\ 

i '\. 

EMBUDO, NEW MEXICO, 

BIRTHPLACE OF 

SYSTEMATIC STREAM GAGING 

Embudo, New Mexico, 

Birthplace of 

Systematic Stream Gaging 

By ARTHUR H. FRAZIER and WILBUR HECKLER. 

GEOLOGICAL SURVEY PllOFESSIONAL PAPER 778 

. "- ,. 
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR 

MANUEL LUJAN, Jr., Secretary 

U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY 

Dallas L. Peck, Director 

Library of Congress catalog-card No. 72-180682 

First printing 1972 

Second printing 1974 

Third printing 1989 

Any use of trade, product, or firm names in this publication 

is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement 

by the U.S. Government 

UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE, WASHINGTON: 1972 

For sale by the Books and Open-File Reports Section, U.S. Geological Survey, 

Federal Center, Box 25425, Denver, CO 80225 
CONTENTS 

Page 

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 

Prolog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 

Camp Embudo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 

Camp personnel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 

Stream-gaging operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 

Epilog ............... __ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 

ILLUSTRATIONS 

FIGURE 1. Photograph of John Wesley Powell ................. . 

2. Map showing topography at Embudo, N. Mex ....... . 

3-6. Photograph of3. Camp Embudo, N. Mex. ( 1888-89) ........... . 

4. Embudo campsite ( 1969) ................... . 

5,6. Student hydrographers at Embudo ........... . 

7. Drawings of Saxton's tide gage .................... . 

8-10. Photograph of8. Saxton's tide gage .......................... . 

9. Embudo gaging station on the Rio Grande, N. 

Mex. (about 1889) ....................... . 

10. Denver and Rio Grande Railway station at Embudo (about 1912) ....................... . 

11. Drawing of evaporation pan ....................... . 

12. Photograph of Haskell current meters .............. . 

13. Discharge measurement notes, Rio Grande at San Maroial, N.Mex., August 8, 1889 ................... . 

14-20. Photograph of14. Nettleton current meters ................... . 

15. Upstream view at Embudo at old wagon bridge 

on which recording and staff gages were in 

operation 1912-14 ....................... . 

16. Downstream view showing new (1914) recording gage shelter ........................ . 

17. The present Embudo gaging station ......... . 

18. Upstream view of present gaging station ..... . 

19. Clarence Edward Dutton .................. . 

20. Frederick Haynes Newell .................. . 

Page 

2 

6 

9 

9 

10, 11 

12 

13 

14 

14 

15 

15 

16 

17 

18 

18 

19 

19 

21 

22 

III 

EMBUDO, NEW MEXICO, 

BIRTHPLACE OF 

SYSTEMATIC STREAM GAGING 

By ARTHUR H. FRAZIER and WILBUR HECKLER 

INTRODUCTION 

Embudo, a tiny village on the Rio Grande in northern New Mexico, 

was chosen in 1888 to be the site of a training center for the first 

hydrographers of the Irrigation Survey, a new Bureau that had just been 

added to the U.S. Geological Survey under John Wesley Powell. This is the 

story of that center, but to make it more complete, a practice has been 

borrowed from the theater in that a prolog has been added for explaining 

the circumstances which led to the center's organization and an epilog, 

for presenting some of the distressing events which took place after the 

training period was completed. With these additions, this becomes the 

story of how the Geological Survey became involved in the art of stream 

gaging and how Powell was prevented from carrying out his plan for 

irrigation in the arid region-a plan which was largely adopted wben 

Congress later established the Reclamation Service and the U.S. Bureau 

of Reclamation. 

1 
2 EMBUDO, NEW MEXICO, BIRTHPLACE OF SYSTEMATIC STREAM GAGING 

FIGURE 1.- John Wesley Powell (1834-1902 ). Photograph, supplied by Smithsonian Institution, Museum of Natural History, 

was taken about 1897. 
PROLOG 

John Wesley Powell (fig. 1) was to achieve, in 

1881, the distinction of becoming the second Director of the U.S. Geological Survey. His father, 

Rev. Joseph Powell, had been a licensed Episcopal 

preacher who had come from England to "spread 

the word of God" in America-particularly throughout the frontier areas where he felt it was most 

needed. As the frontier moved westward, he too 

moved westward: from New York State (where 

John Wesley Powell was born) to Ohio, thence to 

Wisconsin, and finally to Illinois. During the course 

of those travels, there was added to Rev. Powell's 

intense religious drive, an almost equal drive to 

abolish slavery, and he expressed himself forcibly 

on both of those subjects. Fearless honesty and extreme forthrightness were two outstanding characteristics he handed down to his oldest son "W es." 

(See Davis, 1915, p. 83; Darrah, 1951, p. 11.) 

Those inherited characteristics ultimately (as will 

be shown later) led W es into many difficulties. 

As a young man (during the years between 1867 

and 1878) Powell crossed and recros·sed the arid 

region of this country many times in connection 

with his studies of the American Indians and their 

languages ; with his unprecedented boat expeditions 

down the Colorado River; and with his duties as 

Director of the Geographical and Geological Survey 

of the Rocky Mountain Region, one of the forerunners of the present Geological Survey. It was 

during those years he conceived a need for a Federally conducted Irrigation Survey. 

His hastily prepared and highly controversial 

"Report on the Lands of the Arid Region of the 

United States" was delivered on April 1, 1878, to 

the Honorable J. A. Williamson, then Commissioner 

of the General Land Office. Williamson, in turn, 

forwarded it immediately to the Honorable Carl 

Schurz, then Secretary of the Interior. Within 2 

days it reached the House Committee on Appropriations and was ordered to be printed. That edition 

was. exhausted within a few months, and in March 

1879 another edition of 5,000 copies was authorized 

by Congress. Stegner (1962, p. VII) who wrote the 

introduction to an edition of it which was published 

as recently as 1962, claims that it would ultimately 

be recognized as one of the most important books 

ever written about the West. 

The report was devoted largely to the practicability of reclaiming by irrigation an appreciable percentage of the arid region, the total area of which 

has been estimated at about 1,300,000 square miles, 

starting at about the 100th meridian (which cuts 

across the middle of the Dakotas and Nebraska) and 

extending westward beyond the Rocky Mountains 

to the southern Pacific coast. It is impractical to 

mention here all the innovations which were proposed in the report, but the substances of those 

which appeared in this and other reports of his, 

which are of primary concern at present, are listed 

below: 

1. To take an inventory of the flow of all streams 

in the arid region in order to be able to evaluate their potentials for irrigating nearby land 

areas. 

2. To determine the average amount of water required to irrigate each acre of that land during 

the growing seasons. 

3. To prepare topographic maps on which to outline 

the drainage area of every stream which 

seemed to offer good possibilities for successful irrigation, and to declare those areas to be 

individual irrigation districts and locally independent political subdivisions. As many 80-

acre farms were to be marked off on the map 

of each irrigation district as could be adequately irrigated by the quantity of water 

furnished by the stream (including whatever 

water could be stored from spring floods) . 

4. To provide the farmers in each district with 

plans and estimated costs of suitable dams (for 

impounding floodwaters) and canals (for delivering equitable shares of the water to each 

farmer). After those facilities were constructed under a cooperative program, they 

were to be considered as. district-owned property. Before receiving any preemption right 

from the Government to enter any of these districts, the applicant would have to agree to 

participate in such a cooperative arrangement. 

His right to receive final title to any of that 

land was also contingent upon a showing that 

his entire farm had been under actual irrigation 

within 5 years of the date the district became 

organized. 

3 
4 EMBUDO, NEW MEXICO, BIRTHPLACE OF SYSTEMATIC STREAM GAGING 

5. To abandon, in the arid region, the prevailing 

method of laying out political and land subdivisions by the township, range, and section 

method. 

The last of . those provisions was particularly important in Powell's estimation because the prevailing method allowed settlers to acquire parcels of 

land through which streams were flowing without 

obligating them to permit settlers on any of the 

adjacent farms to have access to the water. Disputes 

arising from those circumstances seemed inevitable, 

and if the adjoining farms should happen to lie in 

another township, or in another county, any settlement thereof could become increasingly difficult. 

Under Powell's plan, the right to a fair share of the 

water was incorporated in every land grant, and the 

farmer automatically became a member of the very 

same political unit which had the authority to settle 

any local disputes. 

In some of Powell's subsequent reports was an 

item which, although it fell into another category, 

is nevertheless pertinent to this general discussion. 

It was a proposal that all the geologic and geographic expeditions then authorized by Congress, 

such as those conducted by G. E. Wheeler, F. V. 

Hayden, Clarence King, and himself, be consolidated 

into a single Bureau. 

After obtaining advice from the National Academy of Sciences on that and some of Powell's other 

proposals (Marsh, 1878, p. 2), Congress implemented only one of them-the one in which the 

several surveys were to be consolidated into a single 

Bureau. It was called the Geological Survey. The 

change became effective as of March 3, 1879. 

Clarence King was selected as the first Director of 

the new Bureau, whereas Powell became the head 

of the Bureau of Ethnology in the Smithsonian Institution. When, as of March 12, 1881, King resigned 

his position, Powell was appointed to succeed him, 

and for many years thereafter Powell remained in 

charge of both Bureaus (Davis, 1915, p. 47)---one 

in the Smithsonian Institution and the other in the 

Department of the Interior. 

During the 7 years following Powell's entrance 

into these new duties, the General Land Office continued to process land grants in the arid region using 

the old land line method which Powell had so strongly opposed. And during that time also settlers were 

urged to move into that region, build homes, and 

plow the fields. It is interesting to note that during 

those years Powell's opponents made strong efforts 

to popularize a theory that, when prairie lands are 

plowed under, rains would occur as a consequence 

thereof. And because those particular years started 

with an unusually long rainy period, people began 

to believe the slogan, "Rain follows the plow." Under 

the prevailing circumstances, Powell's recommendations lost much of their force. He nevertheless persisted in repeating them and thereby brought down 

upon himself the wrath of many westerners whose 

part of the country the plan was particularly intended to benefit. 

When that exceptionally long rainy period finally 

ended, Nature gave Powell's cause a helping hand. 

It was accomplished in two devastating strokes : ( 1) 

in 1866 an unprecedented cold winter occurred during which most of the livestock, and many of the 

settlers themselves, froze to death, and (2) a 

drought, beginning also in 1886 and continuing for 

almost a decade, created an ever-increasing shortage 

of water. Farmers who may have sur~ived the cold 

winter found themselves unable to raise crops becaused they lacked the irrigation facilities which 

Powell had so often advocated. The drought forced 

most of them into bankruptcy, and they had to leave 

their farms with nothing whatsoever to show for 

their past efforts. At long last, however, proposals 

of Powell began to receive serious attention. 

A Senate resolution was passed February 13, 

1888, in which the Secretary of the Interior was 

requested to report whether he thought the Geological Survey should survey and segregate irrigable 

public lands, reservoir sites, and canal routes fn the 

arid region. W. F. Vilas, then Secretary of the Interior (whose home in Madison, Wis., was less than 

60 miles from Powell's boyhood home), promptly 

referred the resolution to Powell. In Wallace 

Stegner)s (1954, p. 300) book "Beyond the Hundredth Meridian" the consequences thereof are described as follows : 

Major Powell, confronted with an opportunity for which 

he had waited a full decade, rose to the Secretary's letter 

like a starving cat to a sardine. The conclusions of his "Arid 

Region" had not been changed but only aggravated by ten 

years of [land] settlement. The smaller streams were no 

longer a consideration because by now they were mainly 

utilized; if action had been taken years ago, much wasteful 

development could have been prevented. Now the only course 

was to concentrate on the larger streams, on reservoirs and 

storm-water basins, because "utilization of the large streams 

by owners of small tracts must wait until large numbers of 

the holders of small tracts can be induced to settle simultaneonsly * * * and be further induced to engage in the corporate or cooperative enterprise necessary to construct great 

head works and canals." On those larger streams, in other 

words, his cooperative irrigation districts were still possible; 

a survey could still be made ahead of any extensive settlement to avoid complication by squatter's rights and vested 

interests. 
CAMP EMBUDO 5 

On March 20, 1888, a subsequent joint resolution 

was passed which in effect implemented Powell's 

original plan. It directed the Secretary of the Interior to "make an examination of that portion of 

the United States where agriculture is carried on by 

means of irrigation, as to the natural advantages 

for the storage of water for irrigation purposes with 

the practicability of constructing reservoirs, together with the capacity of streams, and the cost of 

construction and capacity of reservoirs, and such 

other facts as bear on the question of storage of 

water for irrigation purposes." (See Powell, 1889, 

p. 2; Sterling, 1940, p. 422.) On October 2, 1888, 

the Sundry Civil Bill went through with an initial 

appropriation of $100,000 for such work. Powell 

thereupon became responsible for not only the work 

performed in the Geological Survey (including some 

geological work for State surveys) and the Bureau 

of Ethnology but also for that of an Irrigation Survey-an agency more explosive in its social and 

political implications than all his other activities 

combined (Stegner, 1954, p. 304). Great 'authority 

was accordingly placed in his hands, and perhaps 

never before was there such a need for prompt 

action (Stegner, 1962, p. XXII; Davis, 1915, p. 50). 

In view of that need, Powell placed A. H. Thompson, who had made the second trip down the Colorado Canyon with him, in charge of the Irrigation 

Survey's mapping operations and instructed him to. 

mobilize his triangulation parties in Montana, 

Nevada, New Mexico, and Colorado, where they 

would best serve the needs of the new Irrigation 

Survey. He also withdrew C. E. Dutton from his 

studies of volcanoes and earthquakes to organize 

the engineering and hydrometric units of the new 

Survey. The third and final major innovation was 

to establish a camp at Embudo, on the Rio Grande 

in northern New Mexico, to train young engineering 

school graduates in the art of stream gaging. 

There were numerous reasons for selecting this 

seemingly remote site for that camp, namely: 

1. Funds made available by Congress to the Irrigation Survey were intended for use in the 

arid region; thus all sites east of the 100th 

meridian were immediately eliminated from 

consideration. 

2. To get the new program under way as soon as 

possible after October 2 (when the appropriation bill was passed), weather had to be 

taken into consideration. Practically all northern streams, which would soon be frozen 

over, had to be eliminated, and only those in 

the southwest were left for consideration. 

446-050 0 • 71 • 2 

3. Convenient railroad transportation directly to 

the site was necessary to expedite the project. 

Besides meeting all those requirements, the Rio 

Grande at Embudo was of just about the right size 

for the intended purpose. There were also some 

problems developing in the valley for which streamflow records might serve useful purposes. One was 

a large irrigation dam near Santa Fe that was being 

talked about. Another had international implications. Farmers in Mexico were becoming uneasy 

about the amount of water the irrigation farmers 

in the upper reaches of the river diverted during 

dry periods, leaving them with an inadequate supply 

for watering Mexican crops. The selection of Embudo for that campsite seems, therefore, to have 

been adequately justified. 

CAMP EMBUDO 

So it was that on the 9th of December in 1888 a 

group of at least eight young engineers, most of 

whom had recently been graduated from eastern 

colleges, stepped off a coach of the narrow gage 

Denver and Rio Grande Railway at Embudo, N. 

Mex. Only one of them, W. A. Farish, was a westerner. The others, acquainted almost exclusively 

with eastern scenery, must have found those surroundings strange indeed. Embudo is a Spanish 

word meaning "funnel," and that name was well 

chosen for this area. Here the cactus-and-pinon clad 

foothills of the San Juan Mountains toward the west 

and of the Culebra Range of the Rocky Mountains 

toward the east converge to form a gigantic funnel 

through which the Rio Grande continually discharges its contents. 

These young engineers represented perhaps th~ 

first persons to have been employed in the new 

Irrigation Survey under Maj. John Wesley Powell. 

Between Major Powell and his assistant, C. E. 

Dutton, (an Army captain on detail from the Ordnance Corp), it had been decided that the new Bureau should consist of two main divisions-a Topographic Survey and a Hydraulic Survey-and that 

the Hydraulic Survey should be divided into an 

Engineering Branch and a Hydrographic Branch. 

While there was at the time a plentiful supply of 

good topographers and capable irrigation engineers 

for staffing some-of those units, the problem of finding suitable employees to staff the Hydrographic 

Branch was quite a different matter. Captain Dutton 

(in Powell, 1889, p. 79) explained it as follows: 

In view of the novelty of the work thus involved upon the 

survey, of the impossibility of finding men skilled in the work 
6 EMBUDO, NEW MEXICO, BIRTHPLACE OF SYSTEMATIC STREAM GAGING 

FIGURE 2.-Topography at Embudo, N. Mex. Surveyed in 1889 by L. D. Hopson and W. P. Trowbridge, Jr. 1, Cam1 

required, of want of instruments adapted to the work, and in 

further view of the fact that the winter was near at hand, 

during which the fieldwork would, in most portions of the 

West, be impracticable, it was deemed best to select a small 

body of men of good education and high general intelligence 

and establish them at some advantageous station where they 

could, in the course of the winter months, acquire a knowledge of the methods and instruments they would have to 

employ. Fourteen young men were carefully selected and 

were placed in a camp of instruction, situated at Embudo on 

the Rio Grande River, about 50 miles north of Santa Fe, in 

New Mexico, where they passed the winter in practicing with 

the various instruments selected for trial and in becoming 

familiar with the theory and practical application of the 

methods. In the month of April the camp was broken up and 

the men distributed to their respective fields of work. 

The camp of instruction at Embudo was placed in charge 

of Mr. F. H. Newell, and the work required of the men consisted in practicing stream gauging by various methods. 

measuring the rise and fall of the stream from day to day, 

measuring the daily evaporation, and making observations 

with meteorological instruments. 
CAMP EMBUDO 7 

Embudo training center for Irrigation Survey hydrographers. 2, Location of 1889 gage. 3, Location of gage in 1969. 

Photographs of the three top officials of this new 

Irrigation Survey-John Wesley Powell, Clarence 

Edward Dutton, and Frederick Haynes Newellare presented in figures 1, 19, and 20, respectively. 

It is true that some western States, California 

and Colorado in particular, had previously engaged 

in stream gaging operations of their own, but W. H. 

Hall, who directed the work in California, and 

E. S. Nettleton, who directed similar work in Colorado, soon became members of the Engineering 

Branch of the Irrigation Survey, where their previous experience and special talents were of great, 

value. 

No mention of it could be found in the surviving 

records, but it seems very likely that the group of 

young engineers, including P. H. Christie and F. H. 

Newell (who arrived at Embudo before the others), 

spent their first night or two in the tiny railroad 
8 EMBUDO, NEW MEXICO, BIRTHPLACE OF SYSTEMATIC STREAM GAGING 

station because there were very few other suitable 

buildings in the area. But on December 10, 1888 (the 

day following their arrival), a supply of tents, 

purchased from the Army especially for their use, 

and a supply of folding cots arrived. The campsite, 

which Newell and Christie had probably selected 

while waiting for the others to arrive, was in a 

sheltered spot among the hills of the landward side 

of the railroad tracks about 0.6 mile upstream from 

the station. Its location is shown in figure 2, which 

is a partly reconstructed topographic map surveyed 

in 1889 by two of the students, L. D. Hopson and 

W. P. Trowbridge, Jr. 

The next order of business for the group was to 

clear the campsite and to set up the tents. And since 

those tents showed promise of affording the men 

better sleeping quarters than they had during the 

previous nights, the job must have been tackled 

with considerable alacrity. But that promise failed 

to materialize. With Embudo's elevation being over 

5,800 feet, the winter temperatures, especially at 

night, turned out to be much colder than was anticipated. In an effort to adjust to thi; new problem, most of the men abandoned their cots and 

slept in blankets in shallow trenches dug into the 

dirt floors of their tents. A few of the more enterprising members even excavated a cave into a side 

hill, where they slept in relative comfort until the 

camp goat fell through the chimney and "wrecked 

things generally." A higher and stronger chimney 

was subsequently installed, and the cave was reoccupied (Follansbee, 1939, p. 47). A contemporary 

photograph of the camp is shown in figure 3, and a 

recent photograph of the same area, in figure 4. 

Camp personnel 

Soon after that first group of engineers finished 

erecting the tents, four more candidates for instruction arrived. A final one came during the 

following March. Prof. G. E. Curtis of Washburn 

College, Topeka, Kans. (who had formerly been 

with the U.S. Signal Service), also arrived. He was 

employed to instruct the men in the care and use 

of meteorological instruments. A cook, two laborers, 

and a packer rounded out the quota of 21 permanent 

members of the group. A list of their names follows: 

1. F . H. Newell (in charge) 

2. Prof. G. E. Curtis (instructor) 

3. T. M. Bannon 

4. P . H. Christie (topographer and disbursing officer) 

5. H. M. Dyar (who arrived in March 1889) 

6. W. A. Farish 

7. Frank Harrison 

8. L. D. Hopson (who helped survey map shown in fig. 2) 

9. R. P. Irving 

10. L. B. Kendall 

11. A. C. Lane 

12. J. W . Mitchell 

13. G. T. Quinby 

14. Robert Robertson 

15. R. S. Tarr 

16. W. P. Trowbridge, Jr. (who also helped survey map in 

fig. 2) 

17. J . B. Williams 

18. Frank Fisher (laborer) 

19. Juan Romero (laborer) 

20. Dick Shumway (packer) 

21. Charlie Hines (cook) 

Their monthly salaries ranged from $100 for Newell 

and Williams to $75 and $50 for the others. No 

photographs are known to exist in which all 21 

members appear together, but two were taken in 

which about half of them appeared in each. Those 

photographs, together with their identifications 

wherever known, are shown in figures 5 and 6. 

STREAM-GAGING OPERATIONS 

J. B. Williams, who seems to have had some actual 

previous experience at stream gaging, selected the 

site for their first measuring section. There they 

built themselves a raft, using four empty barrels 

for floats, and they stretched a rope across the river 

for holding the raft at the various places where 

soundings and velocity measurements were obtained. 

Except for a statement that this section was located 

"about one-half a mile upstream from the camp," 

no closer identification of it has been found. 

Because no current meters were immediately 

available, a variety of float measurements were the 

first to be made of the Rio Grande. Later, levels were 

run alongside the river to ascertain its slope, and 

formulas were used for computing the discharge. 

Each day a different student was appointed to 

gather meteorological data such as readings of the 

barometer every hour, twice-a-day temperatures 

of the river water, and readings of the amount of 

water that had evaporated from the cook's bread 

pan (which had been commandeered for making 

such experiments). 

Early in January 1889 the equipment became 

more sophisticated. The measuring section was 

moved downstream to a point opposite the railroad 

station. A steel cable (rather than a rope) was 

stretched across the river, and a separate tag line 

was stretched above it for locating the measuring 

points. A boat was obtained from which to gather 

the streamflow data while held in place by ropes 
STREAM-GAGING OPERATIONS 9 

FIGURE 3.-Camp Embudo, N. Mex. (1888-89). 

FIGURE 4.-Embudo campsite ( 1969). 
10 EMBUDO, NEW MEXICO, BIRTHPLACE OF SYSTEMATIC STREAM GAGING 

1. L. S. Kendall 

2. W. P. Trowbridge, Jr. 

3. Prof. George E. Curtis 

4. T. M. Bannon 

5. F. H. Newell 

6. George T. Quinby 

7. Robert Robertson 

8. R. S. Tarr 

9. R. P. Irving 

10. Dick Shumway (packer) 

11. J. W. Mitchell 

12. W. A. Farish 

FIGURE 5.- Student hydrographers at Embudo. 
STREAM-GAGING OPERATIONS 11 

FIGURE 6.-Student hydrographers at Embudo. Note: The 

numbered individuals are believed to be the persons bearing 

those same numbers in figure 5. 

from the cable. A recording gage "of the horizontalcylinder type, similar to the tide gages used by the 

Coast and Geodetic Survey" was placed in operation 

for a short time about 75 feet upstream from the 

cable. It would probably have been of the type 

originally designed in 1845 by Joseph Saxton (later 

a member of the Natl. Acad. of Sci.) while he was 

in charge of the Office of Weights and Measures. 

Drawings and a photograph of such a recorder appear in figures 7 and 8 respectively. When it was 

installed, a slope gage was constructed directly over 

the intake pipe leading from the river to the recorder's stilling well. Its landward end seems to 

have been anchored by the planks which surrounded 

that well. 

Figure 9 presents a photograph of some of those 

new stream gaging facilities. In it the recording 

gage shelter and the slope gage appear together 

along the shore toward the right, and the cableway, 

with the boat resting behind it, toward the left. At 
12 EMBUDO, NEW MEXICO, BIRTHPLACE OF SYSTEMATIC STREAM GAGING 

DHAWING OF 

THE 

SELF-HEGISTEHING TIDE GAUGE 

UEVISt:ll IIY 

JO~EPH S..:\XTON 

Forth._, us(' oft he r. S. Coast StiiTl'\" 

Seal.t II inrhr• In 1 foot 

1853 

Horizuntul Plllll 

t' 

~---l 

u L 

- · --·- - ·-··- ----·------ .r~----.11 ....L....---l..L.. 

Rear t:levation 

FIGURE 7.-Drawings of Saxton's tide gage. 

the time this photograph was taken (about 1889), 

the railroad station did not have the veneer of 

cobblestones it now has. That veneer was added to 

it after 1912 by Henry Wallace, a new station agent 

who arrived at Embudo about that time, as shown 

in figure 10. The railroad, incidently, was abandoned 

in this area in 1941. The "Albuquerque Journal" 

reported that 55 miles of tracks had been "lifted" 

to be sent to China for use on the Burma Road. 

Other sources indicate that some of the locomotives 

were sold to the U.S. Army in 1942 and sent to the 

Yukon for use on the White Pass and Yukon and 

also that some of the passenger cars may still be 

seen at the Colorado Railroad Museum at Golden, 

Colo. 

But to return to those 1889 innovations at the 

camp: The bread pan was replaced by a custombuilt evapon:tting pan having floats for allowing it 

to rest on a pool of water. It was also provided with 

a built-in precision scale for measuring the amounts 

of water that had evaporated between observations. 

Figure 11 presents a drawing, from the "Second 

Annual Report of the Irrigation Survey" (1889-

1900), of that new evaporating pan. 

A program of collecting water samples from 

which to determine the amount of sediment carried 

by the river was inaugurated soon after facilities 

arrived for drying and weighing such samples. 

Studies were even made of the bedload movement. 

The first paragraph in a notebook presently (1969) 
STREAM-GAGING OPERATIONS 13 

[J 

FIGURE 7.-Continued. 

in the Albuquerque office of the Geological Survey 

cqntains the following statement on that subject: 

Jan. 4, 1889. This investigation was begun with the help of 

Mr. Mitchell. The object is to determine the volume of the 

larger pebbles or sand at various points of what is, or what 

has been river bottom, with the hope of finding the connection between their size and the current velocity by which they 

were deposited. 

The bulk of the fieldwork on that project seems to 

have been done by L. B. Kendall, A. C. Lane, and 

R. P. Irving in the reach of the Rio Grande just 

downstream from the wagon bridge shown later in 

figures 15 and 16. 

' FIGURE 8.-Saxton's tide gage. Photograph supplied by Coast 

and Geodetic Survey. 

Their approach to this subject was both mathematical and empirical. The notebook contains numerous references to similar studies made by distinguished earlier investigators and starts off with 

a formula derived by Sir Archibald Geikie, a friend 

of John Wesley Powell's. The work shows evidence 

of having been conducted at a surprisingly high 

scientific level. 

The first current meter the group eventually obtained was furnished by the U.S. Navy. It was a 

cable-suspended Haskell Direction-Indicating Meter 

(U.S. Patent No. 384,362). (See Follansbee, 1939, 
14 EMBUDO, NEW MEXICO, BIRTHPLACE OF SYSTEMATIC STREAM GAGING 

FIGURE 9.-Embudo gaging station on the Rio Grande, N. Mex. (about 1889). 

FIGURE 10.- Denver and Rio Grande Railway station at Embudo (about 1912). Photog-raph supplied by State Historical 

Society of Colorado. 
STREAM-GAGING OPERATIONS 15 

p. 49.) For shallow water, such as occurs at Embudo 

during winter months, this meter was far too large 

and much too cumbersome for practical use. Several 

suggestions were offered in the hope of making it 

more suitable for use under the existing conditions, 

and J. B. Williams made numerous trips to an instrument shop in Denver to obtain a model in which 

such changes were incorporated. A photograph 

showing the "before" and "after" designs appears 

in figure 12. While those changes were under way, 

another meter- one with rod suspension that was 

designed several years earlier by E. S. Nettleton for 

use on Colorado streams-became available. One of 

them has already been shown at the center of the 

group in figure 6. 

It did not require much time for suggestions to be 

offered for improving Nettleton's meter also. Records show that on May 16, 1889, Professor Curtis 

rated an improved model thereof and that, beginning July 12 of that same year, G. T. Quinby made 

a series of three measurements with it of the Rio 

Grande at San Marcial, some 200 miles or more 

downstream from Embudo. The first page of a later 

measurement at San Marcial is shown in figure 13. 

The improved model of the Nettleton meter was 

called the Bailey meter, most likely after the junior 

AS RE-DESIGNED BY ENGINEERS 

AT CAMP EMBUDO 

FIGURE H.- Evaporation pan. 

member of an instrument-making firm in Denver 

then called Lallie and Bailey, where a considerable 

number of them were manufactured. It is interesting to note that the Nettleton meter has frequently 

been called a Lallie current meter, so that both 

AS "FURNISHED TO THE IRRIGATION 

SURVEY BY THE NAVY DEPARTMENT 

FIGURE 12.- Haskell current meters. 
16 EMBUDO, NEW MEXICO, BIRTHPLACE OF SYSTEMATIC STREAM GAGING 

j1. 

X'"'"· p . 

1/yrlro.f:f l'"f' /' r't' 

$.ff 

FIGURE 13.-Discharge measurement notes, Rio Grande at San Marcial, N. Mex., August 8, 1889. 

members of that firm have had meters named after 

them. That firm, however, was not the exclusive 

manufacturer of the Nettleton-type meters. An 

instrument maker named W. E. Scott, also of Denver, built several of the earlier models. Figure 14A 

shows one of the Nettleton meters as built by Scott, 

and figure 14B shows one of the improved "Bailey" 

models. The meters shown in both of these photographs are from the Smithsonian Institution's large 

collection of early current meters. As will be seen, 

the main difference between them is that in the 

Bailey meter the counting wheels are located in a 

glass-covered compartment whereas the wheels of 

the other are not so enclosed. The purpose of the 

enclosure was to prevent grasses and other fibrous 

materials carried in the streams from becoming 

enmeshed in the gears of those counting wheels. 

With the advent of these rod-suspended meters, 

experiments were made in order to determine how 

velocities could best be measured with them. The 

following three methods which seemed most attractive have been described essentially as on pages 13 

and 14 in the "Second Annual Report of the Irrigation Survey": 

1. In shallow streams, as are most of the rivers of the arid 

region, the work can be shortened by what is called 

integration. Instead of using the meter at various 

given points in a vertical line, it is moved at a very 

slow, uniform speed down and up, from top to bottom 

and back again, to obtain an average of the velocities 

at all points in the vertical. In this case the river is 

considered as being divided into a number of independent narrow streams of equal width, the discharge 

of each being obtained by multiplying its area into the 

observed average velocity in its central position; then, 

by adding these discharges together, the total for the 

whole river is found. With a little practice the stream 

gager can raise and lower the meter at a constant rate 

in any given number of seconds; for example, with 

water 5 feet deep, starting at the top and going to the 
STREAM-GAGING OPERATIONS 17 

bottom in 20 seconds, then back to the top in 20 

seconds more, and repeating thl'ee times, making in all, 

2 minutes. 

2. For measuring the discharge of canals or small streams 

with nearly level bottoms, the horizontal or diagonal 

integration method has been occasionally used, obtaining at once an average for the whole flow. The meter is 

carried slowly from side to side horizontally, or it is 

moved diagonally from the top on one side down on the 

cross section at an angle of about 45°, then up at about 

the same angle from the top, then down, continuing in 

this way until the opposite side is reached. In the same 

way a return trip is made up and down, crossing the 

path of the first, the meter coming out at the top each 

time over the spot where before it had reached the 

bottom, and vice versa. 

3. In wide, deep rivers, the meter measurements are made 

at a number of places evenly distributed across the 

stream, and at each of these places, observations are 

made of the velocity near the surface, near the bottom, 

and at various intermediate points, such as 5 to 10 feet 

apart in the vertical line. In this way the velocity is 

obtained at a large number of points symmetrically 

distributed in the cross section, and the average of all 

is considered to be the velocity of the whole river, the 

discharge being obtained by multiplying the total area 

of the cross section at this point by this average 

velocity. 

The present practice of taking two velocity observations to obtain the average in the verticalone at th€ two-tentl!s depth, the other at the eighttenths depth-did not then receive consideration. 

In fact, what was probably the first suggestion regarding that method was made by H. K. Barrows, 

then an assistant engineer under N. C. Grover, in 

charge of the Survey's river work in Vermont and 

New Hampshire. It appeared in an article that 

Barrows had written for the July 1905 issue of the 

"Journal of the Association of Engineering Societies." J. C. Hoyt of the Survey subsequently reported the general adoption of that method in his 

article entitled "Recent Changes in the Methods and 

Equipment in the Water-Resources Work of the 

United States Geological Survey" that appeared in 

volume 60 (July-December 1908) of "Engineering 

News." 

After the engineers at Camp Embudo had become 

familiar with the fundamentals of stream gaging, 

they were sent either singly or in pairs to nearby 

streams in order that they might gain experience 

in selecting suitable sites for installing gages and 

making measurements. In many respects this was 

also to test their resourcefulness and to find how 

well the lessons they had received at Embudo had 

been learned. 

Between the end of April 1889, when the training period was completed, and the end of the folA 

B 

FIGURE 14.-Nettleton current meters. A, Manufactured by 

W. E. Scott. B, Redesigned by engineers at Camp Embudo 

and manufactured by Bailey. Photographs supplied by 

Smithsonian Institution. 

lowing July, a little preliminary shuffling of personnel too~ place, but that ended with 10 of these 

"students" becoming classified as "Hydrographers" 

and "Assistant Hydrographers" and their being 

transferred to the following locations in the arid 
18 EMBUDO, NEW MEXICO, BIRTHPLACE OF SYSTEMATIC STREAM GAGING 

FIGURE 15.-View looking upstream at Embudo at old wagon bridge on which r ecording and staff gages were in operation 

1912-1914. 

FIGURE 16.-A later view looking downstream and showing, in front of the second locomotive, the new (1914) 

recording gage shelter. 
STREAM-GAGING OPERATIONS 19 

FIGURE 17.-The present Embudo gaging station. 

FIGURE 18.-Upstream view of present gaging station. 
20 EMBUDO, NEW MEXICO, BIRTHPLACE OF SYSTEMATIC STREAM GAGING 

region with specific instructions as to how to carry 

out their parts in the Irrigation Survey program: 

Arkansas River basin ...... Robert Robertson and R. P. Irving 

Upper Rio Grande basin .. G. T. Quinby 

Rio Grande at El Paso .... H. M. Dyar 

Gila River basin ............... W. A. Farish 

Truckee-Carson River 

basin ................................ W. P. Trowbridge, Jr. 

Utah Territory ................. F. H. Newell and T. M. Bannon 

Snake River basin ............. L. D. Hopson 

Upper Missouri River 

basin ................................ J. B. Williams 

Among the remaining engineers, one had left camp 

before completing the course, another was ready to 

resign, and the third claimed that he did not care 

to spend the rest of his life "jiggling a meter." 

One feature that was not changed by this exodus 

was the gaging station itself. The station agent of 

the railroad, C. L. Pollard, was employed to read 

the gage, and the discharge records at Embudo were 

not then interrupted, although beginning in 1904 

they were discontinued for several years. When 

they were resumed in 1912, with a new station 

agent, Henry Wallace, as the observer, a recording 

gage and a vertical staff gage were installed on a 

pier of the Santa Barbara Tie and Pole Co. "s old 

wagon bridge as shown in figure 15. Two years 

later, when the bridge became unsafe for that purpose, the gaging station was moved somewhat less 

than 200 feet farther downstream to its present 

location on the right bank of the Rio Grande. A concrete well and gage shelter were constructed there 

along with a cableway from which to obtain streamflow measurements during high-water periods. Both 

the old and new locations appear in figure 16. The 

gage observer, Mr. Wallace, has been previously 

mentioned as having been the man who veneered the 

railroad station with cobblestones. Inasmuch as he 

has been reported as having applied such stone facings onto "every object in the vicinity that would 

hold still," he might very well have had a hand in 

applying the same kind of a facing onto the new 

recording gage shelter. 

Beginning in 1915, and continuing until 1931, the 

gaging station was operated by the State of New 

Mexico, but as of July 1, 1931, the Geological Survey resumed the responsibility for its operation 

under a cooperative agreement with the State. It 

has been in continuous operation ever since. Several 

major improvements were undertaken at the station during the fall of 1941. The overall height of 

the well was increased by about 7 feet, and a heavy 

retaining wall was constructed to protect the installation. The old shelter was made use of as part of 

the new well, and a new shelter was added on top 

of it. As before, the shelter was veneered with cobblestones to match the railroad station. The old 

roof was re-used for covering the new shelter. It 

was made of tile for protection against fires which 

could have been produced by sparks from the Denver 

and Rio Grande Railway locomotives which passed 

close by-a menace that continued until only a few 

months thereafter, when the operation of the railroad was discontinued. In contrast to the previous 

arrangement wherein the door of the shelter was 

located at the upstream side, the new door was 

placed in the landward side of the house. 

Travelers who now pass through Embudo on 

Highway 64 between Espanola and Taos, N. Mex., 

have a fine view of that attractive gaging station. 

Close to the A-frame on the left bank of the river 

is a neat historical marker. Photographs of the station and marker appear in figures 17 and 18. 

With the "graduation" of those student hydrographers from this training camp at Embudo, a high 

point was attained in the short life of the Irrigation 

Survey. The occasion also coincided with the zenith 

of the fabulous career of John Wesley Powell, the 

creator and topmost official of that Survey. 

EPILOG 

Despite the remarkable progress that was subsequently made by these young engineers, the Hydrographic Branch of the Irrigation Survey did not last 

very long, and its final days were marked with several tragedies. H. M. Dyar, who among his other 

duties kept the Embudo gaging station in operation, had to resign because of ill health. L. D. 

Hopson, who had helped survey the map shown in 

figure 2 and who had been detailed to the Snake 

River basin, was drowned. Finally (on August 22, 

1890), an impending curtailment of funds made it 

necessary for F. H. Newell to advise all the men 

in the Engineering and Hydrographic Branches to 

turn over all their equipment, mules, and horses to 

the nearest topographic field office and to discontinue their official activities (Follansbee, 1939, p. 

64). A few of the :inen, including Newell, were 

assigned to other duties in the Geological Survey. 

Others sought employment elsewhere. Shortly thereafter, J. B. Williams committed suicide (Follansbee, 

1939, p. 65). With regard to Powell himself, the 

tribulations he then had to endure were, in a personal way, tragic also. 

As previously indicated, John Wesley Powell refused to subscribe to the Utopian claims that were 
EPILOG 21 

being used as inducements for farmers to settle in 

the arid region. While prospective settlers were 

assured that practically all of the land in that region 

was suitable for farming without irrigation and that 

once they had plowed their land, "rain would follow the plow," Powell kept insisting that only 1 to 

3 percent of such land could be farmed profitably 

(Darrah, 1951, p. 222). Even then, Powell maintained that irrigation facilities would have to be 

provided and that the remaining area should be 

applied, where suitable, to forests and grazing. 

The differences between these conflicting views 

became more acute when both President Cleveland 

FIGURE 19.-Cla r ence Edward Dutton (1841-1912). 

and the Attorney General agreed with Powell's 

interpretation of proposed legislation related to irrigation. Under that interpretation, Powell would 

have authority to pr·event the entry of homesteaders 

onto any of the remaining lands of the entire public 

domain in the arid region until the topographic 

maps were completed, the hydrographic studies 

made, the plans for the dams and canals formulated, 

and as many 80-acre farms were laid out on the 

map as the volume of available water could support-an undertaking that would obviously require 

considerable time. Opponents of the Powell point of 

view insisted "We want crops. We do not want pictures, and the Major is making pictures." (See 

Sterling, 1940, p. 430.) 

Impatient with anything that tended to delay the 

movement of settlers into the West, consideration 

was given to getting the Irrigation Survey transferred to the Department of Agriculture. Being uncertain, however, as to whether that could be 

achieved in the face of Powell's eminent reputation, 

the decision was made that the best course was to 

repeal the entire act and to return to the "status 

quo ante." (See Sterling, 1940, p. 431.) The House 

Appropriations Committee was told "Every representative of the arid region would prefer there 

would be no appropriation to having it continued 

under Major Powell." (See Sterling, 1940, p. 431.) 

To that end, opponents of the activities finally demanded and received approval for a Senate investigation to be held on this subject. The hearings lasted 

from January 17 to March 28, 1890. They are given 

in Senate Report 928, part 5, 51st Congress, 1st 

session (Serial No. 2708, p. 5-229). Perhaps the 

most damaging testimony against Powell was that 

which related to his handling of the mapping program. He had declared repeatedly that without good 

topographic maps, the Irrigation Survey could not 

be carried out in a complete and orderly fashion. It 

was revealed during the hearings that out of the 

first $100,000 allotted for irrigation investigations, 

at least $60,000 had been applied to mapping operations. Moreover, he had also used funds which Congress had appropriated for the regular mapping 

program of the Geological Survey to help speed up 

the production of the arid-region maps. Nothing in 

the legislation prohibited him from doing so, but 

several witnesses were called to the stand in an 

effort to establish that such action constituted an 

improper use of public funds. 

One of those witnesses was Powell's administrative assistant, C. E. Dutton (fig. 19). Dutton was 
22 EMBUDO, NEW MEXICO, BIRTHPLACE OF SYSTEMATIC STREAM GAGING 

FIGURE 20.-Frederick Haynes Newell (1862-1932). 

asked, "Is there any connection, in practical operations between the topographic work and the engineering work; how do they cooperate if at all?" He 

replied in part (U.S. Congress, Special Senate Committee, 1890, p. 133) : 

According to my understanding, there is no absolute dependence upon topographic work for the proper conduct of good 

engineering and hydrographic work; in other words, an engineering and hydrographic survey could be conducted with 

good results, meeting the purpose and requirements of the 

law, if there were no topographic survey. 

Some Congressmen agreed with Dutton, and some 

disagreed, but these hearings caused a sharp decline 

to occur in the popularity which Powell had previously enjoyed. Soon thereafter the goals of the 

western Congressmen were achieved in a manner 

that would impede Powell's progress the most, 

namely through the pocketbook. They had put 

through an amendment to the Sundry Civil Appropriations Bill (signed August 30, 1890) which had 

the effect of reducing the $720,000 that Powell had 

requested for continuing the Irrigation Survey work 

to only $162,500. And that amount was made available for use only on mapping operations west of the 

101st meridian. Powell was accordingly forced to 

discontinue the engineering and hydrographic sections of the Irrigation Survey, and Newell, as previously mentioned, had to notify the field engineers. 

According to Sterling, this whole controversy 

led to Powell's resignation in May 1894 as Director 

of the Geological Survey (after he became sure that 

a competent successor, C. D. Walcott, would be 

selected to carry on the work). He felt that Congress had lost confidence in him (Sterling, 1940, 

p. 433). He died at "Haven" in Hancock County, 

Maine, September 23, 1902. 

Soon after the Senate hearings were over, Dutton 

(then a major) was relieved of his duties with the 

Irrigation Survey. An order issued by the War De~ 

partment directed him to report to the Ordnance 

Office as of July 23, 1890. In a footnote in Stegner's 

"Beyond the Hundredth Meridian," it is contended 

that "his testimony before the Committee, and his 

disagreement with Powell on the propriety of concentrating funds from both appropriations on topography led him to return to regular Army duty." 

(See Stegner, 1954, p. 414.) He died in Englewood, 

N.J., January 4, 1912. 

With regard to Newell, he was transferred to the 

Topographic Branch of the Geological Survey, but 

any stream-gaging problems that came within the 

purview of the Bureau were referred to him. Soon 

after Walcott became the new Director, he informed 

Newell that he found nothing in the legislation 

which would justify continuing such work. Newell 

thereupon persuaded Senator W. V. Allen of 

Nebraska to offer an amendment to a pending 

Sundry Civil Appropriations Act (Follansbee, 1939, 

p. 70). It called for the Geological Survey to engage 

in stream-gaging operations, with no restrictions as 

to where in the United States such work should be 

performed. The amendment passed, but not until the 

small original allotment of $25,000 was reduced to a 

mere $12,500. Nevertheless, that allotment became 

available as of August 18, 1894, and since that time, 

funds have continued to be appropriated regularly 

for that purpose. F. H. Newell (fig. 20) was its first 

"Hydrographer in Charge," but in 1907, when the 

Reclamation Service became separated from the 

Geological Survey, he was selected as that new 

Bureau's first Director. He died on July 5, 1932. 

The pioneer work he performed in those early years 

in the Geological Survey has led to his having often 

been referred to as the "father of systematic stream 

gaging" in this country. Among the many honors 
REFERENCES 23 

he received was the Cullum Geographical Medal in 

1918 (McDaniel, 1933) on which was inscribed: 

He carried water from a mountain 

wilderness to turn the waste places of 

the desert into homes for freemen. 

President Theodore Roosevelt was among those who 

publicly expressed high praise for his work 

(McDaniel, 1933, p 1598). The list of scientific 

and engineering societies in which he held memberships and actively participated is far too long 

to be presented here, but the facts that he was 

Secretary of the National Geographic Society and 

served on its Board of Managers for several years, 

that he also served as Secretary of the American 

Forestry Association for several years, and that it 

was he who called the first conference which led to 

the formation of the American Association of Engineers (now defunct, but which had many precepts 

similar to those of the present National Society of 

Professional Engineers) and served as its President 

in 1919 are indications of the variety of his interests and of the extent to which he participated in 

scientific and engineering activities. 

From three historical points of view, therefore, 

the training camp for hydrographers on the Rio 

Grande at the tiny village of Embudo, N. Mex., deserves the attention of hydraulic engineers everywhere. It was the site of the first stream~gaging 

operations of the U.S. Geological Survey; it was 

authorized by John Wesley Powell at the time when 

his eminence had arrived at its peak; and it was the 

starting point of the outstanding career of the 

camp's engineer-in-charge, Frederick Haynes 

Newell. 

REFERENCES 

Darrah, W. C., 1951, Powell of the Colorado: Princeton, 

Mass., 426 p. 

Davis, W. M., 1915, Biographical memoir of John Wesley 

Powell, 1834-1902: [U.S.] Natl. Acad. Sci. Biog. Mem., 

v. 8, 83 p., Washington, D.C. 

Follansbee, Robert, 1939, A history of the Water Resources 

Branch of the United States Geological Survey to June 

30, 1919: Washington, D.C., 459 p. 

McDaniel, A. B., 1933, Frederick Haynes Newell, M. Am. 

Soc. C. E., died July 5, 1932: Am. Soc. Civil Engineers 

Proc., October, p. 1597-1600. 

Marsh, 0. C., 1878, Letter dated November 26, 1878: U.S. 

45th Cong., 3d sess., House Misc. Doc. 5, serial 1861, p. 2. 

Powell, J. W., 1889, Irrigation: U.S. Geol. Survey lOth Ann. 

Rept., pt. 2, 123 p. 

Stegner, W. E., 1954, Beyond the hundredth meridian- John 

Wesley Powell and the second opening of the West : 

Boston, 438 p. 

Stegner, W. E., ed., 1962, Report on the lands of the arid 

region of the United States, by John Wesley Powell : 

Cambridge, Mass., 202 p. 

Sterling, E. W., 1940, The Powell Irrigation Survey, 1888-

1893: Mississippi Valley Hist. Rev., v. 27, no. 3, p. 421-

434, 

U.S. Congress, Special Senate Committee, 1890, Report on the 

irrigation and reclamation of the arid lands: U.S. 51st 

Cong., 1st sess., Rept. 928, pt. 5, serial 2708, p. 133. 

THE CULLUM GEOGRAPHICAL MEDAL 

AWARDED TO 

FREDERICK HAYNES NEWELL 

U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFF ICE : 1971 0 - 446-050