THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



359 



and entered Yale College in the class of '54. His health 

 failing, he left college during the freshman year to 

 travel in Europe with his grandfather, Prof. Silliman 

 Sen. Upon returning home he entered Dartmouth 

 College, graduating with the class of '56. 



Choosing engineering as his profession, he began 

 work on railroad surveys in Illinois under Major Sidell 

 and later was with Gen. George Green on the hydro- 

 graphic surveys of the Croton watershed and in laying 

 water mains in New York City. In 1861 he was ap- 

 pointed by the Peruvian Government engineer of state, 

 with headquarters at Lima, Peru, and for upward of 

 four years was engaged in making surveys for water 

 works, harbors and railroads, making the first map of the 

 old Inca capital of Cuzco, including the famous fortress 

 of Sacshuman, whose fall completed Pizarro's conquest 

 of Peru. Returning to the States in 1866, he had 

 charge of the gold mines in Eldorado County, Cali- 

 fornia, and projected and surveyed the water works for 

 the University of California. In 1873 he joined his 

 brother, John Church, manager of Alliance Coal Min- 

 ing Company, at Pottsville, Pa., acting as mining engi- 

 neer for that company for ten years, retiring from the 

 mines to take charge of the record department of the 

 new Croton aqueduct commission, of which his brother, 

 Col. Benjamin S. Church, was the chief engineer. Since 

 the completion of the new aqueduct he had been em- 

 ployed chiefly in making reports on gold and silver 

 mines in the West, and lately, until disabled by illness, 

 with the United States engineers on the improvement 

 of the navigation of the Hudson River. 



He was a member of the Society of the Cincinnati, 

 of the American Institute of Mining Engineers and the 

 Engineers' Club of Philadelphia. Mr. Church was a 

 man of exceptionally attractive personality. A gentle- 

 man of the old school, unswerving in his integrity and 

 ever ready to lend a helping hand or do an act of kind- 

 ness. He was unmarried. He is survived by one 

 brother, John B. Church, and one sister, Mrs. Coffin, of 

 Boston. 



The North Dakota Republican State convention 

 paid its respects to the action taken by the Democratic 

 convention at St. Louis in the following resolution : 



"We commend the Democracy for its generous ex- 

 pressions of approval of the patriotic work of Lincoln, 

 Grant, McKinley and other great Republican leaders 

 who are dead, but we seriously object to the policy in- 

 augurated at St. Louis whereby the Democratic na- 

 tional convention sought to deprive the administration 

 of Pesident Roosevelt of any credit for its work in the 

 passage of the Hansbrough irrigation law. This legis- 

 lation was enacted in 1892, under a Republican Presi- 

 dent and by a Republican Senate and House of Repre- 

 sentatives, the bill having been drawn, introduced and 

 managed by Mr. Hansbrough in the Senate, and when 

 it reached the House of Representatives Mr. Mondell 

 (Rep.), of Wyoming, took charge of it and secured its 

 passage by that body. It was then signed by President 

 Roosevelt and became a law. 



"There is no statute law applicable to such a; 

 theft as was perpetrated by the Democracy at St. Louis, 

 but the moral obligation to protect the Republican na- 

 tional administration from the political cracksmen 

 rests upon every Republican in the land and particu- 

 larly upon this convention." 



THE DEFECTS IN OUR CANALS. 



The purpose of a canal is to convey water from one 

 place to another, but if one-third seeps through the 

 bottom and sides along the route the usefulness of such 

 a canal may be called in question. It is not enough 

 that we merely provide a channel, but we should also 

 ascertain if it will hold water. If not, the proper time 

 to remedy so serious a defect is when the canal is being 

 built. It costs but a trifle more to excavate the bed a 

 few inches below grade and fill the space thus made 

 with good puddle. If this were done at the worst places 

 along the route the value of the water thus saved in 

 one season would frequently pay for the extra cost 

 involved. Here in the Rocky Mountain States water is 

 usually abundant, especially in seasons like the present. 

 Instead of using impervious channels, such as lined 

 canals and closed pipes, water is conveyed in open 

 ditches over porous formations of loose earth and gravel. 



Flooding is usually practiced, not because it is 

 the most economic of water, but because it is the cheap- 

 est. In view of the fact that large volumes of water 

 are daily diverted and applied to dry soil during the 

 summer season in such manner as to admit of a large 

 percentage of waste, it is not surprising that this waste 

 or seepage water becomes an important factor in the 

 irrigation of a district. Whenever water is conveyed in 

 channels excavated in ordinary soils and subsoils, a 

 large percentage of the flow is absorbed by the porous 

 materials forming the bottom and sides of the channel. 

 In the past writers on irrigation have frequently at- 

 tributed this loss to both evaporation and seepage. 



This may account for the false impression that 

 prevails among irrigators as to the real cause of the 

 loss. Many claim that it is chiefly due to excessive 

 evaporation. One man whom we know, after thirteen 

 years of continuous service in operating a canal has 

 reached the conclusion that the loss in conveyance, 

 which forms about one-third of the total flow, is due 

 almost wholly to evaporation. As a- matter of fact, the 

 loss due to evaporation is so small when compared 

 with that from seepage as to be scarcely worth men- 

 tioning. On this particular canal the quantity of 

 water evaporated during a hot day in midsummer is 

 equivalent to the continuous flow of one cubic foot a 

 second for the same period, while the quantity lost by 

 seepage amounts to seventy-five cubic feet a second. 

 In other words, the loss due to seepage is seventy-five 

 times greater than that due to evaporation. 



It is true that a large part of the water used in 

 irrigating is evaporated, but this takes place after the 

 water has been spread out on the fields and not to any 

 great extent while confined in the canal. This fact 

 should be clearly understood by irrigators or otherwise 

 the defects in existing canals will not soon be remedied. 

 So long as the owners believe that the loss of water 

 is principally due to evaporation, over which they have 

 practically no control, they will be content to let things 

 alone. Whereas, if the truth is made clear that evap- 

 oration from the surface of canals is insignificant and 

 that from fifty to a hundred times more water escapes 

 through the lining of the bottom and sides, they will 

 realize this great loss may be in a measure prevented and 

 the stream which now waters only seventy-five acres 

 may, if conveyed in a more impervious channel, supply 

 water for 100 acres. Denver Field and Farm. 



