270 THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



United States to assist the inhabitants of the "irrigation states,'' 

 Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, Wyoming, Colorado, Oregon, 

 Washington, Western Kansas, Nebraska and Texas, in utilizing some 

 portion of the melting snows and storm water by housing the same in 

 reservoirs for irrigation. 



There seems no longer any doubt about vast bodies of sheet water 

 underlying much of the land comprising the states referred to. These 

 facts are confirmed by the construction of some ditches paralelling 

 the streams in the valleys they traverse, and so far these are the re- 

 sults of private corporations. They serve, however, to confirm the 

 existence of sheet water. This sheet water comes from two sources- 

 living springs of water throughout the Rocky mountains, and from 

 rains and the melting of the snow. The springs as a matter of course, 

 flow the year around, and constitute the main supply of sheet water 

 and is, as a matter of course, flowing day and night. The additions of 

 rains and snow occur only during the heated months of the spring and 

 summer, but in order to give the inhabitants of each state a part of 

 these waters it is conceded to be the duty of the general government 

 to devise some means for getting at the real body of water and bring- 

 ing it to the surface of the ground, and then by some means distribut- 

 ing it to the farmer. 



The method that is being discussed more fully than any other at 

 the present time, is the building of reservoirs and storing these storm 

 waters from snow and rain and holding the same for distribution 

 through ditches among the farmers during the irrigation season. 



I perhaps feel a little more interested in the article of Dr. Parker 

 than the others, as I am the inventor of the maratime aqueduct canal 

 and the water elevator referred to by Dr. Parker, as a means for bring- 

 ing the sheet water to the surface of the ground and putting it into a 

 concrete channel that guarantees no loss from seepage. I am now 

 solicited for a description of my plan for getting at and concentrating 

 on the plains for irrigation, this sheet water where it is nearest th'e 

 surface of the ground. 



I have this to say: excavate to within a few feet of sheet watar a 

 series of open cisterns or reservoirs, 40 ft. square and then dig ditches 

 of equal depth for half a mile to the right and left of these cisterns, 

 and in these ditches drive into sheet water say LO ft. apart, lines of 

 drain pipes with strainer. These ditches will have foundation and 

 walls of concrete, making a slight fall from the outer end of the ditch 

 to the reservoir or cistern, thus causing the water as it flows from each 

 drain pipe to enter the cistern, from which water elevators will lift the 

 water into the irrigation canal. I am assured by persons familiar with 

 sinking wells on stock farms and ranches in Nebraska and Kansas, 

 that is a majority of these wells the water is reached through drain 



