Weekly Phoenix herald., 1883-12-20
MARICOPA's GREATEST EN-
 TERPRIsE.
The Arizona Canal.

oOuICSS tudt d ldi SO CuiAoA Ao OSlA 2
 built in the Salt River Valley and
 its use and the amount of land il
 would bring into cultivation have
 been discussed; but in all that has
 been said very inadequate idea of the extent and importance of the
 work has ever beer given; nor do we
 anticipate that within the limits of l this article we shall be able to fully | impress the HERALD readers with
 the proportions of the work or the
 importance It is to our valley and
 the entire central portion of Arizona. With a view, however, of giving some definite information concerns ing the enterprise we had the pleas
 ure, by the courtesy of MT. W. J.
 Murphy and the president of the company, the Hon. 0. Churchill,
 who was himself on a tour of in- spection, and under the guidance ot
 the chief engineer MT. Barry, to visit that portion of the work now in process of construction and which includes the first fifteen miles from the point where the canal leaves the river, and within which distance
 most of the heavy work is eRccun- tered.
 Leaving Phoenix the first camp is reached at distance of about fif- teen miles, and lies somewhat no:th of the road 10 Fort Mcdowell. This camp is now "at the front" and be- longs to Mr. w. J. Murphy, the principal contractor and one of the chief owners and projectors of the work. Here is little canvass town with it's boarding house, blacksmith shop, commissary, engineers quar- ters, tents for two or three families and a number of others serving as quarters for sixty or seventy men; also corrals aud stacks of hay and grain for the stock, piles of tools, wagons and all the paraphe-nalia necessary for camping, clearing, ex> cavating and prosecuting the work in various conditions and under varying circum stances
 Travelling up the Canal five more similar outfits are encountered, each a complete working outfit in itself.
 The outfits and forces now at work within this first fifteen miles are as follows:
 w. J. Murphy with 70 men and 45 teams; Joseph Mccormick with 40 men and 25 teams; P J. McCor- mick with 95 men azd 40 teams; MT. Simms with 75 men and 45 teams; McCune 6 Toohey with 97 1 men and 40 teams; Bryant and Mid~ dleton with 40 men and 25 teams.
 1f l on the work in various capacities is about 450 with some 225 teams.
 The excavating is done by the va> rious contractors by the cubic yard ! yard at varying prices per yard as graded by the chief engineer, who determines whether the work shall | be estimated as soft dirt, loose rock or hard rock. So fsr but little hard rock has been encountered except on the section being worked by Messrs. McCune 6 Toohey who are their way throdgh gram ite cutting. Considerable loose rock in the form of cobble stone has been encountered by several of the and some hard cement nearly as difficult to work as hard rock.
 In the heaviest of the work the cut is 19 feet deep which is an extreme depth and only ln one place for a short distance. Considerable extents of the cutting run from six 70 twelve feet in depth. For the first five or six miles the cut is 36 feet wide in the the bottom and then narrows down to 30 feet on the bottom. The | slope of the bank is 1I< feet to which in a depth of 12 feet would make cut at the surface of 66 feet h width where the bottom is 30 feet wide.
 The work is being pushed with | great energy by all the contractors as is evinced by the fact that their combined earnings last month am ounted to something over $6S 900, 1 and 1t is thought will exceed that amount the present month.
 Within the next sixty days the portion of the canal now in course of construction and on which occurs all the heaviest work will have been finished or very nearly so, and it is