain, San Saba Peak, Church Mountain, Castle Mountain, Pilot Knob of Williamson County; the Two Star Mountains in Hamilton and Comanche counties, and Post Mountain, in Burnet County. - It seems clear that these escarpments and mesas are the effect of erosion, and they illustrate the rapid disintegration the region is under- going. If this be true, it requires no stretch of the imagination, espe- cially when the fragmental patches like Santa Anna and Double Moun- tain are considered, to see that but a short time since in geological times the rocks of the Grand Prairie extended westward to the region now overlaid by the Staked Plains, completely covering the central Paleozoic area and the Red Beds region of the State. Much of the erosion took place in the Llano Estacado epoch and converted the débris into that formation. Along the thirty-second parallel from Sweetwater to Pecos it can be . seen that the Westérn extent of the Comanche Series formation is buried beneath the Llano Estacado formation, without any well marked or defined escarpment. West of the Pecos and southeast into Mexico as far as Santa Rosa the western border of the Grand Prairie is broken by great mountain uplifts, which have folded, faulted, and tilted at every angle. “.. MARKED FEATURES OF THE REGIONAL GEOLOGY. 77 Thus the northwestern margin of the Grand Prairie region in Indian Territory and Texas is being destroyed by erosion. A narrow central neck between the Pecos and the Colorado is buried beneath the Llano Estacado formations, and its southwestern edge is broken by the great mountain uplifts of that region. The Grand Prairie has many diverse surface features, dependent upon the character of the underlying beds. The eastern margin is usually composed of treeless dip-plain prairies with a black or brownish soil de- rived from the underlying beds of the Washita division. The Caprina limestone and Comanche Peak beds usually outcrop as the cap and es- carpment of the buttes and mesas. At the base of these there is usually a wide valley of fertile chocolate soil, the walnut clays, which are the chief productive soil of the valleys of the region. The grand prairie can be subdivided into four conspicuous areas: 1, a northern or Indian Territory division; 2, a central or Fort Worth di- vision, lying between the Red and Colorado rivers; 3, a southwestern or Edwards division, lying southwest of the Colorado and east of the Pecos; 4, a Stockton division, lying between the Pecos and Trans Pecos moun- tal D.S. The Indian Territory division of the Grand Prairie begins at the Ar- kansas line in the slopes of Little River, where admist the dense forest of the great Atlantic timber belt, with its characteristic flora, small spots of limestone prairie appear with the rich luxuriant grass and pe. culiar flowers of the Grand Prairie. Going westward the timber belt becomes more and more confined to the alluvial river bottoms, and the spots of Grand Prairie increase the divides of the central streams flowing into the Red River from the north. These prairies strike east and west, and are true dip plains, inclining due south. The plains of the Kiamitia (between Kiamitia and Little River), the Goodland prairie (between the Kiamitia and the Boggy), the Caddo prairie, between the Boggy and the Blue, the Washita prairie, between the Blue and the Washita, and the Marietta prairie, are of this class; that is, they consist of black lands underlaid by the limestones of the Comanche series (the Denison, Fort Worth, Duck Creek, and Goodland beds in the Indian Territory). These plains in the Indian Territory are seldom over 5 or 6 miles wide, and dip southward beneath the lower cross-timber region in which the Red River flows, from the east line of Grayson County to Towson. The interior border is the descending escarpment overlooking the long and narrow timbered Trinity valley (Upper Cross Timber), a nar- row valley extending northward between the plains and the moun- tains. - An interesting feature of this Indian Territory division is its low altitude, that being some 300 feet below its corresponding Texas por- tions, owing to its occupying the downthrow of the great northwest and southeast fault extending from Marietta via Preston, Denison, and Bells, Tex., for over 50 miles. By this fault the Indian Territory con- tinuation of the Texas region has dropped down, a fact which has a most important bearing on the artesian question, as will be shown later. West of this fault the strike of the plain and formations changes from due east and West to north and south; also a most important and inter- esting fact. The continuity of this narrow strip of the Grand Prairie in Indian Territory has been broken by all the through cutting streams, which have wide and deep valleys of the Quaternary terraced, or second bottom type. The Central or Fort Worth division of the Grand Prairie.—This is the prairie region of central Texas, north of the Colorado, lying between 78 - IRRIGATION. the two Cross Timbers belts of Texas, as far south as they extend (the lower or eastern to the Brazos), and west of the Black Prairie region between the Brazos and the Colorado. The Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway from Denison to Austin almost follows its eastern bor- der. The valley of the Upper Cross Timbers forms the western margin south to the Brazos, and thence southwest to Comanche County. From this point southeast to Travis County the margin of the drainage valley of the Colorado forms the line. From northern Comanche County there extends westward some 200 miles, just north of the thirty-third parallel, a long line of flat-topped buttes and mesas, the drainage divide of the Colorado and Brazos riv- ers and the remnant of the former eastward extent of the Llano Esta- Cado. The central or Fort Worth division of the Grand Prairie is a typical dip plain or a series of dip plains lying along the descending escarp- ment of the central denuded region on the west and dipping beneath the ascending escarpment of the Black Prairie (Austin chalk) and Lower Cross Timbers on the east. The eastern portion of the prairie is comparatively level, like the Indian Territory division, being underlaid by the Washita beds; but as we go westward it becomes more broken, Uecause erosion has worn it down to succeeding lower and lower levels, resulting in some of the most beautiful and characteristic scenery in the country. It consists of wide and fertile valleys, surrounded on all sides by imposing sym- metrical buttes of the Comanche Peak type, such as the valleys of Hood, Bosque, Erath, Comanche, Hamilton, Bell, Williamson, Coryell, and Lampasas counties. The buttes and mesas are of white chalky limestone, the Comanche Peak Group of Shumard. The Southern or Edwards Plateau division of the Grand Prairie.—The Colorado River cuts a very deep caſion through the Grand Prairie, in Travis County, separating the Central or Fort Worth Division from the Southern or Edwards Plateau. The last-mentioned area is that ortion of the Grand Prairie south of the Colorado and east of the ecos, and it differs greatly from the other areas. Its width is greater than its longitude, and as it lies mostly within the truly arid region it is less adapted to agriculture. Its surface is also more uniform, being composed of hard limestone strata, and is a typical mesa or plateau as distinguished from a dip plain, since its surface, except where it joins the Llano Estacado on the north, terminates on all sides by a descend- ing escarpment instead of dipping beneath some newer formation, as do all the other divisions of the Grand Prairie. In fact, it is but the south- east continuation of the floor of the Great Llano Estacado, from which the Llano beds have been eroded. Hitherto this division has had no specific name, having been usually called “the mountains '' from the escarpments which surround it. I now propose for it the name of Edwards Plateau, from Edwards County, where it is greatly developed. This plateau is an extensive topographic feature and consists of a vast rocky plain of hard limestone, covered by a scrubby growth of mes- Quite, nopal (Opuntia), and prosopis, or false laurel. It is a good graz. ing country for sheep, but little adapted to agriculture, except in small patches of creek bottom, owing to the intense dryness of its rocky Sub- Structure. § e The downthrow eastward of the great fault, which is the cause of the escarpment and which is visible even as far north as Waco, does not become conspicuous until south of the Colorado-Brazos divide, 10 miles north of Austin. From that point southwest to Del Rio, where it crosses RELATIONS OF THE TEXAS PLATEAU SECTIONS. 79 into Mexico, it becomes more and more conspicuous as a great escarp- ment line, visible to the westward of the International Railway as far South as San Antonio, and from that point westward, north of the Southern Pacific Railway, the direction of the portions mentioned of both of these roads being influenced entirely by it. To this eastward escarpment of the Kerrville Plateau the natives have applied the ap- propriate name of the Balcones. - So little adapted to agriculture is the summit of the Edwards Plateau that its extent upon the map can almost be traced by the ab- sence of post-offices and other evidences of population. The northern border of the plateau is marked by the cañon of the Colorado from Austin to Travis Peak and thence by an irregular es- carpment running westward through Gillespie, Mason, and Kimble counties, where it turns westward through Menard and McCulloch, forming the boundary of the Llano Burnet Paleozoic area. It turns Westward and southward through Concho and Southern Tom Green counties, and thence forms the irregular breaks of the Concho River and is merged into the Llano Estacado in Howard, Martin, and Midland counties. This is a true escarpment of erosion. An examination of the map will show that the Edwards Plateau proper east of Pecos occupies nearly the whole of the counties of Pecos, Edwards, Crockett, Schleicher, Valverde, Bandera, and about one-half of the counties of Kinney, Uvalde, Bexar, Hays, Comal, Concho, Tom Green, Irion, Upton, and Crane, and a small portion of Travis. In TJpton and Midland counties the rocks of the plateau becomes the prevalent floor of the Llano Estacado formation which prevails to the northward. Here its narrowest width is found. After crossing this narrow neck for about 50 miles the westescarpment is reached in which are the breaks of the Pecos Valley and which continues southward along that stream to the Rio Grande, forming a valley from 500 to 1,000 feet deep. The greater part of the summit of the Edwards Plateau, like the Llano Estacado, is void of streams. Its eastern margin, however, is indented by a number of streams which are among the most beautiful in the State of Texas. These streams constitute a natural group of rivers and usually have enormous caſions in proportion to their volume. They are mostly mountainous towards their head waters, but near the point of emergence from the Balcones escarpment they flow through their own débris in caſions and Valleys vastly out of proportion to their present volume, which no doubt represent the former deposition level of the Rio Grande embayment. From the coastward border of the Ed- wards Plateau flow beautiful streams of water. Although of secondary agricultural value in itself, this vast plateau has a most important bearing upon the Water question. It will be well to observe that there are no sharp topographic or structural barriers between the Edwards Plateau and the Llano Esta- cado, and that the difference between them is only in the surface forma- tion, the beds of the latter overlapping the former along the thirty-sec- ond parallel. Together they constitute a single vast mesa 500 miles long, 280 in width, surrounded on all sides by escarpments, indented by the head waters of rivers which have their source in the underground drainage from the basal Scarps of this table-land. While composed of the different foundation strata the Edwards Plateau, topographically and hydrographically, should be considered a portion of the Llano Estacado phenomena. Another interesting fact of the Edwards Plateau is the series of ancient volcanic necks along its southeastern margin, from 80- IRRIGATION. Austin to Del Rio, to which I have previously given the name of Shumard Knobs. - The major rivers, the Red, Brazos, Colorado, and Rio Grande, have also deep cut into and almost through the formation underlying the Grand Prairie, and their drainage valleys present the same atmospheric terracing as its western border. In places the river valleys assume the aspect of vertical cañons, as in the Colorado, Pecos, and Rio Grande. The depths of these different valleys increase below the level of the plains southwestward from 200 to 700 feet. The Stockton Plateau.-The fourth and last subdivision of the Grand. Prairie lies west of the Pecos, east of the Davis-Chisos mountains, and South of the thirty-second parallel. It is practically a continuation of the Edwards Plateau but is separated from it by the great cañon of the Pecos. The northern edge of this area is buried beneath the plains formation, while its southwestern border is faulted and upturned in the mountain blocks of the Trans-Pecos region and northern Mexico. The area lies almost wholly within Pecos County, a small portion crossing Over into Mexico. For the most part it is a sterile, unwatered district, wholly within the arid region, but much of it can be made available by securing underground water. - The Altitudes of the Grand Prairie.—The Grand Prairie as a rule slopes coastward and increases in altitude interiorward from the gulf. Its altitude above the sea level is least at the extreme northeast corner (the east end of the Indian Territory division), where it is only 500 feet, and is 2,500 feet along the southwestern edge, where it is broken into mountains. The eastern edge is between 500 and 600 feet in height for 300 miles from its beginning in Indian Territory until it makes the southwestern deflection south of Austin. The western edge varies from 1,000 feet at Red River to 3,000 on the Rio Grande. The gradient or slope of the plain can best be understood by the sections and profiles accompanying this volume. It will be seen that it is 14 feet per mile from Goodland to Red River, in Indian Territory; 13.8 feet per mile from Weatherford to Handley, through Fort Worth; 13.3 per mile from Dublin to Waco; 34 feet per mile from Burnet to George- town; 28.5 feet per mile from Manchaca to the high points north of Blanco, and 7.8 feet per mile from the later point across the main Ed- wards Plateau. From the foregoing data it is evident that the slope of the Grand Prairie averages from its beginning, near the Arkansas-Choctaw line, about 14 feet per mile for 300 miles; at the Brazos-Colorado divide it increases to 34 feet per mile. From this point southward the Edwards division shows a steep gradient for a few miles along its eastern bor- der of 28.5 per mile, and upon the summit of the plateau decreases to 8 feet per mile. The ratio of this gradient of the surface to the incli- nation of the rock sheets is a guide to the determination of the arte- sian possibilities. The Structure of the Cretaceous Grand Prairies.—All the features de- scribed, as well as the water and soils, are the products of the unique geologic structure which underlies the Grand Prairie. This consists of a series of almost horizontal sheets of rock, to which the writer has given the name Comanche series, of different degrees of hardness, en- durance, and chemical composition, as well as different capacities for the imbibition and retention of water. It is to the different weathering of these rock sheets, also, that the agricultural soil or rock waste, the variation of forest and the prairie, and other features are due; and hence, NATURE OF STRATA AND RELATIONS TO WATER. 81 before the water conditions can be understood, the sequences of these rocks and their differences must be understood, although they at first may appear to be simple and unimportant. sº This system of rock varies in thickness, as a whole, from 500 feet at its northeastern outcrop to 3,000 feet at the southwestern, the Series increasing 3 feet per mile in thickness to the southward. This system of rock sheets can be divided into three conspicuous divisions, which outcrop in parallel belts along its length, the lowest to the westward and the highest to the eastward. They are as follows: (1) The Washita or eastern and uppermost division ; (2) The middle chalky, or Comanche Peak (Fredericksburg) division ; (3) The Trinity or Basal and western division. The Trinity or Basal division may be called the great water-retaining division. The Trinity sands do not occur on the prairie proper, but in the valley of its western escarpment. The Comanche Peak or Fred- ericksburg division is the great escarpment and mesa formation, While the Washita division may be understood as the eastern or dip-plain formation. The Comanche Peak and Washita beds are not Water- bearing, but serve as impervious retaining strata. With these facts in mind let us examine the beds of the divisions a little more in detail.” THE TRINITY DIVISION. This is the great water-receiving formation of Texas, and is of the utmost importance in the consideration of the artesian question. These sands may be divided into a basal or sandy and an upper or calcareous division, the Trinity sauds proper and the Glen Rose (or alternating beds), respectively. The Trinity or Upper Cross Timber sands.--While in many places these vary from the underlying floor in material of composition, they are usually composed of fine white cross-bedded sand, locally known as pack sand, lmostly unconsolidated, very porous and calcareous, yet sometimes free from lime. In places there are deposits of small jasper and quartz pebbles, seldom exceeding a pigeon egg in size, round and worn, and often cemented by a matrix of iron and lime, sometimes harder than the pebbles. This pebble deposit is of various hues, white, black, and jasper red, and often remains as a residuum over large areas of the red beds and Carboniferous strata, from which the post-Trinity beds have been denuded, as seen in Taylor, Tom Green, Nolan, Mon- tague, and many other counties of the Abilene aud gypsum country and along the western margin of the Llano Estacado. Silicified wood and occasional fragments of hard lignite occur, the latter seldom, if ever, in continuous beds or strata, but as if the remnant of some sol- itary log or tree floated out from shore. º These sands, although higher in altitude than the eastern half of the prairie region, usually occur in a great valley of stratification that border coastward by an ascending escarpment, beneath which they dip (see Upper Cross Timbers). Owing to the unconsolidated pulveru- lent nature of these sands, they are eroded more rapidly than the adjacent scarp or the underlying floor. As a result of this rapid denudation, the * The Comanche series has been partially described by the writer and others in several previous papers, for which see American Journal of Science, April and October, 1887; American Geologist, January, February, 1890; Report Geological Survey of Arkansas, Vol. 2, 1888; Report Geolo ist of Texas, 1890; Bulletin of the Geological Society of America, Vol. 2, 1891. sº S. EX. 41, pt. 3—6 82. g IRRIGATION. main area of Trinity exposures north of the Brazos is in a narrow val- ley, seldom exceeding 10 miles in width, which extends nearly 500 miles irregularly northward from the Brazos to the mountains of Indian Territory, and thence eastward to Murfreesboro, Ark. This valley is bounded coastward in Texas by the escarpment of the more indurated material of the Glen Rose beds, and southward in Indian Territory by the Goodland limestone scarp. The Trinity or Upper Cross Timber Valley is a most marked topographic feature in the Arkansas-Texas region. These sands can be seen in the valley of the Upper Cross Timbels in contact with the underlying Carboniferous and the overlying Glen Rose beds all along the western margin of the Grand Prairie, as at Millsap, Bowie, De Leon, Lampasas, but in places around the immediate peri- meter of the Burnet-Llano region, the Paleozoic continent persisted above the Trinity shore line until the Comanche Peak epoch. Fifteen miles south of Burnet, however, in another pre-Trinity topographic valley, now followed by the Colorado River below Smithwick Mills, the lithologic nature of the beds is different. Here they consist of coarser rounded pebbles of Silurian and Carboniferous limestones and Llano schist, as well as quartz from the Burnet granite, and fine cross-bedded sands and shell débris (resembling, as seen at Travis Peak post-office, in the bed of Cow Creek, the Florida coquina). The Trinity beds are there in contact unconformably with hard Carboniferous and Silurian limestones, and contain much débris of the Burnet granite. They also vary in composition and thickness with the irregularities of the floor. West of the ninety-eighth meridian the Trinity sands are deposited unconformably upon the various beds of the “Permo-Triassic " or red beds, as seen along the base of the remnantal Cretaceous mesas of the Colorado-Brazos divide, Nolan, Taylor, and Mitchell counties. Where the underlying beds are of unconsolidated material, as in the Red River region of northwestern Texas, the remnantal sands often occur over extensive upland areas, as seen east of Abilene, in Taylor County, and in other places. Some of the sand hills along the western escarpment of the plains are also of this nature. This formation, although of lim- ited areal exposure, has a wide range of occurrence along the interior border of the more calcareous beds of the Comanche series from south- western Arkansas to New Mexico. It is usually absent along the eastern front of the Rocky Mountains, from Las Vegas, N. Mex., north- ward, unless the Atlantosaurus beds at Canon, Colo., are synchro- nous, which is not yet known. A portion of the sands of New Mexico described by Marcou and Stevenson, which occur northeast of Santa Fe and at other points near the intersection of the Pecos River, are probably of this formation and may mark its western border. Upon careful comparison I am also inclined to think the white belt of Tucum- cari Mesa, New Mexico, and the escarpments of the adjacent Llano Estacado and Las Vegas Raton plateaus are composed of the Trinity sands. Fragmental areas of this terrane are also seen between the Pecos and the escarpment of the Llano Estacado in southeastern New Mexico, east of Eddy, indicating its extent beneath the Tertiary plains. In southern Kansas the Cheyenne sandstones have been ascribed to this age by Cragin. South of the Colorado and east of the Pecos the occurrence and ex- tent of the sands are concealed by the overlying limestones; and after many journeys in northern Mexico and southern Texas I have been unable to find the base of the Comanche limestones exposed in these regions, except in the vicinity of Miquibuana and Catorce, Mexico. Water conditions.—The imbibing capacity of the pack Sands of the *... THE TRINITY SANDS AS A WATER RESERVOIR. 83 Trinity is very great, for nearly every drop of rainfall upon them is absorbed and transmitted beneath he Grand Prairie, for artesian use. The thickness of the Trinity sands is variable, but from artesian bor- ings at Waco and Fort Worth I estimate it to be from 300 to 500 feet, which together with the known area of the sheet beneath the Grand Prairie of thousands of square miles makes a grand storage reservoir, which saturâted with 25 per cent of its volume of water would be equiv- alent to billions of gallons. While it is doubtful if artesian flow water can be obtained, as a rule, in the area of outcrop of the Trinity sands, there is one well at its eastern margin, Bluff Dale, where there is a Small flow. Abundant nonflowing wells are obtainable everywhere throughout the region, however, at shallow depths, and if these are large and deep enough, they can most probably be used for garden irrigation. The southeastern part of the town of Comanche is situated in these sands, and the abundant well water of that place is derived from them. The Glen Rose beds.—The basal sands of the Trinity division just described are succeeded in continuous depositions by a group of strata which are of great importance to the water question, owing to their great capacity for water. These are composed of soft yellow magnesian fossiliferous beds, sandy at base, alternating in dimension layers with an exceedingly fine argillaceous sand, with occasional layers of porous, chalky, and magnesian limestones and are often oëlitic in structure. At Mount Bonnel, west of Austin, this oëlitic structure is seen in many of the layers of indurated stones and marls, while nodules and geodes of beautiful anhydrite, calcite, and strontianite crystals are quite abundant and are of value as a means of identifying the terrane. There are in these beds many layers of dimension stone of almost identical lithologic character with that of the celebrated Caen quarries of France, so largely imported into our northern seaports. This stone is extensively quarried near Weatherford, Granbury, Belton, Oatman- ville, Kerville, and other places, and will no doubt some day occupy an important position in the resources of our country. The unequal weathering of the hard and soft layers produces in the eroded topography a beautiful bench and terrace effect, so much re- sembling ancient shore lines along the western escarpment of the Grand Prairie, where it overlooks the Trinity Valley and the tower Paleozoic beds from which it has been eroded, that earlier geologists have often confused these features with shore topography. On fresh fracture these rocks are usually white or of an intense orange or yel. low color, but weather into a dull gray. The Glen Rose beds north of the Colorado-Brazos divide are exposed- along a narrow area occurring as a prairie strip in the heart of the upper Cross Timbers. Their first appearance northward is in the western part of Wise County, and they increase in area southward in Parker, Hood, Erath, and Comanche counties. They constitute much of Hood, Somerville, Comanche, Lampasas, Bell, Travis, and Burnet counties, occurring in the slopes of the rivers. These beds do not outcrop in Indian Territory, owing to the overlap of later deposits, but appear in Arkansas from Ultima Thule eastward to Murfreesboro; the limestone layers described in my report on Ar- kansas under the general classification of the Trinity sands belong to this terrane. In the counties of southwestern Texas, between the |Pecos and the Colorado and south of the Burnet-Llano Paleozoic region, these rocks attain a great thickness and form the mass of the 84 IRRIGATION. Edwards plateau. The Guadalupe, Comal, Nueces, Frio, Medina, and Devils rivers have their origin in these alternating beds. They also constitute the prairie spots in the upper Cross Timbers, between Weatherford and Millsap, on the Texas Pacific road, and all the slopes of the valleys, except Comanche Peak, around Gransbury and Somerville. The hills (except the highest summits) around Lam- pasas, and in Travis County, west of Austin, are familiar examples of these beds. They are beautifully stratified and their rich yellow tints make unique landscapes.* In the southern area these beds, which are assumed to be the base of the true Cretaceous, are surmounted by the Walnut clays or Exogyra texana beds. North of the Lampasas they are overlaid by the Paluxy sands, an arenaceous, water-bearing terrane of great economic impor. tance hitherto unrecognized and undifferentiated from the Trinity divi- SIOI). The total area of the outcrop of these beds is large, and they are an important factorin the water question, for they imbibe water for the artesian supply almost as readily as the Sands. Upon Mount Bonnel and elsewhere it is noted that immediately after a rainfall the oëlitic marls of these beds so completely imbibe the moisture that the roads are made firmer and better for travel instead of becoming muddy. The thickness of the beds between Comanche Peak and Paluxy is 300 Jeet, while along the Colorado Cañon they average about 425 feet, as seen in sections accurately measured under my direction by Messrs. Taff and Drake. It is important to note that these water-bearing beds are merely an upward continuation of the Trinity Sands, enormously increas- ing the whole thickness and areal extent of the artesian area. The lower Cross Timber sands, on the other hand, are capped directly by very impervious clays, which decrease the downward passage of mois- ture into them. . The Palway sands.—North of the Colorado-Brazos divide the alternat- ing beds of the Trinity division are succeeded by a sheet of fine white pack sand, oxidizing red at the surface, about 100 feet in thickness, closely resembling the Trinity sands and often mistaken for them. They outcrop along the eastern edge of the Brazos Valley, in Parker and Hood, and also in Erath, Comanche, Coryell, and Bosque counties. South of the Colorado-Brazos divide they disappear, the Comanche Peak division resting directly upon the Glen Rose beds. These beds are especially conspicuous southwest of Granbury, forming the timbered upland of that region, along the line of railroad between Granbury and Stephenville and around the base of Comanche Peak. The Paluxy sands, which are so called from the town and creek of that name in Somervel County, can first be separated from the Trinity sands in Wise County at a point between Decatur and Alvord. At Decatur the beds are well developed. In general character they are somewhat similar to the Trinity sands, but there are differences. The Paluxy sands have none of the fine pebbles which characterize the base of the Trinity and are more calcareous and argillaceous in places, while those of the Trinity are more ferruginous. At Decatur the Paluxy sands contain layers of honeycomb bed and very argillaceous limestone. The gradation from the Paluxy to the * In the mountains of northern Mexico the beds again appear through the inter- vening Tertiary plain as a part of the Santa Rosa and Arboles ranges, but they are - glºphored into a hard blue limestone, which has been mistaken by some for 11Ullſiall, THE WATER STORAGE QUALITY OF THE SAND. 85 overlying and underlying beds at Decatur is also rather gradual. At Comanche Peak the sands form the plain upon which the butte stands, making a belt of forest region surrounding its base. Here the beds have a thickness of about 100 feet, and of a character similar to that at Decatur. West and south of Comanche Peak they occupy a consider- able area, while they extend many miles down the Brazos, finally dis- appearing at Bluff Mills near Kimball where they make the shoals over which the river runs. Jonesboro, Coryell County, is situated directly On the outcrop of these sands, and the Lanham road northward from the town crosses it several times. A few miles north of Jonesboro the sands have a thickness of only about 15 feet, showing a decrease to the south. The transition from the Paluxy sands to the underlying beds is a little more gradual, for which reason these sands are placed in the Comanche Peak division. The sand is stratified and occasionally cross bedded, and there are local hardenings. The color varies from gray to yellowish, and the amount of ferrugination which is here found is variable. The sand is also marked by the growth of forest timber, largely post oak, though. smaller growths, as sumac, also occur. The sands probably extend for a considerable distance down the Leon Valley, although it is difficult to determine their exact extent on account of confusion with the drift of the Leon River, composed of this débris. The sands appear only in scattered spots further toward the south. Thus, east of Burnet, on the Mahomet road, they appear as occasional areas of reddish sandy lands, bearing a growth of post oak. Sometimes these localities are very small and may be seen on one side of a slight valley of erosion, but not on the other at the same level. Elsewhere, however, they have a very consid- able and unmistakable outcrop, as, for instance, near the junction of Northern and Russell forks of San Gabriel River. To the northward the Paluxy sands increase in development, over- lapping interiorward the Glen Bose and the Trinity beds and abutting against the mountain area in Indian Territory from a point west of Ardmore eastward to the Arkansas line, where they occupy the escarp- ment valley of the basal Comanche Peak beds of Preston limestone. They also appear at Preston Bluff near Denison. These sands, which the writer has hitherto classed with the Trinity and which may yet prove to be inseparable from them, have been traced by him during the past year from the Arkansas line westward. At no place in Indian Territory east of the ninety-seventh meridian do the Glen Rose beds out- crop, and it is his opinion that they still remain concealed there by this unéroded overlap of the Paluxy sands, for the Glen Rose beds are again exposed beneath them in Arkansas. The absence of these sands south of the Color: n-Brazos divide can best be explained on the hypothesis that the near-shore sedimentation diminished from the mainland area to the southward and by the exist- ence of the buried pre-Trinity and the pre-Paluxy topographic protu- berance of Carboniferous limestone, which persisted above the Trinity waters in the Burnet area until the Comanche Peak epoch, and ex- tends from northern Burnet and Llano counties eastward into Lam- pasas County, and then divides the country into a northern embayment and a southern open sea. The presence of this ridge is shown by the difference of level in the pre-Comanche floor, as exposed by the erosion of the Comanche sediments at Lampasas and Burnet, and by the hori- zontal deposition of the latter upon its unequal altitudes. This is especially well shown in a profile from Burnet to Smithwick-Mills post- office, the Carboniferous floor being revealed in unconformable contact with the Trinity at all altitudes from 650 to 1,200 feet. 86 IRRIGATION. The Paluxy sands are also a water-bearing sheet, and increase the thickness of the water-bearing group (the Trinity, Glen Rose, and Paluxy beds). It is this sand which supplies the first water struck in the Waco and Fort Worth Wells. , South of the San Gabriel it can not be expected. The impervious beds of the Comanche Peak and Washita divisions.— The strata succeeding the Paluxy sands are mostly impervious or re- taining layers, by aid of which the water in the previously described formations is confined under pressure to greater depths. These sheets in ascending order are as follows: 1. The Gryphaea rock and Walnut clays.-The Paluxy sands are every. where succeeded throughout their extent by a remarkable stratum of oys- ters (Gryhpaea pitcheri)occurring sometimes in solid masses from 10 to 50 feet thick, and in some places imbedded in a calcareous matrix. This sheet is sometimes underlain and overlain by yellow laminated marls containing a flat oyster (Exogyra texana, Roemer). Hence the Gry- phaea rock and Exogyra clays must be discussed as one sheet. The yellow clays also contain occasional flags of hard, crystalline limestone, composed largely of shells of Exogyra texana. For these the name of Walnut clay is proposed, after their characteristic occurrence at Wal- nut, Bosque County. * º * At Comanche Peak this great oyster bed and the clays encircle the base of the butte, forming a well-marked bench around the mountain. Below them are the timbered Paluxy sands. The shells are more or less loosely cemented, and form one of the most unique rock sheets in our country. This stratum, which is an invaluable guide to well borers, extends from the Trinity to the Lampasas and is beautifully exposed in the counties of Parker, Wise, Hood, Erath, Comanche, Hamilton, Cor- yell, Bell, and Lampasas, forming a foundation for the Walnut clays, whose exposure is coincident with it. The Walnut clays, which are alternating strata of thin limestone flags and yellow clay marls, are accompanied by inconceivable numbers of the flat ear-shaped oyster (Eaogyra teacana, Roemer). These clays weather into exceedingly fertile chocolate-colored soil, forming the chief agricultural valleys of the Grand Prairie division. In extent these beds coincide with the Gryphaea breccia. North of the Lampasas they are separated from the Glen Rose beds by the Paluxy sands. South of that river they rest directly upon these sands, and constitute a prominent topographic bench or plain near the summit of the buttes, as seen west of Austin in Travis County. 2. The Comanche Peak chalk.-Overlying the Walnut clays and suc- ceeding them rather abruptly is a more chalky rock sheet, for which Dr. Shumard proposed the name of the Comanche Peak beds. This chalk is the formation constituting the slope of the mountain (butte) between its base of Walnut clays and the cap rock. The chalk is hard but readily disintegrates and usually occurs as the slope or escarpment of the buttes and mesas. It is exceedingly fossiliferous and its numerous and char. acteristic species are given in my check list. The thickness of this bed averages about 100 feet in central Texas, but it thins rapidly to the northward and thickens to the southward. The beds grade upward into the Caprina limestone, from which it is differentiated, however, by displaying more regular and frequent lines of stratification and by its crumbling nature. The beds are sometimes covered with growth of rather thin scrubby Oaks, but usually they are bare, and can be readily distinguished by their whitish slopes, as seen near Ben Brook west of Fort Worth. The THE CHA Li'S AND LIMESTONES OF WESTERN TEXAS. 87 Soil is thin or absent, and the angular fragments of the weathering rocks make up the surface. Frequently, however, there are large areas Over which the Comanche Peak horizon extends as the surface of the formation. * 3. The Caprima limestone.—Topographically this is an important fac- tor in Texas, since its superior hardness and resistance have preserved it as the capstone of the innumerable round “mountains” (buttes), mesas, and plateaus of the central portions of the State, where it forms great rocky plains of resistance to denudation. So perfectly does this limestone find expression in the topography that its extent can readily be traced by the highest contours of the topographic maps of the United States Geological Survey of Coryell, Bell, and other counties. It may be said to be the determining factor in the topography of the region. All the buttes or so-called mountains north of the Colorado are capped by it; the great Scarps which often run for miles overlooking the prai- ries to the west represent the same stratum; the walls of the cañons Which many of the streams have cut are almost invariably composed of the Caprima limestone. South of the Colorado it is also the cap Sheet of the great Edwards plateau. This rock sheet is the direct continuatian of the Comanche Peak chalk, only the limestone is harder and more persistent, and the fossils . numerous and characterized by the occurrence of a few peculiar OPII) S. At Comanche Peak the limestone is between 30 and 40 feet thick, and though it increases southward it does not change greatly. . It can correctly be called an indurated chalk. It is more or less stratified, although usually a great massive bed from top to bottom. Some parts are harder than others and so make up a curved outline to the bluffs; others are materialiy Soſter and frequently are eroded away, leaving either honeycombed cavities or shelves under the overhanging hard layers. In places it contains beds of beautiful flint nodules. Concerning the distribution of the Caprina limestone it may be said that its outcrop covers an aggregate area larger than the State of Mas- sachusetts. In northwestern Texas the Double Mountains of Stonewall County are capped by the Caprima; as are also Comanche Peak, and all the buttes, and the high bluffs marking the caſion of the Brazos from Bluff Mills near Kimball far down the river, the buttes and mesas about Walnut and Iredell and toward the south, those about Meridian, Jones- boro, and Valley Mills, and the Jehosaphat plateau of Travis County and western Williamson county. It is seen in grand bluffs along the Nolan River at Blum, and in some of the smaller streams near Fort Gra- hain; it outcrops in the creek at Belton, and makes up the whole sur- face of the broad mesa, extending thence westward for several miles to the point where it makes the cap of the great bluff facing westward— a magnificent illustration of the relations of uniform and gentle dip together with comparative hardness to the process of erosion. It caps the buttes as far west as Kempner and southward toward Florence, where it makes again the level surface of the mesa. Pilot Knob, north of Liberty Hill, Williamson County, and many of the buttes high up the Colorado about Anderson Mills are capped by it. The Caprina ter- rane is usually covered with a thick growth of scrubby oaks and smaller trees, especially where the outcrop is not of large area and the rock comes near the surface. In places there are broad fertile prairies upon its outcrop, as about Pancake, Bagdad, and Turnersville. It has been stated that the Caprima is uniform throughout. In the southern portion of its area there is an exception to this rule and it 88 IRRIGATION. might be divided into an upper or flinty member and a lower or chalky subdivision. The flints appear in the vicinity of Meridian, but only as a few fragments; they increase very rapidly southward, being seen in grand development about Belton. In the northern part of the region they are comparatively large, oval, flattened nodules, usually of black flint. These occur throughout the larger part of the region studied, ex- tending southward at least as far as Pilot Knob, a few miles north of Liberty Hill, and thence on to the Rio Grande, constituting the summit of Edwards Plateau. It is doubtful if the downward extension of this rock sheet be as hard as the surface outcrop, for all the chalky rocks of Texas harden or set upon Suface exposure, through their hydraulic prop- erties, and hence in drilling wells this rock sheet will not prove as hard as at the surface. This formation thins to the northeast and together with the underlying Comanche Peak chalk and Walnut clays is represented only by a thin stratum in Indian Territory, which is known as the Good- land limestone (after the town of Goodland in Indian Territory). The Washita or Indian Territory Division.—In order to appreciate this division in the region of its greatest development, we must transfer our attention from central Texas to Southern Indian Territory and the Red River, north of Denison. In this region the sands (Paluxy or Trin- ity) occupy an escarpment valley against the southern flank of the mountains from north of Marietta to Murfreesboro, Ark. These are surmounted on the south by an escarpment of fine white limestone, which I have called the Goodland limestone, and although only 20 feet in thickness it is shown to be the Comanche Peak group. Southward and above this begins a group of strata to which I have given the name of the Washita division of the Comanche series. This division has its prevalent and characteristic development in northern Choctaw and Chicksaw nations of Indian Territory and in northern Texas, in Grayson, Cooke, and Tarrant counties, where it is the predominant formation. It extends southward to the Rio Grande at Del Rio, but becomes greatly changed in lithologic character, assum- ing a more calcarous aspect and decreasing in thickness, except a por- tion of its uppermost beds (the Denison beds), which for water pur- poses should be classified with the lower cross timbers sands. These Washita beds are mostly impervious, and nonwater-bearing. It is important to be able to recognize them, however, for by them the depth and flow can be estimated with certainty. 7. The Denison beds.”—The Fort Worth semichalky beds are overlain in the Red River district by a series of shallower deposits of laminated arenaceous clays (the Arietina clays), at the base grading upward into the Sandy clays and occasional limestones, the chalky element of all the underlying Comanche Series having finally disappeared. The detail of these beds as seen with slight variation in Grayson, Cooke, and Denton counties and in Indian Territory presents a threefold division. At the base they are composed of a blue marly clay, weathering brown, with occasional layers of immense rounded fissile indurations, generally brown in color. Above these the beds are more sandy and ferruginous, Oxydizing into ironstone and almost indistinguishable from adjacent Dakota Sandstones, but separated from them by the uppermost bed of impure yellow limestone which underlies Main street at Denison. The foregoing rock sheets are those which control the artesian con- ditions of the central Texas region, and with them in mind the possi- bility and probability of water can be discussed intelligently. Before doing this, however, a word or two is necessary as to the variation in *4. The Schloenbachia clays; 5. The Duck Creek chalks; 6. The Fort Worth beds of the Washita Division are horizons below the Denison beds. See description in Bulletin Geol. Soc. Am., 1891, pp. 515–517. THE HYDRO-GEoLogy of THE REGION. 89 character of the extensive deposits. Erom a study of four parallel sec- tions based upon actual measurements at intervals from 100 to 200 miles, extending from Indian Territory southward to the Rio Grande, the fol- lowing deductions may be made: - (1) These beds were laid down against the Ouachita Mountain system of Indian Territory and over all the preexisting area of Texas, except insular mountain areas of the Organ and Guadalupe mountains. (2) The more littoral, or water bearing, terranes of the Dakota, Trinity, and Paluxy beds and the Denison beds increase in thickness and yº capacity character to the northward and diminish to the south- WàI'Ol. (3) The chalky terranes, as the Comanche Peak, and Caprina limestone and the Glen Rose beds, thin out to the northeast; they increase enormously in thickness southward, in which direction the open sea pre- Vailed. In boring artesian wells these different thicknesses play an im- portant part. TOPOGRAPHIC EXPRESSION OF THE COMANCEIE TERRANES. Having described the stratigraphic units which compose the Comanche terranes, attentionisinvited to the unique topographic forms which char- acterize them, and to the extensive erosion which they record. Primarily the system, as a whole, may be conceived as a greatsheet of strata dipping coastward from the interior at an average rate of 50 feet per mile, coinciding in strike with the shore line against which they were depos- ited. This strike is first due east and west from Murfreesboro, Ark., to Marietta, Ind. T., a distance of 300 miles. From the latter point it is a little westward of southward to San Antonio, Tex., whence it deflects westward to the Trans-Pecos Mountains. The area of this sheet is marked by two long and simple fault lines, which produce the only topographic inequalities due to disturbance. The first of these be- gins at the angle of the intercepting strike in Indian Territory and Texas, and extends northwestward and Southeastward, through a point north of Denison, Tex., for over 50 miles. The downthrow is 600 feet to the northward, and Red River flows along the line of this fault for 20 miles or more. The second great fault extentls from near Dallas to Del Rio, Tex., passing by Austin, New Braunfels, and Uvalde, with increas- ing downthrow as we proceed westward. There have been at least three great epochs in the destruction and denudation of this ancient Comanche rock sheet. The western bor- der was faulted and much elevated during the northern Mexican, Trans- pecos and southern New Mexican mountain-making epoch, for its rocks enter into their disturbed structure in increasing quantity southward. The sediments of the great Llano Estacado epoch which constitute the Llano Estacado formation, are largely composed of Comanche débris. So extensive was the denudation and erosion of this little-appreciated Neocene epoch that the western two-thirds of the Comanche series was degraded, and entered into the composition of these lake deposits. That this great denudation of the Comanche series took place since the Eocene is further demonstrated, first, by the utter absence of Comanche débris in the sandy littoral beds of the latter formation; the base leveling of the Eocene time did not cut down to the Comanche se- ries; secondly, by the fact that the Comanche débris again enters into composition of the post-Eocene formations of the coastal region, of prob- able synchronous age with the Llano Estacado epoch. The second epoch of destruction of the Comanche series by denuda- * * ~ y - ~, 90 . IRRIGATION. tion thus far recognized was in late Quaternary time, when the Gulf coast coincided with the present western border of the coast prairies. By this process the water-bearing sands were removed from a large area. and the older strata exposed. By this erosion and degradation by far the greater part of this mag- nificent series has been eliminated, and what now remains, although covering an immense area of country, is only a remnant of the previous extent of these water-bearing rocks. - The present topographic forms of the Grand Prairie can be readily understood. The firm, persistent limestone and harder chalks produce escarpments of stratifiation. Thus the outcrop of the Goodland lime- stone in Indian Territory forms an escarpment some 200 miles long, overlooking the valley of the Trinity and Paluxy sands. The Duck Creek, Denison, Fort Worth, and Caprima limestones produce similar landmarks. The softer disintegrated chalks nearly always occur in these places on the slopes or faces of the escarpments, while the clays and sandy terranes, as the Walnut clays and Trinity and Paluxy sands, weather into extensive plains or semivalleys extending interior- ward from the escarpments. Where the head-water erosion of the newer drainage above mentioned encroaches upon the shorter and more precipitous drainage slopes of the older and deeper incised drainage, buttes and mesas are evolved. Where the Comanche Peak bed sur- mounted by the Caprina limestone constitutes the divides it is useless to expect flowing wells. These buttes are invariably of the following types: (1) Flat topped mesas, surrounded by precipitous escarpments; (2) basal plains or pediments composed of Exogyra texana clays and the Gryphaea beds; (3) slopes of 450 composed of the Comanche Peak chalk. If the divide is composed of the Glen Rose beds the re- sulting buttes are usually conical, encircled by benches resulting from the alternating soft and hard layers. The great difference of hardness in the respective terranes is also productive of plains that coincide with the prevailing dip and terminate eastward against all escarp- ment of the overlying beds, invariably deflecting the drainage parallel to their strike. This is especially true of the eastern half of the Grand Prairie area. On the west it is shown by a descending escarpment. These dip plains are beautifully shown in northern Texas and southern Indian Territory, where they constitute the prevalent topography and extend over vast areas. The prairie between Fort Worth and Weather- ford is a fine example of dip plain, as are all the prairies of north Texas. WATER CONDITIONS OF THE GRAND AND BLACK PRAIRIES' These regions, especially the Grand Prairie, possess peculiar Water conditions, which are the product of the structural and topographic conditions we have described. The water features are of three distinct classes, to wit: (1) The Grand Prairie Drainage, or river system; (2) the Mammoth Springs of San Antonio, San Marcos system; (3) the Waco-Port Worth and the Dal- las-Pottsboro artesian systems. t - The Rivers of the Grand Prairie.—Two of the great river systems of Texas are found in the Grand and Black prairies. The Red, Colorado, Brazos, and Pecos, or rivers of the plains and mountains, cut through them far below the present surface and drain little or none of the Sur- face, as will be seen by examining a map. The second system is one peculiar to the region, consisting of streams which originated upon its * surface when the coast line of the Gulf of Mexico almost coincided WATER COURSEs of THE GRAND PRAIRIE SECTION. 91 with the present eastern border of the Grand Prairie south of the Colo- rado and the east line of the Black Prairie north of that river. Since the emergence of the plain they have been deflected mostly into the streams of the older system. The Grand Prairie streams are analogous in origin to the small streams that now fringe the coastal plain near the Gulf, and a slight elevation of the coast would leave the latter in the same position as the former. They drained the Grand Prairie when it was a coastal plain, and since its elevation have been cutting deeper and deeper into its sur- face by erosion and extending their sources westward by head-water erosion. This system of streams is inconspicuous in Indian Territory, and increases in size and importance southward. The central or Fort Worth-Waco division of the Grand Prairie is represented north of the Brazos by the Trinity group; between the Brazos and the Colorado by the Paluxy, Lampasas and the San Gabriel, Bosques, and the Leon. The Conchos, the San Saba, and the Llano also belong to this group in origin, but have cut through the Grand Prairie floor. South of the Colorado the streams of this class having their origin in the eastern edge of the Edwards plateau are the Pedernalis, San Marcos, Guadalupe, Cibilo, Medina, San Antonio, Frio, Hondo, Sabi- nal, Nueces, Elm, Las Moras, Devils River, and Howards Creek. An interesting fact concerning all of these streams (except the main Trin- ity, the Concho, San Saba, and Leon, which have completed their head-water journey across the plateau) is that their fall or gradient is much greater than that of the coastward slope of the Grand Prairie. From this feature their valleys become deeper and wider to the east- Ward, making flowing wells a possibility and leaving large areas of flat-topped divides between them. This simple topographic fact has i. important influence in the artesian conditions, as will be shown ater. --- Another interesting feature of many of these streams is that their upper course is composed of arroyos, dry and waterless except in time of storm water. Their medial portions where the stream has cut below the Comanche Peak group are usually fed by springs from the sands and alternating beds; towards their lower portion they often disappear beneath the surface of the limestone débris, pools of water remaining above the ground at short intervals, from which a stream may flow tº few feet and then disappear in the rocky débris. North of the Colorado these streams are of secondary value for irri- gation, but South of that river they increase in importance and in the Edwards Plateau are quite extensively used and can be made of great value. In this region the streams cease running (except when aug- mented by the great springs to be described later), when they reach the kevel of the great Rio Grande embayment or the Black Prairie plain, being imbibed by the pervious strata. The Rio Frio is a good example of these rivers. From the point where this stream crosses the Southern Pacific to its mouth it flows in the al- most flat, gravel-covered region of the Rio Grande embayment. In this portion of its course, although nearer its mouth, it has little water, often none. Ascending the stream northward it appears to flow from a mountain gorge, but upon closer study these mountains (which are visible to the northward from the Southern Pacific road as far west as Spofford) are seen to be escarpments of the Great Edwards Plateau. Here the river flows through a valley often several miles wide, sur- rounded by high hills on each side, filled with ancient gravel deposited by the stream when the gulf waters reached into this embayment. The 92 IRRIGATION. stream is clear and swift, flowing 1,000 gallons per minute. In a few miles the walls close in and the valley averages 2 miles in width for 15 miles or more, with good agricultural lands in its bottoms. About 25 miles north of the railroad the precipitous yellow bluffs of the cañon begin to assume higher proportions, and numerous springs begin breaking out of the oëlitic marls and sandy clays of the alternat- ing beds. The dip of the strata here is 74 feet per mile. From Van Pelts to Leaky, the county seat of Edwards County, and thence to Frio water hole this great caſion continues, the water generally increasing upstream from the many springs. These springs are very frequent and in the aggregate flow enough water to irrigate thousands of acres. At Frio post-office there are over a thousand acres irrigated from this Stream. From Frio water hole on to the head of the river the water ceases, but the great caſions continue until the rocky summit is reached. Crossing this plateau for a few miles, the head of the south fork of the Guadalupe, descending to the Black Prairie, is reached and the same phenomena are seen, to wit: (1) A long stretch of head-stream arroyos; (2) a medial portion consisting of deep caſions, with widening valleys, where the water becomes abundant and sufficient for magnificent irriga- tion enterprises, the source of supply being numerous constant springs from the alternating beds which form the walls of the caſion ; (3) a lower portion in which the volume decreases through imbibition of the stream débris. The supply of water for these streams can be clearly seen in the Springs in the lower beds of the Edwards Plateau, which flow out at creek level and could no doubt be greatly increased in volume by arti- ficial means and preserved for irrigation by suitably lined reservoirs and ditches, which could be constructed with cheapness, because the entire mass of the plateau is composed of rock suitable for making hydraulic cement. The valleys of the streams of the Edwards Plateau, as the Peder- nalis, the Guadalupe, the Comal, Medina, etc., are among the most beautiful, picturesque features of our country, and proper usage of their Waters would increase the productivity of the region a thousandfold. The source of the spring waters which supply these streams is the Same as that which supplies the wonderful artesian wells and the mam- moth springs of the San Marcos-San Antonio system. Although its Surface is an arid country, the Edwards Plateau is a great water res- ervoir of priceless value to the State of Texas, and the time will soon come when it will be considered criminal to permit one drop of its Valuable flow to reach the sea unused. - The streams of the system north of the Colorado are not relatively SO important for irrigation, owing to their slighter volume and fall, but by a little care and mechanical aid the capacity of thousands of acres which are now idle or unprofitable could be made more profitable. This is especially true of the Lanpasas and Leon, Bosque, and Paluxy. The mammoth springs of the San Antonio system.—Following the boundary of the Grand and Black Prairie regions of Texas from Dallas to Del Rio, a distance of 400 miles and increasing in volume southward there is a series of most remarkable springs, which rise out of the ground and flow off as veritable rivers. These springs are often of such magnitude and beauty that it is impossible to convey a proper conception of them. They do not break out from bluffs or fall in cas- cades, but appear as pools often in the level prairie, filled with water of a beautiful blue color which flows swiftly silently away by the out- let which drains them. REMARKABLE SPRINGS IN SOUTHWEST TEXAS. 93 The pools are carpeted with exquisite water plants, forming a waving mass in which may be seen many fishes. So transparent and crystal- line are these waters, that objects 15 to 20 feet below the surface appear only a foot away. No tint of surface débris or of storm sediment mars the crystal clearness, for they are purified by rising through nature's filter a thousand feet of the earth's strata. It is an interesting fact to note that the trend or line of these great springs coincide almost exactly with the west edge of the Black Prairie and with the line of the great Austin Del Rio strike fault, which fol- lows its parting with the Grand Prairie. A study of rocks in the vicinity of the springs will always show that there is a system of joints or fractures coinciding with this great fault line and it is up in these fissures that the waters force their way. In other words, these springs have their origin in a deep-seated rock and are forced to the surface by hydrostatic pressure from the basal Comanche series. They are natural artesian Wells. - The most conspicuous of these springs are at San Antonio, Del Rio, San Marcos, New Braunfels, and at Austin. In addition to these there are magnificent springs at Round Rock, Georgetown, Salado, Belton, Uvalde, Las Moras, Clark, and other places. The Cedar Springs north of Dallas are probably the most northern of the line. There are also numerous small springs of the System which need not be mentioned. In order to convey an idea of the magnitude of these springs, I shall describe one or two of the Imost important. Perhaps the largest of the group are the springs at the head of the San Antonio River, a few miles out of the city of San Antonio. They flow out of the ground in great volume, 23,000 gallons per minute, nearly 50,000,000 gallons per day, forming an exquisite lake from which flows through the heart of the city the magnificent river of San Antonio. Around this marvelous group of springs and upon the banks of its outflow were located the most ancient Indian settlements, or Pueblos, of Texas. The early Spanish missionaries, seeing the beauties of the place and its natural advantages, located six magnificent missions here, within a short distance of one another, with surrounding plantations. The Spanish thus conducted the instruction of the natives, whom they employed in the cultivation of farms and gardens irrigated by the spring waters. The ancient acequas or ditches, followed by the older streets, shape the present outline of the city. At present the large springs at the head of the river furnish water for the city of 48,000 inhabitants without producing any very appreci- able decrease in the outflow in the river, the waters of which are still used to irrigate thousands of acres of gardens and farms, and is suffi- cient to irrigate many thousands more, although unfortunately most of the water flows to the sea unused. * The springs at Del Rio are, perhaps, the next largest in size. They break out upon the edge of the Edwards plateau, or southern continu- ation of the Llano Estacado, 2 miles east of Del Rio, and about 5 miles from the Rio Grande. The pool is almost as extensive and beauti- ful as that at the head of the San Antonio River. From the deep- seated rock at its bottom the water can be seen welling up in a great column, and it has the same peculiar greenish blue of the other streams of this class. No live oaks or other trees surround it, and it stands alone, a great fountain in the desert. From examination of the rocks from which this spring bul , .s, the Tort Worth limestone, it is seen that they 94 IRRIGATION. have the same perpendicular joints and faults found at San Antonio and Austin. The outflow from the pool, a bold rushing stream, runs off some 5 miles distant to the Rio Grande, which it excels in volume. This spring stream, in addition to running a mill and supplying the village with water, is partially utilized to supply 15 miles of irrigation ditch and irrigate 5,000 acres. The water taken out for the ditches makes no perceptible diminution in the volume of the creek. The springs of the Comal at New Braunfels are also of this gigantic character and flow off an immense volume of water, which could be utilized for irrigation. - At the village of San Marcos, however, is a large, beautiful, and well- situated spring. It breaks out at the foot of the bluffs of the great fault line and is the source of a beautiful river flowing at least 20,000 gallons per minute. This has long been a famous resort in Texas on account of its beautiful scenery and water. The springs form a lake nearly half a mile long, which overflows into a beautiful stream known as the San Marcos River. At the lower end of the lake a mill and ice factory are run from the water power of this spring, and while no irri- gation is conducted there is no reason why this volume of water should not be utilized to irrigate the fertile Black Prairie plain, through which it flows. In the vicinity of Austin are other groups of artesian springs of re- markable beauty and scientific interest, breaking, along the line of the great fault in which the Colorado flows, from the foot of Mount Bonnel, in the western suburbs of the city, to where it emerges from its cañon of the Grand Prairie region into the broad bottoms of the Black. Prairie. Along this line from the foot of Mount Bonnel to near the mouth of Barton Creek there is a series of springs” pouring up through the great rock joints. Beginning at the north the principal ones are 6 miles north of Austin; Mount Bonnel and Taylor springs are east of the foot of Mount Bonnel; Bee Springs east of the river; Barton Springs and six unnamed springs west of the river. Of these Taylor and Barton Springs are the best known. The latter group occur in each side of Barton Creek, near its junction with the river and flow superb volumes of water. A mill is run by the water power from Barton Springs, but it would be impossible to conduct irrigation with the waters owing to , their low position relative to the Colorado. The water power which is now mostly wasted should be utilized. These springs are beautifully situated and are the favorite resort of the people of Austin ; they are surrounded by pleasing groves of pecan timber and picturesque rocks. Their aggregate volume must reach many thousands of gallons per minute. Almost due north of Barton Springs, along, the same great fissure, and at the low-water level of the Colorado there is another outburst of artesian springs, but owing to the fact that they are at the base of a great bluff and accessible only by boat few people have seen them. This group of springs flows a great volume, but, inasmuch as they break out in the river's edge, it is impossible to gauge them. The aggregate vol- ume of these springs near Austin is so great that the volume of the the river is materially increased by their accession. Equally valua- ble but of less volume are the springs around Georgetown, Salado, * These springs unfortunately are all near water level of the river, but they are of great value. ARTESIAN WATER IN THE BLACK AND GRAND PRAIRIES. 95 and Belton and they are all of similar origin and nature. The Colorado River and Barton Creek cross this fault line near Austin ; hence the occurrence of the springs on both sides of the river. From the similarity of color, temperature, and occurrence of this great chain of springs, extending half way across the State, there can be no doubt that they are aſl of similar nature and origin, and that they are underground waters forced up by great hydrostatic pressure through the fissures of the Balcones fault system along the parting of the Black and Grand prairies. A comparison of their waters and temperature with those of the arte- sian wells, together with the similarity of the geological structure, leaves no doubt that they have the same origin, the great pervious beds of the Trinity division of the Comanche series which are the foundation of the Grand Prairie, and imbibe the waters at an outcrop at a higher altitude along its western edge. The volume of water flowing from these springs aggregates many millions of gallons per minute, and since they have never shown any diminution or increase of quantity in seasons of drought or rainfall, these facts are valuable evidence of the vast extent and inexhaustibility of the source of underground water which supplies them and the deeper wells of the Fort Worth-Waco system. The artesian waters of the Black and Grand prairies.—We have now arrived at the discussion of the greatest artesian belt of Texas, the sys- tem of wells found beneath the Grand and Black prairies. In no portion of the country has there been a grander development of artesian wells than in the past five years in the Grand and Black prairie regions of Texas. At numerous places throughout its extent magnificent flows of water have been secured and what ten years ago was in many places a poorly watered district now abounds in magnifi- cent artesian wells, which supply water to cities and farms in quantity large enough to make many new industries possible, besides furnishing water to irrigate many thousands of acres. It has been the writer's fortuue to observe and encourage this arte- sian movement from its conception, and in the following pages he pro- poses to present the underlying principles of the artesian supply, and to point out, as a regult of years of study, the areas of possibility and failure and the probable flow obtained, so clearly that wells may be located with certainty. - The artesian waters of this system are so voluminous, and the area over which they can be produced is so extensive that it justly deserves the distinction of being called one of the greatest artesian areas in America—if not in the world—extending as it does, from Denton County, near Red River, to the Rio Grande at Del Rio, a distance of 448 miles in length, and averaging 40 miles in width. This area over most of which flowing wells can be obtained, is about the size of Minnesota, Nebraska, or North or South Dakota, and equal to the combined area of many of the smaller States, and 22,000 square miles larger than the average State or Territory of the Union, omitting Texas. The area in Texas in which the wells of the Fort Worth sys- tem are obtainable, is also greater than the area of any State in the Union, except Arizona, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Wyoming, and Kansas. To deal with such a vast area would be difficult were it not for the great uniformity and similarity of the structure of its geologic features. The wells vary in depth from 50 to nearly 2,000 feet with every in- 96 & IRRIGATION. tervening depth. They also vary in volume or flow from less than a gallon a minute to a thousand, and in pressure from nothing to maxi- mum. Although distributed over a wide country, there are many places where these wells can not be obtained, which it is necessary to point out, and many where it can be obtained which are now not known. The history of this wonderful artesian development is almost too re- cent to be written, and its development is solely due to the spontane- ous enterprise of the citizens who have in every instance except one made the experiment at their own expense. This exceptional instance of State experimentation at Austin on the capitol grounds was not con- ducted to the fullest depth. Some years ago a citizen of Fort Worth sunk a shallow artesian well for the purpose of obtaining water for stock. This was secured at a depth of 300 feet. Almost immediately nearly a hundred wells were sunk to the same water level. As is inevitably the rule, the drills stopped at the first water struck, and not until the past year has Fort Worth discovered that her drills had not yet penetrated the lowest and greatest water-bearing strata. The purity of this artesian supply for domestic purposes and its healthfulness gave Fort Worth an enviable superiority which her rival cities were not slow to imitate, and as a result of her success nearly every city and village in the Grand and Black prairie region and in fact throughout the State, made artesian experiments. A few of these were put down in unſavorable locations and were failures, but hundreds more were successful and to day most of the cities of the State which before this artesian epoch were without good water are supplied with an abun- dance. Wells have been successfully obtained at Fort Worth, Waco, Dallas, Denton, Taylor, Austin, San Antonio, McGregor, Gatesville, Belton, Morgan, Glen Rose, Paluxy, Whitney, and other places which will be enumerated later. Their number and the wide area over which they are found is indicative of a general source and occurrence by which their distribution, value, and possibility can be predicated with considerable certainty. To point out these is the chief object of this paper. While this development of artesian water in cities was progressing, independent discoveries were being made by the farmers and stock raisers along the western margin of the area, where in certain valleys, like those of the Bosque and Paluxy, shallow wells were struck, and now there are hundreds of these, many of which are used for irrigation and for watering stock. - Counting the aggregate water of the great artesian wells and artesian spring rivers, there is flowing from the underlying rock sheets of this region at least 300,000 gallons of purest water per minute, 1,800,000 per hour, or 41,200,000 gallons per day, a volume as large as many notable T1WeI’S. - When it is considered that the first water was experimentally reached only twenty years ago, and the greater underlying sheets only four years ago, the future possibilities are beyond estimate. Availability of the water sheets of the Black and Grand prairies.—In order to fully understand the laws of these wells it is necessary first to thor- oughly study the simple stratigraphic arrangement of the rock sheets of the region, which can be best understood by reference to the cross- section profiles and maps accompanying this paper. Typical cross Sec- tions and profiles of the Black and Grand prairie regions are given extending from the interior coastward. From an examination of these it will be seen that the general structure consists of the sheets described WATER-BEARING STRATA IN THESE SECTIONs. 97 on previous pages, inclining coastward at a small angle only slightly greater than the topographic slope, which, as asserted in the introduc- tory chapters of this paper, constitute the ideal conditions for trans- mission of artesian water. These rock sheets have different capacity for imbibition and transmission of water. The more porous ones are Water bearing; their capacity is not only proportionate to the facilities for imbibition and transmission, but the area of outcrop. Water-bearing strata. º Retaining or nonwater-bearing strata. Feet. 8. The Navarro or Glauconitic sands.. 300 7. The Taylor marls. The Austin chalk. The Eagle Ford clays. 6. The flºwer Cross Timber or Denison 100 83 Il CiS. 5. The Washita division, Fort Worth limestone, Duck Creek chalk, Kiamitia clays. 4. The Comanche Peak division, the Caprina lime- j. the Comanche Peak chalk, the Walnut Clays. 3. The Paluxy sands. -----------------. 100 2. Portions of the Glen Rose beds. ... -- 700 | Portions of the Glen Rose beds. The Trinity sands. The water-bearing strata.—Of the water-bearing strata above men- tioned the Glaucomitic sands, which occur along the eastern border of the Black Prairie, can not be considered in the discussion of the prairie region, for any wells penetrating to them would be in the regions to the eastward. Omitting these (the Glauconitic or Navarro sands) from con- sideration, there are four great water-bearing sheets of the section, sep- arated by impervious layers, as follows: 4. The Lower Cross Timbers, or Denison (in part) and Dakota sands. 3. The Paluxy sands. 2. Portions of the Glen Rose beds. 1. The Trinity sands or Upper Cross Timber sands. Each of these sheets outcrop in characteristic area, and incline to the eastward at a slightly greater angle than the average of the topo- graphic slope beneath the overlying beds, transmitting the water under hydrostatic pressure to lower depths. Each sheet has great differences in thickness, extent, capacity for imbibing waters and for transmission; also in chemical composition which affects the quality of the water. The exposed area or outcrop of the water-bearing sheet constitutes the re- ceiving area for the stratum which receives the rainfall. The continu- ation of the receiving rock sheet beneath the overlying beds constitutes the water-bearing sheet. Now it is evident, since they incline eastward beneath the overlying sheets, that these strata get deeper and deeper into the earth to the eastward and are overlaid by more rock sheets; so that the Trinity sands which constitute the surface of the Upper Cross Timber Valley in part, between Millsap (altitude 822) and Lambert (altitude 1,146), average 1,000 feet above sea level. At Fort Worth, 36 miles east of Lambert, they are only 242 feet below sea level; at Dallas, 65 miles east, they are 1,242 feet below sea level, or 1,678.5 feet from the surface, and so on as We go eastward, estimating that these strata incline at the rate of 34.5 feet per mile. The Paluxy sands which outcrop just west of Weatherford and around the base of Comanche Peak are 1,400 feet above the sea; at Fort Worth S. Ex. 41, pt. 3—7 98 - IRRIGATION. 200 feet above the sea (or 300 feet below the Trinity River level, and 590 below Tuckers Hill), at Dallas they are 800 feet below the sea, and at Terrell 2,300 feet below sea level, or 3,100 feet below the surface. The Lower Cross Timber sands (which do not outcrop west of Fort Worth) are the surface formations between Arlington and Handy. ' They are from 731 to 800 feet below Dallas, and at Terrell 2800 feet, the dip, about 50 feet per mile, being slightly greater than that of the Trinity sands. - Not only do these rock sheets become deeper and deeper to the east- ward, but they are successively covered by other rock sheets which must be drilled through. While a drill upon the eastern edge would begin in these Terrell sands, which are there the surface formations, on the eastern margin of the Black Prairie the drill must penetrate the entire thickness of the two Cretaceous formations to reach the lowest water beds of the Trinity, or between 2,500 and 3,000 feet, as at Terrell, Greenville, Corsicana, Marſin, and Thorndale. A drill at Greenville, Terrel, Kaufman, Corsicana, Thorndale, Marlin, or any other point along the eastern margin, would be obliged to pene- trate all the formations, including the five water beds, to reach the Trinity sands. A similar drill-hole well in the main Black Prairie, as at Mesquite, Waxahachie, Hubbard, Temple, Taylor, or Manor, would not penetrate as many rock sheets by the thickness of the Ponderosa marls and Glauconitic beds to the east. A drill in the Austin-Dallas chalk would penetrate fewer strata, by the thickness of the Ponderosa marls, and one in the Eagle Ford shales still less. Drill holes sunk in the Black Prairie, Lower Cross Timber sands, or the Grand Prairie, go through respectively less thicknesses to the westward until finally a well in the western margin of the Upper Cross Timbers gets the same water at the surface in ordinary surface wells without artesian flow. A well drilled west of the Trinity sands can not possibly obtain Water from any of the sheets of the coastward incline, for they do not occur west of that line. - By a study of the maps and profiles it will also be evident that the entire set of water-bearing sheets underlie all of the country east of the Lower Cross Timbers north of the Brazos, although some of them may be practically unavailable through great depth or high altitude of the drilling station. Between the Lower Cross Timbers, and the Paluxy sands, i. e., the eastern margin of the Upper Cross Timbers, all the water-bearing sheets, except that of the Dakota or Lower Cross Tim- ber sands, will be available, for the latter does not extend over the region west of the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway, except in northern Johnson County, but has been worn away by erosion. In the portion of the Grand Prairie west of the Paluxy sands or south of where they disappear by thinning out, a drill will start geo- logically below the three upper water beds and penetrate only two sets of water strata—the Trinity and alternating beds, as in the wells at Glen Rose, Iredell, and Pidcocks Ranche. Finally, in the eastern margin of the Trinity sands the well will only penetrate the Trinity sands as at Bluff Dale and Paluxy. In all of these cases the general rule is main- tained, that the depth of any rock sheet in the series decreases to the westward until it ceases by outcrop. Geologically Speaking, it might be said that nature has done much to help the driller, for wherever a rock sheet is cut through by a stream or entirely removed by erosion the artesian engineer has that much less to drill through. * - By this process of erosion it will be seen that the well at Terrell, al- WHAT THE ARTESIAN DRILLS ARE SHOWING. 99 though 2,200* feet deep, has not yet penetrated to the rock at Dallas, which occurs at the surface, owing to the removal by erosion at Dallas of the strata through which the well at Terrell has been drilled. The citizens of Dallas are 2,200 feet nearer the Trinity water sheet, but their wells, averaging 800 feet, deep, do not reach the Fort Worth limestone, upon which the latter city has erected its drill derricks, and are still 1,500 to 2,000 feet above the great Waco supply. Nature has removed for Fort Worth not only the total thickness penetrated by the Terrell well (2,200 feet) plus that of the Dallas well (750 feet), but also the Lower Cross Timber sands (plus 200 feet) from which Dallas re- ceives her water supply, and brought Fort Worth 3,000 feet deeper or nearer than Terrell to the main Trinity supply. Rinally the Fort Worth drills until the past year have not penetrated below the Paluxy sands, and hence not to the strata upon which Glen Rose is situated, so that nature has removed by erosion for the people of the latter place the whole thickness of rocks represented by the Fort Worth well placed on top the Glen Rose, plus that of the Dallas wells on the Fort Worth, plus the Terrell wells on top the Dallas, or nearly 3,500 feet of strata. It is evident to those who have followed the statement of the strati- graphic and topographic conditions of the regions that the numerous artesian wells flow from the four great rock sheets, those of the Lower Cross Timber sands, the Paluxy sands, the various sandy and Öolitic beds of Glen Rose, and the Trinity of Upper Cross Timber sands. The Glen Rose and Trinity beds occur in such close proximity and merge into each other so closely, that they will be discussed as one water-bearing group averaging 700 feet in thickness, from which Waco secures her “Jumbo” flow. Each of these water bearing beds has been penetrated by well borings. I shall discuss the receiving and available areas of each sheet. The Dallas. Pottsboro Group of the Black Prairie region, or the artesian wells of the Lower Cross Timber (Dakota) flow.—The flowing artesian wells of Pottsboro, Denison, and Dallas, and the nonflowing artesian wells of Sherman, Paris, and Midlothian, a north and south belt of country extending from Denison, near the Red River, to near the Bra- zos, all have their origin in the sandy strata of the Lower Cross Tim- * Section of drill hole at Terrell, Tex., with continuation of rock sheet to be pene- trated : ſ Soil----------------------------------- 15 Glauconite beds-------------- Joint clay----------------------------- 31 - Rock ---------------------------------- 10 Sand ----------- "- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 20 - 76 ſ Shales and clay----------------------- 185 | Soft rock ----------------------------- 10 > * 1: ºn 8 Ponderosa marls.------------- º:::::::::::::::::::::::::::: * | Blue Bhale ---------------------------- 484 | Rock ----------------- * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 8 113Iue shale ---------------------------- 600 1,607 * Solid rock ---------------------------------- 195 Austin chalk? ---------------- } Lignite ------------------------------------. 12 Liue rock ------------------ * --------------- 195 End of drill hole------------------------------------------------------------ 2,200 Eagle Ford Shale------------------------------------------------------------ 525 Lower Cross Timber Sand or first Water at about .--------------------...----- 100 100 IRRIGATION. bers, which constitute the receiving area of the Dallas-Pottsboro flowing wells, as will be shown by the following evidence: Within a circumference of 2 miles of Pottsboro (alt. 769), in Gray. son County, situated in the medial beds of the Eagle Ford clays, four wells were bored which struck a flow 250 feet from the surface in the Lower Cross Timber sands, which outcrop a few miles west and north- west at a higher altitude. These wells are estimated to flow 25,600 gal- lons per day and are of magnificent volume and pressure. In drilling them no chalky strata were struck, inasmuch as they com- menced geologically below the Dallas chalk, the lowest limestone of the Black Prairie region, and did not reach to the highest limestones of the Comanche series, but found water in the Lower Cross Timber Sands. At Sherman (alt. 747), some 20 miles southeast, situated geologically on rock sheets higher (on the base of the Austin-Dallas chalk), a well was drilled 632 feet through the Eagle Ford clays and into the Lower Cross Timber sands, from which the water rose to within 100 feet of the sur- face, but did not flow, probably on account of the slight pressure and leakage of water from the sheet at its outcrop near Cook's Springs and other points north of the city, and possibly because the sands were not penetrated deep enough. At Dallas (alt. 436 to 500 feet), some 70 miles south of Sherman, and on the same rock sheet (the Austin-Dallas chalk), but some 300 feet lower in altitude, numerous wells have been struck in the top of the Lower Cross Timber sands, at depths (varying with the altitude of the surface and penetration of the sands) from 672 to 800 feet. All of these struck water in the Lower Cross Timber sand beds which outcrop from 15 to 25 miles west of the city, furnishing in most instances an abundant supply. There are apparently several veins of water, Owing to the fact that the Lower Cross Timber sands have many clay beds alternating with them, the first being at 632 feet and another at 734 feet. Until about one year ago only the upper waters, with a very Weak flow, had been struck, but the county and city authorities combined sunk a deeper well on the public square, which produced about 200,000 gallons daily. Since that time others have been struck, notably at the Exall building, the McLeod hotel, the Cockrell building, and at the Office of the Dallas News. The last was a most characteristic en- terprise of that paper, A Section of the newspaper well illustrates the character of the strata passed through at Dallas, and by comparison with those at Waco and Fort Worth and Austin, it will be seen that the latter go into strata entirely different and below those penetrated at Dallas. A similar com- parison with the Terrell drill, record, 30 miles east, will show that the ’ latter has not yet reached the water sands, although 2,200 feet have been passed. ar - Every foot of the stratification penetrated by the drill can be plainly Seen outcropping on the surface between Dallas and Handy stations, 23 miles west, on the Texas Pacific road. (See profile.) The sand and gravel first penetrated is the old terrace deposit of the Trinity Valley, on which Dallas is built. This can be seen resting on the white limestone (No. 3) or Austin-Dallas chalk in various parts of the city. This chalk is exposed in the bluffs of the river at the Texas Pacific bridge, and is the cliff formation of the suburb of Oak Cliffs. In the bluffs of Mountain Creek, which follows the escarpment valley of the Austin chalk from Oak Cliffs to its head, can be seen the clays (No. 2) as well as on the surface of the Black Hog-wallow Prairie, extending DISCUSSION OVER THE SOURCES OF SUPPLY. 101 westward to the Lower Cross Timbers; the latter begin about 18 miles west of Dallas, where the upper layers, from which Dallas secures her water, are exposed, thus giving the strata an inclination of about 50 feet to the mile towards Dallas, as can be seen in the bluffs of chalk south of Eagle Ford. Notwithstanding the wonderful simplicity of the stratification there are many people in Dallas who attribute all kinds of remote origins to these waters, as the Rocky Mountains, 1,000 miles west; while one leading citizen has traced them across the great Ouachita Mountains, in Arkansas, to the Ozark Mountains, in Mis- souri. He says: “My idea is that the source of the artesian supply here is in the Ozark Mountains, in southern Missouri and northern Arkansas. It is not in the northwest, for if it were Fort Worth would have an immense supply of artesian water, whereas it is limited to the first light flow that we have struck,” etc. This opinion had hardly been delivered when Fort Worth exploded his Ozark hypothesis by penetrating the basal Trinity flow and obtaining unlimited water. The fact that flowing wells are obtained at Arlington (altitude 618), in the eastern edge of the Cross Timbers, from these sands at depths from 30 to 150 feet is corroborative proof of the fact that they supply Dallas, and from the fact that they have sufficient pressure to flow at this altitude of 618 feet it may safely be assumed that artesian water from the same Lower Cross Timber sands can be struck (unless there is . some unknown disturbance in the strata east of Dallas) at all points in Dallas County, whose altitudes are less than 618 feet and at a depth to be estimated by multiplying the distance in miles to the east margin of the Upper Cross Timbers by 50, the approximate inclination in feet of the strata per mile,” and subtracting from the total the difference in altitude. Thus at Mesquite (altitude 509), 30 miles east of Arling- ton, the eastern margin of the Cross Timbers or receiving area, the depth of the water may be approximately estimated as follows: (30 × 50)–(618–509)=1,500–109–1,391; and at Terrel (altitude 514), 50 miles east of the Lower Cross Timbers, the Lower Cross Timber sands would be approximately: (50×50)—(618–514)=2,500–104= 2,396; at Grand Prairie (altitude 500 feet), 7 miles east of Arlington, the water would be: (7×50)–(618–500)=350–118=232 feet. At Midlothian, southwest of Dallas, 25 miles in Ellis County, is an- other experiment in the Lower Cross Timber sands, but the well was not bored deep enough into them, and the water is of poor quality. It rises to within 30 feet of the surface. Section of Well at Midlothian : C Feet. Austin chalk and soil.----. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * g e º ºs e º sm as sº as me • e 24 Eagle Ford calcareous clay shales -------------------------------------------- - 234 Light yellow sandstone ------------------------------------------------------- 20 Total ------------------------------------------------------------------- 278 It is evident by comparing the Dallas section that this Midlothian well has not yet reached the main stratum of sands, but should pene- trate at least 250 feet more of clays. The wells at Sherman, Dallas, and Midlothian are about the same distance from the outcrop of the º: Timbers, and all begin in the same stratum, the Austin-Dallas chalk. Near the eastern margin of the Lower Cross Timbers is another line of experiments from which we can learn much, to wit, at West Denison —w- ... “This inclination may be more or less by a few feet, as it is impossible to determine it more accurately in the clay. , 102 - IRRIGATION. and Pottsboro, near the northern margin, at Arlington, west of Dallas, and at Files Valley, in Hill County, west of Midlothian. The magnifi- cent flow of the Pottsboro wells has already been described. At Ar- lington there are many wells which overflow. They wary in depth from 15 to 120 feet, and begin and continue in the sands. At Files Valley (altitude 460 feet), in Hill County, just east of the Cross Timbers, J. R. Lane has bored 123 feet through the basal Eagle Ford shales and Upper Cross Timber sands, striking a small flow of 3 gallons per minute. This line of wells at Denison, Pottsboro, Arlington, and Files Valley, although I should like more evidence, indicates by the outcrop that the Lower Cross Timber water supply decreases southward because the receiving beds thin out in that direction. In the region between the Brazos and Pottsboro, the capacity of the IIower Cross Timber sands for water is shown by the fact that wherever dug into they yield water. Numerous surface wells occur throughout their extent, as well as springs, as Cooks Springs, near Denison, which flow from them. At Denison these sands have been literally mined for their water of saturation by the water company which supplies the city, an interesting method of procuring underground water from the rock structure. A large area southwest of the city is underlaid by an exten- sive sheet of the porous ferruginous Lower Cross Timber sandstone of great imbibing and transmitting capacity. A vertical well 25 feet in diameter was sunk from which a lateral tunnel was run into the sand- stone, parallel to its bedding. The percolation soon filled this tunnel and well, constituting a complete reservoir, from which the water is pumped through the city. This is an ideal method of utilizing the water of Saturation, inas- much as it exposes to free percolation by the walls of the tunnel a vastly larger surface of Saturated strata than could be secured by a vertical shaft or well. This method of obtaining water is worthy o consideration elsewhere. * These tunnels at Denison show that the Lower Cross timber sands are completely saturated with water below the line of evaporation, which is about 25 feet in this region, judging from the average depth of surface wells. The water works company at Denison has also recently drilled three wells into these sands and secured a fine flow of 20,000 gallons per day, each at a depth of 200 feet. The area of Grayson County in which these wells can be obtained, however, does not extend north of Main street in Denison, nor into the easterir part of the city, as has been proven by experiment. The total area of the Lower Cross Timber sands in Texas, from Red River to Waco, as carefully mapped out by my directions, is 794 square miles. The average rainfall is 36 inches per annum over this area. Of this amount at least 50 per cent is imbibed and becomes the source of artesian water. - Extent of the Dallas, or Lower Cross Timber artesian area.—Accord- ing to the well known hydrostatic law that water will not rise above its level, it is evident that artesian wells can not be expected from the Lower Cross Timber Sands except at points to the eastward of their western margin and at a lower altitude. The altitudes of the Lower Cross Timber sands, between the north- west corner of Grayson County and the Brazos River, are as follows: ExTENT AND NATURE OF THE NON-FLOWING wells. 103 gº. East edge. Feet. West edge. Feet. South Denison ---------------------------- 712 il Dexter ---------------------------------- 850 Lewisville -------------------------------- 485 || Denton ---...-- • * * * * * * * * * g º ºs º ºs º ºs & sº e º ºs º gº º & 4. 711 Arlington ------------------------------- 618 || Roanoke--------------------------------- 656 Alvarado---------------------------------. 700 || Handy---------------------------------- 750 Vaughin ---------------------------------- 550 || Cleburne -------------------------------- 800 Whitney -------------------------------. 650 Comparison of these altitudes, shows the average of the eastern edge to be 600 feet and of the western edge 736 feet. Since the white rock cliffs, of the Austin-Dallas chalk to the east average 750 feet, except where cut into by drainage as at Dallas, it is evident that the area where a flow well is possible will be (1) the country of the Eagle Ford clay prairies in Grayson, Collin, Denton, Dallas, Tarrant, Hill, and Johnson counties, which lie between the escarpment of the White Rock and the Cross Timbers. (2) The eastern edge of the Cross Timbers themselves. (3) The valley of the Trinity River, an area of at least 1,000 square miles. From the geographic distribution of the formations the depth of the wells in these areas can not exceed 900 feet on the east and 35 feet in the west. A fourth possible area is the eastern belt of the Black Prairie as at Greenville, Terrel, Kaufman, and Corsicana, where these sands may be struck at a depth greater than 2,200 feet, and at least good negative or nonflowing wells obtained. Owing to the absence of the sands south of the Brazos division, they furnish no water in that region, and hence the wells at Waco and Aus. tin although beginning in the Austin-Dallas chalk, as at Dallas and Sherman, do not get any water until the Paluxy and Trinity sands are reached. - - In the Dallas chalk or White Rock region it is highly improbable that flowing wells from the Lower Cross Timber source can be struck except in the drainage valleys, like that of the Trinity, and it is hardly proba- ble that the water of the Dallas wells will ever be exhausted by artificial means, provided too many wells are not drilled in close proximity, in which case the water would be drawn faster than it could percolate through the strata. Negative or nonflowing wells in which the water rises near the sur- face, like the well at Sherman, can be obtained from these sands over most of the Black Prairie, their depth increasing to the eastward. - The value of these nonflowing wells should not be underestimated, for by simple mechanical means, as windmills and engines, no more ex- pensive than the present cost of water, a supply of good, pure, non- malarial water can be obtained for the villages and farms throughout the Black Prairie region, as well as sufficient in many places for garden irrigation. . . The value of the Lower Cross Timber waters for irrigating purposes is a subject which promises great future results, especially in the extent of the Cross Timber proper, where the sandy soils, although at present devoted to unprofitable cotton-planting, are admirably suited for fruit- " growing and will ultimately be entirely devoted to a more refined branch of agriculture. The supply of underground water, although it will have to be raised by mechanical means, will be necessary to make this industry possible. In the following chapters it will be seen that the other great sheets of artesian water are still below the Lower Cross Timber sands of the Dallas-Pottsboro area and will also supply water to this region. 104 IRRIGATION. THE WELLS OF THE FORT. VVORTH-WACO BELT OR TRINITY SYSTEMI. It must be evident that the wells west of the Lower Cross Timber sands south of where they disappear, as at Fort Worth and at Waco, can not possibly receive their waters from the same source as those of the Dallas-Pottsboro area, but must receive them from the higher re- gion toward the west. - There are nearly 1,000 wells supplied from these sands in the belt of country between the main line of the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Rail- way, from Whitesboro to Taylor and Austin, and the Upper Cross Tim- bers, and the region is capable of supplying many thousand more with- out materially or perceptibly diminishing the supply, except in minor instances which I shall point out. It is not everywhere that these wells can be obtained, however, as I shall point out in the following pages; laws of depth, occurrence, and distribution will be given which, if observed, will be of inestimable value to the people of this region. The shallow flows of the Fort Worth system or wells of the Palway Sands &upply.—The first successful wells in the Grand Prairie region were drilled at Fort Worth, in the river valley (altitude 490), and struck mod- erate flows of water at 263 feet in the western edge of the city and 484 feet below the highlands (altitude 662). - Over a hundred of these shallow wells were bored, and, as the stratum from which they were obtained, the Paluxy sands, was the thinnest of all the water-bearing sheets and had the smallest receiving area, these Wells soon ceased to flow and it became necessary to pump them. Before passing to the deeper supply beneath Fort Worth, it is impor- tant to add a few words concerning this first or shallower water de- rived from the Paluxy sands. Wells were drilled into this not only at Fort Worth, but as far north as Denton (altitude 628 feet) and as far east as Hearsts Fishing Lake, 10 miles, developing an area of 30 miles Square in which that water can be struck. The surface stratum in most cases was the Fort Worth limestone of the Washita divi- Sion, which is at least geologically lower by 1,000 feet than the Aus- tin-Dallas chalk at Dallas and 600 feet lower than the same rock at Waco, and hence drills have that much less thickness in penetrating to it. The Eagle Ford clays here decrease in thickness southward and the Lower Cross Timber sands thin out at Waco, hence the difference between the chalk and Fort Worth beds there. By the following section of a well at Kellers, northeast of Fort Worth (here given because it is the most complete record accessible), the exact strata penetrated will be seen : 3. Fort Worth Beds ... -- Yellow clay--------------------------------------------- 30 Blue marl (soapstone).---------------------------------- 2 White limestone ---------------------------------------- 49 Blue marl------------------------------------------- ---. 24 White limestone ---------------------------------------- 40 Caprima limestone? ---White limestone -----------...----...-------...---------. 95 Comanche Peak beds - Blue soapstone------------------------------------------ 42 White limestone.--------------------------------------- 52 Blue soapstone.----------------------------------------- 5 White limestone.--------------------------------------- 34 Blue soapstone.----------------------------------------- 5 White limestone.--------------------------------------- 5 Blue soapstone.----------------------------------------- 7 Oyster-shell rock (Gryphaea) ---------------------------- 13 Paluxy sand---------- Brown sand rock --------------------------------------- 13 White sand rock---------------------------------------- 14 105 It will be seen that the water is struck in the sands below the great Gryphaea (oyster) bed at the base of the Comanche Peak group, which are the Paluxy sands of the above section and are the same Sands which can be seen outcropping between Cresson and the Brazos, at Weather- ford, and elsewhere west of the city. By reference to the measured sec- tion of Comanche Peak, Hood County, it will also be seen that this is the first and thinnest sheet of water-bearing sands of the Trinity group. The following sections will illustrate four other wells of Fort Worth : THE WELLS IN THE PALUXY SAND FORMATION. No. 1. No. 2. No. 3. | No. 4. Feet. | Feet Feet. | Feet. Altitude of surface.------------------------------------------------- * 629 490 (562 Rock sheet at surface :----------------------------------------------|------- |--------|--------|-------- Limestone and marly clays of Fort Worth, the Washita division. --. 115 --------1. -------|-------- Duck Creek and Kiamitia ------------------------------------------ 88 1.-------|--------|-------- Chalky limestone and Caprina limestone . . . -----------------...------- 95 370 155 I.------- Marls of the Comanche group, Comanche Peak. -------...------------ 150 tº sº dº sº sº sº sº e º ºs as º º ºn tº º tº º $º º º Oyster-shell rock (Gryphaea breccia) :------------------------------ 13 22 25 1. ------- Paluxy sands, bearing best water----------------------------------- 27 55 62 4.25 Total depth of first flow - - - - - - - - - -----------------------------. 488 || 447 242 425 Well No. 1 was bored deeper, striking water at 805, 1,030,1,085 and 1,300 feet. At the latter depth it entered the impervious clays of the carbon- iferous system, with occasional sand, and is now nearly 4,000 feet in depth. The first water was obtained in the Paluxy or highest sands of the great water-bearing series, the extent and distribution of which can be seen on the map. This is the sand into which the citizens of Weather- ford dug for their surface water, and can be seen on the bluffs of the creeks around that city, and as far east as Aledo Station. In the Waco wells a flow is usually found at 1,100 feet, which may also come from the Paluxy sands, but, owing to absence of sufficient data, this can not be verified, although the areal outcrop of Paluxy sands is quite large in Hood County, also in Bosque and Hamilton, where it can be recognized as the upland post-oak sandy region; its thickness decreases southward, and it is doubtful if it is valuable for water-bearing purposes there. Owing to its excessive mineral char- acter and its relative depth, I am inclined to think the first flow at Waco is from the upper magnesian layers of the Glen Rose or alternating beds. Wells have also been obtained from the Paluxy sands as follows: Place. Altitude. Surface beds. Depth. Feet. Feet Denton ------------------------------------------------- 628 Denison beds. --...--. 600 Hursts Lake --------------------------------------------- 450 I.----. do -------------- 500 Packery, 3 miles north of Fort Worth :-----------------. 500 l Basal Washita. -------|---------- Shooneners, 3 miles west of Fort Worth - - - - - ------------|----------|------ do ----------. * * * * I e e s = * * * * * * Baur survey, 9 miles southwes; Van Ostrand survey, 5 |. --...-----|-----. do---------------|---------- miles northwest. Watson survey, 5 miles southeast.-----------------------|---------- Denison -------------. as ºs ºf g º ºs ºn tº tº Rightley's, 10 miles west of north------------------------|---------. Basal Washita -------|---------- G. B. Stanley's survey, 4 miles northeast; Keller's, north-------.... - - - - C10 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - eaSt. - There is but little doubt that this water can be obtained over all the Grand Prairie in Tarrant County wherever the altitude is less than 900 feet; this includes all of the creek and river bottoms in the county, - ** - - ** 106 IRRIGATION. and all the upland prairie and Lower Cross Timbers in the eastern half of the county. The depth will not exceed 600 feet at the eastern edge of the area and decreases about 34.5 feet in depth per mile to the West Ward. - These sands also underlie the Dallas Pottsboro area at a depth of about 600 feet below the bottom of the Lower Cross Timbers water, which thickness equals that of the Washita and Comanche Peak im- pervious beds. - Value of the Palway water for irrigation.—This water can be used for irrigating hundreds of small farms and gardens in the eastern edge of the Grand Prairie region, but improper application has created a strong prejudice against it. The mode of using has been to Sprinkle the growing plants with water instead of soaking the soils. The chemical ingredients of the water are said to be injurious to the leaves, but Prof. J. P. Stelle, agricultural editor of the Fort Worth Gazette, has shown it is harmless and fertilizing if applied to the roots. The value of these wells to the stock-raising industry, however, is incalculable, and their discovery and use to the region in which they occur has been many millions of dollars in value. It would be improvident to stop a well in the Paluxy Sands, how- ever, for, as will be shown in the succeeding pages, they are but the beginning of a much more abundant and valuable supply that every- where underlies them. THE DEEPER FLOWS OF THE FORT WORTH_WACO SYSTEM. When it was known that Fort Worth's drills had only tapped the first sheet of the great series of water strata extending 700 feet deeper the rumor was spread and is still believed by many that Fort Worth’s artesian supply is limited and decreasing. When Waco had demon- strated the existence of deeper beds and voluminous wells in the sys- tem, Fort Worth, with the wonderful enterprise characteristic of that city, began an experimental well on the highest hill in the city, which not only fully demonstrated the existence of at least far greater water strata, but went completely through the water-bearing series and pen- etrated over 2,300 feet of impervious clays underlying it. In February, 1890, the city council contracted for the sinking of an experimental well, determining to fully test the possibilities of the ar- tesian water supply for the city waterworks use. The experimental well was located at about the highest point in the city, the top of Tuckers Hill, 52 feet above the Main-street crossing of the Texas Pa- cific tracks and 42 feet above the court-house square. In boring this well a fine stream of artesian water, which flows 170 gallons per minute with a pressure of 15 pounds per square inch, was struck at 900 feet. This was cased off and the boring continued to a depth of 1,035 feet, when a stream of 200 gallons per minute was struck, which flowed with a pressure of 21 pounds per square inch. This stream was in turn cased off, and the work proceeded until at 1,127 feet still another fine artesian vein was pierced. This flowed to the surface 245 gallons per minute with a pressure of 29 pounds to the square inch. All of these flows could have been put together, when they would have discharged fully 500 gallons per minute, or 720,000 per day, and at a point-142 feet above the Trinity River. This last flow not having the pressure sufficient to carry it to a standpipe 100 feet high, was cased off, and the boring continued in search of a still stronger flow. ºsvwael, ºoov ^^ laev sºriº：Aw bwiwo'ſ, I "||A. B.Lºnd A REMARKABLE GROUP OF WELLS AT FORT WORTH. - 107 This experimental well has now been drilled to nearly 2,800 feet in depth, and it is proposed to continue it to a limit of about 3,000 feet, we believe, if more water is not reached shert of that depth. Now, as a result of this experimental work, three heavy veins of artesian water have been located as underlying the city, the least of which will raise water to a height of 40 feet above the highest point in the city, and the deepest of which will raise water to a height of 61 feet above the highest point in the city. This remarkable discovery has been further demon- Strated. First, the Texas Brewery, whose location is 50 feet lower than Tuckers Hill, sank their well to the first or top artesian vein and obtained a flow of upwards of 240 gallons per minute, with a pressure which carries the water to the top of their immense building 90 feet above the ground. Encouraged by this success, the packing-house company began a well at their house on the north side at a point 120 feet lower than the top of Tuckers Hill, and it has now been drilled through the first and second artesian veins, and it is flowing at a rate of over 800,000 gallons in twenty four hours. They will continue the well to and through the lower artesian vein, when the flow will (if the Tucker Hill discoveries hold good for the north part of the city) be fully 1,500,000 gallons in twenty-four hours. The packing-house well is undoubtedly now flowing more Water in twenty-four hours than any other artesian well in the State of Texas by at least one-third, and when the third artesian vein is reached it will be the “Jumbo,” the geyser well of the State. The . city experiment has demonstrated that Fort Worth has the artesian water in quantities sufficient to supply a city of 1,000,000 people should occasion ever require it. Ten wells located down in the valley, above high-water mark, will supply over 10,000,000 gallons of pure artesian water each twenty-four hours, and the water is pure; there is no min- eral of any kind in solution in it; it is as clear as a diamond, as pure as melted snow. Surely if there is an artesian city in Texas, it is Fort Worth. - While to Fort Worth's enterprise the credit is due for first discover- ing the underground water supply of the Grand Prairie region, it was the citizens of Waco who developed its greatest capacity, by first bor- ing deep below the Paluxy sands into the great water-bearing sheets of the Trinity sands. Two years ago (1889) a water company of Waco * struck the first successful well on the higher ground in the south of the city, striking several flows of water, the volume of which was so great (estimated at from 500,000 to 1,000,000 gallons per day) that it created great rejoic- ing and has been the cause of untold value in the development and im- provement of the industrial and hygienic conditions of that city. The discovery of this flow immediately led to the drilling of other wells, and as a result the city and vicinity possesses numerous superb wells, flowing an aggregate of many million gallons per day, and sup- plying water not only for all public and domestic purposes, but power for various industries, such as clothing factories, wood-working ma- chinery, and irrigation. The wells vary in altitude from 400 feet (Kellum's, north of the city) to 550 feet (Prather's, 6 miles southwest), and have an average depth of 1,886 feet, or about 1,160 feet below the sea level. The water is hot, having a temperature of 1039, and is soft and tasteless. *Waco, altitude 421–500, is situated on the banks of the Brazos River (altitude 400), and south of the city the country rises to the general level of the Black Prairie. The surface, except where covered by terrace deposits of the rivers, is the Austin- Dallas chalk. *. 108 IRRIGATION. - - The success of these wells at Waco gave great impulse to artesian experimentation, and since their discovery flows have been struck in the same beds at Austin, Taylor, Belton, Temple, and Fort Worth, but of varying pressure, volume, and temperature, owing to difference in altitude and initial stratum. The number and characteristics of these wells can best be presented by the following statement, furnished me by Maj. S. H. Pope, of the board of trade, and through the kindness of Mayor C. C. McCulloch : WACO BOARD OF TRADE, Waco, Tex., July 7, 1891. DEAR SIR: Replying to your esteemed favor as regards the artesian wells in and around Waco, will say that there are now eleven overflowing and two approaching completion. Seven of the flowing wells and one nearing completion, now about 1,700 feet deep, are owned by the Bell Water Company. One of the flowing wells and one nearing completion, now about 1,000 feet deep, are owned by the Waco Light and Power Company. The three remaining flowing wells belong one to each, respectively, to the estate of W. R. Kellum, deceased, William L. Prather, and Tom Padgett. The altitude of the public square of Waco is 421 feet above sea level. The altitude, diameter, depth, estimated flow, temperature, and initial pressure per square foot of the several wells are as follows: e e Flow per Temper- Initial Name of well. Altitude. Diameter. Depth. diem. º pressure. Feet. Inches. Feet. Gallong. o F. Pownds. The Moore Well - - - - ---------------- 493 6 1, 840 600, 000 103 *60 The Bell Well f-----------------... • * * * * - 500 6 1, 820 500,000 1023 *60 Jumbo Well No. 1 f. ------------------. 500 8 1,848 1, 200,000 103 #60 Jumbo Well, No. 2f -...----------...----. 500 8 1, 860 | 1,000, 000 103 60 The Glenwood. --...------------------. 495 8 1, 860 | 1,000,000 103 || *65 The Dickey Well - - - - - --------..... --. 532 8 1, 840 | 1,000, 000 103 *60 The Bagby Well.--------------------. 475 8 1, 845 | 1,000, 000 103 *60 The Waco Light and Water Power Company Well---------------------- 532 6 1,812 300,000 100 40 The Prather Well ------------...------ 655 6 1, 607 500, 000 97 #40 The Kellum Well.------------...------- 420 6 1,776 | 1,000, 000 103 #76 The Padgett Well ------...------------. 485 6 1,886 1, 000, 000 |...... - - - - f72 * Estimated. fºl'hese three, the Bell, Jumbo No. 1 and No. 2, are 50 feet equidistant. Tested. The foregoing statements of flow per diem (twenty-four hours) are estimates. An attempt was made to measure the flow of Jumbo No. 1, but it was unsuccessful. An expert, a member of the United States Artesian Survey Corps, who made the attempt and failed, estimated the flow at 1,000 gallons per minute. If this statement is cor- rect the output per diem would be 1,440,000 gallons. . I have assumed the output of this well to be 1,200,000; with this as a basis the output of the otlier wells has been estimated. The pressure of the Jumbo, Prather, and Padgitt wells have been testified; the temperature of all has been ascertained by the thermometer. The first well overflowed in March, 1889, and the last in May, 1891. Neither has affected the flow of the other, although 6 are located on Bell Hill and 3 on Dickey Hill. The distance between the Prather and Kellum wells is about 4 miles. The analysis of the waters of the Bell well, made by the leading chemist of Chi- cago, in grains per United States gallon, is as follows: Silica, 1.3456; alumina, trace; iron sesquioxide, 1.493; sodium chloride, 6.0267; sodium potassium sulphates, 23.9583; calcium sulphate, .0000; sodiuli, carbonate and bicarbouate, 20.6597; magnesian car- bonate, .8432; calcium carbonate, 1.1579. Total solids by calculation, 53.8201. There is no appreciable difference in the taste of the waters of any of the wells; therefore we must assume that this one analysis covers all. The average depth of the wells within the city limits is 1,842 feet. The average depth of all, including the Prather and the Kellum wells, is 1,814 feet. I inclose a written report of the Padgitt well, prepared by Mr. P. J. Fishback, the contractor. He is a practical well-borer and something of a geologist. I think this report can be received as a fair statement for all the wells in the city. I send by mail 5 bottles of sand passed through. The water is soft, and is used for drinking, cooking, bathing, washing—in a word, for all domestic purposes. It is also used for sprinking flowers and lawns. It has not been used extensively for irrigation, but so far has proved very healthful to all Vegetation. DRILL RECORDS OF THE FORT WORTH WELLS. 109 . It is applied to motors of fróm 2 to 15 horse power. These motors run fans, print- ing presses, all the machinery of a coffin factory, with a daily capacity of 100 coffins; also a clothing factory of 250 sewing machines, cutters, and other necessary machines. I regret that I can not furnish you photographs of the interior factories. You have photos of the group of 3 wells. I am, yours truly, S. H. Pope, Secretary. The rock sheets passed through in boring these wells, from a section kindly furnished by Mr. Fishback, who kept an admirable record of the * Well, are as follows (the geological determinations are DOlne): . $ Record of drilling in Padgitt artesian well, Waco, Tea. 1. Dark soil, changing to light, calcareous -------------------------...---- ... feet -- 18 2. Soft white limestone, “Austin-Dallas chalk” ---------------------...--- do - - - 110 3. Blue shales, “joint clays”--------------------------------------------- do - - - 162 4. Light-brown, carbonaceous shales.------------------------------------ do... - 40 These shales gave a small quantity of petroleum. They slaked rapidly on expos- ure to air and water, and soon became fine mud. Walls of well caved badly in this Stratum. 5. Brown calcareous marl ----- dº e º ºs º ºs º º sº m ºne sº º as as sº tº sº sº sº º sm tº dº sº sº tº sº as sº ºne s tº me tº me as s is sº e feet -- 15 6. Blue shales, “joint clays” ---------- tº º sº sº tº º ºs º ºs s ºf º ºs º gº tº dº º sº º sº gº tº º ºs º ºs º ſº sº tºº & E tº do - - - 121 7. Brown, carbonaceous shales, lignitic in character --------------------- do - - - 60 These shales gave off a small quantity of petroleum. Walls of well caved badly in this stratum, necessitating the setting of 73-inch casing just below, in stratum of marl. - 8. Brown calcareous marl ---------------------------------------------- feet -- 38 The 7#-inch casing was set in this marl at .------------...----------- do - - - 536 9. Blue shales, “joint clays” (Washita) - ...-------------...---------------- do - - - 411 10. Brown carbonaceous shales, lignitic in character - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - --- do - - - 45 These shales gave a trace of petroleum. They caved badly, drilling proceeding through and beneath them with much difficulty. 11. Cream-colored, calcareous marl -------------------------------------. feet -- 156 Immediately under the last carbonaceous shale stratum and in the upper portion of this marl stratum, considerable water came in. This water was highly charged with impurities of lime, sulphur, iron, and prob- ably epsom salts. Water was not analyzed. The 53-inch casing was extended to the bottom of this marl stratum to shut off this impure water, which was done, the hole being dry for the next 75 feet. The 53-inch casing was set at 1,176 feet. 12. White limestones were occasionally interstratified with thin seams of blue shale, or light-colored calcareous marl (Glen Rose) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - feet - - 554 From about 1,250 feet to 1,500 feet water came at different horizons, making an artesian flow of considerable volume; below 1,500 feet apparently no more water came in until the first water and sand were reached, at 1,782 feet. 13. Blue calcareous, silicious shales ,------------------------------------- feet -- 30 These shales were of somewhat plastic natures, contained some lime, with also considerable proportion of very fine, light blue sand. This stratum would seem to mark the transition from shallower and more agitated waters, depositing sand, to deeper and more tranquil sea conditions, favorable to the growth of shellfish and the making of limestones. 14. Soft, very fine-grained, gray sandstone (Trinity) ---------------...----- feet -- 15 This sand was seemingly dry, producing no apparent increase in the volume of upper water. 15. Red, plastic shale, local bed in Trinity -------------------------...----. feet -- 7 16. Soft, very fine-grained, light-gray sandstone.------------------------------ This sand responded with water as soon as reached, and gave the first strong arte- sian flow proper from the well. 17. Blue shale, local bed in Trinity ------...----------- -------------------. feet-- 5 18. Soft, very fine-grained, light-colored sandstone.--------------------...------ ----" 110 IRRIGATION. This sand largely increased the flow of water. 19. Blue, plastic shale, local bed in Trinity------------------------------. feet... 8 20. Soft, very fine-grained, white sandstone ------------------------------do--- 28 In this sand the largest volume of water was obtained, slightly increasing the pressure and temperature and nearly doubling the flow from the well. 21. Blue, plastic shale --------------------------------------------------- feet. - 5. The thickness of this stratum unknown. This shale was drilled into a depth of five feet, but the flow and pressure of water was so great that the sand pump would not descend through the lower flow of water, and, consequently, the sediment could not be removed from the bottom of the well below the horizon where the heavy flow of water came in, and drilling had to be suspended. Further drilling could only be prosecuted by shutting out the flow of water by ex- tending a string of casing to the bottom of the well and reducing the size of the well below that point. Pressure of well. - - - - tº s tº s º e º ºs º e º ºs º ºs s m = ± = * * * * * * * * - - - - - - - - - - - -----pounds-- 72 Temperature. -------------------------------- tº ºr m s m = e º sº as s a s w w s = * * * * * O F.. 103} Volume, per diem (approximately) ----------------------------- gallons... 1,000,000 Total depth of Well.----------------------------------------------- feet -- 1,866 Remarks.-While no opinions on matters of this nature can ever be accepted as ab- solutely correct until verified by the drill, yet from the grained texture, quality, and appearance of the sands, I am decidedly of the opinion that the bottom of the sandstone column has not yet been reached in the Waco wells, and that there is strong probability that other and coarser sands may be found still deeper. If found, they would give yet an increased volume of water, with also slight additional pressure and temperature. Very respectfully, P. J. FISIIBACK, Contractor. Reviewing the foregoing section (the Padgett well at Waco), the for- mations passed through are as follows: - Altitude. Depth. | Tºº Bemarks. 285-37 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 0–128 128 Austin chalk and residual soil. 357-79 -------------------------- 564 436 3, 4, 5, 6, Eagle Ford clays, fish beds. 79 above to 631 below sea level. 962 398 || 8, 9, 10, various beds Washita division marly clays, with limestone. Caprina, Comanche Peak, Walnut clays. 636 to 1,255 bolow sea level..... 1, 250 |---------. First water near top of alternating beds. grº 1,742 778 || 11, 12, alternating beds of Trinity division. . 1, 353–3 below sea level --------. 1,838 98 || 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, Trinity sands, with - its clay bands, 98 feet. Total.--------------------- 1,838 Total thickness of water- .......... 538 bearing group---------. | From a study of this section and a comparison with those of Dallas and Fort Worth it is evident that the total thickness is about the same as if the Dallas drill hole (Nos. 1–6 of the Waco) should be placed on top of the Fort Worth (Nos. 7–21), of the Waco section. It will also be evident that neither the Lower Cross Timber sands, from which Dallas obtained her supply, or the Paluxy sand, which should be between Nos. 6 and 7 and Nos. 12 and 13, respectively, are sufficiently developed, if at all, to be noticeable, and that Waco draws her main supply from an entirely lower and different source, the 876 feet of strata below the horizon of the Paluxy sands, and especially the lowest 98 feet of sands. This, the greatest of the flows, is 1,278 feet below the bottom of the Dallas wells. The following section, measured from the top of Comanche Peak to the Brazos River, where that stream has exposed by erosion the lower r * *- • TABULATION OF THE GEOLOGICAL STRATA. ill half of the rock of the Waco drill hole, will give a view of these water- bearing strata: Section from Brazos River, altitude 755, at Granbury, to top of Comanche Peak Butte, altitude 1,250, showing detail of lower water-bearing beds of Comanche series. Fe 6. Caprina—Hard, chalky limestone, character uniform throughout; fossil shell rudistes occurring very irregularly; forms caprock of mountain; imper- V10118-- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - * - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 33 5. Comanche Peak beds—Slightly softer chalky limestone; more variable in hardness than the Caprina, thus forming distinct benches; impervious... 66 4. Gryphaea and Walnut beds—Hard limestone (small fossil; grayphaea pitcheri, above it) ------------ • * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Marls, caleareous, with Gryphaea------------------------------------ 8 Local harder layer intervening-------------------------------------- 1 Marls with Gryphaea------------------------------------------------ 4 Rough broken linestone -------------------------------------------. 1 Marls, upper part chalky -------------------------------------------- 15 Hard crystalline limestone walnut slabs, with Gryphaea, marly layers... 4 Hard yellow limestone -----------...----. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Marly layer-------------------------------------------------------------- - 5 Hard limestone flags, lower portion more fossiliferous and argillaceous and pervious to Water------------------------------------------------------- 3 Marly layer--------------------------------------------------------------- 12 Marly layer--------------------------- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ------------- 3# Limestone slabs.---------------------------------------------------------. 1 B. Limestone slabs, compact and coarser.----------. ----------------------. # Marly layer ---------------------------- ** = * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * - - - - - - - - - - - - ------ 4 Limestone slabs.---------------------------------------------------------. 2 C. Marly layer------------------------------------------------------------ 3 Compact magnesian limestone slabs --------------------------------------. 1. Marly layer-------------------------------------------------------------.. 4 Hard white crystalline limestone makes decided bench - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 3. Marly layer--------------------------------------------------------------- 10 Gray, slightly argillaceous limestone -------------------------------------. 1. Marly layer--------------------------------------------------------------. 4 White broken limestone, fossiliferous. -----------------...------------------. 2 Three Soft limestone layers, with intervening marls - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 6 White, evenly laminated limestone, with ferruginous segregations. -- - - - - - -. 1. 'Calcareous marl, changing gradually into harder limestone.-----. - - - - - - - --. 8 Soft argillaiceous limestone (pervious) surface - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - --. 1. Angular, broken up with blocks, clays more argillaceous and marly at upper portion, basal portion more arenaceous and laminated - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 21 Rough, broken argillaceous limestone (porous) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 2 Gryphaea marls and clays with white calcareous hardening - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 4 Marls-------------------------- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 5 Massive breccia of Gryphaea. ----------------------------------------------- 4 Marls with many Grypaea ------------------------------------------------ 15 Gryphaea ----------------------------------------------------------------- 9 Hard Gryphaea layer ------------------------------------------------------ 1 Marls--------------------------------------------------------------------- 4 Local harder layer ----------------------. --------------------------------- 1 Marls--------------------------------------------------------------------- 3 Limestone with Gryphaeas---------------- -------------------------------. 4 Marls, Gryphaea and Exogyra texana ----------. --------------------------. 4 Local hard layer ------------------------ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 1. Marls with Gryphaeas ----------------------------------------------------- 14 3. Paluzy water sands.--Forest clad, in portions somewhat calcareous but usually constant throughout---------------------------------------------------- 100 2. Alternating or Glen Itose beds.-Alternations of limestones and marls. -- - - - - - - 105 Hard magnesian limestone, few foisils, Small, ferruginous segregations----- . Soft marl----------------------------------------- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 10 Oyster beds-------------------- '• - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 4 Marly beds ------------------------------------------------------ --------- 3 Hardened limestone layers - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 3 Marly beds ----------------------'- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 10 Caprotiua limestone; caprotina very abundant at base, upper portion less fossiliferous, rather variable lithologically ------------------------------ 1. Sand, with some limestone and sandstone layers and caleareous nodular layers. 112 - IRRIGATION. Résumé of Comanche Peak 8ections. Feet. Caprina limestone ---------------------- 33 T} 4. Comanche Peak division, 220 feet; º'º.”................. ; - G. Pitcheri beds ------------------------ 56 3. Paluxy Sands -------------------------------------------------------------- 100 2. Alternating or magnesian beds above Glen Rose village--------------------- 175 1. Glen Rose or alternating beds and Trinity sands here pierced by drills at Glen Rose, about ... ------------------------------------------------------ 300 Total thickness of water-bearing group -----------------, ...------------- 795 These basal sands are the great Trinity sands, the most extensive and porous water-bearing sheet in our country, except perhaps the Dakota sandstone in Dakota, while the alternating beds above them are full of small sandy layers, which in other artesian regions than this, where they are so overshadowed, would in themselves be esteemed of great importance, and which tend to increase the capacity of the wells bored through them. These alternating or Glen Rose beds (chalk, oëlites, and sands) all possess great imbibing and transmitting powers, so that they increase the receiving area of the Trinity sands. This condition of the overlying beds is quite different from that of the Lower Cross Timber and Paluxy sands, each of which, it will be remembered, is over- laid immediately by a dense impervious clay layer. The outcrop of catchment area of the water-bearing Trinity division (Trinity sands and alternating beds) constitutes the surface formation of a vast area in Montague, Wise, Parker, Hood, Erath, Somerville, Comanche, Brown, Mills, Lampasas, and Burnet counties north of the Colorado, having an outcrop covering a total area of many square miles. The water-bearing sheets of the Trinity group aggregrate from 538 feet, as at Waco, to 750 feet at Fort Worth, and underlie the whole of the Grand and Black prairies, an area of 78,000 square miles, be- coming deeper relative to mean sea level at the rate of about 45 feet per mile to the eastward. This vast sheet of porous sand is thoroughly charged with water, and constitutes a great underground reservoir which holds in constant saturation at least many billion gallons of water, under strong hydrostatic pressure. The imbibing capacity of the Trinity sands is the maximum, owing to their angularity, coarse- ness, and purity, as can be seen by the rapid manner in which the sands imbibe the water. These sands, from which Waco secures her water, are the same pack sands which furnish the ordinary well water in the town of Comanche (see profile 2). Twenty-two miles east at Dublin they have dipped be- neath the surface 400 feet lower than the altitude of Comanche (altitude 1,000), and so on at Whitney, McGregor, and other places to Waco (altitude 421), where they are 2,400 feet lower than at Comanche, and at Marlin, on the east of the Black Prairie, they will be at least 3,000 feet. Many other successful wells of the Waco type have been drilled, be- ginning in the Austin chalk horizon, as at Waco, or in the lower beds of the overlying Ponderosa marls at Temple and Taylor. The first well at Austin, drilled by the State in the capitol grounds, was stopped con- trary to expert advice at the first weak flow, and is practically valueless. Two other wells north of the capitol, one at the State asylum and the other a private enterprise, were drilled into the deeper and to the greater flow, which, owing to the superior altitude of Austin, however, (some 150 feet above Waco) have not so great pressure. * CHARACTER OF WATER IN THE SHALLOW WELLs. 113 These experimental wells, which form a continuous chain from Fort Worth to Austin, with the single exception of a few miles, leave the conclusion that the flow from the Trinity sands can be procured the entire distance, 180 miles, both in highlands and valleys, along the line of the Missouri Pacific road, and many miles on each side, at least as far west on the uplands as McGregor and Belton. These wells also prove the great distribution and approximate uni- formity of the underground sheet of Trinity sands, and the city of Dallas, which is situated like Waco and Austin, upon the chalk, instead of being content with the present supply, should bore to this greater flow. Q THE WESTERN VALLEY WELLS OF THE GRAND PRAIRIE, OR THE SHALLOW WIELLS OF THE TRINITY FLOW. - The western edge of the Grand Prairie, as has been explained, is cut across by its rivers at various intervals into deep drainage valleys, often 500 feet deep, which have left the remnant of the plateau standing as the flat-topped divides and mesas as so often seen in EIood, Erath, Comanche, Bosque, Hamilton, Coryell, and Coryell counties. These uninhabited mesas are usually capped by the hard, sterile Caprina limestone, while the wide valleys between them are occupied by the fertile soils of the Walnut clays or rich stream alluvium, upon which is seated all the agricultural population of the region. In some of these valleys, as that of the Paluxy in Somerville County, the Trinity in Parker, and the Cowhouse in Lampasas, is a remarkable series of numerous shallow, flowing artesian wells, which have been inexpensively drilled by the farmers. This system of shallow wells has been principally developed in the valleys of the Paluxy and Squaw creeks, in Somerville County, and at Pidcock Ranch, 100 miles south, in Coryell County. In the former locality there are nearly 200 flowing wells, varying in depth from 30 to 300 feet, all of which begin in the various horizons of the Glen Rose or Alternating Beds below the Paluxy sands and reach into the Trinity sands. These wells can best be seen at Glen Rose, in the valley of Paluxy River, near where it flows into the Brazos, and from there up the Paluxy some 20 miles to Bluff Dale, in Erath County. Nearly every farmer has one or more of these flowing wells, which are used for do- mestic purposes, stock-raising, and, in many cases, for irrigation. They vary in flow from 10 gallons per minute to 300, the smaller flows usually being from small bores and wells which do not reach the main supply. Nearly every house in the town of Glen Rose is supplied with one or more of these wells. The water from the shallower wells is usually charged with mineral from the strata of the Glen Rose Beds. It has been the rule that this mineral water, which is the same struck in the Upper Beds of the whole Trinity division, as at Waco, Georgetown, Pidcock Ranch, can be cased off and a better flow obtained by going to the deeper and purer sands. The finest of the wells seen by me was that at Mr. Lambam's farm, 6 miles west of Glen Rose, which flowed an 8-inch stream and about 350 gallons per minute, with which he abundantly irrigated about 50 acres of corn, cotton, and cane. I was informed upon good authority that there were many more farms irrigated in the same way. At Paluxy a similar well is used for irrigating a field of cotton. The total area..of the Paluxy Valley from Bluff Dale to its mouth and of Squaw Creek, where this series of wells are obtainable, is over 200 square miles. S. Ex. 41, pt. 3—8 114 IRRIGATION. Over the southern drainage divide, in the valley of the Bosque River, a companion stream of the Paluxy, in Erath and Bosque counties, there is another similar area of shallow wells, as at Iredell and westward, having the characteristics of the Glen Rose group. A similar area exists in the Valley of the Leon, the next stream south- ward, from Gatesville westward. This stream valley should be thor- oughly tested. - & The next stream valley southward is the Cowhouse, and here again there has been in the vicinity of Pidcoke's ranch another great develop- ment similar to that around Glen Rose. The following account from Mr. Roessler's excellent report will give a göod idea of these wells: Coryell County.—W. H. Belcher, Pidcock Ranch post-office: In Cowhouse Valley, through which runs a small river, part in Hamilton County and part in Coryell County, are about 50 flowing wells. One well flows 50 gallons per minute, aud it is about 320 feet deep. The other wells stop at the first stratum of flowing water. I believe if the wells were 100 feet deeper they all would run from 50 to 57 gallons per minute. These wells are all mineral water, but it has never been analyzed. None of these wells have more than 30 feet casing, and I expect that there is a great waste of water through the strata of these rocks. These wells can be drilled here for $200. Mine was the first drilled by insurance. Its depth is 290 feet; cost $500; capacity 25 gallons per minute, and is used for household purposes, live stock, and for irrigating a small gar- den, and is good for beets, potatoes, cabbage, corn, tornatoes, etc. It could be stored, but it is not. Altitude, 2,500 feet; rainfall about 30 or 35 inches. J. T. Meeks's well, 252 feet deep, cost $200; L. McCloskey, King post-office, well, 240 feet deep; cost $240; flow 2 gallons per minute; used for household purposes and live stock. Not good on vegetation. J. M. Davidson, Pecan Grove; flowing well, 220 feet deep ; cost $233.60; flows one-eighth inch stream, soda and sulphur, good for family use, watering stock, and irrigating one-fourth acre of garden. Affects fine vegetables. Flowing wells are from 130 feet to 600 feet; rainfall about 35 or 36 inches, and beautiful showing for irrigation. I have heard of no drilling in the upper valleys of the Lampasas, San Gabriel, and Colorado, but they present exactly similar conditions, as has been proven in part by the 500 to 1,000 foot wells procured in the lower valleys of the Lampasas and San Gabriel at Belton and George- to W1). North of Glen Rose the continuity of these shallow conditions has been demonstrated at Springtown, in northern Parker County, where, accord- ing to Roessler, there are six or seven flowing wells within a radius of 2 miles at Springtown, Parker County, and this seems to be the only point in the county where such have been obtained. Water is generally obtained in ordinary wells at a depth of 18 to 40 feet. The rainfall is given as follows: 1878, 31.34 inches; 1879,23.71 inches; 1881,23.54 inches; generally sufficient to mature crops every year. The western half of the country is somewhat hilly, and is to a large extent covered with post-oak timber. The subsoil in many places is stiff red clay, and is usually found in such localities where it could be used in the construc- tion of storage “tanks” or reservoirs from 1 to 10 acres in extent. Com- pared with irrigated lands the people of this county get a “half crop” from year to year. They could vastly improve on this by using the facilities they have at hand. .* There is but little doubt that these wells can be procured in the val- leys of the western part of the Grand Prairie, in Parker County, east of the Grand Prairie escarpment, and in the valley of the Brazos near Granbury. t There are similar conditions in the lower valley of the Edwards Plateau, such as the Frio, New Braunfels, and other rivers. The total area developed of these valley wells of less than 500 feet 115 depth of over 2,400 square miles. The system has only commenced its development. Irrigation with these shallow wells has been demonstrated by farmers of the Paluxy Valley to be both practicable, inexpensive, and profitable. In a former report I have shown that the region is subject to serious droughts, while the average yield is small, running from one-quarter to one-half a bale of cotton per acre. Most of this superb flow of water is not utilized for irrigation, because the methods and benefits of irrigation are not understood. Farmers, however, have attained good results from irrigation. Mr. William Lanham, who lives 6 miles west of Glen Rose, has an 8-inch well which flows about 500,000 gallons of freestone water per day. With this he abundantly irrigates 50 acres of land, utilizing the Water only a few days in the year. Although he came to Texas from more humid regions and had never before seen irrigation, his suc- gess has been great. He has confined his efforts to the least profitable irrigable crops, corn, cotton, and Louisiana sugar cane, and has never manured or otherwise fertilized his land. ' The following table shows his experience: * RESULTS OF ARTESIAN WELL IRRIGATION. Average Yield of º land yield irrigated. Products. without irrigation. 1888. 1889. 1890. Corn. -------------------------------------------------. bushels. . 25 75 66 40 Seed cotton -------------------------------------------- pounds...| 200 to 500 2, 200 3,000 4,000 Molasses of Louisiana or Ribbon cane...... -----------. gallons--|------------|-------. 350 350 Several other experiments in irrigation in the same neighborhood have met with equally successful results. No one has irrigated alfalfa, clover, small grains, or small fruits, which are most susceptible to profitable irrigation. * - At Paluxy village, 10 miles west, were two irrigated farms upon which cotton was growing two bales to an acre. In general, however, the waste of this water is most unfortunate, for if properly used it would be of priceless value to the agricultural inter- ests of Texas. ** THE FIVE HUNDRED-FOOT TO ONE THOUSAND-FOOT WELLS OF THE TRINITY FLOW, OR THE MORGAN-GATESVILLE GROUP. Still further eastward and down these valleys in the belt usually hav- ing a surface of the Morgan clays, there is another belt of wells which are deeper, owing to the accession of overlying strata layers and dip to the eastward. These are secured around Morgan, Meridian, George- town, Belton, and other places in a north and south belt, of the Grand Prairie, upon the outcrop of the Comanche Peak and Washita divi- sions, and the wells average from 500 to 1,200 feet deep. This belt in- cludes the Fort Worth and Denton wells, those at Whitney, George- town, McGregor, and Belton, and, especially fine flows have recently been struck at the last two places, both of which are situated upon or near the base of the Washita division (Nos. 8, 9, 10 of the Waco see- tion). At McGregor the well is 1,200 feet deep and has the great flow of the Waco wells (19 miles east). The shallow Paluxy flow had been obtained here several years ago upon the farm of Col. W. P. Gaines. At Belton (altitude, 519), situated at the top of the Caprina limestone, a little lower geologically than Fort Worth or McGregor, two 116 T ---- IRRIGATION. --- superb flows have been struck this year, concerning which Mr. Wilson T. Davidson, the young geologist of that city, has furnished me the fol. lowing list : Note on wells of Belton by Wilson Davidson.—There are two wells within this place, both drilled within the past twelve months, 1890–91. One of these in the jail yard near the court-house (approximated alti- tude, 519), presents the following section, as furnished by the well- driller: * Feet. Soft limestone ---------------------- P. ºnlz- 25 1. } Blue marl or slate------------------- : Comanche Peak group.------------ } 300 ſ Blue limestone.---------------------- ſ 50 White putty or mud -------- - - - - 15 White lºº (soft) .... d sº rā). 50 o J Sand rock with iron pyrites (hard) . . . c. 1, s 10 2. { Limestone -------------------------- |Glen Rose beds. ---...--------- 100 White mud ------------------------- 25 White limestone ---. ---------. -----. - 250 UWhite mud .----------. ------------- - 25 3. Sandstone.----------------------------- Trinity sands--------------------- 40 Total ----------------------------------------------------------------- 890 The flow is very strong, but as its amount had not been taken I could not get it. - - The citizen well dug some months ago is 70 feet higher than this, and (according to Col. Denny) this che is approximately 70 feet less in depth. The water in the county well is 300 F. warmer than the well dug last march (Col. Denny). As to the flow of the new artesian well—by making repeated experi- ments with a large barrel, and stop watch, I found it to be 1,002,040 gal- lons per day. The barrel was filled in five seconds every time. Of course this is not exactly correct, but approximate. I also wish to state that the water sand is 35 feet in thickness, same as in the other well. The Fort Worth drills commence in 8 and penetrate to 12, to reach the Paluxy water, and from thence downward the section is similar to Waco. - Owing to the lower geological horizon of all these places, they are 500 feet nearer to the great water sheets than the Austin-Waco belt, by the absence of thickness of the Austin chalk in part and the Eagle Ford clays (the Lower Cross Timber sands missing at Waco). THE LIMITS OF THE FORT WORTH-WACO SYSTEM. It requires but a simple calculation of dip and altitude to see that the inclination of the lowest water-bearing sheets will carry them to a depth beyond practical reach (2,500–3,000) for economic use. This limit, if we estimate the thickness of the rock sheets, will be found in the eastern belt of the Black Prairie region, between the great Atlantic Timber belt and the line of outcrop of the Austin-Dallas chalk. At Thorndale (alti- tude, 450) and Terrel (altitude, 425—514) situated upon a north and south. line, some 200 miles apart, upon the eastern margin of the Black Prairie, at the top of the Ponderosa marls, over 2,000 feet have been drilled into these marls without reaching the Austin chalk, and it is probable that the same conditions prevail every foot of the way between them, as illustrated about halfway, at Marlin (altitude 394) Falls County, where the drill is now 1,600 feet in the marls.” Wells at Kaufman, Corsicana, * The first or Paluxy flow has since been struck at 2,100 feet in the Marlin well. PLATE IX. MAP OF AUSTIN, TEXAS, AND WICINITY, SHOWING OUTCROPS OF IGNEOUS Rock (SHADED AREAS) THROUGH THE WATER-BEARING STRATA OF THE GRAND AND BLAck PRAIRIES AND BREAKING THEIR CONTINUITY. THE SHALLOW OR NON-FLOWING WELLS. 117 * and all other intervening points will no doubt meet with similar experi- 62D COS. * This belt is at least 2,800 feet geologically above the face of Trinity Sands, and 1,800 above the Lower Cross"Timber sands north of the latitude of Hillsboro. :* The only portion of the Grand and Black Prairie regions, where this Water Can not be made to flow, between the Colorado and the latitude of Denton, is on the tops and slopes of the high mesas (“mountains” in local parlance) which form the high divides of the stream valleys of the western half of the Grand Prairie, and are higher in altitude than the receiving area of the Upper Cross Timbers. - ARTESIAN FAILURES IN THE GRAND AND BLACK PRAIRIE X REGIONS. º - The proportion of failures in this region north of San Antonio have been remarkably small. Of the numerous wells drilled, only a few have been unsuccessful, and the latter, except in two instances, were not drilled down to the water-bearing sands. In but one instance has a well which pènetrated to the Trinity sands failed to secure a rise of Water, and this was at Taylor, where the second well drilled, in less than a mile from a most magnificent flow, was utterly dry, the Trinity Sand especially so. I can offer no explanation of this, except that there Was local imperviousness or perhaps certain conditions of faulting and slipping in the strata that cut off the sands from the water. At Thorn- dale, Marlin, and Terrel the wells were not drilled to the water. At Kerrville granite was struck at 700 feet. At Cable's Ranch, 12 miles west of San Antonio, 2,200 feet of the Comanche series were unsuccess- fully penetrated. Negative or nonflowing wells.-At Rhome, Wise County, a well struck the water, but it failed to flow to the surface, because Rhome is higher in altitude than the receiving area. The water rose sufficiently high to be pumped and is of great value. At the old well at Denison the water in a 1,200-foot well failed to flow for the same reason, that city being some 200 feet higher than the Trinity sands outcropping at Red River, at the great bluff below Preston. The value of nonflowing Wells, however, should not be underestimated. Where the water rises to within pumping distance it is far more valuable than the surface water, on account of its freedom from organic matter. They can be obtained nearly everywhere in the region. I have mentioned, p. 60, a great fault or break in the strata from Marietta southeastward (followed by Red River from Preston to 7 miles east of Denison) towards Roxton and beyond, in Lamar County. By this great fracture the whole region of the Grand Prairie and water- bearing Trinity sands in Indian Territory has dropped below the alti- tude of the Red River tier of counties, so that there is no hydrostatic pressure to force it up south of the fault on the Texas side, as proven by the borings at Denison and Paris. On the Indian Territory side, however, it is different, and magnificent flows should be obtained from the Paluxy and Trinity Sands in this region, under exactly the same conditions as previously explained of the Lower Cross Timber sands. CONCLUSIONS AND SUMMARY OF THE ARTESIAN CONDITIONS OF THE BLACK AND GRAND PRAIRIE REGIONS. It is now evident that this region of Texas is underlaid by several vast sheets of water-bearing strata occurring at various intervals apart. . The lowest and most valuable of these are the Trinity or Upper Cross 118 IRRIGATION. Timber sands, which underlie every foot of the region and are the source of a probably inexhaustible supply. This is the lowest sheet of a group of water bearing sands at the base of the Lower Cretaceous or Comanche series, the highest of which, some. 750 feet above it, is the Paluxy sands, which afford but a feeble flow and only extend under the region north of the Lampasas. From 1,500 to 1,700 feetabove the Trinity sands and 800 to 1,000 above the Paluxy bedsis another group of water-bearing sheets, which outcrop in the Lower Cross Timbers, from which Dallas and Pottsboro receive their supplies. This sheet underlies only the Black Prairie region, and, while of great value, is not to be compared with the Trinity beds, which can always be struck by boring through it. Having presented the geological character of the possible areas for securing water in the Black and Grand Prairie regions, I propose to . show by the application of a simple rule how the approximate depth of the water sheets can be determined at any point. By drawing north and south lines through points of equal depth relative to mean sea level it may be granted that artesian flows can be obtained at any in- tervening point of that line, provided the surface altitudes are also similar. Thus a line drawn through Pidcock Ranch, Glen Rose, and Springtown will show that all along that line, at points of the same altitude, the Trinity water can be obtained at a less depth than 500 feet; A similar line through Georgetown, Belton, and Gatesville will cross all points where the 500 to 1,000 foot wells from the Trinity sands will flow; one through McGregor, Whitney, and Fort Worth will show the points where the 1,200-foot depth can be obtained ; one through Austin, Waco, Taylor, and Dallas, the 1,500 to 2,000 foot depth, and so on to the east. Furthermore, the depth of the artesian flows can be approximately prognosticated by a knowledge of the geological horizon outcropping at the surface. For instance, in the region where the Glen Rose beds outcrop the basal Trinity water sheet is not over 500 feet deep; where the Comanche Peak division occupy the surface the Paluxy sands water is from 0 to 300 feet, and the basal Trinity or Jumbo flow from 500 to 1,000 feet; where the Fort Worth beds occupy the surface, the depth of the Jumbo flow is from 1,000 to 1,500 feet; in the region of the Lower Cross Timbers and Eagle Ford Prairies it is from 1,500 to 1,800, and along the line of the Dallas-Austin Chalk from 1,600 to 2,400, the depth increasing to the northward. The depth of these wells depends upon their altitude and distance from the outcrop of the receiving area. This depth increases relative to mean sea level at the average rate of 34.5 feet per mile, and hence adjacent to the receiving area are shallow flows from 30 to 300 feet as at Glen Rose, Springtown, and Pidcock Ranch, while upon the eastern edge of the Black Prairie, as at Thorndale, Kaufman, Corsicana, and Terrell, the lowest Sands are over 3,000 feet in depth. The pressure is inversely proportionate to the altitude of the wells, being greater where the point of overflow is lowest. It is owing to Waco's situation in the deep valley of the Brazos that her wells have such magnificent pressure, and it is owing to Dublin's very high alti- tude that her wells have a small pressure. It has been a question with most well-drillers where to stop their drills. Many have the theory that the deeper the drill penetrates the strata the more will be the water obtained, while others, content to let well enough alone, have ceased drilling at the first flow of water ob- tained. Both of these hypotheses have to a certain extent been right, yet in their application they have often been wrong. The only sure rule SUGGESTIONS As To THE USE OF WELL DRILLS. 119 is to have a knowledge of the succession of the rock sheets and to gov- ern the depth of the drill holes accordingly. The following rules, how- - ever, may be considered of value in determining the question: * 1. If Water is struck in the Lower Cross Timber sands the drill should continue at least 200 feet into the Fort Worth limestones, in order to obtain the benefit of all the flows of the sands. Below these the drill must go from 600 to 700 feet in order to reach the Paluxy sands, and from 600 to 700 feet below these to the main or Jumbo supply of the basal Trinity sands. 2. When the greenish-red clays of the Carboniferous system below the basal Trinity sands are reached, it is hopeless and useless to drill farther, as shown by the deep drilling at Fort Worth and at Cisco. 3. When the feeble mineral flows of the Paluxy and Upper Trinity are reached, the drill should by all means be continued from 200 to 300 feet deeper to the basal or Jumbo flow. Many of the earlier wells dug at Fort Worth, Morgan, Meridian, and Glen Rose should be deepened. (See profiles.) * THE ARTESIAN CONDITION OF THE BLACK AND GRAND PRAIRIES SOUTH OF THE COLORADO. There are many reasons for separating the prairie regions south of the Colorado from those north of it. The chief of these is the great Balcones fault or fracture, which extends from north of Austin to beyond Del Rio, by which the continuity and arrangement of the stratification is greatly broken, the strata of the Grand Prairie or Edwards Plateau becoming more horizontal, while the Black Prairie has dropped down and is covered by the great La Fayette gravel sheet which extends along the Atlantic and Gulf seaboard and greatly changes the surface aspects of the region. Again, the great fault line is accompanied by a remarkable series of ancient volcanic necks of black basaltic rocks, which break through the water strata. For these I have proposed the name of Shumard Knobs.” These ancient volcanic rocks appear in upward of twenty places in the counties of Travis, Hays, Blanco, Comal, Kendall, Medina, Uvalde, Edwards, and Kenny. Owing to their pressure it is impossible to predict the continuity of any area of flowing wells in the region, although the latter are numer- ous and abundant, while the great artesian springs here attain their greatest development. The presence of these great masses of impervious igneous rock cer. tainly render the certainty of artesian experimentation doubtful south of the Colorado and east of the International road in Travis County, where they cross from the Grand into the Black Prairie region. South of that point, along the International road to San Antonio, wells ought to be secured at most places within 40 or 50 miles of the escarpment. At San Antonio, as more fully treated in the chapter on the Rio Grande embayment, wells have been obtained and great abundance of flowing water, oil, gas, or all. - * See American Geologist, January, February, 1890. A typical one, Pilot Knob, more fully described in a recent paper. See “Pilot Knob,” American Geologist, 1891. 120 IRRIGATION. WATER CONDITIONS OF THE EDWARDS PLATEAU. (see Plate II and Fig. 9.) In the general description of the Edwards Plateau or southern divi- sion of the Grand Prairie, I have explained how it and its northward continuation—the Llano Estacado—forms a great elongated mesa or table-land, the northern half of which is covered by the sheet of Ter- tiary strata of the Llano Estacado beds. The mass of the Edwards Plateau is mostly composed of spongy strata of the Glen Rose and Trinity beds, capped on the summits by the impervious Caprina lime- stone. By this arrangement, while the summits are dry, the whole mass of the interior and base of this immense mesa is charged with water like a sponge, which flows out at stream level on hearly every side and feeds all the streams south of the Colorado, as the Concho, San Saba, Llano, Pedernalis, Comal, Guadalupe, Medina, Frio, Merces, and Devils rivers. These escarpment springs are often of great vol. ume, like those of the Concho in Tom Green and adjacent counties, and all receive their supply from the earth water of the great mesa flowing out at the line of stream level, and never from the escarp- ment face or bluff. These characteristic springs can well be repre- sented by placing a large Sponge on a marble-top table and placing on top of the sponge a perforated sheet iron or grating. The grating will be similar to the jointed and fractured limestone cap of the Edwards Plateau, through which water percolates downward into the sponge and by which is prevented from evaporating. The sponge will be analogous to the Glen Rose and Trinity sands, capable of holding much Water in Saturation, even When dry around its edges. The marble represents either the impervious Red beds floor or the line of complete saturation in the Trinity beds themselves, which in either case will prevent the farther downward percolation of water, and, hence, by its own gravity it will flow or sipe out at the line of the lowest rela- tive level, which is usually the stream beds. This is exactly the case of the springs of the great Edwards Plateau. The surface is dry and poorly adapted to agriculture, like the mountain tops (mesa) of the main Grand Prairie region, and has very little population. The deep canyons cut in to the spongy Glen Rose and Trinity beds form the sides of this mesa and usually have water and numerous springs, and in them is situated all the agricultural areas, but they do not constitute One per cent of the vast area for which the springs might be available. The canyon springs in the eastern edge of the plateau, where there is more rainfall, are among the picturesque features of Texas, especially the valleys of the Guadalupe and Concho, and present unusually fine conditions for irrigation of the farming lands which border them. The springs of this region are too numerous to give in detail, but the principal ones, beginning on the north, are the Big Springs of Howard County (in the transitional region between the Llano Estacado and the Edwards Plateau) which were admirably described by Mr. F. R. Roess- ler in the report frequently cited in this work. These springs flow from the Trinity sands, as since determined by specimens and Sections furnished by Mr. Roessler. - - Proceeding southward across the drainage divides (spurs of the main plateau) magnificent seepage springs of great volume are met in the Val- leys of the various branches of the Concho River, which have furnished water for irrigation in the Tom Green country for many years. These all break out from the Trinity sands and conglomerate. Continuing eastward, the next greatest springs are met in the Menard Country, : | || } : º º ... iii. º º # º ſº ! # º | l º: ''}} º º s | | || ' | { i. } s: i; º º ſ! | | | | ||||"º, º \ \ łł'ſ '' | lº --> º ! º | !'; º º #| |; ' ' ', '' ... : :"' | | | . . Wilſº # g A.'' i | ! ºft # ; § t {i,j}, ºff; §§ º ſº § ... ii, ' ' || || ||º §§ º º º §§ || || | | || §ºil, | ſº ! . º: ! ! is ł, | ; ; º ºf " , ºft||| § ºliº § h º §§ ſi º - - tº: º !'}; , ,', #" "| !," ": ) ! º r §--> --> §§ſ '', iſ in 㺠§ d NSN. " - º # # * iſ...} |, . º º nº § * . . . . . | | | : º # l. º iſ ! #, | | § § º : i. | | ſº ! f § 1 § º º . º | § a'ſ lſº, tº º d !!! # ºf . , ,' ' , , || º | : à º | º',' tº || º | º º: § r” ". . ~ *- ~~~ I ſº | } {ll ºğ . †† º | |# ºilº # º §ſt. ! | | | | #| ||||||||lºš † º |||| #| d ºft º º gº sºliº g | ſº º | § | Sºft|||ſſ; #3. p | º | º §§§ i * #. }| ºft § { "...iſ º § § § * * º º ºś #| isºft º - - º | # ºft | º ,, . I'ſ |||||||}}} |*|| º i *: ', | | , , , , , || || || || || "...iii. | | | i § |###### º # º iſ, " '}}}}}|† *...tº .###|| º º | §."; "j" iſ '''''''}}| ºft.º | } | | |; | § º ºš * "Tº ºš { } ' f |||| 2 º' º - Sº | |||| sº ºr: º f - ## º iſ, º - * | §§ º º #. j * ºw º § t § É | iº º §s. #. ſº, | "Wºº *.* ſº sº §. ... . . .iii. gº t ! º º: º 3% * * 5:iº " .. * , -" f / %. # f º • * tº *. .º ARTESIAN FAILURE FROM SAN ANTONIO NORTHward. 121 which flow as follows: McKavett, Block Springs, 300 cubic feet; Clear Springs, 1,200; Coglan Springs, 100; Elm Springs, 75. These springs originate the San Saba River; continuing around the eastern and south- ern border they increase in number until the Nueces is passed. In the Pecos Valley, Howard Springs, in Crockett County, are the last of the series of springs which drain the base of the Edwards Plateau. On the surface of the Edwards Plateau water is reached only by deep wells from 30 to 500 feet in Val Verde County, which penetrate to the Trinity beds. Some of these wells and their depths are given in the accompanying table. All experiments thus far have failed to reveal artesian conditions on this plateau from “San Antonio to the Canadian, but this experimentation has been too limited to warrant any negative conclusions. In general these water conditions are of the same Category as those discussed in the chapter on the Llano Estacado. Non-flowing wells owned by the New York and Texas Land Company (Limited) in Kinney and Val Verde counties. No. 1.-263 feet deep, 120 feet of water, 3 miles N. of Brackett. No. 2.-2574 feet deep, 80 feet of water, about 5 miles N. 35° E. from Brackett. No. 3.−274 feet deep, depth of water not given, 8 Iniles N. of Brackett. No. 4.—2994 feet deep, 175 feet of water, about 10 miles N. 22° E. of Brackett. No. 5.-378 feet deep, plenty of water, about 5% miles N. 719 E. from Brackett. No. 6.-289 feet deep, 130 feet of water, about 7 miles N. 49° E. from Brackett. No. 7.-237 feet deep, about 9 miles N. 57° E. from Brackett. No. 8.—150 feet deep, plenty of water, about 7 miles N. 68° E. from Brackett. LINDHEIM PASTURE. No. 1.-148 feet deep, plenty of water, about 10 miles N. 70° E. of Del Rio. No. 2.-158 feet deep, about 7 miles N. 85° E. from Del Rio. M’LYMAN PASTURE. No. 3.-80 feet deep, 20 feet of water, about 16 miles N. 37° W. of Brackett. No. 4.—65 feet deep, 25 feet of water, about 11 miles N. 229 W. of Brackett. STANDARD PASTURE. s. No. 1.-222 feet, 130 feet of water, about 13 miles N. 629 E. from Del Rio. No. 2.-186 feet deep, 80 feet of water, about 16 miles N. 639 E. of Del Rio. CRowL PASTURE. sº There is one well on this pasture 85 feet deep, 30 feet of water, about 5 miles N. 600 E. of Del Rio. UTILIZATION OF THE ARTESIAN WATERS OF THE BLACK AND GRAND PRAIRIE. It is hardly necessary to dwell upon the need and value of water to the fertile region in which it has been obtained. A good water supply. is the foundation of every civilization, and man’s prosperity is usually proportionate to its abundance and purity. * In this special region the very qualities which make the soil rich have made the surface waters scarce, often impure, and more or less defiled by invisible germs of disease and malaria,the only afflictions with which this otherwise most healthy country is troubled. The city populations were especially restricted and inconvenienced by the lack of pure and abun- dant water supplies. Within the past few years all of this has been changed, and now we see the cities of Houston, Waco, Austin, San 122 IRRIGATION. Antonio, Fort Worth, Belton, Temple, Dallas, Denison, Denton, and Sherman (the latter a negative well) all drawing more or less abundant supply from underground sources, while hundreds of farms are annu- ally supplied—giving increased value and new life to those places and an incalculable influence upon the material prosperity. Several of the large charitable and correctional institutions have also been supplied with this water, as the State insane asylums at Austin and San An- tonio and the Reformatory at Gatesville. In addition to the value of certain of these waters for their purity, certain others, as those from the Upper Glen Rose beds, at Georgetown, Waco, Pidcoke's ranche, Groome's well at Austin, and elsewhere, have superior medicinal virtues, resembling the celebrated Spas of Germany, which are found in somewhat similar rocks. These wells are of incal- culable worth to the malarial region of the timbered coastal plain of east Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana, and will undoubtedly be of great service to the people thereof, when they learn to appreciate them. The hygienic aspect of these waters, both the pure and the medicinal, will also prove of great value to the live stock interests. The industrial uses to which these Waters are at present put are many. At Waco hundreds of sewing machines in clothing factories, electric motors, wood-working machinery, and other Small industries are run by the pressure of wells, without wasting the water, by the use of small and powerful California wheels. When the high cost of fuel in Texas is considered, this use of artesian water becomes a most important fac- tor. The greatest use of this water at present is the fact that it brings to hitherto poorly watered farming and grazing lands an abundant supply of water for domestic and stock purposes, making small farms of 100 acres or less possible, where until recently subdivisions of large bodies of land or ranches were impossible, and, even in the rich black prairies around Waco, only large plantations could exist, each controlling a few surface wells or water holes from which the tenants or renters dragged for miles the dirty water in barrels on clumsy sleds, while in time of drought there have been failures of even the domestic water supply for large districts. º This condition has already changed, and Prather's well, for instance, on a farm southwest of Waco, alone furnishes more water than the entire surface supply of McLennan County, except the Brazos River, has hitherto afforded. I drove during the great drought of 1877 from Decatur to Fort Worth, over a rich grass-clad region, without being able to secure a drop of water for myself or team the entire distance, while dozens of suffering teamsters were begging and trying to buy water from the owners of the few and all but exhausted surface wells along the way. With the knowl- edge now before us, every foot of that vast area of the Grand Prairie, being underlaid by Water, could be cut into forty-acre tracts, upon each of which, if flowing water could not be obtained, magnificent negative wells rising nearly to the surface could be obtained, furnish- ing an abundance of waters unaffected by drought. Irrigation of the Grand and Black Prairie region.—It is not the object of my report to discuss methods of irrigation, but to show the amount and availability of the water. The rainfall of the northeastern portion of the Black Prairie region, (the portion where artesian wells are least possible) is abundant for all plantation crops, which seldom suffer there for water. The remainder of the region is more or less subject to drouth at intervals from five to * ARTESIAN IRRIGATION IN souTHWEST TEXAs. 123 two years as we go westward. All portions are subject to long, dry periods annually (usually in the autumn, after the corn and Cotton has been laid by), during which gardens and fruits suffer greatly. It is not my intention to convey the idea that the Black Prairie re- gion is subject to drought; for crops of corn and cotton are often rich and abundant, but all admit that it has seasons of rain and drought, and that, if rich now, it could be made immensely richer by irrigation, and all the fruits and vegetables now imported from the irrigated lands of Utah and California could be produced at home. The value of these wells for irrigation has been demonstrated by the modest farmers of the Paluxy valley, who by their own humble methods and without previous knowledge of the subject are now quadrupling the yield of cotton and grain. A farmer at Paluxy stated to me that his 10 acres of cotton, yielding nearly two bales of 500 pounds each to the acre, was far more profitable and easily worked than 100 acres which he had until recently cultivated in Alabama. - Irrigation from the artesian well is at present successfully practiced in the Paluxy region, and the largest and most prosperous city in Texas, San Antonio, is built upon and about an irrigation enterprise, which has most profitably and successfully utilized their underground waters for nearly 300 years, affording occupation for all the mission settlements in the past, supporting hundreds of gardens at present and destined to be of great value in the future. º IEvery drop of water from these springs and wells can be utilized for irrigation, and when the people of the region appreciate the fact that each gallon of water has a specific value in agriculture, as has a pound of coal in industrial enterprise, not one drop of this water will be al- lowed to escape unutilized, and the agricultural wealth will be enor- mously increased. * Iv. - THE ARTESIAN SYSTEM OF THE RIO GRANDE EMBAYMENT. I have explained on a previous page how the features of the Coastal plain changed south of the Colorado or Guadalupe and the great Austin-Del Rio escarpment into a more arid and generally different region. This includes the continuation of the Coastal prairie, the Washington prairie, the Timber belt, and of the Black prairie, and all the Rio Grande counties as far west as Val Verde, all Maverick, Encinal, Duvall, Nueces, Webb, Dimmitt, La Salle, Zavalla, Frio, Atascosa, Karnes, Goliad, Refugio, Live Oak, San Patricio, Wilson, and Aransas, and the southern or eastern portion of Uvalde, Medina, Bexar, and Guadalupe. The ninety-seventh meridian, which is accepted as the western limit of reliable rainfall, intercepts the gulf near Aransas Pass, the eastern limit of this region, and if reports be true it certainly is, in its lower part at least, one of the arid portions of Texas, a drought of over eighteen months’ duration having been recently reported from Hidalgo, within 100 miles of the coast. The rainfall, however, is much greater towards its interior margin, San Antonio to Del Rio, where the drought has not extended. This region is in many respects the least studied geo- logically in Texas. 124 * IRRIGATION. Its predominant and topographic feature is its generally low altitude; the contour or line of equal altitude (of 600 feet) which marks its west- ern margin makes a great deflection Westward along the escarpment of the Edwards Plateau, up the Rio Grande to Eagle Pass, thence back towards the coast on the Mexican side, and constitutes a great inden- tation, as if it had been a bay of the gulf which covered the region in comparatively recent geologic time. This is further proved by the extensive deposits of sand, gravel, and conglomerate that mark its interior margin, indicative of a late sea level, and remain in places over the whole area, but greatly divided by a still more restricted and recent event to be seen nearer the Rio Grande Valley. I am inclined to believe this gravel sedimentation is the interior mar- gin of the formation of the Fayette prairies. The interior margin of this débris, visible from San Antonio to Uvalde, is only a thin inconspicuous sheet and bears no relation to the artesian problems. The fundamental structure underlying these surface sheets in portions of the coastal incline is the system of rock sheets from the Eagle Ford shales (bordering the escarpment from San Antonio to Uvalde) on its interior margin to the coastal clays and prairies at the coast, with slight variations from the same beds seen in Texas north of the Guadalupe. This includes a great thickness of alternations of porous and imporous beds, many of which are artesian water reservoirs. The San Antonio water strata are the lowest geologically of these water-bearing beds. Succeeding the chalks and clays which overlie them is a great develop- ment of sands and sandstones in the glaucomitic division of the Upper Cretaceous and Eocene, which here is entirely different (owing to the different conditions of original sedimentation in this Rio Grande embay- ment), from the Arkansas-New Jersey development. These, for which I have proposed the name of the Eagle Pass beds, outcrop from west of Eagle Pass to Webb County line along the Rio Grande, and occur all over the embayment as far south as the Santa Rosa Mountains in Coa- huila. Succeeding these are various beds of the Eo-Lignitic Washing- ton (Miocene) and coast prairies, in all of which wells have been found. This region, as a whole, has not been prospected for water in many places, and in most of the counties, especially those east of the Inter- national and south of the San Antonio and Corpus Christi roads, wells have not been drilled. In most of the instances where drillings were made the results were successful and water Was obtained at less than 500 feet in instances, and in no case has a depth of 1,000 feet been attained. From the results so far recorded, mostly in Mr. Roessler's paper, it may be safely said, that at least four well defined water areas have been penetrated in this area, to wit, commencing with the lowest as follows: 1. The San Antonio or Black Prairie system. 2. The Eagle Pass beds. 3. The Carrisso sandstone of Owen's, in Dimmit and Uvalde counties (of Laramie or Eocene Age). 4. The Eo-Lignitic sands. 5. The Washington sands or Galveston-Houston coastal system. The wells of San Antonio are being bored so rapidly and successfully that their number can not be given. They often flow oil and gas (from the Eagle Ford shales as at Waco), but water is reached at a depth of from 600 to 1,000 feet in a hard sandstone, which, although not proved, is apparently the Lower Cross Timber sands, which have no near out- Crop, Owing to the great fault to the west of the city. - ARTESIAN PROSPECTS ON THE RIO GRANDE. 125 A section of the earliest of these wells shows: Feot 3. Soil, clay, and gravel of the Quaternary period ------...---------------------- 36 2. Blue clay soapstone and black (oleaginous) shale (Fishbeds or Eagle Ford Shales)------------------------------------------------------------'• • * ~ * ~ * 610 1. A very hard sandstone with strong flow of water, the horizon of which has not been determined------------------------- ---------------------------- In one well, 4 miles south of the city, this sandstone was penetrated for 75 feet. * - The field of these wells around San Antonio has been explored for 10 miles eastward with great success. Twelve miles west of the city, at Heliotes, where the Edward plateau sets in, the entirely different rocks of the Comanche series were passed through, and a drill pene- trated 2,000 feet, at Mr. Cable's ranche, without getting a flow, indicat- ing a different condition. The country similar to San Antonio east of the Balcones fault should be explored as far west as the Austin chalk and fish beds extend (to Uvalde at least), and wells will probably be found which will be of inestimable value to that region. There is every reason to suppose that these wells can be procured at many places, most places, in fact, from San Antonio westward, between the Southern Pacific and the “mountains” (Balcones escarpment) as far West as the Nueces, where several small shallow wells have been already obtained in Uvalde County. At Spofford Junction a well was bored 1,800 feet without striking water or getting below the Denison clays, which would indicate that at and west of that place the favorable con- ditions had ceased for procuring water from the beds of the Creta- CEOUlS. At Del Rio, still westward, where the greatest of artesian springs occurs, the surface strata, Washita and Denison beds, are 1,800 feet lower geologically than at Spofford, and a weak flow of very poor arte- sian water was obtained at less than 1,000 feet. The Black Prairie has little width in this region, but is overlapped coastward by great deposits of Sandy strata belonging. to the Upper Cretaceous and later periods. The source of the Eagle Pass Wells is undoubtedly the sandstones of the Eagle Pass beds, the oil and gas being derived from the lignites which they contain. Inasmuch as these beds underlie all the great basin on both sides of the Rio Grande, from Eagle Pass to near Laredo, and the general inclination is towards the river, the region is worthy of further prospecting. At Carrizo Springs, in Dimmit County, and westward, there is a great sandstone deposit beneath the surface which has been named the Carrizo sands by Mr. J. Owen, the excellent geologist of Eagle Pass. (See preliminary report of the Texas State Survey.) This sandstone has a wide outcrop in western Dimmit, southern Uvalde, and northern Nueces counties, surmounting the Eagle Pass beds. Several fine wells have been procured from the Carrizo sands, which have been reported by Mr. Roessler. The extent and capacity of the Carrizo sands is yet to be determined, and there is little doubt but they will prove a most profitable and ex- tensive artesian area, in the counties of Webb and Dimmit, and the region should be most thoroughly prospected. The Atascosa wells, or Eo-Lignitic sands. At Pleasanton (altitude, 300), in Atascosa County, a well was secured at 108 feet. Not having 126 IRRIGATION. sº been able to visit this point, I can only base my judgment upon the evidence of others, which leads me to believe that these waters come from the sands of the Eo-Lignitic * or Camden beds which underlie the great timbered region of Texas and eastern Arkansas. If these are the same sands from which Marshall and other cities of Texas secure arte- sian water, it should supply a means of great development for Atascosa and adjacent counties. - The wells of the coastal region are derived from the Washington and Fayette sands. The same beds which underlie Houston and Galveston extend along the coast southwestward and supply artesian flows at Yorktown, Ve- lasco, Gonzales, Cuero, and San Patricio, at shallow depths varying from 40 feet at Yorktown to 966 near Patricio. There is little doubt but that these wells can be obtained along the whole coastal region for 50 miles inland. I have now discussed the great artesian conditions of the coastward incline of Texas, and can only add that in this whole region, with the exceptions noted, wells can be obtained at moderate depths. The slight coastward slope of the whole region and the corresponding inclination of its underlying beds indicate a good supply from one or more of the underlying sandstones anywhere that a well will be drilled deep enough. While the flow may be small, even any amount will be a great boon to the region. V. WATER CONDITIONS OF THE CARBONIFEROUS AND OLDER PALEOZOIC REGION OF CENTRAL TEXAS. Good wells (nonflowing) are abundant throughout most of this region, and several small artesian wells of poor quality and flow have been re- ported. Concerning this region Mr. Roessler has said: Between the ninety-ninth and one hundred and first meridians the borings have been failures throughout. In most cases, as at Cisco, Eastland, Baird, Colorado, and Big Springs, no flow was secured, leaving the few small shallow wells at Wayland, Stephens County, out of the calculation on account of their small ſlow. Where a flow has been secured, it was either mineral or impregnated with salt, coal gas, etc., as at Trickham, Coleman County ; Gordon, Palo Pinto County ; San Antonio, Eden, Concho County, and other places. The pressure necessary for artesian wells is pres- ent in all the wells mentioned. The structure of the region is unfavorable for any large flow of water, and I do not advise further experiments. In Burnet County one or two small flows have been secured out of hundreds of borings made with the diamond drill by mineral prospectors. * For a description of the stratigraphy of these sands, see report of Arkansas State • Geological Survey, Vol. 2, 1888; also a preliminary report of the Gulf Tertiary of Texas, etc., by R. A. F. Penrose, jr., Austin, Tex., 1890. tº > PLATE VIII. ± �� ż ©&� ſaer 4& Q$&^ $ /$ſpoQ&•}�∞∞∞ ×L3$$ğ.ae …Jaeſº. & ross©\s§§Ģaeſ-№∞º , º >##№sº，Ķī£ſºſyº，Š�§$ș№Èſae (~~*aesae?±， ， ， ， ¿ºſ！ №.$。。、、。（?>º：/, ）;�2+-+-+-+ .： , , ！ſº «aļºQĞ+sæ√¶√∞Š$036∞,∞ √° √≠ ≤ ≤ ≤ ， , - - -- （--）. （* _…：-） --ºjſ№º'sErr，”.º-№tr● • %%7, yae• → Y• ",, v •ş,};º-,; ;ș •·; ·;±3.2*, ***3:”??ſaeſyyty.*®... • ！！！- *ae§§§（~~~！ ±¿º: : ….！！！:::：:：::prae* sºs.• • • • . . ; * · · · ·.• • .”,§§4× （№ssaesººs sº�ºſ s ≠ ≠ \ ſ.g. A^/o $ cavºsºsSÆC 7°/OAVAŽ-oaz, AMA ARABALĀ’ /FA (ſ. 4.S6 ºraeww/ry ºsa^^^$ šºſ，%ſ,%，ro raavas Area ar savõ№vę №asa, warea eros or coawawcweſ seates av Co^^?^º^7 aurrawaraewo anos • Sºº， ſaeº ^^^ ^ ^^^^^®^o^vº^wypraw rwe wawaºerºvocas /ºa/ aerozovc ºz.oo^， ^7 SYCA^o^ref Cºreae^^.s Ex4/..…….52 1 $ € A&ºoººº，,，paes PLATE XII. * *- * I. * * --> 3 > JS s—s *. ls Trºscºsº-7 - Red Marly C Section of Hills cn .* ** sº- ~ TV 2. Tº r -> S. *msº - x - - ſº- * * +: lay. 2, Saccharoid the Big Witchita River. Gypsum. 3. Finely Laminated Sandstone. [After Shumard.] DESCRIPTION OF THE REMARKABLE RED BEDS. 127 VI. WATER CONDITIONS IN THE RED BEDS REGION. [Western Indian Territory, the Canadian and Pecos valleys of New Mexico, and the Abilene, Concho, and Wichita countries of Texas.] This region is one of the most striking and important of the geo- graphic features of the Southwest. Its name is derived from the fact that the surface of the whole country underlaid by it is of conspicuous red colors, glaring vermilion or deep-brown chocolate sometimes pre- Vailing, varied only here and there by a bed of snow-white gypsum. To one accustomed to the green-clad landscape of the east or its somber. colored formations, the vast landscapes and brilliant colors of the Red Beds is striking, especially if seen in some bold cliff for scores of miles. A landscape in color that of red brick dust is the only familiar com- parlson. ge These beds occupy a vast extent of country in Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico, aggregating 100,000 square miles, as seen upon the map, Occupying all the nonmountainous region, except where covered by the Llano Estacado formation, from Southern Kansas to the trans-Pecos Mountains, and westward around the southern termination of the Rockies, through New Mexico, Utah, and Oregon, to the Sierras. They have not been recorded far south of the Southern Pacific Road, nor do they anywhere appear in Mexico north of Catorce, the Cretaceous still covering that area. The valleys of the Canadian and the Pecos re- Veal their presence beneath the Llano Estacado, and the Grand Cañon of the Colorado shows them in Arizona and Utah. Occasionally they appear in the flanks of the Rocky Mountains. Their characteristic and most perfect exposures are in the country between the ninety-ninth and one hundredth meridians south of the Arkansas and north of the Conchos, embracing portions of Texas, Indian Territory, Oklahoma, No Man's Land, and nearly all of Oklahoma, where they occupy beautiful prai- ries, including those of the celebrated Wichita, Concho, and Abilene countries, which embrace fine agricultural lands of Texas and the Okla- homa country. They also include much of the Pecos Valley, especially east of Eddy, between the river and the plains, and from Roswell north- ward to near the crossings of the river and the Santa Fe Railway. Along the eastern escarpment of the Llano Estacado and up the caſi- ons of the Brazos, Colorado, and Red rivers that incise it, and up the valley of the Canadian, there are beautiful bluffs of these vermilion beds, with an occasional butte or mesa. i. These beds constitute the foundation of the northern and eastern edge of the Llano Estacado north of the Colorado. The principal area of the Red Beds is that of western Indian Terri- tory and northwestern Texas, between the Llano Estacado on the west and the Coal Measures on the east. This stretches from the thirty- eighth to the thirty-second parallel, a distance of 400 miles north and south and from the ninety-eighth to the one hundredth degrees of long- itude, or averages 150 miles in width, a total of 52,500 square miles— an unbroken prairie, except small areas occupied by the Witchita Mountains and a few remnant buttes of the Grand Prairie and Llano Estacado formations which have been preserved to remind us of the vast erosion the region has undergone. The next area in size is in north central New Mexico, on either side of the Canadian and Pecos, after those streams have emerged from the mountains and adjacent plateaus. This valley is an enormous trough * * #T a " - - 128 IRRIGATION. furrowed out of the Raton and Llano Estacado plateaus by erosion. Its northern boundary is the Superb Corazon escarpment which runs east. ward from Pecos Crossing to the Texas line. This escarpment, as shown upon the topographic maps of the United States Geological Survey, is over 1,200 feet in height above the Canadian River. It extends irreg- ularly northeastward for 100 miles until overlapped by the plains sur- rounding a magnificent valley of the Red Beds, in the lowest portions of which the drainage of the Canadian and Pecos are at an altitude of 4,000 feet, or over 2,000 below its summit. - This valley plain is irregular in outline, as shown on maps, but of great area. In it the drainages of the Pecos and Canadian separate on their long and different journeys to the sea around the northwest es- carpment of the Llando Estacado, which looms up in the distance like a mystic wall. Language can not describe the magnificence of the scenery; everywhere upon it is seen the grand and deep erosion by which the overlapping formations have been stripped from the horizon- tal Red Beds, and, as if to make the fact more impressive, nature has left standing in the valley numerous remnants of the plain in the shape of great circular buttes and mesas as El Corazon, the Gavillan, Mesa Rico, Mesa Redondo, the big and little Huerfano, Mesa Tucumcarri, and others, every stratum of their red and white beds visible for miles and showing the lack of artesian conditions. These superb buttes of the Canadian valley are among the most interesting features of our country, and as they have been the subject of much controversy, I pre- sent a description of one of them by Capt. Jas. B. Simpson, U. S. A., written some forty years ago.” The Words in parentheses are mine. Soon after taking up the line of march a small, faint, cloud-like appearance of small but growing extent exhibited itself, bearing magnetically nearly west. A few miles further on this appearance gave away to a well-defined truncated one. Proceeding still further on, and in proportion as we progressed, a dome-like appearance gradually unfolded itself, till at length, when we had almost reached our present camp, an as- semblage appeared which did not fail to strike many of us as being an excellent re- presentation of the dome of the Capitol at Washington. This object, which we have been gazing at nearly all day with the greatest interest, we take to be a Cerro de Tucumcarri. Passing over a poor soil we reached Cerro de Tucumcarri. After a laborious ascent, of which some fifty feet were nearly vertical, we reached its summit. On every side was an unobstructed view. To the west and south lay a confused mass of irregular hills, with here and there a well-defined and conical one to characterize the scene. Far behind to the west lay a range of mountains or hills and more con- spicuous than the rest of the high peak. To the south, some 8 miles distant, I could see with my reconnoitering glass the serrated tents of our command, reposing on a timbered affluent of the Canadian. To the southeast and east lay the famous ‘Llano Estacado ’ of the Mexicans. To the northeast and north lay a limitless, unbroken, and undulating, prairie, no signs of the Canadian being apparent. Pacing the top of the mound, I found it to be 230 yards, by 370 in area; and, by a measurement of the slope of the hill and roughly reducing it to an angle of 45 degrees, I made its height over 700 feet (900 feet above the Canadian). The circumference of its base to our surprise I found to be nearly 6 miles, it having taken a horse two hours less eight minutes to walk around it. (P. 14.) - Following up Tucumcarri Creek, a fine view made up of sugar-loafed hills and tab- leau mounds, and opening vistas, presents itself to your front. The regular stratifica- tion of these hills, their pearly white and red color in horizontal zones, and the whole surface besprinkled as they are, with stunted cedar of a dark-green color, will not be failed to be noticed by the traveler as giving them a very beautiful and unique char- acter. The formation of these hills, which are from 100 to 300 and 400 feet high, is at the base of a red argillaceous rock (the Red Beds), easily frangible; next pro- ceeding upward, a zone of sandstone rock (the Trinity Sands), very friable and of a greenish-white color; last and uppermost, a sandstone rock (the Dakota Sands), of a brownish hue and rather coarse character. Large fragments of these last-men- tioned rocks lie scattered on the tops of the hills.” * Thirty-first Congress, first session, House of Representatives, Ex. Doc. No. 44, Report of Exploration and survey of route from Fort Smith, Ark., to Santa Fe, N. Mex., made in 1849, by Lieut. James H. Simpson, Corps of Topographical Engineers; also a report on the same subject from Capt. R. B. Marcy, Fifth Infantry. _* THE TRINITY SANDS AND RED BED REGIONS. 129. The Writer has twice visited the Mesa Tucumcarri and found it a most interesting geological remnant of the former area of the Llano Esta- Cado. The table or summit described by Capt. Simpson is covered with the typical Llano Estacado formation, identical in composition and formerly continuous with the sheet which covers the Llano proper, some 20 miles distant. Below this is a vertical escarpment of 50 feet or more of typical Dakota sandstone resting upon loose sands and clays, form- ing a slope identical in aspect and fossil remains with the Denison beds of the Washita Division, which have been eroded away from the 400 miles intervening between it and the main body of those beds at Deni- Son, Tex. Beneath this is a large deposit of the typical Trinity sands consisting of white pack sands, thin clay seams, and flagstones, while the base is composed of the typical vermilion sandy clays of the Red Beds. This valley has several small creeks at intervals of 15 to 30 miles apart, such as the Concho, La Cinto, Truxillo, Plaza Iargo, and one or two others, the Water of which is all the escarpment drainage of the Llano and could be used for irrigation of about 1 acre in 1,000 of the beautiful land, as is now used at Dutch Henry's Ranch, the only Caucasian settlement between Las Vegas and Bell Ranche, 100 miles east, where a steam en- gine is used to irrigate about 20 acres. The scarcity of fuel, however, would not allow this mode of irrigation to be extensively used. Around the edges of the escarpment of these valleys there are occa- Sional springs many miles apart which usually have their origin at the contact of the Red Beds and the overlying sands of the Dakota or Llano Estacado, from which the water is derived, and which will be discussed in these chapters relating to those formations. - In the Red Beds proper there are few wells, the only one of note being that at the cattle ranch at the northeast base of Tucumcarri Mesa, which supplies an abundance of water, which is pumped for cattle; this leads us to infer that others could be obtained. The Red Beds also extend down the valley of the Pecos from its di- vergence from the Canadian around the western border of the Llano Estacado. This prolongation continues to the Texas line and occupies nearly 5,000 square miles of area. From Eddy to 60 miles south of Pecos they are overlapped by later formations, but appear again in the vicinity of the Castle Mountains. There are other isolated patches in eastern and central México of considerable area, of which details must be omitted. The Red Beds are composed of finely comminuted material, mostly red clay and sand, usually thoroughly mixed together, accompanied some- times by beds of coarse, loosely cemented, greenish and chocolate col- ored sandstone, which weathers into circular turban-shaped masses. Occasionally, as at Guthrie, Okla., and Tascosa, Tex., there is a species of conglomerate, the pebble always - being composed of the sands and clays of its own beds. While, no doubt, a continuous and unbroken formation from the bottom to the top, there are other variations in structure which are here noted. In their lower portion there are darker-colored chocolates, and cop- peras green tints occur frequently, and a greater amount of rounded sand of varying coarseness. The rocks of this division are well displayed in the southeastern half of Oklahoma, at Henrietta, Colorado City, Tascosa, and other points in Texas, and in the valley of the Canadian from the mouth of Cañon del Agua, New Mexico, to east of the Texas line. Occa- sional fragments of fossil wood and remains of plants, reptiles, mollusks, etc., have been reported from localities which I believe to be in these S. Ex, 41, pt. 3—9 * * 130 - - - IRRIGATION. *- i beds, and ascribed to the Permian age. This lower division of the Red Beds is also characterized by excessive cross-bedding and lack of persistent planes of stratification. The beds become finer, more argillaceous and gypsyferous in their middle portion, as can be seen in the fine brick-dust clays of the Pecos and Canadian valleys (notably the base of Sierra Tucumcarri), in the lower third of Palo Duro Caſion, in the eastern edge of the Llano Esta- cado, and in the vicinity of Sweetwater, Nolan County, and Vernon, Wildbarger County, Tex. The escarpment of the Llano Estacado in Texas and New Mexico affords superb displays of these brilliantly colored strata, often alter- nating with bands of pure white, Saccharoidal gypsum. The beds of gypsum occur over a great area and its quantity is inex- haustible (Fig. 10). The strata are from a few inches to 20 feet in thick- ness, usually of a pure white color, presenting a strong contrast with the vermilion layers with which it is imbedded. It is present in Kan- sas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas in great abundance, and is the most important economic feature in the whole Red Beds region, in that its presence is the basis of the fertility of the Red Beds and it is readily soluble in water and usually accompanied by it. The Water is often so strongly impregnated with it that the term “gyp water" is a common expression throughout the region. Although until recently unappre- ciated it is rapidly becoming an important economic feature, and is be- ing manufactured into plaster Paris and adamant wall plaster in great quantities. Gypsum also occurs in bright crystals, resembling mica, for which it is commonly mistaken. In eastern Mexico the gypsum is often soft like pulverent flour and is known as jeso (yaso). This jeso is often mistaken for the injurious “alkali,” when in fact it is a most important element in the fertility of a soil. Miles and miles of jeso can be seen in the Pecos Valley, where it is blown about by the winds. - In the Tularosa Valley, at the head of the Franklin-Hueco basin, the gypsum is granular and is known as the white sands. These sands ex- tend for many Square miles and resemble siliceous sand. They contain a great amount of water and it is only necessary to dig a few feet to obtain Wells throughout their extent. -- The term Red Beds is geologically used to denote the vast series of red-colored deposits below the well-defined Trinity sands and above the undoubted Permo-Carboniferous. Their age (which is utterly imma- terial to the question of artesian water) certainly ranges from Permian at their base, as shown by the investigations of Cope, Boll, and White, in the Wichita countries of Texas, to Triassic, as shown by Newberry and Marcou, in Texas and New Mexico, and probably Jurassic—con- tinuing to the base of the Comanche series, as seen in the Cheyenne sandstones of Kansas and at the base of Tucumcarri, N. Mex. Whatever their age, they have the same unmistakable characteristics of color and unconsolidation and are probably a single unbroken for- mation, representing the sediments of an ancient inland sea, which ex- tended from the ninety-eighth meridian westward to the Sierras and from the northern United States nearly to Mexico. The beds of the flowing rivers arising in the escarpment of plains are in the Red Beds formation, to-wit: The Cimarron from near the One hundredth meridian to east of Guthrie. The Canadian from Camp Sup- ply to the Santa Fe Railroad. The Red River from its head in Cañon Palo Duro to Montague County, Tex, The Pease and Wichita from their head to mouth. The Brazos, from its head to Young County, ^*. - - WELLS AND SPRINGS IN EASTERN NEW MEXICO. 131 The Colorado and tributaries from source to near Ballinger, Runnels County; the Pecos from the mountains to below Roswell, N. Mex., and from below Pecos city to beyond Castle Buttes. Although these rivers flow through and drain the Red Beds in time of floods, not one of them has its permanent or spring Water supply from them, all receiving their water either from the underground drain- age of the Llano Estacado or the mountains, but in flood times these streams are all characterized by their phenomenal vermilion-colored freshets, ordinarily known as “red rises,” which flow down in great Volume after the sudden and excessive rainfalls, which come in June, July, and August, in the Red Beds region. If the stream drains the Red Beds only, as the Pease and Wichita, all of its rises are of this vermilion hue, owing to the excessive Red Bed sediment which they contain. If it flows through a diversity of geologic formations and finds its way into the humid region, like the Brazos, Red, and Colorado, then its flood will vary in color with the . prevalent color of the rock of the region upon which the rain has fallen. Thus, at Austin, on the Colorado, where these floods come often in times of local drought, the extent of the region affected by rainfall can always be told by the white and red rises—the former coming from the limestone country, and the latter from the Concho Colorado red lands country. If there has been rain in both, the white flood precedes the red. The lower beds from their coarser structure and excessive cross- bedding present few conditions for the storage of Water, and as a rule springs are few and rare. In fact, I do not know a single Spring Com- ing from these beds of sufficient size to be valuable for extensive irriga tion, though often they are large enough to supply domestic purposes Surface wells are obtained of large capacity, but as a rule are rather deep and scant, except along the less arid eastern border of this out. CrOp. I have as yet failed to observe a single flowing artesian well in the Red Bed area, and doubt if one can be obtained, although one has been reported near Seymour, Tex., the water being of small flow and highly impregnated. The pervious basal layers are too irregular and unreli- able to convey water to a great distance, and the upper or Triassic division too impervious. In Texas and New Mexico the conditions of dip and induration are inevitably against the topographic slope, and hence unfavorable to artesian conditions, as seen in the Sections and figures. - The springs in the valley of the Canadian at Tascosa, which rise ap- parently from the Red Beds, I am inclined to believe have their origin in the neighboring Llano Estacado beds, which cap the adjacent mesa edge. In Indian Territory and Oklahoma the inclination of the strata is dif- ferent and of a nature to warrant the conclusion that experiment i those regions is justifiable. *. The largest and most favorable non-flowing well observed in the Red Beds was that of Col. E. C. Eddy, at his headquarter's ranch, 25 miles east of Eddy on the Pecos, New Mexico. Here in the center of a large basin, which is apparently a lake in time of rainfall, a well has been dug to a short depth, and 3,000 cattle are daily watered by aid of a pump, which is of the chain-bucket type, and operated by horse power, Numerous other wells in the area of the Red Beds lying in the Pecos, between the escarpment of the Llano Estacado and the Guadalupe dis. trict, have led the writer to infer that non-flowing water will be found quite abundantly in all of these lower areas. 132 IRRIGATION. - - - Experimental wells have been bored in the Red Beds at Colorado City and at Abilene, the latter having descended 1,000 feet at last re. ports, with no success. At the former place salt was struck at a depth of 760 feet. All deep wells in the Red Beds strike salt. VII. WATER CONDITIONS OF THE LLANO ESTACADO. For that portion of the great plain proper lying south of the Ca- nadian River and east of the Pecos the term Llano Estacado was ap- propriately applied by the early Spanish explorers. In surface fear. tures the northwestern half of this plain is similar to the plains of Col- orado, Kansas, and northward, but differs from them in that, instead of extending to the Rocky Mountains on the west or imperceptibly grading into the level of the eastern areas, it is surrounded on every side, except a few miles at its southeast corner, by a more or less pre- cipitous escarpment-of erosion resembling palisades, which completely insulate it from connection with other regions, except the Edwards. Plateau, which is its southeastern continuation and genetically a por- tion of it. The vast surface of the Llano Estacado, at least 50,000 square miles, is practically smooth with the exception of an occasional depression, so much so as to resemble the level of the ocean at dead calm and un- broken by trees or bushes or deep drained channels, and carpeted with a rich growth of gramma grass. Within the past few years the new railroads of Texas and New Mex- ico have made accessible to the geologist this largest of all Texas plains, and perhaps areally the greatest continuous and least studied plateau of our country. (See Pls. I and x.) Geographically the “Staked Plains” # of Texas and New Mexico include the quadrangular region south of the Canadian, east of the Pecos, and West of the One hundred and first meridian. The small amount of surface water, which is not imbibed by the soil, is found in a few widely-distributed ponds. Its eastern and northern edges are incised by deep and vertical caſions of streams which are cutting by backward or headwater erosion. Two streams flow around the plains. These are the Canadian alud Pecos, both of which have cut nearly 1,000 feet below its level and neither receives any of its surface drainage. The rainfall, principally from June to September, is estimated from 20 to 25 inches. - * The name Staked Plains should be dropped from geographic nomenclature as the descriptive name for the great mesa to which it is applied. One popular apology for the use of this term is that early travelers set up stakes to mark their roads over these—then considered—waterless wastes. Another is that the term alludes to the staff-like stems of the yucca plant, which resemble stakes projecting above the ground. Neither of these hypotheses, however, will stand the test of application, for the traveler could not possibly have secured on the absolutely treeless plains timber where with to make his stakes, and the yucca does not grow upon them. Upon the other hand, a glance at the Spanish dictionary will show that it will be impossible to translate the word “estacado” to mean a stake, but upon the con- trary it means exactly the opposite, a palisade or wall, which is a most appropriate descriptive term for the Llano Estacado, inasmuch as it alludes to the sharp decliv- ity or face of the escarpment which in many places marks the edge of these plains. In view of these facts it is as erroneous to use the term Staked Plains for the Llano Estacado as to write the name L'Eau Frais, “Low Freight,” as is done upon maps of Arkansas. - wº à > # sº ºm ºmm º ºs - - - - - -, ... = • -- * = • *-* * - * * * * * * * *T* ++ ºr ºf * + k + º- = , = , = , = * * * * * *-* * * g = * * * *-* * * * | **, 3, ... } ...” ****, *. Ž. ,, . * * - {i,\\ ...g6% J. * * - s d § cº-ºw $ \, * * *, *, r* * ...,’’’.8% ift 5. 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O U T L | N E 0 F T H E LLA N G E 5T AC AD O ANT) TS * ... --><---i-º-º- - - - - - - - - T TT T. Vºx& MARGINAL DRANAGE. . .” Ö- * N", f & | itſ fºr sh, > Sº *: º: º |---- * * = – * * - --~~ % º * * - &allºdº", Mºdi * I º T ** ...? * X. * ! WT, Irº * = º %tº. & * º º • A ustina * w it ºw f & NW I -T H whºlls tº “4. #. º tºº, Nº Cross Sections showing “. . t Water-Bearing Stratel. d *\; * * to Grcºlºnde. Élº * Yalso-nºic Weck, s. alozlº ##e3a leaves {} * # Ae-a-lt atter Serz nº 43rre. *: º: * † *… * te **):{{-rbo. = <= * * * = ; N | ºf 14 on eva”) | : | 5 8-2 ſ : | CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LLANO ESTACADO. 133 The surface of the plain, described as the Staked Plain formation, is everywhere composed of the transported sedimentary soil, which is from 10 to 30 feet deep. From its structure and composition it is evi- dent that it is a deposit laid down in late Miocene or Pliocene time. The formation and its resultant soil differs from all others in Texas, and notwithstanding the deficient rainfall the plains are covered with Short, nutritious gramma grass. Although apparently level, this great plain inclines rapidly seaward, at the rate of 20 feet per mile, its west- ern Corner having an altitude of 5,000 feet, and its eastern only 2,500. Owing to the excessive porosity of the soil, the surface is void of deep-cut drainage channels, such as creeks, rivers, and caſions, although the Pecos and Canadian Inave cut completely across and through it, and many streams like the Red, Brazos, and the Colorado, by head- Water erosion, are rapidly incising its eastern border, and will event- ually destroy it. (See Pl. II.) The escarpment of the Llano Estacado is one of the most remarka- ble topographic features of our continent, presenting from almost every view the appearance of a precipitous wall, often visible from 50 miles distant, escalloped or serrated by rain washes, like the bluffs of the Mauvaise Terre or bad lands of the Northwest. The western portion of this escarpment, extending from the Canadian, in New Mexico, to the Rio Grande, Texas, in a southeasterly direction subparallel to the Pecos River, is apparently unbroken by an interceding drainage. It extends east of Sumner, Roswell, and Eddy, and is the eastern limit of the drainage basin of the Pecos River, which stream, now 900 feet below its general level, has no doubt destroyed the former western ex- tent of the Llano Estacado and its contact with the mountains, from which it is now everywhere from 50 to 100 miles distant. The northern escarpment forms the southern bluff of the valley of the Canadian River. This escarpment is the most precipitous of all and is exactly similar in general features to the opposing bluffs of the Corazon, mentioned in the chapter on the Red Beds. The southern continuation of the Llano Estacado is the Edwards Plateau (previously described ), which is a part of the plain and a result of the same geologic causes, although different in surface structure. As was remarked by Capt. Mayne Reid in one of his early romances of the prairies, the Llano Estacado is simply a vast quadrangular mesa, which is elevated above all surrounding regions. Its slope and precip- itate border can be likened to a book resting upon a flat table. The geological structure of the Llano Estacado is as simple and uni- form as its topography, consisting of a surface or capsheet of unconsol- idated porous sediments, composed mostly of waterworn Sands, pebble gravel, and silt, occurring in horizontal layers and averaging 200 feet in thickness throughout its extent, as ascertained by numerous Well borings and measurements of the escarpments. The greatest thickness of the formation is towards the eastern margin of the plain, gradually thinning Westward. The peculiar heterogeneous character of the unconsolidated formation has been well described by Prof. Robert Hay, as grits, mortar beds, and marls. Certain layers are composed of hard siliceous gravel which are recognizable as the débris of well-known Rocky Mountain forma- tions. Others consist of coarse waterworn quartz sand, loosely ce- mented by a lime matrix, so that it is literally coarse mortar beds. The marl is usually pinkish or light chocolate brown, and when watered forms a rich agricultural soil. Another typical aspect is known to the *. - * 134 -* e IRRIGATION. - T A Mexicans as the “tierra blanca,” or white earth. This is found as strata of a white calcareous chalky earth possessing strong hydraulic or setting powers, and usually the protecting or cap layers of the es- carpment. The tierra blanca is well shown, north of Tascosa, in the bluffs of the Canadian; in the bluffs of the Palo Douro Cañon ; in the railway cuts of the Texas Pacific, west of Sweetwater, Nolan County; and in the western escarpment along the Pecos Valley. - This porous unconsolidated structure of the Llano, as will be shown later, has important bearing upon its water conditions. These sediments may have been the deposit of a vast lake which oc- cupied the region of the great plains in late Tertiary time, but I am inclined to believe them the marginal deposits of the Gulf of Mexico, although different in physical character from other formations of marine origin, discussed in this report, and different conditions of oceanic sedimentation. This formation has been described minutely by Newberry, Hay, and Shumard. The descriptions by Prof. Newberry of the plains of western Ransas and No-Man's Land, although he was not aware of the similar structure of the Llano, are so applicable to the latter region, which is the same formation, that it is here given in his language. He says: * The detail of structure of the Tertiary basin of the Arkansas will be, perhaps, most readily understood by a few extracts from my notes, made at various points along our journey, where the Tertiary strata are exposed. “After leaving Pawnee Fork the road passes over the level bottom lands for several miles, * * * when it rises out and crosses the table-land, which separates the valleys of Pawnee Fork and the Upper Arkansas. This table land is underlain by a white tuſaceous lime- stone, exposed in the bed of the Coon Creek, and still better at the point where the dry road comes down again to the Arkansas. It is also thrown out in many different places from the burrows of the prairie dogs. In lithological characters this rock is precisely like a portion of the strata of the bad lands of Nebraska, contains no fossils, but a few pebbles of crystalline rock. At the Caches, 16 miles below the crossing of the Arkansas, the same stratum is seen overlain by some 30 feet of coarse, soft, light-brown conglomerate, much cross stratified. The cement is coarse siliceous sand ; the pebbles, from the size of an egg downward, of granite traps, quartz, trachyte, jasper, quartzite, charb, etc., with a few of Carboniferous limestone. “At the crossing of the Arkansas the following section is exposed : 1. Spongy . tufaceous limestone like that on dry road. 2. Coarse soft conglomerate, same as at Caches, 35 feet. 3. Tu faceous limestone, like No. 1, to base. The sand hills which border the Arkansas on the south side seem to have been derived from the decom- positions of the Tertiary conglomerate. “The same stratum forms the banks of the Cimarron, and has apparently given character to its sandy and sterile valley. The “Jornado,” the divide between the Arkansas and the Cimarron. is another portion of the high prairie, precisely alike in typical and geological structure that crossed by the “dry road.’” - At Eighteen Mile Ridge, on the Cimarron, the coarse conglomerate and chalky tufas are exposed, as at many points below. The conglomerate is composed of a coarse sandy cement with pebbles from the size of shot to 8 inches in diameter, The larger ones are compact, fine grained, reddish yellow sandstone, doubtless of lower Cretaceous age, and such as comes to the surface further westward. Others are composed of granite, amygdaloid, clay slate quartz, jasper, etc. The greater size of the pebbles in the conglomerate indicates that, in going westward, we are approach- ing the source from which they were derived. The conglomerate would seem to be a drift from the Rocky Mountains, where and where only, as far as I am aware, such materials occur in place. Along the caſions of the head of Red River, at the northeast corner of the Llano, the deep incisions have been made, revealing escarp- ments excelled in beauty by only those of the Grand Cañon of the Col- orado, which they much resemble in color and stratigraphy. Several * Report of the exploring expedition from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to the junction of the Grand and Grcen rivers of the Colorado of the West, in 1859, under command of Capt. J. N. Macomb, Corps of Topographical Engineers, with geological report by Prof. J. S. Newberry, 1878, geologist of expedition, pp. 24 and 25. THE TRINITY SANDS AND STAKED PLAINS BEDs. 135. Sections have been published of these and beautiful illustrations given in Capt. Marcy's Report on the Exploration of Red River of Louis- iana, and by Dr. G. G. Shumard, and later by Rev. W. F. Cummins. In general these sections show the following succession: Feet. ſ ſº surface soil, Sandy red- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 8 to 20 The Llano Est a c a do | White calcareous “pan * or tierra blanco. . . 2 | beds prevalent color: | Sands usually slightly compact ... ... -- - - - - - - 2 to 10 1. & Light chalky, show-J White pan, often siliceous and honeycombed- 2 to 5 tº ing occasional faint Impure calcareous sands and clay ... -- - - - - -- 30 to 40 | tints of yellow and | Tierra blanco - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 2 to 10 pink. Loose rounded sands, mortar beds. - - - - - - - - - 20 U Greenish White clays -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 30 2. Upper Red Beds. Red vermilion clays forming lower cliffs of cañon, ge and showing an exposure of.- ...-----------...-------------------- 150 to 200 This surface formation of the Llano extends southward of the Texas Pacific onto the Edwards Plateau an indefinite distance. It reaches the Rio Grande, in Val Verde County, north of Del Rio; and I am in- clined to believe that it once covered the whole of the Edwards Plateau and has since been eroded. There are features in the coastward regions of Texas, in the Rio Grande embayment, closely related, which I have described as the Washington prairies. The floor of the Llano Estacado, or that portion underlying the above- described cap formation and outcropping as the basal portions of its escarpment, is of entirely different material, and since it is of great importance to the water question it must be described. Its relation to the Llano formation can be conceived, however, by considering the present diversity of formations outcropping, i.e., con- stituting the earth's surface, sands, clays, granites, etc., and imagining a great subsidence which would reduce these to a gommon base level and spread over the diverse rocks a sheet of sediment like that of the Llano. It was Spon such a surface as the present that the cap sheet of Llano sediments was laid down, which, although concealed as by a Veil, let us examine for a moment in order to understand its relation to water. (See Pls. X and xI.) Toward the north this floor was eroded down to the Trinity sands previous to the deposition of the Llano beds, and even these are worn down to the Red Beds for the greater portion of the foundation occur- ring under the western and northern margins. - These Trinity sands, partially constituting the floor of the plains, can be seen in the escarpment east of Eddy, New Mexico, at Head- Quarters ranch; the limestone and clay beds of the Comanche series are absent. Some of the sand hills of Texas and New Mexico, which cover hundreds of square miles at the foot of the western escarpment of the plains, are the remnants of this formation, others are later. Along the western escarpment of the plains and in many of the buttes and mesas of the Canadian valleys the same Trinity sands out- crop again. There is little evidence of their presence along the entire northeast quarter, as shown in the caſions of the Red and Canadian rivers, the plains formation resting directly upon the Red Beds. Wherever this sand occurs immediately beneath the plains formation without the intervention of impervious beds, water will be found in great quantities. At the northwest corner, however, between the Trinity beds and the Staked Plains beds is a great sheet of Dakota sandstone and Denison beds, as seen in Tucumcarri mesa, a remnant of the Llano Estacado. , S--- 136 - IRRIGATION. South of the thirty-second parallel this floor is composed of the rocks of the Comanche series from the Trinity sands to the Caprina lime- Stone, the latter formation constituting by far the greatest area and extending over thousands of square miles in the counties of Midland, Ector, Tom Green, Coke, Glasscock, Crane, Upton, Irion, Menard, Crickett, Sutton, Kimble, Edwards, Val Verde, Kinney, Pecos. * The erosion of the limestones of the Comanche series from the whole region approximately north of the Texas Pacific Railway and west of one hundredth meridian preceding and closing the Great Llano epoch is beyond conception, and we must leave to the purely scientific treatise the discussion of the facts. The entirely different characteristics of the Llano formation, such as Color, composition, and vegetation, render it readily distinguishable from the underlying floor, as seen in the numerous contacts all around the escarpments and in the deeply incised caſions of Red and Colorado rivers along the eastern margin. AS Vast as the area of this great mesa now is, it is only a remnant of its former extent, so great and rapid is the process of atmospheric land Stripping in the West. There can be no doubt that it continued north- ward across the valley of the Canadian and other stream as a part of the Tertiary plains of Kansas and New Mexico. To the eastward its borders extend to the ninety-ninth meridian, hav- ing since receded, as it is now receding, by headwater erosion of the streams to its present outline. To the south these plains extend into Mexico and Texas. To the west there is no doubt that these plains ex- tended to Raton Mesa and around the southern end of the Rocky Mountains, south of Santa Fe, on to New Mexico and Arizona. Frag- ments of it still remain and the Pecos Valley escarpment is traveling east at a Wonderful rate. Neither can there be any doubt but that the Llano Estacado forma- tions covered the great Edwards Plateau, stretching southeastward nearly to San Antonio and Del Rio, now a barren limestone floor, and much of it has since been eroded. x- The water of the Llano Estacado.—This vast mesa, with a few excep- tions, is singularly void of surface water. It is true that after seasons of rainfall there are occasional ponds or lakes of water in the depres- sions, but some of these have been known to evaporate during the con- tinuance of a south wind for a day or two. Running Water, in Dickens County, is the only stream on the Llano Estacado, and this really belongs to the marginal rivers of its eastern edge. It has been de- scribed by Mr. Roessler as “a bright sparkling stream that suddenly breaks out of the ground, ripples over pebbly bottoms for a distance of 10 miles, and then myteriously disappears like many other streams west of the Pecos River, notably Leon Wells, Comanche Springs, Escondida, Limpia, and Toysh Creek, or the underground river near Castle Moun- tain in Crane County.” * Why this absence of running water over 50,000 square miles of area which posesses a fair rainfall and presents every favorable topographic condition for them 3 The only answer is that the capping strata of the Llano Estacado are as porous as a sponge, and that every drop of rain: fall is either evaporated or taken in and percolates downward until it reaches an impervious stratum. That such is the fact has been borne out by a thousand experiments in the Llano and by the study of its scarp and caſions. Although considered until the last fifteen years an utterly waterless plain—the largest in America—it is a remarkable fact that OVer 1,000 ARTESIAN PROBABILITIES AND THE LLANO ESTACADo. 137 wells have been dug into this sheet of strata and water obtained—not of flowing water, it is true, but water which is easily pumped by aid of Windmills and which make possible the pasturage of thousands of cat- tle. These wells have been obtained throughout the whole extent of the vast mesa, and with such success that failure is seldom experienced. Mr. Roessler's statistics show the wonderful distribution of these wells in the counties of the plains in Texas and eastern New Mexico, and there are hundreds more. A study of the drill holes shows that this Supply of water comes from the Llano formation in the northern part of the plains, and that it is not hopeful to bore into the impervious Red. Beds that underlie them, which serve a most valuable function in pre- Venting the farther downward percolation of the water. In the beau- tiful Blanco and Palo Douro caſions, and all around the northeastern escarpments, the spring line can be seen, where this water of the plain is oozing out at the contact of the Llano formation and the Red Beds. This water is an underground product of the Llano, and from its seepage the supply of the Red, the Colorado, Pease, Wichita, and Brazos is obtained. This water is stored in the mortar beds and grits of the Llano Esta- Cado formation and is the most remarkable sheet of underground water in our land. Not only is it seen in the heads of the Texas stream, but it follows the escarpment of this mesa up the Canadian 200 miles and around its northwestern point in New Mexico, and thence down the Pecos escarpment again to the Texas line; and you will see many Streams and springs flowing out at the line of contact between the Llano formation and the underlying Red Beds. Of such a nature are the Truxillo, the Tucumcarri, the Pajarito, the Portillo, the Alame- quada Creeks and the springs of the Conejo, Mescalero, Gintrez, and Others in eastern New Mexico. In the southern and southeastern portion of the Llano the well water and springs are obtained from the Trinity sands which at Marienfield and Big Springs are intercalated between the Llano formation and the Red Beds. (See sec. 3, Pl. X.) To reach this sand a slight remnant of the Comanche Peak and Gryphaea beds are first penetrated. - Can artesian water be obtained on the Llano? That the underground sheet water of the Llano beds can be struck throughout the extent of the mesa has been everywhere demonstrated. But it is also apparent that since this Water occurs in the surface formation—the Llano beds— there can be no hydrostatic pressure to force a surface flow. But there are other strata underlying portions of the Llano, beneath the Llano water sheet, and to these we have cause to look with much hope that they may present favorable artesian conditions. To understand them, however, it is well to carry in mind the discussion of the underlying floor of the plain and to possess an idea of the sequence and water conditions of the Neozoic strata upon which the Tilano beds are de- posited. These foundation beds are as follows: 3.--------------------5. Dakota sands --------------------------- Pervious, good. 4. Denison sands - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Pervious, good. 2. Comanche Beds -- & 3. Chalk limestone - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Impervious, bad. 2. Trinity sands --------------------------- Pervious, good. 1. The Red Beds - - - - - -1. Sands and clays. Now, wherever the Llano Estacado formations rest upon the impervi- ous Red Beds or Colorado clays, the downward percolation of water will be stopped by these formations and they will form a bottom against 138 * IRRIGATION. - which the water will rest and which will confine the water of the lower beds, but if Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7 should underlie the Llano formation, then water would be percolated downward through them until some other impervious layer is reached. As I have shown, it is only the northeastern half of the plain in which the Llano beds rest directly upon the non water-bearing Red Beds, and that the northwestern and southern portions are based upon the various beds of the Trinity, Comanche, and Dakota, which, outcropping along the western border, incline eastward beneath the plain, and may serve as artesian water-bearing beds. This relation of the floor to the plain is shown in the accompanying figures. Furthermore, it has been observed that the water in the Llano forma- tion does not rise under pressure in the well tube, but according to Roess- ler “nearly all the wells dug or bored through the Comanche limestone into the Trinity sands around the southern edge show a tendency to rise above the point where water was first reached. In some localities a rise of 20 to 30 feet was observed, showing that the supply is under considerable pressure.” Without committing myself to prophecy, it is my opinion that when the portion of the Liano along the Texas-New Mexican line is thoroughly prospected, somewhere in that region will be ſound an abundant arte- sian supply from the underlying Dakota and Trinity sands which out- Crop so abundantly at a higher altitude in the northern escarpment. VIII. WATER CONDITIONS OF THE TRANS-PECOS, OR BASIN REGIONS. The portion of Texas and New Mexico west of the Pecos is a part of the Vast region of North America which is known in Mexico as the High Plateau or Table Land, and in the United States between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierras as the Great Basin regions. It is character. ized by the occurrence of disconnected mountain blocks, usually trend. ing northward, separated by wide flats or plains, most of which in com- paratively recent geologic time were occupied by vast inland lakes, Several of which still exist, as the Great Salt Lake of Utah. The mountains and basin plains of this region are popularly confused With the great Rocky Mountain system and the plains of the Llano Es- tacado and Raton Plateau types. This confusion is a serious error, how- ever, for the Colorado Rocky Mountain mass abruptly terminates south of Santa Fe, and is succeeded by the isolated and disconnected masses described in our chapter on the water conditions of the mountains, while. the basin plains, instead of consisting of the coastward inclined strati- fication of the Llano Estacado, are fresh-water sediments deposited in the intramontane Valleys. This basin region was well defined by Major W. H. Emory, U. S. A., in his report upon the United States Mexican boundary in 1856, as fol. lows: X- Between the two great chains, which I have attempted to describe, occupying the western portion of the continent, there are of her chains of mountains, so numerous that it is impossible to describe them by words; some are continuous, some are de- tached ridges, others isolated peaks, rising from the plateau almost with the uniform- ity and symmetrical proportions of artificial structures. Between them are found basins which have no outlets to the ocean, but are the receptacles of the drainage of ['0g8[ ‘uoțSSțuuuuoſ) Klepuuoº uuoțxº IV. Jo quodøų luo…）!} ºoo1x3łIŲ AGIN (INV V NOZI，IV JIO SNIV"I.I-NISVĘI ȘI HJ, JO AAGII A OILSI?IGIJLOV， VHOED №sae º …§§§§§ §ſºſ ∞º：• ----§， -， ， * > *º - Nº ===s wº ##$$º - º - º §sº º ::$: ſº \�# \\）;%§§ º º '/\[X a LVTd THE BASIN AREAs OF THE ARID REGIONS. 139 the surrounding watersheds. Of these, the most extensive is the Great Salt Lake in Utah Territory, and the most remarkable for its historical associations and present importance is the present valley of the City of Mexico, These successions of basins form a prominent feature in the geography of North America, extending two-thirds its length and quite one-third its breadth. They be- long to what has been appropriately designated as the Basin system of North Amer- 1Cà. Those found near the boundary are Santa Maria, Guzman, and Jaqui –all to the south of the boundary and within the limits of Mexico. The first is fed by the waters of the river Santa Maria, which runs in a northern direction, and Guzman by the river bearing the several names of Casas Grandes, San Miguel, and Janos, the gen- eral course of which is also from the south to the north; and the waters of Lake Guzman and Lake Santa Maria are said to unite in seasons of unusual freshets. The waters of the Rio Mimbres, near the same meridian as Lake Guzman, which take their rise near the Santa Rita del Cobre, run towards that lake, but they disap- pear in the plain to the north of the boundary before reaching it. The waters of these lakes, or inland seas, are brackish at all times, but in seasons of drought, which last two-thirds of the year, they become salt and wholly unpal- atable. Their shores are covered with lacustrine deposits, and are usually unsuited to cultivation. Among the most conspicuous of the basins are the lakes Lahontan and Bonneville, in Utah and Nevada, Death's Valley in Arizona, the Mono basins of eastern California, the Organ-Hueco Valley, and the Jornado del Muerto in New Mexico; the valley of the Salt Lakes, the Eagle Flats, and the Toyah-Pecos basin in Texas, and the basin of Presidio del Norte, the plains of Chihuahua, the Bolson de Mapimi; the plains of Lago Aqua Verde, Baroteran, Barreal del Junco, Valle Hun- dido, Valle Labago Cayotte, and numerous others of Mexico. It should be borne in mind that these basin plains cover extensive areas, and occupy much of the region, the mountains being almost secondary to them in extent and areal importance. The basin plains are vast areas of apparently level lands lying be- tween the mountains, consisting of loose unconsolidated sediment de- rived from the mountains, sands, clays, pebbles, and bowlders, some- times cemented by white chalky efflorescent earths, which are appar- ently chemical precipitates. The surfaces instead of being level are really slightly depressed toward the center. The soil and vegetal prod- ucts are peculiar. The former is often covered with alkaline incrusta- tions, but is usually of exceedingly great fertility when irrigated. It supports a flora of stunted shrubs and grasses, such as mesquite, greasewood, artemesia, and cactus, entirely different from that of the adjacent foothills and mountains. Along the margins of these plains are great deposits of bowlders brought down from the mountains by the freshets, and covered with the peculiar yucca, sotol, ixtle, and other fibrous plants. The basin valleys are usually void of surface streams, and the few water courses in the region are either slovenly flows that have no out- let, but disappear by imbibition and evaporation in their lower courses, or, like the Rio Grande and Colorado of the West, derive their waters from the mountains and merely flow through the basin region but do not originate in it. Were it not for the mountains there would be no streams upon the basin plains, for all the water is derived from the precipitation upon the former, and is quickly drank in by the porous soil of the latter, thus constituting that class of streams known as “lost rivers.” The Rio Grande is by origin a Rocky Mountain stream, which orig- inally emptied into one of the now vanished lakes, and after leaving the mountains and plateaus south of Albuquerque flows in the beds of these ancient basins, for nearly 300 miles, to the Quitman Mountain group of Texas, through which, in late geologic time, it has cut an out- 140 IRRIGATION." let to the Gulf. The “passes” of the Ilio Grande at Selden and El Paso are cut through the barriers between the former chains of lakes, now represented by the Jornado del Muerto plain, the Mesilla Valley, and the Organ-Hueco Valley respectively. The Organ-Hueco Basin.—One of the most extensive and character. istic of these great inner mountain basins of the Tertiary sediment is that lying between the Organ-Franklin and Hueco-Sacramento ranges, in extreme western Texas and southern New Mexico. This is a vast expanse of apparently “dead level” plain extending from the Rio Grande between El Paso and Fort Hancock, northward some 150 miles. It is 90 miles in width at its southern end, narrowing to less than 40 at its northern. The Rio Grande cuts through its south- ern end, exposing a grand section of the structure from El Paso on its western side to Fabyan Station on the eastern. This stream has grooved a channel from 200 feet in depth east of El Paso to 500 feet near Fort Hancock. The basin, although apparently level, slopes southward, ac- cording to the White Oaks Railroad profile, from 4,500 at its northern end to 3,500 feet at its southern end. ... -- On all sides this flat or basin (locally called “mesa” at El Paso) is surrounded by high mountain blocks, including the Juarez and Mexi- can mountains on the south, the Franklin Organ and San Andreas blocks on the west, and the Sierra Blanca, Hueco, and Sacramento ranges on the east; all composed of hard impervious metamorphosed limestones, quartzites, granites, and lavas. - The basin proper is unmarked by a single drainage arroyo or channel except the Rio Grande and its laterals. The soil is a pink-gray Sandy loam resembling that of the Llano Estacado, and is the residuum of the substructure of stratified, alternating, or unconsolidated sands (grits), clays, and water-worn gravel, often cemented by the white chalky-looking material known in the region as tierra blanca, or white earth. This substructure of this basin formation is beautifully shown in the river escarpments or mesa east of El Paso, where the typical tierra blanca can be seen capping the scarp, and in the bluffs along the rail- road between Etholen and Fort Hancock, where the soft disintegrating escarpment has every aspect of the typical bad land formations of Da- kota. The beds, like those of the Llano Estacado, are chiefly marked by their excessive lack of unconsolidation, the sands, clays, and gravel be- ing almost as loose as when first deposited. White chalky lime strata resembling the Cretaceous beds are numerous, but upon examination they are always found to be conglomerates composed of débris of the jeso and chalk beds, red beds, and cretaceous, mixed with the moun- tain rock débris. These beds are clearly laid down in the mountain trough or valley by lake sedimentation, and stream deltas are of newer and later age and never enter into the mountain structure, but are deposited uncon- formably, like a matrix, upon and around them, having a floor of im: pervious mountain rock (see plate I, fig. 6). The thickness of the sedi- ments would be difficult to estimate, but it varies from zero at the mountain edge to at least 1,500 feet in thickness in its southern center. The northern end of this valley or basin presents several peculiar phenomena; the principal of which are the celebrated white, sands. These are composed of rounded grains of gypsum instead of silica, and throughout their extent water is easily secured by digging a few feet. º THE BASINS AND BENCHES OF SOUTHWEST TEXAs. 141 The extreme northern end of the valley has been covered by a great flow of lava (or malpais) which it is alleged flowed down the valley some 30 miles from the craters of township 10, range 10, first standard par- allel. This flat of valley has not upon its surface a single running stream or even drainage basin, and its surface is the most complete picture of aridity imaginable; yet, beneath it lies an illustration of one of the most important water principles in the west. The basin is surrounded by many terrace benches. These are of two kinds: Remnants of ancient shore lines and delta deposits of débris brought down by floods from the mountains. The terraces are especially well shown in the pass of the Rio Grande at El Paso, where. on the western side, seven or eight tiers of them above the river levels can be traced. From the mountains which surround it on all sides consid- erable water is conducted to the margin of this basin plain, but it sinks almost immediately into its porous soils, percolating downward until re- sisted by the floor of impervious mountain rock which underlies it. At the northern end many of these mountain streams are perennial, and are good illustrations of the lost rivers of the west. The Rio Tularosa and the Tres Rios flow great volumes of water during the winter and au- tumnal seasons (precipitation upon these mountains being far greater, perhaps three-fold, than upon the plains), the latter being estimated at 8 annual inches. Immediately upon leaving the impervious mountain rock and upon reaching these plains these streams completely disap- pear, a phenomenon which can not but impress the observer with aston- ishment. They do not evaporate, as has been alleged, nor do they sink into caverns, as most people think, but they are imbibed, literally drunk up by the soft sponge-like formation of the plain, and are stored below the line of saturation. The shedding of its rain waters by the imper- vious mountain rock and its imbibition by the spongy plains rock is the key to the whole water question in the arid region. - The occurrence of the great amount of underground water in th Organ-Hueco basin formation, at 200 feet beneath the surface, has suggested to many minds the possibility that beneath this there are other porous strata containing water, which sufficient hydrostic pres- sure would force to the surface in the lower (Rio Grande) end of the valley. The structure of the ancient lake sediments is composed of alternate pervious and impervious layers of sand and clay beds, and these must have been more or less nested, one within another, in con- formation with the topography of the ancient lake bottom, as shown in Pl. II, Fig. 6, affording good containing conditions for artesian water. The great elevation of the northern end of the valley (where most of the water is received) above the lower is also favorable for artesian Con- ditions, and finally, the fact that nearly all the artesian water in the arid region has been secured under identically similar conditions for similar basins, proves that the conditions for artesian Water are at least worthy of thorough experimentation. - Wherever upon this apparently sterile plain an experiment has been made, abundant water has been secured at depths below 232 feet, and windmills pump it for irrigation. The record of these wells demon- strates the storage of much water below the line of evaporation in the deeper strata of the old lake sediments of the mesa. The following record has been kindly furnished me by B. D. Russell, of El Paso: t→--- 142 - IRRIGATION. Log of wells on Lamoria mega. No. 2. a No. 3.5 | No. 4. c |No. 5. d No. 6. e. No. 7.f Feet - | Feet. Feet Feet Feet. Feſt, Clay ------------------------------------------------ 25 10 9 12 || - 10 Sand------------------------------------------------ 32 30 g45 20 15 28 Clay ------------------------------------------------ 10 15 10 18 60 15 Sand. ----------------------------------------------- 28 40 20 30 25 30 Clay ------------------------------------------------ 35 10 15 15 35 22 Sand.----------------------------------------------- 15 25 25 45 14 40 Clay ------------------------------------------------ 20 8 20 10 2 27 Sand.----------------------------------------------. 12 25 15 30 17 • 36 Clav ----------------- t - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 23 15 30 20 ! ---...--- 19 Sand.---------------------------------------------- 25 30 10 35 -------. 13 Clay - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ------------------ 15 20 22 |--------|--------|-------. Sand.----- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ------------------------ 14 8 75 --------|--------|-------. Clay - - - - - - - - - - - - ------------------------------------|- - - - - - - - 6 10 --------|--------|-------- Sand.-------- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ------------------------|-------- 20 40 ||--------|--------|-------- Clay - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ------|--------|- - - - - - - - 4 |--------|--------|-------- Sand and gravel ------------------------------------|--------|-------- 80 --------|---------------. Clay “stiff” ----------------------------------------|--------|-------- 10 l.-------|--------|-------- Sand.-----------------------------------------------|-------- * * * 50 --- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Clay ----------- > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 30 --------|--------|-------- Sand------------------------------------------------|--------|-------- 35 --------|--------|-------- Clay ------------------------------------------------|--------|-------- 15 l--------|--------|-------- Sand------------------------------------------------|--------|-------- 35 |--------|--------|-------- Sand rock. ------------------------------------------|--------|-------- 1 --------|--------|-------- 254 262 621 232 210 240 * Gravel. a. At 230 feet struck water. b Water at 256 feet. $ † c Gravel, filirst water at 220 feet; second water at 539 feet, rising to 65 feet of surface. d Water at 212 feet. e Water at 193 feet. f Water at 227 feet. [location T. and P. surveys.—No. 2, sec. 1, T. 2, B. 81; No. 3, Sec. 10, T. No. 5, sec. 10, T.2, B. 81; No. 6, sec. 19, T.2, B. 81; No. 7, sec. 38, T. 1, B. 81 In well No. 4, after piercing sand in 28 feet of water, the same sunk to original level. wells rises from 15 to 20 feet after being struck. g Or gravel. 2, B. 81; No. 4, sec. 1, T. 2, B. 81; Water in all The success of these wells, together with their inexhaustible supply of water, demonstrates the fact that the capacity of the Organ-Hueco Basin formation for water is very great, notwithstanding the slight rain- fall and excessive evaporation which has driven the line of visible moisture nearly 150 feet below the surface. Relatively speaking this basin is one of the great water-bearing areas of the West, where, if irrigation can be profitably conducted by pump- ing, an agricultural community will eventually thrive. Already several large fruit farms are being irrigated on this basin by means of pumped water, and if they prove profitable there is no reason to suppose but that much of this country, apparently a hopeless desert, will be made into a fertile region. The Mesilla Basin.-West of the Organ-Franklin Range, there is another extensive basin, which is occupied by the valley of the Rio Grande, and extends from near Old Tort Selden to near Frontera, 4 miles west of El Paso. On the west this basin is bounded by the Organ Mountains and other Small mountain blocks running north towards the Eort Selden eruptives. In the basin are situated the towns of Mesilla and Las Cruces, two of the most flourishing places in southern New Mexico, and extensive agriculture is carried on by irrigation from the Rio Grande. The formation of this basin is the same as that of the Organ-Hueco Basin, and at times no doubt its lakes were continuous with its waters. The river which is in the consolidated mountain rock at Fort Selden, has cut deep into this plain, and much of its waters are imbibed by the * THE CHARACTERISTICS OF MESILLA WALLEY. 143 porous formation until it again enters the mountain rock some 100 miles below at El Paso. The surface character and water experiments conducted in this basin have been ably described in the report of the Senate Committee by citi- Zens, as follows: From the lower end of the Jornada at Fort Selden the Rio Grande again broadens out into a beautiful valley. It is a basin in shape. Both to the east and west are the Inountains, which close in at Fort Selden on the north, and at El Paso on the south. The length is about 40 miles. The Organ Mountains, 12 miles from the river, from the eastern rim of the basin. It would require a further examination to show if the other conditions of an artesian basin are present, - No deep wells have been attempted. The deepest reported is 65 feet, but from these Wells of moderate depth water rises nearly to the surface. The following letter from Mr. John De Meir, a citizen of Las Cruces, shows the experience at that point, * “I am convinced that our valley is one immense artesian belt, and will cite a few cases to confirm it. “Thre deepest drive well here is 65 feet, at Col. Albert Fountain's. The water stands at 4 feet of the surface. Maj. Llewellyns well, 700 feet distant and south of Fount- ain's, is driven 45 feet; water stands at 4 feet. One mile south of his well, McClure Brothers drove down 65 feet; water stood at 4 feet. They broke their pipe and could drive no further. An open well up on the foothills, upper part of town, sunk to a depth of 45 feet, and the bottom being about 12 feet below the valley land, gave a poor supply of water. Mr. Ackenback, the owner, drove a pipe 16 feet in the bottom and it rises in the well and yields all the water they desire. So far the strata here is the same as in California. In driving wells every few feet they strike a hardpan that makes it slow, hard work until it is penetrated, and when passed through it will drive easily till next hardpan is struck. These stratas are from 2 to 4 feet thick, and in sinking open wells it is necessary to use explosives. I have been hammering at the people for the past year to raise funds and give it a trial, and while all are of the same Opinion as I am, it is slow work to get them to move in the matter. On the east side are surrounded by a high mountain range 2,500 feet higher than the valley, while on the West we have a high mesa and mountains. At Fort Selden the mountains meet and form a narrow pass worn through the rock, and at El Paso they meet again and form another pass, so that we are truly a basin with a rock pass above and below us. I send a diagram, which may give a better idea of our situation.” Mr. De Mier, of Las Cruces, says: “About 28 miles above here, in upper end of this Valley or above it proper, springs crop out at river bank and keep the lagoons full when Rio Grande is dry. Am informed same feature prevails this side of El Paso, Tex., at lower end of the valley. There are immense bodies of water flowing from hidden veins in the Organ Mountains 12 miles east of this point; one in particular is over 50,000 gallons an hour. At the Memphis mine that amount was pumped day and night for over a year. It came in at about 130 feet in the shaft, and only part of it en- tered the shaft. Mine has been closed down for past six years on account of water. There are,a number of springs on both sides of the range, mostly on west side, drain- ing into this Mesilla Valley. The structure of this valley is also favorable for the imbibition of all the Water that falls upon it, or that flows down the adjacent mountain sides, while the presence of the running water of the Rio Grande throughout its length has obviated the immediate necessity of experi- ments, like those at La Noria which resulted in the discovery of the Franklin-Hueco water bed. There can be little doubt then from the data obtained but that well water can be obtained anywhere throughout this basin. f - Covering the artesian possibilities of this region, it can only be said that it presents the same features as the Organ-Hueco Basin, to wit: A sharp topographic slope from the north end, where most of the water is received, to the South, and a general similarity in structure to the conditions of the similar basins of the San Luis and other places. It may also be added that, extending southward from the Donna Ana to the Florida Mountains, there are extensive dikes or walls of igneous matter which are apt to have a negative effect upon artesian principles in the western part of the valley. The Jornado del Muerto Basin, The Western end of the Mesilla Basin wº 144 – IRRIGATION. ºr *s .." or plain is terminated by a group of stratified and volcanic hills, which extend westward from the Organs, via Dona Ana and Fort Selden, cutting off the Mesilla basin from that of the Jornado del Muerto which begins north of this barrier and extends northward for a hundred miles. This is perhaps the most noted of the basin plains, having long been celebrated for its absolute lack of surface water, and lying di- rectly in the track of the ancient Santa Fe-El Paso trail. Its very namt signifies the journey of death, and was given it owing to the great difficulty travelers found in crossing it. The Jornado occupies the country north of the Dona Ana hills from Rincon northward. On the east its limits are the San Andreas and Sierra Oscura, the northward continuation of the Organ range. On the west, by the Sierra de los Caballos and Fra Cristobal, the Southern continuation of the Sand via range. The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe enters it at San Marcial, northward, and continues upon it to near Rincon. This basin has been described by Dr. G. G. Shumard * as follows: It lies east of the Rio Grande and may be described in general terms as a gently sloping plain, somewhat elliptical in form and inclosed on both sides by lofty moun- tains. This plain extends from near the southern extremity of the Dona Ana mountains, northwest, for the distance of 80 or 90 miles, and varies from 12 to 40 miles in width. Near the southern extremity it is partly interrupted by the Donna Ana mountains, and there its width does not exceed 12 miles; but as we travel north it rapidly widens, attaining its greatest transverse diameter at the distance of 20 or 25 miles; it then gradually diminishes until we arrive at the northwestern extremity, where it does not exceed 18 or 20 miles in width. Throughout the entire length it is marked by a distinct central depression, which, as will be seen hereafter, corresponds pretty accurately with the synclinal axes of the underlying strata. Wherever examined, the surface formation was found to consist of detritus of rocks débris, in all respects the same as those composing the neighboring mountains. from which it was doubtless mainly derived. The precise thickness of this deposit could not be very accurately determined, as only a few natural sections were ob- served, and these only near the base of the mountains. In two localities its observed thickness was nearly 500 feet. The two ranges of mountains forming the eastern and western boundaries of the Jornado del Muerto curve gently in opposite directions and are remarkable for their close general resemblances and simplicity of structure. In each we find a gentle slope toward the plain and bold and nearly vertical precipices in the opposite direc- tions. Along their summits are exhibited the sharp and jagged edges of their up- lifted strata. i The range of the east varies in width from 5 to 15 miles, and forms a nearly con- tinuous range extending north and south, the entire length of the Jornado, as will be hereafter seen; it is composed principally of upheaved strata of dark gray, blue, and black subcrystalline limestone, dipping west at various angles. Although these mountains have the same general direction, and are apparently continuous with the Organ range with which they have been heretofore classified, nevertheless their gen- eral conformation and structures are totally distinct. In no respect is there the slightest resemblance between them, one being composed almost entirely of sedi- mentary strata, and the other mainly of eruptive rocks. - Upon the western side of the “Jornado” the mountains are interrupted at their north- ern and southern extremities by broad valleys, the main portion of the range being separated in the one direction from Fra Cristobal Mountain by an extensive volcanic district, and in the other from the Rolledo Mountain by the valley of the Rio Grande and a chain of igneous hills. Although in general appearance very closely resem- bling the mountains, upon the opposite side of the plain the central portion of this plain is found to differ somewhat from them in composition, the limestone being here overlaid by grits, shales, and sandstones, which altogether present an average thick- ness of about 800 feet, and are uniformly ſound dipping towards the east. The length of this portion of the range is from 40 to 50 miles. * The geological structure of the “Jornado del Muerto,” New Mexico, being an ab- stract from the geological report of the expedition under Capt. John Pope, United States Topographic Engineers, for boring artesian wells along the line of the thirty- second parallel, by Dr. G. G. Shumard, M. D., geologist of the expedition. (Trans- actions of the Academy of Science, of St. Louis, Vol. 1, 1856–60, p. 341.) .* *- THE JORNAIDO DEL MUERTO AND PECOS VALLEY. 145 Geologically speaking, the Jornado del Muerto may be considered as nothing more than a single trough, composed mostly of limestones, sandstones, and shales, and cow- ered to the depth of 500 or 600 feet with loose detritus. - As this trough throughout the greater portion of its length appears to be entirely free from igneous protrusions, I am of the opinion that an abundant supply of water can here always be obtained by means of artesian wells. The depth to which borings would have to be carried for this purpose can not very readily be determined, as but few natural sectious were exposed upon the plain, and these only extended through a portion of the detritus. But as the Cretaceous standstones overlying the shales of the Coal Measures, which would have to be first passed through, exhibit in the moun- tains, upon the western side of the “Jornado,” an average thickness of about 600 feet, it is probable that water could not be obtained at a less distance beneath the surface than a thousand or fifteen hundred feet. * As the “Jornado,” besides its lateral slopes, presents a general one from NNW. to SSE., the most favorable situation for the experiment would probably be along the Central depression, marking the synclinal axis of the strata, taking care to avoid on the one hand the igneous protrusions, of which the Donna Ana Mountains form a portion, and on the other, the chain of volcanic hills near the northwestern extremity of the plain. This description is in general correct, but the writer is of the opinion that if artesian water is found it will be in the detrital deposit of the basin, and not in the underlying floor of mountain rock, and at a much less depth than that indicated by Dr. Shumard. Probable basins of the Pecos Valley.—The Rio Pecos, from the mouth of Delaware Creek to Pecos City, 50 miles, and from thence to an un- determined point some 50 miles below, flows in marls and clays of the typical basin character, which, together with the topographic confor- mation and well-boring records of the region, lead me to believe that this portion of the Pecos Valley is either another of the Quaternary basins or an allied estuarine formation. The main escarpment of the Llano Estacado is far east of Pecos City, and the river is in a wide flat or basin some 30 miles wide, from Toyah to Quito, which seems unlike a drainage flood plain. This flat is marked on the east by a high scarp line near Quito, 12 miles east of I’ecos City, but inasmuch as the apparent shore-line formations were of the softer Red Beds and plains formations, instead of the harder mountain rock, like that of the other basins, it is difficult to say after my brief studies whether or not it is a true shore line, although I am greatly inclined to think it is. The Western shore of this apparent basin is to the west of Toyah against the slope of the Davis Mountains. At Pecos City numerous artesian wells have been found in this allu- vial deposit, be it of lake or river origin, which give weight to my hypothesis that these beds are the chief water-bearing strata of the West. These wells also occur under favorable topographic conditions, i. e., at a lower altitude than the shore line of the basin, and are a remarkable demonstration of the amount of water which under favor- able conditions can be abstracted from such an arid region, situated as they are, in a district which one would, under the old mountain theory of water, consider most unpropitious. S. Ex. 41, pt. 3—10 146 IRRIGATION. Mr. Roessler has reported (1890) the following wells from the PeCOS A Valley: Flowing artesian wells at Pecos City, Reeves County. Owner or informant. Depth. Bore. Cost. Remarks. * IFeet. Inch. J. B. Gibson.--------------------------. 250 4 $300 9 gallons per minute. W. S. Marshall------------------------ 315 3 500 60 º: per minute, pressure 20 - pounds. Texas Pacific Railway...... ----....".. 220 4 440 || Water rises 27 feet above ground. C. H. Merriman----------------------- 185 3 351 60 gallons per minute. W. D. Johnson ---------------. -------- 185 3 |-------. I)0. Do. ----------------------------- 185 6 ſ. ------- Very light flow. T. M. Clayton. -----------------------. 227 3 -------. | Matheson, Cook & Walker............ 213 3 ||-------. Gage, Walthall & Powers. -------...-. 250 3 -------- Pecos Valley Land and Irrigation Com- 237 3 |. ------- pany. All these wells are bored within a . Havens, Phillips & Allen ------...---. 237 8 . ------. circumference of 2 miles, and all Juston Robertson --------------...--. shallower 2 |-------- of them have a continuous flow. A. T. Windom--------------------..... ---do ... --. 2 i.------- W. D. Johnson and C. F. Thomason.... 235 3 -------- County of Reeves----------------...--. 227 3 |-------. Chilton, Bowen, et al ------------------|----------. 3 l.------- J These wells are located on section 40, H. & G. N. surveys, and section 69, block 4, H. & G. N. The water in all of them is slightly brackish, some being better than others; in one or two some saline ingredients. The water, however, is not injurious to vegetation, and in a small way is used for irrigating gardens, though most of it is allowed to run ad libitum and make a mud puddle of the vacant town lots. Flowing artesian wells at Toyah, Reeves County. OWuer or informant. Depth. Pºpe Cost. Remarks. I'eet. Inches. Texas and Pacific Railway .. 834 } º; ; sº gallons per minute, or 432,000 gallons per 3(1------- diem. Do. -------------------- 514 12 -------. About 9 gallons per minute. Now being bored down farther. * Top. f Bottom. The water from both of these wells is white sulphur with a salty taste, and can be used to advantage for irrigation, as the water does not seem to be injurious. At Toyah the water is found at 20 to 30 feet. Underneath this, at a depth of about 200 feet, at Pecos, is artesian water under great pressure. Now at Toyah, altitude 2,975, the same water is found at about the same depth and in about the same ma- terial, but it is devoid of pressure here. At 832 feet a strong flow (300 gallons per minute) of sulphur water was obtained. (It is claimed that the sulphur came from some higher point in the well and that the bottom water was pure, and that the present outflow is impregnated with sulphur only because the casing was defective.) It is probable that this same water will in all probability be found at Pecos at a simi- lar depth. Adding to the pressure existing at 200 feet, 300 gallons per minute through 3-inch pipe, the weight of a column of 375 (the difference in altitude between Toyah and Pecos) it is easy to presume that at a depth of 1,000 feet artesian wells can be obtained which will flow from 1,000 to 2,000 gallons per minute. The wells of this subdistrict as a rule are very deep and the water in many of them is practically unfit for use. It is my opinion that these wells can be obtained over about 100 square miles of this region, from 50 miles north and south of Pecos City, and will prove a great blessing to the region. It is interesting to note that laboring under the old theory of moun- tain origin of artesian water Capt. Pope and Dr. Shumard bored their unsuccessful experimental well just north of the Pecos City basin in the *~ ^ s THE BASINS OF THE ARID SOUTHWEST. 147 hard rock, when if they had left the mountain rock out of consideration and bored 20 miles southwest on the supposed unpropitious plain they would have secured abundant water at shallow depths. The Eagle Flats Basin.—Another and extensive formation lies between the parallel mountain ranges of the Quitman-Muerto series (which is a continuation of the Hueco series) and the Diablo Davis series. This basin is of irregular area as shown upon the map, and has two princi- pal arms or members, the southwest of which is traversed throughout its greatest length by the Southern Pacific Railroad from the Sierra Blanco to Marfa, a distance of 100 miles, and is known as the Eagle Flats. This is a very narrow basin seldom exceeding 25 miles in width, and like the others is surrounded on all sides by mountain blocks, against which may be clearly discovered the terrace structure of the an- cient lake shores. The soil is the same pink tinted gravelly loam of the Franklin basin. This basin has never been explored for water where it could be most expected, i. e., in its lower and deepest part, but upon the contrary, the Southern Pacific has made several very costly experiments in drilling into the hopeless mountain rocks around its edges. It is my opinion that wells similar to those at La Noria on the Franklin basin will yet be obtained in the now desert Eagle Flats. From Sierra Blanco this basin sends another arm east and northward, up to the east side of the Hueco series, and west of the Carrizo and Diablo mountains toward the Wind mountains, for an unknown dis- tance; the general outline, so far as I have been able to ascertain by inquiry and observation, being as laid down upon the map. In this portion of the basin there are several salt lakes of small area and extent. The Texas Pacific crosses this portion of the area to eastward of Van Horn, where it crosses out of it through a mountain gap. Valley of the Salt Lake Basin.—Another vast basin extends along the meridian of 1049, from the southern end of the Guadalupe, north of Wildhorse station on the Texas Pacific. This basin is about 35 miles in extent northwest, Southeast, and about half as wide, and is marked by numerous salt lakes. It is surrounded on the West by the mountain blocks of the Sierra Diablo, on the north by the Guadalupes; and on the east and South by low unnamed mountain blocks. From descrip- tions this must be one of the most interesting of the great basins, but the writer has been unable as yet to visit it. A few wells are reported. Basin of the Mimbres.—West of the chain of mountain blocks, includ- ing the Florida's and Las Mimbres, the Black Range groups on the east, and the Sierra Bacco, Pyramid, Hatchet, Burro, and Black ranges in the west; there is another vast basin into which drains the river known as the Mimbres and several other typical lost rivers, most of which come from the Mimbres and Black mountains. - This basin with its Southern extension—the Florida Plains—includes about fifty townships or 9,000 square miles in the United States and at least as many more in Northern Mexico. Its surface and formation is composed of the same level topography and lacustral débris as the other basins mentioned, and like them it has a drainage slope Southward. The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, the Southern Pacific, and the Silver City and Pacific railroads, all traverse this valley and meet at Deming, which is situated near its eastern border. The northern end of this valley receives, relatively speaking, much mountain water from the Black and Mimbres ranges, and, like the Organ-Hueco basin, is characterized by laumerous lost rivers. One 148 IRRIGATION. of these, Las Mimbres, is the most conspicuous of all the lost rivers of the West, and has been the cause of much speculation and wonder. It is a bold flowing mountain stream until it gets well out upon the plain, when it completely disappears by imbibition and evaporation. Much of this water, as in the other basins, becomes stored in the sponge-like strata of the old lake formation, and is readily accessible in many places, especially at Deming, where irrigation is produced from this so-called “underflow.” - According to the testimony of Mr. Warren Bristol, this county (re- port of special committee, United States Senate on Irrigation and Reclamation of Arid Lands, Vol. 3, p. 64) formerly appeared before the discovery of this underground water as a barren plain; a desert with nothing but sparse grama grass growing upon it. At that time there was no water on this table-land, except occasionally, when the water came down by flood. No water was known to exist there, but there is a region of country from 25 to 50 miles long, north and south, that we know of (and how much farther it exists we do not know) where if you dig down anywhere you wrill strike water about 50 feet in inexhaustible quantities. To illustrate : At my place I have a powerful windmill, an 18-inch wheel (Holladays). Each revolution of that throws out 100 gallons of water; you can run it up to 160 revolutions per minute. There are only 2% feet of water in that well, and that quantity can not be lowered with pump. It is so all over the plain. Deming was a very unpromising place; now it has a great many windmills, and is a pretty place. The change really seems like a miracle. The Southern Pacific Rail- road Company was the first to discover this water beneath the surface. Since then it has improved ; the whole plain I have described is covered with cattle ranches and the ground is all occupied with pumping machines of this kind to water the cat- tle. A great deal of money is invested there. The whole plain is taken up. In ad- dition to that, the great waste of water that flows out from the foothills onto the plains could now be collected in immense reservoirs and distributed over the plains for ag- ricultural purposes. The opportunities for that are very great. I have lived in New Mexico for something over seventeen years, and I regard New Mexico as having one of the most healthful climates on the continent. My experi- ence and observation convince me that the most salubrious region is not high up in the mountains, at an extreme altitude, nor down in the river bottoms, where there is more malaria, but out on the plains. I consider this as good a climate as can be found in the world. Wherever water can be had the soil is wonderful in its pro- ductiveness. It is rich in all the elements of fruitfulness. On the plains the great- est drawback at present, in my opinion, to successful cultivation is the strong spring winds, which prevail in every section where there is no wind-break. As soon as forestry is systematically cultivated here, and trees are planted so as to break the prevailing winds, it will be a wonderful country with water for productiveness. The altitude of Deming is about 4,000 feet. It is on the first plain of what we call the Mesa Valley of the Rio Grande. It commences on the high bluffs of the Rio Grande, and is a lovely plain all the way on into Arizona. In addition to the basins mentioned there are numerous others which it has been impossible to investigate, but which lie mostly beyond the territory of these investigations. Among these are several of minor importance, in the Trans-Pecos region of Texas, north of the Texas Pacific Railway; several in southwestern New Mexico, such as the Playas de los Pina, Valle de los Playas, and others, and several in the mountains of north central New Mexico. The water conditions of the basins in general.—These vast inter-moun- tain, plains, or basins, or ancient lake valleys have, until lately, been absolutely void of surface water, and so synonymous with sterility that they have been considered often the synonym of death, like Death Valley in California or the Jornado del Muerto of New Mexico. That they should now be found to be underlain in much of their area by an abun- dance of fresh water, is a fact which is of greatest value in the economic conditions of the arid region, where water is worth more than land, and where a drop to even quench the traveler's thirst is usually unob- tainable, except in rare localities. The far greater extent of these PLATE XV. º *=TEA N *ē-lºc <=Fºr=#EES-->== - º A ºr-EF-E; E- Eºº aº.º. º-º-º: ------------------> sº.º.º.º. w - º [2:#EEEEET= ===T==&ºt * jºyºgºşº C. *sº Fº *ºtº c. *~- Sºº º -Yº sº gº a 3 º - sº tºº $º - >y: rºs. §§ sº :". • ; , ; ; *::::::: Vºs " "Nº jºi. $ a tº () TV 2:######EEEEiºi=E=#E:º: $º.º.º.º. ;ººººººººº-ºº:::::::::::::::... : º: jºº "...N. tº-º-º: t º sº =º • *6; tº * * * * ºf º ;Fºš §§ Wº: º; **: {s  §º: - gº; % * ... § Ž A, Southern Pacific Railway, B, Texas Pacific Railway. C. Post-Cretaceous deposit (no rock struck at 1,050 feet). D, Cretaceous limestone, , E, Carboniferous limestone. F, Conglomerate of Metamorphic and Serpentinous rock cemented by ferruginous silico-calcareous matter. G, Red Sandstone. H, Talcose and Mica Schist. SECTION ACROSS WEST END OF-EAGLE FLATs, ILLUSTRATING BASIN DEPOSITs BETWEEN MoUNTAINs. CoPIED FROM W. H. VAN STREERNWITZ. *. THE HYDROLOGY OF THE BASINS ON THE PLAINs. 149 basins than the mountains over New Mexico, Texas, and Mexico, seems to have been overlooked or considered unimportant by national sur- Veys, as well as its underground water conditions. As a rule these basins are surrounded on all sides by blocks, or ranges of high mountains, the blocks usually unconnected and through the passes of which many of these lakes may have been once continuous in Some period of their existence, but were not so during the latter days. These mountain areas are more extensive at the northern bor- der of the basin region, and the precipitation is greater upon them as a rule than upon the intervening plains. # Taking the basins as a whole, I think that from a study of their to- pographic and geologic features, a few generalizations can be deducted Which will be of inestimable value to the future investigators of under- ground water supply of the region. - These basins belong to a great area of similar features which exist over northern Mexico and the Southwestern United States during com- paratively recent geologic time. This area composed much of California, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas west of the Pecos, and the Nevada Utah portion has been accurately and minutely described by Gilbert, Dutton, and Russell in the monographs of the U. S. Geological Survey, as the basin region of the United States. These basins, as is testified by all who have visited them, are often dry while frequent storms and cloudbursts can be seen upon adjacent moun, tains. These basins, at least in New Mexico, Arizona, and western Texas, although originally horizontal, have all been elevated to the northward, so that old lake bottoms now incline southward, or southeastward at a considerable gradient. In composition they consist of exactly the same material as the moun- tains, but under different physical conditions. In the mountains this rock is massive, imporous, and impervious. It was ground up, pulver- ized, and assorted by the waters before its deposition in the lake basin. This difference in physical condition is radical, and in the consideration of underground waters it is all important. A cubic foot of massive glass would contain little rock water, even if soaked for days, and the mountains are composed of just such material. The same glass if ground to small sands would become porous and absorb into the interstices between them from one-tenth to one-half their volume. The mountain rock was ground before it was distributed over the valleys, and hence, although the same materials as the mountain rock, it has become porous, and, as these old lake sediments, will imbibe and retain the water a hun- dred fold. The water falls mostly upon the mountain. Some of it is imbibed by the small patches of soil and porous layers or penetrates the fissures and caverns to be more slowly returned to the surface in after times. A good amount is also evaporated by the wind and the intensely heated rock. Most of the rainfall, however, flows off in the floods down ra. vines and caſions towards the base level, which is the surface of the basin plain. Upon reaching this, part of the stream is imbibed or drank in by the porous cavernous sands and loosely cemented soil, and a great deal of it sinks beneath the line of Saturation, between which and the hard rock floor, upon which the basin formation is deposited, water is stored as shown in the previous figures. This water of the basins is always available by bored wells, but it may or may not possess artesian pressure, according to its stratification and topography. 150 - $. IRRIGATION. – If the basin formations are composed of alternations or bands of sand and clays, in other words stratified (and most of them are), and these water strata have inclination, which they usually do, in concave or synclinal nested arrangement, then the stratigraphic conditions for artesian water are mostly ratified, as at Pecos City and elsewhete. If this stratification is more or less concave or nested, and there is a corresponding topographic inclination from the edges towards the cen- ter of the basin, or a slope from one end of the basin to the other, topo- graphic conditions for artesian water will also be favorable, and ex- periments should be tried near the central portion of that end of the basin which is lowest in altitude, provided there are no unfavorable conditions, such as dikes or fissures. The writer is inclined to the belief that in all of these flats or basins water can be obtained in quantities that will at least do for stock pur- poses and possibly for limited agricultural use. Everywhere that wells have been sunk (save in the exceptional places such as at the imme- diate edge or at the higher ends, as at Sierra Blanco) water has been obtained, and at La Noria, 10 miles northeast of El Paso, there are several fruit farms in the midst of the plain being irrigated by Water pumped from wells in the basin formation at depths of 200 feet. I have been informed that waters rose 150 feet under hydrostatic pressure above the bottom of a 600-foot well at this place, thus indicating pos- sible artesian pressure at lower altitudes. In endeavoring to obtain water upon these basins, several important things are to be avoided. 1. Boring too near the edge or perimeter of the basin. Inasmuch as the soil is usually dry for a distance of 50 to 200 feet; and that the floor of the basin formation is composed of impervious mountain rock, the edges of the basin are not apt to be in the saturated portion of the basin formation at all; but the unpropitious formation of the mountain rock will be reached. 2. Boring near the upper or higher end of the basin. Most of the basins are higher at one end than at the other, often by a thousand feet or more. Thiis is a product of the elevation they have undergone since their origin. It is obvious that the surface water would drain down- ward and toward the lower portion of the basin, and that the upper end would usually be unsaturated. Many thousands of dollars have been lost by railway companies and individuals by boring for water too near the edge or upper end of these basins and many regions erroneously ad- judged void of water on account of such failures. 3. Boring through the basin formation into the mountain rock floor. It has been the experience of most drill holes that it is useless to expect water in the hard rock floor underlying the basin formations, and when this is reached, except when there are very favorable conditions of po- rosity and inclination, further boring is useless. The quantity of available water of Saturation varies in different basins, and is proportional to the area and rainfall of the surrounding moun- tains. The San Luis Valley of northern New Mexico is surrounded by high mountains of vast drainage area, larger than the area of the Valley. These mountains are covered by snow in winter and have greater rain- fall than the mountains of the southward, and the amount of water drained onto and imbibed by the basin is enormous. The Sierra Blanco Basin, on the other hand, is encircled by comparatively low untimbered mountains, upon which there is little precipitation, and no great Supply of water could be penetrated. -- It is not probable or possible that sufficient underground water is Showing structure and erosion of Las Vegas-Raton Plateau, the highest block of mountain being of lava. * ARE THERE ARTESLAN WATERS IN THESE BASINs. 151 stored in these basins for a large or extensive agricultural population, but When it is remembered that water for even the passing traveler is lack- ing, and that many of those vast areas of land are almost absolutely un- inhabited for want of water, even a single well to every 20 square miles Would be of more value to the region than a vast lake of water is now in the humid regions; and it is safe to predict that in a few years there will be hundreds of wells to one at present, around many of which will be not a few valuable irrigated farms. The possible success of artesian water in these basins is also sug- gested by the fact that numerous artesian wells have been struck in Similar basin deposits in California, Colorado, and Utah, and as I have been informed in the basin valleys of Atacayma in Peru and the val- ley of Mexico. In fact no case of artesian water having been struck in the arid region from any other supply than these unconsolidated basin or allied deposits has ever been reported south of Dakota” and West of the Pecos. In fact the newer deposits, whether lacustral, littoral, or fluviatile, have ever proved the most profitable source of artesian water in this Country, even in the humid region, as at Memphis, where magnificent Wells are Secured from the Orange sand and bluff deposits. A note- Worthy fact also about many of these wells, as at Roswell, N. Mex., Pecos City, and elsewhere, is that they occur in regions which under the old theories of upturned mountain rock, synclinal basins, etc., would have proven entirely unpropitious. IX. WATER CONDITIONS OF THE MOUNTAIN REGIONS. The vast area discussed in this paper is prečminently a region of plains, the mountain proper forming but a small proportion of the whole, and of much less consequence in relation to underground water supply than is popularly supposed. There are only two classes of mountains proper within the region, those of the Wichita and Arbuckle groups in central Indian Territory and the isolated basin ranges of the Trans-Pecos region. In the popular classification every butte, mesa, hill, and escarpment is termed a mountain, but nowhere east of the Pecos, except in Indian Territory, is there a true mountain, or protuberance, which is the prod- uct of the folding or other distortion of the earth's strata. The so- called mountains of central Texas are buttes and mesas, composed of remnantal patches of horizontal strata, described in our chapters on the Grand Prairie and Central denuded region. The alleged moun. tains of Burnett and Llano counties are likewise largely of this type and occupy an erosion valley in the plateau of the Grand Prairie. The true Rocky Mountains constitute the western limit of this inves- tigation, and it is a current supposition that they are the receiving area for all the underground water between them and the Gulf. Although the most conspicuous feature in all North America, topo- graphically, the southern extent and limitations of the Rocky Mountain ranges have been poorly defined. Their eastern border or foothills, * The Dakota artesian basin is in a semihumid region, though it is probable that it will be extended westerly into the arid area. 152 -" FIRRIGATION. where they join the plains, north of Santa Fe, N. Mex., to the British line, is unmistakably one of the sharpest and best known features of our country, but no geographer has yet defined their termination south of Santa Fe, and the numerous but entirely different mountains of the basin regions of New Mexico, west Texas, and old Mexico are always confused with them. Prof. J. J. Stevenson, in his valuable report upon the geological ex- aminations in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico, during the years 1878–79, has admirably described the Rocky Mountains near their southern terminus and shows their type of structure along their eastern front, from Gallinas to Pueblo, to consist of excessively folded and broken (faulted) strata, conforming to the popular description of having been “upturned.” South of the latitude 250 20', he says: “The region is a vast plain cut into mesas, which Prof. Newberry identifies with the Llano Esta- cado or Staked Plains of Texas,” but which in fact should be classified with the plateau region to the west. Towards the south and south- east the dips of this plateau are very gentle, for the most part south- ward; towards the Rio Grande the plain is broken by the basins and “lost ranges, ’’ of which the Placer and Sandia mountains may be taken as types. These short isolated ridges lie west of the Santa Fe axis, and seem to bear no relation to that disturbance whatever. The Archaean area of the Santa Fe axis ends abruptly at about 9 miles north from Gallinas, and a fault is easily recognizable along its eastern Side. South of the Plateau region which encircles the southern end of the Rockies, the country is that of the basin region elsewhere described, consisting of vast basin plains, surrounding isolated and lonely moun- tain blocks. The mountains are not part of the plains, as in the Rocky Mountain and Plateau regions, nor are the strata of the plains associ- ated with them or bent up at their edges as geologically and popularly supposed, but a newer and later deposit is laid down against them and is composed of débris of the mountains (see Pl. I, Fig. 6). The foothills or hog-backs, consisting of vertical strata which accom- pany the whole front of the true Rockies, likewise end with them. . Many of these mountain blocks have no names at all although large in size. The following, however, are the most conspicuous: In New Mexico: The Sandia, Organ, Oscura, Jiccarillas, Florida, San Andreas, Guadalupe, and Sacramento. In Texas: The Franklin, Hueco, Guadalupes, Diablo, Davis, Van Horn, Carrizo, Los Chisos, Sierra Blanca, Apaches, and Santiago. In northeastern Mexico: Juarez, Sierras Rica, Blanca, Frailes, Horni- gas, Cuervas, Pinto, De Aire, Del Carmen, Los Burros, Menchaca, Apaches, Picochos, Gomas San Marius, Azul, Lampasos, Trinchera, Fragna, Catorces, and many others. Nearly all of them consist of elongated masses, extending approxi- mately north and southward, and are mostly composed of hard, imper- vious quartzites, limestones, and igneous rocks, which have little ea- pacity for imbibition of rainfall, the latter usually flowing away rapidly upon the adjacent basin plains. The Guadalupe Mountains, which are the most eastern of the groups, are somewhat different and are composed mostly of hard Carboniferous limestone, the water conditions of which are discussed in another chap- ter. This group corresponds more to the strike of the main Rocky Moun- tain axis than any of the others, but they are entirely isolated from them, - *... THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS NOT A source of SUPPLY. 153 The great height and conspicuousness of these mountains, and the excess of precipitation upon them, together with the old superstition that upturned mountain strata are the source of all artesian waters, has led many people to believe that from them alone must be expected an artesian supply. Following this belief, thousands of dollars have been expended, especially by the Southern Pacific Railway Company, in drill- ing for water at the base of these mountains, while the Government experiments under Capt. Pope were made upon the same hypothesis. A brief examination of the structure of nearly any of these mountain blocks should dispel the idea that they can ever be the source of great artesian supply. Not only are the rocks impervious to moisture, but the stratification is excessively inclined, and broken by the frequent dykes of eruptive material, which would prevent the transmission of water. With the exception of the cavernous limestone region of the Guadalupes, there are few running springs in all the great territory covered by these streams. No better proof of the unfavorable artesian conditions of these mountains can be given than to cite Some of the numerous failures which have resulted. No idea can be more fallacious than the one generally entertained that the underground waters of the Texas-New Mexico region are in any manner supplied by the Rocky Mountains, for the geological struc- ture is such as to absolutely prevent such a possibility, for the great fault lines and valleys of erosion of the foothills break the continuity of stratification and make such underground transmission impossible. The only water from the Rocky Mountains that reaches the regions un- der discussion is the surface drainage of the Rio Grande, Pecos, and Canadian. The Mountain masses of the Basin range are equally unimportant relative to the water supply, although likewise erroneously considered as the source of much underground water. These isolated ranges, which succeed the Rocky Mountains toward the south, are numerous and of vast proportions, occupying the whole of the country of northern Mexico and the United States from the Pecos to the Sierras, and constituting with the intervening plains the great Basin region of North America, the isolation becoming more and more complete to the southward and the basins more extensive. These mountain blocks, with their accompanying basins and aridity, extend southeastward in Mexico almost to Tehuantepec, the Rio Grande below the mouth of the Pecos approximately marking its eastern border. The first and most conspicuous of these were the Government experi. ments under Capt. Pope and Dr. G. G. Shumard, in 1858. They se- lected a site in the Pecos Valley, 8 and 14 miles east of the river, near the Texas New-Mexico line, beneath which they had determined the mountain rock of the Guadalupes to extend. After boring 850feet, and reaching far down into the mountain limestones, the wells were aban- doned as failures. The Southern and Texas Pacific railways had spent thousands of dollars in seeking water in the Trans-Pecos region, and in every in- stance where they penetrated the harder or mountain rock their ex- periments have proved failures, as will be seen in the statistics from Mr. Roessler's report, and in no case were flowing wells obtained. THE RATON LAS VEGAS PLATEAU. The general conception of the Rocky Mountain region, based upon the familiar conditions seen at Denver, is that the plains formation 154 IRRIGATION. extends to the base of the mountains, and that its strata incline coast. ward or away from the mountains, affording ideal conditions for the transmission of Rocky Mountain water to the whole of the coastward COuntry. South of the Colorado line, however, in northeastern New Mexico and to some distance north of Trinidad, exactly the opposite condition exists, for around the southern end of the Rocky Mountain front there re- mains a great level or shoulder, known to the westward as the Plateau region of the United States, to which this Raton Las Vegas plateau is analogous, if not a part. For the region in northern New Mexico, lying east of the true Rocky Mountains and west of the Llano Estacado, approximately the region South of the Purgatoire and north of the Gallinas, I am obliged to use the above name in distinction from the surrounding country. This dis- trict embraces the buttes and mesas known as the Raton Mountains, Fishers Peak, the Mesa de Maya, and many other remnants of the former table-land, which mark the whole region, and in addition the plains of erosion upon which they stand. The cities of Trinidad, Folsom, and Las Vegas may be considered as marks along the northern, eastern, and western boundaries, respectively, while Raton Springer, Maxwell, and other points along the Santa Fe road between the Purgatoire at Trini- dad and the Pecos are located upon it. Its southern boundary is the superb Corazon escarpment of the Can- adian Pecos Valley (see chapter on Red Beds), which runs esstward from the Pecos, at Pecos Crossing to near the Texas line. This escarp- ment, as shown in the topographic maps, is over 1,800 feet in height. The western border is the foothills, or “hog backs,” of the eastern front of the Rockies. The northern border from Trinidad to Folsom is the north escarpment of the so-called Raton Mesa, which is followed by the Denver and Fort Worth Railway. The eastern border is less con- spicuous, for it is the base-leveled shore line of the Llano Estacado formation. - This vast area stands out from the Rockies as a bench or shoulder above the level of the plains and surrounding erosion valley, extending SOme 200 miles to the east. * It is the remnant of a great plateau which existed around the south- ern end of the Rocky Mountains before the Llano Estacado (Miocene or Pliocene) epoch, the great mass of which has been degraded by the erosions of Tertiary and Quaternary time; the shore line of the old Coastal plain now represented in the Llano Estacado having benched its present boundaries and removed much of its mass, which is de- posited in the Llano Estacado formation. The later Quaternary ero. Sion has still further degraded the plateau, and reduced its thickness and extent. -- This region possesses a diversified surface aspect, consisting, however, of plains upon which stand great mesas of sedimentary rock sheets, Often capped with lava, like Raton Mountain and Fishers Peak—rem- nants of the great erosion the region has undergone in Tertiary and Quaternary time. As a whole, however, it is a series of plains produced by degradation from one harder plain of stratification to another, from the Fishers Peak basaltic sheet to the Laramie sandstones, and from these to the flaggy limestone layers of the Coloradoshales, as at Springer and Las Vegas, and from there down to the basal Dakota sandstones, where the latter are cut through, as in the Canadian Cañon, at the Corazon escarpment, the Red Bed floor is always reached. The plateau or shoulder as a whole is a product, then, of the unequal "||Ax Blºnd 'pºpolº uººu seu nºus wael uopųw uuouſ maenwriae uontae Jo huuuuuºu ºuſwouls ºorlyno'10,0 ºdvolaetae）, ºusº， s. Nosawis s-º VOLCANIC CONDITIONS AND WATER SUPPLIES. 155 erosion of the subhorizontal beds of the Upper Cretaceous from Lara- mie to the Dakota sandstones down to the Red Beds, inclusive, which are here included between the Red Bed floor and the Fishers Peak ba- salt. This erosion from top to bottom, via the successive plains of strati- fication, has partially removed more than 5,000 feet in thickness of sedi- mentary strata; and there is no evidence that the region has ever been submerged since Cretaceous time, either by the Llano Estacado shore line or the basins mentioned elsewhere. In fact it was the stream- worked land whose débris furnished much of the sedimentation for the rocks of the last-mentioned periods. Concerning this region Prof. Newberry has said: “The vicinity of Raton Mountain has, in former times, been the theater of violent and wide spread volcanic action. At that time numerous mountain masses and subordinate buttes of traps were thrown up and floods of lava poured out, covering an extensive area in their vicinity. During this period of violence the Cretaceous rocks were locally much disturbed and metamorphosed, and the lowest members of that series elevated to, and perhaps far above, the surface of the Ocean. At some time subsequent to the period of greatest volcanic activity, and yet apparently before the fires in the great furnaces were entirely extinguished, the Tertiary strata began to be deposited in the depressions and over the irregulari- ties which then existed on tha surface.” The structure of this shoulder is also unique, in that its strata incline towards the Rocky Mountains axis, and not away from it or against its own topographic slope, as can be seen at Trinidad and Las Vegas. (See Plate 2, Fig. 3. This structure, it will be seen, is inimical to favorable artesian condi- tions in most of the area, although the foundation of the whole region is the great water-bearing Dakota sandstones, and the testimony of the following drill holes bears out this proposition: At Trinidad an ex- perimental well has been sunk over 2,000 feet, without reaching the sandstone or having a perceptible rise of water. Near Las Vegas, on the southern side, a similar depth was reached but no flow. At Springer, however, a slight flow at shallow depths was met, which is entirely due to local variations. These shallow wells may be possible in other places. THE MALPAIS REGIONS OF NEW MEXICO. The occurrence of intrusions such as impervious igneous rocks as dikes, lava flows, cinder cones, volcanic necks, etc., are frequent in New Mexico, the former being especially numerous in the Raton Las Vegas Plateau and in the mountains of west Texas, and the latter along the great fault between Austin and Del Rio. It is generally conceded that dikes are more or less fatal to artesian conditions, breaking the con- tinuity of flow, and that craters' necks and other volcanic rocks are almost equally injurious to the prospects of water. By far the greater portion of the region east of the Pecos discussed in this paper, however, are free from them. Besides the igneous rocks of the mountain proper, large areas of the plains and basins of New Mexico and Mexico, but not in Texas, are covered by volcanic flows of lava and basalt hundreds of square miles in extent. In many cases these are accompanied by cinder cones or craters; in others they are fissure extrusions, and in others the source of the lava flows have not been determined. Of these sheets there are two distinct types: First, those of more 156 IRRIGATION. recent age, which have neither been covered by subsequent sedimenta- tion nor seriously degraded by erosion; secondly, more ancient and par- tially covered or eroded lava, sheets of the plateaus. The oldest class of these sheets are extrusions from the mountain strata, the extension of which towards the plain has been entirely de- graded or which never reached them. In this older class are also true lava sheets or flows, which have been so much destroyed by erosion or buried beneath later sedimentation that only fragments of the original flows are now preserved or exposed. This class of eruptives occur in the great cap rock of the Raton Plateau. The recent sheets are especially conspicuous in the vicinity of many of the ancient lake basins previously described; the proximity suggests that there is a close relation between them in age. The IRaton Las Vegas Plateau was originally capped by a vast sheet of basalt lava, which is still the determinative or initial point in the erosion plain of that vast region, but which has been mostly worn away. It still surmounts Fishers Peak, south of Trinidad, and the great Mesa de Maya, extending 50 miles east of there. It also caps the mesas and vast areas to the southward as far as Las Mora Creek. This malpais sheet or sheets must cover hundreds of square miles. At a lower altitude and apparently of later age, along the eastern bor- der of this ancient basaltic flow, at its contact with the Llano Estacado formation and in the vicinity of Folsom, there is a group of volcanic cra- ters composed of cinder cones from 100 to 2,750 feet in height above the plain, from which have been extruded vast sheets of lava and basalt, cov- ering the country for miles around and extending more or less irregularly from Folsom to Rabbit Ear Mountains, near the Texas line, and north and south of the road about 50 miles, partially covering an area of 1,000 square miles. The most conspicuous of these craters is Mount Capulin 6 miles south of Folsom station. This is a beautiful cinder cone, rising nearly 3,000 feet above the railroad, with a vast crater at its top nearly a mile in diameter, slightly broken down on its western side; from the summit of this can be seen many lava flows. To the southward from 6 to 20 miles are several similar craters, while to the northward are Several smaller ones. These are the most eastern known of the western United States region, and their occurrence at the contact of the great Llano Estacado shore lines and the Raton Plateau are interesting facts. The cinder cones are clearly of a more recent origin than the adja- cent basaltic cap of the Raton Plateau, for they are situated in an eroded valley, between the main mesa and an outlier, the Sierra Grande, (alt. 10,000), and at a lower altitude than either of them. They are also apparently more recent than the late Tertiary deposits of the Llano Estacado, the original surface of the lava resting upon the latter, and not covered by it except in case of the wind-blown débris. These lava sheets are locally known as malpais. Most of these are vast areas of level rocky desert, absolutely void of economic value, ex- cept for grazing lands for sheep and goats, and should be considered as absolutely irreclaimable. The Cimarron River, which rises in the vicinity of Folsom, has its Source in springs from the Laramie sandstone beneath the Capulin and Huerfano lava flows. The springs are as follows: South of town, one quarter mile north- east of the twin crater, there is a fine spring flowing from a pipe. Be- low the hotel there is a large spring in the caſion, Three miles below the town the Cimarron falls over lava beds. Two hundred yards be- THE CRATER AND LAVA OF SOUTHEAST NEW MEXICO. 157 low these falls is the largest spring in all the valley, flowing a current 6 feet wide and 18 feet deep. One thousand acres are irrigated from this water. In Oak Cañon, north side of the mountains, there is another large garden irrigated by spring water. Much of this water is derived from the snowfall. Leaving the Capulin crater, let us proceed Southward along the mar- gin of the great basins, and see other similar features. For 200 miles no more of these are encountered until We reach the head of the Organ- Hueco Basin, between the San Andreas and Guadalupe Mountains, on the stage road from Socorro to Fort Stanton. Here, again, there is a great area of malpais lava, which is a terror to the traveler and barrier to the development of the country which it covers. Since this chapter was begun Mr. Ralph S. Tarr has published” such a good description of this region that I quote here. He says, in sub- Stance: Fifty miles east of Rio Grande, between Carthage and Fort Stanton, is a flow of basalt bearing every evidence of being very recent. The point of extrusion is a small cone standing at the northern end. The flow is situated in a basin of interior drainage almost completely inclosed by mountains. The basin, which varies in width from 10 to 30 miles and has a north and south extension of fully 100 miles, is bounded by the Jicarilla Mountains on the east, the Hueco and El Paso on the south, and the Organs and San Audreas on the west. The area of flow exceeds 1,000 square miles. On the foothills of the mountains are quite distinct benches, which, with other evi- dence, prove this basin is the site of one of the Quaternary lakes, of which there are others in the vicinity. , , - The loose gravels of the basin quickly absorb all the moisture which falls upon the surface, and the mountain torrents rarely escape far into the plain before being ab- sorbed. A few newer brooks enter from the White Mountains on the northeast side, and they also sink into the soil a few miles from the outlet. The elevation at the northern end of this basin f is 5,360 feet, and at the southern 4,100. The Dona Ana–Fort Selden flow.—The northern end of the floor of the Mesiila Valley is covered by another lava flow, through which the railroad cuts at Fort Selden. Picocho Peak and several others, some 10 miles West of Messilia, are volcanic cones. Of these Dr. G. G. Shu- mard says: From the character and general appearance of these cones and lava streams I am disposed to ascribe their origin, to a comparatively recent geological period. They form part of an extensive volcanic chain, which may be traced north and south, for several hundred miles. Continuing southward another region of craters, and flows occur south of the Southern Pacific, and West of El Paso about 30 miles. Here the conditions are similar to the others, the cones and lava flows being situated in the floor of the ancient basins. The lava station sheet.—The northern end of the Jornado del Muerto Basin is also occupied by a great lava sheet 12 to 18 miles in area, or 96 square miles. This, too, is alleged to have come from a crater near the railroad, and bears the same intimate relations to the basin floor as the other crater flows mentioned. * Another crater flow upon the floor of the basin is about 30 miles northwest of El Paso between Afton and Aden station, where there is an alleged cone of great magnitude, from which a narrow stream of lava flows southeastward about 20 miles. • There are other areas in New Mexico of volcanic lava, notably that south of Grand Station on the Atlantic and Pacific Railway. * A recent Lava Flow in New Mexico, by Ralph S. Tarr, Am. Naturalist, 1891. # This basin is the head of the El Paso or Organ-Hueco Basin described on a pre- vious page. 158 - IRRIGATION. In Trans Pecos, Texas, no true lava flows or craters have been de- scribed, although many igneous sheets occur in the mountains. Prof. Von Streeruwitz says in his report on this region that: Volcanic rocks are represented by lava, compact and cavernous, basalt, basaltic wacke, obsidian, retinite, and trachytic rocks in the Quitman, Sierra Carrizo, Eagle, Wan Horn, and Davis, Viejo, and Chinatti Mountains, and probably at least as dikes in the Guadaloupe, Franklin and the mountain ranges not yet examined. The relation of the cinder cones and subrecent flows to those of north- western New Mexico and Arizona, I can not state from personal obser- vation, but there is no doubt that there are some Common features be- tween them. - Proceeding southeastward into Mexico they still continue and in cases exhibit evidence of activity, increasing southward toward the neck of Mexico, where the present epoch seems to be but a southern continua- tion of the volcanic and lacustral conditions, which so recently pre- vailed over the basin region. The fact that these cinder cones and lava flows occur in the floor of the Quaternary lake basins, or as in the case of Capulin area, upon the edge Llano Estacado deposits, is indicative of their recent origin, and future investigations will show an intimate connection between the dry- ing up of the basins, and the activity of these volcanoes, although some of our ablest geologists do not believe in this relation. It is also evident from the investigations that eruptive activities have occurred in the Texas, New Mexican region, from Cretaceous to pres- ent time, and at least three well-defined epochs, are at present recog- nizable, which may serve as an aid for future observations, to wit: 1. The Austin Del Rio system of Shumard Knobs, ancient volcanic necks or laccolites bordering the Rio Grande embayment begun in Cre. taceous time, and the lava sheets of which have been obliterated by ero- S1011. 2. The lava flows of the Raton system, which are fissure eruptions of Tertiary time, and which are only partially removed by erosion. 3. The cinder cones and lava flows of the Capulin system, late Pleis- tocene time, which still maintain their original shape and extent. Water conditions of the Malpais region.—Igneous rocks possess small capacity for imbibition and transmission of water except through means of joints and fissures between them and these are very few. Even when cellular or scoriaceous there is usually no free connection between the cavities, and hence the honeycombed feature is of little value. In fact they are characteristic of aridity, and in themselves are of little value as water-bearing factors except where they may protect from evapora- tion some underlying Saturated porous sheet, which condition exists in many places throughout the Raton Las Vegas Plateau and at Folsom, where the Malpais rests on porous sandstone from which occasional Springs issue. 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HICIKS, Assistant Geologist for Nebraska. 167 TABLE OF CONTENTS. Pages. I. Irrigation in Nebraska: 1. Geological Structure of the State and its Effects upon the Water Supply— 4. The Underflow-------------------------------------------------- 171, 172 b. Sheet Waters --------------------------------------------------- 172,173 2. Irrigable Lands in Nebraska— º a. Platte Valley ----------------------------------- * - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 173, 174 b. Republican Valley ---------------------------------------------- 174, 175 0. Niobrara Valley------------------------------------------------- 175 d. White River Valley --------------------------------------------- 175, 176 II. Survey of the Loup Valley: 1. Extent and Surface Features.--------------------------------------- 176, 183 2. Geological Structure ------------------------------------------------ 183 3. Rainfall, Drainage, and Seasonal Distribution - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ---- 183, 188 4. Irrigable Lands----------------------------------------------------- 188, 189 5. Agricultural Resources; Benefits of Irrigation, Deep Tillage, and Fores- try ---------------------------------------------------------------- 189, 190 ILLUSTRATIONS. Page. Map of Nebraska, showing Hydro-geology. ---------------------------------. 171 Cross Section, Upper Loup Valley------------------------------------------- 177 Cross Section, Lower Loup Valley------------------------------------------- 178 Curve of Annual Precipitation ------...---------------- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 185 Figures 3 and 4------------------------------------------------------------- 188 * - || * ***.*.*, **** .* * | *-***** . “... **** ****, --- Sºº's S .s “ , ”. r **. *** 5. * * * * * * * * * ! - c = s.s 5 4- 3 . 2 t f ſ i | l | | | l f | | j | ; ~0 = ** - - - - Cu Rv E of * .... * * ... ºth, , - sº..." ..." * ...*. º * **... " • * ... ." - ****** * r * * * * *:::::".. :::::::: ". ...i..…” * § ". ** *.*...*, * - f*** * * :: *:::::::, *.…:----...- : :*: º - :*. * $ 'thw. ** **** Sºlº, § ". * sº T = * wº s ftitº * * **** swº * f * &\llºw, ..** **** + **** *. * i º Ž *un. F El R N A N NUAL Jan. Feb. ,93 43 Apr 142 28i * º * ** 309 .320 500 266 ****** 7, *** *** * wº. * * w" wº º PR E c i P1 TAT I on IN THE LOUP VALLEY- Sep 165. * r 3, *'. sº ...”.”.”, * ww. . . ºuts f - " . " .” *... wtº . … - * t i tº: * * * . . - *ilr ºt- *** %, *...* +. † *...* # * * - ** L. : *** **. Oct | Now # Of 6+ | 89 Air. & º, * *t *... ." "lists" **: “. :* “. * ...". w” - g : º *. **. - nwº Mil, * - 1 * * = hitwº *, & *::s. + jº, º - - *% + ***** * * : * ... . . ºn " , ; - * ... .. - ** ::... …- "----- ºw...” “” namº ** ***m 14 # *. .* Jºaº ***, *... " - + 3 *s + *I**** ... = H - *** *** = ** ... w rº, *... .44% *** .. ..º.º. Aff H 1 M. W. “ .*****, .., , , , , ; ; "it" ., * = . * . . . . . . . f. * * : .*. • * ft - tº "...º.º. - - + + *** 114 º, # * * *** isfy. ‘.º: f ** “. .”. º *. *lº. :* *::: . witt. ..}*M** * * *hyº. : | *.* *11. * r' . . . . - # , ºr . .# **{ff, * * &l .. - } **, *. Hº - * . . .44 Wº... " ***... ii.-*, *.*.*.*. . *: “tiz - *" r ****, *,...,' * * **, . ++ º * *18 *:.. }: ‘...." S.H. ** ~~ .* * * & T- - ºur' r" Jºe, y f fºs,. *... -- * *** stia , ilrt #s s". - **** ...* - º º * * '1twº " .. **** Prºs' " *..., §. * *. * Z. . ; * %. ſº 3. * # d * + ºr º st º: stº, * ... f ,, 1st." %. t ... "an * ** wn. “A §§ *::::: .*. T ***** Bottom Lands Marshes Lakes Rolling Prsirie Timber Ridges Sand Hills Water Shed ** *****...*** *** * *.* m* * * , *** * **t," " * - - , + ** F. " + + . ... “” . * * * * • * •.1- **** ”, * **, - - - . . . . . *jinx *:- 2. 'ºn. * ," i # • ** . . . - - * Eliºt-º * - tºº, *::::$. - th ** * * *** * * *** ***. ...” - aw” ****** * º F. ***** . º” º %.i. * i*L__ f .” ** r * 1114s. “t. ... **: * † it wº "a flºº" “”. “. * -* º * * * * * - •. rºs .**ing, .*** * 3. *** s º t f **. *** *** * :*...*** º º: -th º % .# * º 2. .* * ***, *** - * - tº ***** - sº, º ...tºr. * * * F up *** ** * ** º * = * º & * * - **. **** **) l 1% * * ****** 2, # - if *: - •”, *::: - .* *ra it * “, "www. " * * **, *... * * * * } “s, “wiſ, & *** frº, - sº * 11 * * - * tr * * * . * I a wº * * * ***** **** * = *i. : * .4% º º: * *****, +: ****, *, *, * - : *Prºs w " DHAINAGE MAP OF T H E LO UF VAL L. E.Y Sûow\\\g two Oraúzôa VöV\\\rawó, Arzas.\ao)& \Lands, \Lačoows,SW&d-Up Valleys,Sand \\\\\sawd inz Butts Bouwúngúc Yalloys and Wovº W& Ylö&S of the Wable, \Lands. WS \,\,\!\cºs, Ph.D.W. G.S.A. Assu.Geovogºsu U.S.W ºpt of Ayvoulºuve. -irº. - ** 2O i5 #5 $4. **, i3 1241° ”tin- ”, - I? S Ex. 2/...--52 I. IRRIGATION IN NEBRASKA. 1. GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE OF THE STATE AND ITS EFFECTS UPON THE WATER SUPPLY. The problem of irrigation and water supply has everywhere a most intimate relation to the underlying rocks, but nowhere is this relation closer than in Nebraska. Of the three principal series of rocks, Permo- Carboniferous, Cretaceous, and Tertiary, the first, occupying a relatively small area in southeastern Nebraska, has little influence in determining the water supply available for irrigation. Next to this comes the Cre- taceous, occupying nearly one-third of the surface, and in the western part of the State the Tertiary, occupying nearly two-thirds of the sur- face. The Permo-Carboniferous and Cretaceous are the bed rocks of the region which they occupy, and are overlaid with gravels, sands, clays, and loess of the Quaternary age. The Tertiary beds, however, are not covered by any later deposits, but form the surface of the country in the region occupied by them, and also form the subsoil to a very great depth. The distribution of these formations is shown upon the accom- panying map, Fig. 1. The two formations which dominate the circulation of moisture, both on the surface and beneath it, are the Cretaceous and the Tertiary. Their control of the water supply depends upon the form of the strata and the texture of the component rocks. The form is that of a syn- clinal basin whose western rim is 3,000 feet higher than the eastern. (See Fig. 2.) Stratigraphically the Permo-Carboniferous rocks form the floor of this tilted syncline; but physically, and with reference to the water supply of the western two-thirds of Nebraska, where alone the problem of irrigation is seriously considered at present, it is the Cretaceous which forms the impervious floor of this broad basin. The permo-Carboniferous may be ignored in this discussion, since it occu- pies a small area outside of the arid belt. The upper member of the Cretaceous is a shale which is almost perfectly impervious or water- tight. Upon this compact floor is laid down a series of porous Tertiary rocks, grits, conglomerates, gravels, sands, vesicular limestones, and marls, which fill the basin and form the surface of the country, with its general eastward slope of about 10 feet per mile. The Tertiary rocks absorb Water like a Sponge, and their position upon a floor of compact Cretaceous shales, together with the eastward slope of the country in- sures the return of this moisture to the surface in the form of springs and artesian Wells. Artesian wells may be developed wherever a local change of texture in some Tertiary stratum renders it impervious over a sufficient area, so as to form a roof over the water-bearing stratum. This, however, is quite exceptional. As a rule the Tertiary beds are all porous; con- sequently the underground waters appear as innumerable springs, usually too weak to be of great value separately for irrigation, though some of them are very strong, and the combined effect of the small springs in the streams which they feed becomes an important factor. 171 172 IRRIGATION. In my report for 1890 the location of many of these springs was in- dicated on the map, but they have been found to be so numerous along almost all principal and tributary streams that such notation becomes impracticable. Passing along a river in a boat one may observe that hardly a rod of either bank is free from seepages, forming rills and pools above the level of the current. The gauging of a stream at dif. ferent points, no tributary intervening, will often show a much greater Volume at the lower point due to the accessions from springs. In the Loup Valley increase of volume holds good in almost every instance. The streams become larger as one follows them downward independently of the influx of tributaries. In other parts of the Great Plains, however, not infrequently the result is precisely opposite ; that is, the volume of a stream will be less instead of greater at the lower point. This also depends upon the geological conditions. Not only the structure of the terranes, but also the previous history upon which that structure depends, must be brought into view, in order to explain this anomaly of a Weakening in volume, and even disappearing altogether. The fact is that the rivers of Nebraska are flowing in valleys which were cut by older rivers, generally with a depth and breadth far greater than the present valley. These old valleys, some of them steep and sharp as well as deep, were silted up during the Pliocene submergence, which was the latest phase of the Tertiary age. This submergence or drowning of the rivers and valleys in a great inland lake, and the emergence which restored them to the light of open day, are very recent events, so recent that the present rivers have not had time to restore their valleys to the former depth by washing out the sands, clays, and gravels deposited there. Given sufficient time and these rivers will master the silt and carry it away in suspension as fine mud, or push it aud roll it along the bottom to a new resting place nearer the sea, if it is too large and heavy to be carried by the waters. But at present the silt often masters the river. There is so much of it that the water, preyed upon also by evaporation in the hot and thirsty air of the plains, is all dissipated, spread abroad in Wide sand washes, and lost to view in the depths of the old silted-up valleys. It requires a very strong vol- ume of water to maintain a perennial current in such a silt-gorged val- ley. Even the regal strength of the North Platte is insufficient for these arduous conditions. Coming out of the mountains with a flow of over 10,000 cubic feet per second, it is often wholly swallowed up in its own sands between North Platte and Columbus. The same thing hap- pens to the Republican itiver in certain parts of its course. Many of the smaller streams entirely disappear after a course of a few miles, never reappearing. THE UN DERFLOW. The streams thus becoming entangled in the silt of their own valleys are indeed lost to view, but they are not really lost. They go to feed the underflow. No physical feature of the Great Plains is more im- pressive, when once fully realized, than the fact that a mighty invisi. ble river accompanies each visible one. The underflow is vastly broader and deeper than the visible river, and it is always there, while the river in sight may cease to flow. The only point in which the river excels is velocity. The percolation of water through silt is very slow as compared with channel velocities, and this limits the volume which may be developed by subflow ditches or pumping. Where the silt is very porous, by reason of its coarseness or the form of its particles, and at the same time the water is under considerable pressure, the WATER-ABSORBING QUALITY OF NEBRASKA STRATA. 173 Velocity of percolation may approach that of free-flowing streams. In Some places in the valley of the Platte so copious is the underflow that when it is tapped at the distance of several miles from the channel it responds to powerful pumps almost as freely as if the supply were drawn from a subterranean lake.* SHEET WATERS. The spongy mass of Tertiary rocks lying upon the impervious Creta- ceous shales is by no means homogeneous in texture or uniform in thick- ness. It waries in thickness from 1,000 feet to a mere skin cover a few feet thick, lying over and concealing projecting knobs left by erosion on the surface of the old Cretaceous land. At such points it is useless to search for sheet water. The character of the rocks clearly indicates that the drill has penetrated the dry and barren Cretaceous shales. A little attention to the geology of the region will save the repetition of expensive failures in such localities. The variation in texture runs from clays and tolerably compact marls to coarse gravels and conglomerates. At some level, varying from the subsoil to some hundreds of feet, a natural water table is formed, at and beneath which all the rocks are saturated and the more porous beds yield supplies to the wells. Frequently several distinct veins of sheet water are found, the deeper veins having the greatest volume and pres- sure. Were it not for the cutting out of these water-bearing strata by the valleys each of them would be a source of flowing wells. As it is, the sheet waters are invaluable as feeders of the wells. The general seepage of the porous Tertiary beds, where they are not interstratified With compact layers so as to form distinct veins of sheet water, is the source of the innumerable weak springs along the rivers. The stronger springs occur where porous beds carrying sheet waters are cut by the erosion of the valleys. Thus in the general circulation of moisture a neat balance is main- tained. If in Some valleys the surface streams enter the earth and become invisible, merged in the underflow, in others the invisible sub- terranean waters burst out in springs to feed the surface streams. The controlling feature of the water supply of western and central Nebraska is the presence of a great mass of porous materials, forming the surface and filling the old valleys, beneath which lies a compact floor of impervious rocks. Thus the waters are absorbed, hidden, drawn away from the surface out of sight, but not lost. Except by evapora- tion, which is the great waster of land moisture, and which is especially active upon the wind-swept and sun-parched treeless belt, the waste of moisture is reduced to the minimum. It is true there are not many rivers, at least not in the western counties. The very conditions which tend to conserve the moisture—rapid absorption and occlusion by por- ous beds—tend at the same time to minimize the surface drainage. It is not deficient rainfall so much as peculiar geological conditions which make the rivers few in number. The land is newly won from the waters and drainage lines are as yet imperfectly established. Old channels are silted up and new ones have not been cut out. A porous and un- even surface drinks up the waters that fall from the heavens; conse- quently surface streams are few, but the underflow and sheet waters are copious. Such conditions prevail widely in western and central Nebraska, but have their typical illustration in the Loup Valley, the peculiar features of which are discussed at length in the body of this report. In one * See p. 187 for further data on the rapidity of percolation. * 174. - IRRIGATION. point, however, the Loup Walley is exceptional. It has not only copi- ous underflow and sheet waters bursting out in beautiful springs, but also numerous rivers. It is a well-watered country. 2. THE IRRIGABLE LANDS OF NEBRASKA. The irrigable lands of Nebraska are the valley lands. This is accu- rate as a general statement, although two classes of exceptions may be noted... In the first place a limited area of the table lands may be irri- gated by pumping from wells, or by utilizing flowing wells wherever these may be developed. In the second place some of the lower table- lands may be reached by ditches. The best opportunities for high-line ditches occur in the valley of the Republican River and along the main Platte below the confluence of the South and North Platte. For the most part, however, the waters of Nebraska rivers will be absorbed in the irrigation of the lands lying within the main bluffs bounding their valleys. It is not only the bottom lands which can be easily supplied, but the Second and third bottoms or benches. When these are included in the reckoning, there is more than enough good land in the valleys to absorb the whole visible supply of water. It would be bad economy to carry the water at great expense away from the valley lands which need it, and upon which it can be carried at minimum cost. It is true that some of the valley lands are the poor- est in the country, Sandy and alkaline. This is because the rivers of the plains seldom overflow their banks. The silt or river mud which enriches the bottom lands in other regions is not deposited in these val- leys to cover and fertilize their sterile sands, and the soil in low spots becomes alkaline also, because it lacks the Washing and sweetening effects of floods. The proper remedy, both for alkali spots and sterile sands in the valleys is artificial flooding. The fields should be diked and kept covered with Water in the nongrowing seasons, thus dissolv- . ing and washing out the alkalies and covering the sands with fertiliz- ing mud for the next crop. By such methods we may not only irrigate the good valley lands, but first redeem and then irrigate the poor val- ley lands. THE PLATTE VALLEY. The largest body of irrigable land in Nebraska lies along the Platte River. No accurate Survey has been made showing the exact amount of irrigable land in this broad and beautiful valley. Indeed no such survey has been made or attempted for any part of Nebraska, except the Loup Valley, the results of which are embodied in the present re- port. In the absence of such survey and of the exact data which it would have furnished, we may estimate the average breadth of the Platte Valley, not including the channel, at 54 miles. Its length west of the ninety-eighth meridian, including both valleys above the con- fluence of the South and North Platte, is 441 miles. This gives over one and a half million acres in a single great valley, an amount which is much beyond the capacity of the Platte to irrigate unless We count upon a very high duty of water. Due consideration being given to the infrequency of irrigations required during each growing season in a region of considerable rainfall, it is not improbable that with careful management the greater part of this fine body of valley land might be supplied. We can not safely estimate more than 6,000 cubic feet per second as the average normal volume of the Platte, and not more than 4,000 cubic feet per second in critical seasons. Prof. Hay and myself WATER-ABSORBING QUALITY OF NEBRASKA STRATA. 175 found the North Platte at Camp Clarke, on the 29th day of May, 1891, to be flowing at the rate of 8,075 cubic feet per second. On the 24th day of June, 1891, I found flowing in the Platte, near Columbus, Nebr., above the mouth of the Loup, 18,240 cubic feet per second. Both of these measurements are above the normal volume, and the latter very much above. The Platte actually goes dry some two months almost every year at the very point where I found it sweeping along like a moving sea. If we should reckon upon 6,000 second feet as the normal volume, it would still require the very high duty of 250 acres to the Seconds foot in order to irrigate the Platte Valley with its own waters. Below the town of North Platte, which is situated at the confluence of the two rivers, the bluffs are not so high as to prevent the table- lands being reached by gravity ditches from the Platte. The old ditch at Kearney is proof of what may be accomplished in this line, and a new Company is now organized for the purpose of putting in a high-line ditch to water the table-land north of the Platte, between the Platte and Wood rivers. The south side presents even greater facilities for irri- gating the table lands. On the North Platte River the bluffs are too high (600 feet by aneroid barometer) and rugged to be economically surmounted. At the same time the fine body of irrigable land in the valley makes the attempt unnecessary. The valley lands are being rapidly supplied, ditch con- struction being more active here than in any other part of the State. On the South Platte, in Nebraska, little can be done in the way of irrigation because the water is absorbed by appropriators in Colorado. The underflow is the only resource, but the attempts to utilize that have not been very successful. The South Platte has, however, a small tributary in Nebraska, Lodge Pole Creek, which has a unique and im- portant place in relation to irrigation. From it the oldest irrigating ditch in the State was taken to furnish water to the garrison and gar- dens of Fort Sidney. This pioneer ditch is still in successful opera- tion. Many other short ditches are furnishing water to the fine mead- ows and plow lands below Sidney, so that this little valley of Lodge Pole Creek has, by its enterprise and activity in irrigation, set a noble example for other communities to follow. THE REPUBLICAN VALLEY. As regards the acreage of irrigable lands in the valley of the Repub- lican River, the same relation to the water supply holds good as in the case of the Platte, viz, the valley lands exceed the united irrigating capacity of the chief river and all its tributaries. These valley lands are more uniformly good than in the western Valleys as a rule. More- over the fine table-lands adjoining the valley are low enough to be reached at moderate cost. Hence the acreage of good land which may enter into competition for the water of the Republican River is almost unlimited. It is purely a question of priority of appropriation as to what lands shall secure a portion of the precious liquid, since there is not enough for all. The people seem to realize this in some measure, and accordingly numerous irrigation enterprises have been projected, several of which are now being vigorously pushed forward towards completion. - THE NIOBRARA VALLEY. The Niobrara is a considerable river, but its physical peculiarities rob it of much of the importance in respect to irrigation which it might 176 wº - IRRIGATION. otherwise possess. From the 102d meridian eastward it flows in a caſion, broad enough, it is true, to inclose some good irrigable land, but not enough to utilize all the water of the river. The bluffs are too high and rugged to permit the irrigation of the adjacent table-lands. West of the one hundred and second meridian its valley is broad and moderately shallow, bounded by grassy slopes, but here the stream is small.” Nevertheless its steep gradient (124 feet per mile), rapid cur- rent, pure water, and the fine body of irrigable land along its upper Course, give it considerable importance. No ditches have yet been taken out from it. - THE WHITE RIVER WALLEY. The White River and its tributaries, together with the copious springs which are so numerous in that region, are capable of irrigating a con- siderable body of land, and their waters have already been appropriated to a considerable extent. The land is of good quality and easily reached by short ditches. II. SURWEY OF THE LOUP WALLEY. Acting under the instruction of the chief geologist, Prof. Robert Hay, I have made a careful survey of the central region of the State, watered by the Loup River and its tributaries. The Loup was selected as a . typical river of the plains. Its head waters and its entire course lie in the plains, and it exhibits in the highest degree those strongly marked peculiarities which characterize the drainage of the treeless belt. This Valley also deserves special attention because it lies in the debatable zone, the subhumid, where the question is forever recurring “to irri- gate, or not to irrigate; ” where the rainfall is copious enough to en- courage the farmer to plant and, in most seasons, fills the land with plenty, but sometimes fails at the critical moment. EXTENT AND SURFACE FEATURES. It is difficult to fix upon precise boundaries for the Loup Valley. On the south and east the watershed is well defined, but on the north and west the drainage merges gradually into an undrained region of sand hills and lagoons where it is impossible to draw an exact boundary line. Guided by the best practicable approximation, however, we set down the extent in latitude and longitude as follows: From longitude 97o 17’ (west of Greenwich) to 1029 W.; and from latitude 400 50' N. to 420 28' N., or nearly five degrees of longitude and two of latitude. Its area is 13,428 square miles, or 8,593,920 acres, one-eighth of which is irri- gable land. - The surface features of the Loup Valley are of great interest, as being excellent types of certain topographic forms, and also of considerable * On the 4th of September, 1887, I measured it in range 51, west of the sixth prin- cipal meridian, in the southern part of Dawes County, and found it there to be 21 feet broad, 2 feet deep, and flowing at the rate of 2+ feet per second. It discharges. therefore, 98 cubic feet of water in each second of time. This measurement was taken on its upper course, and in one of the driest months of a dry year. ... (Bulletin No. 1, Ag. Exp. Sta. of Nebr., entitled “Irrigation in Nebraska,” by L. E. Hicks, p. 5.) CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LOUP VALLEY. 177 practical importance in their bearing upon the water supply. In de. scribing these surface features it is necessary to designate in a general way two divisions of the Loup region, an upper and a lower region. The general facies of these divisions is quite unlike, although they have no exact boundary, but blend together and inosculate in the most intri- Cate manner. Along the valleys the characteristic features of the Lower Loup run far up the country, while on the other hand those of the Upper Loup region run far down along the divides between the I'l VerS. In the Lower Loup region, along the main Loup, and along the lower courses of its large tributaries, we have the normal types of land sculp- ture belonging to a region of somewhat advanced erosion. The broad valleys, with their first and second bottoms well defined, are flanked by grassy hills of gentle slope and moderate height. Journeying across the country between the rivers, one finds a complete mesh of drainage lines, some of them dry ravines, others carrying perennial streams, but collectively covering the whole surface with an elaborate system of open drainage. There are no closed basins. The streams have been at work long enough to cut an outlet for every depression, to invade every acre of the primitive terrane, and to mellow down the declivities to graceful curves. Occasionally a sharp cut, like the “Crazy Man's Leap” at Fullerton, for example, shows that active erosion is still in progress. But the general aspect is that of somewhat advanced land sculpture, the water having already reduced the general level of the table-land, and dissected it into swelling hills and open valleys, with intricate windings of ravines, which have lost their early cañon-like sharpness. In all this Lower Loup region the topográphic elements of structure are essentially but two in number, dissected table-lands, and valleys, all well drained and highly fertile. Higher up along the rivers the same two elements still appear, but additional elements come in, and the hills and valleys belong to a dif- ferent type. The hills are higher and steeper. Sharp cuts, steep walls bare of vegetation, frequent cañons, rugged and picturesque with their deeply gashed walls fringed with cedars, all show that the erosion is in its first vigorous stages. In places where the primitive terrane was composed largely of sandy strata, its dissected remnants will be sand hills, or at least, sandy hills. However this kind of sand hill produced by water sculpture dissecting a sand-bedded terrane into hills, is very different from the typical wind-drift sand hill. Fine examples of dis- sected sand hills may be seen south of Broken Bow in Custer County. The valleys of the Upper Loup region are also quite different from those farther east. The elements of the cross Section are reduced in number. An Upper Loup Valley usually has the following cross sec- tion : Fig 5. B A C a Bºuffs. A Hillslºe. c Channe/. S. Ex. 41, pt. 3—12 178 IRRIGATION. A Lower Loup Valley has usually the following cross section: Fºr 6. A B 62 d c d © a B/ . A Hill slobe, c_CA Z. dA/oodplain, e, Zºression. - - 4%.3% %% - 4% 72 Figure 6 is the normal cross section of the lower or middle course of a mature river valley. The hill slope (b) is a strip of alluvial land, often quite narrow, running along the foot of the bluffs, and composed of the wash from them. It slopes towards the channel. The flood plain (d) is built up of river silt, and slopes away from the channel because this silt accumulates faster in the slack water nearest the central line of silt movement. The depression (e) is the meeting point of these two opposite slopes where the minimum of deposition occurs, because of its remoteness from the channel on the one hand and from the bluffs, an- other source of detritus, on the other hand. The occurrence of Swamps here is natural because the ground is low; and the fine impervious clays which constitute “gümbo,” and which are deposited there because at that distance from the channel the current is too sluggish to carry any other kind of silt to the spot, promote the same result by prevent- ing the percolation of water through the subsoil. Figure 3 is a unique type of valley structure, which is best exempli- fied in the region of the Great Plains east of the Rocky Mountains. Instead of the numerous elements of the normal type shown in figure 4, and which would appear still more numerous if the second and third bottoms or terraces were introduced in the figure as they often act- ually occur in nature, only three elements remain, viz, bluffs, hill slope, and channel. It is as if the middle of figure 4 had been cut clean out. The reason why there is no flood plain is that there are no floods; and the reason why there are no floods is that the physical conditions of the whole region combine to prevent floods by rapid absorption of the rainfall into the earth, whence it finds its way slowly by subterranean courses to the streams instead of flowing off quickly upon the surface. All this will appear more clearly when we have traversed the whole series of physical conditions in the Loup Valley, which we shall pro- ceed to do. This peculiar type of Valley is not merely a matter of curious inquiry for the student of earth forms, but has a practical bearing. Such val- leys have no bottom lands in any proper sense of the word, because they have no flood plain. Sometimes the nearly level stretches of the slope b, formed by the wash from the hills, closely resemble bottom lands. But in all such Valleys the good arable land is very liable to be interspersed with sterile, wind-drifted sands and alkali patches. Neither of these belong to a normal flood plain. The sands, if they existed at any time, Would be cut down and covered over with fertile mud and the alkalies Would be washed out, THE UPPER. LOUP BASIN AND ITS LAGOONS. 179 At the headwaters of each stream in the Loup region still another phase of valley structure appears. A series of wide basins, walled in by sand hills and joined by narrow valleys, form natural meadows where enormous crops of hay are harvested annually. These are thoroughly saturated with moisture, except in the driest seasons, and, indeed, pass insensibly into swamps, bogs, ponds, and lakes. Here are the perennial sourees of the rivers, though not until the traveler passes Some miles down the valley does he observe any well-defined channel or perceptible current. The most significant surface feature of the Upper Loup region is yet to be described. It is the entire absence of surface streams, or even their dry channels, from large areas. Of the whole Loup region 4,700 square miles (35 per cent) is undrained. This undrained area is occu- pied by three types of earth-forms, all of them not only of great scien- tific interest, but also of great importance in their effect upon the water Supply. These are lagoons, sand hills, and silt-engorged valleys of an old drainage system, now unoccupied by any stream. The lagoons were first described by the author in a paper read before the Geological Society of America at the Indianapolis meeting, and pub- lished in their bulletin, vol. 2, 1890, p. 25, from which I quote the fol- lowing paragraphs and illustration, including also statements respect- ing the old, now dry, valleys of this region, which will suffice on that head for the present : In regions of advanced erosion the watershed is a line. On this side the rain- drop falling may run off to the Atlantic; on that side its twin drop falling may run , off to the Pacific. On the plains the water parting, instead of being a line, bulges out here and there into a broad band. It splits into two lines and loops around a space which does not belong to the valley on either side. Here falls a drop which runs off to the south; yonder, a score of miles away, falls a drop which runs off to the north. Between lies a broad table-land, where the rain may sink into the earth, and by subterranean ways ultimately get into some river, or it may be evaporated and return to the heavens; but the one thing which rain persistently does everywhere else—that is to say, run along the surface in Tavine, creek, river, to the ocean at length—that one thing it persistently refuses to do on these table-lands. Some notion of the peculiarities of surface which cause this unusual behavior of the waters may be obtained from the stereogram presented herewith, illustrating a por- tion of the surface in the western part of Custer County, Nebr. A sort of regu- lar or persistent irregularity is apparent. In contrast with the ordinary landscape there is a striking absence of leading lines. There are valleys, but they lead nowhere; , there are basins, but they have no outlet; there are ridges and hills, but they have no continuity and no definite arrangement, Every depression soon bumps up against a hill; every hill slopes off into a hole. The general level is well maintained over a considerable area. The higher points are so equal, so numerous, and so close together that they form a level sky-line when viewed from a little distance; but from these summits down to the bottoms of the “lagoons” may be 50 or 75 feet. The roads, following section lines, cross hills and valleys in endless succession. In other regions one may make the distinction of traveling “across the country’’ or not, according as he follows the valleys or takes them transversely. Here there is no choice; it is “across the country,” no matter what direction is taken. - All of the elements of composition are curves. The horizontal planes and sharp angles of water sculpture are conspicuously absent. The hills are low domes, the basins have the same form inverted. There may, indeed, be a level space at the bot- tom, but that is a secondary modification. The sloping sides of the lagoons are grass covered and wash but little, yet enough is carried down to make notable accumula- tions when reinforced by the remains of a luxuriant vegetation induced by the rich soil and abundant moisture. As much as 20 feet of soil has been observed in some of these lagoons. Here we see the natural reservoirs for the storm waters of the plains. In some of them water remains throughout the year; in almost all it is easily reached by digging. A cistern is often dug in the bottom of a lagoon, and being covered to prevent evap- oration, it preserves the collected storm waters for household use. Still more fre- quently a supply for animals is obtained by simply deepening the basin with plow and scraper. The economic value of these natural storage basins has brought them 180 IRRIGATION. into general notice, and accounts for the fact that they have a popular name. This name, “lagoon,” is closely restricted to the depressions on the rolling surface of the high, grass-covered table-lands. I have never heard it applied to the numerous closed basins among the sand hills or the “kettle holes” of the drift. Lagoons occur over a wide region east of the Rocky Mountains, where the rivers have not invaded and modified the old lake bottom. They are more numerous in Custer County, Nebr., than in any other locality which has come under my observa- tion. Here there may be a score of them to the square mile. In other parts of the Great Plains they are few and widely separated. They vary.from 1 acre to 50 acres IIl 2,I'63, - Are there no outlets whatever for the surface flow of water from these depressions? There may be, but the moment that occurs the type is destroyed. The outlet deepens to a ravine, the ravine to a cañon, the cañon opens into a valley, and so on to the sea ; the primitive surface of construction has been captured and converted into a surface of erosion. This process is constantly active. The chisel of water-sculpture is forever hacking away at the remnants of the table-lands. Their edges are gashed with fresh ravines, and here and there a caſion pierces the very heart of the plateau. But the resistance to the encroachments of water-sculpture is considerable, and the manner of resistance is obvious. So long as the lagoons are not filled to the brim there is no chance for any “wash" to get a start. Should there be a great increase of the rainfall, so that precipitation should exceed evaporation, the lagoons would fill up and overflow, and the table-lands would rapidly melt away. Their preservation is therefore good evidence of constancy in climatic conditions during the whole period since this lake bottom became dry. At least it is conclusive evidence that there has been no great variation in the direction of increased rainfall, though there may have been greater aridity. These curious structural forms constitute a sort of weather record which runs far back into the past. It was dry enough when Lake Cheyenne was spilled out of its bed by upheaval to evaporate the remnants of that lake in the lagoons, and it has since been dry enough to keep them from filling alid overflowing. They even give us a glimpse of the climate which prevailed in a period far more re- mote, as we shall see when we inquire into their origin. To this question of the origin of the lagoons the most queer and contradictory an- swers, ranging all the way from wallowing buffaloes to spouting volcanoes, may be elicited from the old settlers. The generic relations of the lagoon type are clear enough. It is a structural form unmodified by erosion. But among structural forms is this an example of the sedimentary, the igneous, the coralline, the glacial, or the eolian type, or is it a combination of some of these ? The title of this paper implies that it is sedimentary. But sedimentation tends to produce horizontal planes. If there are exceptions, such as torrential cones and sloping beaches, they have obvi- ously no application to the case in hand. Yet the materials displaying this structu- ral form are indubitably lake sediments—Tertiary marls. Their unique form must, therefore, have been influenced by forms of surface already in existence when this region became a lake. None of the familiar accidents 6f upheaval, tilting, or folding, or faulting to which horizontal sediments are subject will account for such forms as these. Igneous action produces lofty cones, craters, geyser basins, dikes, bosses, laccolites, and sheets of extruded lava which may present considerable irregularities of surface. Some of these igneous forms of construction, if they were mantled over with a sheet of lake sediment, might give a result something like the lagoons and rounded hills of the table-lands of Custer County, but there is no reason to suspect that any sort of igneous agency has been concerned in the matter. The hint con- tained in the identity of the popular name lagoon with that which designates a prominent type of coralline structure is only misleading. The promiscuously irregu- lar forms of the glacial drift are more promising. Hillocks, kettle holes, and morainal lakes might possibly assume a facies not unlike the forms in question, at least with the help of a thin cover of fine sediment ; but the region is clearly beyond the recog- nized limits of glaciation, and no drift is found either on the surface or beneath it. We come, then, by the method of exclusion to the eolian type of construction, and we soon find that, apart from the objections lying against other hypotheses, the Sug- gestion that we have here an example of the influence of a prečxisting surface shaped by the action of the wind has much to commend it. The materials of wind construc- tion are drift-sand and dust. The letter does not produce topographic forms of much magnitude, and in this discussion, at any rate, may be disregarded. Drift sand is, however, an element of construction which produces important topographic results upon the Great Plains at the present time, and it has probably been as busy in pre- vious geologic cycles as it is now. The fundamental type of a single sand hill is a half cone lying upon the flat-side, its base concave, facing the prevailing wind and forming a “blow-out,” and its elongated apex stretching off to leeward. A succession of these overlapping upon each other gives a serrated ridge running parallel with the prevailing wind. Shift- SAND DUNES AND LAKE SEDIMENTS IN LOUP BASIN. 181 ing winds give cross-ridges which shut in sections of the troughs lying between the ridges first formed and produce closed basins. In a region of newly formed sand hills the ridge-and-trough structure parallel with the direction of prevailing winds is dis- tinctly visible, but where the sands have been long tossed about by shifting winds the leading lines are obscured, the ridges are cut through by fresh blow-outs, and these may be found facing in all directions. Such a surface mantled over with lake sediments would present the same forms which we see upon the table-lands. The sharpness of the serrations would be mel- lowed down to graceful curves, the closed basins would form the lagoons, and the whole surface would present gentle and irregular undulations, reminding one of chop- ping waves, after the violence of the storm has passed, arrested and fixed in mid- ocean. The well sections show much sand beneath the surface marl of these table-lands, and, upon the whole, there is good reason to believe that this interesing topographic type is the combined result of eolian and sedimentary processes. The character of the climate during the last period of emergence preceding the lake period may therefore be inferred to have been similar to that now prevailing in the samie re- gion. The hypothesis of preexisting sand hills is only intended to apply to regions of constantly recurring and closely packed lagoons, such as we find in the western part of Custer county. The isolated depressions of other regions may be due to some of the numerous accidents which produce lakes and ponds. It may be objected to this hypothesis that in the progressing subsidence which pro- duced the Tertiary lake the sand hills would be leveled down by wave action on the shore. This result would certainly follow the progressive encroachments of a lake which had already attained considerable dimensions, but in the first stages of its for- mation in the center of the depressed area wave action would be very slight ; the waters would quietly rise above the sand hills, leaving them and the closed basins be- tween them undisturbed, except that slight rounding off and softening of their sharper features which, being still further mellowed down by a light covering of lake marl, produces the gentle undulations which characterize the table lands. Custer county is, if not in the very center of the old Lake Cheyenne at the time of its greatest expan- sion, at least well removed from its shore line. We have also other distinct evidences that the encroaching lake did not level all before it. Old valleys of erosion, obscured indeed but not concealed by the newer sediments, stretch for miles across the table-lands where now no stream flows. . It is true that these would be more difficult to obliterate than the sand hills, but their preservation is nevertheless significant. Whatever weight they may have as evi- dence of the gentle advances of the lake waters over the rough, wind-tossed, and water-sculptured surface of the plains, they possess an interest of their own as evi- dence of a long period of emergence before the last submergence. The rivers had time enough to cover the surface with their lines of erosion even more completely than the surface is covered at the present time. The channels now occupied by rivers show, here and there, marks of prečxisting channels, and those which are still unoc- cupied remain over to the credit of the older drainage system. All this series of events falls within Tertiary time. The older drainage system of which I have spoken wrought upon Tertiary beds, and the erosion thus produced makes the later Tertiary unconformable with the earlier. We have here the evidence of cycles of emergence and submergence, of arid and humid epochs, of wind-swept plains and ancient rivers, of structural forms invaded by agents of erosion and again reconstructed—all within the limits of Tertiary history. In order to ravel completely the tangled threads of this history it would be necessary to pass in review the events accompanying the upheaval of the Rocky Mountains, perhaps also the physical history of regions more remote. That does not, however, belong to this discussion. I have merely aimed to decipher the geological record so far as to discover a probable cause for the peculiar structural forms which have escaped destruction simply by reason of their peculiarities. I have reached the conclusion that they are the results of sedi- mentation upon a surface previously shaped by the action of the winds. In other words, the lagoon type is a combination of the sedimentary and eolian types of con- struction. - - The characteristic features of hills composed of wind-drifted sands are too familiar to require extended description. The surface is per- sistently irregular, uneven, and destitute of leading lines, such as are established by drainage. Unevenness of surface and porous texture are both developed in the highest degree, thus insuring the complete and almost instantaneous absorption of the rainfall and the entire ab- sence of surface drainage. - These sands are quite different from pure silica in their power to retain moisture. Instead of being composed of pure Silica they have a large 182 IRRIGATION. * proportion of feldspar, mica, augite, and other complex silicates in their composition. They are earthy and argiliaceous rather than clean quartz sands. They absorb moisture rapidly and in large quantities and re- tain it a long time, yielding it upwards little by little to growing plants and evaporation, and downwards to form the sheet waters which feed the wells, springs, and rivers. It is obvious that the peculiar topography and surface texture of the underdrained area must profoundly affect the hydrographic and me- teorological phenomena of the whole region. The sand hills are vast reservoirs of moisture. From them, and still more from the Saturated meadows, bogs, marshes, ponds, lakes, and lagoons, evaporation is active and incessant, producing frequent local precipitations and in- creasing the volume of rainfall during storms of general distribution. The underflow and sheet waters must of necessity be copious in an area of considerable precipitation and no surface drainage. But the geo- logical structure beneath the surface is no less potent in its influence upon subterranean Waters than the form and texture of the surface, and hence this topic will come up again" after the geological structure has been described. Before leaving the subject of surface features, or topography, of the Loup region, it is proper to say a word about the gradients of the Loup rivers and their levels relatively to each other and to the Platte River. These gradients may be exhibited in tabular form as follows, that of the Platte, which is abnormally high for so large a river, being added for comparison : Feet per IIll 16, Platte ------------------------ tº sº ºn tº * * * * * * * * * s = * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ---------- 7. I Main Loup. ---------------------------- * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * -------- 5.46 Middle Loup------------------------------------------------------ ----------- 7.3 North Loup------------------------------------------------------------------ 6.1 Beaver Creek ---------------------------------------------, ------------------ 8 Cedar Creek. -----------------...- .- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 7. 6 West Beaver Creek----------------------------------------------------------- 9. 6 It will be observed that the main Loup has a lower gradient than the Platte. In this respect, as in some others, it behaves more like a mature large river than the parent stream. • Its large and constant volume in contrast with the Platte, which sometimes goes dry, has no doubt a causal relation to its relatively low gradient. As regards the practica) bearing of these gradients upon irrigation, all of these rivers have fall enough to facilitate the construction of ditches. Slope enough may be given to a ditch to secure a good flow of water and yet gain rapidly in height above the river, so that second and third bottoms, lying considerably above the channel, may be watered from ditches of moderate length. From the fact that the relative gradient of the Platte is higher than that of the main Loup, while they run nearly parallel for 75 miles, it follows that, starting from their confluence, where they are on the same level, at each point above the Platte will be flowing at a higher level than the Loup, the amount of difference increasing as we ascend. Irri- gatton of the lands lying between the Platte and the Loup can therefore be accomplished most easily from the Platte. At some points it would not require a very deep canal to turn the Platte bodily into the Loup. Another interesting point in the relative levels of the rivers is coör- dinate with that just named. It is that each Loup river or consider- able tributary, taking them in succession from the southwest to the northeast, is flowing at a lower level than the preceding one. This is GEOLOGY, RAINFALL, AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE LOUP. 183 admirably shown in the general cross section kindly furnished by Col. E. S. Nettleton from a survey made by Mr. W. W. Follett, which is ap- pended to this report. GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE OF THE LOUP valley. The following diagrammatic section (Fig. 6), running the length of the Loup Valley in a general northwest-southeast direction, illustrates the geological structure: Broadly speaking, the structure is the same as that of the whole State, as described above, viz, a synclinal basin filled with porous Tertiary rocks and floored with impervious Cretaceous rocks, the whole series having a tilt to the southeast. The Tertiary beds vary from 25 to 500 feet in depth or thickness. In them the Loup and its tributaries have excavated their valleys to the depth of from 100 feet to 300 feet. The main Loup flows over the depressed southeastern lip of the basin and catches the whole volume of underflow and sheet waters. Its channel from Fullerton to Genoa is cut to a slight depth into the impervious bed rock of Cretaceous shales. Near Genoa it enters the old, silt- engorged valley of the Platte and unites with that stream 20 miles lower down. Here then we have an admirable adjustment of natural conditions all tending to conserve and equalize the flow of water. Upon an um. even and porous surface, much of it wholly destitute of drainage lines, the falling rain is received. Much of it sinks beyond the reach of evaporation, and its further movement underground is facilitated by the great depth of porous beds streaked with the gravels of buried rivers and lake beaches. Not being able to descend indefinitely, because it encounters the impervious bed rocks, it moves laterally, supplies the sheet waters for the wells, bursts out in springs along the valleys, feeds the underflow of the rivers, and finally is all gathered up in the channel of the Lower Loup by reason of the fact that this is cut down into the impervious floor of the basin. This is the chief cause of the large and remarkably constant volume of the Loup. It is even more potent than the amount and distribution of the rainfall. The latter supplies the moisture; the geological conditions conserve the moisture and econo- mize and equalize its flow. As it frequently happens that habits of economy are of greater importance for acquiring wealth than the amount of one's income, so it may be in the natural world. The amount of the rainfall may be secondary in importance compared with the physical conditions which determine its dissipation in the air, or its absorption and conservation in the soil. Still the amount of the rain- fall, and its distribution through the year, are fundamentally important and deserve the next place. THE RAINFALL OF THE LOUP WALLEY, ITS DRAINAGE, AND SEA- SONAL DISTRIBUTION. The Loup Valley has been regarded as having a rainfall sufficient for agriculture without irrigation. This opinion was uniformly enter- tained by its inhabitants from the time of its first settlement until last year (1890), when the prevailing and severe drought shook the confi- dence of many who had been firm believers in the sufficiency of the rainfall. There is, indeed, a tradition of irrigation having been prac- 184 IRRIGATION. ticed by the Mormon settlement at Genoa many years ago, and the re- mains of ditches are exhibited as old irrigation ditches. But they are no doubt the boundaries of fields, since they have neither the grade nor alignment of irrigation work. Instead of a record of primitive irri- gation we have here a relic of the trench-and-bank system of inclosing fields—a method very natural in a region scantily supplied with timber. Hence it appears that irrigation has never been applied in the Loup Valley, and there is not now, to my knowledge, an acre of irrigated land in the whole region. It was not even thought of till last year, and the schemes which originated there have already lapsed into obliv- ion on account of the unparalleled precipitation of the present year,” and the magnificent crops, produced without irrigation, which are now being harvested. But the popular belief does not settle the question. At least irrigation may be extremely advantageous, greatly increasing the yield in ordinary years, and furnishing the only sure reliance in critical years, even if it is not an absolute necessity. It is still worth while to note the facts and record the possibilities of artificial irrigation in a region so well watered by nature. It is a settled conviction of the writer, unshaken by the remarkable experience of the present year, that irrigation is not only entirely practicable in this rich valley, but that it will be highly advantageous, a source of large profits to indi- viduals, and a means of largely augmenting the agricultural importance this of region. The rainfall is 23.74 inches. This is a goodly amount, and yet not of itself sufficient to justify wholly the popular faith. The total annual precipitation hovers rather near the danger line. But when we con- sider the seasonal distribution of this moisture the case looks more hopeful. There is a distinct, well-marked division of the year into a rainy season and a dry season, and the former comes just when the crops need the moisture, the latter just when the least harm will result from a deficiency. The rainy season extends from April to Septem- ber, inclusive, and the dry season from October to March. In the six months, April, May, June, July, August, September, the precipita- tion is 18.42 inches, or 77.4 per cent of that for the whole year. In the six months, October, November, December, January, February; March, the precipitation is only 5.32 inches, or 22; per cent of that for the whole year. The detailed data upon which these general state- ments are based appear in the following Table of precipitation, by months. i Rainy season. Inches. Dry season. Inches. April ----------------------------------- 2.81 October ---...--...--...----- * º º 'º e º º ſº, º is sº s 1. 0 May -----------------------------------. 3.09 | November. -----------. ---------------. 0.6 June.----------------------------------- 3.20 | December ----------------------------- 0.8 July.----------------------------------- 5.00 || January ... ----------------------------. 0.9 August--------------------------------- 2.66 | February ---------------------------- • . 0.43 September.----------------------------. 1.66 March ------------------------- * * * * * * * * 1.42 Total ---------------------------. 18, 42 Total ----------------------------- 5. 32 * The summer of 1891. K - _* THE METEOROLOGY of westERN NEBRASKA. 185 The same facts are graphically exhibited in the following t Curve of annºnal precipitation in the Loup J alley. Inches Jan. Feb. | Mar Apr. May June. July. Aug | Sept. [Oct. Nov. Dec. “; -93–1 .45-142 eel ||3:00 ||3:gol B go | *66 || 1:ée | 1.01 || 6a || ag 4. A 35 2 1 y N- res, esſ Merzºzº adº-z" rº Aºzowaa zºº’ey” º -- --> cº- - - * --- ** to tº. -- - cº- *o - 2%, 2Z *. 2^ - & * *erºs & “-rºs º-cºax, rerº ºak, s.a...w…. THE NATURAL WATERS AS A FERTILIZING AGENCY. 189 may generally be found to utilize all of the available supply of water. But if there is not enough of such good land to take the water, or if the fortunate owners of such land should prefer to depend upon the rain- fall, as they have done hitherto, then the waters may be utilized in an- other way, that is, to redeem the alkaline and sandy soils of the valleys. Water will cure the sterility of a sandy soil by the deposition of fertile sediment upon it; it will cure an alkaline soil by dissolving and washing out the alkaline carbonates. The success of both operations requires flooding, that is, covering the ground completely with water to a consid- erable depth in the nongrowing season. This is a distinct kind of irri- gation. In Egypt, where it has been practiced successfully for ages, both for fertilizing and washing out alkalis, it is called basin irriga- tion; while the application of water to the soil in the growing season, the only kind of irrigation as yet practiced in this country, is called sum- mer irrigation. It may be objected that the reclamation of the sandy lands in the valleys will be difficult or impossible on account of the rapid waste of water by percolation, both in the ditches and fields. This waste would undoubtedly be considerable, but not fatal to success. I have ascer- tained in almost every case where the opportunity of examining the sub- soil has presented itself that at no great depth in these valleys clay bands underlie the sand, and these would intercept the escape of the water by percolation. They are not wholly impervious, it is true, being loam rather than pure clay, but they will serve to retain the water suf- ficiently, and at the same time admit of a wholesome dregree of subsoil drainage. Once get the water to remain some time in the ditches and on the fields, and it will protect itself by its own sediment, so that each subsequent irrigation will be accomplished with less and less waste of Water. The total area of irrigable lands in the valleys of the Loup region is 1,013,760 acres. Outside of the valleys irrigation will be limited to small tracts supplied by wells too small and infrequent to make an item in the reckoning. The map, showing as it does the boundaries of the valleys, is therefore a map of the irrigable lands of the Loup Valley, amounting in round numbers to 1,000,000 acres. As we have seen above that the water supply under the favorable climatic conditions of this valley, which will admit of a high estimate of the duty of water, is just about equal to the task of irrigating 1,000,000 acres, we have a happy equilibrium of irrigable land and available water for irrigation. AGRICULTURAL RESOURCES OF THE LOUP WALLEY, The Loup Valley is highly favored by nature. Already, without irri- gation and in spite of its recent settlement, having hardly completed its first decade, immense crops are produced almost every year, the crop failures being no more frequent than in any average agricultural region in the rain belt. The highly favorable distribution of the rainfall dur- ing the growing season goes far to account for the fruitfulness of this region. According to the statistical tables in the Annual Report of the State Board of Agriculture for 1889 the Loup Valley produced in that year 11,053,455 bushels of maize, 1,401,745 bushels of wheat, and 4,625,040 bushels of oats. The three largest items in the live-stock ac- count were 62,819 horses, 156,850 cattle, and 134,268 hogs. By utilizing the water to irrigate the good valley lands, and redeem and then irrigate the poor valley lands, this region may be made equal 190 IRRIGATION. to the choicest in the country in its fruitfulness and capacity to sustain a dense population. The unbroken table-lands have an excellent soil. Here deep and frequent tillage will take the place of irrigation. The dissected table-lands constituting the hilly districts (not sand hills) have also an excellent soil, in which the benefits of deep and frequent tillage must be the chief reliance for their amelioration. The natural meadows at the head waters of the streams will be a constantly increasing Source of wealth, producing large crops with scarcely any other expense than harvesting and marketing the product. Even the sand hills may be utilized. The earthy nature of these sands, in contrast with pure silica, has already been mentioned, and its effect upon the retention of moist- ure noted. Its effect in making the sand hills fertile is equally impor- tant. Once get these sands to stop drifting and they may be cultivated with marked success. But the best use to make of them will be to clothe them with a forest cover. This will at once serve to break the violent winds, to anchor the sands, to protect the fertile basins which abound among the sand hills, and to improve still more the naturally excellent conditions of absorption and retention of moisture. Recent experiments under the direction of the Forestry Division of the United States Department of Agriculture * indicate the possibility of foresting the sand hills, though the magnitude of the undertaking, and the signal benefits certain to result from it, seem to demand Government aid. The closed basins and the more level spaces among these hills are already cultivated with success, and with the protection from winds and in- creased moisture resulting from a forest cover on the hills, these fruit- ful spots might be greatly extended and rendered far more productive. The occupation of the country and all of the operations of agriculture will augment and intensify the excellent combination of natural condi- tions in this valley. The main Loup is distinguished among the rivers of the treeless belt for the large and constant volume of water which it maintains throughout the year. We have seen that this results from the geological structure and the uneven, highly absorptive surface of the country. Of these dominant physical conditions the geological structure and the main features of the topography are permanent, at least with reference to the events of human history and the operations of human industry, though they are not ever-enduring in relation to historical geology. The third element, porosity and absorptiveness of the surface, will increase by cultivation. Deep and frequent tillage of the table-lands and hill slopes will secure more immediate and com- plete absorption and retention of the rainfall. Irrigation in the valleys will spread out the waters and retain them longer, permitting them to escape only by evaporation, which will increase the humidity of the air and promote precipitation, or by slow percolation through the soil and subsoil. Lastly, the foresting of the sand hills, if that shall ever be happily accomplished by combined and persistent efforts of individuals, or by a liberal policy on the part of the national or State government, will do more than all other artificial operations to ameliorate the climate. * What is Forestry? Bulletin No. 5, Forestry Division, U. S. Department of Agri- culture, p. 40. - Feb. 15 Feb. 14 Feb. 15 Feb. 16 Feb. 17 Feb. 18 Feb. 19 Feb. 20 Feb. 2) /eb. 22 /ē2.25 /eb. 24 Feb. 25 Feb. 26 /eh, 27 Feb. 28 Li Tii ||||||||||||||||| HºHºº H Hz Liszi †Hº | i ||||| #| || | | | | | | | i | H THii HºH Tººl" ºf | | |Iſſºilliºſ HºH | HTH º Ti ſ307 30.5 50.3 H ºf H Histºri |||||| HºHºº H |ºi. | | | ||||||||| | Histºriº H HºHº ||||||||| HºH |il|| i s|| H |||||||||||||| H | | ill | | | | | $1. BaroMeter at JWorth Plazle/Web < Air . . Moderate Currents Quiet wn well tip Moderate Strong | | | H Hººſis: Hº-Hº-TH | H | | º i | | |1|| *Fi | & | | | | | | | | | | I | ||||| | Charč gf. Barometric Pressure as Compared with Currents gf Air: Jr. the 5& EZmo Weſ/. | | | | | FEH | iſ TH | | IR E PORT OF PROF. GARRY E. CULVER, ASSISTANT GEOLOGIST FOR SOUTH DAKOTA. 191 TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S . - Fage. Dakota artesian basin.----------------------------. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ºn tº º 'º º sº. 195 Additional general facts---------------------------------------------------- 196–198 Natural subterranean reservoirs -------------------------------------------- 198–201 The supply of water-------------------------------------------------------- 201–202 The Black Hills— 4-Geology------------------------------------------------------------- 202 0-Topography----------------------------------------------------, ---- 203 o-Drainage----------------------------------------------------------- 205 d-Springs ------------------------------------------------------------ 205–207 6-Rainfall --------------------------------------- * * * * * * -------- - - - - - - - 207–208 J-Recapitulation ------------------------------------------------ - - - - - - 208 Test Wells------------------------------------- * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 208–209 ILLUSTRATIONS. Page, Preliminary geological map of the Dakotas... -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -`------------. 195 Shadow map of the Dakotas ----------------------------------------------- 195 Ideal section across South Dakota.-----------------------------------------. 202 . S. Ex. 41, pt. 3—13 193 I I 4. I t : º r f I I i i i J I I I i I *% Paleosol Triassic Pierre takeA3assiz ; Z # # E £Z - Laramie Benton Dakota Fox Hilis Tertiary º Hišī; PRELIMINARY GEOLOGICAL MAP of the T) AKOTAS by Garry B. Culver, | fiğur ! . Culver REPORT OF PROF. GARRY E. CULWE.R. THE DAKOTA BASIN. In a brief summary of the controlling geological conditions of this basin submitted at the close of last season's work the following conclu- sions were offered : 1. The basin consists of a low, broad synclinal, with its axis approxi- mately north and south. The eastern edge of the basin is in the east- ern part of the Dakotas, and the western edge is near the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. 2. Only the rocks of the Cretaceous series and the younger rocks are involved. - 3. The Dakota sandstone is the water-bearing rock. 4. This rock is exposed along the Big Sioux River in South Dakota and further south. It dips gently to the northwest, and the surface rises in the same direction. 5. In the valleys of the Missouri, Big Sioux, James, and Vermillion rivers the thinned covering beds (Colorado group) allow the water to escape upward, and a series of artesian springs is formed. These springs extend from Chamberlin, on the Missouri, to Sioux City, Iowa. This leakage is thought to account for the diminution in the flow and pressure in the southeastern part of the basin. 6. The eastern border of the basin is approximately on a line running through Vermillion, Scotland, Mitchell, Iroquois, Clark, along the west flank of the “coteau,” to the latitude of Andover, thence northeast to the State line. The eastern border in North Dakota is not so clearly defined. 7. The wells of the Red River Valley are not connected with the Dakota artesian basin. The shallow Wells of Southeastern South Dakota are likewise unconnected. 8. While most of the deep wells are in the James Valley, that dis- trict is not to be regarded as the controlling factor in the problem as regards either the cause or the extent of the basin. 9. The source of the supply is the region along the base of the Rocky Mountains, where the Dakota either comes to the surface or is so thinly covered that meteoric water readily finds its way into it. 10. Whether the Water will rise to the surface in the more elevated parts of the basin is at present a question. The pressure in the best wells in the James Valley is only sufficient to raise the water 2,000 feet above sea level. While it will of course be understood that the evidence is not all in yet, it may be said that the work of the present season has tended in the main to confirm the positions taken last year. Some errors have been discovered and corrected, and the investigation considerably ex- tended. 195 196 IRRIGATION. ADDITIONAL GENERAL FACTS. The Underlying Beds.—In the southeastern part of the basin the Dakota rests directly on the Archean. How far north or west this is true it is at present impossible to say, as the Wells are only occasionally drilled to a sufficient depth to determine what does underlie the water- bearing rock. A well about 10 miles west of Tyndall, in Bon Homme County, showed the quartzite to be present there. In the northern and northeastern parts of the James River district it is not at all improbable that either the Trias or the Carboniferous may be the underlying rock. In the Red River Valley the entire Cretaceous series seems to be Wanting, and the drill, after penetrating the lacustrine and drift de- posits, enters the Red Beds, or possibly the red sandy shale of the Upper Carboniferous. There is no geological break in the Cretaceous beds along the line between South Dakota and Nebraska. So far as structure is concerned, the basin may be considered as extending into Nebraska. In fact, a few wells in northeast Nebraska have been in operation for some time that are clearly in the same basin as those on the north side of the Mis- Souri River. The continuity of the beds of the Upper Missouri Cretaceous series is one of its marked features. The rocks are not only continuous and of great extent, but they are also unbroken and undisturbed throughout their whole extent. Where they have been disturbed at all it has been by the thrusting up through them of masses of volcanic rock in the western part of the Series. But even here, owing to their plastic nature, they have not been fissured nor broken by any of these uplifts, save in the immediate neighborhood of the disturbance. These facts have an important bearing on the economic side of the artesian well question. They very nearly remove the underground un- Certainty that is so annoying in the case of many artesian basins. In cases where the water-bearing rock is one of the older series, say the Potsdam, or one of the sandstones of the Carboniferous, the confining beds are often fissured in such a way that the rock ceases to be water- bearing in places where the continuity of the beds is unquestioned and all surface indications are favorable. The water has escaped through the fissure to lower levels, and the basin, so far as water is concerned, terminates abruptly at the line of fissure. In regions that have been much disturbed, this is probably the cause of failure in a large number of cases. In the present case, for the reasons already given, this cause of fail- ure is almost entirely removed. The limiting causes here are the fol- lowing: On the southeast the water-bearing rock rises to the surface at such a low altitude as to allow leakage. In the same region the overlying impervious beds thin out to the southeast so much as to allow the water to escape upward, thus still further reducing the pressure and conse- quently the flow as this part of the basin is reached. It may be remarked here that in addition to the artesian springs reported last year in this region, it now seems probable that some of the shallow artesian Wells in the northern part of Yankton and Clay counties at least may derive their supply from this same leakage. This fact was suspected last year, but at that time I had no evidence that warranted its publi- cation. It seems that the Water, after rising through the Cretaceous THE LEAKAGE FLow IN THE BASIN AT YANKTON. 197 beds to the Drift, runs into beds of sand, which are covered by imper- Vious beds of clay, thus forming local artesian basins of small extent. That this leakage is extensive is very probable. It seems to be greatest in the neighborhood of Yankton. At this point the covering beds consist only of the Benton shales and the Niobrara, or chalk beds. The latter are rigid enough to sustain fracture, and a small “fault” oc- Curs in the beds just north of Yankton. The throw is a trifle over 4 feet. The Missouri River has removed about 100 feet of these beds from a strip over 2 miles in width. This strip is now covered by the silt of the river, and hides all leakage that may occur there. At Run- ning Water, Randall, and Chamberlain, springs are seen rising from the bed of the river. Were it not for this leakage, I see no reason why the most powerful Wells should not be found in this part of the basin. The pressure at Yankton, for instance, ought to be 175 pounds, but it is only 52 pounds. On the east the water does not fail until the real border of the basin is reached. On the north no tests have been made further north than Devils Lake. The northerly dip of the beds carries the Dakota so deep in the northern part of the north State that depth becomes the limiting element there. The western part of the basin is yet unexplored. The question here is whether the water will rise to the surface of the more elevated por- tions. - - Taking the wells of the eastern or James River district as a standard, the chances are that it will not, as none of these wells have force enough to raise the water to a greater height than 2,000 feet above sea level. Much of the country west of the Missouri River is from 2,000 to 2,500 feet above the sea. If flowing wells are found in these more elevated districts, it will probably be due to one of the following causes: (1) The water-bearing rock may be found nearer to the surface there than it is farther east; (2) the sandstone may be coarser to the westward, thus lessening the friction, so that as the finer-textured portions are reached the water tends to accumulate, and as the surface is considerably lower than the supposed source the water may rise through the drill hole to higher levels than it would farther east; (3) there may be other water-bear- ing beds at higher levels than the Dakofa sandstone that can furnish flow to these regions. - Distribution of beds.—Last year I was unable to reach a conclusion in regard to the shale beds in the northern part of the Dakotas. I was rather inclined to call the surface beds Benton. More study has con- Vinced me that they are either Pierre or else the whole Colorado and Montana group becomes one in one unbroken series of uniform charac- ter, so much like the Pierre that the record of an artesian well is not sufficient to warrant any distinction. The beds spoken of in my report last year as occurring at Milton are now known to be continuous with the undoubted Pierre on the Missouri at Forest City and above. A small patch of the Fox Hills group was found in the region be- tween the James River district and the Missouri in North Dakota. The eastern border of the Laramie has also been roughly determined. The Tertiary beds are put in rather at random on the map accom- panying this report, as they lie almost wholly in the unstudied por- tion. They have been seen at several points, but not examined much. . Doubtful districts.-The region lying between the Missouri River and the James River district, known commonly as the “Coteau du Mis- souri,” was examined to some extent, with the intent of finding if pos- 198 IRRIGATION. sible whether the artesian conditions extended over that region. The Coteau seems to me to be simply that part of the Great Plain cut off by the Missouri River from the western portion, and made more promi- ment by two natural causes. The first of these is the erosion of the James Valley. As in the case of the Red River of the North, the Cre- tacean beds have been largely carried away by an ancient erosion, oc- curring before glacial times at least. This erosion made the bed of Lake Dakota, the draining of which left the present James Valley. Climbing up out of this old lake bed to the west, say, in the altitude of Aberdeen, we reach in the western part of Edmunds County an eleva- tion of 2,000 feet. From here west the country is a level plain with a very constant elevation. About 10 or 15 miles from the Missouri the descent into its valley begins. It is much more abrupt than the ascent from the ancient valley on the east. In fact, except in the valleys of the streams, the whole descent of 350 feet is made in less than a mile. The streams have cut more gradual slopes, but their erosion is slight. Crossing the deep gash in the plain made by the Missouri and climbing out, we come again upon a comparatively level plain, but very little if any higher than the one we left on the east side of the river. The “Coteau,” then, is a hill of erosion, made prominent by having both flanks carried away. Another feature adds to its prominence. The summit of this ridge is covered in many places by moraines. These have not eroded regularly like the sedimentary beds below them, but have as usual been cut into peaks and low, irregular hills, which blend with the slopes of the valleys in such a way as to seem to be a part of the original structure. As to the probability of success in obtaining an artesian flow here, the question is the same as it is on the west side of the Missouri farther south, which I have already discussed. It is simply a question of elevation. There are no forbidding geological conditions aside from that. The structure is the same here as in the regions to the east. The erosion simply has not been so great, that is all. The water supply other than artesian in this region is somewhat interesting. Under the drift and other recent deposits is another and older land surface. This surface had been eroded and cut into valleys and ridges like the present surface. The old buried stream-beds and beaches, filled with sand and gravel, are the sources of the present water supply. From facts furnished me by Mr. Barr, of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad, I conclude that these old streams ran in a north and South direction. The depth to which these beds of gravel have been covered varies from 20 to 40 feet. The average is about 25 feet. The Water is always of good quality in these gravel beds, and the supply never fails. Wells dug at any other place pene- trate the blue clay after passing through the drift, and are often sunk to the depth of a hundred or more feet without finding water, and when it is found it is invariably of poor quality. NATURAL SUBTERRAN EAN RESERVOIRS. Notwithstanding all that has been said about the subject of irrigation and artesian wells, there is a great deal of misapprehension and error in reference to some of the fundamental principles of the subject. It is still commonly believed, for example, that flowing wells can be had any- where by going deep enough. The favorite idéa concerning the source of artesian water is that of an underground lake. The only formidable UNDERGROUND RESERVOIRS AND THEIR CHARACTER. 199 rival of this view in the Dakota basin is the notion entertained by many that the water comes from the Missouri River through an underground Channel. Without discussing these views at all, I simply give here a brief account of the character of these reservoirs as they occur in the Dakotas. As in other regions they are of three kinds, as follows: (a) Gravel sheets and streams at shallow depths. (b) Sand and gravel beds, under this beds of clay. (c) Sandstones and conglomerates at various depths in the great sedi- mentary series. Over a large portion of the Dakotas, and, to a less extent in Montana, under the soil and drift or other recent deposit, another and older land surface is found at varying depths. This, like the present surface, was eroded by streams and dotted by lakes, which have left their record indelibly fixed in the geological history. One part of this record consists of long lines of gravel, generally narrow, but extending for miles in one direction. These are beach lines of former lakes. They are easily distinguished from the other portion of the record, which consists also of stretches of gravel beds, by the fact that they are straight for long distances, and when they do curve it is in the regular smooth fashion of a lake shore at the present time. The other part of the record consists of more sinuous and uneven lines, or beds of sand and gravel, marking the courses of ancient streams, the accompaniments of the lakes just mentioned. From such evidence as I was able to collect I infer that the general course of these ancient streams was north and South. These gravel beds are at various depths in various parts of the country. In the district lying between the James River district and the 'Missouri River the average depth is 25 feet. They are invariably found to contain an abundance of excellent water. They are the source of the ordinary shallow wells of the country. It is often a strange and unaccountable thing to a settler in the region mentioned to find that his neighbor on the east or west finds abundance of good water at comparatively shallow depth, while he digs to twice or three times the depth finding only blue clay and little or no water, and that little of poor quality. He has simply been digging on the banks of the former stream, in beds that never contained water and are nearly impervious to it, while his more fortunate neighbor has sunk his well into the bed of the ancient stream, now filled with water-bearing sand and gravel. The natural supply for these sheets is the rainfall of the region fil- tered through the soil and drift, which has buried and hidden the old surface from sight. The districts in which the conditions under (b) exist are more limited. In these cases, after the beds of sand and gravel had been laid down, there was spread over them a continuous layer of clay, and usually more drift with other deposits, and over all the soil. The clay cover is sometimes more extensive than the sand bed, usually so indeed; and when it covers the lower portion, leaving the upper part covered only by pervious beds, we have the requisite conditions for a flowing well, which may or may not deliver its water at the surface. This will depend on the extent of the bed of sand. Such conditions as are here described occur in several parts of the Dakotas. The flowing wells of the Red River Valley belong here. The creta- ..ceous shales were completely removed from that valley by preglacial erosion, a considerable bed of sand was spread over the region, and 200 - IRRIGATION. * then, as a result of some physical change, a bed of blue clay was brought down and spread over the whole valley. Since then the glacial drift has been spread above the clay, and the lacustrine deposit of Lake Agassiz over that, and, finally, the Soil covers all. Probably through leaks in the thin and elevated western edge of this covering, meteoric water percolates and collects in the sealed-in sand of the old buried surface of the valley.” Other districts, similar to, but smaller than this one, are found in various parts of the country. The shallow wells of Miner County, S. Dak., as well as those of Lincoln and Turner counties, are examples of flowing wells due to such condi- tions. So far as I know these wells are confined to regions that have a considerable deposit of glacial drift upon them. - The supply of such wells is necessarily limited, and the flow and pressure usually small. They furnish water suitable for domestic pur- poses, and in quantities sufficient for stock farms, but not large enough for extensive irrigation. The greatest natural reservoirs are found in the beds of sand and gravel constituting part of the great ancient series of sedimentary rocks. All rock, without exception, contains water. The amount car- ried varies with the texture of the rock. The hard, close textured rocks carry but little less than 1 per cent, while the softer, more open- textured varieties may carry from 20 to 30 per cent. A cubic foot of sandstone may thus contain from 1 to 2 gallons of water. When such a bed of sandstone lies between two impervious beds of rock, and has one of its edges extended up at a slight angle, and reaching beyond the covering bed so as to receive a good supply of meteoric water, we have the simplest conditions for an artesian flow. All the great arte- sian basins, whether water or oil be the product, have this structure or some modification of it. The water-bearing rock is not always sand- Stone, however. In this region the Dakota sandstone is believed to be the water-bear- ing rock from which all our artesian wells draw their supply. It is a rock of great extent and considerable thickness, and is a good water- carrier. As already explained, its western edge is along the flanks of the mountains and around the outer edge of the Black Hills, where it has good opportunities to absorb large quantities of water. Its eastern edge is exposed in eastern Nebraska and northeastern Kansas, as well as in the southeast corner of South Dakota. Aside from these expo- sures, its easterne dge is buried by the overlying Colorado beds. Prob- ably, were it not for this fact, since the western edge of the Dakota is 2,000 feet above the eastern edge, the water would not accumulate, but would run out at the lower eastern edge as fast as it could run in at the western. One of the most interesting as well as important questions connected with this rock is the extent to which the water accumulates, that is, how far toward its Source the water has saturated the rock. In this connection a letter received from Mr. L. H. Hole, president of the North American Loan and Trust Company, Chicago, is inter- esting: CHICAGO, IL.L., August 10, 1891. DEAR SIR: Replying to your favor of the 23d ultimo, which awaited my return from New Mexico. In the fall of 1890 the Huron waterworks well was found to be on the decline. This led to numerous observations made at short intervals from that time up to May, 1891. The observations were made on the two city wells, the Day and Harrison, and the Consolidated Irrigation Company wells, 8 miles north of Huron. I have not the figures in my possession, but will send and get them if they * Mr. Upham thinks the supply for soune of these wells comes from the Dakota. sandstone. * THEORIES As To THE sources oF DAKOTA BASIN. 201 have not been destroyed. From these observations we found that there was a grad- mal decline in the pressure of each one of the wells, each showing a sympathy (to a common cause) of about the same pound pressure. This diminution continued on until, I think, some time in December, when it came to a standstill, and from that time until May there was a continual increase in the pressure. The same increase was noted in each well, or nearly so, until in May or the 1st of June, when the high- est pressure was reached. Since that time we have made no observations, but I was at Redfield when the Government agents tested the Redfield well in the middle of June, and it was found to be as high or a little higher than ever before known. From these observations I deduce the following conclusion : That the source of water is the Rocky Mountains, and as the snow melts and the rain ceases as it does there in the summer and fall, the pressure is diminished. While some may object to this theory as indicating a limit to the supply, to me it is encouraging, for so long as the rain falls and the snow melts in the mountains, we will have this supply in abundance. Yours sincerely, L. H. HoLE. Prof. G. E. CULVER, Vermillion, S. Dak. Should further observation confirm this oscillation of pressure re- ported by Mr. Hole, it would indicate a pretty free communication through the whole extent of the Dakota sandstone, or else that the water does not accumulate far back toward the Source. THE SUPPLY OF WATER. Source.—A multitude of opinions as to the source of the water have been from time to time published, and each seems to have its believers. Among them are the following: 1, the Great Lakes; 2, the lakes of Canada; 3, Devils Lake, North Dakota; 4, great subterranean lakes; 5, the Missouri River. The fact that these opinions find currency in the public press even in the large cities, leads me to think that it may be well to state here briefly the objections to them and the reasons for thinking that the water comes from an entirely different source. First, the Great Lakes are simply out of the question; their elevation is not sufficient by at least 1,000 feet; second, the Canadian lakes are thrown out for the same reason; third, Devils Lake is about 25 feet lower than the sur- face of the ground where the artesian well at the town of Devils Lake is located, and the well will throw the water 40 feet higher still. With- out saying anything further, it is sufficiently evident that this lake can not be the source; fourth, great subterranean lakes would have to be either very numerous or very extensive to supply all the wells, as they are scattered over a region 350 miles long and at least 100 miles wide. Besides, the only known force that could lift the water to the surface in opposition to gravity is either gas pressure or the pressure produced loy the collapsing of the plastic strata covering the reservoirs. In the first case the pressure would not be likely to be maintained at such an even tension, and gas would be likely to escape with the water. In the second case the collapsing of the cover would be apt to show itself in other ways, and the difficulty of supplying so many underground lakes is the same. There seems to me to be no evidence of the truth of this opinion; fifth, the Missouri River, in order to supply the wells, must find its way through the covering beds at a point in its course where its elevation is over 2,000 feet. Its elevation at Williston, in the north- western part of North Dakota, is 1,869 feet. Hence we must go farther up stream yet. About at the mouth of the Milk River the desired eleva- tion is obtained. This is 150 miles west of the east line of Montana. . 202 *** IRRIGATION. At this point the bed of the Missouri is separated from the Dakota sandstone by the whole thickness of the Pierre, Niobrara, and Benton groups, a total thickness of probably not less than 2,000 feet of almost impervious beds. It seems to me that it is putting it mildly to say that it is highly improbable that any such leakage occurs here as would be necessary to supply the whole artesian basin. Partly from the fact that none of these sources seem adequate to the case, and more because the Dakota sandstone either crops out or comes near the surface along the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, the writer has long been of the opinion that the source must be looked for in that direction. The sandy region in northwestern Nebraska is a good collecting area, but it is probably unable to deliver its water to the Dakota sandstone, being prevented by the thick, impervious beds of the Benton and Niobrara, and perhaps also the Pierre. Amount.—On this point there is yet but little evidence on which to base a judgment. The most important testimony is furnished by the wells themselves. The fact that these have, many of them, been flowing for five years and yet show no diminution of either flow or pressure, points to an abundant supply, but does not prove it. Further evidence in the same line is found in the large number of wells now flowing and in the fact that the new ones have just as strong flow and pressure as those had which were bored earlier. Further than this, if the theory of a Rocky Mountain source be true, the supply is not only copious, but C07tstant. THE BLACK HILLS. About three weeks were spent in a general reconnoissance of this region. The main question was the determination of the relation of the drainage of the Black Hills to the supply of the Dakota Artesian Basin. Incidentally some other observations were made relating to some of the other objects of this investigation. In order that the account may be as intelligible as possible, a brief general description of the structure of the hills is here given. With the rising of the Rocky Mountains—whether that event was synchro- nous with the Black Hills uplift or not—the whole plains area was tilted slightly to the east for a long distance eastward from the moun- tains. *.* The Black Hills have been thrust up through this gently sloping plain. The axis of the uplift is approximately north and south. If the movement was a comparatively sudden one, the huge mass of strata uplifted formed a great ridge or elongated mound 10,000 to 15,000 feet high and from 80 to 100 miles long from north to south, the width being not more than 50 miles. This mound was composed of the whole geo- logical series of rocks, with the possible exception of the Tertiary. Since its upheaval the top has been cut off by erosion to its present condition and elevation. From the appearance of the rocks, as well as from analogy, it seems more probable that the rising was slow and that the hills have never attained the elevation required by the former supposition. At any rate, the whole sedimentary series, from the oldest Paleozoic to the young- est rocks here represented, has been removed from the axial area, leav- ing the surface exposure as follows: - * In the central or axial area are the Archaean schists and slates, occu- pying a tract about 60 miles long and 10 to 25 wide, the greatest extent being from north to South. Surrounding this Archaean area, in rude, ^ A., 5°S. º <—” Ş § === & § |- J- S$s š=== - 3% J- º;º#===__ § * as l- &=>Sº s gº º% = ===HEE===############# º: #= - ſ zº- - -** - Vº - |- 1 - , - “ ” SS == jºšāºšº' Szouz Quargite - Archaean Schists etc. 1, 1- * DSS z 1 •Sea. Zevel --sº- Palegoics - Jºg.// Mo'eal section across South Dakota on a line passing through Triassic (headed) Sioux /alls, and Agºud City. Jurassic Dakota ſtºrara Colorado §. Mondarza - (Averre only!) : Zength of section 385 miles TOPOGRAPHICAL AND DRAINAGE FEATURES. 203 Concentric bands, are the sedimentary beds of the Paleozoic and the Mesozoic rocks, dipping away in all directions from the Archaean, but at Constantly lessening angles, with some local exceptions, until a few miles out on the plains the beds are so little disturbed as to appear level to the unaided eye. Not only do these beds appear in concentric bands, but each series forms a wall with its steeper face inward; so that as one travels toward the center from any point without, he ascends a long, gradual slope on the back of the Cretaceous beds, which ends in a short, abrupt descent to the next series, which in like manner rises toward the central por. tion of the hills and terminates in a steep wall, from the foot of which, rising gradually, the next older series appears, each with a little steeper ascent, until finally the Archaean is reached. This is the result of the combined action of the forces of upheaval and of erosion, probably acting together through long periods of time. Present Topography.—The schists and slates of the Archaean region Seem to have yielded to the attacks of time more readily than the younger sedimentary beds. As a result these latter rocks, especially the Carboniferous limestone, rise considerably above the Archaean area, except in the case of the peaks of the latter. The peculiar structure already described brings the drainage squarely against each formation in turn, from the Potsdam to the Tertiary. The Archaean schists have been cut into peaks, ridges, gulches, and valleys, mostly well wooded in the northern hills, but with more numer- ous grassy, park-like openings in the southern part. The streams which flow down these valleys have cut through the surrounding wall of Paleozic rock, carving a series of deep and picturesque caſions, whose walls afford a fine exposure of these beds, and have met and overcome in succession the various other walls already spoken of, until finally they emerge from the foothills of Dakota sandstone and start across the gently sloping plain to the Cheyenne River. A fairly good idea of the general topography may be had by imagin- ing a series of rudely oval concentric valleys surrounding the inner Archaean nucleus and cut at right angles by the caſion and more open valleys of the streams. Of course the walleys are not at all regular in either case, but they are nearly enough so to make the illustration serviceable. Perhaps the most prominent topographical features are the granitic peaks, the outer water wall of Dakota sandstone, and the lted Valley. The caſions of the Carboniferous zone are very pictur- esque, their walls rising abruptly from 200 to 500 feet, and perhaps higher in some places. The Red Valley is a beautiful grassy Zone, from half a mile to 3 miles wide, completely encircling the hills just within the wall of sandstone previously mentioned. It is supposed to be of Triassic age. Drainage.—Probably nine-tenths of the streams flow toward the east. Those that flow down the shorter western slope are also much smaller than the others. Whether this is due to the original structure and topography, or whether the precipitation being more copious on the eastern slope has shaped the topography to this result, may be ques- tioned. It seems likely, however, that the tilting of the plains to the east helped to start the more rapid erosion of the eastern slope, and that this tendency was favored, and still is, by the greater rainfall of that side. It is evident that whatever course the streams take in coming down from the hills they must all flow east on reaching the plains. This is equally true of the water flowing in them. 204 IRRIGATION. The streams are all formed by springs that rise in the lower edge of the Archaeau area. These springs are formed by the rain which sinks into the thin stratum of soil covering the rocks in this inner region. The water runs down the inclined surface of the schists until it comes out in the sides of the ravines and gulches. These springs are all soft and very cold. % That some of the water finds its way into even the Archaean rocks is evident from the fact that at the Homestake mine a pump that lifts two barrels at every stroke is kept running day and night to keep the mine free. By the time the streams leave the Archaean area they have attained considerable size. They flow swiftly down through the caſions cut in the Paleozoic rocks, and on reaching the Carboniferous limestone most of them sink, and all of them lose considerable water. This sinking of the streams is one of the marked features of the hills drainage. The only streams which do not disappear are the Redwater, Spearfish, and Rapid creeks; Whitewood and Battle creeks do not disappear, but formerly did so. -- A suggestion made by Newton in 1875 has been realized in recent years. He said: * Possibly, after the work of active mining has been pursued in the valley for some time, sending down the creeks large quantities of sand and fine mud, some of them will become running streams out on the plains. The muddy water from the stamp mills of the Homestake Mine has stopped the leaks in the bed of the Whitewood Creek, and a heavy flood is said to have done the same for Battle Creek. The creeks, so far as my observation extended, all sink at the same geological horizon. As mentioned before, some water is certainly ab- sorbed by all the rocks, but the streams grow constantly larger until they reach the base of the Carboniferous. Here they begin to shrink, and within a distance of from a half a mile to 2 miles they entirely disappear. Elk Creek, at the time of my visit, ran beyond this limit and disappeared in the débris at the mouth of the cañon. I was in- formed, however, by Mr. Runkel, who lives on his stream near the base of the Carboniferous, that the stream retreats up the valley to his place every season after the usual time of high water, and that it is some- times dry even farther up than that. As to the Volume of water carried by the streams, I am able at this time to give the figures of a portion of them. I measured the flow of a large spring on Boxelder Creek (Dotys) in the following manner: Depth of stream, 6 inches; width of stream, 3 feet. Its velocity is such that stones weighing 10 or 12 pounds dropped gently into it are carried rapidly down the stream. According to the law of running water the velocity of this stream can not be less than 5 feet per second, which gives a flow of 73 second feet, or 3,360 gallons per minute. As near as I could judge, the flow of the creek just above the junction with the stream from the spring was at the time of my visit—June 15– about twice the flow of the spring. The total flow, therefore, of the stream and spring is 224 second feet, or in round numbers 10,000 gal- lons per minute. I measured the flow of one branch of Spring Creek accurately, and found it to be 1,000 gallons per minute. I judge this branch to furnish less than one-fou'ſ h of the whole stream. If this is correct, the whole flow is not less than 4,000 gallons per minute. * P. 124, Geology of the Black Hills. - THE ARTESIAN SPRINGS OF THE BLACK HILLS. 205 Fall Creek, in the southern hills, has been carefully measured at the point where it crosses the Dakota sandstone, and found to have a flow of 30.65 second feet, or 13,792 gallons per minute. This measurement Was made by Mr. Quarnberg, of Cascade. From Mr. Broughton, chief engineer of the Dakota, Wyoming and Missouri River Railroad at Rapid City, I obtained the flow of Rapid Creek, measured at the point where it enters the Red Valley, and be- fore it has received the flow of one large and several small springs. The flow, as given at this point by Mr. Broughton, is 49.4 second feet, or 22,230 gallons per minute. This amount must be increased by fully 1,000 gallons to include the whole flow of the stream. Rapid Creek is the largest of the streams that take their rise in the hills. No other streams were measured, nor measurements obtained. There are about twenty-seven streams in all. Only a part of them con- tinue as flowing streams clear out to the plains. Springs.—In speaking of the streams I have incidentally mentioned the springs. There are two distinct groups of these. The first, or upper group, consists of a great number of small springs of almost pure soft water, and of very low temperature. . This group is confined wholly to the Archaean area, and is the source of the streams of the hills. Their origin has already been described. Even at altitudes as great as 6,000 feet these springs occur, and at one point on the Fort Pierre and Black Hills Railroad a little lake, spring fed, stands at a constant level all the year round, in a slight depression in the schists, 6,000 feet above the sea and apparently above all but a few peaks in the immediate neigh- borhood. Near the top of the Carboniferous, at a level some 400 feet lower than the one at which the streams sink, occurs the second or lower series of springs. These usually rise in the valleys of the sunken streams. They are of large size, have an average temperature in the northern hills of about 500 l'., and are somewhat mineralized. No analysis of them has been made, so far as I know, but from the fact that they come up from the limestone of the Carboniferous, and the further fact that in all probability the water is the same as that which disappeared in the beds of the streams at the base of the Carboniferous, salts of lime are probably the chief ingredients. I have already spoken of one of these —Dotys, on Boxelder Creek. - - In the valley of Rapid Creek are several more of this group. The Claghorn group is the most important of these. This group consists of, perhaps, half a dozen springs of different size, but otherwise much alike. Their temperature is 500 F., and their combined flow is 16.9 second feet or 7,605 gallons per minute. About 3 miles from this group is another large spring in the same valley, the Leedy Spring. It is very much the same in all respects, so far as a cursory examination could determine. The water is piped to Rapid City, which place it supplies with water for all purposes, and there is an overflow from which I estimated at least 500 gallons per minute. The entire flow of the spring, with some small ones that come out along the banks of the stream, can not be less than 3,500 gallons per minute. In the southern hills at Hot Springs, from the same horizon, a series of hot, or rather warm, springs come forth. The temperature of these springs varies from 700 to 920 F. The flow of the largest one has been measured by Quarnberg, who makes it 400 cubic feet per minute. The water of this spring is now used to supply the large plunge-bath re- cently built there. The size of this bath is 50 by 200 feet and 4 feet 206 ; IRRIGATION. , deep. The proprietor told me that the spring would fill the bath in about two hours. This gives 333} cubic feet per minute, and, as there is considerable leakage, agrees fairly well with Mr. Quarnberg's more careful measurement. The temperature of this spring is 880 F. at the point where it enters the bathing room. The combined flow of all these springs here is 1,232 cubic feet per minute, or 9,240 gallons per minute. They are much re- sorted to by invalids and others both in summer and in winter. At Cascade, in the extreme southern hills, occurs another group of slightly warm springs. Their temperature varies from 650 to 700 F. The largest of the group has a flow of 228 cubic feet per minute (1,695 gallons). The total flow of this group is 1,260 cubic feet per minute (9,450 gallons). Preparations are being made to utilize this water for a similar use as those at Hot Springs. - What the cause of the higher temperature of these springs is I do not know. Volcanic activity has been greater farther north in the hills; in fact, these warm springs are entirely outside, south of the are showing lava at the surface. - These springs are thought to be more highly mineralized than the others. The following analyses have been made for the proprietors by Chicago chemists: Minnekata Spring. Grains. Silica---------------------------------------------------------------------- 2.464 Peroxide of iron ----------- ----------------------------------------------- Trace. Calcium sulphate ---------------------------------------------------------- 16, 352 Magnesium sulphate ------------------------------------------------------- 4.320 Sodium sulplate.--. ------------------------------------------------------ 25.620 Potassium sulphate. Sodium chloride and potassa (8io) ------------------------------------------ 13.790 Mammoth Spring. Sodium sulphate ------------------------------------------------------ • * * * * 23. 262 Potassium sulphate -------------------------------------------------------- 5. 627 Calcium sulphate ---------------------------------------------------------- 36.212 Calcium chloride----------------------------------------------------------- 5. 588 Ammonium chloride-------------------------------------------------------- 0.029 Magnesium chloride-------------------------------------------------------- 4. 114 Magnesium nitrate --------------------------------------------------------- 0.302 Magnesium phosphate------------------------------------------------ tº sº ºne º sº tº 0.099 Magnesium carbonate.----------------------------------------------------- 3. 505 Ferric oxide---------------------------------------------------------------- 0.149 Alumina ---------------------- tº at º as tº ſº e º se e s sº tº us tº us tº º tº e s tº º s = * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * = as as a se 0.271 Silica------------------------------------------------------------------- ... 1. 548 Lakota Spring. Sodium sulphate -------------- --------------------------------------------- 8.824 Potassium sulphate -------------------------------------------------------- 3.333 Calcium sulphate ---------------------------------------------------------- 16. 290 Calcium chloride----------------------------------------------------------- 8.499 Ammonium chloride-------------------------------------------------------- 0.049 Magnesium chloride-------------------------------------------------------- 3. 140 Calcium phosphate -------------------------------------------------------- 0.311 Magnesium nitrate--------------------------------------------------------- 0.150 Magnesium carbonate ----------------------- * ------------------------------ 3.044 Iron sesqui-oxide----------------------------------------------------------- 0.260 Alumina ------------------------------------------------------------------- 0. 021 Silica---------------------------------------------------------------------- 0, 830 The analyses of the Mammoth and of the Lakota were made by Prof. Charles Gibson, of Chicago; that of the Minnekata by Prof. G. A. Maringer, of Chicago. BLACK HILLS As ABSORBERS OF PRECIPITATION. 207 The predominance of the sulphates of the alkalies and the alkaline earths suggests a relationship with the water of the artesian wells of eastern Dakota. - The per cent of saturation is not so high in the case of the springs, but the high proportion—average 68 per cent—of the salts which con- stitute the chief mineral ingredients of the artesian water is certainly significant. as Rainfall of the hills.—The area of the Black Hills region is about 5,000 square miles. The average annual precipitation is 20 inches. This is 7,260,000,000 tons of water. The usual statement made in regard to rainfall is that one-third is absorbed by the soil, one-third runs back to the sea, and one-third is evaporated. In the Black Hills the conditions are, as I have shown, very favorable for absorption. Evaporation is also very rapid on account of the dry- ness of the atmosphere. Of the amount absorbed by the rocks it is evi- dent a large amount is returned to the surface through the large springs. No springs occur outside the outer rim of the Carboniferous zone. This leaves a broad band extending outward to the junction of the Dakota with the Colorado, on which the precipitation either falls directly upon the Dakota or upon the impervious beds which slope toward the Dakota. This rock thus has an unusually good opportunity to absorb water. I estimate that 100,000,000 tons annually fall upon this rock directly, and if only one-fourth is absorbed it receives 25,000,000 tons. But all the streams that leave the hills cross this same rock. What portion they absorb it is impossible to say, but the amount must be con- siderable. f From the fact that so many of the streams sink into the lower beds of the Carboniferous, and the further fact that so many large springs come from the upper beds of the same formation, it seems quite prob- able that the streams are the source of the springs. Whether all the water that sinks is brought back in this way is a question. If it is not, what becomes of the excess is a more interesting question still. Suppose it follows the dip of the rocks eastward. One of the three results may follow : (1) The rocks may change their dip to the southeast, and thus carry the water out of the district entirely. • (2) The rocks (Carboniferous) may pinch out to the east before the over- lying Trias, which is more impervious, and this would result in keeping the water from passing to the eastern portion of the basin, and would cause an accumulation in the Carboniferous beds. (3) It may be that the reverse of the last case is true and the Trias pinches out first. In this case the Carboniferous would pass the water onto the overlying Jura sands, or, if these be wanting, to the Dakota, which * is continuous over the entire southern part of the basin at leaSt. Any one of these three cases seems to me possible. What data have we for determining which is most probable % In the eastern part of South Dakota neither the Carboniferous nor the Trias occur. Both pinch out, but which one first we do not know. This evidence is, there- fore, negative. The Carboniferous rocks in Nebraska dip east-south- east. This would favor the first view. In North Dakota, both the Car- boniferous and the Trias occur, but neither is water-bearing. “In outcrops in Nebraska and Kansas, the Dakota does rest upon the Carboniferous, as was long ago pointed out by Lesquereau. 208 IRRIGATION. While it is thus evident that we have too little eviderce for a conclu- sion in this matter, a fragment from the report of Prof. Hicks, made last year, is suggestive. In speaking of the flow from the Carbonifer. ous in Nebraska he says: “Contrary to what one would naturally ex- pect, the limestones yield more water than the sandstones.” He does not report any strong flow, however, from this horizon. IRECAPITULATION. (1) The total amount of water that falls on the region here discussed is about 7,250,000,000 tons. - (2) Fully 100,000,000 tons falls on the Dakota sandstone. Under the favorable conditions existing it is probable that one-fourth, or 25,000,000 tons, is directly absorbed by this rock. (3) The water absorbed by the soil and the rocks in the upper part of the hills is largely returned to the surface in the form of springs. (4) The streams either all sink or lose considerable water in the lower beds of the Carboniferous. (5) The water which sinks as mentioned in 4 is probably the source Of the large springs. It is uncertain whether all the sunken water re- turns to the surface again in this way. (6) The number of springs and the fact of their great increase in size in the lower or Carboniferous group indicates that the water which sinks into the older rocks does not penetrate to any great depth, but that while running down to lower levels it is constantly rising in the geo- logical scale, appearing successively in the Archaean, Silurian, Carbon- iferous, with steadily increasing volume. (7) All the drainage of the Hills crosses the Dakota sandstone, which thus receives a second accession. (8) The Carboniferous limestone may carry out of the district a por. tion of the water absorbed, or it may pass it along to the Dakota sand. Stone, thus giving it a third supply. (9) The water of the streams, after escaping from the hills, is per- haps capable of irrigating 500,000 acres of land. (About 50,000 acres are actually under such irrigation at present.) (10) The main question, i. e., the relation of the drainage of the Black Hills to the artesian supply, may be safely answered by saying that the Black Hills contribute quite largely to the supply; and the Black Hills in this relation may be considered as an outlier of the Rocky Mountains. TEST WELLS. The region between the James River District and the Missouri River in both Dakotas has only been hastily and incompletely examined. Enough has been determined to show that it is a region in which test Wells are needed, as only actual trial can determine whether the water will rise to the surface or not. There is no reason to doubt that the Water is here. The region has an elevation of 2,000 feet above the sea. This is an important district, and the people are much interested in irri- gation. Two Wells, one, say, at Bowdle, Edmunds County, S. Dak., and the other at Steele, Dawson County, N. Dak, would settle the question for a large district. In South Dakota, West of the Missouri, in the region between Pierre and the South Fork of the Cheyenne River, no examination was made this season. Many settlers are going in there, and the water question is THE ARTESLAN PossIBILITIES OF SOUTH DAKOTA. 209 to all of them a most important one. Two wells, properly located, Would determine most satisfactorily what could be done there. A third district is that region lying between the forks of the Cheyenne and the Black Hills. Perhaps a single well would be sufficient here. A test well here would have more than a local value, as it would not only show whether the water will flow at so high an elevation, but also so near the same. A successful well here would mean much as to the vol- ume of supply. It would also have a very great local value, as the water from the streams, although not yet fully utilized, is not sufficient for the needs of the district. r Many stockmen would put down wells if assured that a flow could be had. - A fourth district is found in western North Dakota and Montana. In the latter State but little work has yet been done. The question here is whether there is another water-bearing rock at a higher level than the Dakota sandstone. It is not to be expected that flows like those of the James River district will be found, but water sufficient for domestic and stock use may be in the sands of the Laramie. As already intimated, the question of prime importance relates to the adequacy of the Supply. Wells are rapidly multiplylng, and the size of them is also increasing. At Yankton, S. Dak., a 12-inch well is now in progress of construction. No basin has yet been found in which a limit to the number of wells it would furnish was not soon reached. The Dakota basin has a limit, and if it is possible to determine ap- proximately what that limit is, no better work can be done than that. , S. Ex. 41, pt. 3—14 C FINAL REPORT ON THE MID-PLAINS DIVISION OF THE ARTESIAN AND UNDERFLOW INVESTIGATION BETWEEN THE NINETY-SEWENTH MERID- IAN OF LONGITUDE WEST OF GREENWICH AND THE FOOTHILLS OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS, I3 Y SPECIAL AGENT J. W. GREGORY, OF GARDEN CITY, KANSAs; AND A SPECIAL REPORT-0N CERTAIN ARTESIAN CONDITIONS IN THE STATE OF SOUTH DAKOTA, 13Y FRED. F. B. COFFIN, ENG IN E E R F O R SOUTH DAK OTA. *-* -º-º-º-º-º-º- ºss-ºs Under the direction of THE SEC FETA RY OF A G RIC U LTURE. (OFFICE OF IRRIGATION INQUIRY.) Senate Executive Document No. 41, Fifty-Second Congress, First Session, IN F O U R P A RTS. P A R T L V . WASHINGTON: GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 1893. THE UNDERWATERS OF THE GREAT PLAINS. * ======== ' A TERIETEMOTERT BY J. W. GREGORY, SPECIAL AGENT OF ARTESIAN AND UNDERFLOW INVESTIGATION, TABLE OF CONTENTs. & Page The Underwaters of the Great Plains. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Surface Charactéristics-------------------------------- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 5–7 Soil ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 7 Climate--------------------------------------------------------------------- 7–8 Moisture-------------------------------------------------------------------- 8 JRain-fall ------------------------------------------------------------------- 8–15 Streams -------------------------------------------------------------------- 15–18 The Need of Irrigation. --------------------------------------, -------------- 18–24 The Means of Reclamation ... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - • * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 25–27 Artesian Wells-------------------------------------- * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 27–28 The “Underflow ’’------------ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ------------- 28–31 It s Extent. -- - - - - - - - - - - --. * * * * * * * * v- * * * * * * * * * * * .- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 31–38 Some Peculiarities---------------------------------------------------------- 38–40 Its Depth--------------------------- * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * = * * 40 Its Quantity---------------------------------------------------------------- 40 How the Water Gets In ------- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 40–42 How to Get the Water Out.----- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42–43 +How the Water is Obtained. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 43–46 Its Sources of Renewal.----------------- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ---------- 46–47 Its Value as a Factor ------------------------------------------------------- 47 Resumé and Amplification -------------------------------------------------- 48–49 ILLUSTRATIONS. Page Fig. 1–How water “runs up-hill” ------------------------------. . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Fig. 2—The disappearance of water in streams. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . * * * * 16 Fig. 3—Origin and tributaries of “rivers of the plains”. . . . . . . . . . . - - - - - - - - - - 18 Fig. 4.—Diagram of water-bearing beds. -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - . . . . . . . . . . 29 Fig. 5—Diagram of water-bearing strata.-- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Fig. 6—Various characteristics of Wells. -----. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Fig. 7–A Southwest Kansas well ---------------------------------. . . . . . . . . . 39 Fig. 8—View of formation on Bear Creek, Colorado . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Fig. 9-A pioneer irrigator :------------------------------------------------ 42 Fig. 10–Irrigation by pumping-mill and reservoir . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Fig.11—How water is obtained - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - . . . . . . . . . 43 Fig. 12—Head of Gilbert Fountain - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 44 Fig. 13—Middle course of Gilbert Fountain - - - - . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Fig. 14—Mouth of Gilbert Fountain - - - - - - - - - - - - - . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . -- 45 Fig. 15—Head of “southwestern” fountain - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 45 Fig.16—Relative positions of river and fountain. -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 45 Fig. 17—Confluence of “underflow” and river waters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Fig.18—Headgates, Southwestern canals - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 46 Fig. 19—Head of “Amazon” canal system. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Fig. 20–McClain's reservoir-----------------------------------------...... -- 47 4. THE UNDERWATERS OF THE GREAT PLAINS. The field of my investigation, under the United States Department of Agriculture, is situated in western Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and eastern Colorado, bounded, substantially, by the thirty-sixth and forty- third parallels of latitude and the ninety-seventh and one hundred and fourth meridians of longitude. This region has been officially desig- nated the “middle division.” It contains more than 200,000 square miles and above 130,000,000 acres of territory. That portion situated west of the one hundredth meridian embraces at least 75,000,000 acres. The subject of investigation is the subterranean water resources of the division. Any conclusions at the present stage of developmont, concerning the subterranean waters of this mid-plain country, which are or which may be available for use in irrigation, must be largely drawn from a multi- plicity of facts and indications, many of which, examined and consid- ered alone, would appear small, perhaps insignificant. But so clear are the evidences which may be found by the earnest inquirer of unpreju- diced mind that, whereas the idea that there could be any appreciable supply of water obtained here in a practicable manner from subterra- nean sources for irrigation uses scarcely could command respectful at- tention a score of months ago, it has now become a matter of com- mon belief and acceptance; and not only have considerable sums of money been already invested in irrigation works, which will depend upon subwaters to a large extent, but indications multiply that works of this kind will very greatly increase in number in the near future, and that the expenditure of capital in such works will reach large amounts, with very satisfactory indications of the judiciousness of such expenditure. - Before entering upon details as to the existence, quantity, and avail- ability of these sub-water supplies, it may be well to take under consid- eration the characteristics of the country under examination as to sur. face, soil, climate, precipitation, etc., with a view to making clear whether there be any need of searching here for subterranean water supplies for any purpose other than ordinary domestic uses—in fact, for any purpose whatever. It is certainly judicious to inquire whether, on the one hand, the region in question so abounds in natural advan- tages as to stand in no need of artificially developed or applied water supply, or whether, on the other hand, it is for any reason unfit for habitation at all, or of such character as to become fit only for grazing purposes, since, in either case, the expenditure of time and money to secure water for irrigation would be useless expense. ** SURFACE CHARACTERISTICS. First, then, the character of the surface in this division should be examined. The whole of the division consists, in general terms, of a broad, treeless plain. In detail, this is made up of alternating shallow 6 6 IRRIGATION. valleys and low “divides,” substantially parallel, extending from the mountains eastward and with a gradual downward slope in the same direction—being, in fact, a continuation of the mountain side and grad- ually approaching a level. On the one hundred and third meridian, the average declination of the surface eastward is about 15 feet per mile. The pitch or slope increases in degree westward, but toward the east decreases gradually until upon the one hundredth meridian the average inclination is about 7 feet per mile, and it still lessens further east. As a rule, the divides are broad, and of comparatively smooth sur- face, the valleys narrow and comparatively shallow, and the rise from Valley to upland is gradual. It is noticeable that the banks, benches, or uplands on the south side of any of these streams or valleys are in- variably more precipitous, broken, and abrupt than on the north side. With rare exceptions, however, the waters of any stream in this portion of the plains can be led out, easily and cheaply, at almost any point along its course. The land at the highest portion of the intervening divides not infrequently rises 200, 300, and even 500 feet above the beds of the nearest streams or valleys. But this height is reached at such a distance from sources of water supply and at such gradations as render it easily possible to conduct water to any portion of the upland, except an occasional small knoll of a few acres in extent, rising with so great abruptness from the surrounding territory that the inclination of the general surface will not suffice to carry the water to its summit. Fig. 1–How water “runs up hill.” Many people find it difficult to understand how water can be run out from a river and up on to high land for use in irrigation. It is the rapid slope of the surface of the plains which makes this an easy mat- ter. The general surface of the Arkansas Valley in Kansas, for exam- ple, has a fall of 74 feet per mile, and gently sloping banks lead from the river up to the prairie, or “upland.” If an irrigating canal be opened from the river, as shown in the accompanying cut, having a fall of 14 feet per mile, it will climb 6 feet higher up the slope each mile of its progress, yet have fall enough for all practical purposes, and thus the water of a stream may be led from its bed to the highest upland. There is an occasional strip or group of sand hills and, less frequently, a “patch" of rough country, broken by narrow caſions, but these two classes of unsightly and apparently undesirableland constitute but a small' portion of the whole area, and are not, by any means, devoid of value. soil, AND CLIMATE of THE GREAT PLAINS REGION. 7 How they may be utilized will be discussed in due order. Except a small spot, here and there, containing a few square feet or rods, at rare intervals, in river bottoms, there are no swamp lands in the division. SOIL. The predominating soil of this division is a Tertiary marl, of great average depth and extraordinary fertility, of fine and even texture, and containing few or no bowlders. This marl is laid down in vast beds, forming almost unbroken areas of thousands of square miles in extent, and varying from three or four feet in depth to upward of a hundred feet in many places. A depth of forty to fifty feet is probably not above the average. This material forms an exceedingly rich and productive Soil, and that which is newly thrown to the surface from the bottoms of cellars and wells proves as readily available for vegetable growth as that of the surface of the ground. Along the streams there may be found narrow bottoms of black loam, and, in other places, principally on second bottom lands, there are occasional outcrops of the “Tertiary grit” which underlies the marl, making a coarser and less strong, but a warmer and very productive soil. Now and then a very small area may be found where the underlying “mortar beds,” elsewhere referred to, have been left without the prevailing covering of marl, and here there is but a thin, sedentary soil of little value, but such areas are So rare and so small in extent as to be practically inappreciable. One feature of the economy of this region, which results from the characteristics of surface and soil, is the easy and cheap construction of remarkably excellent highways. By throwing up a slight grade across any portion of the marly plain, a roadway is formed which is hard, smooth, durable, costing next to nothing for maintenance, and over which, at all seasons and with an ordinary team, may be drawn with ease all the load the best farm wagon will bear. The sandy lands alone appreciably interrupt the continuity of such roadways over the whole of the division. CLIMATE. There are, of course, very considerable variations in the temperature, etc., of different portions of so large an area, covering seven degrees of latitude and as many of longitude and ranging in elevation above Sea. level from 1,000 feet on the eastward limit to upward of 5,000 feet on the west; but the general characteristics of the division are a large percentage of bright, sunny days, the sun acting so powerfully in the growing season as to produce very rapid growth and ripening of Vegeta- tion; yet the heat of the sun in summer is so constantly tempered by cooling breezes that sunstroke is practically unknown and any sort of shade insures comfort. The clearness of the sky and the rarity of the atmosphere permit the rapid radiation of heat, so that summer nights are uniformly cool and pleasant, bringing rest and comfort to the in- habitants. Frosts are rare, disappearing early in the spring and not recurring until late in the autumn. As a rule very mild, pleasant autumn weather, undisturbed by storms, prevails until as late as Jan- uary 1. After that time a brief season of somewhat severe storms may be expected, but they are of short duration. It is a winter of rare severity when farm-plowing can not be done in each month of it, at least as far west as the one hundred and second meridian. The sowing of fall wheat continues, as a rule, in southwest Kansas, northwest Ok- 8 IRRIGATION. lahoma, and Southeastern Colorado until late in December, and teams are busy breaking prairie; and by the middle of February, in almost any Spring season, the work of the diligent farmer is well under head- way and continues without appreciable interruption. The extraordinary dryness of the winter seasons in this region will be made apparent by a study of the tables given elsewhere, showing the average precipitation by months. This absence of moisture in the air renders the winters peculiarly favorable to stockgrowers, as live stock may be kept at a minimum expenditure for food and shelter and with small loss. In brief, the climate is equable, sunny, healthful, and invigorating and winters are dry and mild. * MOISTURE. It would seem, then, that a region of country combining so many advantages of surface—so free from breaks and bogs, unvexed by stumps and stones, or other physical impediments, having a rich and inexhaustible soil, so many favorable elements of climate, such except- ional facilities for employing the ordinary methods of transportation— could not lack many of the essentials to the development of a rich and populous country. And, indeed, there is little lacking to make this region both densely populous and wonderfully rich and productive. The lack is suggested by the heading last above given. It is a lack of moisture. It must be plain that if, to the natural advantages already enumerated, there could be added a sufficiency of moisture to mature crops, there would then be nothing lacking to enable the dwellers in such a region to be eminently successful in all forms and departments of agriculture. For decades this region was known as the “Great American Desert,” had been pronounced, by well-informed persons, unfit for the habitation of civilized people; yet it was afterwards thrown open to settlement as agricultural land and actually settled as such by home-seekers, upon the invitation of the General Government. There must have been, therefore, misjudgment on one side or the other. As a matter of fact, there was misjudgment on both sides. Both estimates were hasty and superficial. To understand wherein the mistakes lay and by what means the errors of the past may be made guide posts to success in the future, it is necessary to carefully examine and analyze ascertained facts regarding the water sources and resources of the mid-plain. RAIN FALL. The following tables show what bas been the recorded rainfall from the 99th to the 104th meridian for a series of years. East of the 99th, while there is much adjacent territory in which irrigation will be so highly beneficial as to justify diligent effort and large expenditure on the part of the inhabitants to obtain it, it can scarcely be considered a necessity. West of the 104th meridian, the mountain snows and tor- rents will unquestionably furnish an abundant supply of water for all purposes. The tables show the average monthly and annual precipitation by meridians, covering periods ranging in length from one to twenty-five years. In the table for any designated meridian are included the records of such places as lie within half a degree east or West of the meridian line. The extreme time from and to which such record ex- “. . * RAINFALL ON FIVE MERIDIANS OF LONGITUDE. . 9 tends in each case is given, but the record is rarely continuous in the longer periods between the two dates given. The data for the tables were obtained from the official publications of the U. S. Signal-Service Office. Through some mischance, certain publications applied for failed to reach me and the tables are, consequently, lacking in desired fullness of detail, and the conclusions to be drawn from what they in- dicate are necessarily less weighty and satisfactory than it was boped they might be. These records embrace the results of observations at twenty- five places scattered throughout a strip of country 1 degree of longi- tude in width, having the 99th meridian west from Greenwich as its meridian line and ranging from 440 2' north latitude down to 26° 23' ; of twenty places similarly situated as to the 100th meridian and ranging from 42° 46' north latitude down to 270 32/; of six places having the 101st meridian as an axis and ranging in latitude from 42° 50' to 290 42'; of four places on the 102d meridian, the range of latitude being from 419 down to 30° 46' ; of eight places on the 103d meridian, latitude 44° 04' to 36° 20'; and of eight places ranging along the 104th merid- ian, from 42° 14' to 30° 36.’ The results given are the averages per month and per annum of precipitation at the places and for the periods indicated. Geographical arrangement of places, giving their latitude, longitude, elevation, and length & of record. 99TH MERIDIAN. Record. Lati- Longi. Eleva- * > Name of place. g g tude. tude. tion. $ To (inclu- Time. From- sive). O f O / Yrs. Am. Fort Hale, S. Dak. -------------...---------- 44 02 99 26 3, 245 5 5 Jan., 1879 |May, 1884 Fort Randall, S. Dak. ...-----...------------ 43 04 || 98 42 | 1,245 32 0 | Nov., 1856 Mar., 1890 Bichmond, Nebr. --...----------------------. 42 36 99 09 . . . . . . . . 1 6 Apr., 1875 Sept., 1876 Sargent, Nebr -----------------------------. 41 38 99 22 |..... --. 3 10 | Feb., 1883 Mar., 1800 Ansley, Nebr------------------------------- 41 15 99 22 |... . . . . . 1 5 | Nov., 1888 Mar., 1890 Fort Harts.uff, Nebr........................ 41 43 | 99 00 |........ 5 9 Sept., 1875 May, 1881 North Loup, Nebr.------------...----------- 41 28 || 98 50 |........ 1 4 || Nov., 1888 Mar., 1890 Ravenna, Nebr ----------------------------- 41 02 || 98 54 ..... --. 3 3 || Aug., 1886 Mar., 1890 Beaver Creek, Nebr.----------------------. 41 00 | 98 57 | . . . . . . . . 3 10 | Jan., 1882 July, 1886 Reene, Nebr. ------------------------------- 40 25 | 99 04 | . . . . . . . . 1 9 || Feb., 1884 || Dec., 1885 Fort Kearney, Nebr.------------...--------- 40 38 98 57 | 2, 360 | 17 2 Mar., 1849 || Oct., 1882 Minden, Nebr. ----------------------------- 40 29 98 57 - - - - - - - - 5 8 June, 1882 Mar., 1890 Inavale, Nebr -----------------------------. 40 05 || 98 37 |. - - - - - - - 2 1 || Jan., 1882 May, 1885 Port Belknap, Tex --------------...--------. 33 08 98 46 | 1,600 5 10 || Oct., 1852 Dec., 1858 Graham, Tex ------------------------------. 33 05 || 98 33 .... - - - - 2 3 || Jan., 1881 | Apr., 1883 Fort Griffin, Tex ...------------------------- 32 53 || 99 21 |........] 12 4 || Aug., 1869 || Apr., 1882 Camp Colorado, Tex.----------------------. 31 55 99 17 |........ 3 11 Jan., 1857 Dec., 1860 $.”City, Tex ------------------------- 31 45 99 15 - - - - - - - - 5 10 || July, 1877 Aug., 1883 aSOD, TeX - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 30 45 99 ().5 Fort Mason, Tex * ºn tº sº tº º ºs sº s tº dº e s tº tº tº º gº tº sº sº º º ºs º º sº 30 48 99 15 $1. 200 9 11 Apr., 1852 Mar., 1882 Fredericksburg, Tex ----------------------. 30 12 98 45 . . . . . . . . 5 11 | Apr., 1877 | Feb., 1883 Fort Martin Scott, Tex........... -----...--. 3 10 | 99 05 | 1,300 2 3 Jan., 1850 Mar., 1852 Camp Verde, Tex ..... tº º ºs ºs ºn º ºs s = * * * * * * * * * * * * 30 00 99 10 | 1,400 5 9 || Jan., 1857 | Feb., 1869 Castroville, Tex---------------------------- 29 15 98 45 ! ... . . . . . 4 8 || Aug., 1877 Mar., 1882 #; º; †† * * * = * * tº tº e º gº tº ſº gº ºn tº ſº tº e º 'º º 28 ; 99 00 ; 2 0 || Oct., 1852 Sept., 1854 tinggo alſT8CKS, TeX - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 26 28 98 45 !1 Rio Grande City, Tex ---........----------. 26 23 98 48 269 $26 9 Sept., 1849 || Dec., 1887 Fort Niobrara, Nebr.----------------------- 42 46 ſ 100 25 |. -...--. Aug., 1880 Mar., 1890 3 Fort McPherson, Nebr ---...------------...--. 41 00 100 03 || 2, 695 2 9 Nov., 1886 Apr., 1880 Red Willow, Nebr.------------------------- 40 14 | 100 30 |........ 5 7 || Jan., 1882 June, 1889 Allison, Kans ----------------------------- 39 34 || 100 16 |... . . . . . 6 6 || Oct., 1883 || Mar., 1890 Buffalo Park, Kans ------------------------- 39 07 || 100 21 | 2, 755 3 4 || Jan., 1885 | Feb., *1890 Dodge City, Kans -------------------------- 37 54 || 100 02 || 2,493 16 0 || Jan., 1875 Dec., 1890 Fort Elliott, Tex --------------------------. 35 30 100 21 |........ 8 0 || Dec., 1879 || Dec., 1887 10 IRRIGATION. Geographical arrangement of places, giving their latitude, longitude, etc.—Continued. 100TH MERIDLAN–Continued. * Record. Lati- | Longi- Eleva- Name of place. & ge - tude. tude. tion. * To (inclu- * Time. | From— sive). &E O f O f Yrg. 7m. Phantom Hill, Tex ...................... ... 32 30 | 99 45 2,300 1 6 | Sept., 1852 Feb., 1854 Abilene, Tex ------------------------------. 32 26 99 37 . . . . . . . . 2 3 || Oct., 1885 Dec. 1887 Fort Concho, Tex.----............--------- 31 32 100 20 | 2, 160 | 15 1 || Aug., 1872 Nov., 1887 Fort Chadbourne, Tex............... -- - - - - - 31 58 || 100 15 2, 120 8 7 May, 1852 Dec., 1860 Fort Terrett, Tex ... ---...----...--------. -- 30 23 100 16 || 1, 320 1 9 Apr., 1852 | sec., 1853 Fort McKavett, Tex...................----. 30 48 || 100 06 || 2,060 | 17 9 Apr., 1852 | Feb., 1883 Bracketville, Tex................... ---...-. 29 20 | 100 12 . . . . . . . . 6 1 || May, 1877 | May, 1883 Fort Clark, Tex.-------...----------------- 29 17 100 25 | 1,000 | 16 5 || Aug., 1852 Aug., 1886 Uvalde, Tex-------------------------------. 29 15 99 45 ...... - . 6 1 | Apr., 1877 May, 1883 Eagle Pass, Tex ---------------------------. 28 43 | 100 30 . . . . . . . . 5 11 July, 1877 | May, 1883 Fort Duncan, Tex.................. -----... 28 39 100 30 1,460 | 16 4 Oct., 1849 || Oct., 1879 #: #. º: Tex............. .......... ; 1() | 99 50 845 || 7 4 | Nov., 1849 || Dec., 1860 OI’ CII) toS eX - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 7 35 | 99 48 806 Ilaredo, Tex.............................I. 27 32 99 26 ; 22 7 July, 1849 Dec., 1887 101ST MERIDIAN. Valentine, Nebr -------------...------------ 42 50 100 32 2,613 4 6 Sept., 1885 | Mar., 1890 North Platte, Nebr ---------...........----. 41 08 100 45 2,841 15 6 Oct., 1875. Mar., 1890 Cnlbertson, Nebr. --...............-------. 40 12 100 48 || 2, 572 2 6 July, 1887". Mar., 1890 Monument, Kans--------------------------. 39 06 || 101 01 || 3, 180 4 10 Jan., 1885 Feb., 1890 Silver Falls, Tex.......... * tº tº as a sº tº ſº tº us ºn tº * * * * is as sº 33 48 || 101 08 ........ 1 10 || Jan., 1886 Nov., 1887 Camp Hudson, Tex--------...--...---------- 29 42 | 101 10 ........ 2 7 May, 1858 || Dec., 1860 $ 102D MERIDIAN Fort Sedgwick, Colo. --.. • * * * * tº gº tº * * * * * * * * * * * 41 00 102 30 3,060 4 0 || Apr., 1867 Apr. 1871 Fort Wallace, Kans ..................... --. 38 54 || 101 33 3,301 || 14 8 || Jan., 1870 Mar., 1890 Midland, Tex....... ---...-- * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 31 57 | 102 04 | . . . . . . . . 2 0 | Nov., 1885 | Nov., 1887 Fort Lancaster, Tex. ---...--..... ------...--. 30 46 101 48 2, 350 4 6 July, 1856 || Dec., 1860 103D MERIDIAN. Rapid City, S. Dak ------------------------. 44 04 || 103 17 | 3, 280 4 7 | Feb., 1881 Mar, 1890 Fort Robinson, Nebr ..... * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 42 39 || 103 24 |........ 6 8 || July, 1883 Mar., 1890 Camp Sheridam, Nebr...----...---...--------. 42 51 102 39 ........ 4 8 July, 1876 Mar., 1881 Hay Springs, Nebr.-----------------------. 42 40 102 38 - - - - - - - - 4 3 Jan., 1886 Mar., 1890 #.Å; §. g as tº sº ſº tº s as º is e s a tº s e º ºs e s s sº º sº, sº as # ; 102 59 4,000 | 12 0 || Jan., 1872 Mar., 1890 as Animas, Colo-...-----------------. ------. 38 05 || 103 07 3,899 º Fort Lyon, Colo-...----------------...-----... 30 06 || 103 08 4, § 10 1 Jan., 1869 |Dec., 1887 Fort Bascom, N.Mex. -...-----.......... -- 35 23 || 103 27 4,000 2 3 Dec., 1864 Oct., 1870 Fort Stockton, Tex..... --...------...-------. 30 20 | 102 52 4,930 | 17 0 || Oct., 1859 June, 1886 104TH MERIDIAN. Fort Laramie, Wyo. ---------...--...--------. 42 14 | 104 29 4, 519 22 10 Sept., 1849 || Dec. 1887 Fiat Creek, Wyo.----...-- ſº tº a m = * * * * * * * * * * * * * 42 05 || 104 20 ! --- - - - - - 2 6 || Oct., 1877 | Sept., 1880 Cheyenne, Wyo----------------------------. 41 08 || 104 18 6, 105 19 11 || Jan., 1870 | Mar., 1890 Rimball, Nebr. ----------------------------- 41 13 | 103 40 l. - . . . . . . 2 1 || Oct., 1887 | Mar., 1890 Fort Reynolds, Colo --------...-------------- 38 15 104 12 || 4, 300 0 Jan., 1869 Mar., 1872 Trinidad, Colo ------------. & sº e s = s. sº in e s is us is e º me • 37 07 || 104 30 6,070 3 6 Aug., 1877 | Feb., 1881 Fort Sumner, N. Mex. ---------........ ----. 34 19 || 104 09 |.... ... 4 8 || May, 1864 July, 1889 Fort Davis, Tex..... sº º ºn tº m is a s = * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 30 36 103 36 || 4,700 19 3 || Jan., 1855 Dec., 1887 MERIDIONAL TABLES OF PRECIPITATION. * 11 Rainfall in inches, showing the average values for each month. 99TH MERIDIAN. Name of place. Jan. Feb. Mch Apr. May. June. July. Aug. Sept. Oct.|Nov. Dec.jYear. Fort Hale, S. Dak.......... 0.56; 1.09 0.97. 1. 43 3.00 3.69| 2.39; 2. 52 0.70; 2. 32 0.25 0.49 19.79 Fort Randall, S. Dak ....... 0, 41 0.59 1.04] 1.75 3.54; 3.28 °2.71. 2.60 2.02 1.31] 0.49 0.84 20, 50 Richmond, Nebr............ 0.36 1.62. 1.33: 2. 16 3.66 2.30 5.04 7.59 1.81| 0.94 0.75 0.19. 27.85 §º tº tº ſº º ſº º ſº e º 'º tº º tº ºn 0. 53 0.29 0.81| 2.41. 4.04 3.25 4. 12. 3. 11| 1.29 0.48 0.58; 1.35; 22.26 Ansley, Nebr -------------. 0.35 0.10 1.70) 0.50 1.30 2.93| 8.90| 1.23 0.40 0.60 0.40 0.30; 18, 71 Fort Harts.uff, Nebr........ 0.21 0.29; 0, 60. 1. 32. 3. 93 4, 16 4, 34| 1.45 2.32 1.38; 0.28; 0.57| 20.83 North Loup, Nebr.......... 1.09| 0.08 0.68| 1.88 0.98, 3.84 10.37| 1.58 1.60 0.45 0.54|| 0.35|23.44 Ravenna, Nebr. -----------. 0.78| 0. 66 1. 46. 3. 19 2.90 3.95 6. 07 ; 1.84 0. 62 0.78 0.62; 26.20 Beaver Creek, Nebr........ 0.42; 0, 70 1.03] 2.92] 4, 31 2.63 4.09: 3.35| 1.58| 2.20 0.43 0.76] 24, 42 Keene, Nebr............... 0.35 0.46 0. 64 3.44 3.22, 1.36 6.18; 2. 80 1. 20; 2. 20, 0.62; 1. 05, 23. 52 Fort Kearney, Nebr........ 0. 59 0.43| 1.17 2.31] 4.48 3.60. 4, 66] 2.46; 2.27 1.65 0.97 0, 55] 25. 44 Minden, Nebr.-----........ 0.87 0.85| 1.49 4, 54 5. 19 4.07| 6.09: 3.01. 1.80; 2, 48] 1.04] O. 92. 33.25 Inavale, Nebr...... tº sº s º ºs s is e 0.36 d. § 3 ; 3. Tº sº. 5.jā ºl ājj i.; 3.2. ºd ś% #3; Fort Belknap, Tex......... 0.47 3.22, 1.3; 9. §§ 4.2.1; 3.98 2.49 2.97 2.77 2.92. 2.63 1. 10 28.05 Graham, Tex.---------...--. }{2|+}} | {3|{-1} } ; 2.03 5. 24 5. 16. 6.58 1.98 1. 89 1.36; 35. 70 Fort Griffin, Tex -----...--. 1. C5 1. 14 0.75 1.69. 3.00 3.78] 2.69 i.i. 2.73 1. 95; 1.60; 2. 11; 23.63 Camp Colorado, Tex....... 0.92 0.75 0.63. 2.42 1.14 i. 22, 1.03 5.44; 4.27 1.74. 2.46 2.08 24.10 $.” City, Tex. ---...--. 1.04] 1.52ſ 1. 72| 1. º 3, 67 3. 11| 3.99| 2.28 4. 51] 2.28 1. 58; 2. 33 29.70 880m, 'TeX - - - - - - - - - - - - - - gº Fº Fort Mason, Tex . . . . . . . . . 1. 17. 1. 64 1. 16. 2.25; 3.01. 2. 00. 3. 17; 2. 85| 3.92 2.22: 1. 33 1.80; 26. 52 Fredericksburg, Tex -----.. 1.02 1.65| 1.46; 3. 14. 4. 22 1.96 2.95 2.28] 3.73 2.38 2. 19| 1.40 28.38 Fort Martin Scott, Tex . . . . . 0.80; 2.98, 5.82 6.48 2. 31 5. 38; 1.25 1.28 1.31, 1.07 2.68. 1.87 33.03 Camp Verde, Tex .......... 1. 19| 1.41 2.47| 1.34 2. 30| 2.37 2.31] 5.13. 4.47 1.89; 1.94 2.45; 29. 27 Castroville, Tex.......----. 1. 36|| 1.44; 1.33: 2. 31|| 3.08. 1. 31' 3.10| 2.70 | 1.92; 1.71 1. 22, 1.37. 22.85 Fort Ewell, Tex.------...... 0.76 4. 73 0.71/ 1. 12 5. 11| 2.85 2.90] 2.43; 4.91 2.36; 0.49| 1.16|| 34, 53 #######"...}|1.06 0.98 10, 1.05 2 is 2.79 1.5i 2.94 3.10 1.97 0.98 1.2|22.01 ; -- ~~ - - - - Averages ------------ 0.76; 1. 21. 1.35| 2. 35 3. * 3.20. 4, 00 3. w 2. º º 1. * 1. 14, 25.48 100TH MERIDIAN. Fort Niobrara, Nebr ....... 0.47 0.54 0.97 2.65 3.94 2.85 2.31| 1.41 1.29| 1.28 0.33 0.77| 18.76 Fort McPherson, Nebr..... 0.28 0.42 0. 61' 1.54|| 3.73| 3.34; 2, 58] 1. 87| 1. 83 0.48 0.37| 0. 6]. 17.66 Red Willow, Nebr......... 0.82} 0.91| 0.93| 2.49| 3.36 3.39| 2.88. 3. 18. 1.37: 1. 24 (). 33 0.84] 21. 74 Allison, Kans. --------...--. 1. 23 0.71 1. 15 2.91. 4.00 2.94| 4.54| 2.49| 1.75 1. 29| 0.37 0.76; 24. 14 Buffalo Park, Kans ........ 0.92; 0.56; 0.20; 1.85| 1.36 2. 13| 4, 10; 3.93| 1.30| 1.36 0.44 0.50| 18.35 Fort Elliott, Tex........... 0.3 : 0.52} 0. 61| 2. 14' 5. 32, 3, 79| 2.66 3.62. 2, 00 2.82 0.54|| 0.81| 25. 14 I’hanton Hill, Tex...... --. 0.26; 0.80 0, 54 0.45 2.85 2.90| 1.15 0.03. 3. 55 3, 41; 1.34 0.94| 18 22 Abilene, Tex. -------------. 0.09; 0, 91| 1.25 2.06 2. 14' 3.34. 2, 10| 1.56| 3.40. 3, 21 0. 58 0.85 21.49 Fort Concho, Tex.......... 0.80; 0.76] 0.98| 1.27 2.83. 2. 20 2.26; 2.50 3.00| 1.49| 0.78| 0, 15, 19.02 Fort Chadbourne, Tex . . . . . 0.94: 1.37| 0, 85 1. 53| 3.39| 2.55 1. 71 || 2, 27| 3, 30 2. 03: 1. T0 1. 21. 22.85 Fort Terret, Tex........... 0.80; 1.54|| 1.15 0.97 3. 98; 5.14ſ 3.36| 1. 72| 2.91| 4, 21 0. 64| 0.76| 27. 18 Fort McKavett, Tex...... - || 0.92; i. 57 1. 20 0.95 2.64| 2.06| 2.87 2. 50 3.79| 2.24; 1. 53 1. 64. 22. 97 Bracketville, Tex.......... 1. 22} 0.70 2, 00 2. 38; 4.94 2. 16. 2. 20 2.61| 2.70| 3. 30) 1.09| 1, 08' 26, 38 Fort Clark, Tex---...--...- 0. 57| 1.26; 0.94 1.04] 2. 14' 3.42 1.22 2.23| 3.93| 1.41| 1.45 2.45. 22.06 Fort Lincoln, Tex... ...... 0.13 4.00 3. 50 1.86 2.89 2. 07: 1. 00 0.39| 1.54|| 1.36 2. 01 0.98 21.73 Uvalde, Tex --------------. 0.84 1.12| 2.07: 1. 82 2.84 0.90 2.34; 3. 19| 2.74] 1. 21, 1.45| I. 64. 22.06 Eagle Pass, Tex. --...--...--. 1. 12 0.97 1.80) 1. 19. 3. 61| 2. 11] 3.34 3.54|| 3. 54. 1, 92 0. 60) 1. 19| 24. 93 Fort Duncan, Tex.......... 0.33 0, 49. 1, 28 0.86| 1.73| 3. 80 2. 11| 1.91| 3. 52 1.15 1. 17| J. 39| 20. 74 Fort Inge, Tex. ------...--. 0.70) 1, 96 1. 50| 1.52. 2. 36|| 4, 51; 2.66| 2.50 2.30 2.77|| 1. 67 0. # 25. 32 Hººhºº...: ; 0.67| 1.37| 0.92 0.87| 2.24; 3.01) 1, 90 2.80. 2, 56| 1.49 0.84; 1, 18; 19.85 ; -- ~~ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Averages ---------- 0.69 0.95 1. op 1.61; 3, 15 2.99| 2.57 2.45| 2, 56; 1.97 0.89 0.96, 21.45 101ST MERIDIAN. Valentine, Nebr. ------..... 0. 50 0.68||1,11 2.21 4.32 2.86 3.00. 1.73| 1.43 0.92 0.35 0.38. 19.44 North Platte, Nebr.........] 0.48; 0, 35 0. 62 2.03 3,09. 3. 34 3.00| 2.47 1.62. 1. 12 0.38; 0, 68. 19. 18 Culbertson, Nebr. ---------. 0.38|| 0, 26 0.70 2.66 3. 53 2.67| 4, 35| 3.25 1. 74 0. 76' 0.34; 0.85; 20.33 Monument, Kans----------- 0.28 0. 60 0.54|| 3.33: 2.08 3.33. 2.63. 2.39 0.95 1. 20 0.49; 0, 10 18.82 Silver Falls, Tex. --...----- (T) 1.07|..... 1.90 2. 13 1.02 2.48 2.90 3.38 2.77|| 0.17 (T). 17. 22 Camp Hudson, Tex.-------. 0.76|| 0.13 0.11| 1.42 1.60; 2. 13| 0.08 3.33| 0, 99| 0.97 0.19 0.42 12. 13 Averages -----------. 0.40|0.58||0.51] 2. 26 2. w 2. 48 2. 46 2.74ſ 1. º 1.29' 0.27| 0.29| 17. 85 102D MERIDIAN. Fort Sedgwick, Colo ....... 0.79. 1, TT 9.95 2.22, 2.13 0.2d 1.21 2.00 3.00 0.40 0.03 º 15.43 I'ort Wallace, Kans........ 9.28, 9.34 Q.37|1.3%. 3.09. 2.43, 3.47 1.82. 1:64 1.01 Q. 44 0.49 13.85 Midland, Tex ----...-------- 0. 01 0.16; 0.22 0.70; 3. 41; 1. 46 0.75 1. 62 0.86| 1.46 0. 13 0, 08: 10.86 Fort Lancaster, Tex........ 1. 30 0.41| 0.35| 2.51] 1.98; 3. 59| 1.96 3.46; 4.88; 2.91 0.93| 1.97. 26.25 Averages ............] 0.60; 0.67 0.47; 1.70 2.65. 1.94 1.85 2.23 2.00 1.45 0.33 ots 17.30 12: " - IRRIGATION. Rainfall in inches, showing the average values for each month—Continued. 103D MERID iſ A.N. Name of place. Jan, Feb. Mch.|Apr. May. June. July. Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec. Year. Rapid City, S. Dak . . . . . . . . . ( 0.34 0.841 0, 82°1.99 5.19 4, 11 2.66 1. 43 0.58||0.54|| 0.38 0.31|| 19.19 Fort Robinson, Nebr... ---. 0.44 0. 64ſ 1.17 1.63. 3. 15 2. 03: 1.94: 2.96; 0.46; 1.86 0.63; 0.84| 16.75 Camp Sheridan, Nebr -----. 0.32 0. 51 | 1.41 1. 64 3.36 3. 50 2.97. 1. 52 0.90| 1. 07| 0, 73 0, 50 18, 43 Hay Springs, Nebr. --...--. 0. 57 0.78] 1. 10 1.82 4 64 3.23. 2. 38. 3. 10 0.45| 0. 64 0.76 0.80; 20, 27 #. jº *::::* * * * * * * * * * 0.44 0.50' 0.86; 1.45 2.83. 1. 21 2.50) 1. 91 1. 11 0.79| 0.33 0.30) 14.23 as Animas, Colo........ gº * Fort Lyon, Colo ...... . . . . : 0, 14 0.23 0.45. 1, 23. 2. 11 | 1.58 2.22 2.07| 1.04] 0. 61} 0.25 0.33 12, 26 Fort Bascom, N. Mex ...... 0.13]. - - - - 0.09: 1. 55; 1.46; 2.24 2.99| 1.86; 0.27; 1.89 (). 75' 0.50 13.73 Fort Stockton, Tex - ....... 0.29; 0. 52 0.86; 0.41 1.58; 2. 23: 1. 87; 2. 62. 3. 88 iš 0.74 0.85] 17, 10 Averages -----------. 0. s 0. 50 0. s 1.46; 3. 04 2. * 2.44; 2. 06| 1.09 º 0. 57 (), * 16, 49 104TH MERIDIAN. IFort Laramie, Wyo . . . . . . . . 0. 52 0. 53 0, 56; 1.27 2. 64 1. s 1. 52; 1. 13 0, 88 0.85 0. 51 0. so 12. 30 Hat Creek, Wyo............ C. 02 0.04 0.07| 3.48 2.92] 1.00, 1.20 1.70) 1.12 2.00 1.46 0.25, 17.26 Cheyenne, Wyo............ 0.28 (), 29 0.63| 1.38 2, 00| 1.46; 1.64| 1, 46 (). 98 0.67| 0.31|| 0.22, 11. 32 Rimball, Nebr.............. 0.2. 6.30 0.25 0.4ſ 3.72 1.8; 2.20 i. 68 0.01 0.38 0.10 Q2; 11.46 Fort Reynolds, Colo. --..... 0.70 0.89 0.72; 1.09| 1.69; 0.80; 1.51; 1.31, 1.90 0.49 2. 57 0.36; 14.03 Trinidad, Colo-...-----------. 0.17 1, 15' 0.04 1.03] 2.43 5.40' 3, 24; 3. 26 1.27| 1.41 1.65 0. 68 21.73 Fort Sumner, N. Mex - - - - - - 0.23| 0.35 0.97 0.36 1. 05 1.93 3.18, 2.37| 1.47 1.21 0. 64 1.24, 15.02 Fort Davis, Tex............ (). 50 0.43 0.42 0. 60 1.07| 1. 98. 3.43. 3.97 2.97| 1.46 0.44 0.44, 17.71 Averages ------------ 0. s 0. 47 0. * 1, 21 2.19 * 2, 24 2. 11| 1, 33 1. 06 0.96 wº 14.85 It is to be regretted that the records of a larger number of stations could not have been obtained, at least for the one hundred and second, one hundred and third, and one hundred and fourth meridians, as a full and accurate knowledge of the amount of precipitation upon those meridians is of more than ordinary importance. Taking such data as could be obtained, however, some interesting facts are presented. One of the most important is the large proportion of the annual rainfall pre- cipitated in the half of the year in which moisture is of great utility. The following table gives, in inches and hundredths, the mean annual precipitation, by meridians, as shown by the foregoing tables, and the quantity precipitated in the six months from April to September, inclu- sive. The next column shows the percentage which this quantity is of the annual rainfall, and the last exhibits, in inches and hundredths, what would be the annual precipitation were the average of the six “growing” months maintained throughout the year: SUMMARY. Rainfall Annual * 3D - A." Percent- precipita- gº ºn tº nual pre- April to age of | tion on Meridian. cipita- || Septem- “summerſ" summer tion. ber in- rain.” rain'' clusive. basis. 99th --------------------------------------------------------. 25. 48 18. 57 73– 37. 14 100th -------------------------------------------------------. 21, 45 15. 33 72– 30, 66 101st----------------- --------------------------------------- 17. 85 14.42 81– 28. 84 102d -------------------------------------------------------- 17.30 12, 97 75– 25. 94 103d --------------------------------------------------------- 16. 40 12. 61 76–H 25. 22 104th ----------- ** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * = e º sº e = e, e = s m = a 14.85 11, 06 73-- 22. 12 Averages -----------------, - * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * is sº wº gº sº a m s = * * 18, 89 14. 16 75– 28.32 THE POINT OF ARIDITY AS To PRECIPITATION. 13 . An inspection of this table shows that the variation in amount of rainfall from the one hundred and first meridian to the one hundred and third is comparatively slight, that the average for the entire divi. Sion is 18.89 inches per annum, and that of this amount three-fourths fall between the 1st of April and the last of September. Were a pro- portionate precipitation enjoyed throughout the year, the annual measure would be 28.32 inches. As experience has shown that the late fall, winter, and early spring rains are sufficient, exceptin rare instances, to sprout and maintain fall grains, and to put forward the early spring growth of vegetation, the region practically enjoys an annual precipita- tion of the value of 28 inches, and were it not for modifying facts this Would be ample to make the plains country a delightful and prosper- Ous farming country, because the comparative absence of storms and moisture throughout the winter months adds greatly to the comfort both of man and beast, renders winter pasturage for stock both available and nutritious, and reduces necessary expenditures for shelter and feed to a minimum, beside being highly favorable to travel and the trans- portation of the products of the farm over the public highways. Upon the question as to what annual quantity of moisture is necessary to the production of crops, I take the liberty of quoting the following extract from an official report of Gen. A. W. Greely, Chief Signal Officer, made in 1889. He says (Report on Rainfall in Washington, Oregon, etc., p. 8): As has been pointed out by the Director of the Geological Survey, the arid region of the United States includes more than four-tenths of the entire country, excluding Alaska. It is believed that the accomplished Director unintentionally overstated the case when he advanced the idea that those regions should be classed as arid or in- capable of successful agriculture without irrigation where the rainfall is less than 20 inclues annually. The statements put forth by him that, with 20 inches, agriculture will suffer drought, and will be fruitless many seasons in a long series, is equally true of regions over which as much as 25 or 30 inches fall annually. Indeed, during this very year, Sections of the country where the annual rainfall ranged from 30 to 50 inches have been visited by most serious and protracted drought, which proved most disastrous to agricultural and other kindred interests. & The point at which a region may be classed as arid and unfit for successful agricul- ture without irrigation should be lowered, it is believed, to 15 inches. The chief sig- nal officer does not assert that this amonnt of annual rainfall will be sufficient for all crops, nor in all kinds of soil, nor at every elevation. Latitude, elevation, equable distribution of rainfall, humidity, and soil, all these are conditions which must be im- portant factors in the problem. Exact observations upon these points are lacking in the United States, but in Australia observations and experiments have been made, covering now quite a number of years, on wheat (and this may be called a test crop). The fact that wheat can be grown without irrigation in a country where the an- nual rainfall is less than 20 inches is evidenced by official statistics from Dakota, which show that wheat is grown by tens of millions of bushels yearly in sections where the rainfall ranges from 20 inches downward. Indeed, the arid-region limit, based on 15 inches mean annual rainfall, is a most reliable one in that region, as is evinced by the fact that over 3,000,000 bushels of wheat are now grown annually in countries where the rainfall ranges from 15.1 down to 13.8. (See “Resources of Da- kota, 1887,” an official publication.) So far as rainfall alone is concerned, it would appear, according to the foregoing estimates, that this region has enough and to spare under average conditions. This I believe is true. In fact, it unquestionably is true, and the authority just quoted contains other observations upon the same subject, which are both pertinent to this branch of my subject and exceedingly interesting. I quote from the report above cited: It is tolerably safe to assume that the data from isolated stations of quite high ele- vation, which tend to show large rainfall, do not entirely connterbalance the large number of small rainfalls over the country of least elevation, and that the average rainfall through the arid region, as shown by these maps, is really less than the aver- age amount which actually falls over the entire region. (Page 10 of report.) ,14. IRRIGATION. The great extent to which misapprehension as to the rainfall conditions of the arid regions has been corrected by these charts is evidenced by the fact that the area on which the mean annual rainfall is less than 10 inches, shown on statistical maps of the Tenth Census at 241,000 square miles, has been reduced to 126,000 square miles; while a similar reduction is shown in the area of country where the yearly rainfall is between 10 and 15 inches, which, given in the census chart at 385,000 square miles, is now limited to 259,000 square miles. In other words, the area over which less than 15 inches of rain falls annually has been reduced almost a quarter of a million (241,000) square miles. A large area of country charted on the statistical maps as having an average rainfall of less than 5 inches now entirely disappears in Texas, New Mexico, Utah, and Oregon, and is very materially reduced in Nevada, Arizona, and Cali- fornia. (Page 7 of report.) The Chief Signal Officer puts it forward as his opinion that when Idaho, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona shall have been covered with rain gauges as com- pletely as New York or New England, the final outcome of observation will indicate that the actual average of rainfall for this arid region is now understated by the census charts (Census of 1880) from 20 to 40, and by these from 10 to 15 per cent. (Page 11 of report.) The Chief Signal Officer does not hesitate to express the opinion that the trans- Mississippi and trans-Missouri rainfall is slightly increasing, as a whole, though in certain localities it may be slightly decreasing from causes set forth above, and it seems most proper for him to put forth his strong conviction, even though it be not a certainty, when, as in this case, it will tend to reassure the agricultural population in the lately drouth-stricken districts of the West. There appears no possible reason to believe that the scanty rainfall of the past year or two will not be followed by in- creasing precipitation in the next few years, which will maintain the annual rain- fall of these sections at the average, or even increase it. (Page 15 of report.) If Gen. Greely's opinions, as expressed in the foregoing extracts, are correct—and plainsmen of experience will uniformly coincide with the views enunciated—we probably have a somewhat larger annual precipitation upon the Plains than the records show, and this will prob- ably increase, at least to a slight extent, in the future. But there are difficulties to be overcome which do not show forth upon rain charts nor tables of rainfall records. Although the distribution of the precipitation may be shown in detail, there is nothing in such charts and tables to indicate the destructive power of desiccating warm winds nor to record the damage they do. The occasional year of excessive drought shows clearly enough; but what it is which does the damage, even in years which, by chart and table, would appear the most favor- able, is learned only by experience. That which works the most fre- quent and most widespread injury is a short period of hot, dry weather, characterized by brassy skies and warm, dry winds. This rarely lasts more nor less than two weeks, and almost invariably occupies the first two weeks in July. This brief drought period, occurring at such a time, injures everything except the very early and very late crops. It tends to prevent the proper filling of Small grain, and by drying up the tas- sels of corn which has reached the tasseling stage precludes the harvest- ing of anything more from such a field than a crop of “fodder.” Gar- den crops, too, and all others which would naturally be in their prime in midsummer are greatly injured and sometimes completely destroyed. After this midsummer simoon, as well as before, there are, as a rule, plen- tiful rains, and crops which can be matured before this annual visitation, or which can be grown afterward, give the farmer at least a partial return for his labor. So it is that some crops nearly always escape the drought, and the settler is thus tempted to try again and again in the hope that he will learn how to cope successfully with the peculiarities of the coun- try, and some have succeeded after a fashion, but many others give up the fight after repeated failures. When water can be had, however, for irrigation, all forms and periods of drought and the hottest winds are successfully defied. A field of Indian corn, copiously irrigated, will CHARACTERISTICS OF MID-PLAINS STREAMS. 15 flourish without the sign of a curling blade when winds are blowing so hot as to redden the eyelids of the passer by. With sufficient facilities for irrigation to successfully resist this short period of midsummer drought, the farmer on the Plains could manage to do fairly well most years. with plentiful irrigation, he enjoys advan- tages far superior in many respects to the most favorably situated farmer Who depends upon natural rainfall alone. STREAMS. Few streams traverse this division, compared with any equal area in the humid region. The Niobrara, the North and South Plattes, the Republican, the Solomon, the Smoky Hill, the Arkansas, the Cimarron, and the Canadian comprise all of the more important streams of this large area. Frenchman Creek, the various Beavers, the three Sappas, the Prairie Dog, the Landsman, Ladder Creek, and innumerable Sand Creeks are among the more notable tributaries. What are denominated “creeks” and “rivers ” by the inhabitants of the Plains may be divided into three classes: First. Riversof the moun- tains, which rise in some part of the great Rockies and flow with more or less steadiness, but having by far their greatest volume of water When the mountain snows melt in summer, running low at other times, gradually decreasing through fall, winter, and spring and often going quite dry at places along their middle courses, while at head and mouth they are perennial streams, though of greatly variable volume. The Arkansas, the Canadian, and the Plattes are the most important of these, and carry more water than any and all others. Second. Rivers of the plains, which have their sources in the plain itself, at a greater or less distance from the mountains, originating in systems of springs and being fed principally by the same. These supply less water than the more pretentious rivers which rise in the mountains, but their flow is much more steady and uniform. Droughts affect these but slightly, and though local rains swell their volume to a considerable degree at intervals such augmentation is largely local and of brief duration. Third. There are a great number of what may be called “dry creeks.” These are more or less pretentious water courses in appear- ance, some of them of very considerable length and many possessing sandy beds and deep and wide channels, but no water visibly flows in them except immediately after a heavy local rain, and rarely is there running water throughout their whole length at any time, and their highest water flows only a few hours, soon disappearing into the sands or through fissures in their beds, or is discharged into larger streams to which these potential streams are tributary. That is, they are po- tential in the sense that they might, could, would, or should carry water. The traveler hailing from a humid region, where a “river” or a “creek” is taken for granted as containing water, soon finds that upon the Plains these terms are very commonly applied to what simply constitutes a very complete and well-appointed place for a stream. One thing, to which allusion is made elsewhere, characterizes nearly all of the perennial streams found upon the Great Plains, viz, the traveler along the middle course of such a stream will often find, to his surprise, only a bed of apparently dry sand, though but a short distance below he saw a very considerable stream of water. Continuing on up the channel, he will find again and again limpid stretches of running water succeeded by reaches of dry, red gravel or fine, white sand. In 16 IRRIGATION. the largest streams, this characteristic will be observed at the lowest stages of water at points along the middle course of the stream. Per- ennial water will be found toward the head and in a more or less ex- tensive stretch of channel toward the mouth. In the smaller tributary streams, the perennial water will be found at the head, whether the stream rise in mountain or plain, and the dry sand bed will be found, if at all, at the mouth and extending thence upstream perhaps half or more than half the total length of the tributary. This characteristic is the result of the action of flood waters, originating in the upper courses of the streams, by which large quantities of sand and gravel are carried as far downstream as the rapid declivity of surface and narrowness of channel will suffice to hold such matter in suspension, or move it along by force of current. In the case of smaller streams, the tendency is to deposit detritus first at the point of discharge into a larger water course, the bank or drift thus formed tending gradually to extend itself up- stream toward the torrential sources. In the large and long streams, this deposit will be made when the middle courses, of wider channel and more moderate fall, are reached, promoted no doubt by the ob- structive deposits thrown into the channel from such tributaries as have just been described. The accompanying figure (Fig. 2) will illus. trate how such deposits are formed, and why a stream will appear in places and be hidden from sight at others. FIG, 2.—The disappearance of water in streams. Here is roughly represented a longitudinal section of a stream on the plains, showing the underlying bedrock, the superincumbent sand in the channel, and the water line, W. Sand and gravel brought down from the upper portions of the stream, where the fall is great and the cur. rent swift, will be deposited in times of high water in sand waves, as at A, B, and C. One of these will often occupy a channel for miles. At low stages the water simply disappears below the surface of one of these deposits, but shows at low places as at d and e, and in the lower courses, as at F, there will be a perennial stream. This is dwelt upon at Some length, because it has an important bearing upon what follows regarding the subwaters of this division. All rivers of the plains present the same primary characteristics. Beginning at the head, many shallow ravines, locally denominated “draws,” will be found beginning in a barely perceptible depression and gradually deepening as they draw near to a focal point or locality. Two, three, a half dozen of these unite and a marked depression, DRY CHANNELS AND DRAWS ON THE MID-PLAINS. 17 too broad and shallow to be called a channel, leads on down the slope of the surface to meet others of the same kind as branches meet in the top of a tree. These draws are grass grown and their soil is not different from that of the surrounding prairie, except where more or less extensive outcrops of grit are found, and in the deeper portions where an accumulation of vegetable mold in Small areas is succeeded at lower levels by a narrow, Sandy bottom in the principal or trunk draws. Proceeding down a series of these draws, from twig to branch, from branch to limb, and thence to trunk, so to speak, one begins to find, where the inclination of the surface reaches an angle of, say, 200, a succession of semilunar steps or depressions in the bottom of the draw. These are as sharply cut as though done with a spade. The first ones present a vertical, semicircular riser of probably not more than 2 or 3 inches in height. These depressions increase in depth, as the angle of inclination of surface increases and the draw narrows and becomes more channel-like, and assume a more circular form, inclosing a bowl-shaped basin, which has been hollowed out by the descent of tor- rents resulting from a shower of rain or from the melting of snows which have drifted into the draws. Still further down, these circular depressions become more and more elongated until, near the confluênce of two or more branch draws, they become long, narrow slits in the grassy bottom, opening clean down to the underlying sand strata. After a rain, all the cup-like erosions will be found filled with water which is finding its way down through the substrata. In some cases, by the gradual dissolving and washing out of soluble portions of the soil, the bottom of such a cup or depression will cave in until a well-like opening is formed. Through such holes as these, and through the above-described gashes in the lower portions of the bed of the draw, storm waters find their way into the substrata of sand and gravel with almost as much readiness as though pouring through a sieve. Systems of these draws will be found leading into a river of the plains, very numerously, throughout at least the upper third of its length. Whenever such a depth of channel has been reached as to cut through the water-bearing grit, elsewhere described, the stream will have a hard, impervious bed, and springs will be found at frequent intervals, both in the principal channel and at short distances up the branch draws, from which there pours a steady flow of water, Sometimes in very considerable volume. This section of such a stream enjoys a per- ennial flow of water. Further down, where beds of sand and gravel have been deposited, through torrential agency, the water often disap- pears from view, except during brief periods of flood, as already ex- plaimed. The accompanying diagrammatic longitudinal section (Fig. 3) illus- trates the characteristics of the foregoing described portion of a river of the plains. At the point where the deepening of the channel cuts through the water-bearing strata (H) a stream of water appears, and in tributary draws springs will be found (as at S. S. S.) near by the main stream and nearly on a level with it, or perhaps further away and higher above the bed of the stream, according to the location of the stratum which supplies the flow. In some cases a spring, as at Š, bursts out high up the side of the bank or of a distant slope. Such springs appear wherever “the grit” has been cut through, and are numbered by thousands, stretching in a broad band from the north- western corner of Nebraska, curving southward across Kansas, between the ninety-ninth and one hundredth meridians, and continuing across what was formerly called the “Neutral Strip” into Texas. They vary S. Ex. 41, pt. 4.—2 18 IRRIGATION. in volume from the almost unnoticeable “ seep” on the hillside to the broad gush of a stream large enough to run a large flouring mill, and exhibit a great variety of interesting characteristics. One is spoken of in Scotts Bluff County, Nebr., which gushes out of a bluff 500 feet above the bed of the stream into which it flows. Another sends up so large a stream through a fissure in the bed of a stream that its flow makes a plainly visible ridge in the water. The location of some of these springs upon hillsides would indicate that the flow of some of them could be increased by widening the out- lets. This has, as a matter of fact, been done in several instances. One of the most striking is related by Hon. T. M. Haun, of Hodgeman County, Kans. Having observed that a spot of ground some 40 feet above the bed of Pawnee Creek, in that county, always showed damp- ness, himself and several others tried the experiment of digging away the overlapping layer of marl and were gratified by securing a flowing spring, discharging a stream equal to that from a 2-inch pipe. At last report, this flow continued without diminution, and it was thought that it might be increased by further digging. **t,"N "Sº sº -$3, $ºe - * \5 S Jº. Tºlºs :^i, S’s ~ s >N’s -Ses * * - *, ~ : SS * ^s, a *...N. \ ~ * 3. *, *, *, * * > . . ^--, ‘S-, Nº. S.--> gº \ N. tº: *ść *** *. § *- *.* *::::A; ޺ #sº §llili, §ºna...SSS: #||||||Immº, “’”xºSss. ====== -- ~~~~i====EEEEEºsº -- §pm - --...º.º. ==EEE EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE = E = E = E_E== E−tº ==#|Tº ''< : Et-E--> -- ~~~~~~~~~ - - - -— — — — — --- - - - - -==s =sº （in - ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ *-*------~~~~. º. I- - - - - - - ---fºr-T-...--T-...- …--~~~~. ----------. ś. *-* --> * *-* - - ----- ---> --— — — —--- - -------------...--Tº-Tº-Tº-º-º-º-º-º-, ------------------------ --------- = -- - -- * * * --------—--—- – -—---------> -- ~~~~~ - - - - - - - - - - - - --~~~~ -...----------------—- - --- * FIG. 3.-Origin and tributaries of Rivers of the Plains, THE NEED OF IRFIGATION. It has long been accepted as a settled fact that any one who would undertake to practice agriculture in the foothills on this side of the “Rockies” and eastward, say to the one hundred and third meridian at least, must necessarily employ artificial watering to produce crops. It is a demonstrated and undeniable fact that, throughout every por- tion of the territory under consideration, irrigation is so valuable an aid to agriculture that the farmer will be most abundantly repaid for any reasonable expense and effort to obtain it; but, upon what meridian, as progress is made westward, the valuable adjunct becomes a positive necessity is a question upon which there is much difference of opinion, and for very good reasons. There are so many things to be taken into consideration in forming or expressing an opinion upon the point, and so many standpoints from which the question may be viewed, that only the most careful study and the broadest experience will enable one to arrive at a correct conclusion. For my own part I am disposed to name the ninety-ninth meridian as the present eastern limit of the practical necessity of irrigation. ABSOLUTE AND PRACTICAL NEEDs of IRRIGATION. 19 Ten years ago it should have been located at least as far east as the ninety-eighth. Ten years hence it may have reached the one hundred and first, or even further westward. In order to be clear it is, perhaps, necessary to make a distinction be- tween the absolute and the practical necessity of irrigation upon these . plains. In speaking and writing upon this subject for some years past, in a general way as well as in official reports, I have been accustomed to speak of irrigation as absolutely necessary to the successful general practice of agriculture in the territory under consideration. All expe- Tience, all obtainable facts, and all visible manifestations justified the use of the term in the sense intended; but I have been taken to task now and then as overstating the importance of irrigation to this region and find some explanation, and perhaps a qualification of terms, necessary . to prevent a misunderstanding of facts. I do not wish to be understood as taking the position that the practice of irrigation is an absolute necessity in every season and in every individual instance in western Nebraska and western Kansas. As a matter of fact, not only is it not proven an absolute necessity in every detail, as to the two portions of territory named, but it is no more possible to demonstrate that it is so as regards any part of the Plains country as far west as Denver. In explanation of this statement the following facts are cited: At Dodge City, Kans, upon the one hundredth meridian, is an experi- mental forestry station where timber-culture experiments are carried on by the State. The ground occupied is a high, round-topped knoll con- taining 100 acres, not only above the reach of irrigation from any source (except by pumping the water), but exposed to every “Kansas zephyr” that moves across the unobstructing plains. EIere the superintendent has grown all sorts of native forest trees known to the latitude of the Station, and in as thrifty and unbroken rows as ever graced an Illinois cornfield. In the unusually dry year of 1889, he grew 100 acres of seed- ling trees, including such varieties as walnut, ash, hickory, oak, chest- nut, black locust, honey locust, soft and hard maple, cottonwood, ailan- thus, catalpa, etc., without the loss of a tree from drought and with scarcely a curling leaf when the warm, dry winds blew for days at a time. His ground had been deeply plowed and thoroughly prepared, and the tract was thoroughly cultivated thirteen times in the course of the Season, the soil being kept as clean and as finely pulverized as that of the best kept garden. In the northwest corner of Stevens County, Kans, is a scope of coun- try settled by well-to-do Kentuckians who went about the business of Subduing the desert in an unusually energetic and thorough manner, and there may be seen to day thrifty groves of young trees and young orchards in bearing. The settlement is 40 miles from the nearest irri- gating canal. No irrigation was attempted. This spot is a few miles west of the 101st meridian. Some 6 or 8 miles west of the one hundred and third meridian, near the South line of Arapahoe County, Colorado, is the little village of Thurman. Surrounding it is a settlement of German-Americans from Ohio. They have occupied their land for four years and gay they are farming successfully. Less successful neighbors a few miles distant will assure the traveler that the people of that colony are living and farming upon the means, they brought with them from the East. But the well-tilled fields, the tidy farm buildings, the occasional cribs of corn, and stacks of roughness show that they have succeeded far beyond the average of the new settlers in that locality. They have no means of irrigating, and their land is a part of the same marly plain, 20 IRRIGATION. i with a sparse covering of buffalo and gramma grasses, which may be seen in all other portions of the division, with nothing, so far as may be observed by the eye, different from the land elsewhere. In the eastern suburbs of the city of Denver, almost upon the one hun- dred and fifth meridian, and at an elevation of 5,000 feet, the proprie- tors of an eastern nursery planted a large tract to fruit trees, four years ago, depending upon a means of water supply for irrigation which failed at a critical time after the trees were planted, and the proprie- tors were compelled to do the best they could, without irrigation. Thorough and persistent cultivation was resorted to, and with such success that there was no further attempt made to irrigate, and there is to-day a magnificent young orchard of bearing fruit trees at the one hundred and fifth meridian, upon the western extreme of the “Great American Desert,” where the average annual rainfall for a period of eighteen years has been but 14.46 inches. Now, inasmuch as “what man has done man can do”—if he will do it in the same way—it follows, from the foregoing examples, that it must be possible to grow both crops and trees upon the Great Plans, at some cost and at least at certain times, without the aid of irrigation. And a great many striking individual proofs of the fact might be cited, in ad- dition to those given. Hence, it must be conceded, as I nave already conceded, that it is not literally and strictly correct to say that irriga- tion is absolutely necessary in all seasons to the production of trees and crops upon the plains. And I never have so stated, but have said that irrigation was necessary to the general, successful, and continued devel- opment of agriculture upon the Plains, under existing conditions. As it must be admitted, considering the cases óf successful dry-farming cited, and regarding also the fact that there are certain dry-weather crops which may be grown successfully most years (as millet, rice corn, broom corn, etc.,) without resort to artificial watering, it is doubtless better to be literal and exact in language and denominate irrigation simply a practical necessity upon the Great Plains, though it is making a dis. tinction in terms which amounts to little or nothing in effect. If a certain combination of facts invariably produces a certain result, it can make little difference what adjective shall be used to describe the combination. If the result is to be changed it must be done by altering the state of facts. The importance of this particularity to the subject under examination will, I think, be appreciated upon a compre- hensive view of the matter. The Great Plains possessed, when white men first beheld them, the same soil as now, under the same sunny skies, and with substantially the same climate. If it could have been brought about that the whole of this region could have been settled in a single season, or two or three, by a class of people each one of whom should have been possessed of the discernment, training, natural aptitude, and knowledge of what he wished to do, which characterize the superintendent of the forestry sta- tion referred to, each able and willing to practice the industry and fru- gality of the Germans of the Thurman Colony, each having the surplus means with which to provide all needful buildings, seeds, plants, and farming tools to emulate the Kentucky settlers in Stevens County, and to enable them to continue work three or four years, if need be, at large expense, before any returns could begin, as in the case of the nursery- men who have grown the unirrigated orchards at Denver, then there can be little doubt that the sudden cessation of sweeping prairie fires, the widespread planting of groves and orchards and belts of timber as windbreaks, the upturning and thorough cultivation of a large propor- HOW TO SETTLE THE LAND WITHOUT IRRIGATION. 21 tion of the surface soil on every habitable quarter section, and the cow- ering of millions of acres of land, theretofore almost as bare and as hard as a slate roof, with green, luxuriant, and succulent vegetation would have worked an almost miraculous change; the desert would have blos- Somed and borne fruit often enough, without the aid of irrigation, to make the Plains as a whole habitable after a fashion. That is, if peo- ple having the mental attainments, the physical energy, and the finan- Cial accumulations of the best, shrewdest, and wealthiest farmers of the East could have been brought simultaneously by the hundred thousand and induced to live in dug-outs and sod houses on unshaded prairies until dwellings could be erected, the whole area of the wild prairie broken out and cultivated, timber grown, schoolhouses and churches built, they would then have been in shape to begin to make a living as Soon as railroads should become sufficiently numerous to transport sup- plies to them and crops to the markets at living rates, provided they had all been able to promptly lay aside former experience, the methods previously acquired, and to take up the culture of new crops in new .* new sort of life, without the aid of teacher or illustrative ex- ample. -- Or, if settlement and occupation had taken place by slow degrees, the frontier advancing but a few miles each year, so that the settler upon new land should have had the advantages of the examples, close at hand, of successful methods of operation; instruction as to successful varieties of crops, and how to produce and utilize them; local markets; adequate means of transportation for his products and supplies, at living rates; and openings to labor for wages, to sustain himself through the uncer- tain and often unproductive two or three years required to subdue a new piece of land; then the advance of settlement might have been made without disadvantage to the pioneer; there would have been no retrogression to speak of; and when the limit had been reached, beyond which it was not safe to venture to farm without the aid of irrigation, further advance would have been made only after an adequate water supply had been assured; but emigration has moved in periodic waves and large areas of new land have been covered with people in short Spaces of time. Not more than thirty-five years ago emigrants who were settling im- mediately west of the Missouri River were gravely, earnestly, and no doubt honestly, assured by persons “who had been all over that coun- try” and “knew all about it by personal observation,” that nothing whatever could be produced west of the Missouri River, except “In- dians, buffalo, grasshoppers, and hot winds.” At that time the Missouri IRiver was the eastern border of the desert. On the other hand, the boundary of practicable settlement has been steadily shouldered west- ward by the pioneer corps of the advancing army of civilization so far, so rapidly, and at times with such apparent success that the hasty and enthusiastic have rushed to the other extreme by accepting a favorable season or succession of seasons as a demonstration of decisive victory of man over nature and have declared the desert driven into the fast- nesses of the mountains and imprisoned there. But they have found that, while capturing an enemy's outposts may be an easy task, driving him from his intrenchments may be quite another matter. . While every new portion of the unsettled domain, from Plymouth Rock westward, has presented some new sort of obstacle to be over- come, out of the fact that each has been, in time, grappled with and removed has apparently grown the idea that courage and pushing for- ward would win under all circumstances. People have had warnings of 22 IRRIGATION one sort and another not to venture upon the dry plains adjacent to the Rocky Mountains, but there was nothing authoritative nor general. The great body of emigrants in their search for homes have looked upon the land in the beauty of springtime, when it seemed as fair, as rich, and as full of promise as any land under the sun. There was nothing that the prospective settler could perceive which he felt justified in ac- cepting as a warning that all was not what it seemed. At the United States land offices in and for the region visited, he found officers ready to accept his filings upon precisely the same terms as regulated the tak- ing of land in Iowa, Missouri, and Arkansas. The same fees, the same length of occupation and amount of improvement were required, and the same price per acre demanded if he chose to prečmpt, as there had been in Illinois, or Wisconsin, or Indiana. The conclusion naturally followed that, by doing as the settlers in Iowa and Missouri and as those in eastern and central Kansas and Ne- braska had done, those who ventured out to the western boundaries of these States and beyond could achieve the same success. No account was taken of the material difference in annual precipitation nor of the midsummer drought, because few settlers were aware of the facts. The country was reported to be dry, but it was hoped, stated, and believed that the rainfall would increase with the settlement of the land. A few people realized that there must be a line somewhere east of the mountains beyond which it would not be safe to go, except under the protection of the irrigating ditch; but that line was always estimated to be somewhere beyond the “next county’ at the least. Now the people who, in search of homes, entered upon these lands in good faith unite in saying that if the Government had made known the deficiencies, as to climate, and offered the land for settlement on terms in accord- ance with such deficiencies, they would have been fully informed in the premises and could not have suffered so great losses. The Plains country has been inundated by such human floods more than once. Thus one of the conditions of successful settlement was met. There was sufficient density of population. But the very large majority of those who sought for new homes were comparatively poor people. They had not the resources to enable them to labor on for two or three years with scanty returns for their labor; they were under the necessity of earning a livelihood as they went along. Not one in a hundred understood the new conditions under which he found himself located. Some attempted to ascertain with what new problems they had to deal and to adapt themselves thereto, but most went to work according to the methods they had learned to depend upon in their former localities—it was all they could do, they had neither teacher nor illustrative example of anything different—and depended upon growing the same crops as of old and in the same way, except that less energy was shown and they had not the same faith in results. This was per- fectly natural. It is but natural that when a great many men find themselves suddenly thrown into the midst of new and untried condi- tions, with no demonstration of results to stimulate them to action, in- stead of immediately laying out all their means in seed and labor to cultivate and crop new land, they should try planting a little to “see how things turn out;” whatever unfavorable reports concerning the country the settlers may have had, while not sufficient to keep them back from attempting Settlement, adding largely to the natural feeling of uncertainty and tending toward more desultory, less hopeful, and more easily discouraged efforts. The cost of everything which has to be bought under such conditions is always unduly heavy, and a newly THE SETTLERs' STRUGGLE WITH SAVAGE NATURE. 23 settled country, having no established manufacturing industries, all the inhabitants being necessarily producers, situated far from industrial centers, and with scant and costly means of transportation, must nec- essarily be without local markets and out of reach of foreign. It has been asserted by certain classes of people for years past that the great body of the settlers upon the semi-arid lands were “lazy, trifling, unenterprising, town-lot speculators, boomers,” etc. It has been alleged that they went upon their lands merely to stake out town lots, to fight over county seats, or to secure money on their claims by mortgage, immediately removing after this purpose was accomplished. Having known intimately the people, and witnessed their efforts to sub- due these wild lands, having experienced the discomforts, the privation and reverses incident to the difficulties encountered, I wish to take this occasion to refute the slanderous statements so glibly made, and to cor- rect the false impressions which have been thereby spread abroad. There has been, among the mass of people settling upon the Semi-arid lands, a certain admixture of the idle, the speculative, and the vicious, as there always is among so large a number of people; but the great majority of the settlers upon the semi-arid lands in the past ten years were enterprising, ambitious, hopeful, energetic, honest home-seekers. They entered their lands in good faith and made more than ordinary efforts to secure permanent homes for themselves. A large proportion made prečmption or commutation proof upon their land and mortgaged it only because it had become apparent that they could not maintain themselves upon it during the five years necessary to secure title under the homestead law, and because they were compelled to Secure money to maintain their families. In a few instances, through the dishonesty of local agents loaning on commission, settlers were induced to take SO large a loan as to make the transaction a virtual sale; but in a large majority of cases, loans were secured in good faith, and when the Settler afterward removed from the land it was because he was compelled to go elsewhere to make a living and his removal was intended to be only temporary. The struggle between improvement and desolation, with the great plains as a battlefield, has been one in which the contestants have each prevailed and retreated by turns. As two fierce antagonists struggle back and forth over disputed ground, one conquering, the other beaten, sorely pressed, and almost despairing, only to gather anew sudden strength and courage and bear back his enemy until the two have changed positions, so the resolute settler has battled with stubborn and untoward conditions for the possession of the land. Wave after wave of immigration has rolled across the zone of uncertain territory lying between the unquestionably arid region and that sufficiently humid to make farming something more than an annual experiment. When there has been a brief succession of favorable seasons, the settlers have pushed forward eagerly, hopefully, and with the heedless igno- rance of the difficulties to be encountered which was natural under Such circumstances. After a brief battle against overpowering odds, they have been forced to give up, for a time, much of the ground gained; but the struggle has been renewed over and over. Each succeeding wave has rolled beyond the line reached by its predecessor and has left valuable wreckage and something more, and there has consequently been a large net gain in the direction of the final reclamation of the semi-arid region; but the cost is loss of time and labor, in lost homes and hearts made sore and discouraged by disappointment, has been ©I101 (0 OUIS, 24 IRRIGATION. Now those who have, despite all untoward conditions, managed to maintain their foothold upon these semi-arid lands, and in so doing have seen so many fail, assert that there ought to be a change in such meth- ods of reclaiming these lands; that as it is manifestly bad policy to permit the attack of a fort by allowing masses of men to hurl them- selves against a strong, cannon-guarded wall, when the wall may be overthrown with certainty, celerity, and safety to the attacking party, by undermining it, so it is certainly not good public policy to permit men and their families to attempt to make homes on these lands in the uninformed, haphazard way which has thus far obtained, at such ex- pense of fruitless labor and broken hopes, when it is so easily possible to remove the elements of ignorance and uncertainty and thus prevent loss. It would doubtless be conservative to estimate that this region, averaging the whole area, has been thrice settled and depopulated. The whole has been sown with gold and doubly watered with the sweat of toil and the tears of disappointment. There is not an acre in the Plains region but has already been dearly and doubly paid for. All that has been borne and suffered of privation and loss has but barely made clear the fact that, while there are many other things which may be done which will exert a powerful influence toward the final triumph of those who seek to utilize the Plains for agricultural purposes, a supply of water for use in irrigating is a necessity to Sup- plement the rainfall over a large area immediately east of the Rocky Mountains. This fact will possibly, may probably, be but temporarily noted at the present stage of popular information—or lack of informa- tion—upon the matter in hand. There never has been wanting, at any stage of settlement, prophets of evil whose voices have been heard, even in the flush of apparent victory, ominously warning that such triumph was but temporary; that “the desert will return to claim its Own,” and that only final disaster could await those who should persist in attempting to wrest concessions from nature; that to attempt to go Counter to the fixed conditions found existing upon the arid Plains Could only end in defeat and loss to the foolhardy, adventurous settler. Notwithstanding the fact that the warnings have always proven, in part at least, well founded, they have never been of appreciable benefit to those warned. The utterers of warnings have always been consid- ered “croakers”—so long as it rained—and when it grew dry and the hot winds blew, “I told you so.” never eased a single disappointment or saved a dollar of loss; and no sooner has one set of settlers “dried up and blown away” than a succession of apparently favorable seasons has tempted a new immigration. The semi-arid region has been, and unless proper efforts shall be made to prevent will still be, an absorbent of wealth and energy; a famine-breeding, heart-breaking Zone; a mirage to tempt men to ruin; and the question is asked whether it should not either be made certainly habitable or settlement there, under ordinary conditions, prevented ? On the other hand, it has unquestionably been demonstrated that if the Great Plains can be taken from the category of desert lands and be. come irrigated lands they must then become a center of wealth, produc- tion, and safety, instead of a menace, a constant absorbent of labor and wealth. The largeness of area of excellent land, the advantages of a central situation as regards the rest of the country, the salubrious cli- mate, and other advantages which have already been noted, must im- press the most casual observer with the fact that, when that which is lacking shall have been supplied, the Great Plains will become capable of supporting many people, adding largely to the common wealth and to the number of American homes, those safeguards of the nation. RECAPITULATION OF water Possibilities. 25 THE MEANS OF RECLAMATION. I have heretofore stated in my reports to this Department that all of the arable land of the Great Plains region may be, and ultimately un- doubtedly will be, reclaimed and made habitable. I will take occasion here to repeat this statement, and to add that an exceptionally dense and prosperous population may be supported thereon. This conclusion Will not be charged to over-enthusiasm by anyone who understands how little there has been manifest in the way of development or im- provement in this region in the past three or four years which could in- Spire enthusiasm or even hope. But it is a fact that wherever irriga- tion has been possible and has been employed upon the lands of this division, whether arid or semi-arid, and even under unfavorable condi- tions and by the untaught and the injudicious, while there have been re- Verses and complaints, there has also been constant growth, marvelous improvement; and settlers, whether from New England, from the South, or from the Mississippi Valley, have managed to do more than “hold their own.” They have prospered. Such prosperity and growth, in far more marked degree, may be extended to all the Plains country if a. large proportion of it may be irrigated; and it may be accomplished by the classes of people who go home-seeking, for such have succeeded, even under all the disadvantages encountered in a new country and in a business new to them, and where the most courageous and energetic have failed without it. It follows, then, that if the predicted result is to be brought about with reasonable speed and at reasonable cost, gen- eral irrigation of this region must be possible. The opinion that it is possible and that it will be accomplished is based upon three facts: 1. The great retentiveness of moisture which characterizes the marly soil of the Plains. This is a characteristic which is well known to all who have become acquainted with the facts and conditions existing throughout this region. There is probably no soil in any part of the United States which will longer retain and make available for the use of growing plants the moisture which it receives than will the ashy- colored but highly fertile Tertiary marl heretofore described as consti- tuting by far the greater portion of the soil of this division. 2. The fact that there is so large an annual precipitation throughout the region, and that so large a proportion of it falls in the growing Sea- son, between April 1 and September 1. 3. The demonstrated fact that there are stores of accessible under- ground waters underlying and underflowing the entire Plains region. The means by which the reclamation of the semi-arid lands may be brought about may be classified as follows: 1. The recovery of underground waters by gravity, by mechanical means, and by artesian wells. 2. The storage and conservation of surface and other waters. This involves not only the construction of reservoirs, but the protection and extension of forests. 3. The greatest economy and care in the use of the water supplies. This involves the gradual increase of the duty of water: (a) by the gradual saturation of the soil; (b) by experience in the use of water in its application to the soil; (c) by the adoption of the most highly eco- nomical methods of use; (d) by growing crops adapted to the economy of moisture; (e) by largely increased thoroughness of cultivation. A most important element in the work of reclamation, the value of which has not been generally understood and is rarely estimated highly enough, is the prevention of the recurrence of sweeping prairie fires. 26 IRRIGATION. These are not only most destructive to property and sometimes to human life, but, by denuding the surface of the ground and exposing the latter to the action of the Sun's rays and to the impact of warm and desiccating winds, render it not only very dry, but also exceedingly hard, so that not only is plant life destroyed, but the ground is reduced to such a condition as to most readily turn aside and get rid of whatever rain may fall upon it, for a long period after it has been so denuded. When such fires have been prevented for a series of years, on the barest portions of the Plains, the growth of grasses and other vegetation has thickened and increased wonderfully. This increased growth of Vege- tation catches the winter snows, retains the summer rains, retards evap- oration, aids in the formation of dew, tempers the heat, mellows the soil, and goes far toward rendering possible the growth of trees and crops on an extended scale. The prevention of such prairie fires is a plain necessity and has already proven not the least of the agencies by which the semi-arid region may be benefited. I feel that it is a duty to call attention once more to the fact that whatever development shall take place, if it is to be of benefit to pres- ent settlers and to small landowners, should be pushed forward with promptness and great vigor. It needs nothing more than the sugges- tion to make it clear that working people with families to support and educate—and often with accumulations of debt instead of surplus prop- erty—are not prepared to await for years the changes which are neces- sary to convert desert lands into farms. The fact has been dwelt upon that thousands of people who settled on the semi-arid lands in the past few years have been compelled by con- tinued crop failures and other stress of circumstances to remove tem- porarily to more humid regions. These temporary removals have, in certain proportion, already become permanent, and unless something may be done in a comprehensive and systematic way to supply the means of irrigation, still a large proportion of those who, through much privation and great labor, have earned the right to retain their homes upon these lands, and richly deserve to do so, must suffer the total loss of all their labor and their investments of Government rights, time, and money. The construction of such irrigation works as will be necessary to supply the water needed for irrigation of these lands, it is believed by the people remaining, would furnish sufficient employment to those of the inhabitants needing employment as a means of subsistence, to afford all necessary temporary relief; and that the confidence and in- crease of values born of such construction would supply all the rest that is necessary to place the people upon a safe footing. Such a work as would be a benefit to the people and accomplish the widest and perma- ment development of the country must of necessity be upon a large scale and must be systematic, thorough, judicious, and well balanced. While a careful weighing of facts gathered in the study of this subject has demonstrated that the whole Plains region may be reclaimed, it does not appear that there is any safe margin for waste or mistakes. In fact it is clear that this great result may be fully accomplished in reasonable time and at fair expense only through intelligent system, rigid economy of means, and discriminating care. Private capital, in immense sums, must eventually be employed in the work; but such are the popular in- terests affected and the interstate questions involved that the opinion is entertained by those most conversant with the situation that the Gen- eral Government should first outline the work to be done, and also make such regulations as will require that all which shall be done, Whether by individuals, by States, by municipalities, or by corporations, 4. POPULAR DEMAND FOR PRACTICAL INVESTIGATION. 27 shall be part and parcel of a systematic whole; that the equities of all concerned shall be safely protected and a safe, certain, and plain legal method of settling all interstate questions which may arise be carefully provided. The opinion prevails among the common people throughout the divis- ion that the Government should cause a few practical demonstrations of the existence, availability, and economical conservation of water supplies, so that private capital may be induced to invest in the work of development to the fullest extent and upon an assured footing. This opinion is founded upon the fact that not only have the settlers upon such lands paid for the same, into the United States Treasury, very large sums of money—this alone constituting, as they believe, a sufficient reason for the active intervention of the Government in matters of irri- gation development for their benefit—but, further, such action upon the part of the General Government as would take the lead in the provision of general systems of irrigation works would confirm to the National Government, fully and unquestionably, the right to make such regula- tions for their use as will inure most largely to the benefit of the people. And such are the intermingling, interdependent interests of individ- uals, communities and States, in the general development of the means of irrigation upon the Great Plains, that the regulation of such works and the settlement of the grave questions arising from the use of the same may proceed, it is believed, only from the National Government; that there is no other possible source of such regulation. If matters continue as at present, there is great danger, first, of delay in inducing capital to undertake the work of development; secondly, and continu- ing the doing of such crude, wasteful, and unintelligent work, which will cost enormously more than it ought; of the establishment of ob-, structive and wasteful vested rights, which will greatly delay if not wholly prevent much proper development; and of the aggrandizement and complication of interstate difficulties which may now be easily re- moved. And all these things will be certainly and ruinously wasteful of time, money and labor, and the equitable rights of the people. I have referred in general terms to the means of reclamation. It is necessary, in order to give to some features the full examination and dis- cussion required, in furtherance of the purposes of this investigation, to pass over others briefly. The careful conservation, by means of storage reservoirs, of storm and flood waters and of waters which now run to waste through fall, winter, and spring months, the protection and exten- sion of forest growth, the prevention of prairie fires, and the employment of the most thorough methods of cultivation upon the broadest scale are all necessary to the reclamation of the Plains region. Not one of these agencies can be dispensed with, but all must be considered in conjunc- tion with the matter of the recovery and utilization of the subwaters, which is more important than any and all the rest only because it is as the keystone to the arch, without which all the rest would be of com- paratively small value. To pass over these important subjects with great brevity, therefore, is not to be construed as underestimating their importance, but is rendered necessary by the time and space required in the discussion of the principal subject of this investigation. ARTESIAN YWELLS. This source of water supply must, in the nature of things, remain an insignificant factor in the problem of arid land reclamation so far as concerns this division. There is but one artesian area in the division 28 & IRRIGATION. the waters of which are as yet applied to irrigation uses, and this in a small way. In the Crooked Creek Valley, in Meade County, Kans, are about one hundred flowing wells. The water is obtained by boring to a depth of from 39 to 137 feet at an average cost per well of but $20. This is the estimate of Hon. T. J. Palmer, of Meade Center, in the ar. tesian district. The wells have a weak flow, the strongest one produc- ing but 66 gallons perminute and the others ranging down as low as a cou- ple of gallons. This artesian area is caused by the doubling back upon itself of the course of Crooked Creek, causing it to run across the course of the underflow, and the eastern bank of the stream, being composed of heavy masses of a more or less impermeable nature, dam up the un- derwaters so that, when an underlying stratum of impervious clay is pen- etrated by the boring tool, the water rises to a sufficient height to flow Over the surface from such wells as are situated in the low portions of the valley. In wells upon the adjoining upland, water rises to about the same level as in the flowing wells of the valley lands, but the “head” is not sufficient to cause the water to rise to the surface. Such wells can not be had in that vicinity, except in the valley of the stream. The water supply, however, of those which do flow, coming as it does from the “sheet water,” will undoubtedly be permanent. About 1,200 acres of land are now under irrigation from these wells. - A similar artesian area, though smaller, will probably be developed hereafter in the vicinity of what is known as the “Wagonbed Springs,” in Stevens County, Kans., from the same causes which produce the Meade wells. The course of the Cimarron doubles back upon itself, crossing the course of the underflow and forming a sort of pocket, the eastern bank being of such a nature as to dam up the underwaters. In Morton County, Kans., are two flowing wells, and in Hamilton County are five, the flow from which is too weak to render them of ap- preciable value for irrigation. Those at Coolidge, Hamilton County, average about 250 feet in depth. The two at Richfield, Mortou County, are a little more than 600 feet deep. The water comes from the sand- stone which underlies a large area to the west and south and which re- ceives its waters largely from Bear Creek, and possibly similar sources, as hereafter described. While other wells and other small areas of artesian water will doubt- less be developed in the division, there is, at present, nothing to indi- cate that the supply of water from such sources, considering the cost of procuring the same, will be of appreciable value to the general irriga- tion of the lands of the division. THE “ UNDERFLOW.” Since the beginnings of settlement of the Plains, people have been familiar with the fact that, throughout the whole region, excepting in isolated cases and in certain small areas, wells obtain their supply from what is popularly known as “sheet water,” and that this has proven a copious and inexhaustible supply. Such wells uniformly penetrate a bed of water-bearing sand or gravel, or both, to a sufficient depth to insure a plentiful supply of water, but in a large majority of cases the bottom of the Water-bearing stratum is not reached nor does the well digger succeed in ascertaining how deep it is. In most in- stances no effort is made to ascertain what may be the depth of such a stratum. An abundance of water assured, there would be no motive, other than curiosity, for pursuing investigation further, and few plains- men could afford to spend much time or labor in the gratification of a WHAT IS MEANT BY “SHEET-WATER." 29 mere desire to know an apparently useless fact, even if the desire Were present. The apparent uniformity of water level in such wellº, however, in any cross section, and the uniform average depths from surface to water, in a broad plain having a pronounced subsidence in a given direction, show conclusively that what is known as “sheet water” must be sus- pended either in a succession of lake-like beds, as illustrated in Figure 4, or must flow with some degree of current through an extensive un- derlying stratum of grit, as in Figure 5. FIG. 4.—Diagrain of water-bearing bed. Fº: § §§ ſº. § º º: º ºº: º §§§ § § § W § §º % 3º. x- % §º % £º § Sº * § ..º.º.º. ɺf - §4 :ºr: 4 : $$#&# º: §gº - ** sh £3. º **** . -. º * - •- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -º-º-º- - - - - - - - - - - *-* *- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - *- - - -sºme ºsmºmºsºm- - - - - - - - - - FIG. 5.—Diagram of strata. That the latter condition obtains, at least locally, is apparent from the fact that all the larger streams and most of the small ones travers- ing the Plains from west to east flow over beds of water-bearing grit, ranging from a few feet to hundreds of feet in depth, and of unknown lateral extent. That there must be a current, however slight, through- out large portions of these sand beds, is evident upon the most cursory examination of the facts. The grit is not simply moist, but so full of water that a 14-inch pipe, with perforated point, driven into it to a depth of 2 or 3 feet, furnishes so free a supply of water that an ordi- nary pump with a cylinder 4 by 12 inches in size makes no apparent impression upon it, and it is not unusual to find a 4-inch bored well, penetrating the water-bearing medium from 8 to 10 feet, supplying water so freely that there is no perceptible effect upon the water level from watering 50 head of cattle, and even more, daily, in addition to the supply required for the ordinary use of a family. The great deposits of grit contain, in places, beds of sand so fine and dense that the passage of water through them is necessarily slow. But, to counterbalance these, there are alternating deposits of gravel so coarse that water flows through them with great freedom, and the rule '30 IRREGATION. is a mixture of sands and gravels of varying degrees of fineness and coarseness, making a medium which permits a very free flow. Given a deposit of this sort, several hundred miles long, from 5 to 300 feet in depth and many miles wide, the whole saturated with water and having a slant throughout its whole length of 5 to 15 feet per mile, and there needs no argument nor further evidence to demonstrate to the most un- Scientific that there must be a constant movement of the water towards the lower end of the vast bed, unless it were inclosed, top, bottom, sides and lower end, by some impervious substance so that the water would be confined as though in a jar. The Arkansas, Platt, and Cana- dian Valleys are illustrations of such deposits. That there must be means of egress of the water at the lower extremes of these immense beds, wherever those extremes may be, is apparent, since there is abun- dant means of escape at the surface if there were none below. Some of it is undoubtedly forced into the channels of such streams towards the mouth by the accumulation of the water in the more nearly level por- tions of the deposits, thus contributing to the large perennial flow always found there. The channels of such streams are simply uncovered and slightly eroded portions of the vastly wider underlying sand bed, and the water flowing therein at low stages is but an escaping portion of the underflow. Thus there may be seen slender streams of water coursing down these sandy channels, varying in width and depth without regard to any visible Source of supply or cause of depletion, in some places a deep and broad stream and again none at all. The explanations of these manifestations being fully stated elsewhere, need not be repeated here. Further evidence of the existence of a general movement of these underwaters may be found in the more or less plainly apparent cur. rents in open wells in various portions of the Plains. In some cases the flow of the water may be plainly seen. In others, the existence of a current is indicated only by the fact that bits of wood, paper, straw, etc., blown into the Wells, gather closely against the eastern wall in the course of a few hours. Mr. John A. Stevens, of Garden City, Kans, in excavating on second bottom or second bench land to lay the foundation for a large build- ing, reached the water level and the inflow of the water from the north and west and its course toward the Southeast were plainly apparent. Mr. Gus. Koehler, of Grand Island, Nebr., has artificial ponds for ice and fish, made by simply scraping away the surface soil and enough of the underlying sand (in this case very fine and dense) to make basins in the subwater, and the inflow of water, as in the above mentioned case, is from the north and west. 1 Still further evidence of constant movement in these underwaters may be found in the great aggregate discharge of the springs which pour out along the exposed edges of the “mortar beds” or “Tertiary grit.” These discharge, constantly and with steadiness of volume, im- mense quantities of Water, much of which little more than sees the light before it is again lost to view in the sand. To maintain so large an aggregate flow, there must be a constant movement of large quantities of water through the subterranean beds of grit. Again, within the past twelve years a number of so-called “sunk wells” have been formed by the sudden caving in of a portion of the surface, in different parts of the Plains, disclosing deep pools of water below a theretofore dry and unbroken surface, showing that soluble. matter had gradually been dissolved out and carried away from beneath in large quantities. One such pool was formed near Meade, in Meade County, Kans, in 1880. Others are to be found in Grant County, * *- -#3 SUBTERRANEAN STREAMS AND SORFACE SPRINGs. 31 Kans., which are of a recent formation, while there are many more in different parts of the division, which were formed long ago. Again, there are known to be many and large subterranean streams throughout the region of country to the southeastward, even to the Atlantic coast, and interesting stories are told of immense fresh-water springs off the South Atlantic coast and in the Gulf of Mexico, which send up from beneath such floods of water that it may be dipped up fresh and drinkable from the midst of the Sea. An inquiry some time ago respecting these phenomena met the following reply: U. S. CoAST AND GEODETIC SURVEY, Washington, D. C., July 7, 1890. SIR: Referring to your inquiry of July 3 about submarine springs of fresh water which are of sufficient volume to make themselves visible at the surface by actually furnishing fresh water, I have to say that there is one shown on our original sheet No. 1267b, about 3 miles off the coast abreast of St. Augustine; this has been officially located and is beyond dispute. We have only had rumors concerning a similar spring near the mouth of the Mississippi River; our surveying parties have never happened to find it, and we have never made an especial search for this particular phenomenon. It has been so often casually referred to, however, that it would be very desirable to have an especial examination for it, provided the funds could be furnished to defray the expense. Yours respectfully, T. C. MENDENHALL, Superintendent. Mr. J. W. GREGORY, Division Field Agent Artesian Wells Investigation, Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C. It may be said that the citation of ocean springs, in the discussion of the underflow of the Great Plains, is reaching out to something quite remote. There can, of course, be nothing more than a speculative con- nection between the two; but it is interesting to consider that there must be a constant and abundant supply of Water from a source suffi- ciently elevated to afford a high pressure to maintain such springs as those spoken of Besides, I have met with an incident in this investi- gation which at least adds interest to the speculation. In Mitchell County, Kans., about latitude 39° 30', longitude 98° 30', is situated a curious spring, which the Indians held in great awe and esteem, giving it the name of the “Great Spirit Spring.” The following extract from correspondence contains the interesting point referred to. Hon. E. D. Crafts, Downs, Kans., says: & * * * In regard to Great Spirit Spring, while the flow is small, the water stands in large pools, several feet elevation above the surrounding country. * * * Mr. Piper, who lives near the spring, says that the water fell 2 feet 9 inches at the time of the Charleston earthquake and did not fill up again for two or three weeks: . This reference is given simply for the suggestion which it affords to the thoughtful mind that could the hidden ways of the subterranean streams be surveyed and mapped, there would doubtless be disclosed many astonishing variations from the drainage of the surface waters. ITS EXTENT. Plainsmen all speak of the “sheet water ’’ as something to be found almost everywhere under this region and as being in inexhaustible sup- ply. The following extracts from correspondence indicate how widely it is found and how it is estimated by the people: Daniel Applegate, residing in the western part of “No Man's Land” The valley of this river (the Cimarron) is from 1 to 2 miles wide, with an under current of water—a steady flow. The depth of the under current is unknown to me, but I know there is plenty of water here. 32 IRRIGATION. . # * F. Babcock says, concerning underflow water in Wichita County, all S. 2 Istarted a short ditch about 44 miles southwest of Leoti, on the White Woman Creek. We struck the bed of the creek at a point where it was as dry as a board, but before we had punctured 6 feet we had a fine flow of clear water, which has kept up for more than five weeks. There is not enough pressure in the White Woman Valley to bring water to the surface by boring, but the underflow exists, in my opinion, if not in inexhaustible quantities, at least in volume sufficient for practical irrigation. W. R. Gibson, Arlington, Colo.: Above the shale here exists a lake of water about 35 miles long and from 2 to 10 miles wide, with a probable average depth of 15 feet in sand, at many places coming to the surface in flowing springs. It has an average depth from the surface of 15 feet. The water in this lake seems to be flowing southward along the course of Adobe Creek, in ranges 54 and 55 west and through townships 17 to 22, inclusive. C. H. Longstreth, Lakin, Kearney County, Kans.: We are located on an ocean of water, which can easily be made to flow to the sur- face perpetually in sufficient quantities to flood the whole country at any and all times of the year. Hon. Ben. C. Rich, Trego County, Kans.: The sheet water is invariably below the conglomerate (except the bottom lands where there is no conglomerate) and above the chalk rock, and so far as I can learn, is coextensive with the county. Springs are numerous in all parts of the county, but more numerous on or near the summit of the divide, say within a mile or two of the summit and then again crop out near the stream. In the space between, water can be had only from wells ranging from a few feet to 114 feet; on the Union Pacific Railroad divide, between Big Creek and the Saline River, from 60 to 114 feet ; on the divide and slope to the Smoky River, from 12 to 40 feet, with a few exceptions where they have to go into the rock. Most of our springs are permanent, with a uniform flow through summer and winter, wet or dry. Judge J. A. Gardner, Pratt, Kans.: There is a lake of water underlying this entire county from 10 to 90 feet below the surface. J. U. Shade, live-stock agent Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Rail- road, Liberal, Seward County, Kans.: T. Concerning the springs and underflow of water in the Neutral Strip, Oklahoma Territory, will say there are about five small streams headed by springs in the center and western portion of the strip, except a block of about 40 miles in the extreme western portion, which is dry, except the extreme north line through which the Cim- arron River flows. All of the above mentioned small streams vary from 5 to 20 miles in length and empty into the Beaver River, which is an all-year stream, until it reaches the quicksand, about 30 miles west of the east line of the strip, where it usually disappears for several weeks in dry seasons. In the eastern portion there are several small streams headed by springs and they, like the Beaver, disappear when they reach the lowlands. Regarding the underflow, or sheet water, I have had sev- eral wells dug, and the depth varies from 20 to 90 feet, and the water is usually found in the quicksand and inexhaustible. At one of these wells at which we water cattle, which are driven from New Mexico and the Pan Handle of Texas to the rail- road for shipment, I use a steam pump (well 80 feet deep), and during the summer of 1889 watered about 21,000 head of cattle and about 16,000 head of sheep. I mention this to give you an idea as to the extent or supply of water. This well is about 20 miles from any living stream of water and is situated in about the center of the strip east and west and about 7 miles from the north line. This is an exceptionably good well, but water has been found at all points where wells have been dug, in sufficient supply for a well-stocked farm. J. F. Van Voorhis, Springfield, Seward County, Kans.: One-half mile south of Fargo Springs, 3 miles from Springfield, may be found Eu- reka Springs, a slight depression in the valley near the river where, by digging 2 or 3 feet and sinking barrels, as formerly done, water rises to near the surface in appar- ently inexhaustible quantities. Small springs of seep water are found in several places along the Cimarron and undoubtedly have their source in the universal sheet water strata. The Cimarron River, which loses itself in the sand in Southeast Grant TESTIMONY. As To SHEET water IN KANSAs. 33 County, comes to the surface 4 miles east of Springfield. It increases in volume quite rapidly, and where it leaves the county line it has probably five times the amount of water which flows by old Fargo. - T. E. Ickes, Alexander, Rush County, Kans.: The underflow in Walnut Valley is about 20 feet deep and inexhaustible. W. H. Markham, P. M., Rexford, Kans. : It is generally conceded that this whole slope is underlaid by great unfailing sheet or streams of water. - Judge J. W. O'Brian, Coldwater, Sherman County, Tex.: * Our sheet water is found here at from 140 to 160 feet on the flats and, when dug or bored, wells are made to give an unfailing supply. I think experiments with the underflow of the water courses would be very beneficial and would, in any place along the dry beds of these courses, give good flowing wells at a nominal cost. C. Kelley, Stewart, Colo: About 5 miles north of here is the stream called the Whitewomani. There is seldom any water to be seen in the stream, but water is found in abundance a few feet below the surface in its channel. L. J. Carrington, C. E., Culbertson, Nebr.: I do not know the lateral extent of the water-bearing strata in this vicinity, but all the wells in the divide have to be dug to about the same level and always get water. In some places they have to go as deep as.300 feet and strike the same bed of sand and gravel. James Newall, Kimball County, Nebr.: Lodge Pole Creek, a mountain stream, starts northwest of Cheyenne City, running through Kimball, Cheyenne, Deuel, and other counties. Part of the way it runs under ground. There are many springs along its banks. T. L. Warrington, Lexington, Dawson County, Nebr.: In the Platte Valley, sheet water can be obtained in inexhaustible quantities at from 8 to 40 feet from surface. On the table-land bordering on the Platte Valley, good water can be had from 80 to 300 feet. H. W. Worthington, Richfield, Morton County, Kans.: The underflow of the north fork of the Cimarron and Santa Arroya furnishes a ready supply of water for stock when the rivers themselves are dry. S. J. Wilkinson, Logan County, Kans. : The Hackberry is a small stream running through this part of the country from west to east and dry most of the year, but a great supply of water is found beneath the surface at a depth of from 3 to 10 feet in the valley. The flow is much stronger near the bed of the stream. In the extreme dry weather of 1889, I dug a well for stock-water within 20 feet of the creek bed. The mouth of the well is about 3 feet above the creek bed. We struck water at about 5 feet, thus showing the water line to be but 2 feet below the bed at that point. Water was struck in sand and gravel into which we sunk a box 24 feet, as far as we could go on account of the immense inflow of water. As to the depth of the underflow water there is nothing known, because, though we have dug wells in the valley, our people have always felt satisfied after obtaining 2 or 3 feet of water, and that is as far as the underflow has been penetrated to my knowledge. E. C. Holmes, Russell Springs, Logan County, Kans.: There is a bountiful supply of underflow water in all streams which run across the south part of this county; also in the valley of the Smoky River through the center of the county. ' J. C. Starr, Scott City, Scott County, Kans, : We have along the Whitewoman Creek an inexhaustible supply of running water. A 12-inch bored well about 40 feet deep on the Hughes Cattle Company ranch, located on the bank of Whitewoman Creek, supplied water for nearly 1,000 head of cattle in 1887. The well never failed nor was the water mark lowered during the dry season of S. Ex. 41, pt. 4—3 34 - IRRIGATION. . . . the year. This is on section 12, township 19, range 33. I have a dug well on the south- east quarter of same section, 17 feet to water, well 23 feet deep, which probably furnished more water to the traveling and freighting people in 1886 and 1887 than any well along the public road and it never failed, besides supplying plenty of water for my stock, Water in the center of the Whitewoman basin is found at 12 and 15 feet. Moving back toward the highland, the depth to water gradually increases until a depth of 40 to 50 feet is reached. Judge E. J. Fields, Leoti, Wichita County, Kans.: We have the Beaver, White River, and two Sand Creeks in this county. There are large pools of water from 8 to 12 feet deep, along the White River, which are evidently sheet water. Some parties from Kansas City began a ditch or channel to test the capacity of this under water by a ditch three-quarters of a mile long. On one occasion I measured the stream about 300 yards above the place of beginning, and it was running at the rate of about 4 miles an hour, was 6 inches deep and 30 inches wide. The next day they had gone 150 yards further, and it had gained so that it was 9 inches deep and 30 inches wide, and the deepest place in the ditch was not over 5 feet. It is my opinion that by going to the proper depth water can be got to irrigate a large amount of land by the use of reservoirs, and the same thing can be done in the Sand Creeks. The Beaver is a running stream, but it sinks in the sand in some places and rises again in others. It has many pools of water from 6 to 15 feet deep. The water runs in some places on riffles 6 inches deep and 15 feet wide, and it has been estimated that there is twenty times as much water flowing through the sand immediately underneath. There is a spring in the northwestern portion of Greeley County, near the State line, called Barrel Spring, because an old settler sunk a barrel there, and I am told that in 1889, when the land was taken up and the peo- ple had no wells they came from ‘a radius of 10 miles around with wagons filled with barrels, and one man who lived near says that he has seen them from dawn until after night, two men at a time, dipping with buckets and pouring into barrels, and they never could lower the water level lower than 18 inches. We have numerous wells through the county that have been tested through all the power they could get by means of pump for a day at a time without lowering the water an inch. Judge James Glynn, Holyoke, Colo.: So far as I can learn sheet water underlies the whole country, ranging in depth from 100 to 150 feet, with a few deeper places in the table-lands north of them. I have never heard of any boring made without striking water. I have learned of several water holes from 20 to 50 feet in diameter in which water neither increases or diminishes during the year. They are principally along a dry creek called “The Frenchman.” I am well satisfied that if the underground flow of water in the French- man was brought to the surface by the fountain system, which could be done in a little less than a half mile, and the water stored, this entire county and the counties south of us could be irrigated successfully. Hudson Harlan, Wa Keeney, Trego County, Kans.: In the Smoky Valley, which is similar to the Arkansas, there seems to be an un- limited flow in the sand, gravel, and eroded material lying above the shale from 3 to 20 feet in thickness and from 100 feet to one-half mile in width. The Saline, in the Inorth part of the county, is similar, but not so great in volume. Big Creek would also furnish a small canal. James Belton, North Platte, Nebr.: I have been in this city twenty-one years, and have put down a good many wells. Our elevation is 2,780 feet. The slope here is about 10 feet to the mile. At about 4 feet from the surface in the valley of the Platte a crust is formed, beneath which comes the water and sand which prevail for the next 15 feet. Then hardpan is struck and strata of other material; but at a depth of from 80 to 195 feet a second water-bearing stratum is found, from which the water invariably rises to 3 feet from the surface, giving an inexhaustible supply of water. To the north of the river it is sandy, but water can be had anywhere from 50 to 150 feet, according to the charac- ter of the surface. To the south of the river the land is more of a clay soil. Water can be had anywhere from 75 to 225 feet. Every 7 or 8 miles north of the river springs come out of the Valley large enough to run mills, but south of the river there are very few. There is no question, but that this country is underlaid with any quantity of water, and if brought to the surface milllons of acres might be reclaimed, of as rich land as there is in the world, WIDE DISTRIBUTION AND ABUNDANT SUPPLY. 35 Theo. T. Schroeder, of Kit Carson, Colo., speaking of an experimental well by the Government at what is known as Cheynne Wells, Colo., Says: - At 260 feet a vein of water was struck, but the object being to get artesian water the vein was cased off by 10-inch casing and boring continued to a depth of 1,740 feet. No artesian water being secured, the Government abandoned the well, and the Union Pacific Railroad Company opened up the vein of water, which was cased off at 260 feet, and has powerful machinery with which to raise the water therefrom. For Some months I had charge of this machinery and was able to pump from 2,800 to 2,900 gallons per hour, with a Knowles deep-well pump, requiring 70 to 80 pounds of steam pressure to pump. , Considering that the well only consists of a 6-inch casing in which the plunger works, it certainly takes a strong vein of water to keep up the discharge of 2,900 gallons per hour. H. R. Dellinger, Hyannis, Grant County, Nebr.: James Forbes, our county treasurer, drove a sand point down 23 feet on section 20, township 22, range 39, and attached a double cylinder pump and windmill, which affords abundant water for 800 head of cattle. A. J. Mowry, Lucerne, Decatur County, Kans.: In township 8, south, range 27 west, near the town of Guy, is a strong artesian spring that throws a strong volume of water and fine sand. I am located in the Bow Creek Valley, at about an elevation of 115 feet above what we call sheet water, found in coarse sand. The water is inexhaustible when reached. A 6-inch bored well will supply 3-inch cylinder in force pump and, with windmills, as long as the wind blows and mill runs, there is no lack of water. John Maxwell, Menlo, Thomas County, Kans.: One of my neighbors, Mr. Thomas Huey, went into his pasture in the Solomon bot- tom and, with plow and scraper, dug out an excavation down to water. . The Solomon River does not run in this part of the county. His place is about 80 feet below the average level of the country. C. S. Wilmuth, Water Valley, Kiowa County, Colo.: We have sheet water in our wells, and we have a stream that flows under the sand 4 feet of water, 100 yards wide. The Southwestern Sugar Company, of Meade, have a well 6 by 8 feet and 103 feet deep. It cost $250. Robert McHatton, of Meade, states that no log of the strata was kept. The water, when found, rose to nearly even with the level of the ground. The water brings up a little coarse white sand. Mr. E. D. Smith, of Meade, says: First a well was bored at the mill, producing a flow, but not enough for the pur- poses of a sugar mill, and then one was sunk with pick and shovel, 6 by 8 feet, on ground a little higher than the first; at a depth of about 100 feet the whole bottom burst up and the workmen barely escaped with their lives. The water rose to within 18 inches of the top, where it remains. A well owned by John W. Hudson, in the extreme northern part of Meade County, on a section adjoining Gray County, at an altitude of 2,630 feet, was dug and bored 1134 feet. The first water was found at 73 feet and rose 4 feet. At 1134 feet a flow of water was found in white quartz gravel, which came up freely through the pipe, carrying up quantities of the gravel. The water rose to a height of 814 feet, or within 32 feet of the top of the ground, where it remains. A log of this well was furnished by Capt. John A. Shaw, of Montezuma, Gray County. He also gives the following particulars relating to a well 9 miles west of the foregoing : James Holcomb's well, on the northwest quarter of section 4, township 30, range. 29, in Crooked Creek Valley, was begun in 1887—bore 2 inches in diameter; struck first water at 20 feet; second water, 110 feet in coarse sand. The upward flow of sand 36. - IRRIGATION. 3. - ~, was so strong that it fastened the drill, which was broken and left in the well. The water rose to within a few feet of the surface, and remains so at the present time, with the drill embedded in the bottom of the well. The foregoing extracts are simply illustrative of the general opinion of the inhabitants of the division. The opinion is based, of course, upon the fact that most of the wells obtain their water from the grit, which is found at some depth under the surface, as a rule. There are exceptions, however. A very common phenomenon is the rise of water in wells, upon various portions of the plains, above the point where found. Sometimes the rise is rapid, even violent, and a flowing weli is, for a few minutes or a few hours, expected by the well-borer; but the water supply rises a foot or two, 40, 50, perhaps 100 or 200 feet and stands at what proves, upon careful examination, to be about the gene- ral level of the waters. A very few extracts from correspondence are given, following. Such instances could be multiplied by thousands in this division : - J. E. Carpenter, Morton, Morton County, Kans, describes a well 69 feet deep, in which the water rose 4 feet and says: At the bottom of the well there seems to be a regular flow of water, the same as the undercurrent of all these streams. Henry Stahl, Norton, Norton County, Kans., describes a 12-inch bored well 113 feet deep, in which the water rose 6 feet, and says: The well-borers say that in all deep wells the water rises some. Before we put down the tubing, we put down some paper and it circled around on the current. Robert Chadwick, Lewellen, Dawson County, Nebr.: Watered 230 head of stock from a 2-inch bore well, and believe I could have easily watered twice the number. Well 106 feet deep, and containing 75 feet of water. W. F. Brown, Craven, Pratt County, Kans., describes a well 70 feet deep in which the water rose 35 feet, and states that the water rises in the neighboring wells in the same way. S. S. Mathes, Little River, Reno County, Kans., says: I have bored many wells in Rice, Reno, Ellsworth, and McPherson counties since 1875, and in many places the water rises above the place of tapping the strata. J. K. Sayre, Ensign, Gray County, Kans.: Water rises in wells from 6 to 8 feet all over the county. E. H. Grosclund, Ulysses, Grant County, Kans, describes a well in which the water rose 60 feet, and says: * There are many such wells all over the county. J. C. Kilborn, Morton, Morton County, Kans, describes a well in which water rose 30 feet, and says: There are other wells in my locality same as my own. J. M. Helfrick, Pence, Scott County, Kans, describes a well as fol- lows: It is a tubular well, 2-inch gas-pipe driven to the bottom. At 175 feet the water rose in the pipe 80 feet with force enough to fill 10 feet of sand in the pipe. F. P. Hill, Stockton, Rooks County, Kans., describes a well 184 feet deep in which Water rose to within 50 feet of the surface, and says that the wells in his vicinity show about the same rise. G. Schwabb, La Crosse, Rush County, Kans., describes a well 267 feet deep, in which water rose 100 feet, and says: Wells of this description can be obtained anywhere at a depth of 130 to 267 feet. Water rises in them from 80 to 160 feet. There are a great many wells of this sort in all parts of the county. - - # GEOLOGICAL DESCRIPTION OF “THE GRIT.” 37 D. A. Smith, Delhi, Russell County, Kans., describes a well 240 feet deep, in which water rose 24 feet, and says: There are several similar wells in this vicinity, ranging in depth from 140 to 240 feet. All are located on high ground. W. G. Arnolds, Lamar, Chase County, Nebr.: This well is 136 feet deep. Struck water at 100 feet. Second sheet at 120 feet. This sheet was 6 feet through and the water rose 3 feet above first sheet, and the last sheet struck rose 9 feet above the first sheet. The partial rise of the water in such wells is popularly taken as an indication that deeper boring would produce a flowing artesian well, but it has no such significance. The causes of such phenomena are fully discussed further on. - It seems quite clearly established that the shales and other forma- tions which underlie this region were so eroded as to present a very un- even surface when the formation known as the Tertiary grit or “mortar beds” was deposited. Of this formation Prof. Robert Hay, F. G. S. A., chief geologist of the “Artesian Wells Investigation,” says: * The term grit is descriptive of this formation everywhere, yet it is of varying con- stitution. In places it incloses a fine powder, but the powder is largely siliceous, is useful as polishing powder, and appears to be volcanic in its origin—wind-blown volcanic glass from the Tertiary centers of eruption in the west. Elsewhere the grit is an aggregation of sand and lime, which we call its mortar-like form. Again, the lime exceeds the sand in quantity, and it is sufficiently fine to be used for inside plas- tering. Then we have the mortar form, inclosing abundant pebble, quartz, feldspar, diorite, greenstone (hornblende), and more rarely, granite, with other igneous rocks. Then the limy matrix almost disappears, and we have a heavy conglomerate of water- worn pebbles of the rocks above mentioned, with jasper, quartzite, and agate, from the size of a nut to that of a large apple. Sometimes aiso there is a bone or a piece of completely silicified wood. The mortar-like form often hardens into a building- stone, and its softer beds contain hard, tough nodules like indurated, not silicified, chalk. The conglomerate form changes at times into beds of a fair quality of sand- stone. In some places it shows as a hardened bed of gravel, with well-marked cross bedding. The mortar-like form is often a fossil bed, yielding bones of mastodon, Aphelops, and turtle. There are in many places root-like concretions penetrating the softer forms of the grit, and where these softer forms are of considerable thickness— they attain in places a depth of 15 to 20 feet—they are characterized by harder ledges at intervals of from 2 to 3 feet, which give very bold forms in weathering. The con- glomerate is also manifested in abrupt’ breaks and rocky ledges. In the Arkansas. Valley the conglomerate of the grit is mainly composed of pebbles of dark red feldspar. This is so marked a feature that its exposures, covered with the loose pebbles, can be recognized at long distance by their ruddy glow in the sun. In the valley of the Cimarron and in counties farther east the conglomerate is more often composed of quartz pebbles and pale feldspar, giving a whitish or grayish tint to the exposures. In several well-marked instances I found the mortar form and the conglomerate together, indicating that they are not, as I had at first supposed, local variations of synchronous deposits. I found the mortar form below the conglomerate, the former having in those places its usual scant supply of pebbles. Rocky Point, a bold ledge of conglomerate, 5 miles west of Dodge City, gave a juxtaposition of the two forms, the mortar form showing only on the eastern slope of the point and dis- appearing under the conglomerate. Elsewhere I found a mortar form embedding not only the pebbles of igneous rock, but also pebbles, both water-worn and angular, of the Cretaceous rocks of the region, these fragments being more or less silicified. A small patch of white sandstone, of which there were several near, in Harper County (sec. 5, T. 32, R. 5 W.), had similar relation to the underlying red rock (Jura-Trias). The red rock, a nodular clay, shades upward into the sandstone, the immediate part being a conglomerate of quartz pebbles in a pasty matrix of the red-rock material. The sandstone itself has some pebbles of smaller size, and in the conglomerate the larger pebbles are below, and the least amount of coloring matter—the pasty matrix— above. At another “Rocky Point’ on the Cimarron, in Morton County, the grit lies on the Dakota sandstones, and great erosions of previous epochs are well illustrated by the difference of the formations on which the grit rests. This description of the Tertiary grit is that of a formation by no means confined to Kansas. While it is found in at least 20,000 square miles of that State, it is also con- * Senate Ex. Doc. No. 222, Fifty-first Congress, first session, p. 42. 38 IRRIGATION. spicuous in an equal area of eastern Colorado, a larger area ºf Western Nebraska, and in similar areas of New Mexico and Texas. Its character for holding water is con- tinuous through all that region. On the level prairie it is covered up with what we have called Tertiary marl, a loose-like deposit, not altogether impervious to water, but so much so in most of its area as to hold down the accumulated Waters in the grit. The marl varies from 20 or 30 to 200 feet in thickness, and the grit is from 20 to 100. Through all this region the high prairie wells are sunk through the marland find ºundance of water in the grit. Neither steam or wind pump reduce their Supply. SOME PECULIARITIES. It is this formation which holds what is known by the inhabitants of the plains region as “sheet water.” After being deposited; however, it was undoubtedly eroded to a considerable extent, being largely re- moved from the higher peaks and ridges of the underlying formations, and the sand and gravel, which were its chief components, deposited in the deep basins, valleys, and cañons which dotted and seamed the former surface. Thus, while the grit lies, in general, in beds varying . from 10 to 100 feet in thickness, as described by Prof. Hay, it is worn to a “feather edge” in places, and the deposit of broken-down grit is, in other places, upward of 300 feet in depth, while knobs, peaks, and ridges of the impervious subformations were left bare and protruding, and some of these still show, in places, through the immense marly deposits afterward spread over the whole. 7. t Af Z g & ºx- # º Ö7A/ º % É ~-w-w- # --- FIG. 6.-Various characteristics of wells. The accompanying diagrammatic sketch (Fig. 6) will. illustrate and explain most of the phenomena observed in sinking wells upon the plains, In many places, especially in northwestern Kansas, exposed ledges of shale may be found, generally on the south, or abrupt side, of a stream. At such places will almost always be found a stream or pool or succes- sion of pools of water with shaly bottom. Wells put down to the southward and in the near vicinity of such shale banks uniformly pene: trate only dry shale, as shown at j, though a very slight “seep” of water may be found, as at s. A well, as shown at c, will penetrate dry sand and gravel for a few feet, then reach that which contains water in plenty, the water line being indicated by the line a b. A shale bottom may be reached, as shown in the diagram, or the digger may simply stop in the grit as indicated in well d. The latter is an example of the well in which water is found immediately upon striking the grit, but in which the water does not rise. A well, as at e, may penetrate about the same thickness of marl, as at d, and in the near neighborhood, yet the water will rise in the well several feet. At f the well-borer will go much deeper than at either of the preceding two, but the water Will rise much more extensively in the well and stand permanently nearer the surface, for obvious reasons, it being remembered that the dense deposit of marl is practically impervious to water. At g is shown What * *. PECULIARITIES OF WATER-BEARING FORMATIONS. 39 often occurs. The well-borer strikes a peak or ridge of shale at some distance below the surface, without having obtained water. In such a well the “sheet water” is not found by the well-maker. He finds an occa- sional “seep ’’ of water, as at 8 s, and may consider himself fortunate if he finally secures, at an unusual depth, a strong enough “seep,” through numerous small fissures, to furnish him a limited supply of water, which may, by the practice of economy, answer his purposes. Sometimes, as at h, the borer passes through a thin vein of water- bearing grit, as at 0, which does not furnish a sufficient flow of water. Upon boring farther an abundant supply is obtained, which rises to the level of the other stratum, thus showing a common source. At i the surface of the ground may be higher, accounting to a degree for the lenticular under-line. The above-mentioned thin water vein will be penetrated, as at r, and when the “sheet water” is reached there is a strong rise of water which maintains its level some feet above the vein first penetrated. The deep well at Santa Fe, Haskell County, Kans, is an illustration of this sort of condition. **** THE ROSSON WELL THE MARL º §§§ §§ tºº ºf 3 rºº *** - tº * - §§ $2. 33% ºf: §§ § º tºº --> ºra - ºº: * 7- º § & % º º - § § *º FIG. 7.-A southwest Kansas well. Another well of this type (see Fig. 7) is that of J. J. Rosson, in the valley of the north fork of the Cimarron River, in Grant County, Kans. It is the well referred to by E. H. Grosclund, in the extracts from cor- respondence foregoing. The well is dug 60 feet deep in the top of a mound embracing less than a quarter section of land. Obtaining no water by digging to the depth mentioned, a 2-inch hole was bored in the bottom to a depth of 20 feet more, when the water gushed up with such force that it soon stood within 20 feet of the well's mouth. The well is used to water some fifty head of stock and to irrigate a garden. An 8-foot windmill can not affect the supply. That this well simply chanced upon a lenticular lump of densely packed marl is proven by 40 IRRIGATION. the fact that wells in the immediate vicinity strike the sheet water at a depth of a few feet and at the same level as the water in this well. ITS DEPTH. Reliable facts concerning the extreme depth or thickness of the strata which contain the sheet water are very meager and hard to obtain. For the reasons already stated, very few wells penetrate to the bottom of the water-bearing stratum in which an abundance of water is found. Prof. Hay's estimate, as already quoted, is that the grit varies in thick- ness from 20 to 100 feet. There are considerable areas in which the stratum utilized for obtaining water, averages but about 2 feet in thickness. What there may be farther down is as yet undeveloped. On the other hand, in the former caſions, above which now flow some of the principal streams, there is a great depth of water. An experimen- tal boring at Garden City, Kans, passed through 320 feet of alternat- ing layers of water-soaked sand and gravel. In the southwest corner of Morton County, Kans, a casing of galvanized sheet iron 40 feet in length, all firmly riveted together, was put down in a well 114 feet deep, and as soon as released from the ropes by which it was lowered it sunk down its whole length and wholly disappeared in the unknown depths of a bed of sand and water. There have been quite a number of deep borings made throughout the division, but it is next to impossible to obtain-anything like a relia- ble log of one in a score. In most cases no accurate record was kept of the strata penetrated, and where such a record was made it was, as a general thing, soon afterward lost or destroyed. For these reasons no satisfactory estimate of the average depth of the sheet water, so generally found, can be made at this time, I am satisfied, however, from the facts gathered, that it may be safely said to average not less than 15 feet in depth under the whole area of this division. This takes into account the fact that there are numerous peaks and ridges of shale which penetrate the sheet water from below, and that in places the water above the non-water-bearing strata is quite shallow over consid- erable areas. It is to be understood also that by the term “sheet water” is meant the water so generally found at an average level, whether in sand and gravel, in the more rigid form of the “mortar beds,” or the still harder water-bearing formations which, in some local- ities, take the place of the more generally distributed grit. ITS QUANTITY. Careful tests show that each pound of what might be considered an average of the grit contains a little more than one-fourth pound of Water. Hence each cubic foot of this saturated medium contains above one-third of a cubic foot of water. Considering the nature of the mor- tar beds and the water-bearing sandstones, this is probably a fair aver- age of the amount contained in the strata which bear what is popularly known as the sheet water. Upon this basis there would be an average depth of at least 5 feet of water underlying the whole area of the plains. I am convinced that this estimate is well within bounds. HOW THE WATER GETS IN, While it is true that there is, as a general fact, a vast mass of com- pact, apparently dry, and practically impermeable marl overlying the & ['qdewºon oud w urol）|| 'ouvwotoo ºxaa， sivaſ. No Nouvwaelo， wo ſwal A 's ºpiſ HOW AND WHERE SURFACE WATERS DISAPPEAR. 41 plains area, there is no lack of openings through which surface waters may reach the permeable strata below. Every great stream is a gash through the marl, which acts as an equalizer, draining the underwaters, to a certain extent, at low stages, and adding thereto at times of flood. Every “draw' affords more or less means of reaching the underly- ing grit, and over the surface of any broad stretch of plain may be found myriads of holes made by coyotes, badgers, prairie dogs, and lesser animals, through which, in the aggregate, much water finds its way down through the marl. The occasional areas of sand-hill country afford, of course, no resistance to the direct percolation of all rainfall in excess of what is held in suspension in the sand itself. There are a number of so-called “creeks,” some of them of considerable length, having broad sandy beds and numerous tributaries, draining large areas of country, and through which great floods of water pour at times, yet which have no outlet into any other stream or visible body of water. Among the most notable of these are Whitewoman Creek and Bear Creek. The former rises in Eastern Colorado, in Kiowa County, trav- erses Greeley and Wichita counties, in Kansas, and ends in a broad basin in the center of Scott County, through the bottom of which the Water, which sometimes comes down in great quantities, quickly escapes to the sheet water below. This creek drains an area of some 1,500 Square miles. That is, it is the outlet for such of the surface waters as escape above the surface of the ground. Bear Creek rises in Baca, County, in southeastern Colorado, traverses portions of Stanton, Ham- ilton, and Kearny counties, in Kansas, and is lost in a line of sand hills south of the Arkansas River. With its tributaries it affords drainage for a scope of country over 100 miles long and averaging probably 40 miles wide. e This creek affords, perhaps, the most visible means of losing water throughout its course, instead of retaining it, of any of the numerous streams of its class. From first to last it cuts through ledges of a hard stone containing so much iron that the exposed and Weathered surfaces are of a dark red color. This stone lies in strata which uniformly dip away from the bed of the stream toward the southeast, and which rest upon a porous sandstone, in and from which the artesian wells of Morton and Hamilton counties, Kans., secure their artesian flow. The accompanying view (Figure 8) from a photograph taken on Bear Creek, near what is known as “Five Mile Water Holes,” in Baca County, Qolo., illustrates this pecu- liarity. The upper formation, the strata of which dip toward the south- east, is of the hard red stone above mentioned. The underlying and apparently level formation is the whitish sandstone, which freely per- mits the passage of water. The sandstone is rarely visible as in this instance, but this outcrop shows how readily the water of this stream constantly escapes from its channel into the porous sandstone below, so that only in times of copious local rains does any water flow visibly through the whole course of the stream down into its basin in the sand hills. There are many other and smaller streams similar to the two cited, having no visible outlet. The “Big Sandy,” which rises near the crest of the “Great Divide,” in Colorado, and runs southeasterly, opening into the Arkansas, affords a means of escape of surface waters into the underflow by somewhat different means. Its channel, cutting across the plains, instead of fol- lowing down the slope, affords a sort of lead-trough arrangement, over the edge of which, through gaps and low places in the shale which form its eastern lip, its waters find their way in underground streams, 42 IRRIGATION. broad or narrow, between ridges of shale, down underneath the Kansas prairies. + Among the considerable sandy areas which absorb surface waters may be mentioned the strip of sand hills 50 miles long and averaging 10 miles in width south of the Arkansas River, stretching from the one hundred and second meridian eastward; the Arickaree Flats, in northeastern Colorado; the sandy country north of the Republican River, in southwest Nebraska; the sandy areas at the head of the Big Sandy, above referred to, and similar regions along the upper courses of the Canadian and its tributary, the Beaver, in “No Man's Land.” HOW TO GET THE WATER OTIT. Aside from the utility of these subterranean water supplies for water- ing stock, supplying cities, railways, etc., for which they have proven so abundant that all forms of domestic use seem not to tax the supply in the least, the great interest in this division at the present time is how to recover and use such waters for irrigation. The means of such recovery may be roughly classified as: (1) By hoisting machinery, driven by steam, wind, or horse power; (2) by force of gravity, and (3) by artesian wells. Of the various forms, capacities, cost, utility and economy of pumps, hoisting apparatus, engines, windmills, etc., Which are and may be used for the purpose of raising underwaters for use in irrigation, an interesting volume might be written, and one which would be of great value to those who now and will hereafter desire to em- ploy such means. At the present stage of progress in the use of such means of irrigation I will not undertake a detailed report upon this feature. Many details as to the simplicity—or the contrary—of the machinery to be employed, the land to be irrigated, the height of lift, the contiguity of markets, the costs of fuel, etc., must necessarily enter into consideration in undertaking an exhaustive treatment of this branch of the subject. Suffice it to say that such means have begun to be employed quite largely and with some degree of success, which must be largely added to as experiments with the machinery and ex- perience in the processes of irrigation are more extended. The accompanying view (Fig.9) is from a photograph of one of the most primitive and inexpensive of wind engines. It is made of rough lumber, at a total cost of $16, and supplies sufficient power to raise an abundant supply of water for 50 head of cattle from a depth of 45 feet; also to irri- gate a small garden, run the family churn, etc., with an uncalculated in- crement to spare. The principles of its construction and operation are of the simplest character and are apparent at a glance. The fixity of the mill in its place is because of the fact that all winds of any account whatever, upon the Plains, blow either from the north or south, with such directness that the shifting of a mill to meet the breeze is not nec- essary, provided it is so arranged that its motion, whether in the one direction or the other, produces the desired result. Such a mill runs, of course, whenever the wind blows, whether its power is required or not, but modifications of this form of windmill have been invented in which the motion of the mill may be controlled and even suspended, at any time. The One shown is used upon a ranch in Morton County, Kans. Within the past two or three years many small tracts of garden and truck patch have been placed under successful irrigation by utilizing the pumps and Windmills erected for ordinary domestic purposes. These draw water from depths varying from 20 to 100 feet to success- Fig. 9. A Pioneer IRRigaton. |From a photograph.) Fig, 10. Inaugation by Pumping–Mill, and Reservoin. [From a photograph. METHODs of RECOVERING USE of PHREATIC waters. 43 fully irrigate from half an acre to two or three acres. Of late there has been much inquiry for an improved form of pump which could be used to lift water 20 or 30 feet, in more considerable quantities, utilizing or- dinary 8 or 12 foot windmills for power. Messrs. W. R. Grace, I. I. Deisem, John Simon, and E. J. Johnson, of Garden City, Kans., are each using a modification of the ordinary form of pump, called the Gause pump, which seems to give good satisfaction. The modification consists in simply enlarging the size of all the working parts of the pump, including especially the orifices of supply and discharge. It is used in connection with a small reservoir made by throwing up a border of earth inclosing an area, say 100 feet square, no lining or puddling being necessary. The accompanying photographic view (Fig. 10) shows part of the mill tower and reservoir used by Mr. Grace. He has a 10-foot mill, a pump of 5-inch cylinder and 8-inch stroke. His reser- voir is 50 by 80 feet in size and 3 feet deep, the lining of rough boards , shown in the view being for the protection of the banks against wave action simply. The water is hoisted 12 feet. With this “plant,” cost- ing $125 all told, he irrigated this year 4 acres, yielding a gross return of products to the value of $600, and avers he could have irrigated 10 acres if he had had the land. He uses his reservoir as a fish pond, also. Among the many who are irrigating small tracts of ground from or- dinary Wells and pumps may be mentioned Mr. J. J. Rosson, of Grant County, Kans., and Hon. Benj. C. Rich, of Trego County, Kans. The recovery of underwaters by gravity will eventually test many methods and probably employ several differing at least in detail. Up to the present time, that which is attracting attention, and to which ex- perimentation has been confined is what is known upon the plains as the “fountain method.” It consists of simply drifting from the surface of the ground into the water-bearing strata by means of an open cut or “fountain,” having a less rate of inclination than has the surface of the ground, and of the water-bearing stratum penetrated. Reference is made to the accompanying diagrammatic section (Fig. 11) and explana- tions. §§§ \ºs \\,\\, \\\\\\ \\\ \\ \º, Ş, t w * . w Y- §§§ \ W. RANKY \\ Yºss Nº. sºr § Nº º *. Ali º"''Wateb t , t w - 2 f * *, * Sºx, Sºx §§§ § §§ w \ &’s N IFIG. 11.-How water is obtained. HOW THE WATER IS ORTAINED. In the above drawing, which represents a longitudinal section of part of a “fountain,” the slope of the land is exaggerated in order to make the method of obtaining water plainly apparent to the eye. Let the drawing represent a stretch of 2 miles of Arkansas River bottom, which 44 *t IRRIGATION. has an eastward fall of 74 feet per mile; hence, the surface at C is 15 feet higher than at B. The underlying bed of water-bearing sand and gravel, averaging 3 feet below the surface, is indicated. If the foun- tain be excavated so that the bottom will have an eastward fall of 2 feet per mile (indicated by the line A B) the bottom will be 11 feet below the surface at C and 8 feet below the water line, so that the Water which rushes into the fountain from bottom and sides will readily flow Out upon the surface of the ground at B. This method of securing water from the underflow is under test in a number of places. The first to construct a fountain on this plan Were Gilbert Brothers, of Dodge City, Kans., who made a cutting near the Arkansas River 9 miles west of Dodge City, on the south side. They first cut away the soil and top sand by means of plows and scrapers, making their fountain 50 feet wide. Then piles and sheet piling were driven along each side and the sand between was dredged out to a depth of several feet below the water level. Half a mile of fountain was made in this way, when it was decided that the sheet piling was an unnecessary expense and it was dispensed with, the fountain being extended as much farther without wall of any sort, the banks of sand and gravel being left without any support whatever, and these have suc- cessfully stood the test for the past two years. Figure 12 is from a photo- graph of the extreme upper portion, or head of this fountain. Figure 13 shows a view about midway of the length of the fountain, where a great sand bar was formed through the mistake of permitting water from the river to flow through eat a time of high water. Figure 14 is a view from a point where the water is discharged from the fountain proper into the carrying canal. Both of these show the walls, formed of piles and sheet piling. This fountain has been in operation two years. Recent inquiry concerning it developed the following data : Length of main canal served by this fountain, 35 miles; carrying capacity, about 100 cubic feet per second; total amount invested in sys- tem, about $50,000; amount spent on fountain portion, about $25,000; number of acres canal will irrigate in its present condition, about 15,000. When completed, which will be done next season, it will serve 25,000 a CI’êS. It is explained that experimental features of this work were costly and that the same works could now, with the knowledge gained, be con- structed at much less cost. - On the opposite side of the river from the irrigation works above described is the Eureka Canal system, having a main length of 96 miles, costing about $2,000,000, and covering a great amount of excellent land. The fountain to supply this system with “underflow * water is now in process of construction, the principal work being done by a centrifugal pump discharging an 8-inch stream of water, which carries with it from 25 to 50 per cent of sand. When a cutting 20 feet wide, 500 feet long, and 8 feet deep has been made its supplying capacity will be tested by pumping from it into the canal by means of powerful centrifugal pumps, the bottom of the fountain, as constructed, being lower than the bed of the canal. If the supply is found insufficient the fountain will be lengthened until it furnishes the required water, which will be pumped into the canal as needed. Near Hartland, Kearney County, Kans, is located the second foun- tain constructed for the recovery of subwaters by gravity. It is at the head of the “Southwestern " system of canals belonging to the South- western Irrigating Company, with headquarters at Garden City. Fig- ure 15 shows the present head of the fountain, which, like the others Fig. 12. HEAn or Gilbert “Fountain.” [From a photograph.] Fig. 13. view or Minnie Course of Gilbert “Foustan.” [From a photograph.] Fig. 14. MoUTH or GILBERT * FouxTAIN," NEAR. DoDGE CITY, KANsas. [From a photograph. - Fig. 15. HEAD or “Foustain,” SouthwestERN CANALs. Looking WEST-ARRANsas River. IN THE Distax.cº. [From a photograph. THE ARKANSAs VALLEY SUB-CANAL SYSTEM. 45 mentioned, is constructed in the low land near the Arkansas River, The details as to its construction, the accompanying experiments, and the amount of water it furnishes at its present stage of progress are best told in the words of Mr. G. W. Potter, the engineer of the com- pany. He says: When we commenced the work, about September 1, 1890, the river was dry. The river has a fall of 7 feet per mile, the underground ditch 3 feet per mile, and 18 feet wide on bottom, and approaches the river until it reaches within 100 feet of the north bank, when it continues parallel with it. Two thousand feet from place of beginning we struck water in a sand stratum. At 4,000 feet we made the first measurement, having a flow of 8,600 cubic inches per second, and the extent of drainage was * also determined by digging eight wells at a right angle with the ditch, 59 feet apart. The elevation of the surface of water in the wells above the surface of water in the ditch is respectively as follows: No. 1, 50 feet north of ditch, .34 foot; No. 2, 100 feet north, .38 foot; No, 3, 150 feet north, 0.42 foot; No. 4, 200 feet north, 0.46 foot; No. 5, 250 feet north, 0.50 foot; No. 6, 300 feet north, 0.54 foot; No. 7, 350 feet north, 0.64 foot; No. 8, 400 feet north, 0.64 foot. It will be observed that the last two wells have the same elevation and 0.10 foot higher than the preceding one, due to a change in nature of the upper part of the water-bearing stratum, and shows the area drained by the ditch. At 6,000 feet we took another measurement of the flow, having 17,300 cubic inches per second ; here we reached a coarse sand and gravel stratum. At 6,800 feet another line of wells was dug at a right angle with the ditch, showing the following elevations above the water in the ditch: Well No. 1, 50 feet north of the ditch, 1.21 feet; No. 2, 100 feet north of the ditch, 1,41 feet; No. 3, 200 feet north of the ditch, 1.60 feet; No. 4, 300 feet north of the ditch, 1.79 feet; No. 5, 400 feet north of the ditch, 1.96 feet; No. 6, 450 feet north of ditch, 2.02 feet. At this point the ditch is 3 feet deep in the water-bearing stratum and 5.25 feet below the bottom of the river; will drain an area 1,500 feet in width. The next measurement shows the supply of water obtained when we stopped work, 7,900 feet from the place of beginning. The supply thus obtained is 36,000 cubic inches per second. This stream has been constantly running for a year. At highest stage of water in the river, when it was 7 to 9 feet higher than the water in the ditch for a period of two months, and for 1,000 feet running within 100 feet of the river, the ditch in- creased in flow about one-third, which shows that the water is substantially ob- tained from the underflow, and by a continuation, which will be done soon, a sub- stantial and almost unlimited flow can be obtained. The following outline (Fig. 16) will serve to show the location of the fountain with respect to the Arkansas River, the main canal, and Wells by which the drainage effect of the fountain was tested. --~~-º- a *-* Jº'IG. 16.-Relative positions of river and fountain. Figure 17 is a view of the point of confluence of the underflow waters, with the water from the river. Beside the foundations described, similar works are now in operation or in an advanced stage of construction at Ogallala, Nebr; also on the South Fork of the Republican, above St. Francis, Kans., a part of the irrigation system of the South Fork Irrigation Company, under the management of Capt. A. L. Emerson. Near Limon, Colo., T. W. Law- rence & Co., of Denver, ºn ploy the same method to reënforce a water- 46 IRRIGATION. ..storage system, and the “Amazon " Canal in Kearney, Finney, and Scott counties, Kans, which already represents an investment of $325,000, will proceed, the coming season, to expend large sums in Se- curing the underflow. A feature of unusual interest in this connection is that the present head works of the canal connect with the Arkansas River immediately below a jutting, bluffy headland, which makes it necessary either to tunnel the point or to carry the canal around it by building a wall some hundreds of feet in length in the river. The lat- ter plan has been adopted. Figure 19 is a view of the head of this canal, and the wing dam seen through the head gates shows the line of the proposed wall, which will extend around the obstructing headland, the proposed fountain being constructed in level bottom land beyond. The “Western Canal,” on the south side of the Arkansas River, op- posite the “Amazon,” is also preparing to utilize the underflow by the fountain method. Many small enterprises of this sort will doubtless develop in the near future. One such has already taken shape. Figure 20 is a view of a reservoir constructed by Mr. Jas. W. McClain, in the valley of the South Fork of the Cimarron, in Morton County, Kans, and fed by the underflow of that stream by means of a shallow and easily made fountain. All the work on fountain, reservoir, and supply canal, Suffi- cient to irrigate 10 acres of land with easily increased capacity, was done by himself with a team of “cow ponies,” at Spare times in the spring of the current year. I have word of the initiation of several individual enterprises of this sort. Another means of recovering such subwaters is by the construction of a sunk dam, where there is a narrow valley with shallow underflow upon a bottom of shale, or other impervious substance. It should be obvious, without any labored demonstration, that such means can only be employed where the dam may rest upon an impervious bed not far below the surface and connect at its ends with walls or banks of the same kind, as otherwise the underflow could not be brought to the surface, but would simply pass under or around the dam. As there are but few localities where these conditions can be met, and they in small valleys having little under water, it follows that this means of recovery is of small importance in this region. There are several forms and modifications of the fountain method which might be tested with profit. * It is probably worthy of remark in this connection that the methods of water recovery described will be found of very great value indeed to other portions of the country, as well as the Great Plains. Several cities employ what is substantially the same plan in securing their water supply. Generally, in such cases, the open fountain is replaced by subcanal or pipe line piercing the under water. Denver, Colo., and Cheyenne, Wyo., have systems of this sort. Such works are necessarily expensive and could rarely be profitably employed for irrigation pur- poses. ITS SOURCES OF RENEWAL. Some apprehension has been expressed by people in the lower por- tions of the valleys of the Arkansas and Platte that the use of the underflow for irrigation in the regions west of them may deplete their supply of water for domestic use. That the fear is groundless is ap- parent upon considering the vast amount of water now practically “in store” in the under strata, and it is unquestionably true that the widest possible utilization of the underflow, gradually brought about, will largely add to the subterranean waters instead of exhausting them. - -- º º ---- - - --º- - - Gs ºss º º - º º - º º - - º - Fig. 17. Coxºluence or “UNDERFlow” and River WATERs, SouthwestERN CANAL SYSTEM, Kassas. Fig. 18. Headgates. “Southwesters." Casals—ARRANsas WALLEY, KANsas. |From a photograph. Fig. 19. HEAD of “Amazonº CANAL System, Arkansas VALLEy. [From a photograph. Fig. 20. McCLAIN's Reservoir, CniAnnox valley. Southwest Kansas. ECONOMIC IMPORTANCE OF UNDERSHEET SUPPLIES. 47 The employment of this source of supply will cause the utilization of much means of storage and the conservation of large quantities of wa- ters now permitted to run to waste through the fall, winter, and spring, and at times of Summer floods. If the annual saving and storage, whether in reservoirs or in cultivated fields, should amount to but 25 per cent of the present average annual waste, it would be ample not Only to renew the supply but to increase it. ITS WALUE AS A FACTOR. There are two features of the utilization of the under waters which render it a factor of transcendent importance in the problem of reclama- tion. One has just been referred to, namely, that it will cause the utiliza- tion of surface waters, the aggregate amount of which now going to waste is enormous, but which is unsalvable in detail. The addition of a small supply of under water to a small stream of surface water will render the latter profitable in hundreds of instances where the surface supply alone would not be worth saving. The second and great feature is the fact that by this means the same supply of water may practically be used again and again. In other words, a fountain” may produce water sufficient to irrigate 50,000 acres of land, which may be utilized within a distance of 50 miles, and the water, spread out over the ground and percolating through the soil back into the underflow, be ready for use upon the next 50-mile stretch below. It is not intended by this statement to ignore losses by evaporation, saturation, and diversion; these have their compensations which I have not now time to discuss. The fact is established that a large percentage of the water used for irrigation makes its way down into the water-bearing strata. Col. E. S. Nettleton caused measurements of the North Platte River to be made some time since at the cañon where it comes forth from the mountains, and, adding together the amounts of water actually taken from its volume by irrigating canals and the water found flowing in its channel 100 miles below, discovered an apparent increase of a trifle over 333 per cent. In other words, the water flowing out of the caſion was practically used three times in 100 miles. The rapidity and extent to which saturation of the dry marl is already going on is surprising. Careful observations show that the water, in wells located along the courses of canals in the irrigated dis- tricts in southwest Kansas, has permanently risen from 2 to 50 feet in the past five years by reason of the saturation resulting from the flow of water in the canals. Thus the recovery of the subwater from the sandy beds where it flows uselessly, causes the added and increasing economy of storm waters, and these, gradually extending the growth of vegetation and adding to the saturation of the ground, both increase precipitation and add to the volume, stability, and availability of the phreatic stores. While it may be true, as so often asserted by authori- ties, that the records show no increase in the precipitation caught and measured by the rain gauge, it is a fact, apparent to every old resident of the plains, that there is in the irrigated areas a very large increase in the form of heavy dews, which add to the actual available supply of precipitated moisture. Thus these various forces, adding each to the potency of all the others, constitute an agency for the reclamation of . the Great Plains, which, like a river of water, is accelerated in pro- gress and increased in power as it widens and deepens on its way. “The word “fountain” was adopted and is used by Mr. Gregory; the “investiga- tion” decided on the term “sub-canals,” and has used it every where else in the reports, 48 - IRRIGATION. RéSUME AND AMPLIFICATION. In order to enhance the value of this report to some degree, as a Sug- gestor of future work, the following is given : 1. The lands of the Plains country have been settled upon time and time again at great expense, but the effort to utilize them has proven futile except where irrigation could be secured. 2. Irrigation not only makes reclamation possible, but highly profit- able, and will enable the plains to support a dense population. 3. By utilizing the underflow in conjunction with storage and other Sources of water supply, general irrigation may be secured. 4. But the work of development and utilization must be on a broad and Systematic plan, and the General Government can not possibly get rid of the necessity of Iegulating it. 5. To benefit the people who have earned the land, prompt action is necessary, and they have paid the Government so much money for land of this sort that comparatively a very small portion of it judiciously expended in practical experiments in securing the underflow and in aid of storage will do all that the General Government is desired to do } the way of appropriations to solve the irrigation problem for the all) S. 6. Irrigated lands ought to be owned and operated in small hold- 1ngS. 7. The right to use water for irrigation must, in justice, become prac- tically an appurtenance to the land, priority of appropriation being Carefully protected, under proper limitations. 8. Very great power for use in manufacturing, etc., may be developed from the waters used in irrigation without detracting from their value for the last-named purpose. 9. By a general development of the water resources of the Plains re- gion, it is possible that important modifications of the cost of transpor. tation of the products and supplies of the region may be effected. 10. The retention of the waters, which now find their way from this portion of the country into the Mississippi River at times of flood, and their application to economic uses upon the plains would be a doubling of the beneficent effects of such retention; and should such waters eventually find their way by infiltration through the underlying beds of Sand and gravel into that great stream, their steadiness of flow and their freedom from sediment would render them welcome and helpful instead of being, as now, productive of mischief. 11. By the proper utilization of their water supplies, the now bare and arid plains may be made to enter largely into the growth of tim- ber and the production of fish. 12. The elements entering into the development and constant re- newal of such water supplies are: The recovery of phreatic waters, storage, the growth of trees and other vegetation, irrigation, and the gradual saturation of the soil. - 13. The evidence of the existence of great stores of subterranean Waters in this region are (immediate), the vast aggregate discharge of Springs, the disappearance of large streams of water, deep holes filled to a certain level with perennial water, the uniformity of an inexhaust- ible supply of “sheet water" in wells, the great depth and lateral ex- tent of known deposits of water soaked sand and gravel, the excess of rainfall over the visible outflow and probable evaporation (remote), large volumes of perennial water in the lower courses of large streams THE IMPORTANT POINTS RESTATED–ExPLANATORY. 49 when their upper courses in the plains are devoid of visible supply, distant subterranean streams, and the existence of great fresh water springs off the Gulf and Atlantic coasts. 14. The recovery of sub-waters may be accomplished by gravity through the “fountain method,” by sunk dams, by sub-canals, and by driving or laying perforated or other permeable pipes and conduits; by pumping and hoisting by steam, wind and water power, the last even- tually employing electricity as an important auxiliary; and subwaters may be recovered and used more than once. - 15. The Great Plains region developed and utilized to the fullest ex- tent may become, in an economic sense as well as geographically, the center and heart of the nation, such breadth and depth of fertile soil supplied with water for irrigation being a steadfast safeguard against famine; and it will be, or can be made, a region impenetrable by any foreign foe and capable of sustaining the entire nation throughout the duration of any probable foreign war. 16. While the cost of so reclaiming the semi-arid lands will be large, it will be insignificant compared with the resulting benefits and values, and these will be more than net gain because the irrigation of the Great Plains changes an enormous absorbent of wealth into a vast producer of the same. 17. Time is an element in the work of reclamation, not only because time is necessarily consumed in preparing for and building systems of ir- rigation works, but because trees must grow, vegetation must thicken and increase, and people must be educated in the school of experience to fit themselves to utilize and develop to the fullest extent the germinant possibilities of this hitherto greatly misunderstood and worse misrepre- sented region. Yet, if the work be but properly and expeditiously be- gun, judiciously regulated and systematically carried on, popular rights may be preserved, and, in the steady and healthful progress of develop- ment no one need find himself hedged about and ruined by misunder- stood conditions, as in the past. 18. It is maintained by the people of the semi-arid region that there should be immediate provision by Congress for the preservation of reservoir sites and timber tracts; the arboration of large areas, now bare, but which never can be of appreciable value for other use than for " forest purposes; for the settlement in some general, just, and determi- nate manner of the legal questions which are constantly arising between the citizens of different States; and that it is also highly important that the development of all possible facts respecting the extent, sources of renewal, accessibility, and economic duty of phreatic waters should be pushed systematically and with all vigor. EXPLANATORY. This report exhibits but a minor part of the work done prior to pre- paring it. The field under investigation being large, traversed by but few railways, which are parallel, wide apart, and have cross-connection only by means of long detours, both correspondence and travel Con- sumed, comparatively, a great deal of time. The region being sparsely inhabited, the people new to the country, and but little definitely known of the subformations, the collection of exact information was tedious and difficult and results were often fragmentary. The time allowed by Congress for the investigation was brief, while the matters which it seemed ought to be treated of were numerous, important, and involved scanning by some means and to some extent more than 200,000 square S. Ex. 41, pt. 4—4 50 * * IRRIGATION. . . . . . . . miles of territory, and I must now confess that the collection of data Was too long continued and not enough time reserved for preparing the accumulated material for publication. With so much “in sight,” which it seemed ought to be done, it was hard to find a stopping place, conse- quently much valuable but incomplete material has been reluctantly laid aside at the last and several important features of the subject, which I had hoped to discuss fully, could not be taken up at all for lack of time. I trust that abler investigators, hereafter, enjoying the advantages of sufficient time and means, may be enabled to disclose fully the facts - concerning the vast irrigation resources which may be developed upon the Great Plains. sº A SPECIAL REPORT OF WORK IN THE ARTESIAN AND UNDERFLOWINVESTIGATION AND VIEWS - OF CERTAIN CONDITIONS EXISTING IN SOUTH DAKOTA, BY FERED. F. B. COFFIN, EIN G IN E E R F O F SO U TH D A E. OTA. y ..+ s , , 51 ARTESIAN AND UNDERFLOW INVESTIGATION. EIURON, S. DAK., December 15, 1891. SIR: I have the honor to transmit here with my report of the part I took in the artesian wells investigation in South Dakota, and to give my views of certain conditions that exist in this State. I have the honor to remain, yours, respectfully, FRED. B. F. COFFIN, Engineer for South Dakota. Hon. EDWIN WILLITs, - Assistant Secretary of Agriculture. 53 Jammucof Ahaca //as. AA/7/wers /*EAA &20ft. * > - | S-- LOG of TRACY WELL. ^ - T--- | % Af Z * ~ * ~. Ž Ž Ščiºs ; ::: * 4 : * * * ޺: |ſizeaſ, 4%assed. Ji Z23 . &ze &y. A6; /43. ; ivered Jºaxed. Aºi /&ſ; &ay, Jºaze. ^3| Z. | |Jºy 2, 46 % - Q $º - e o A/ º Geo/ogica/ /ornation of A/2c% Aſills LOG OF HARROLD well. toe or wolsey well. losornºonwalaºunºn |ɺ-- || |} > / 6. iće Jozº 2 2 Alacº ſº. Z ſ &ey gºeſe 246 24'42 || Azºw Jezeº, ſº *: :* S . (47.2/2 2ſ2. & Kellow cay. Jºf 40 zºreºv % : º: * ... ! ſº ºft.*. Jº Jºz SS S 2.//zcázezz Jºãºsés and J.*a*. - * *...” 22, 22. &rºy rºar ~. . . .434 2/44 & ºwne *. 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