Arizona republican., 1906-06-24
SURVEY MEASUREMENTS
 OF ARIZONA STREAMS
A Description of the Method by Which
 It Is Done.

H. s. Reed, assistant engineer of the
 reclamation service. in charge of
 stream measurements in Arizona, re-
 turned a few days ago from stay
 in the northern part of the territory
 since the middle of last March. His
 accomplishments on this trip were the
 installing of four gauging stations and
 looking after other stations and the
 gathering of data for the service. Three
 of these stations were of the ordinary
 sort for the taking of daily measure
 ments and one was an automatic water
 stage registering device exactly like
 the one he installed last winter on
 Chevalon Fork. though it was installed
 under circumstances and conditions
 that put it in class by Itself, the only
 one in the United States, placed under
 such difficulties.
 All of these stations are for the pur-
 pose of gathering reliable data that
 will indicate the volume of water flow
 ing north toward the Grand Canyon,
 from the White Mountain watershed.
 the southern slope of which drains into the Salt and Verde rivers. The service is now equipped for keeping a very ac- curate record on most of the larger streams that drain to the north. This second automatic registering station is on Clear creek, which parallels Cheva- lon Fork some distance to the vest both running into the Little Colorado eventually. Winslow is the supply point for the Clear creek station. One of the other new stations is on the Little Colorado at St. Johns and the other two are on Silver creek another tributary of the Little Colorado, enter ing that stream west of St. Johns and just above Woodruff, which in turn is only a few miles up the Little Colo rado from Holbrook. Silver creek rms through a canyon from Snowflake to a point near Woodruff. One of these stations is near Snowflake and ihe other is near the lower end of the can yon a few miles from Woodruff.
 The valley of Silver creek, or rather the series of little valleys, from the upper end of the canyon. by Snowflake, Taylor, Shumway and Showlow to the point where Showlow creek enters Sil- yer creek, is the prettiest valley in Arizona, says MT. Reed, though of course not the largest one. The other fork, or main stream of the Little Colorado extends back from it's june ton with Silver creek near Woodruff in a generally eastern direction, to St Johns, the county seat of Apache coun- ty. and on by Springerville, thirty-five miles further up. There Is always some water in the upper reaches of the stream near St. Johns and Spring erville but it sinks below St. Johns and is in dry weather a dry river bed for a long distance. Clear creek, mentioned above, enters the Little Colorado six miles east of winslow, though the stream is often dry from near that point for a long distance. But Clear creek always carries some water and a lot of it.
 The construction of the new auto matic station on Clear creek is worthy of special notice for 1U represents a lot Of work and some money and is unique | in its inaccessibility and yet it's prom | lse of permanence and usefulness. | Clear creek for fifty or sixty miles runs through a narrow canyon with sheer | walls and can be crossed in but one or two places during that distance and | these crossings have been made pos sible only by stOckmen who have built | trails into and out of the deep gorge | It is a miniature Grand Canyon and | not so exasperatingly miniature either | for in places it is hundreds of feet deep. In his selection of a spot for the placing of the gauging station MT. Reed chose point where the canyon Is approximately 300 feet deep, and in he exploration for the selection of this point he had to let himself down 175 | feet over the cliffs by rope.
 The measuring instrument is placed II 1fty-one feet above the bed of the can ron and about 250 feet below the rim. The first, and for that matter the big sest part of the work was the building ,f trail from the rim to the bottom of he canyon. This consists partly of what he calls rope trails, being a path ut in the rocks with a rope running through rings on the upper end of iron posts, to which the engineer or visitor lings as he scales the precipitous