WATER APPEOPRIATION FROM KINGS RIVER. 297 



irrigation works at an agreed price of $1,500,000 no works were constructed. As 

 a result of litigation the district has been declared illegally organized, and all district 

 proceedings have been terminated. 



CARMELITA DITCH. 



This is a small ditch which supplies water to the lands of the Carmelita Vineyard 

 Compan}^ and to Mrs. M. J. D. Reese. Its head is near and just below the wastegate 

 of the 76 Canal. The ditch was built in 1896 to divert the water claimed under a 

 notice of appropriation tiled by S. F. Earle. The amount claimed is 5 cubic feet per 

 second. The ditch has a direct connection with a channel of the river and can also 

 be supplied with water from the 76 Canal. During the greater part of the year water 

 is delivered into the ditch from the 76 Canal, but in August, September, and October, 

 when there is no water in the canal, it is let into the ditch through an 8-foot head- 

 gate direct from the river. The right to use water is claimed as a riparian right. 



The cost of the ditch was about $400. and the annual expense for maintenance is 

 about $25. Litigation with the Peoples Ditch Company, the Lower Kings River 

 Water Ditch Company, the Last Chance Water Ditch Company, and with owners of 

 ditches in the Centerville Bottoms has cost about $300, and the various actions have 

 not yet been brought to trial. The method of irrigation with water from this ditch 

 is chiefly by saturation of subsoils, it being deemed advisable to keep ground water 

 within 8 feet below the surface. 



PEOPLES DITCH. 



This is a canal of the lower group whose head is on the south side of Kings River, 

 about one-half mile above the head of Cole Slough. Kings River at this point flows 

 in a broad, sandv bed, to which there is a steep descent of about 15 feet from the 

 level of the main valley plain on the south. The canal follows the margin of this 

 plain for some distance southwesterly as it recedes from the river, and is gradually 

 brought out upon the surface of the plain about 3 miles below its head. At about 4 

 miles below its head the distribution of its water to its branches commences. The 

 diversion of water from the river is effected at low stage b\' means of a dam of brush 

 and sand, which is annuallj- repaired at considerable expense. Until within the last 

 few years the inflow into the canal was controlled by two regulators, one of which 

 was within a quarter of a mile of the river bank, the other about 2 miles below. 

 These were 24 feet in width and were of the ordinary culvert type with vertically 

 sliding gates. 



There is a new regulating gate now in service within several hundred jards of 

 the head of the canal. (Fig. 14 A.) This is a massive, well-built structure, 38 feet 

 wide between side walls, which supports an earth flU about 2 feet thick, serving as a 

 roadway over the canal. The space between side walls is subdivided bj* 10-by-lO-inch 

 posts into ten bays or openings, each of which is closed by means of a verticall}' 

 sliding gate. Power is applied to the gate stems by means of a lever, the end of 

 which engages between the teeth of a rack. 



The canal has a fall of onlv about one-half foot in the first 2 miles of its course. 

 The efl'ective fall is increased somewhat by keeping the brush dam at a good height. 

 The canal as originallj' constructed was 24 feet wide on the bottom, and was intended 



