THE IRRIGATION PROBLEMS AND 



POSSIBILITIES OF NORTHERN 



WYOMING. 



SOME NOTICEABLE CHARACTERISTICS OP THE 

 WATER SUPPLY, CONDITIONS FAVORABLE 

 FOR A PROLONGED AND UNIFORM DIS- 

 CHARGE OF THE MOUNTAIN STREAMS 



BY COL. E. S. NETTLETON. 



I had the good fortune in August, '97, to be invited by State 

 Engineer Mead to join a party of engineers in an exploration trip 

 through the northern and northwestern part of the state of Wyoming. 

 The plan was that we should meet at Sheridan and outfit there for a 

 journey of about two hundred miles over the Big Horn mountains, 

 across the Big Horn basin, and up the valley of the Gray Bull river. 



As this part of the trip would be through a country having a 

 few settlers scattered along the route, we concluded to ' 'go light" 

 and dispense with a commissariat and take our chances of foraging 

 on the setttlers for what we needed that rod and gun failed to 

 supply, 



This plan w r as carried out, it taking about eight days to make the 

 trip to near the head of Grey Bull river and back to the town of 

 Meeteetse, a distance of 210 miles, odometer measurement. At 

 Meeteetse the outfit of terms was sent back to Sheridan, it being 

 necessary from now to near the end of our journey to travel through 

 an almost uninhabited country and to provide ourselves with a com- 

 plete outfit with a commissary equipment. This was obtained in the 

 town of Cody thirty miles north of Meeteetse from Col. W. F. 

 Cody (Buffalo Bill). 



Instead of making our way west and across the Wind River 

 mountains at the head of the Grey Bull drainage, we turned south 

 from Meeteetse and crossed the Owl mountains into the Wind River 

 drainage and the Shoshone Indian reservation, then followed up 

 Wind river, crossing the Wind River mountains at Union Pass on the 

 north side of Union Peak, which peak marks the common point from 

 which the water flows that made the Columbia's discharge into the 

 Pacific ocean, the Colorado's into the Gulf of California, and the 

 Mississippi into the Gulf of Mexico. 



The wagon trail from Union pass took us over into the Green 



