THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



VOL XV. 



CHICAGO, JUNE, 1900. 



NO. 9. 



THE PROGRESS OF WESTERN HMERICfl. 



The irrigation appropria- 

 tion. tion of 8250,000 which is 



asked for the use of the 

 Geological Survey, would enable that 

 bureau to vigorously prosecute its needful 

 work of getting at the facts concerning the 

 water possibilities of the arid region, and 

 making siirveys to show definitely where 

 water can be stored, in what quantities 

 and how much there will be to store. 

 These are all subjects of vital interest to 

 arid America and which Congress owes it 

 to the West to provide for liberally 



"The great importance to the West of 

 the work which the irrigation branch of 

 the Geological Survey is doing," says Gny 

 E. Mitchell, "is perhaps not as generally 

 understood as it should be. For some 

 years the Survey has been working along 

 on small appropriations, making stream 

 measurements and reservoir surveys, but 

 if the West is to attain its full develop 

 rnent through irrigation, this work should 

 be pushed and reservoir sites should be 

 determined, surveyed and set aside, sub- 

 ject to development by private capital or 

 government enterprise. Persons familiar 

 with reservoir engineering know that na- 

 ture plays some queer pranks on individu- 

 als and that Avhat appears an ideal place 

 for water storage, may in fact be incapable 

 of holding water, while a site which seems 

 to even the careful observer to be any- 

 thing but suitable for water storage, may 



in reality, afford a situation for a reservoir 

 of great proportions." 



Statistics from Washington 

 8how that !>orts to Asia 



and Oceanica in the fiscal 

 year which ends with the month of June, 

 will for the first time in our history ex- 

 ceed $100,000,000. In no part of the 

 world has our export trade grown with 

 such amazing rapidity, with the single ex- 

 ception of Africa. In 1893 our total ex- 

 ports to all Asia and Oceanica amounted 

 to only $27,421,831, so that in the fiscal 

 year now about to end they will be about 

 four times as great as those of eight years 

 earlier. Imports from that part of the 

 world are also growing rapidly because of 

 the large increase in the share of our 

 sugar supply which now comes from the 

 Islands of the Pacific. More than one 

 half the sugar imported into the United 

 States now comes from the East Indies 

 and Hawaiian Islands. The growth in 

 exports to Asia and Oceanica is chiefly in 

 cotton, breadstuff's, provisions, and manu- 

 factures. 



Favorrble 



Eastern 



Sentiment* 



It is pleaf-ing to note that 

 such a far eastern paper as 

 the J3os*on Transcript rec- 

 ognizes the fact that irrigation appropria- 

 tions for the West would be national in- 

 vestments, in the interests of and for the 

 benefit of all the people of the United 



