interest in big works should be expanded to include interest 

 in small works, no matter how small, that promise individual 

 and social benefit. 



Reservoirs would be of various kinds. Some of them, 

 perhaps most of them, would not be expected to hold water 

 throughout the year and would serve primarily to promote 

 infiltration and increase the supply of ground water. Others 

 would be expected to hold water and at the same time permit 

 some infiltration, for even though a dam is designed to retain 

 the water there is some inevitable seepage. F. H. Olm- 

 stead, an engineer of distinction in this field, once testified 

 that he had 



observed many times in his practice in building mountain retardation 

 structures that the zone of moisture under the influence of these small 

 heads has been wonderfully enlarged over the original conditions. 9 



But primarily these reservoirs would provide water for 

 various important farm uses, especially in times of drought. 

 They would provide fresh water for domestic animals; they 

 could be stocked with fish for food; they would benefit and 

 attract wild fowl. Through proper provision for gravity 

 flow, or pumping if necessary where cheap electric power is 

 available, an abundance of water would become available 

 for the household which means the advantages of flowing 

 water in the kitchen and in bathrooms for the barns, and 

 for fire protection. For the more intensive higher-priced 

 crops garden stuff, potatoes, and other crops that can 

 carry the additional cost water would be available for 

 supplementary irrigation. Generally, however, such water 

 would not be suitable for drinking. 



Although the term reservoir suggests formal engineering 

 works, it should not be inferred that they in all instances 

 require such works. Impounding of waters may result, as 

 in India, from 



blocking the line of a stream or closing the outlet of a natural depression 

 in which rain collects; in places it may take the form of a hollow in the 

 ground fed by a channel cut from a neighboring stream. Sometimes a 

 series of dams are placed across a valley so as to give a chain of tanks, 

 the surplus from the higher feeding the lower. 10 



9 S. Doc. No. 436, 65th Cong., 3d Sess., p. 29. 



10 A. V. Williamson, Indigenous Irrigation Works in Peninsular India, Geographic Review, 

 Vol. XXI, No. 4, October 1931, p. 614. 



57288 36 5 59 



