CHAPTER XXV. 189 



the soil taker from the side of the can so that a slide could be passed 

 under it, thus cutting off connection from the earth beneath. It 

 was found that about the same amount of water had disappeared from 

 these cans as had disappeared from the beakers. Where these cans 

 had been pressed some inches below the surface of the ground and 

 the soil raked or cultivated above them, there was practically little 

 loss of moisture. Conclusions from these facts are very obvious, 

 that in order to make reservoirs of our mountains and arable lands 

 it is necessary to keep them in such a condition that they will readily 

 absorb water and retain it, and this result can be brought about 

 only by keeping them covered with the product of growh, or in other 

 words, with forests, as these forests and their products make a cover- 

 ing or raulch for retaining moisture. And the same reasoning per- 

 tains to our cultivated lands, that in order to retain the moisture 

 we must keep them well cultivated. 



MEASUREMENT OF WATER. 



It is a pity that there is no uniform unit of measure upon the 

 metric system for stating a definite amount of water. 



We are at present compelled to use the arbitrary and often puz- 

 zling term of acre foot or inch, second foot, weir inch and miner's 

 inch. An acre foot of water is the amount of water that will cover 

 an acre of ground one foot in depth. A second foot is a cubic foot 

 of water per second. A miner's inch of water is the amount of water 

 that will flow through an inch square hole in an inch board under a 

 pressure of four inches in twenty-four hours; such an amount of water 

 has been determined legally to be 12,960 ganons. 



I would venture to suggest that the miner's Inch, having been 

 legally established to be a definite amount of water, be used as the 

 universal unit of measure in irrigation matters, and the following 

 table based upon the French decimal or metric system be used In 

 conjunction therewith. The Greek prefixes being used to denote the 

 multiples and the Latin prefixes the fractional parts of the unit. 



The Greek prefix "DEKA" to mean 10 units. 



The Greek prefix "HECTO" to mean 100 units. 



The Greek prefix "KILO" to mean 1000 units. 



The Greek prefix "MYRIA" to mean 10,000 units. 



The Latin prefix "DEC!" to mean 1-10 of a unit. 



The Latin prefix "CENTI" to mean 1-100 of a unit. 



The Latin prefix "MILLI" to mean 1-1000 of a unit. 



