387 
duced  the  Joint  Resolution  of  March  20,  1888,  and  the  Act  of  Oc- 
tober 2 of  that  year,  providing  for  an  Irrigation  Survey  to  deter- 
mine to  what  extent  the  arid  lands  could  be  reclaimed  by  irriga- 
tion, and  appropriating  $100,000.00  for  this  inquiry.  These  laws 
provided,  further,  that  all  public  lands  that  might  be  susceptible 
to  irrigation  be  reserved  from  sale.  In  the  administration  of  this 
clause  of  the  law,  there  was  a general  withdrawal  of  all  the  arid 
lands  from  entry.  This  action  caused  much  dissatisfaction  and 
resulted  in  the  rescinding  of  the  law  and  the  omission  of  the  ap- 
propriation which,  meanwhile,  had  been  increased  to  $250,000.00. 
But  while  the  special  irrigation  surveys  were  thus  halted,  genera? 
surveys,  that  later  proved  invaluable  in  irrigation  work  were  con- 
tinued, and  in  addition,  it  was  provided  that  all  public  lands  sold 
West  of  the  100th  Meridian,  were  sold  subject  to  rights  of  way  for 
ditches  and  canals,  constructed  by  authority  of  the  United  States. 
This  provision  also  proved  of  great  value  later. 
The  Carey  Act  passed  in  1894  and  amended  in  1896  provided 
not  for  the  construction  of  irrigation  works  by  the  Federal  author- 
ities but  for  the  encouragement  of  irrigation  by  the  cession  to  cer- 
tain States  of  not  more  than  one  million  acres  each,  of  public 
lands,  provided  the  State  should  cause  them  to  be  ‘“irrigated,  re- 
claimed and  occupied,”  and  not  less  than  20  acres  in  each  160  cul- 
tivated, etc.  Up  to  the  present  time,  however,  but  little  reclama- 
tion work  has  been  effected  under  this  law. 
Finally  there  came  in  1902  the  passage  of  the  Reclamation  Law, 
creating  a fund  derived  front  the  sale  of  public  lands.  This  fund 
was  to  be  used  “in  the  examination  and  survey  for  and  the  con- 
struction and  maintenance  of  irrigation  works,  for  the'  storage, 
diversion  and  development  of  waters  for  the  reclamation  of  and 
and  semiarid  lands,”  in  sixteen  of  the  Western  States  and  Terri- 
tories. In  1906,  it  was  extended  to  include  a seventeenth  State, 
Texas. 
Meanwhile,  under  the  Organic  Law  of  the  United  States  Geo- 
logical Survey,  passed  in  1879,  such  general  investigations  of  the 
Water  Resources  of  the  United  States  were  carried  out  as  were 
possible  under  its  terms.  In  1894,  Congress  made  a specific  ap- 
propriation of  $12,500.00  for  this  work,  gradually  increasing  the 
amount  until  in  1903,  it  had  reached  $200,000,000  annually.  Since 
then,  however,  it  has  been  reduced,  and  for  three  years  past,  only 
$100, 000.00  has  been  appropriated  each  year.  These  funds  have 
been  used,  in  the  language  of  the  statute,  “for  gaging  the  streams 
and  determining  the  water  supply  of  the  United  States  and  for  the 
investigation  of  underground  currents  and  artesian  wells,  and  the 
preparation  of  reports  upon  the  best  methods  of  utilizing  water 
resources.” 
By  means  of  these  direct  appropriations,  and  other  appropria- 
tions for  topographic  mapping,  which  bore  less  directly  upon  the 
problem,  fundamental  data  had  been  secured,  and  a force  of  en- 
gineers trained  that  enable  the  Geological  Survey,  which  at  first 
