278 National Geograjyhio Magazine. 



I am specially acquainted. I apprehend that although many gen- 

 tlemen present have a far-reaching and definite appreciation of 

 the subject at large, many others do not appreciate the value and 

 importance of irrigation. In the arid parts of California (for we 

 do not admit that California is as a whole arid) it is a vital mat- 

 ter. There it is a question of life, for the people. ISTot more 

 than one-sixth of the tillable area in the State can sustain a really 

 dense population, without irrigation ; two thirds of it will not 

 sustain even a moderate population, without irrigation ; while 

 one third will not sustain even a sparse population, without such 

 artificial watering. Think well over these facts. They are very 

 significant. I doubt whether they are generally appreciated in 

 California itself. 



I have no doubt many persons are familiar with the geography 

 of the State, but, doubtless, some are not. California has a coast 

 line of 800 miles and a width of from 140 to 240 miles. It is 

 traversed almost throughout its length by a great mountain chain 

 extending along near the eastern boundary, which is called the 

 Sierra Nevada, and by a lesser range, more broken and less unified, 

 running parallel to the coast, called the Coast Range, the south- 

 ern extension of which, after joining the Sierra Nevada, is called 

 the Sierra Madre, and at the further extremity, the San Jacinto 

 and San Diego mountains. Within the interior of the State, 

 looked down upon by the Sierra Nevada on the east, and closed 

 in by the Coast Range on the west, is the great interior basin — 

 the valley of the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers — forming a 

 plain 450 miles long, with an average width of from 40 to 60 

 miles. Outside of the Sierra Madre in the southern part of the 

 •State, and within the Coast Range, is another interior valley, 

 nearly 100 miles in length and from 20 to 30 miles in width, and 

 outside of the Coast Range, and lying next to the ocean, is a 

 plain whose length is from 60 to 70 miles, and width 15 to 20 

 miles. These three areas — the great interior valley, the southern 

 interior valley, and the coast plain of the south — are the principal 

 irrigation regions of the State. Numbers of smaller areas, as 

 those in San Diego county, come in as irrigation regions of less 

 importance, and the scattering valleys along the Coast Range 

 farther north, as the Salinas, etc., will come forward in the future 

 as important irrigable districts of the State. Still further north, 

 in the interior, there are the great plains of Lassen and Mono 

 counties, and some scattering valleys in Shasta county, where 



