THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



105 



been practically held up for the last two years. 

 While there has been considerable activity in the 

 filing upon new projects, there has been little actual 

 construction work. During the calendar year 1915 

 practically 900' new projects, which includes ditches 

 and reservoirs, have been filed upon. During the 

 same calendar year only seven reservoirs have been 

 built or enlarged. 



Colorado, as a state, has suffered in the past 

 from too much exploitation of irrigation schemes 

 without any merit whatever. We are, in a meas- 

 ure, recovering from the ill effects of this hyper- 

 enthusiasm, and Eastern capital seems much more 

 willing to put money into our irrigation and drain- 

 age securities. As this feeling of confidence in our 

 developments continues to grow it is incumbent 

 upon every citizen of this state to see that only 

 bona fide propositions be placed before Eastern 

 capital. Denver Post. 



MAKING "GROUND WATER" SURVEY 



Washington letter in Christian Science Moni- 

 tor : One of the big recent developments in the 

 building up of the arid and semi-arid states is the re- 

 covery of underground water for irrigation. For- 

 merly nearly all irrigation supplies were derived 

 from surface streams, but two conditions have in 

 recent years directed attention to the valuable sup- 

 plies of water which are stored in the huge subter- 

 ranean reservoirs underlying many of the desert 

 areas of the West and which can be tapped by drill- 

 ing wells. The first of these conditions is the rapid 

 exhaustion of unappropriated surface supplies and 

 the necessity of finding other supplies if the irriga- 

 tion of the arid lands is to be extended ; the second 

 is the reduction in the cost of pumping due to im- 

 provements in pumps and development of internal- 

 combustion engines, and the installation of large 

 hydroelectric power plants. 



When the last federal census was taken more than 

 a half million acres of land was irrigated in the 

 United States with water supplied by wells, about 

 three-fourths of which was pumped, the rest rising 

 to the surface by artesian pressure. Since that time 

 progress has been made in the recovery of under- 

 ground water. At first ground-water irrigation was 

 almost wholly confined to a few regions, such as 

 southern California, the Pecos valley, and the Ar- 

 kansas valley, but now nearly all parts of the West 

 are being prospected for ground-water supplies. 



Owing to the diversity in geologic conditions, 

 the occurrence of underground water differs greatly 

 from place to place. Many of the desert valleys have 

 large and valuable supplies ; but others which appear 

 no less promising to the casual observer have little 

 or no underground water or only water that is too 

 deep to be profitably pumped or too alkaline to be 

 used for irrigation. The uncertainties attending 

 ground-water developments are causing great loss 

 to thousands of uninformed and inexperienced set- 

 tlers and are providing unscrupulous promoters 

 with opportunities for misrepresentation. 



Long before the interest in underground water 

 had become as general as it is today the geological 

 survey foresaw the need of a detailed ground-water 

 survey of the entire West, and for years it has been 



engaged upon such a survey. Each year certain 

 areas are selected for systematic investigation, the 

 plan being ultimately to cover the entire West. A 

 vast amount of reliable information has thus been 

 obtained on the quantity, depth and quality of the 

 water, the prospects for artesian flows, the best 

 methods of constructing wells, the cost of drilling 

 and pumping, and other matters relating to the re- 

 covery and utilization of the underground supplies, 

 and maps are made showing the ground-water con- 

 ditions. The maps and data are published in a 

 series of water-supply papers. 



The region to be covered is, however, so exten- 

 sive and the funds available for water resources in- 

 vestigations have been comparatively so small that 

 large areas remain in regard to which there is no 

 definite information, and many years will be re- 

 quired at the present rate of progress to cover all of 

 these areas, provided the work is to be done with 

 the thoroughness that is essential to make it useful. 

 Every year many requests for investigations of 

 specific areas are received, some of them in the form 

 of long petitions signed by the settlers. All these 

 requests are given careful consideration. 



THE ADVANTAGES OF METAL FLUMES 



THE IRRIGATION AGE is in receipt of the catalog 

 of "The Armco Iron Culvert and Flume Manufac- 

 turers Association." It fairly teems with informa- 

 tion which is bound to be extremely useful to all 

 power plants and mining and irrigation engineers, 

 for much of it is new and the result of the most 

 painstaking investigations. 



The day of the wooden flume, like the day of 

 the wooden bridge, has passed, and the irrigationist 

 has learned that the erection of a metal flume is a 

 measure of true economy, as he may thus avoid the 

 yearly troubles and expense of a wooden flume. 



The best of wooden flumes warp, crack, leak 

 and soon rot out, and the waste of water in a single 

 season represents a serious loss. 



The season's losses in long wooden flumes from 

 leakage and reduced capacity resulting from ob- 

 structed interior surfaces, capitalized at prevailing 

 rates of interest, will go far toward replacement 

 with an efficient, long lived, water tight metal struc- 

 ture. 



The carrying capacity of a metal flume remains 

 always the same while that of a wooden flume be- 

 comes decidedly less with warping and patching. 



There is less weight on the sub-structure of a 

 metal flume than on that of a wooden flume which 

 has been soaked with water. 



The sub-structure of a metal flume will last 

 much longer than that under a wooden one, as the 

 leaking of a wooden flume soon rots the timber 

 work, and in some cases softens the foundations so 

 as to weaken the structure and require repairs. 



An Armco Iron Flume is an investment of per- 

 manence. It adds to the value and to the appear- 

 ance of the property on which it is installed. 



SEND $1.00 FOR THE IRRIGATION AGE 

 ONE YEAR AND THE PRIMER OF 

 IRRIGATION. 



