THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



207 



chusetts, has been wrested from the dessert. Irriga- 

 tion canals long enough to span the earth twice and rep- 

 resenting an outlay of $90,000,000, have been built. 

 Every year this area returns a harvest valued at more 

 than $150,000,000, and 2,000,000 people dwell in pros- 

 perity and contentment where only a short time ago 

 the wilderness reigned. 



Uncle Sam is today the largest owner of the great 

 American dessert, no doubt because it was not consid- 

 ered worth stealing. For many years the sentiment has 

 been growing that the government should make habit- 

 able this vast empire which is so great potentially. 



C. J. BLANCHARD. 



Talks About Reclamation Work. 



STEALING A RIVER. 



Under this headline a leading Kansas City daily 

 has the following to say: 



The feat of the man who stole a redhot stove is 

 far surpassed in larcenous proportions by the people 

 of Colorado, if we are to believe the testimony adduced 

 in the case of Kansas versus Colorado, which is pending 

 in the United States Supreme Court. This testimony 

 is mostly in the form of photographs, taken, as usual, 

 before and after, and the Kansans claim that tnese 

 pictures demonstrate the fact that Colorado has stolen 

 and carried away the Arkansas River, contrary to the 

 peace and dignity of several thousands farmers in West- 

 ern Kansas, who desire to use its magic waters for irri- . 

 gating purposes, to make some 300,000 acres of desert 

 land blossom like the rose. 



In addition to the pictures Judge Ashbaugh, lead- 

 ing counsel for Kansas in the litigation, has just com- 

 pleted an abstract of the testimony taken in the case, 

 consisting of five volumes of 1,000 typewritten pages 

 each. But the sixth volume, containing 300 pages of 

 photographs, is relied on chiefly to establish the fact 

 that where once the Arkansas rolled in plenteous maj- 

 esty through the plains of Colorado and Kansas, dis- 

 pensing the choicest blessings of fertility to the thirsty 

 soil, and watering the crops of the just and the unjust 

 alike, now the unjust in Colorado have pilfered all the 

 water and left Kansas as dry as a bone. The Kansans 

 claim priority rights to this water. They have eight or 

 nine big ditches which they say were built before Colo- 

 radoans began to irrigate anything but their throats, 

 and these ditches used to be brimming full before Colo- 

 rado swiped the water and turned it into ditches which 

 were built in base imitation of the Kansas kind. These 

 pictures, the Kansans claim, will show that their ditches 

 now haven't even a cherry left at the bottom, as evidence 

 that they were intended for liquid refreshment, or as 

 a guarantee that rivers, like the constitution, follow 

 the flag, which waves over every school house in Kansas. 



The 300,000 acres in Kansas which are left to the 

 tender mercy of the Kansas prohibitory law are unsur- 

 passed for the culture of sugar beets, alfalfa, melons 

 and fruit, and it remains to be seen whether the Su- 

 preme Court of the United States will countenance this 

 wholesale theft of the once freely flowing Arkansas 

 River. 



Send $2.50 for The Irrigation Age 

 I year, and The Primer of Irrigation 



One of the most surprising features connected 

 with the work of the Reclamation Service, as well as 

 the one affording highest gratification, is the cost of 

 structures compared with those which have become 

 familiar to engineers in the East. 



When the reclamation work was inaugurated it 

 was a matter of conjecture whether or not the stan- 

 dards of cost for dams, canals, etc., that had been estab- 

 lished by engineering practice in the eastern part of 



Constructing: a Tunnel Through Mountain for Carrying 

 Water for Irrigation. 



the country could be relied upon as a basis of esti- 

 mates of the cost of the proposed western structures. 

 As the work has progressed it has become more and 

 more evident that many classes of engineering work in 

 the West can be performed considerably cheaper than 

 in the East, and at the same time the natural condi- 

 tions are such that these structures are more econom- 

 ical and effective. 



If we take, for example, the three great masonry 

 dams now being erected for the purpose of storing 

 water, viz., the Roosevelt dam in Arizona, the Path- 



A Pleasant Valley In the West. 



finder dam in southeastern Wyoming, and the Sho- 

 shone dam in northwestern Wyoming, we shall find 

 that the effective storage capacity and costs are far 

 below those of some of the great eastern dams like the 

 New Croton in New York and the Wachusett in Mas- 

 sachusetts. The heights of these dams are as fol- 

 lows: Roosevelt, 280 feet; Pathfinder, 210 feet; She- 

 shone, 308 feet; New Croton, 297 feet, and Wachusett, 

 207 feet. These heights are measured from the founda- 

 tion stones to parapet in each case, and they show that 

 the Shoshone is the highest, while the New Croton is 

 second and the Roosevelt third. If, however, the height 

 above the river bed is considered, that is, the effective 



