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CHAPTER XXVIII. 



FOREST RESERVOIRS. 



By GEO. H. M.\XWELL, Ch. National Irrigation Com. 



A flowing artesian well! 



Stand and watch it. 



See the glistening sheet as it cures so gracefully over the rim, 

 sparkling in the sunlight as it falls and flows away to moisten the 

 parched earth and quench its thirst. 



Could anything be more beautiful — more potent with promise of all 

 the gifts that bountiful nature showers upon him who tills the soil 

 by irrigation? 



Or go where you will see the crystal stream gushing forth from some 

 great pump that is steadily drawing it up from a hidden reservoir. 



In either case, watch the water as it flows. 



Where is its source? 



Whence does it come and how long will it continue? 



Will it keep on coming forever? Or some day will it grow less 

 and less until it ceases altogether, and leaves the beauty and fertility 

 and wealth that it has created to be blighted and destroyed by drouth? 



Every irrigator from an underground source and every commun- 

 ity sustained by such irrigation is face to face with this question. Its 

 mighty importance may be realized when we read the midwinter 

 number of the Los Angeles Times for January 1, 1890, that 



"There has been an immense development of water for irrigation in 

 wells during the past year, the amount so developed being estimated 

 at over 50,000 miners' inches, suflacient to irrigate 500,000 acres of land. 

 In this way the value of such land has been increased several hundred 

 per cent. The work of developing the underground water supply still 

 goes forward and in few cases are the prospectors disappointed." 



These great underground supplies of water are as inexhaustible as 

 jc the forests of the mountains are enduring, unless wilfully destroyed 



