WATER APPROPRIATION FROM KINGS RIVER. 



287 



in the past, in a large measure dependent upon the safe height to which this embank- 

 ment along Chambers Slough permitted water to be raised. Leaving Chamliers 

 Slough the canal is cut into the higher bank land and lies in an excavation having 

 a greatest depth of about 10 feet and a bed width of about 50 feet. The main 

 canal in its course thence westerh' toward Fresno holds a direction probably with 

 the greatest slope of the countr}-, falling 5 to 10 feet per mile. Advantage was taken 

 of a number of natural water courses, into which the canal water was dropped. 

 Canal construction commenced in 1870 with the posting of a notice of a claim to 

 water "to be taken from Kings River at the upper end of Sweem Ditch, 20 feet 

 on the bottom, 30 feet on top, 4 feet deep." This claim was made by Mr. M. J. 

 Church, who a month later acquired a two-thirds interest in the Sweem Ditch. The 



Und Subject 

 to Overflow 



Headworks 



OP 

 A FRESNO AND FOWLER SWITCH CANAU 

 B CENTERVILLE AND KINGSBURG CANAL 



ACAL.E IN FEET 



1000 



Fig. 13.— a, headworks of Fresno and Fowler Switch canals; B, headworks of CenteiTille and King.';burg Canal. 



Sweem Ditch was a small ditch, the construction of which seems to have been 

 commenced in 1870, and it was intended to increase the flow of what was then known 

 as the Centerville Ditch. Its upper section was enlarged and became the head 

 section of Fresno Canal. In 1872 a regulator, or headgate. was constructed in the 

 head of Fresno Canal, and in the spring of 1874 a small cut on the line of the present 

 Long Cut was completed from the Centerville Ditch to the lower sections of the 

 Fresno Canal, on which work had meanwhile been pushed to the limit of the means 

 of the projector of the work. This small connecting ditch is reported to have had 

 a bed width of onh' 5 feet on a grade of 5 feet to the mile. As the alignment of 

 a part of the older Centerville Ditch was in time to become the alignment of a section 

 of the Fresno Canal, and because it seemed desirable to secure the water rights 



