THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA 



of the community, and the repairs and improvements 

 made in the same way. The first important departure 

 from this policy came with the construction of the bold 

 and expensive canals of the Bear River Irrigation Com- 

 pany, which have reclaimed a large area lying between 

 the Great Salt Lake and the Idaho boundary. These 

 works also supply domestic water to the city of Ogden 

 and furnish power for electrical purposes. The Bear 

 river canal is one of the most notable works of en- 

 gineering in the United States, ranking at least second, 

 if not first, among irrigation systems in this respect. 

 Not far from two million dollars of eastern and foreign 

 capital is invested in the enterprise. The work ex- 

 hibits almost every phase of irrigation engineering, 

 including canals cut into solid canyon walls, tun- 

 nelled through mountain sides, as well as iron flumes 

 and notable diverting* dams. Other private water sys- 

 tems followed the Bear river development. The most 

 important of these are the storage enterprises at 

 Mount Nebo and in the neighborhood of Sevier lake. 

 Both of these utilize the flood waters of the Sevier 

 river, which is one of the largest streams in the 

 State. 



No other community in the West will deal with more 

 interesting irrigation problems in the future than Utah. 

 The conflicts between the policies of public and private 

 ownership cannot be avoided, since both are represented 

 in systems which lie side by side. In districts where 

 settlement is furthest advanced and canal systems the 

 oldest, the crying necessity for the reconstruction of 

 works and the application of a rigid public supervision 

 must soon be answered. Coincident with the settle- 



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