1905 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



211 



the irrigation law were made. An- 

 other act approved February 15, 1905, 

 provides for the condemnation of res- 

 ervoir sites by any party desiring to 

 construct a reservoir for irrigation 

 or other purposes. Another act of 

 February 15, 1905, provides for a 

 commission of three persons to be ap- 

 pointed by the governor to serve, with- 

 out compensation, for the purposes of 

 codifying and simplifying the laws of 

 Wyoming relating to water rights. 



Another act of February 15, 1905, 

 provides for the limitation of the right 

 to the use of water to the amount re- 

 quired for beneficial use and that the 

 owners of ditches, canals, or reser- 

 voirs having a surplus of water and 

 furnishing the same to others shall 



be considered common carriers and 

 shall be subject to the same laws that 

 govern common carriers. 



The act of February 20, 1905. pro- 

 vides for the protection of roads and 

 highways from flooding from irrigat- 

 ed fields and irrigating ditches. 



The act of Feburary 21, 1905, re- 

 lates to the time for the commence- 

 ment of construction of irrigation 

 works. 



Another act of February 21, 1905, 

 prohibits the transfer of water rights 

 when the change would be injurious 

 to other persons, requires the record- 

 ing of all deeds of transfer of water 

 rights and for injunction proceedings 

 in case of wrongful interference with 

 valid transfers. 



GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES MUTUAL 

 RELIEF ASSOCIATION 



There was recently formed at Wash- 

 ington, D. C., an organization that is 

 to be known as the Government Em- 

 ployees Mutual Relief Association. 

 The officers are: President, F. H. 

 Newell, Chief Engineer of the Recla- 

 mation Service ; vice-president, James 

 B. Adams, Bureau of Forestry ; secre- 

 tary, H. B. Cramer, Geological Sur- 

 vey ; treasurer, Mr. Denmark, Geologi- 

 cal Survey. Executive committee : 

 Gifford Pinchot, Forester, U. S. De- 

 partment of Agriculture ; Morris Bien, 

 U. S. Reclamation Service, and Geo. 

 Woodruff, Bureau of Forestry. 



Experience has shown that from 

 time to time government em- 

 ployees, whose immediate families 

 are not well-to-do, fall sick or die at 

 Washington or elsewhere, having and 

 leaving no means to care for them 

 during sickness or transport their 

 bodies home in case of death. This 

 situation throws expense upon those 

 who are willing to contribute and 

 sometimes causes great hardship. 



INSURANCE COMPANIES WHICH AT- 

 TEMPT TO FURNISH RELIEF. 



Mr. Walcott, Mr. Newell, and Mr. 



Pinchot, seeing the necessity for some 

 arrangement other than mere charity 

 to meet these extreme cases, appointed 

 a committee to investigate and deter- 

 mine upon a scheme for bringing the 

 majority of employees in the Geolog- 

 ical Survey and the Bureau of Fores- 

 try into health and accident insurance 

 companies. The committee found that 

 the premiums charged by such com- 

 panies were practically prohibitive so 

 fas as the majority of their employees 

 are concerned. One example of such 

 a health and accident policy is con- 

 vincing : A company, in which many 

 of the Geological Survey employees in 

 particular are insured, furnishes for 

 $55 per year a policy which provides 

 $5,000 in case of death by accident 

 with no provision whatever for death 

 from sickness, and $25 per week in 

 case of total disability from accident 

 or sickness. The $55 premium in it- 

 self was found prohibitive and, fur- 

 ther, the benefits do not meet the 

 needs, because only one-twentieth of 

 deaths occur from accident from 

 which it can be seen that they might 

 have many deaths per year for several 

 years among those holding this policy 



