from the north and Steptoe Creek from the south. Along these creeks are extensive 

 tracts of natural meadows. Fruit, alfalfa and grain are profitable crops. Contiguous 

 to this valley are the great copper mines at Ely, rivaling those of Butte, Montana, 

 as the largest in the world, and which afford market for everything grown. The water- 

 supply of both creeks has been purchased by the copper companies, which limits the 

 acreage subject to future reclamation. East of Ely is Spring Valley, and about Osceola 

 are several great ranches under a high state of cultivation. The annual precipitation 

 in this section is about twelve inches. 



In Lincoln County are a series of valleys Duck Valley, Desert Valley, Pahroc 

 Valley, Coal Valley and Pennoyer Valley which may be said to be on the border line 

 between northern and southern Nevada. There are many thousand acres of cultivated 

 lands in these valleys in isolated tracts, reclaimed from springs and mountain creeks. In 

 Coal Valley a private company has constructed an impounding dam to store the flood 

 waters of a number of small streams. The run-off of the creeks would seem to limit 

 the area feasible of reclamation by the surface-water supply alone to about 5,000 acres. 



In the northern part of the Meadow Valley Wash, about Caliente and Panaca, 

 on the San Pedro, Los Angeles & Salt Lake Railway, elevation approximately 4,400 

 feet, is an extremely fertile farm country under a high state of cultivation. The 

 growing season is about seven months, and extraordinary yields are obtained on the 

 irrigated lands. There is room on small tracts in this section for a considerable number 

 of farmers. 



About Hawthorne, in the Walker Lake Valley, west-central Nevada, are some 

 cultivated lands and with many thousands of acres additional of arable lands which 

 will probably ultimately be reclaimed by pumping. In Fish Lake Valley are several 

 thousand acres of highly productive cultivated lands. 



Big Smoky Valley, one hundred miles in length by from five to fifteen miles in 

 width, with 250,000 acres of arable lands, only about 1,500 acres of which are under 

 cultivation from springs and mountain streams, is alluring of possibilities of reclamation 

 in part by artesian irrigation. Pumping wells have been encountered at reasonable depths 

 at Millers. Electric power for pumping is available, and 1 15,000 acres of the lands 

 are now covered by Carey Act projects proposing to ultilize the subterranean waters. 

 Ralston Valley, Hot Creek Valley, Fish Spring Valley, Little Smoky Valley, and 

 Paranagat Valley each contains an enormous acreage of arable desert lands, some little 

 of which is under cultivation and the remainder awaiting some feasible means of 

 reclamation, restricted, however, probably to artesian flows. 



In the neighborhood of these valleys are the great mining districts of Tonopah, 

 Goldfield and Manhattan, producing annually approximately $20,000,000 in precious 

 metals, affording markets for agricultural crops and, as well, the railroads and electric 

 power lines leading to them the means of transportation and power. 



SOUTHERN SUB-TROPICAL NEVADA 



We have now to consider a portion of Nevada lying between the thirty-fifth and 

 thirty-seventh parallels, elevation between 1,600 and 2,000 feet, with a maximum tem- 

 perature of 1 16 degrees, mean 61.7 degrees, and lowest recorded 10 degrees Fahrenheit, 

 where frosts are practically unknown between the first of May and the beginning of 

 November, and where the growing season is nine months long. This section includes the 

 Muddy River Valley, Las Vegas Valley, Pahrump Valley, Indian Spring Valley, and 

 tracts in the Amargosa Desert, all of which are tributary to the San Pedro, Los Angeles 

 & Salt Lake Railway, the Las Vegas & Tonopah Railway and a part of the Tonopah & 

 Tidewater Railway. ibran? 



THE MUDDY RIVER SYSTEM L 



The Muddy River rises in certain thermal springs near Arrow Canon, in the 

 Arrow Canon Mountains, flows southeasterly, enters the Meadow Valley Wash and 

 continues to Saint Thomas, a distance of forty miles, where it empties into the Virgin 

 River about twenty-five miles above its confluence with the Colorado. The normal 



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