THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



243 



THE WEST IN MINIATURE. 



Conda J. Ham. 



A great section of the west, with snow-capped 

 mountains, forests of pine, lakes, artificial and 

 natural, a river, systems of irrigation canals, great 

 sections of farm lands, and many other interesting 

 features were pressed into a space barely fifteen 

 feet square in a miniature irrigation moclH exh fa- 

 iled at the recent engineering exhibit at the Uni- 

 versity of Michigan. People who attended this ex- 

 "hibit, many thousand of them, there saw at a 

 glimpse the enormity of many of the problems con- 

 fronting the hydraulic engineer and forester, or ir- 

 rigation specialist. The work was all done by 

 students of these subjects, under the direction of 

 Professor Clarence Johnston, and his assistant, Pro- 

 fessor Horace King. 



An irrigation canal flowed cut of this lake 

 through a tunnel to irrigate the farm lands in the 

 foreground. As it approached the river which had 

 cut a deep canon through the mountain side, the 

 canal was divided, a part of the water being kept 

 on the left side of the river and the balance being 

 llumed across the river by a concrete flume and 

 used to irrigate the lands on the opposite side. So 

 well was this model constructed that all of the 

 lands in the foreground were evenly moistened all 

 of the time, yet at no time was there any surplus 

 water standing on them. 



Three kinds of irrigating methods were repre- 

 sented, viz., the check, and the flooding methods, 

 used for grains and hay, and the furrow method 

 used where such crops as corn, potatoes, and all 

 that are grown in furrows are raised. 



Besides the irrigation and power features of the 



Model Irrigating Plant at University of Michigan Engineering Exhibit. 



While the model represented only an ideal ir- 

 rigation system, there were features of it drawn al- 

 most exactly from real life. In the background was 

 a mountain range with peaks rising above the snow 

 line. At the right hand corner of the model was a 

 lake modeled after Crater Lake in Oregon. From 

 this lake a river flowed down the entire mountain 

 side. Part way down the mountain was located 

 a power-house operated by the fall of water from 

 the lake. From it a line conducted the power to the 

 village in the foreground. 



The surplus water flowed into another lake 

 formed by a dam at the left of the model. This dam 

 and the surrounding territory are exact duplicates 

 of the Crystal Lake dam, in the Laramie Mountains 

 of Wyoming, constructed during the time Professor 

 Johnston was acting as a hydraulic engineer in the 

 west, and of the territory which surrounded that 

 dam. 



model, other interesting engineer methods were 

 shown. There was a system of mountain roads, 

 different types of bridges across the river and irriga- 

 tion canals, various types of houses and features of 

 forestry in mountain districts. To people who have 

 never made a special study of western methods, and 

 to those who had never viewed such a system in 

 operation, the model was most instructive. 



J. M. Morgan is experimenting with a new 

 means of irrigation on his place near Osborne, Kan., 

 this year which so far appears to be a great success. 

 He makes a tile for subsoil moisture by nailing four 

 laths together making a square box and lays them 

 eight to fourteen inches under the surface of the 

 ground. The water is pumped into the lath tiling 

 the same as in earthen tiling and it seeps gradually 

 into the earth doing the same good as clay tile. This 

 plan is much cheaper. 



