IRRIGATION PROBLEMS OF HONEY LAKE BASIN. 77 



Square miles. 



Horse Lake and its drainage area 114.5 



Balls Canyon, with Snowstorm and Secret Valley creeks 272. 



Long Valley Creek, exclusive of watershed of White Alkali Lake 230. 



Small streams and canyons, to basin direct: 



Hills north, Shaffer Peak to Hot Springs Peak and down ridge west of Ske- 

 daddle divide 64. 2 



Hills northwest of lake, Baxter Creek shed 19. 



Mountain side southwest of lake 53. 6 



136. 8 



Total 1,210.9 



Honey Lake and the basin lands 374. 8 



Grand total 1, 585. 7 



The character of the watershed is by no means uniform. The Susan River 

 watershed belongs to the first class in water-yielding efficiency, because it receives 

 the largest and most regular snowfall, and is clothed in forests which insure the 

 gradual melting of the winter's accunmlation. The same is true of the mountains 

 lying to the south of the valley, including the watershed of Thompson Creek. With 

 the exception of the Pine Creek neighborhood, tributary to Eagle Lake, the vast 

 remaining watershed is far from first class. It varies a good deal and there are 

 seasons when, in consequence of unusually heavy snows, it sends enormous floods 

 through creeks and canyons to the final sink in Honey Lake. But in ordinary years 

 these barren hiJls possess small value from the standpoint of the water yield. 



, STORAGE SITES. 



The problem of water storage to supplement the natural flow of streams presents 

 in this region three remarkable features seldom found in conjunction. First, there 

 are numerous good-sized reservoir sites where the engineer has but to assist nature 

 by inclosing the outlet with dams and headgates, and reaching out low levees on 

 either hand to effect their completion. The cost is so low as to make them entirely 

 practicable and their size and location such that they may be utilized one at a time, 

 and the system gradually extended to meet the growing needs of the countiy. 

 Second, these natural reservoir sites are so distributed as practicallj- to surround the 

 valley and permit different parts of it to enjoy independent supplies. Third, there 

 are three small lakes and one large one, which only require to be tapped to serve 

 important uses. When these simple conditions ai'e compared with tho.se prevailing 

 in many other parts of the arid region, where great storage works must be constructed 

 before a single acre of land can be irrigated, they are seen to furnish extraordinary 

 advantages to this locality'. 



The utilization of these striking opportunities for storage has begun, but the 

 work is yet in its infancy'. What has been attempted and what accomplished in 

 the way of irrigation development, together with the difliculties encountered, will be 

 sketched elsewhere in this report; but in this place it is proper to say that of the 

 many reservoirs which have been projected from time to time on Susan River, in 

 the mountains lying to the west of the valley, two have been partly constructed and 



