80 FOEEST LANDS FOB THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 



other similar sections of the West, where the streams carry enormous loads 

 of sediment. The entire Colorado system is even more distinguished in this 

 respect than is the Missouri. The same is true of the Kio Grande, the Pecos, 

 and the upper courses of the Arkansas and lied. Even the streams of the 

 Great Interior Basin are heavy silt hearers, and the same is true of many of 

 the streams of the Pacific coast. The streams flowing into Puget Sound are 

 heavily laden with silt at certain portions of the year, and the great Columbia 

 bar is impressive evidence of the vast burden of sediment which that mighty 

 river has carried to the sea. Nearly all of the annual load carried by these 

 streams is entirely unaffected by anything which man has done. It is the 

 regular natural carving down of the hills and building up of the valleys and 

 estuaries below. 



The eastern streams are clear and sediment-free compared with those of the 

 West; but even in these a large portion of their sediment is eroded from the 

 gorges and canyons of the hills and mountains, which will continue to wash 

 away as long as the rivers flow. This particular class of erosion, on both 

 eastern and western rivers, is far less objectionable than one is led in these 

 later days to believe. Has it not from the beginning been one of the most 

 beneficent operations of nature? Are not the richest lands in the world the 

 river bottoms and deltas built up in this wayV To a very great extent 

 the irrigated lands of the West are composed entirely of the debris from the 

 mountains and the bad lands. Even to-day this tribute from the highlands 

 is of great value. The periodic enrichment of the Ohio bottom lands and 

 similar tracts in hundreds of other places is of the highest economic impor- 

 tance. The soil-laden waters of irrigation in -the spring, though sometimes 

 injurious to the growing crop for the time being, are on the whole extremely 

 beneficial. The damage from sediment is not in its injury to the lands ordina- 

 rily, but to ditches, canals, reservoirs, and similar works. On the whole it is, 

 and always has been, a benefit to the lowlands. Even that portion carried 

 out to sea builds up deltas and surely, though slowly, extends the habitable 

 area of the globe. IS'ot alone in the resources of water and timber, but, in 

 the perpetual renewal of soil as well, has the valley said to the mountains 

 throughout the world's history: "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from 

 whence cometh my help." 



Sediment of this character, except when accompanied by alkaline salts or 

 other similar ingredients, is not injurious to domestic supply. The water of the 

 Missouri Itiver is one of the healthiest drinking waters in the world in spite 

 of the fact that it rs one of the muddiest." 



The proportion of soil wash that comes from cultivated fields is really very 

 small compared with the enormous total that the rivers carry away. Heavy 

 rains undoubtedly wash farm soils a great deal, but this erosion is in large part 

 a transfer from one spot to another and not an absolute loss. The history of 

 the old Ohio Canal reservoirs indicates very little filling in the sixty-six years 

 that they have been In existence. According to the chief engineer of the Ohio 

 state board of public works. It is scarcely appreciable in some of the reservoirs, 

 and in none does it amount to as much as inches, or one two-huudredths of an 

 inch per year from the tributary watershed. Yet these reservoirs are sur- 

 rounded by rich agricultural lands. The silt observations on the Ohio in 1S79 

 indicate only a little more than one six -hundred ths of au inch over the entire 

 watershed; but this, it is true, was a year of light rains. 



It Is readily seen that the formidable danger of which so much has been 

 written of late becomes quite harmless as to quantity when it comes down to 

 the Individual farm. The harm is probably not so much in the quantity of soil 

 actually lost as in the fact that the soil may be leeched of some of its more 

 important ingredients. The evil is one which can be controlled only by better 

 methods of farming, whereby the surface waters will be restrained from eroding 

 the soil; but even these measures have their adverse side, for when heavy rains 

 prevail for a long time it is more important to the farmer to get the water off 

 bis land than it is to save a little soil. Most of the soil will stop on lower 

 ground and not be wholly lost, but if the water is not gotten rid of the crop 

 niav be ruined. 



The late J. B. Johnson, M. Am. Soc. C. E., used to say, in extolling the vir- 

 tues of Missouri Kiver water, that it was the most perfectly filtered water in the 

 world; with this difference, however, that in the ordinary case water is run 

 through the filter, but here the filter is run through the water. 



