WATER STORAGE ON SWEETWATER AND SAN JACINTO RIVERS. 365 



Claim No. 16 is not a filing for an}- specified volume of water, but claims "all 

 reservoir sites on the Sweetwater, commencing 1 mile above James Yates's place in 

 township 16 S.. R. 1 E.," which is in the general locality where claims Nos. 9, 13, 14, 

 16, 21, 22, and 25 were posted. 



Claim No. 17 is a filing by a ranch owner living on the stream high up in thf 

 mountains, some 4 miles below Descanso, and claims "'all the running water of the 

 Sweetwater Creek, for irrigating purposes."' The filing does not state where the 

 water is intended to be used, but presumably on the lands riparian to the stream, 

 immediately below the point of diversion. A small appropriation has been made 

 under this filing, the volume of which is too insignificant to have any appreciable 

 eflfect on the reservoir appropriations made below, or an}' that ma^' in future be made. 



Claim No. 19, to 500 inches from Japatul Valley, a tributarj- of Sweetwater 

 River, was made by the San Diego Flume Companj- as a part of its general system, 

 and is in the same condition as all the filings made by this company on adjacent 

 watersheds, where no actual work of appropriation has been performed. The claim 

 is doubtless invalid. 



Claims Nos. 21 and 22, for "2,000,000 inches," may be classified among the boom 

 absurdities which came to naught. 



Claim No. 23 is for "500 inches of water" from Lawson Valley Creek, a small 

 tributarj^ of Sweetwater River. The object of the filing was evidentlj' for local 

 farming appropriation. The stream is normally of verj' slender volume and the only 

 actual use made of it in irrigation is by a farmer residing on a small tract at its 

 mouth, and gathering about 30 miner's inches into a small flume. 



Claim No. 24 is for 5,000 inches, and is located so near the head of the stream as 

 to be insignificant in actual realization. It was intended for local use, and a ditch has 

 been built to divert the water of Guatay Vallej' upon the adjacent meadows and fields 

 of alfalfa, but the actual appropriation is small and is practically negligible in its 

 effect upon reservoirs located down the stream. 



Claim No. 25, for "15,000 cubic feet per second," was made bj' the San Diego 

 Land and Town Company at a time when the}' seriously contemplated the construc- 

 tion of a second reservoir on the stream at a point above and near the mouth of 

 Lawson Creek, about one year subsequent to the great flood. The purpose held in 

 view in constructing this secondary dam and reservoir was to conserve more water, 

 and at the same time command higher lands belonging to the company, which needed 

 a water supply. The large volume of water brought down by the stream during the 

 freshet brought with it a regret that there was not more storage capacity' to impound 

 it. The company made sun'eys of the dam site and reservoir basin, and found a 

 satisfactory dam site where the width of the gorge is but 50 feet at bottom, and 320 

 feet wide at a height of 70 feet. The walls are of hard granite, of excellent quality 

 for building purposes. The reservoir will cover an area of 147 acres at the 70-foot 

 contour, and impound 3,470 acre-feet. A dam at least 150 feet high will probabh^ 

 be required to form a reservoir of equal capacit}' to the one already built. The new 

 dam site would have an elevation of l,f!30 feet at the base. The company did no 

 work to perfect its title to the water, and the claim is invalid. The size of the claim, 

 "15,000 cubic feet per second," is an indication of the opinion of the engineer that 



