236 THE IRRIGATION AGE, 



river drainage and shortly into the valley of the Gros Ventre, a 

 tributary of the Snake river, which joins the southern part of 

 Jackson Hole, a broad valley laying on the eastern side of the Snake 

 river. From here our course was almost due north, following up the 

 valley of the Snake and crossing over the continental divide again 

 into the southern part of the Yellow Stone Park reservation. 



At the Mammoth Hot Springs, in the northwest corner of 

 the pa.rk, the wagons were sent back to Cody by a short route, one 

 of the'party returning with the teams to do some stream gaging, 

 the rest of us returning by rail The journey occupied thirty days, 

 and the total distance traveled was about six hundred miles, with 

 no delay or accident of any kind. Four mounta in ranges were 

 crossed and the continental divide was crossed and recrossed four 

 times. 



Although the route traversed was through a mountainous 

 country, generally speaking, yet we had very many good opportun- 

 ities for observing a large number of the physical conditions that w T ill 

 in the future control the development of this part of the state. We 

 passed through hundreds of thousands of acres of fine country sus- 

 ceptible of irrigation with a magnificant supply of water. Bordering 

 and surrounding the irrigable areas are millions of acres of grazing 

 land. There are some indications of gold placers existing on some 

 of the water courses on the Pacific drainage. The climate is 

 evidently as favorable for agricultural pursuits as that of much 

 lower latitudes in other sections of the Rocky Mountain country of 

 the same elevation. At present the means are very limited for trans- 

 porting to market the products which the country is well adapted to 

 raise. 



One of the most interesting and striking thing to an irrigation 

 engineer that was observed all along the route was the large quantity 

 of water in the streams at that season of the year. The snow of the 

 previous winter in the mountains had all disappeared save a little 

 here and there in patches on the higher peaks and at lower elevations 

 in some of the spots sheltered from the winds and sun. There had 

 been no rains at that time perceptibly to increase their flow. Yet in 

 August and September we had some difficulty in fording some of the 

 streams whose sources seemed to be only a few miles distant. Their 

 beds and adjoining banks plainly indicate that they are not subject 

 to very high or very low water, every indication showing that their 

 flow is very uniform and regular, somewhat like a stream which is 

 the outlet of a lake of considerable size. Nowhere in the Rocky 

 Mountain region have I ever observed what appears to be so large a 

 percentage of run-off compared with the annual precipitations. This 

 was especially noticeable on the Pacific drainage or the country on 

 the east side of Snake river. 



