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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



feet high. On each side large canals 

 take the water out upon 130,000 acres 

 of desert land. This section of Idaho 

 has been widely advertised, and contains 

 several of the largest irrigation enter- 

 prises ever built by private capital. What 

 was astually an uninhabited sage-brush 

 plain in 1902 now contains probably 

 more than 20,000 people, and its develop- 

 ment has only just begun. If the storage 

 supply proves adequate, not less than a 

 million acres of exceptionally hue land 

 will be brought under cultivation, and 

 this one section will then support a popu- 

 lation equal to that of the entire state. 



Nearly 400,000 acres of fertile land in 

 the valleys of the Payette and Boise 

 rivers, in southwestern Idaho, are em- 

 braced in a reclamation project. This 

 is a most attractive region and prac- 

 tically all of the public lands have been 

 taken up. With its advantages of soil, 

 climate, and crops, these valleys will 

 support in comfort a large population. 

 The progress made here in the last three 

 years presages nearly ideal conditions of 

 rural life. Trolley lines and telephones 

 now connect many of the farms with 

 the growing cities. It is possible even 

 now to live in the country 25 miles from 

 the city and enjoy many of the ad- 

 vantages of the latter. On February 

 22 of this year the people of the valley 

 formally celebrated the opening of the 

 first important unit of this work. In the 

 presence of several thousand people the 

 gates of the big Boise dam were closed 

 and the waters turned into a huge canal. 

 The Boise dam is 400 feet long on top 

 and 45 feet in height. An important fea- 

 ture of this project is the Deerflat reser- 

 voir, which was created by building two 

 very large earthen dams inclosing a 

 depression between the hills. One of 

 these dams is 4,000 feet long and 70 feet 

 high ; the other 7,200 feet long and 40 

 feet high. The total quantity of earth 

 and gravel in these dams is 1,088,800 

 cubic yards. The main canals in this 

 project will have a total length of 400 

 miles. 



IN PROSPKROUS COLORADO 



In Colorado, one of the pioneer states 

 in irrigation, the government has nearly 

 completed one large project and is pre- 

 paring to begin work upon another. The 

 first of these is kown as the Uncompah- 

 gre and is located in the western part of 

 the state. In the valley of the Uncom- 

 pahgre are many thousands of acres of 

 fertile land, easy of access for irrigation 

 canals, wanting only the application of 

 water to produce abundant and valuable 

 crops. Unfortunately this stream is 

 deficient in flow and erratic in regimen. 

 The canal systems in use were often short 

 of water, and crops and valuable orchards 

 frequently suffered from drouth. At a 

 distance sufficiently near to be tantalizing 

 flows the Gunnison with an unfailing 

 supply, little of which can be used in its 

 own valley. The two rivers flow in nearly 

 parallel courses for many miles, sep- 

 arated by ranges of rugged hills 2,000 

 feet high, forming some of the roughest 

 country in the West. The problem of 

 uniting the waters of these two rivers 

 was often discussed by engineers, but 

 practical plans were never formulated 

 until a daring engineer of the Service, 

 at the peril of his life, made the neces- 

 sary preliminary surveys. 



For many miles in its course the Gun- 

 nison rushes through a box canyon, with 

 walls in places 3,000 feet high. A por- 

 tion of this profound gorge had never 

 been explored until the government en- 

 gineer accomplished the feat. The pre- 

 liminary survey, which was made dur- 

 ing that wild trip down the river, showed 

 that the elevation of the Gunnison was 

 higher than that of the Uncompahgre, 

 and proved the feasibility of transferring 

 some of the waters of that stream by 

 means of a tunnel passing under the 

 mountain. It was a stupendous task, in- 

 volving an enormous outlay of money 

 and taxing engineering skill and in- 

 genuity to the limit. The work of final 

 survey and location was most perilous, 

 owing to the necessity of making a to- 

 pographic map of the canyon and estab- 



