Arizona republican., 1904-07-17
SUCCESSFUL ENTERPRISE
Testing of the Pumping Plant on the
 Bartlett.HeardR Ranch.

The new pumping plant of the Bart lett-Heard Land and Cattle company is now in commission, having been tested yesterday and found to run sat isfactorily, throwing 325 inches of wa ter all day and lowering the level to which the water in the wells had risen since being bored, only Eleven feet. 1t is believed that with some further improvements this supply can DC in- creased 75 inches, making q continuous flow of 400 inches that can be depend ed upon when needed, as the company only intends to use this water to aug ment it's supply from the San F1an- cisco and Tempe canals. Another most pleasing feature of yester lays trial run was the test of the quality of the water made by MT. Baker. a Chem- ist of the geological survey, who is engaged in thoroughly analysing the waters of the valley from various sources and noting the change that fol- low their use on different lands. MT. Baker was present and his analysis yesterday showed that the water con tained less salt than the water of some of the pumping plants previously ir- stalled, and no evidence at all Of black alkali, the ingredient most dreaded by irrigators.
 Readers of The Republican will re- member that a few days ago there was published in this paper a lengthy arti- cle giving the conclusions of Geologist Lee of the geological survey, re
 specting the history Of the building of this valley and the conditions produe-
 ing its underground supply. Mention was made then of the probable result of the Bartlett-Heard enterprise, in ac- cordance with these conclusions. The result is as predicted and so far as the single experiment can do so the opin- ion of the geologist is verified.
 The features referred to are il re-
 spect of area and location of the un- derground water bearing gravels. It was announced by MT. Lee that the well in question was located probably within the border of the second filing of the valley with detritus from the upper reaches of the river whose chan mel at that time covered that area. The exploitation of a gravel bed for width of 57 feet, by the six wells now con- nected with the plant demonstrates pretty thoroughly that the Bartlett Heard Co. has found the stratum it was | looking for. It is located about four miles southwest of Tempe and midway between the Salt River mountains and the Double Buttes or Twin Buttes as they are sometimes called. The I2ii- ure of the same company in Its two previous attempts to get water at piac- es not far removed from the one now
 proved a success, also demonstrates tte correctness of MT. Lees theory that the water bearing gravel stratum that may be depended upon in that part of the valley is not as wide or as gen. eral as was at first believed when it
 was the popular idea that an under
 ground river could be found anywhere nnder this valley. The deepest Of the new wells is 96 feet. One of the former
 wells was sunk PA feet deep near Pet erson's siding which was supposed to
 be an ideal point for water and the ] other was 269 feet deep and was near | the date orchard. Both seemingly
 went to bed rock and only six foot | stratum of water bearing gravel was
 encountered.
 | The enterprise of the Bartlett H.srd | company has involved seventeen months of hard work, the investIgI-
 tion of some of the best pumping | plants in California and naturally a large expense account but it las brought out important facts and final
 success will undoubtedly warrant the
 outlay in time and money.
 MT. Heard says the plant is one of