Albuquerque evening citizen., 1905-09-09
IRRIGATION IS
CLAIMING NOTICE
New York Herald Tells Its
Importance, Past, Present
and Future
ABLE ARTICLE BY ABLE WRITER

Colbert L. McClurg, in the New York
Herald)
There is more land on the globe de-
Veloped under irrigation than under
rainfall.
1t has been said that the first irri-
eating canals were run from the four
rivers of Paradice, Assyria, Nineveh,
Egypt, Peru and Mexico owed their
beauty and power to the ordered min
istration of conducted water. The
loftiest achievements of the human
mind and heart mad birth in the rain
less lands. Irrigation always has been
the religion Of semi-arid lands-the
faith which sees in the desert the
promise of springing blades.
The early powerful civilization of
which recorded history remains were
fostered and developed on breezy. arid
plateaus, with CRITICAL systems of ir-
r1gation. Such was that which carved
the mighty bas-reliefs of NineYeh, or
reared the hanging gardens of Babylon
or which raised ancient Egypt from
the rank of a bankrupt nation to a
rich land, with teeming population and
all the kindly fruits of the earth un-
er the beneficent influences of Father
Sihor.
The western world was to furnish
yet more magnificent proofs of the
transcendent value of irrigation as the
foundation of nation building. The
empires of the Aztecs and of the Pei
Tuvians stand unparalleled in the
power and beauty conferred by as per-
feet systems of irrigation as the world
has seen.
II was not to be expected that the
bulk of the pro-Columbian aborigines
of America would attain the agricul-
tural development (and the irrigation
system accompanying it) of those two
great nations, Mexico and Peru. In
Colorado, we find rock hewn cisterns,
made by the Pueblo Indians, zig-zag
terraces on the canyon sides and open
stone set bitches, where they watered
their garden patches. In New Mexico
there are only 100000 acres of land
under irrigation out of 10000 600
which make up the territory, and ex-
cept in few instances, these systems
of irrigation were devised bv the In
dlans and improved by the Spaniards
having done service for three cen.
turtles.
Arizona, where the pre-Columbian
culture in many points approached
most closely the distinctive deyelop-
ment of Mexico, there was once two
million acres of land under irrigation
where the modern American can
show but 337 900 acres under ditch.
In the valleys of the Salado and ella
rivers there are several long forgotten
cities, which seem to have had from
100000 to 100000 inhabitants. and
their water ways are said by engi-
neers to be maryels of engineering
skill.
In considering what the blessings of
water meant to these ancient Ameri-
cans, we have only to remark the SUI
preme part it played in their folk lore
and religion. The whole religion of
the southwest, it has been said, may
be summed up in single phrase, a
prayer for rain!"
The zig-zag flash OF the Lightning
across the horizon meant succor in
famine to the ancient Pueblo Indian
who first had our lands. The light
ming meant assured crops and resur
rection and gave birth to the form
of snake worship which prevailed II
our southwest edificatiOn of tn,
snake, whose sinuous course suggest
ed that Of the lightning-as the prin
ciple of water.
The snake dance at Moqui is a rit,
celebrated in honor of water-tht
snake symbolizing the rain. and IN,
guajes, or rattles, the thunder which
goes with the lightning. There II
something pitiful in the constant iter
alton on textiles and pottery of tn,
Old symbols for cloud, rain, sun anC
the heart of the sky; and, above all
of the water snake, of which the wore