92 THE IRRIGA Tl ON AGE. 



cost of construction and stated that the dam was practicable in every 

 sense. 



Colonel Anson Mills is a typical American who has worked his way 

 up the ladder of fame by his own efforts, and has just retired from active 

 life after forty years of continuous service in the United States govern- 

 ment, the most of which time has been spent on the frontier and through- 

 out the great West a hardy frontiersman in fact and a thoroughly prac- 

 tical man in the full sense of the word. The plan proposed by Mr. Mills 

 is to build the dam at a point about two miles above El Paso, of stones 

 and cement, about sixty feet high, one end to rest against the granite 

 foothills on the American side and the other end against those on the 

 Mexican side of the Rio Grande. It is certainly an admirable site for 

 the construction of the dam, as a glance at the engravings will show. 

 When the wall of masonry is built across the canyon (which at this point 

 is about 500 feet in width), a lake will be created which will be fifteen 

 miles long by seven miles average width, with a probable storage ca- 

 pacity of 4,000,000,000 cubic yards of water, the surface of which will be 

 about seventy feet above the streets of El Paso and Ciudad Juarez. It 

 will irrigate about 200,000 acres of land, or, in other words, 100,000 on 

 the American side and 100,000 on the Mexican side, and will give a water 

 power of about 6000 H. P. to each side of the river. 



It will thus be seen that the benefit from the dam will be about equal- 

 ly divided between the United States and Mexico, and will be the means 

 of reclaiming a lot of land on both sides of the river. The small engrav- 

 ing shows the Rio Grande river when the snows in the mountains have 

 melted and the river is at its highest. If the enormous amount of water 

 which flows down stream during the time of these floods, generally in 

 the month of May, could be caught and stored in such a reservoir as pro- 

 posed by Colonel Mills, it would insure sufficient water for irrigation 

 throughout the entire summer. 



The building of the dam proper will cost in the neighborhood of 

 $400,000, and the heaviest item of expense will be the cost of removing 

 from the canyon to higher ground the Southern Pacific and Santa Fe 

 railroad tracks, which may bring the total cost up to $1,500,000, or over. 



The matter of reclaiming the arid lands cf the West is one which is 

 receiving more attention every year, and it is only a question of time un- 

 til the government will be obliged to take this in hand. Some of the en- 

 emies of the proposed international dam have claimed that it is unjust 

 that the United States should build this free of cost to Mexico. They do 

 not take into consideration, however, the justice of prior rights and the 

 laws of water which can compel a man to close his ditch and let the water 

 go down to parties further down stream who have prior rights. This is 

 the law the world over and which has been handed down to us through 

 ages. Now, Mexico, realizing the great loss which it would envolve in 

 Colorado and New Mexico to insist upon the water being allowed to pass 

 down to this section, to which they are entitled by prior rights, have 



