198 THE RAISIN INDUSTRY. 



busy irrigating. In one corner of the orchard was a large circular 

 reservoir five or six feet high, and perhaps twenty feet across, to 

 facilitate the irrigation. The train starts from here directly in among 

 the hills, following the bed of the Sweetwater river. The bottom land 

 is now being .settled up by farmers and gardeners, who were busy 

 taking their first lessons in irrigation. The plantations of course are 

 very young, the irrigation works having been finished quite recently. 

 At Sunnyside there are a few older orchards of oranges and olives, but, 

 as a whole, the country is uncultivated. 



Five minutes more and we are at the dam. There is no station, except 

 a little wooden platform, and we had to scramble over a rough hill to get 

 down to the dam. The gorge there is probably one hundred feet 

 wide and several hundred feet deep, with almost perpendicular sides. 

 There is no other vegetation visible than grass and a few low shrubs 

 scattered around. It is a most excellent place for a dam. The Sweet- 

 water dam is built almost entirely of masonry and cement, and, both 

 as regards construction and size, is one of the very best in the world. 

 It is built in the shape of an arch, with the convex part up stream, 

 and gives an impression of solidity and safety not always found in 

 structures of this kind. The masonry dam is forty-six feet wide at 

 the bottom, at the top twelve feet. The length of the top is 340 feet, 

 and at the bottom of the canon the base of the dam is about one hun- 

 dred feet, while the height is about ninety feet in the center. At 

 one end of the dam is a wasteway and gates for letting the water out 

 in case of a flood. The gates slide on an inclined plane, and consist 

 simply of three-inch boards with pegs in each end, which are caught 

 by a hook when they are to be raised. The capacity of the wasteway is 

 said to be fifteen hundred cubic feet per second, or as much as the Sweet- 

 water river is ever likely to carry, even during flood time. For one who 

 is accustomed to headgates and waterways in the Fresno canals, this 

 waterway looks very small indeed. But the engineers say it is large 

 enough, and we suppose they must be right. The water is delivered 

 through a large iron pipe thirty-six inches in diameter, covered for 

 some distance down the canon with masonry. For 29,807 feet, this 

 pipe line runs down the valley or on the mesa lands adjoining it. It 

 will deliver fifty million gallons of water per day, and can now irri- 

 gate ten thousand acres of land. The whole cost of construction was 

 $502,000, and the time consumed in building was two years. 



The reservoir, as it now stands, is a magnificent sheet of water with 

 tributary watersheds of 186 square miles, and a water surface of about 

 three and one-half square miles. It is a grand illustration of the 

 enterprise of the San Diego capitalists, of the skill and success of the 

 California engineers, and of what may possibly be accomplished on 

 nearly every stream in San Diego county. It is a structure of which 

 any country might be proud, and which has few equals and no supe- 

 riors anywhere in the world. 



On our way back we meet a picnic party of schoolgirls, who with 

 their teachers have spent the day in the country. They fill the cars 

 with smiles and chat, with flowers in boquets and garlands, in baskets 

 and by the armful. We are treated to flowers and to beautiful Muscat 



