Yerington times. [volume] (Yerington, Nev.) 1907-1932, 1912-11-23
WATERS OF GREAT BASIN.
Important Work Carried on Measur-
ing Flow of Desert Streams.

The Great BASIN OF the United
States is designated by geogfaphers
as that intermountain country lying
the Sierra Nevada system, covering
portions of Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Ne
vada, Arizona and California 1t is
called the Great Basin, because the
rivers which rise in it do not flow
to the sea, bat for the most part
empty into lakes, from which the wa
ter is evaporated. Among these lakes
the largest is Great Salt Lake, which
receives and disposes of the discharge
of number of rivers, the most inn
portant being the Bear, the Weber
and the Jordan. Others are Owens
Lake, which receives the flow from
the Owens River basin; Walker lake.
from the Walker River basin; Carson
Sink, including Humboldt Lake, into
which flow the waters of Carson and
humboldt rivers; and Pyramid and
Winnemucca lakes, which receive the
discharge of Truckee river All the
lakes mentioned are located in Neva-
da except the Great Salt Lake, which
is in Utah, and Owens Lake, which is
in eastern California. In the Ore
gon portion of the Great Basin there
are such lakes as Malheur, Harvey
and Warner. Lake Tahoe, which lies
partly in California and partly in Ne
vada, is high Sierra lake. which re-
ceives the water from the surround
ing mountain peaks and discharges
it through the Truckee into Pyra-
mid and Winnemucca lakes. There
are many other bodies of water in the
Great Basin of more or less import
ance.
Practically all of the country in
cluded within the Great Basin is des-
ert though the aspect of some parts
has been. changed materially by irri-
CATION Much of the soil is exceed
ingly fertile when water is supplied
to it, as was long ago demonstrated by
the Mormons, who settled in that
country and founded strong and
prosperous colony that has since taken
prominent part in the development
of the West.
The Great Basin contains two irri
CATION projects of the Government
the TruckeeCarson project, in Neva-
da which will ultimately cover 200,-
600 acres, and the Strawberry Val
ley project, in Utah. The new mu-
nicipal water supply for the city of
Los Angeles s taken from the Great
Basin through long conduit, the
conception and construction of which
have been noteworthy feature in
recent engineering development
Along certain edges of the basin,
where it ascends to the mountain
creSts, like the Wasatch Range in
Utah, and the Sierra in California
there are many valuable sources of
water power, some of which have been
probably developed
In region like the Great Basin,
the economic development of which
is so entirely dependent on its water
resources, studies of the flow OF
streams cannot fail to be of the ut
most importance. During the last
70 years or more work of this kind
has been carried on by the United
States Geological Survey, which has
recently issued Water Supply Paper
200, containing results of measure
ments of stream flow made in this
basin during the year 1910 The work
was done in all parts of the basin and
the report contains records of flow
obtained at 9S stations.
Copies of this report may be OBJ
tanned on application to the Director,