Arizona republican., 1899-03-31

during. construction, as well as a
 location for the discharge gate and
 other appliances. AS needed the water
 is to be discharged into the river and
 run down to the diversion dam,
 twenty-five miles below, where the
 head of the canal is to be constructed.
 Between twenty and twenty-five miles
 of the canal have been constructed.
 Upon initial construction it is esti-
 mated that 220,O00 acres of land can | Ge furnished with au the water needed
 covering all the unsettled portions of
 Paradise" Deer" and "Excelsicr'
 valleys, and the Cave creek plains,
 thus bringing vast area of vacant
 land, tributary to Phoenix under cul-
 tiyatiCn. The affairs of the company
 are in the hands of strong men, finan-
 cially. who are now pushing it's inter-
 ests geographically. The officers are: Donald Grant of Faribault, Minn, | president; A. H. Linton, Minneapolis,
 Minn, vice president; J. K. Dooittle, 1 Phoenix, attorney and director; Frank i L. COnkey, treasurer.
 The largest reservoir in the terri tory, and perhaps in the world, lies in
 the ''TOnto Basin, sixty miles north
 east of Phoenix and just back of those 1 majestic sentinel landmarks so often ! pointed out from Phoenix. known as the -Four Peaks" This statsment as
 to size excepts, of course, the gigantic
 reservoir on the Nile, construction of
 which was commenced on the 18th day
 of last February, under the direction
 of that modern Wizard Of the Nile"
 Sir Benjamin Baker
 This reservoir is owned by the Hud-
 son Reservoir and Canal company
 After passing through the Tonto Basin,
 the Salt river, just below it's junction
 with TOnto creek, near the line be tween Maricopa and Gila counties,
 passes into a deep narrow gorge of solid rock. It emerges from this can yen some thirty miles below, and only a short distance above it's confluence with the Verde. At the point where the river enters this gorge the com pany's dam will be constructed. The gorge is only 200 feet wide at low wa ter mark. and the walls are almost 1 perpendicular for the first hundred feet | in height. Above that height the can yon widens, and the dam, when com pleted to a height of.200 feet will be [ some coo feet long on top. At these | dimensions the dam will create a lake | which will cover eighteen square miles | to a depth of from one hundred to two | hundred feet Engineers say that no | other dam site approaching this in i reservoir capacity and advantageous situation for economical construction can be found in the world. 4 reser- voir dam of about the same dimensions | as this one was completed two years ago by the Austrian government on the border line of BOsina-HerZe egOvina for irrigation purposes but the reser- VOir capacity is small compared to that Of the Tonto Basin reservoir. MT. Ar thur P. Davis the engineer of the geo. logical survey detailed two years ago by the department of the interior to investigate the possibilities of a res ervoir at "The Buttes'', near Florence. for the relief of the Gila Indians (for description of which project there is not space in this article), in his report speaking Of the Hudson reservoir, said:
 Tt would probably be impossible to find anywhere in the arid region storage project in which all conditions are as favorable as for this one The capacity of the reservoir, in proportion to the dimensions of the dam, is enor- nous. The lands to be Watered are of remarkable fertility, in climate which may be classed as almost semi trOpic, and are vastly greater in area than the water can supply. To a con- siderable extent they are already set tied upon, and the water is in lively demand. The character of the rock at the dam site is said to be excellent for the construction and foundation of the dam. There is tributary to this reser- voir about 5,756 square miles of noun tainous country. ranging in altitude from 2,000 to 12000 feet, and including sclne of the best drainage area in Ari- zona. Many of the tributaries of Salt river find their source at the foot of the bold escarpment of the Mogollon mesa. Tonto creek, for instance, heads at the foot of this mesa, with the volume of very considerable rivu,et within a few hundred yards of the di- vide. Such streams evidently obtain water supply from the precipitation which falls north of the divide, as pointed out on page 16 These facts indicate that the water shed tributary to this reservoir is not }nly large but favorable to a high per ,entage of run off"
 The reservoir company has apprOpTi- tied as q canal the channel of the river rom the dam to the points of diver ion in the Sal5 river valley. Hence, IS soon as the dam is completed the stored water will be available for use y the farmers.
 The precipitation on the watershed to the reservoir is estimated t twenty-three inches per annum, and here is no reason to doubt that the eservoir will be filled in ordinary ears. Nobody, after seeing the great foods carried by the river in winter, Oubts that the construction of this eservoir will settle the water ques- c ion" of the Salt River valley, since a he company proposes to make the q esrvoir available for supplementing t he water supply of the lands already t nder canal, as well as fer a greatly f increased acreage. t
 The Ccz5 of stored water to the farm h IS will not, it is thought, exceed one il Ollar Der acre. The vast amount of en- q inCering work required by the govern h