The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-08-06

tcopyright, 1911, by Frank G. Carpenter).
 Washington, August ,. HHE Great American Desert is a
 thing of the past. Like Moses
 A of old in the wilderness of sinai Uncle Sam, patriarch, has struck it's rocks with his magic rod. and the water has gushed forth, creating cases richer than the valley of the Nile or the Gauges He has piled up tens of millions to re- claim the bare lands, and has an army Of engineers and laborers at work turning them into farms for his people. Last year he had i4,0o0 men digging, blasting and damming. He has already built so many canals that if they were laid end to end they would reach from New York to San Francisco and back to New Orleans, or If measured upon the Pacific would ex- tend from California to China Some of these canals carry whole rivers He has built about 800 miles of wagon roads, has excavated more than twenty miles of tunnels, and altogether has taken out enough earth to equal a ditch three feet wide and three feet deep, running clear around the world at the equator and in addition to equal a hole three feet square run. through the globe from one side to the other, and a similar tunnel dug at right angles to this from pole to pole.
 Where the Gases Are
 This is the work of the reclamation services, which is backed by a capital of about ninety million dollars, and of which sixty millions are already invested. There are ten millions left of the reclamation fund. and in addition twenty millions more which have been appropriated by Congress and are at the command of the service. This great work is headed by some of the ablest organizers and most skilled engineers of Uncle Sam's scientific army. I have spent this week at their office building in Washington It has large number of clerks, although the actual constructive operations are scat tered all over the west. The Washing ton bureau has photographs of every stage of the work. It receives daily re- ports of what is being done, and one can get a bird's-eye view of the mighty un- dertakings which are now under way. The government scientists have made maps of the country, testing every slope. hill and valley. They have measured the water in the air overhead. and with diamond drills have tested the beds of the canyons beneath in sinking the foun- dations for dams which will store rp the rainfall. They have done so much drill ing that if the holes could be placed end to end they would reach more than ten miles down into the rocky heart of old Mother Earth.
 In company with Dr. F. H. Newell the director. and one of the engineers. MT. c. J. Blanchard, I have gone over the maps showing where the various recla nation projects are situated. Broadly speaking, they cover the whole arid west extending from the great plains to the Pacific. Those of the great plains are in country which has been largely de- voted to grazing and which had enough rainfall to produce food for the millions of buffaloes which once wandered over it. These projects are in the western parts of Kansas, Nebraska and the Da- kotas.
 Another division Is situated on the great plateau which lies between the Rocky mountains and the Sierra Nevadas and Cascades, while others are on the Pa cific slope still farther west. There are in all 3i of them in each of which work is now going on, and in many of which water is already flowing over the lands.
 Uncle Sam's Big Dams
 Every one of these oases contains won ders enough for letter and some are so remarkable that they cannot be passed without notice. They are all watered