The Florence tribune., 1899-09-02
What Recent Government Investigations Disclose in Regard to Irrigation
 Possibilities in Arizona.
Good Indians and Industrious White Men Who Are Practically Destitute
 for Lack of Water.
An Exceptionally Favorable Opportunity to Inaugurate the Much-talked- of System of Federal Irri-
 gation.
tFrom the Los Angeles Times, July 1O.I

I, 5. Lippincott, the representative in Los Angeles of the Photographic Office of the United States Geographical Survey, fur nishes The Times the following irrigation in Arizona:
 The Gila River Indian reservation is situated about eighteen miles south of Phoe- nix, and extends along the Gila River for a distance of nearly fifty miles. Here are located the Pima and Maricopa Indians to the number of nearly five thousand. These Indians are known throughout the Terri- | tory as good Indians They have always | been peaceful in their habits, and agricul- | tural or ps<soral in their pursuits. They | are now <dltiyating the lands where the | prehistoric races built the now-ruined Casa | Grande and its neighboring canals. Irriga- l tion has been practiced in this vaIIcy from | prehistoric times. Many ancient ditches can | be traced across the plain, showing evidences 1 of engineering skill, and testifyinn to tha 1 fact that large volumes of water were at one time carried.
 The Pimas and Maricopas have been. until recently, self-sustaining nation. They raise their crops of grain and corn with skill equal to that of the whites. he settlers, seeing he results which the h. dlans have produced, through the operation of the desert land act, brought under culti- Vation much land in the valley of the Gila adjacent to this reservation. and have built extensive canals between Florence and the raili oad station of Casa Grande. Under the provision of the United States law all land bought under the desert-land act must be made productive by the application of water. In order to comply with the provis- Ions of this law, the settler was compelled to make diversions from the Gila River at points above the Indian reservation. Other lands were taken up under similar condi- fiols on the upper portion of the Giia River. 1hcSe diversions by the whites quickly de- priyed the Indians of their water supply. and for the past five years they have been
 left on the desert without water for their crops and scarcely enough for their horses
 They are pnt ill the position of either having to steal, starye or be fed as public wards and the government has been forced to issue rations to them and feed them as it does the soldiers. Numerous court decisions have been rendered establishing beyond con troversy the fact that the Indian has the prior and the better right to the water. but the whites have maintained their water supply despite the dictates of the court The development of this newer civilization has become so extensive that to cut of its water supply would mean the desolation of
 many thousands Of acres of fine farms and orchards. Evidently, the situation is diifi- cult one, and the Indian Bureau is hard pressed for a proper answer.
 In 1es5 an allotment of $s5f0 was made rom the appropriation for the Indian Office Tor preliminary investigation of the avail able water supply for these Indians. Mir. l Newell was instructed to make this inYesti- Ration by the Secretary of the Interior, and 1 he delegated Arthur p. Davis to take the l matter up in the field. The surveys were necessarily of preliminary nature, but the storage possibility of the Gila River was fully demonstrated. It was shown that this l stream drained about fifteen thousand square miles of the high plateau and noun tain region of Eastern Arizona, and that the river IS remarkable for its exceedingly light : grade. Consequently, the storage possibili- 1 ties or the stream are great. Recommenda- tions were made by Mir. Davis calling for further and more accurate surveys, and in the spring of 1898 Congress passed a second l appropriation of $26,000 for the completion | of this investigation. The hydrozraphic de- 1 partment of the Geological Survey was
 
 duet these surveys.
 The Gila River derives it's source from the V hlte Mountains in western New Mexico 1 and eastern Arizona. " hich rise to elevations l of from ten to twelve thousand feet. At the l point where 1t issues from its mountainous basin, there are over twelve thousand square miles draining through its canons, The basin has been extensively explored, l and three large reservoir sites located and surveyed. The capacity of these reservoir sites has been determined and filings have been made under the United States laws for l their segregation from the public domain. | 1t point known as the Buttes dam 15g feet in height above the bed of the stream will store enoua water to cover 174 GOO acres | one feet deep, or, as it is technically ex- pressed, l74.O00 acre feet. A dam at this | point would be approximately 300 feet long | at the bed of the stream and 800 feet at it's l crest. At Riverside, Ariz., it was found that | a dam $50 feet long at it's base, and approxi- | mately 300 feet long on top will store much | greater quantity of water, the surveys at | this site being still incomplete. At San | Carlos. on the Apache Reservation the river | passes through narrow gorge 100 feet | wide, and dam at this point 150 feet high | would be bus 200 feet long at the crest. Such | a dam would store 361 900 acres one foot deep. |
 Extensive explorations have been made to | determine the depth of bed rock at each one | of these dam sites. At the Buttes the bed | rock is .disapDointingly deep, the depths | ranging in the center of the channel from 75 | to l4 feet beneath the surface of the stream. | At Riverside the maximum depth on the | axis of the dam is approximately seventy | five feet, while at San Carlos the depth to | bed rock is believed t, be substantially less than at either of the other dam sites
 The records of the flow of the GiIa River hays been kept at the Butfes for a number | of years. and the estimates of available | water supply are, therefore, based on actual | measurements. not on surrnise. The ordi- nary flow of this stream is ample to fill the largest of these reservoirs, and on the driest | years of which we have record it has been | as great as 200, ,0e0 acre feet.
 1t will be seen by the above figures that | the possibility of storing water on this | stream is very great. It is doubtful if it | has any equal in this line among ull the | streams of arid America. The San Carlos | dam. site, particularly, is one of unusual merit. The size of the necessary dam, the | available water supply, the great storage | basin, and the proximity of railroad facili- | ties are perfect; while the other two sites | also have features of merit.
 "The duty of water in Southern Arizona | is greater than in California. For the rais- | ing of the staple crop of alfalfa a depth of | twenty-four inches of water is ordinarily | applied to the land, which is equivalent to a | How for six months of one miners inch fO each three and one-half acres. On this 1 basis, the San Carlos site will furnish enough i water to irrigate over 159000 acres of land. | If it Is assumed that each two acres will sup port one inhabitant. this would permit of a | population of 75,000 souls to be sustained | from this reservoir.
 These figures are more startling when the fact is realized that at the present time | all of the canals below the San Carlos dam | site are absolutely dry, and that the country ! from the Apache Reservation to the mouth E of the Salt River is in a condition of " ithered drought. with It's inhabitants both white | aud Indian reduced almost to the condition of abiect want. It is estimated that 100G0 [ acres of land should be irrigated on the Gila Indian Reservation in order to relieve { the condition of the Indians. This would | leave over 100000 acres that could be irri- gated on the public domain. If lO0,000 acres of these public lands could be so irrigated f and being subdiyided into forty-aere tracts, sold to actual settlers, at the rate of $l0 to Sls per acre. the condition of the Indian would he wholly relieved, and it is probable the government would he reimbursed for its entire outlay. In addition to this, a district offering ideal conditions for irrigation, with soil which is unexceiled, with a climate that will produce crops in continu- Ous rotation, will he made to support lopniation of 75,000, and will add to the public wealth of the Territory on a consef- xstlNs estimate. over s6,0o 0o0.