66 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



February 



process of evolution and which has 

 now in its corps, either by direct ap- 

 pointment or as consulting engineer. 

 every man in the country who has dis- 

 tinguished himself in hydraulic engi- 



neering. 



Then as to tunnels. The irrigation 

 service is now constructing the Gunni- 

 son tunnel, of a length of 6 miles a 

 tunnel 10 by 12 feet and of that tun- 

 nel a mile is already completed. Rec- 

 ollect that the irrigation act was passed 

 almost in the same month that the 

 Panama act was passed. The irriga- 

 tion committees of the Senate and the 

 House visited the various projects 

 during the last summer, and we had 

 opportunity of observing the quickness 

 and extent of the work, and we were 

 amazed at the progress that had been 

 made in the short space of three years. 



At the same session of Congress a 

 bill was passed for the construction of 

 a post office building, to cost fifty or 

 sixty thousand dollars, in the city of 

 Reno, Nevada. That building is not 

 yet constructed the foundations are 

 not yet laid ;and yet the Reclamation 

 Service has during the intervening pe- 

 riod expended over $2,000,000 in re- 

 clamation work in Nevada ; has di- 

 verted the Truckee River, a stream of 

 floods during certain seasons of the 

 year, a distance of 30 miles by a new 

 river over into the Carson valley ; has 

 constructed dams and locks and all the 

 hydraulic machinery that was neces- 

 sary to make that enterprise effective., 

 and the water is now being turned out 

 upon the soil. 



Now, what salaries are paid these 

 men? Mr. Walcott receives $6,000 

 a year. He could, in my judgment, 

 because of the value of his services as 

 an administrator, get a very much 

 larger sum in outside employment, but 

 he feels, as I observe most government 

 employees do, and particularly those 

 relating to the scientific branches of 

 the government, a personal pride in 

 his work. The commercial spirit does 

 not entirely possess the men who are 

 in the employ of the Geological Sur- 

 vey. They are content with reasonable 



compensation, and you could not tempt 

 them from government employ by the 

 offer of larger compensation. 



I know one distinguished engineer 

 who has been employed in the great 

 private enterprises of the West in irri- 

 gation construction who accepted from 

 the United States government a sal- 

 ary about one-third that which he 

 earned in private practice, and he ac- 

 cepted it because he wished to identify 

 his name with a great engineering 

 work in which he was interested. The 

 esprit de corps of this particular, 

 branch of the service is most marvel- 

 ous. We men of the West have had 

 opportunities of observing it. We have 

 every year in the West an irrigation 

 congress, composed of about a thous- 

 and men, deriving its membership 

 from each one of the arid and sem-arid 

 states. The last congress I attended 

 was in El Paso. The one previous to 

 that was at Ogden. This convention 

 of a thousand men was attended also 

 by the engineers and hydrographers 

 and the expert men of the Reclamation 

 Service. They have annually a con- 

 gress of their own, in which these en- 

 gineers, coming from various parts of 

 the country and engaged in different 

 projects, present to the judgment of 

 their associates in the congress their 

 several projects, invite criticism, and 

 ask judgment. To these conferences 

 members of the irrigation congress 

 were invited, and the result is they 

 have been a great educational power 

 in the West. Forty or fifty delegates 

 from every state who attend that con- 

 gress go back to their states familiar 

 with the plans of the government. 

 They become informed through these 

 expositions that take place and they 

 form an educational force in every 

 state, and, so far as the engineers are 

 concerned, they feel the sustaining 

 power of the people themselves in that 

 great work. 



Now, this demonstrates that the 

 government can get men for much less 

 compensation than obtains in commer- 

 cial life. Mr. Walcott gets $6,000 a 

 year; Mr. Newell gets $5,000, and he 



