IRRIGATION. 703 



sides and bottom of this valley are granitic and metamorphic, and would 

 hold water. 



The valley of the Carpenter Springs, on the north side of the Eagle Moun- 

 tains, would also make an excellent location for a reservoir; though the quan- 

 tity of water supplied by the spring (a mere seep spring flowing only a short 

 time after rains) is very limited, the valley drains enough of the mountain 

 slopes to fill a storage tank of moderate size. The walls and bottom of the 

 valley are metamorphic rock, and would retain water. 



In the hills at the foot of the Sierra Diabolo cliffs, about three miles north- 

 west of Allamore Station, on the Texas and Pacific Railway, a dam about 

 forty feet in height and six hundred feet in length at the top would store 

 over sixty million cubic feet of water. An increase of the height of the dam 

 to fifty feet would increase the capacity at least four times. The walls and 

 bottom are metamorphic limestones, very hard brecciatic conglomerates, and 

 igneous dykes well adapted to retain water. The drainage area, estimated 

 from a hurried reconnaissance, is fifty square miles — probably over. This 

 reservoir would be of great value for mining purposes, such as concentration 

 of low grade ores, and its location is high enough for its waters to be utilized 

 to irrigate the valley between the Carrizo and Eagle mountains, and to reach 

 the flat between Torbert, Arispa, and Sierra Blanca — an area of several hun- 

 dred square miles of fertile soil, the product of decomposed granitic, porphy- 

 ritic, and lime rocks. 



In the Quitman Mountains a number of locations would make suitable res- 

 ervoirs. I mention only one, at the pass northwest of the Bonanza mine, 

 where a dam of only twenty-five feet in height and three hundred feet in 

 length at the top stores about three million cubic feet of water. 



Numerous other locations for larger and smaller storage reservoirs can be 

 found in the Quitman, Carrizo, and Eagle mountains; in short, in most of the 

 West Texas mountain ranges locations suitable for that purpose on account 

 of eventual utilization of the water, solidity of walls and bottom, and extent 

 of area and drainage. But it will never pay to build reservoirs for only one 

 or a few sections of land. Even if for certain purposes — for instance, for the 

 concentration of ores or similar work — the expenses of reservoir building on 

 a smaller scale might be justified, it would be prevented in most cases because 

 the area to be inundated will fall on more than one section, so also the area 

 from which to collect the water, and parties enterprising enough to build 

 such reservoirs would have to contend with injunctions, law suits for dam- 

 ages, trespass, and chicanes of every kind, or they will have to submit to any, 

 even the most exacting, terms. We can not, therefore, expect to see the 

 large areas of very fertile soil of the western flats utilized for farming as long 

 as irrigation is not made possible by abandoning the alternate section system, 



