294 IBEIGATION INVESTIGATIONS IN CALIFORNIA. 



slope. They have g^enerally been given positions on high ground intermediate 

 between gentle depressions, though in some instances, as in the case of the Traver 

 branch, natural water courses have been in large part substituted for expensive canal 

 work. 



The inflow of water from the upper canal section into the second section of the 

 main canal is controlled by means of a regulator or headgate. Above the regulator 

 in the west canal bank is a spillway through which surplus waters are dropped into 

 Patterson Slough, one of the Kings River channels in Centerville Bottoms. The 

 regulator is 100 feet wide in the direction across the canal, bj' 30 feet along its axis. 

 The surface of the floor is at grade of the canal bottom. 



The canal was constructed in 1882. This was before the enactment of the irriga- 

 tion-district law. Its construction was undertaken by a private corporation, on a 

 plan which was very satisfactorily carried out. As soon as the feasibility of making 

 the diversion of water from the river was assured, about 40,000 acres of land on the 

 plains to be commanded b}^ the canal were bought for the corporation at prices less 

 than $10 per acre. These lands were offered for sale as soon as the canal came into 

 service, at prices somewhat in excess of the added cost of canal construction. It 

 was proposed to establish each year a schedule of prices to be adhered to for a year, 

 but the demand for land was so great at the prices fixed during the first few years 

 that the lands were repeatedly withdrawn from sale. The expenditure of less than 

 $300,000 in four years thus created and increased values to an estimated amount of 

 over $800,000, not including increased values of properties in which the canal company 

 had no direct interest. 



Before the canal was sold to the Alta Irrigation District water rights were issued 

 to purchasers of all lands sold by the canal company and were for sale to others 

 owning land in the district commanded. A water right was defined as 40 miner's 

 inches of water, and was located upon some particular 40-acre tract of land, of which 

 it became an appurtenance. Each full water right was made liable to an assess- 

 ment of $20 per year to cover expenses of canal management. The price of a water 

 right was fixed at $200. 



The Alta Irrigation District was formed in 1888 and was made to include the 

 lands to be irrigated from the 76 Canal. It extends southerly from Kings River to 

 and even beyond Cottonwood Creek and westerly to within a mile of the eastern 

 border of the Kings River delta, and has an area of 130,000 acres. Two years later 

 the district purchased the canal and its branches, paying therefor $410,000 in bonds 

 of the district. This covered the repayment to holders of water rights of the 

 amounts which they had paid for them. 



The northern apex of the Alta Irrigation District is at the western base of 

 Tchoenimne Mountain, where a second river bottom, 10 to 20 feet higher than 

 Centerville Bottoms, lies below the 76 Canal. From the second bottom, which is 

 long and narrow, having an area of nearly 7,000 acres, there is an abrupt rise of 20 

 to 35 feet to the upland or main east-side San Joaquin Valley plain. The surface 

 of this plain drops away gently from the base of the hills southwestward toward the 

 valley trough. Its slope is at first about 10 feet to the mile, but this becomes grad- 

 ually less and is only 6 feet to the mile near Traver. The only notable break in the 

 surface of this portion of the valley plain is made by Wahtoke Creek, which, in its 



