Deseret evening news. [volume] (Great Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1867-1920, 1904-09-14

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cost sink into comparative insIgnla.
| canoe.
But there are other means Of maxi
! ing the Missouri contribute to Amarl-
can prosperity Your correspondent
was fortunate enough to take a trip
OF some hundred miles up, the river
ON a steamer pilOted by the last OF the
| old-ume river kings, Captain fGrant
Marsh, famous as q pilot ana river eX-
llorer. under Custer Forsythe, sheri-
dan Miles and an important factor
IN many Indian expeditions There
vas litle In common In my meventful
trlp' ana such n one as when Captain
Marsh brought back To Bismarck the
hfst news OF the dreadful Custer Mas
sdere which made 20 widows of army
oiheers stationed at Fort Lincoln. lust
across the river, and brought likewise
score OF wounded soldiers from Re-
nos detached troops The Sioux have
nad their passing and unchers and
farmers may dwell and an without
rear OF SWIFT humiliation from maraud-
ing braves But from the pilot house
OF me liluc steamer | could discern.
w the not far future, development
aIYIB the Missouri, which would
WORK yet greater change than
that OF the past decade. For hun.
areas of miles the river Is encom.
passed by steep blulfs from 200 to
10Y rect hBh and from two to three
mlles apart Between these, the river
WINDS, a stream Of from a quarter to
a. nan mile wide gradually changing
Jus course from side 10 side. but form.
ing great areas OF bench" lands. TWEEN.
", thirty. and fifty feet hlgh-hundreds
OF thousands Of acres OF SURPRISINGLY
fertile soil, needing only irrigation. And
the watering of this land turns out to
be among the easiest Of projects
RICH COAL REDS FOR PUMPING.
Every buff Of the Missouri showed
coal vein Of from inches to u feet In
thickness, IN fact enormous areas of
North Dakota are underlaln with splen.
did ignite coal worth at the mine only
a dollar ton. There you have IL. The
water OF the Missouri, llmtless,
ceaseless supply Just above it land,
made by centuries OF river sediment
and Immediately az hand one Of the
cheapest known fuels to pump the
water onto the land II did not take an
engineer TO see the feasibility ana
cheapness Of this undertaking.
But why ! asked myself, had Il not
been done? Why had not farmers them.
selves put In wlndmlls and small
pumps2 Was there. after ALL some in
surmountabc obstacle? No Talks
with a few Of them showed them as
ignorant Of irrigation and It's simplicity
as are the farmers Of Vermont In fact
they were rainfall" farmers and they
spoke Of irrigation as a mysterious and
complicated process,
My return 10 Bismarck justified my
conclusions | found two government
engineers even then investigating the
problem, and far beyond supplying the
great areas Of lower benches, they pro-
pose to elevate the water hundred aud
possibly two hundred feet out onto the
great mesas | left them preparing for
n trip down the Missouri from the Da-
kota- Montana line, In q small skff on
careful reconnaissance Of the Old
Muddy, its tributaries and It's lands.
II they find conditions as favorable as
they would seem, a party Of surveyors
will be put upon the project at once to
make surveys and detailed plans, to be
followed by the installation Of giant
pumps, water engines each OF which
will create a small river.
This work OF the government Ia
fraught with unbounded possibilities for
North Dakota. A great empire lies
latent In the midst Of the state, the
worth Of which her own people are but
beginning TO comprehend The fertility
Of the ages Is stored In the ink black
soil and the water OF half a continent
flows by, an unused agent Of wealth
The day Of great things for the land Of
laughing Water may be close at hand.