CHAPTER XXVII. 221 



In many other places this is found so plain that dry hills of this 

 tertiary or wash may have better underground streams than the more 

 recent wash of the open valleys where we would naturally look for 

 water. The well would generally be more expensive on account of the 

 depth and the boring seems a little more of a venture than in the open 

 valley but otherwise there is little difference, except where water under 

 pressure is plainly indicated. 



It is equally certain that water channels lie upon top of the first 

 wash and below a more recent one. Remarkable finds of water have 

 been made at Redlands this year in low hills, so dry that no one would 

 dream of looking for water there. One well gives one hundred and 

 twenty inches, while another one but a hundred feet away yields eighty 

 to the pumps without being affected by the pumping at the first well 

 more than seven inches. These are in gravel channels unuer the pres- 

 ent surface soil which seems a wash or slump from Yucaipe and San 

 Gorgonio. At four hundred feet one well struck the old wash, which 

 is the same hard conglomerate as that at the mouth of Santiago Can- 

 yon, and penetrated it eighty feet, finding it as hard as flint and perfect- 

 ly dry. All the water strata are above this. 



The results of many hundreds of borings, made all over the country 

 show that the best chance to get a well that will furnish a good irri- 

 gating supply is in the modern wash of which the valleys are now 

 composed. One cannot always be sure of hitting it even here, but with 

 the right kind of care the chances are better for a cheap well than else- 

 where. We see this wash going on every wet year and many have seen 

 good springs completely drowned with it so that there is no sign of 

 their existence on the surface. Even lagunas were drowned in 1884. 

 In the dim past this must have happened often and those same waters 

 are there now only in sand instead of an open reservoir. 



Next to this wash the old channels under the hills of tertiary, or 

 most ancient wash, are the best source of supply, such as the great gas 

 well near Santa Fe Springs. This pressure was quite plainly indicated 

 by Fulton Wells, which is as clear a case of artesian spring as one 

 could wish. There are many places far more promising than the dry 

 hills about Redlands that have never yet been prospected with any 

 care. But such prospecting is so expensive that if we have a series 

 of good years there is not likely to be much of it. 



These old gravel channels are the only ones that have a reliable 

 supply of any size. There are many cases where sand wells may be 



