The morning call., 1891-12-07
THE FATE OF TULARE LAKE.

A writer in the Fresno Erpositor once
more draws attention to the drying up of
Tulare Lake. He ascrbes the accident to the
diversion of the streams which formerly fed
the lake to irrigation canals and bitches,
which is probably the chief though not the
only cause. In the latitude of Tulare Lake
bodies Of water are seldom reliable. Sources
dry up; evaporation and percolation reduce
the volume of water year by year. There is
no irrigation in the region in which Lake
Tchad stands in Africa; but the waters of
that lake are disappearing quite as fast as
those of Tulare.
But the Erp0SitOr writer goes on to say
that the country which has been absorbing
the waters of the streams flowing from the
Sierra is now saturated with the fluid and
that in a short time it will be necessary for
the landowners TO shut off the irrgatlng
bitches. This would throw the water lack
into the rivers and would cause Tulare
Lake to expand to its old dimensions,
drowning out the farms that are situate on
its borders. An apprehension of this kind
appears to rest on delusion and on an i'm
perfect acquaintance with the operation of
water on land,
1t is quite possible that tract of land
where the soil is very thin and rests on a
brd of imperyious clay may in course of
time become r-S0aked and in 10 further
need of irrigation for time. But it is not
easy TO recall an instance of such con-
| dition OF affairs. On the contrary, in all
the countries in which agriculture is more
| or less dependent on irrigation the use of
water has been continuous from the earliest
ages to tire present time. In Italy, India.
CeylOn and Japan the irrigating tanks and
WI in, ra1ai
tOric times nre either in use to-day or have
teen destroyed in wars, in which case the
land they formerly fortified has reIapsed
into a desert. There is no instance any
where of irrigated laid being abe to dis
pense with irrigation. In Central Spain
the canals which were built before Christ
are still maintained-where the means of
the people permit-as the sole condition of
successful fruit culture, and in Lombardy
the Italian Government las restored the old
irrigating system OF the Romans, together
with the laws which they devised for its
maintenance.
It would be delightful TO believe with the
Erp0SitOT writer that land could become so
saturated with water that it could there
after dispense with irrigation. But there
is no ground for such a hope. Land is
consumer OF water; it loses moisture con-
SANITY, not only by evaporation but by alb
sorption; its oxygen passes into plants and
is lost to the soil. A careless irrigator may
flood his land SO rccklessly that for a time
it becomes waterSoaked and unfit for cult
ure, but this soon corrects itself, the sur
plus moisture passes off into the atmosphere.
and in the following season the land needs
irrigation again.
As to Tulare Lake, It's destiny cannot be
foreseen. 1t may dry up altogether, as many
lakes have done before in the arid portions
of the world, or it may shrink to small pro-
portions and remain a sink like the sinks of
Nevada and Utah. On this side OF the con-
tinental divide the tendency of all lacustrine
bodies which are not-like Lake Tahoe
situated on the top of ranges is to gradually
diminish in size. The recession of the
banks of the great Salt Lake is easily de-
tected by an observer of its banks. Most
OF these inland bodies Of water are
legaces of the ice age, when the
melting glaciers filed every hole or
depression on the earth's surface. AS the
waters were gradually drained off through
rivers or subterranean channels the lakes
diminished in area and some of them disap-
peared altogether like the great lake which
| once covered the Colorado Desert. Others
remain as sinks or sloughs. In many of
the prehistoric countries which reached some
degree of material development these sinks
were the object of Government concern :;
| their sides were walled and their bottoms
were fortified with deposits of gravel so as
to retain as much water as possible for irri-
| CATION purposes No experiments of the
! kind have Deen made in modern times, ex-
| cept, perhaps, in British India but the time
may come when nations will realize that
| water reservoirs should be protected and
| that we cannot afford to allow the arid
area to obtain further extensions. If that
| time does come Southern California will
! naturally claim large share of public at
| tentlon, and measures may be devised to
arrest the drying up of Tulare Lake.