412 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



ment taken in the month of May, 1839, was twenty- 

 eight thousand one hundred and seventy-eight cubic 

 yards of water per minute, and in the month of July of 

 the same year, during the rising of the waters, it was 

 eighty-five thousand eight hundred and forty yards per 

 minute, which immense body might be saved to the 

 San Juan by damming up the mouth of the River Colo- 

 rado. From this point there are thirteen miles, with 

 soundings of from three to eight fathoms. The bottom 

 is of sand and mud, and there are many small islands 

 and aggregations of sand without trees, very easily 

 cleared away. The last thirteen miles might be re- 

 duced to ten by restoring the river to its old channel, 

 which has been filled up by collections, at points, of 

 drifted matter. An old master of a piragua told Mr. 

 B. that within his memory trees grew half a mile 

 back. The soundings were all taken with the plotting- 

 scale when the river was low, and the port of San Juan, 

 though small, Mr. Bailey considers unexceptionable. 



The foregoing memoranda were placed in the hands 

 of my friend Mr. Horatio Allen (now engaged as en- 

 gineer on our Croton Aqueduct), who has kindly pre- 

 pared from them the plan opposite. 



I ought perhaps to remark, for the benefit of those 

 who are not familiar with such plans, that in order to 

 bring the profile of the country within a small compass, 

 the vertical lines, which represent elevations and de- 

 pressions, are on a scale many times greater than the 

 base lines or horizontal distances. Of the former, the 

 scale is one thousand feet, and of the latter it is twen- 

 ty miles to the inch. This, of course, gives a distorted 

 view of the country; but, to preserve the relative pro- 

 portions, it would be necessary for the base line in the 

 plan to be one thousand times longer. 



The whole length of the canal from the Lake of Nic- 



