The San Angelo press. (San Angelo, Tex.) 1897-1907, 1905-05-25

thirsty earth, the name desert has
lost its significance. If it were
possible for some old worrior of
bygone ages to pass this way again
and see how portions of his arid
haunt have been nursed into life
by the skill of the white man, the
sight would cause him to think he
was the victim of some trick i'll
magic. All this life and color and
productlveness, sprlnging so spon-
taneously from what seems to be
waste when first considered, seems
as mystifylng as the work of the
necromancer, who plants seed
and brings forth flower as you
look; except in the latter case you
know your eye is being deceived
by the cunning of his hand, while
in the former you are made to un-
derstand that the result IS not
strange at all-that this seemingly
lifeless soil, gray and dry as ashes,
is really very fertile if moisture is
supplied.
The arid belt has been aptly de-
scribed as an oversight of Nature,
The soil has the germs of life, but
they remain dormant without
water. In many instances there is
an abundance. of moisture near by
but it has never had access to the
famished land. In bringing them
together man is getting the results
Nature intended, hut failed to al
together provide for.
Providing water to quench the
age-long thlrst of those lost lands
has given rise to many undertake
iDgs which are as novel as they
are gigantic. One of these 10 in
Idaho. On the Snake River-so
called because it is as crooked as
reptile in n hurry-are the Shos-
hone and Twin Falls, second and
third in Importance to great Ma
CARA. The last named have fall
of one hundred and eighty-four
feet. a tremendous lot of good
water has plunged over that pre-
clpiCe and gone to waste, Sloping
gently to the westward from these
falls is a tract of land two hun
dred and forty-four thousand
acres in extent which is as bar
rem as q floor, and where the sun
is generally hot enough to blister
the back of jack rabbit. If the
water can be saved from the falls,
and distributed over that area, al
most anything will grow upon it.
That has been proved. The task
of saving it is now under way.
The whole scheme of canals and
laterals will constitute q system
requiring over one thousand miles
of excavation. The main canal
will be eighty feet wide at the
bottom, and will carry volume
of water ten feet III depth. The
furtherest point where water will
be seventy miles from the falls.
By the state of Idaho making APP
plication, the land to be reclaim
ed by this scheme has been with
drawn from the public domain.
This means that the United States
government has transferred title
to the state. Every buyer of
a water-right is to be a stockhold-
er IN the canal. When one-Aalf
the land, or one-half the capacity
of the canal, is sold to settlers,
after the completion of the sys-
TEN, they then take possession
and control of it. The state fur
Their guarantees that no more land
shall be sold than there is water
to accommodate. Work on this
giant undertaking began year
ago last April, and it will require
three years to complete 1t.
In Utah another big undertake
ing will soon be under way to re-
store 100000 acres of land. Up in
the mountains of that state, only
n short distance from the world
famous dead sea, there is a great
shallow pond of water about %
miles long, and about eight feet
deep on the average. This body of
water is formed from the accumu-
lation of melting snow from the
surrounding mountains, and is
really nothing more than n flood
ed plateau. When the dry season
sets in, the sun begins to steal the
moisture from the lake, and dur
ing each summer takes away four
feet of it's depth by evaporation,
This is a great loss because in the
plain below there is an immense
district lying parched and lifeless
for want of the moisture. The
problem Is to stop the depreda,
tions of the greedy, thievlng sun,
and get this water into the valley
First the area Of the lake will be
decreased and its depth increased
Depth reduces evaporation. bikes
will be constructed so as to cut of
all the surrounding marshes, ther
the bottom of the lake proper