THE 



NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE. 



Yol. I. 1889. No. 4. 



IRRIGATION IN CALIFORNIA. 



By Wm. Hammond Hall. 

 Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Society : 



"When" I was invited to address this society I had no mate- 

 rial at hand on the subject. I have come to the east with- 

 out any notes or memoranda whatever, from which to jarepare a 

 lecture or address, no statistical data which would make a paper 

 valuable, no notes of characteristic facts to render an address 

 interesting, and no time to write anything to guide me in any 

 way to a proper treatment of the subject. Some of your members 

 have thought that I have written something worthy of being 

 read, and hence this invitation to address you. But, even if they 

 are right, people who can write cannot always talk, so if I fail in 

 this address, I shall hope, on the basis of their opinion, that you 

 will find in the reports I have written something worthy of read- 

 ing. The subject has been announced as the "Problems of Irri- 

 gation in the United States." I should like very much to speak 

 broadly on that subject, but I am unable to do so, for the reasons 

 I have given, and shall have to speak rather of irrigation in Cali- 

 fornia, trusting that something which is said, may, perchance, be 

 valuable in relation to the subject at large. Irrigation in the 

 far west, generally, is attracting a vast deal of attention. This 

 is particularly the case on the Pacific Coast — the field with which 



VOL. I, 21 



