New Britain herald., 1924-01-30
WORLD'S LARGEST BARRAGE PLANNED Is a Great Dam to Be Built
 In India

| "dSnlnEIon, U. N. Jdl. oV.--~INe"S from India that the worlds greatest tarrage is to be laid down in the In dus Valley does not mean that a new world war is in progress with an in ferno of bursting shells, but that Great Britain's engineers are going about the peaceful business of tanning a great river and adding millions to acres of the earth's tillable area.
 What a barrage is, and how this latest of great reclamation projects compares with the leading irrigration works of the United States and the rest of the world, is told in the follow ] ing bulletin from the Washington, D. c. heedquarters of the National Geo. graphic society:
 Unlike the famous Assuan dam across the Nile and such well known Americap structures as the Elephant Butte, Roosevelt and Pathfinder dams, tenn is to be barraa, not dam. Both barrages and dams work toward the same ends: to help get river water op the land: but they go about it in somewhat different ways.
 Barragc Merely Raises Water Level
 .The barrage is a low dam, over or through which the water continues to flow. Its function is to raise and keep the water at certain height so that part of it will run off into canals on the river banks. The remainder goes tumbling over the burrage and on down the river bed. The barrage is, in word, a colossal elder brother to the diversion weirs that turn water from main canals into minor canals.
 "The dam, on the other hand, 10 primarily storage structure that creates a great reservoir in which the entire river flow for much of the year when it is needed in the valleys below. Then the stored water is fed out through sluices.
 Few Great Barrages in |. s.
 'The physical geography of the United States is such that practically all its irrigation development has been basen on the use of dam made reser- voirs rather than on barrages Only one big barrage is part of the many Sg GAtifiD utNNioVtu by luC United States reclamation service, the so-called Laguna dam across the Colo rado river a few miles above Yuma, Arizona. This structure merely makes a sort of huge permanent wave in the Colorado, but it is sufficient to divert hundreds of thousands of gall Ions Of water into great canals which flow off along both the Arizona and the California shores.
 The Indus barrage, which will be built near cukkur in the Sind, will be the greatest barrage in the world, both in length--which will be almost a mile--and in the amount Of water diverted. Seven canals will flow out on the level created by the new struc- ture and will furnish water estimated to be enough to irrigate six million acres Of land now barren. This is a region greater than the entire area of Massachusetts.
 U. $. Takes World Honors in Dams
 Two of the canals on the right of ] the river will be wider than the Suez Canal, and one Of the waterways on Inc left bank will be nearly half as l broad again. The remaining channels | will be narrower but will carry | mighty streams themselves.
 Among existing irrigation struc- .ures, the Assuan Dam across the Nile | s often pointed 10 as the greatest. In \ point of length it probably is, since t is 1 i-4 miles fro mabutment to tbutment. Its i46 feet of height, however. is overtopped by at least i've American irrigation dsms--Arow- -ock, Idaho. 34a feet: Shoshone. Wyoming, BPS; Elephant Butte, New Mexico. 3oe; Roosevelt Arizona, 2so; ind Pathfinder, Wyoming. 2is. In the natter Of the amount of water im- world honors among arti- icial reservoirs should probably go to he Elephant Butte Dam, across the Rio Grande River in New Mexico. ' ;uch measurements are best made. in he number of acres the water would over one foot deep. The capacity of he Elephant Butte reservoir is more han 35o,0O0 feet greater than that rested by the Assusn Dam"