262 IRRIGATION INVESTIGATIONS IN CALIFORNIA. 



The river about the Narrows flows in beds of cobbles; it has ill-defined banks. 

 At high stages it covers large areas of the bottom lands. Below the Narrows its 

 channel is in sand. It is closely confined between the high bluffs alreadj' described 

 until it passes Kingsburg, where the bluffs retreat from the river and are gradually 

 lost in the general level of the valley plain. The barrier built bj" Kings River and 

 extended by it across the trough of the San Joaquin Valley is at its lowest point 

 about 30 feet higher than the lake bed, and 30 miles will barely express its breadth 

 from south to north. 



LANDS IRRIGATED. 



San Joaquin Valley, with its area of 11,500 square miles, is centrally located in 

 California. It extends in a northwesterly direction from the Tejon Mountains on 

 the south to its junction with Sacramento Valley on the north. The two valleys 

 together form the great Central Valley of California. San Joaquin Valley has a 

 length of 250 miles and an average breadth of over iO miles. Place the observer 

 where j'ou will in the valley and he has before and about him a A'ast expanse of land 

 almost as smooth to the eye as the surface of a great expanse of water. Place him a 

 little to the southwestward of the center of the valley, face to the northeast, and he 

 has before him, low down toward the horizon, the distant blue, perhaps snow-capped, 

 Sierra Nevada. If he be thus placed just to the westward of the valley trough, he 

 can look across the great east-side valley plain toward the point where Kings River 

 breaks through the foothills, but the distance is too great to fix clearly the point 

 where the river enters upon its course across the valley. To the right, in the fore- 

 ground, lies the dry bed of Tulare Lake, which was but recently a great lake, cover- 

 ing at its flood stages about 750 square miles, but now showing encroachment of 

 cultivated areas along its northern, eastern, and southeastern margins, but still pre- 

 senting several hundred square miles of bare, rough surface, most recently uncovered, 

 having the appearance of parched and cracking clayey soil. 



A little farther removed and to the northeastward of the lake area the verdant 

 fields of the Mussel Slough country strike the eye and stretch far away toward the 

 east. Here the broad patches of green of the alfalfa fields are pleasantly diversified 

 with the varying shades of green of the vineyards, orchards, and green fields. 

 Merging into this section is a broad belt of oaks, marking the line from the northeast 

 toward the observer of the main delta channels of Kings River, and still farther 

 north are the broad pasture "lands of the Rancho Laguna de Tache. 



Somewhat nearer at the left and disappearing in the distance toward the north- 

 west is the Fresno Swamp country, from which all signs of swamp have been fast 

 disappearing, where pat<".hes of alfalfa and of grain, occasional groups of trees and 

 Vjuiidings give evidence of thrift and energy, and of at least temporary success of the 

 efforts to bring even the freshet flow of the river under control. 



Directly in front of the observer, in the foreground of the picture, is a small 

 pond or lake — Summit Lake — which has an elevation about 30 feet greater than the 

 elevation of Tulare Lake bed, and which lies upon the course of the flood-water flow 

 of the main lake. In ordinary seasons, and while Tulare Lake is not full, some of 

 the Kings River flood water finds its way to this lake through some of the delta 

 channels. 



