14 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



minority of large land owners should have been per- 

 mitted to keep the majority of their fellow citizens in 

 poverty, for all time, if they chose to block the pathway 

 of progress. With this view the friends of the Wright 

 law have no argument. They merely vote it down by 

 force of superior numbers, and in so doing they repre- 

 sent the spirit of our popular institutions, as they were 

 understood by the fathers, when they framed the con- 

 stitution. The underlying theory of the Wright law is 

 that men, not acres, shall count in the making of laws 

 and institutions. 



ITL THE IBRIGATION WORKS. 



The picturesque little town of La Grange, in the 

 foothills of the mountains, is reached after a thirty-five 

 mile drive over the rolling valley lands. La Grange 

 has two distinctions. It is the scene of Bret Harte's 

 tale, " The Luck of Roaring Camp," and it is the 

 place where Hon. C. C. Wright first pitched his tent 

 when he came out West to "grow up with the country." 

 The school-house where he presided still stands upon 

 the hill, and some of the leading citizens testify, that 

 the author of the District law believed in corporal 

 punishment in their school days. The murmur of the 

 river pleasantly disturbs the silence of the sleeping 

 hamlet, which is the western counterpart of that for- 

 gotten village on the Merrimac which Whittier painted 

 as "a cobwebbed nook of dreams." The canals skirt 

 either bank of the river, at a higher level than La 

 Grange, but the little town is the nearest settlement to 

 the head works of the system. 



WITH THE MEN AT THE CAMP. 



The La Grange dam is reached by a climb of a mile 

 and a half up the foothills. It occupies an advanta- 

 geous point at the place where the large river emerges 

 through a long and narrow canon and begins its de- 

 scent into the valley. The camp at the dam was 

 reached just as the large force of workmen were sitting 

 down to dinner, and the writer desires to testify to the 

 fact that these men live at as good a table as even a 

 lawyer and newspaper man expect to find when they 

 attend an Irrigation Congress. It was a pleasant sight 

 to watch these scores of hearty men, sweeping like a 

 cyclone through the substantial bill of fare. The only 

 disheartening thought was that the thousands of unem- 

 ployed in this country to-day are not being similarly 

 fed while engaged in the construction of other irriga- 

 tion works of this beneficent character. 



THE GREAT DAM. 



The La Grange dam, which serves as a work of 

 diversion for the Turlock and Modesto districts in 

 common, is one of the most solid and substantial pieces 

 of construction in the West. The visitors are given 

 every facility to examine the work and the methods 

 employed upon it in company with the constructing 

 engineer, William McKay. First, a word about the 



dimensions of the structure. Its extreme height is- 

 127}^ feet, its width at the base 84 feet, and its width 

 eleven feet from the top, where the curve begins, 25 

 feet. The dam is built on a curve with a radius of 

 300 feet and an extreme length of 320 feet. The lower 

 face has a slope of 4.67 feet in every ten feet, while 

 the upper face is perpendicular. The dam was nearly 

 completed when the writer was there and the remain- 

 ing work was being pushed with all the speed con- 

 sistent with safe construction. 



THE METHOD OF CONSTRUCTION. 



The visitors were shown the method of construction 

 from beginning to end while it was in the actual 

 process of operation. The face walls are built of 

 ruble masonry, the large irregular blocks being laid 

 in cement mortar of two parts sand to one of cement. 

 The center of the dam is built of irregular blocks 

 laid in beds of concrete, consisting of two parts of 

 sand, one of cement and six of broken rock. It was 

 interesting to watch the process. The blue trap rock 

 is taken from the walls of the canon near at hand and 

 crushed by machinery into pieces of about two inches 

 in diameter, when it is thoroughly washed. It is then 

 run through a revolving mixer and carried on the 

 dam by elevated tramways. It is carefully tamped 

 down, the large blocks laid in with crowbars, and the 

 space then filled with concrete and broken rock. 

 Taking a pick and striking portions of the concrete 

 surface with their utmost strength, the visitors found 

 that it was actually stronger than the rock itself. 



THE CANAL SYSTEM. 



The canals of the two districts receive their water 

 by simple works at either side of the dam, the Modesto 

 on the north and the Turlock on the south. The former 

 has a capacity of 750 cubic feet per second and the 

 latter of 1,500 feet. The modesto system will serve 

 80,564 acres of agricultural land and the Turlock 176,- 

 000 acres. In both cases the water will be carried 

 by wooden flumes around the sharp sides of the 

 canon to the point where the earthwork canals begin, 

 but in the case of the Turlock system there is a pretty 

 piece of tunnel work through the solid rock. The 

 main canals are now completed over the larger portion 

 of the two districts. There is yet considerable to do 

 in putting the network of ditches in order for actual 

 operation, however, but it could all be done in a 

 very short time if money were promptly provided. 

 The finished system will be one of the grandest 

 works of irrigation on this continent. 



AN INSPIRING SCENE. 



It is impossible for a man of heart to stand upon 

 the towering banks of the Tuolumne Canon and be- 

 hold the sight before him without emotion. Deep in 

 the bottom of the canon the river is roaring down 

 the steep grade on its way to the valley and the sea. 

 A little further up stands the massive stone dam, 



