Arizona republican. [volume] (Phoenix, Ariz.) 1890-1930, 1906-11-22
THE SECOND FOOT
AS A WAFER UNIT
ACCESSIBILITY of its General Adoption
and the. Discardins of the Miners
Inch.

1t has been suggested By engineers
OF the reclamation service that the time
has arrived for beginning the reform OF
educating the people to a newer and
and more up TO date system Of measur-
ing irrigation water OF Of designatin
it after il IS measured Briefly the
suggestion IS to abandon the miners
inch as a unit of measurement and sub
stitute therefor the second foot. There
are two reasons for this. one is that
the second foot is a more accurate
measurement and the other is that the
second foot is the official unit employed
by the government II is incOnvenien-
and perplexinng to get all government
measures and estimates in second feet.
then to understand them have to re-
solve the quantity into miners inches
and after all not know exactly what
that means. The miners inch is a ives
tern term and its meaning is different
in different states. There is one stand
ard in California and another in Colo
RADIO, and other states adopt one or the
other as they see fit. An explanation
of the difference in this article would
know that there is a difference and on
this all authorities agree. And after
all a miners inch is an indefinite term.
even when the standard is understood.
An aperture of certain dimensions I'M
der certain conditions is supposed to
permit the passing Of a certain number
Of miners inches. under a certain pres
sure or weight of water above. An
aperture twice As large would theOret-
icaIly accommodate twice the volume
of water. but by reason Of numerous
things there is a difference.
The government uses the second foo
as a unit and makes its calculations on
that basis. a second foot is a cubic
foot OF water passing given point in
a second. In other words if one has
box headgate just a foot wide and &,
foot deep and it runs back just a foot
and is level fun Of water, when that
box full of water has passed the head
gate just its length in one second. a
second foot Of water has passed If 1t
IS desired to reduce this to miners
inches the process is 10 multiply by
forty. There is approximately forty
inches Of water in a cubic foot. If the
velocity Of the water run through tn
box described above. was such that il
would be emptied twice within sec
ond. two second feet or so miners in
ches. would be passing.
For larger calculations the govern
ment employs the acre foot. or enough
Of these second feet to cover an acre
An acre foot is an acre OF land covered
one foot deep with water The agrf-
culturists have estimated about how
many acre feet of water are needed on
land of a certain character. to raise this
crop or that successfully. SO this unit
is very simple and convenient one.
For instance the capacity of the Roose-
welt reservoir is approximately 1,100,-
600 acre feet of water; that is il will
hold water enough to cover that man,
acres one foot deep. And as il
is estimated that the lands OF the val
ley will REQUIRE from three to five feet
OF water a year 10 properly irrigate
them. depending on the crop and Other
conditions it is easy to approximate the
amount of land that can be watered by
it, The goveInmen generally manages
10 get the best there is and it has de-
cided to use the second foot and acre