IRRIGABLE LANDS OF THE VALLEY OF THE SEVIER. 129 
and the system of management has ordinarily been so conducted that the 
general welfare has been immensely benefited; and if individuals have 
suffered, it has not been made manifest by any apparent symptoms of 
general discontent or of individual resistance. The system is by no 
means perfect as yet, but its imperfections may be found in details which 
produce no present serious inconvenience, and they will no doubt be 
remedied as rapidly as they attain the magnitude of great evils. 
The Sevier River has its course along the southeastern border of the 
Great Basin of the west, and its upper streams head in the lofty divide 
which separates the drainage system of the Colorado River on the south 
and east trom the drainage system of the Great Basin on the north and 
west. ‘The general course of the upper portion of the stream is from 
south to north, though its tributaries flow in many directions. The lower 
portion of the stream, within 60 miles of its end, suddenly breaks through 
one of the Basin Ranges on the west—the Pavant—and then turns south- 
westward and empties into Sevier Lake, one of the salinas of the Great 
Basin. 
The main valley of the Sevier River has a N.S. trend, and begins 
on the divide referred to, about 270 miles almost due south of Great Salt 
Lake, and continues northward a distance of about 170 miles. There are 
three principal forks of this stream. The lowest fork is at Gunnison, 140 
niles south of Salt Lake City, and called the San Pete, which waters a fine 
valley about 45 miles in length, and which is at present the most important 
agricultural district in Utah. About 80 miles farther up the stream, at 
Cirele Valley, the river divides into two very nearly equal branches; one 
coming from the south, the other breaking through a great plateau on the 
east. These are called, respectively, the South and East Fork of the 
Sevier. The South Fork has its principal fountains far up on the surface 
of a great platean—the Panguitch Plateaun—whose broad expanse it drains 
by three considerable streams, which finally unite in the valley at the foot 
of its eastern slope. 
The East Fork of the Sevier receives the waters of a beautiful valley 
lying to the eastward of and parallel to the main valley of the Sevier, 
and separated from it by a lofty plateau 90 miles in length from north to 
17 AR 
