The: Waters oe the Rio Grande 
45 
some occupied by alkali grass, others by clumps of greasewood, were 
seeped. .The water-table in some land near the house was within 18 
inches of the surface. This party stated his case as becoming worse 
the more water he used. He could not grow anything without irri¬ 
gation and to irrigate with this water for one or two years, was to 
make it impossible to grow anything. Fortunately, the government 
representatives sent to examine into the facts of the case, realized 
that this party had made an honest effort to meet the requirements 
of the law and that his failure was due to some cause for which he was 
not responsible. We have the following facts: The land had pro¬ 
duced good crops for one or two years on the application of water; 
it then became unproductive, and a comparatively small well sufficed 
to seep a considerable area of this desert claim. 
The water furnished by the wells that I saw was of good qual¬ 
ity, it was a white water carrying 5.5 grains of total solids to the im¬ 
perial gallon, 37.27 percent of which was silicic acid and the rest was 
essentially sodic carbonate. This is very similar to the water fur¬ 
nished by the Washington Springs and the Widow Smith’s Well. The 
sample of water taken was from the second flow. 
Two samples of alkali were gathered from different parts of the 
tract, but neither one very far from a well. These wells have been 
flowing 5 or 6 years. The composition of these alkalis is unusual for 
our state and for the San Luis Valley as well. Analyses of alkalis 
which appear as efflorescences from localities pretty well distributed, 
and I believe representative of the general conditions in the Valley, 
have been given in the preceding pages. These consist chiefly of sul¬ 
fate of soda. The soil extracts which are given are from various sec¬ 
tions and indicate that it is usual to find the same salts in these as in 
the efflorescences which occur on the surface. The exception to this 
statement is found in the water-soluble from a soil sample, taken amid 
greasewood bushes in which we find sodic carbonate making up 25.4 
percent of the 1.935 percent of water-soluble. The efforescent alkali, 
corresponding to this sample, carried 8.3 percent of sodic carbonate. 
This land was once under cultivation, but how long it had been occu¬ 
pied by greasewood at the time this sample was taken, I do not know. 
GREASEWOOD INDICATES PRESENCE OF SODIC CARBONATE 
While I am not prepared to* reject wholly Prof. Hilgard’s theory 
that the debris from these plants enrich the soil in sodic carbonate, I 
am strongly inclined to think that in this valley the growth of grease¬ 
wood is indicative of a soil condition favoring their development and 
that their presence is a result of the prevalence of this salt in the soil, 
perhaps in such quantities as to render the soil already an inhospitable 
one to most cultivated plants, and for this reason the sarcobcitus be¬ 
comes the predominant vegetation, for it can endure the sodic carbo- 
