HISTORY 17 



the minority of the commission, and these provisions became 

 permanent features of the appropriation acts of the Survey. 



The Powell Irrigation Survey, 1888-1890. The Director 

 of the Survey, Major Powell, had for some years been deeply 

 interested in the question of reclamation of the arid public 

 lands by irrigation. In 1878 he had rendered to the Commis- 

 sioner of the General Land Office a "report on the land of 

 the arid region of the United States with a more detailed 

 account of the land of Utah." In discussing the methods to 

 be employed for the reclamation of the arid lands, he had 

 stated that it involved engineering problems requiring for 

 their solution the greatest skill, as well as the employment of 

 large capital and possibly government aid, if not direct gov- 

 ernment construction. By 1888 the continued appropriation 

 and reduction to private ownership of the readily available 

 streams in the arid region, which he had foreseen, resulted in 

 the authorization by Congress of investigation by the Geologi- 

 cal" Survey of "that portion of the arid regions of the United 

 States where agriculture is carried on by means of irrigation, 

 as to the natural advantages for the storage of water for ir- 

 rigation purposes, with the practicability of constructing res- 

 ervoirs, together with the capacity of the streams and the 

 cost of construction and capacity of reservoirs, and such other 

 facts as bear on the question of storage of water for irrigat- 

 ing purposes." By an appropriation act passed a few months 

 subsequently and by one passed in 1889, a total of $350,000 

 was appropriated for the conduct of this investigation. 



The act of October 2, 1888 (25 Stat. L., 526), however, in 

 addition to mating appropriation for the investigation, di- 

 rected the Survey to designate all lands which might be used 

 "for sites for reservoirs, ditches, or canals for irrigation pur- 

 poses, and all the lands made susceptible of irrigation by such 

 reservoirs, ditches, or canals;" and it was provided that all 

 such lands "are from this time henceforth hereby reserved 

 from sale as the property of the United States, and shall not 

 be subject after the passage of this act to entry, settlement or 



