Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1901-01-26
IRRIGATION IN HAWAII.
A Great Canal Twenty = Two MHes
Long just Completed.

Long just
From the Scientific American.
On the island of Maui. one of the larger
islands of the Hawaiian group, an engineer
ing feat has Just been successfully carried
through that has not Its equal In the "a
cific Islands. To supply water to the Sprech-
eisvlle plantation. a canal mas peell qus
along the slopes of the great crater OF ma
leakula and by it a stream of water now
ing $1,000 900 gallons daily is brought a DIS
lance of twenty-five miles and thence dis
tributed over the plantation lands:
1t was ordinary undertaking. the
building of this great canal, Tor IN those
TWENTY-FIVE miles from kailua gulch 10
Spreckelsvile there were gulches ana can
yonS by the score, each of which had 10 DE
crossed and there were a dozen OF more
high ridges to pass, through which 1t was
necessary to dig tunnels, some OF Whlcn
were nearly half mile in length But
thanks to the energy of the manager Oh the
plantation the ditch was plowed and sue
cessfulIv carried through. BY its means
5000 acres of sane land were reclaimed;
land which had before been considered
waste and barren; where nothing grew
but lantana bushes and here and there
few algerobas In another year it IS likely
that all this land will be placed under Gull
tivation and will flourish with green cane
Some statistics with reference to the canal
will be of interest. Work on the ditch was
begun on July 81. 1899, and the water was
flowing through 1t on September u, 19to
The work of completing the ditch had been
much delayed, OWlnS ~ lIit u
plague which afflicted the islands in the
past spring Its actual length, from kailua
gulch where the water Is taken out, 10 the
boundaries of Kihei plantation. at the
farther side of Spreckelsville plantation Is
30 miles. In this distance there are no
less than seventyfour tunnels, with an
aggregate length of 2O.so0 feet. or nearly
four miles. The longest of these tunnels Is
! 800 feet in length. and there are several
which run over O60 feet. OF open eXca-
ton there are s5.957 feet and there are
nineteen fumes whose length aggregates
] 9jJ feet.
But the most striking feature of the
ditch is the manner in which it is carried
over the numerous gulches which scar the
sides of the great extinct crater. Some of
these gulches are very deep and their sides
are nearly perpendicular To cross them
pipe lines are used, not stretched across on
trestIes but following the less expensive
and more stable method of dropping into
the gulcheS and allowing the water TO now
on the principle Of the inverted sphon. OF
these siphons there twelve along the
line of the ditch, all built of quar- ter-inch
pipe. forty-four inches in diameter Their
aggregate length Is 4, 16O feet, or nearly one
mile. The--largest of them crosses Moliko
gulch a cash in the slope of the volcano
which stretches nearly from the summit to
the sea. and which is $50 feet deep and less
than a quarter of mile wide Across this
gorge it seemed next to impossible to carry
siphon, but Engineer E. l.. Van Der
Neillen, who planned the ditch and carried
II successfully TO completion, succeeded IN
doing the work.
The completion of this great canal, which
has been named the Lowrie irrigating
canal after the gentleman who conceived
IL and pushed it to a successful finish
marks a era in Hawaii. BY 1t have
been demonstrated the possibilities in bring
ing water from distant spots in the rain
belts of which each of the islands boasts,
to the comparatively dry regions which
constitute a great portion of the area OF
many of them. The Lowrie canal cost
500, 900. but it will mean rich returns to
the stockholders in the plantation which it
supplies with water; and other plan cations
all over the group will doubtless emulate
the example of the enterprising manager of
Spreckelsville and put in similar irrigating
canals.