10 PROGRESS REPORT, HYDROGRAPHY, 1893 AND 1894. [bull. 131. 
months of the following year the allotments for stream measurements 
barely sufficed to continue the reading and recording of heights of 
rivers at a number of the stations previously established, and were not 
large enough to maintain field work, nor to replace river gages as 
these were washed out, nor to verify the rating tables constructed for 
various localities. Many stations, therefore, for which excellent rating 
tables had been prepared during 1889, 1890, and succeeding years had 
to be abandoned for one cause or another, and in the case of others the 
change of shape of river channel and the altered relation of gage 
height to discharge rendered of doubtful value the computations of 
daily flow. In August of 1894, however, the work was again taken up 
with vigor, owing to favorable action by Congress. New stations were 
established, and many old ones of value were inspected and renewed. 
In this connection it will be proper to cite the laws under which this 
investigation is being conducted, or which bear directly upon its opera- 
tions, and to give a short resume of the existing legislation. 
LEGISLATION. 
In 1887 the Director of the Geological Survey was called upon by 
Congress to consider the question of Federal recognition of the irriga- 
tion subject. A resolution was introduced and passed directing the 
Secretary of the Interior, by means of the Director of the Geological 
Survey, to make an investigation of that portion of the arid region of 
the United States where agriculture is carried on by means of irriga- 
tion. The resolution reads as follows: 
Whereas a large portion of the unoccupied public lands of the United States is 
located within what is known as the arid region and now utilized only for grazing 
purposes, but much of which, by means of irrigation, may be rendered as fertile and 
productive as any land in the world, capable of supporting a large population 
thereby adding to the national wealth and prosperity; 
Whereas all the water flowing during the summer months in many of the streams 
of the Rocky Mountains, upon which chiefly the husbandman of the plains and the 
mountain valleys chiefly depends for moisture for his crops, has been appropriated 
and is used for the irrigation of lands contiguous thereto, whereby a comparatively 
small area has been reclaimed ; and 
Whereas there are many natural depressions near the sources and along the 
courses of these streams which may be converted into reservoirs for the storage of 
the surplus water which during the winter and spring seasons flows through the 
streams; from which reservoirs the water there stored can be drawn and conducted 
through properly constructed canals, at the proper season, thus bringing large areas 
of land into cultivation, and making desirable much of the public land for which 
there is now no demand; therefore be it 
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in 
Congress assembled, That the Secretary of the Interior by means of the Director of 
the Geological Survey be, and he is hereby, directed to make an examination of 
that portion of the arid regions of the United States where agriculture is carried on 
by means of irrigation, as to the natural advantages for the storage of water for 
irrigating purposes with the practicability of constructing reservoirs, together with 
the capacity of the streams and the cost of construction and capacity of reservoirs, 
and such other facts as bear on the question of storage of water for irrigating pur- 
