582 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



building, and recourse is also had to cor- 

 poration mills. 



In two localities within the aqueduct 

 zone deposits of tufa or volcanic ash 

 have been discovered, and grinding plants 

 have been erected at both points. The 

 product is mixed with the Monolith ce- 

 ment to form a mixture stronger but 

 closely similar to the material used by 

 the Romans in the construction of their 

 aqueducts 2,000 years ago, and which are 

 doing service to this day. 



While this preliminary construction 

 was in progress 18 months rolled around. 

 In December, 1908, the Los Angeles 

 Chamber of Commerce called upon the 

 chief engineer to give a statement of how 

 much of the aqueduct had been com- 

 pleted to that date. 



Mr Mulholland met the committee of 

 this body with some trepidation. It is 

 human nature, whether in Maine or Cali- 

 fornia, for taxpayers to demand results, 

 and these immediately. "Well," he an- 

 swered, "we have spent about $3,000,000 

 all told, I guess, and there is perhaps 900 

 feet of aqueduct built. Figuring all our 

 expenditures, it has cost us about $3,300 

 per foot" — this defiantly. He waited for 

 his words to sink in ; then added, "But 

 by this time next year I'll have 50 miles 

 completed, and at a cost of under $30 

 per foot, if you'll let me alone." 



"All right, Bill," said the chairman. 

 (In Los Angeles, grown from a village 

 to a metropolis in a decade, the residents 

 still call each other by their first names.) 

 "Go ahead; we're not mad about it." 



the: result of co-operation and 

 confidence: 



Herein is to be attributed no small 

 part of the success of the undertaking. 

 Mulholland has the confidence of the 

 community. It believes in him implicitly, 

 and he believes implicitly in the job and 

 the men under him. "If Mulholland told 

 these people he was building the aque- 

 duct out of green cheese," said a news- 

 paper reporter, "they'd not only believe 

 but take oath that it was so." 



The project is inseparably associated 

 with the man and his life's work. He 

 is now 54 years of age and is Irish by 



birth. At 20 he came to America. Two 

 years later he landed in California with 

 a fair education, a wonderfully retentive 

 memory, ambition to improve himself, 

 and $10 in his pocket as his capital. His 

 first work was in digging artesian wells. 

 Six months afterward he accepted a posi- 

 tion as "zanjero," or ditch-cleaner, for 

 the Los Angeles City Water Company. 

 For three years he lived alone in a cabin 

 far up in the Los Angeles River bottom. 

 His days were passed in ditch-cleaning, 

 his nights between sleep and study. Step 

 by step he pulled himself upward. In 

 1882 he was made superintendent and 

 chief engineer of the company. The im- 

 pecunious policy of the corporation and 

 an inability to keep pace with the growth 

 of the city forced the municipality, in 

 1902, to take over the property. 



Mr Mulholland was retained in his 

 position, and a non-political Board of 

 Water Commissioners was placed in 

 office. Under the supervision of Mr 

 Mulholland and these men the enterprise 

 prospered exceedingly. Today it is one 

 of the three most successful water works 

 in the United States. 



No sooner was the water department 

 upon a firm basis than Mr Mulholland 

 set about to seek a source of supply 

 larger than that of the Los Angeles 

 River. Mr Fred Eaton, at one time 

 superintendent of the City Water Com- 

 pany and later city engineer, then mayor 

 of Los Angeles, had lived in the Owens 

 Valley for 13 years. He felt confident 

 that in this cleft in the Sierra lay the 

 city's only hope. Mr Eaton prevailed 

 upon Mr Mulholland to visit the valley 

 with him, and he returned with the con- 

 viction that Mr Eaton had found what he 

 himself had sought without avail. Nei- 

 ther the great distance nor the seemingly 

 insurmountable obstacles could frighten 

 him. He knew only that Los Angeles 

 must have water to continue her exist- 

 ence as a city, and that the water must 

 come from the Owens Valley, 250 miles 

 in a straight line to the northward. 



The Water Board purchased or took 

 options on $1,000,000 worth of land and 

 water rights solely upon his recommen- 

 dation, the money being advanced from 



