THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



289 



self by personal investigation, so that he 

 may discuss it intelligently. 



Several nice questions are involved in 

 the irrigation problem. Some people 

 contend that its solution should be left to 

 private enterprise or th the authorities of 

 the individual states; but when a stream 

 of water flows through more than one 

 state the general government must con- 

 trol it. It is also contended that Uncle 

 Sam has no right to go into Wyoming or 

 Utah and build reservoirs for the benefit 

 of the people of those states with money 

 from the public treasury. The answer to 

 this is that if it is right for the govern- 

 ment to build dikes and dams and jetties 

 to protect the people of the Mississippi 

 valley from floods, it is equally right to 

 build dams and furnish water to the arid 

 regions of the west. 



It is estimated that the annual loss by 

 the overflow of the Missouri river alone 

 would build all over the nonthwest reser- 

 voirs which would regulate the flow of the 

 spring rainfall and snow-melt, so as to 

 prevent such destruction. According to 

 the theory of the engineers, the reservoir 

 system, if introduced into the upper Mis- 

 souri valley, will obriate any future dan- 

 ger from floods along the Mississippi. 

 The spring rise of the Missouri is just as 

 certain as the annual rise of the Nile, .and 

 the army engineers have data by which 

 they determine that a reservoir seven 

 miles long, eight miles wide and thirty- 

 one feet deep would keep the river at 

 Sioux City below danger point. 



Capt. Chittenden of the engineer corps 

 has prepared plans for a reservoir forty- 

 seven miles square and thirty-one feet 

 deep, which he claims will control the 

 greatest flood that has ever been known 

 on the Missouri river, and it is argued 

 that if money can be properly voted to 

 protect the towns and plantations along 

 the Missouri and Mississippi rivers from 

 danger that always threatens them, and 

 to relieve the people who are distressed 

 thereby, it is equally proper to vote 

 money to make that danger impossible. 



It is also argued that if it is constitutional 

 to dig out rivers and harbors im aid of 

 commerce, it is equally constitutional to 

 build reservoirs for the benefit of agri- 

 culture. Senator Warren asserts that the 

 amount of money that has been expended 

 upon the Fox and Wisconsin rivers in the 

 course of the last twenty years would be 

 sufficient to build reservoir systems at the 

 headwaters of the Mississippi and Mis- 

 souri rivers which would not only dis- 

 tribute water enough to cultivate 100.000- 

 000 acres of land, but would permanently 

 prevent the overflow of those rivers and 

 add more to national commerce and pros- 

 perity in one year than will result in all 

 eternity from the Fox and Wisconsin 

 improvements. He declares, also, that if 

 one-tenth of the money that has been 

 spent in protecting the plantations along 

 the lower Mississippi had been expended 

 in reservoirs nearer the source of that 

 river, there would be no more damage or 

 danger to overflowed lands." 



May 8th the Secy, of War issued an of- 

 ficial permit granting the right, so far as 

 his department is empowered to act in the 

 matter to turn the waters of Lake Michigan 

 into the drainage canal. 



This official action of the Secy, of War 

 must be approved by the Congress before 

 the water can be so turned. This will 

 doubtless be done early after the Assembly 

 of Congress and by January 1900 we will 

 see the waters of Lake Michigan flowing 

 unobstructed into the Gulf of Mexico. 

 ' 'Whereas, By section 10 of an act of con- 

 gress approved March 3, 1899, entitled 

 'An act making appropriations for the con- 

 struction, repair and preservation of cer- 

 tain public works on rivers and harbors and 

 for other purposes/ it is provided that it 

 shall not be lawful to alter or modify the 

 course, location, condition or capacity of 

 the channel of any navigable water of the 

 United States, unless the work has been re- 

 commended by the chief of engineers and 

 authorized by the secretary of war prior to 

 the beginning of same, and, 



