Santa Fe daily New Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1885-1897, 1891-07-11

to east its surface smooth and even as a
floor and covered with a rich gramma
grass, W, ich, for years past, has fur.
nished sustenance to hundreds OF thous-
ands of cattle and sheep.
WONDERFUL WATER SrrrLY.
Here the Rio Hondo and the Rio Felix
/ both of which rise amid the snow-clad
heights of the FL Captain and the White
mountain, and which streams are in turn
fed by numberless springs and rivu-
lets -- flow down and unite their
crystal floods with those OF the
already ample Pecos. Reinforced by
these, anG further down by North and
South Spring creeks, the Penasco, the
Barendas, the Seven Rivers, Black river,
the Delaware and numerous other living
streams, the Pecos sweeps on through
southern New Mexico, western Texas and
finally falls into the Rio Grande.
Dame Nature, as though realizing that
the mountain SHOWS might sometime fail,
has caused thousands of living springs to
flow out all over the upper portion of the
fioor of limestone wherewith this whole
country is underlaid, and, in fact, these
springs are found, at intervals, all along
the river clear to the Texas state line. No
such series of pure, clear springs, with
such marvellous and constant flows of liv-
ing water, are found in any other arid
country on the earth.
Is it a wonder that in the socalled arid
country where
"WATER Is KING"
where water is actually the basis of all
land values, that enterprising men were
not long in establishing a plan for utiliz-
ing these splendid water flows? The main
supply of the Rio Pecos comes from
magnificent perennial springs, represent
ing the drainage of the Captain, Sierra
Blanca, Sacramento, Mescalero and Qua
dalupe mountain range. Some idea of
the volume of water that flows between
its banks in its course through Eddy
county may be imagined when it is known
that expert engineers have estimated it's
flow to be fully 900 cubic feet per sec
ond, and that it is capable of irrigating
500, 900 acres of land. No stream on earth
is better adapted to irrigation purposes
than is the PeCos.
Its current is about four miles an hour,
and competent engineers have shown
that its flow is 900 cubic feet per second
at it's lowest stage.
Throughout much of It's course it flows
between walls of solid limestone, six to
twenty feet high, which afford immovable
buttresses for dams, and admirable sources
for large canals. Living springs that boil
up all along its course, in its bed and
from its bank, supply water as fast as it
will ever be needed for irrgating. One of
these springs, two miles above Eddy, was
recently measured by an eminent engineer
who is attached to the agricultural depart
ment at Washington, and who ascertained
that it flows 100000 gallons of water
every twenty-four hours, ,000,000 gal
Ions more than is used by the whole city
of Denver during any one day in the year.
Four miles above this spring is the great
dam, where the rivers flow may be shut
off at will, set back into the reservoir, or
turned into the big canal so that the bed
of the river at the foot of the dam may be
perfectly dry. The engineer above re-
ferred to measured the flow of water in
the river at Eddy, six miles below the
dam, after the dam had been thus abso.
lutely closed for six days, and found its
flow to be 800 cubic feet per second.
THE GREAT CANALS.
The system OF canals and bitches now
being perfected by the Pecos Irrigation 4
Improvement company may be briefly
described as follows: The northern canal