1905 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



159 



locality, who fear that the river will 

 form a new channel to the south of 

 the Buttes and throug-h the heart of 

 the community. At Roosevelt, Ari- 

 zona, where the engineers of the Re- 

 clamation Service have been actively 

 engaged during the past months on 

 the preliminaries to the construction 

 of the great Roosevelt clam, work on 

 the po\ver canal and the operating of 

 the cement mill were seriously inter- 

 fered with as a direct result of the ex- 

 ceptional weather conditions. Cut off 

 from all communication with the out- 

 side world for days at a time, it was 

 with the utmost difficulty only that the 

 large construction camps were sup- 

 plied with food, forage, fuel, tools, 

 and other supplies. The stage roads 

 from Mesa to Roosevelt and Globe to 

 Roosevelt presented for months the 

 sorry spectacle of innumerable aban- 

 doned freight wagons, mired to the 

 hubs, loaded with goods of all kinds, 

 among them oil tanks with fuel oil 

 for the government cement mill. That 

 portion of the road from Mesa to 

 Roosevelt which was constructed by 

 the Reclamation Service at consider- 

 able expense, suffered but little from 

 washouts. Rumors which were circu- 

 lated some time ago to the effect that 

 it had been washed out over a dis- 

 tance of eighteen miles are without 

 foundation. 



A glance at the records of the Wea- 

 ther Bureau becomes of interest in this 

 connection. Throughout the central 

 portion of Arizona and especially at 

 the high elevations, the precipitation 

 during January, February, March, and 

 April has been marked by frequent 

 and unusually heavy rainfalls. The 

 Phoenix record shows a rainfall of 

 3.31 inches during January; 4.64 

 during February ; 2.38 inches during 

 March, and 2.59 inches during April, 

 a total of 12.92 inches for the four 

 months. This represents an accumu- 

 lated excess of 10.04 inches over and 



above the average for the same period 

 during the past ten years. The nor- 

 mal annual precipitation at Phoenix 

 being less than 7 inches, it will be 

 noted that the accumulated excess for 

 the period January I to April 30, 1905, 

 as given above, is in itself greater than 

 the yearly normal. The number of 

 rainy days observed during the four 

 months referred to is 48 ; cloudy days, 

 78 ; clear days, 42. Of this February 

 had 14 rainy days, 22 cloudy days and 

 only 6 clear days. Indeed, exceptional 

 records for the Salt River Valley ! 

 On the high plateaus the records are 

 also remarkable, the precipitation hav- 

 ing amounted to as much as from 25 

 to 37 inches of snow in different lo- 

 calities, during single months of the 

 period under consideration. The large 

 snowfalls in the mountains are respon- 

 sible for the fact that the rivers of 

 Arizona toward the end of May were 

 still discharging large quantities of 

 water. On many peaks snow remained 

 till late in May. 



It is estimated that the discharge 

 of Salt River above its confluence 

 with the Verde has averaged during 

 February and March in the neigh- 

 borhood of 10,000 cubic feet per sec- 

 ond. The flow during these two 

 months alone would have been ample 

 to more than fill the projected reser- 

 voir at Roosevelt. It is of peculiar 

 interest in this connection to note that 

 observations by engineers of the Re- 

 clamation Service indicate a marked 

 rise in the underground water level 

 in the Salt River Valley, and a grad- 

 ual diminution in the amounts of salts 

 and mud contained in the river water 

 during the long period of high water. 

 While accurate figures on this sub- 

 ject are not yet available for publica- 

 tion, it is expected that the data col- 

 lected will lead to conclusions of par- 

 ticular interest to the irrigator as well 

 as to the scientist. 



