RECLAIMING THE DESERT 157 



ing. Methods of measurement of streams were de- 

 vised by him ; surveys were made of possible reser- 

 voir sites ; and vast quantities of data were acquired 

 concerning the mountain masses from which came 

 the streams, and also of the lower-lying desert lands 

 which might be irrigated by conserving and dis- 

 tributing the erratic floods which came from the 

 mountains and foot-hills. This was the first great 

 step of research in this line." 



It was Francis G. Newlands and Theodore 

 Roosevelt who secured official applications of these 

 studies; but meantime irrigation at private expense 

 was being practised in all the arid states. 



The birth of the twentieth century found the 

 growing populations of the semi-arid states anx- 

 iously discussing the need of more and still more 

 water. Dry-farming had been practised for years 

 with results that here and there were surprising, and 

 irrigation had been developed in many places by in- 

 dividual and group enterprise. By that time the 

 better stream-side locations had been filed upon so 

 far as settlement had extended, but storage on a 

 scale great enough to provide dependable irrigation 

 to large areas was seen to be a pressing public ne- 

 cessity. New communities founded on mining, graz- 

 ing, lumbering and other activities appeared daily. 

 Villages were becoming towns, towns cities, almost 

 over night. Demand for farm produce was out-run- 

 ning production, yet much of the western desert soil 

 was known to be highly productive, lacking only 



