KANSAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



the canals of Lombardy 4,500 miles. The discharge of water amounts to 

 15,118 cubic feet per second, while the whole amount of the discharge of 

 rivers, etc., is 30,000 feet per second. In the entire valley of the Po, Pied- 

 mond and Lombardy, there is an extent of irrigation of 1,600,000 acres, or 

 nearly 24,000 cubic feet per second. This view of the canals of Piedmont 

 and Lombardy will serve to show to what a wide extent irrigation is carried 

 on in Italy. 



Irrigation is nowhere conducted on so grand a scale as in British India. 

 Some of the canals are like mighty rivers, and a vast extent of country re- 

 ceives the benefit of their waters for agricultural purposes. The first canal 

 dates back to the fourteenth century. The principal canals in India are 

 those on the river Jumna, west, of the Eastern Jumna, of the Sutlej, and of 

 the Ganges. The whole length of the main lines of the Western Jumna 

 canal is 445 miles. The total area of the country traversed is 3,784,385 

 acres. Of this, the irrigated portion is 859,902 acres. The Eastern Jumna 

 has a system of distribution canals measuring 500 miles. The area of the 

 land so watered is 160,000 acres. 



Irrigation is extensively carried on in many countries. It is carried on in 

 countries where the need of it and the facilities for it are less than is now 

 apparent in western Kansas. It has been the chief purpose of this paper 

 to call attention to experiments in irrigation in Kansas — experiments which 

 give a promise of good results towards a permanent settlement and cultiva- 

 tion of considerable portions of that part of Kansas over which a doubt, to 

 say the least, has hitherto hung. It seems that it would be worthy the em- 

 ployment by the State of engineering science to determine how far there is, 

 in the Arkansas river and its branches, and in the Smoky Hill and Repub- 

 lican and their branches, a water supply which can be employed in irrigation, 

 and how far such water can be turned into reservoirs upon uplands, to be 

 utilized in manufacturing as well as irrigation. It does not seem improbable 

 that such work done would pay back to the State many-fold its cost. A 

 scientific survey has long been needed for Kansas, and here is another rea- 

 son why it should not be delayed. 



KANSAS WEATHER SERVICE. 



BY PROF. J. T. LOVEWELL, WASHBURN COLLEGE, TOPEKA. 



Meteorology has been raised to the dignity of a science by virtue of com- 

 bined systems of observation over vast areas, corresponding in some degree 

 with the magnitude of the phenomena they undertake to interpret. It has 

 come to be recognized that the problems of meteorology are vast enough to 

 tax the energies and resources of nations ; hence, in modern times the foremost 



