430 Transactions of the 



Branches at proper points, running up to the foothills, would complete 

 the system. A comprehensive canal system (such, for example, as might 

 be wisely undertaken under a more efficient political system than ours, 

 as a Government work), would consist of two main canals, one starting 

 from Kern Lake, and the other from Buena Vista, running northwardly 

 on either side of the great plains. These canals should be laid out on 

 the least practicable grade, so as to hug the foot line of the hills, and 

 thus embrace, sloping away from them to the central line of depression, 

 the entire area upon which irrigating water could be brought. As the 

 great natural streams were successively encountered, the necessary por- 

 tion of their waters could be utilized to maintain the canals at full flow. 

 Such a foothill canal could extend continuously from the south, along 

 the Sierra, until it made a junction with another like work coming down 

 the edge of the Sacramento plains from the north. This northern canal 

 would take its rise in the streams draining that area of upheaval of 

 which Mount Shasta is the dominating peak. From the same system of 

 streams, a like canal would come down on the west side of the Sacra- 

 mento plains, and terminate at the Straits of Carquinez. On the west 

 side of the San JOaquin plains a corresponding canal, starting from the 

 Kern lakes, would hug the western foothills till it reached the bay at or 

 below Antioch, in Contra Costa County. By such a system of main ex- 

 terior canals, the entire interior plains of the State would be embraced, 

 their area lying below the level of the canals and sloping away from 

 them at a generally uniform descent of eight feet to the mile. 



To apply the system, branch canals should be run from the mains at 

 proper points across the plains eastwardly and westerly, towards their 

 central lines of drainage — the Sacramento and San Joaquin Eivers. 

 These branches would be the service canals for the distribution of water 

 for irrigation. The main outside canals would have a width of probably 

 one hundred and twenty feet. The branch or service canals would have 

 a width of say seventy feet. Thus, these two parts of the s} T stem would 

 be canals for navigation and transportation, as well as for irrigation. 

 From the branch or service canals the water would be taken by distrib- 

 uting ditches (say ten feet wide), and delivered from these directly into 

 the farm ditch. The main, the branch, and the distributing works would 

 be constructed as parts of the. irrigation system; the farm ditch would 

 be constructed by the land owner, and would be private property, to be 

 maintained and operated at private expense, and as a permanent im- 

 provement upon the land. 



But a system as thus constructed would, in the San Joaquin country, 

 be incomplete, for the reasons: first, that the main river of that'section 

 is not navigable the year round; and second, that the periodical over- 

 flow of Tulare Lake, King's River, etc., has not been provided for. A 

 levee thrown around the lake converts it into a vast reservoir of nearly 

 eight hundred square miles area, storing up the waters that now run to 

 waste at a time when, the lower streams being full, they are not even 

 needed in aid of navigation. But the rivers emptying into the lake, for 

 miles before they reach it, flow through a country so nearl}' level, that 

 if the lake alone were leveed, its waters would tend to rise higher than 

 the banks of the tributary rivers, and so would flow over these into the 

 plains. It would be necessary, therefore, at the same time, to construct 

 levees along the banks of the lower portions of these rivers, to a height 

 equal to that constructed around the lake. A main canal extending 

 from the great natural reservoir thus improved, down the valley to the 

 head of permanent navigation, would then complete "a comprehensive 



