UNITED STATES 



OAMM SERVICE 



Government Irrigation Work During the Month 



Pathfinder 



Dam 



The Supervising Engi- 

 neer in charge of the 

 North Platte irrigation 

 project, Wyoming-Nebraska, reports 

 that on August 15th the foundation 

 was ready for stone laying and the first 

 stone was set in the great Pathfinder 

 dam. The work of stone laying has 

 continued without interruption and it 

 was expected that the entire founda- 

 tion would be ready for masonry by 

 the present time. 



The construction of this dam has 

 for its object the storage of flood wa- 

 ters of the North Plattee River, to 

 be used for the irrigation of large 

 tracts of land in Nebraska and Wyo- 

 ming. It will contain 53,000 cubic 

 yards of masonry, erected at a cost of 

 $1,000,000. The capacity of the reser- 

 voir will be 43,560,000,000 cubic feet, 

 or more than ten times that of the 

 Croton reservoir in New York. The 

 annual discharge of the river is suffi- 

 cient to cover 1,000,000 acres of land 

 one foot in depth, and the dam is ca- 

 pable of holding back the flood and 

 surplus waters of the entire year. 



According to the last census, with- 

 in the drainage basin of the Platte 

 River is found the largest area irri- 

 gated by one stream in the United 

 .States, and the value of the improved 

 agricultural land is probably as high 

 as any other section, with the possible 

 exception of the fruit belts of Cali- 

 fornia and central Colorado. All the 

 natural late summer flow of the stream 

 has long since been exhausted by pri- 

 vate ditches diverting water from it. 

 A million acre feet of water, not a 



drop of which is now in use, will be 

 stored annually by the Pathfinder dam, 

 and directedthrough canals and ditches 

 upon 300,000 acres of land. The canal 

 system will be the longest in the 

 United States, the main or Interstate 

 canal having a length of 140 miles. 

 The first 45 miles of this canal was 

 completed early this spring and water 

 turned into it on May 5th. Some 1,200 

 acres of land are in crop and have been 

 watered during the season. 



The Geddis and Seerie Stone Com- 

 pany of Denver, Colo., are construct- 

 ing the dam. Excellent progress is 

 being made on all parts of the sys- 

 tem. The great work not only means 

 the reclamation of a vast tract of arid 

 land, but the prevention forever of the 

 destructive floods which annually have 

 visited the vallev. 



Shasta 

 Valley 



During the fall, sum- 

 mer and winter of 1904, 

 petitions signed by prac- 

 tically all the resident land owners of 

 Shasta Valley, Cal., were presented to 

 the Engineer of the Reclamation Ser- 

 vice, asking that survey be made to 

 determine the feasibility of irrigating 

 that valley from the Klamath River. 

 A field party was accordingly assigned 

 to the work and during August and 

 September of 1905 a reconnaissance 

 of the valley was made. 



Shasta Valley is located in northern 

 California and contains the largest 

 body of farming land in Siskiyou 

 County. It is from two to six miles 

 in width, about twenty-four miles 

 long, and lies at an elevation of from 



