Arizona republican., 1910-01-03
LONGEST AQUEDUCT MARA eL OF
 ENGINEERING

Imperial Rome's longest aqueduct
 was rifty-seven miles; New Yorks
 Catskill aqueduct. now under con
 struction. will be ninety-one miles
 long. but the Los Angeles aqueduct in
 the san Fernando valley. now under
 construction. will be 2i0 miles long
 and involves engineering features hay
 ing no parallel in history. Burt B.
 Heinly. secretary to the chief engineer
 of the Los Angeles project, in the Jan
 uary number of Popular Mechanics.
 describes the great undertaking in a
 simple but thrilling manner He says:
 Two hundred and fifty miles to the
 north of Los Angeles, beyond the Coast range or mountains and across
 the barren waste of the sand blown Mojave desert in the owens valley. It is in this valley that Los Angeles is going for it's water supply. The val ley lies in a narrow and deep cleft in the earth with towering ranges on each side. The eastern range cOmposes the Inyo mountains upon which little rain ever falls. but the west range is the now capped Sierra, the roofshed of the North American continent
 The owens valley in itself receivel little rainfall because the peaks of the Sierra rob the clouds of their moisture
 as they pass from the Pacific ocean eastward The owens river flows from north to south through the valley. This
 river has it's headquarters in the Sierra
 not far from the Yosemite Park. and ! by the time it reaches its outlet in l owens lake, it has received the drain | age of 2S00 square miles.
 owens lake. miles long and 16 miles long with an average depth of ] Al feet. is body of water with no outlet. This lake lies just at the mouth ! of the owens valley and is included | in the extreme northern end of the J Mohave desert. As huge evaporat | ing pan for the waters of owens river, | through countless ages this body of
 water has become so heavily iInpreg mated with mineral salts as to outrival | the Great Salt Lake in density. In de-
 signing the plan of the aqueduct it was necessary therefore to carry the water around and above the lake in q con duit high on the bench of the noun { tain range: also. to go far enough fSjm ] the lake so that there would be no z danger of receiving the lakes alkalin- ' ity through the aqueduct intake. After
 many months of investigation by Unit | ed States government and city chem ' ists point on the owens river. eleven miles north of the town of Independ ! ence. California, and thirty-five miles ! from owens lake was found to he ad mirable for the purpose and here the
 intake stakes were set.
 The valley is thinly inhabited and ! the mountain watershed lies lonely in
 it's solitude Moreover much of the | valley and all this part of the Sierra ] forest reserve which, with the city's
 land purchases of more than 1iO square miles, guards the city in per petuity against any contamination of 1 the water supply Composed of melt 1 ing snows and glacial ice. the streams ! of the region are of great purity. In | fact the water is of only half the hard
 ness of the water the city is now us ! ing. The flow which will also be re- I ceived from artesian wells along the | first twenty miles of canal is of even
 greater softness than that coming from ! the mountain watershed
 The article is well illustrated and . some interesting comparisons with the ] New York project are made.