1906 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



379 



nection with the Yuma irrigation pro- 

 ject, California-Arizona, to secure the 

 return to the Government of the cost 

 of the Yuma project, has also been 

 consummated. 



Nebraska 

 Phone 



The Secretary of the In- 

 terior has approved the 

 contract entered into by 

 John E. Field on behalf of the United 

 States Government, and the Platte 

 Valley Telephone Company, of Scotts- 

 blurl, Xebr., whereby the above named 

 company agrees to furnish telephone 

 service in connection with the North 

 Platte irrigation project, Nebraska 

 and Wyoming. 



It was found necessary to establish 

 telephone connections between the 

 headgates of the Interstate Canal, lo- 

 cated at Whalen, Wyo., and the vari- 

 ous headquarters, camps and stations 

 of the Reclamation Service, in order 

 to expediate the work of constructing 

 the irrigation system. Eleven sta- 

 tions will be installed at the various 

 camps and the company will place ad- 

 ditional wires on the poles of its lines 

 now in operation or to be constructed 

 between Whalen, Wyo., and Camp No. 

 8 in Nebraska, and construct and 

 maintain such new lines as may be 

 necessary to connect the telephone sta- 

 tions with each other and with the 

 various exchanges in the district lying 

 between Guernsev, Wvo., and Bridge- 

 port, Nebr. Long distance service may 

 also be had with the Pathfinders dam 

 site, located above Alcova, Wyo. 



Montana 

 Phone 



The Secretary of the In- 

 terior has granted per- 

 mission to the St. Mary's 

 International Telephone Company, of 

 Browning, Mont., to construct a tele- 

 phone line on the Blackfeet Indian 

 Reservation from Browning, on the 

 Great Northern Railroad, northerly to 

 the International boundary line 

 through and by way of Babb, Teton 

 County, Mont., a distance of about 

 fifty miles. 



Arrangements have been made with 

 the company for the transmission of 

 messages in connection with the Milk 

 River project, which is being con- 



Ft. Shaw 

 Lands 



structed for the irrigation of lands in 

 northern and northeastern Montana by 

 the U. S. Reclamation Service. This 

 service will be of inestimable value in 

 expediting the work on the project 

 as well as in future operation of the 

 system. 



The Secretary of the In- 

 terior has authorized the 

 engineers of theReclama- 

 tion Service to survey and subdivide 

 the lands in the Fort Shaw abandoned 

 military reservation, Montana. 



These lands are needed in connec- 

 tion with the Sun River irrigation pro- 

 ject, which is designed to reclaim 

 about 256,000 acres in the valley of 

 Sun River. A large percentage of this 

 land is public domain and lies in a 

 broad prairie extending from Teton 

 River on the north to Sun River on 

 the south, a distance of thirty miles, 

 and from the Rocky Mountains on the 

 west to Missouri River on the east, 

 a distance of seventy miles. The sum 

 of $500,000 has been allotted from the 

 reclamation fund for initiating this 

 great work. 



^ . . In response to requests 



Examination r ,, , , r 



of Clark Fork from the residents of 

 Carbon County, Mont., 

 the Reclamation Service recently made 

 a reconnaissance of the elevations and 

 approximate areas of irrigable lands 

 on the east side of Clarke Fork near 

 the Montana-Wyoming State line. It 

 has long been the belief of settlers in 

 that locality that large bodies of land 

 are so situated as to be irrigable from 

 Clarke Fork. 



It was found that a tract of land 

 known as Chapman Bench lies along 

 Pat O'Hara Creek for a distance of 

 twelve miles. This bench has an aver- 

 age width of one and one-half miles 

 and contains approximately 12,000 

 acres of good land which lies well for 

 distributing water. ( )wing to its high 

 elevation above Clarke Fork Canyon, 

 however, and the long rough country 

 through which the canal would run, 

 an\' scheme for irrigating the land 

 from the waters of Clarke Fork is not 

 considered feasible. There is no other 

 tract of land from the lower end of 



