The Irrigation Problem in Montana. 227 
falling about six feet per mile, a little more rapidly north of 
Big Timber, and decreasing in grade to the eastward. The gen- 
eral elevation of this bench above the Yellowstone River varies 
from 600 feet north of Stillwater, to 300 feet north of Miles City, 
and includes about 11,000,000 acres, of which at least 5,225,000 
acres are of the best quality for agricultural purposes and readily 
accessible by the great canal. In all this vast area there is not 
even sufficient water for the few horses and cattle which range 
on it, and they are compelled to congregate near the occasional 
pools and springs scattered at long intervals over it. 
From numerous examinations made hastily with aneroid and 
hand-level, it seems likely that a great canal can be taken from 
the Yellowstone, somewhere in the neighborhood of Livingston, 
or lower down the river, and led upon the summit of the bench 
with a diversion line not over 100 miles in length. Taken out at 
Livingston the canal would encounter no difficult construction, 
and would chiefly consist in earth excavation with very little 
rock work. It would require a few fills and flumes in crossing 
the larger side streams, such as the Little and Big Timber, Otter 
and Sweet Grass Creeks. It would reach the summit somewhere 
north of Merrill at an altitude of about 4,400 feet and thence 
could be conducted with an easy alignment eastward, with occa- 
sional falls to loose grade. 
The water flowing in the Yellowstone River at Livingstone 
during the irrigating season this year averaged 2,300 cubic feet 
per second, which, with an allowance of thirty per cent. for loss 
by seepage and evaporation in the canal, would leave about 
1,600 second feet at the point of utilization or sufficient to 
irrigate 160,000 acres. 
The average normal discharge from Yellowstone Lake is 700 
second feet, and a dam about 300 feet long and less than ten feet 
high, constructed below the outlet of the lake, would store the 
outflow from October to May, inclusive, eight months, a total 
including flood discharges of at least 600,000 acre feet, an 
amount which, allowing for loss by evaporation in the lake, and 
by seepage and evaporation in the canal, would irrigate 425,000 
acres, in addition to the 160,000 acres previously mentioned. 
Besides this volume probably half as much more can be readily 
stored on the Lamar and Gardner Rivers, and the other branches 
of the Yellowstone which join it above Livingston, bringing the 
total area of reclaimed land to nearly 1,000,000 acres. 
