286 lERIGATION INVESTIGATIONS IN CALIB'ORNIA. 



FINK DITCH. 



This is another one of the small ditches to which water is supplied through Fink 

 Channel. It receives its water on the eastern side of the channel, about a mile below 

 the head of the Jack Ditch. It has a southerlj' course and is abot^t 2 miles long. 



KINGS RIVER AND FRESNO CANAL. 



This canal is reported to be now owned b}' the same parties who own the Fresno 

 Canal. It is probable that decisions of the courts adverse to the claims of its original 

 owners have forced a combination with what was originally a rival enterprise. As 

 elsewhere noted, the canal company is enjoined from taking any water from Kings 

 River, but still remains in service. The canal is favorably located for effecting 

 diversion, and it commands that portion of the great east-side plain of the San Joa- 

 quin Vallej' which extends from Kings River northward to the San Joaquin River. 

 This canal is the upper north-side canal from Kings River, the point of diversion 

 being about 6 miles above Centerville (now Kings River). Its water is carried into 

 the region northeasterlj^ from Fresno, serving lands westward from the base of the 

 foothills for a distance of about 20 miles. The bed width of the canal is generally 16 

 to 24 feet. The flumes in which it is carried over Red Bank and other creeks are 16 

 feet wide, with sides 3 feet high. The capacity of the canal is about 300 cubic feet 

 per second. By a gaging made this year at a time when the canal was being filled 

 with water its flow was found to be 260 cubic feet per second. As the water was 

 probably still rising while this gaging was being made, it is not a perfectly reliable 

 index of canal capacity. 



The canal is owned by an incorporated companj', and its water is sold at rates 

 fixed annually. Owners of stock are preferred purchasers of the water, and receive 

 th& same at two-thirds its cost to other irrigators. The rates in the past have been 

 SoO per cubic foot per second to stockholders and $76 per cubic foot per second to 

 others. No attempt is made to measure the water delivered to consumers. The 

 canal superintendent apportions it to the latter and private ditches according to the 

 number of cubic feet per second to which each is entitled. 



The canal construction dates back to 1872, and the first cost of the main canal is 

 reported to have been $50,000. The area irrigated, or sufficiently benefited by the 

 waters of the canal to be classed as irrigated, has been reported at about 15,000 

 acres. 



FRESNO CANAL. 



The construction of the Fresno Canal antedates that of the Kings River and 

 Fresno Canal about two years. This canal supplies water to the irrigated region 

 in which Fresno is centraliy located. The head of the canal is about 4 miles above 

 Centerville, near the northern margin of Centerville Bottoms. (Fig. 13 A.) It 

 receives water from the Centerville channel of Kings River, across which a cobblestone 

 and brush dam is maintained. A shoi't westerly cut through the gi-avell}- soil of the 

 bottoms takes the canal to a depression at the base of the north-side bluff, which 

 depression was formerly known as Chambers Slough. This has been converted 

 into a canal section by the construction of a levee along its south bank to a point a 

 little over a mile from the head of the canal. The canal eapacit3' is, and has been 



