LOSSES FROM CANALS BY SEEPAGE. 
17 
In the case of the ditch of the City of Fort Collins, car- 
rying water from the Cache a la Pond re river to the city 
water works, a distance of 4100 feet, the ditch lost 4.34 cii. 
ft. per sec., equivalent to a loss of 5.7 feet in depth per day. 
I'he ditch runs through the bottoms and along the side of a 
hill rising some 20 feet above the bottom lands below. Im- 
mediately above the city ditch, as near the slope as the em- 
bankment will permit, is another canal, the . New Mercer 
ditch, which, at the time of measurement, was dry. The 
Pleasant Valley and Lake canal is still higher, over one-half 
mile distant, but the seepage from this canal is carried in 
another direction by the local configuration of the country. 
The loss from canals has not been extensively studied 
and there seem few instances available where the results of 
measurements are given. In bulletin 33 several cases are 
referred to. 
MISCELLANEOUS OBSERVATIONS. 
The following cases are derived from other observers: 
On the Muzza canal, Italy, the loss is equivalent to a 
depth of 1.7 feet in 24 hours.* The canal is the first built 
near Milan solely for irrigation purposes, the other large 
canals including navigation as an object in their construc- 
tion. The Muzza has a heavy fall, giving the current too 
large velocity for navigation. The canal carries several 
thousand cubic feet of water per second, and under condi- 
tions as sqen by the writer in 1892, that would seem favora- 
ble to percolation, so that the reported loss seems small. 
The Naviglio Grande loses 10 inches daily in depth. 
This canal was built over 700 years ago, about the same time 
as the Muzza. The canal Martesana loses 1.5 feet daily.* 
The Centreville and Kingsburg canals, California, in a 
stretch of six miles lost a depth of 6 feet per day. The King 
river and P'resno canal lost in different portions depths of 
1.5 feet, 1.7 and .6 feet. 
Portions of the Fresno canal lost depths of 2.8 feet, .25 
ft. and .4 ft. in depth, and some laterals from 1.2 to 6.4 feet.f 
In the case of several canals in Kern county, Cali- 
fornia, the loss was found to be from .39 to 2.6 feet in 
depth in 24 hours, ranging from i to 2 feet in sandy soils and 
averaging 1.6 feet; in sandy loam and firm, compact alluvial 
soil, from .39 to 1.30 feet averaging .87 feet in depth. 
* Baird Smith, Italian Irrigation. 
tOn authority of C. E. (irunsky, C. E. of San Francisco, given in Bulletin 
.*13 
J Rejjort Cal. State Engineer, 1880, A pj). B., by.T. 1) Schuyler p 02 The 
results ar^^ changed to depths by the writer. 
