IRRIGATION IN HAWAII. 



Irrigation is transforming the Hawaiian Islands. On Mauri, one 

 of the larger islands of the group, an engineering feat has just been 

 successfully carried through that has not its equal in the Pacific 

 Islands. To supply water to the Spreckelsville plantation a canal 

 has been dug along the slopes of the great crater of Haleakala, and 

 by it a stream of water flowing 50,000,000 gallons daily is brought a 

 distance of twenty-two miles and thence distributed over the planta- 

 tion lands. 



It was no ordinary undertaking, the building of this great canal, 

 for in those twenty-two miles from Kailua Gulch to Spreckelsville 

 there are gulches and canyons by the score, each of which had to be, 

 crossed, and there are a dozen or more high ridges, to pass through, 

 which it was necessary to dig tunnels, some of which are nearly half 

 a mile in length. 



The most striking feature of the "ditch" is the manner in which, 

 it is carried over numerous gulches which scar the sides of the great 

 extinct crater. Some of these gulches are very deep, and their sides 

 are nearly perpendicular. To cross them pipe lines are used, not 

 stretched across on trestles, but following the less expensive and 

 more stable method of dropping into the gulches and allowing the 

 water to flow on the principle of the inverted siphon. Of these 

 siphons there are twelve along the line of the ditch, winding up and 

 down like huge serpents, all constructed of quarter-inch pipe, forty- 

 four inches in diameter. The most striking of them crosses Maliko 

 Gulch, a gash in the slope of the volcano which stretches nearly from 

 the summit to the sea, and which is 350 feet deep and less than a 

 quarter of a mile wide. Across this gorge it seemed next to impos- 

 sible to carry a siphon, but it has been done, and the works are in 

 successful operation. 



