272 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



June 



its one hundred mile course falls 

 2,300 feet. The power which may be 

 developed by regulating these streams 

 will not only be valuable in connec- 

 tion with manufacturing interests, 

 but can be transmitted electrically 

 hundreds of miles, operating mines 

 and electric roads, raising under- 

 ground waters, and lighting cities and 

 towns. A study of Nevada's water 

 supply will be a revelation to those 

 who know only that it is the driest 

 state in the Union. 



It was not by chance this section 

 was singled out as the field for the 



the pick for the hoe. So bountiful 

 were the returns from the soil where 

 water was applied, and so fabulous 

 the prices which the hay and vege- 

 tables brought in the little mining 

 towns of the silver region, that these 

 farming communities grew and flour- 

 ished. 



Remote from the large centers of 

 civilization, these dwellers of the 

 desert developed a sturdy citizenship. 

 Some of them have spent years of 

 their lives and large sums of money 

 in surveying and prospecting the re- 

 sources of the state. Their patience 





Lower Carson Reservoir Site, from Dam Site. (Truckee-Carson project.) 



first demonstration of the practica- 

 bility of the Reclamation Act. Nevada 

 has guarded its treasures with an ex- 

 terior so forbidding that the pioneer 

 hurried past its doors. The discovery 

 of placer deposits in its streams soon 

 after the California excitement, was 

 followed by a wave of gold-mad spec- 

 ulators which receded almost as sud- 

 denly as it came, but here and there 

 in its wake tiny flecks of green marked 

 the abode of the stranded miner, who 

 forced by necessity, had exchanged 



and persistence added to the thorough 

 knowledge of Nevada's every possi- 

 bility, which had been gained by L. 

 H. Taylor in eight years of investiga- 

 tion for the Hydrographic Branch of 

 the Geological Survey, resulted in the 

 formulation of a comprehensive plan 

 for the redemption of the state. From 

 the countless sands of her sage brush 

 deserts the empire which their fancy 

 had builded is rising, and down 

 through the ages these works will 

 stand a monument to their foresight 





