374 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



Fifty-foot Cut on the Interstate Canal. 



be measured by this minimum flow during the irrigating season, and 

 unless some method be found whereby the floods of spring may be 

 utilized during the summer months, only a limited area of the fertile 

 lands along the river can be reclaimed. 



The solution of the problem obviously lies in the construction of a 

 storage reservoir having a capacity sufficient to retain the flood waters 

 of spring, releasing them during the summer months as needed. The 

 construction of such a storage reservoir and dam, with the auxiliary 

 diversion dams, headworks and canals, and the adjustment of rights of 

 way, water rights and other perplexing legal matters, is a task requiring 

 large sums of money and efficient organization — sums so vast and 

 organization so perfect that no combination of settlers in a new, 

 sparsely settled country could hope to achieve it. Private capital may 

 be advanced by outside parties if a private monopoly of the water- 

 supply be granted, but in such a case the water users must be always 

 resisting the encroachments that follow the private ownership of nat- 

 ural monopolies. The capital may be advanced by outside parties and 

 the works constructed under their supervision, not for the purpose of 

 obtaining a private monopoly, but to turn the whole over to an organ- 

 ization of the water users when they shall have refunded the cost of 

 installation plus a reasonable return at current rates of interest. There 

 is but one party powerful enough and philanthropic enough to do this, 

 and, if the arid regions are to be equitably reclaimed without the crea- 

 tion of powerful private monopolies, it is to the national government 



