CARRYING WATER THROUGH A DESERT 



The Story of the Los Angeles Aqueduct 

 By Burt A. Heinly 



GOD sowed the Mojave from an 

 almost empty hand, they say, 

 and so perhaps He did. For a 

 few weeks of early spring this desert 

 blooms as a paradise, but the blossoms 

 bring no fruits. Quickly the broad acre- 

 age of flowers relapses into the sullenness 

 of mile on mile of yellow sand, scorched 

 day after day from the heat of a glaring 

 sun. The rattlesnake finds protection in 

 the narrow shade of the sage brush. 

 With the exception of the lizard, other 

 creeping things seek their holes and come 

 forth after dark. Death Valley lies 

 within IMojave's depths, while the w^est- 

 ern confines are bounded by the Sierra, 

 into whose canyons run windrows of 

 sand like fingers groping in the dark. 



It is almost paradoxical that one of 

 the most Titanic struggles ever under- 

 taken by a municipality is being carried 

 on within this desert waste, and the 

 struggle is one for water. 



At the northern outpost of the Mo- 

 jave's sands a river, after gathering the 

 drainage of the snow-clad Sierra for 

 more than 150 miles, flows into an alka- 

 line sink and wastes its fatness in evapo- 

 ration from the sun's heat. One hun- 

 dred and fifty miles across the Mojave, 

 straight southward as the crow flies, rises 

 the mountain wall of the Coast Range. 

 Beyond lie foothills undulating into val- 

 leys, and a broad coastal plain on which 

 nestle nearly 100 communities about the 

 central metropolis of Los Angeles. 



It is the plan of Los Angeles to carry 

 the waters of this river and its tributary 

 streams 250 miles southward across the 

 Mojave Desert, beneath the Coast Range, 

 and into the San Fernando Valley, where 

 the precious fluid will be used to quench 

 a city's thirst, to irrigate thousands of 

 acres of rich soil now non-productive for 

 want of moisture, to develop electrical 

 energy to light her buildings and her 



streets, and furnish power for manufac- 

 turing industry on a scale new to the 

 Pacific Coast. 



The enterprise is now in the third year 

 of its accomplishment, and will require 

 from two and one-half to three more 

 years for its completion. Five thou- 

 sand men working through the blinding 

 heat of the summer day and the blessed 

 coolness of the desert night could tell the 

 story better than pen can write. 



THE CITY DOES THE WORK WITH ITS 



OWN WORKMEN 



Mr John R. Freeman, the eminent 

 hydraulic engineer, who is known for his 

 connection with the Panama Canal and 

 the New York Aqueduct, in describing 

 the features of the project to a body of 

 Boston engineers recently, classed the 

 Los Angeles Aqueduct as the most inter- 

 esting hydraulic construction now under 

 way on the American continent. It is 

 not the largest. The Panama Canal, the 

 New York Aqueduct, and the Erie Barge 

 Canal all outrival it in the order named, 

 but in not one of these are to be found 

 the features which make this project so 

 spectacular in construction and so full of 

 promise after completion.. 



The enterprise is not alone interesting 

 because of the magnitude and the seem- 

 ingly insurmountable difficulties being 

 overcome, but it is remarkable because 

 it is a public work which has been built 

 at much greater speed than was promised 

 and with less money than it was stated 

 would be required. The city is doing the 

 building with its own workmen and with 

 its own engineers, one small contract ex- 

 cepted. 



Only in the arid West does one come 

 to a full realization of the value of a 

 drop of water. Here it becomes the 

 pearl without price. In a land where the 

 rains fall with the first days of November 



