148 LANDS OF THE ARID REGION OF THE UNITED STATES. 
late at the surface, there must be going on continually a slow transmission 
of moisture from under ground upward, and since a continuous supply 
of water is more frequently found in the bottom lands than elsewhere, it 
follows that the conditions of these accumulations are here more frequently 
fulfilled. They may, however, and do oceur at localities which probably 
contain subterranean reservoirs of water, which are annually filled during 
the wet season. Sometimes these salts are so abundant that the land 
requires a thorough washing before it is fit for agriculture, and the Mor- 
mons have on several occasions, when founding settlements, been obliged to 
allow the waters from their ditches to leach the land for many months, and 
in one or two cases for two, and even three, years, before a good crop could 
be raised. There is no difficulty, however, in removing any quantity of 
these readily soluble salts from the soil, provided. this leaching process be 
continued long enough; and it is usually found that lands which were 
originally highly akaline become, when reclaimed from their alkalinity, 
among the most fertile. 
There yet remains for mention a number of small areas served by 
some minor streams in southwestern Utah. These little creeks head in 
the mountains, but are soon lost in the deserts of that arid and torrid region, 
none of their waters finding their way to the ocean. The greater number 
of them belong to the drainage basin of Sevier Lake. In each case the 
water supply is small, and inadequate to supply the available land. In 
nearly every case the competence of the supply has been determined in- 
the most practical way—by the operations of settlers; but some allowance 
has been made for an increase of the irrigable land by the more economic 
use of the water. This can be accomplished by the construction of better 
waterways, and by more carefully flowing the water over the lands. 
a 
