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Show 24 Similarly, Mormons were loath to push for either scientific and political definitions or for substantial centralized governmental administration, their policy of self determination ( central and local church) being better served by the dispersion of control characteristic of pioneer irrigation customs and direct county administration. 3 The pages of this chapter will assess the effort to apply scientific methods to the definition of the nature and function of water, the role of growing cities, the law of 1880, and experiments with speculative or corporate management of water resources. Scientific Definitions The application of scientific measurement of natural resources had begun at least as early as the explorations of Lewis and Clark. A wide variety of Utah surveys had followed including two early expeditions by John C. Fremont. After the Treaty of Guadelupe Hidalgo, Utah explorations of note included those of Captain Howard Stansbury and Lieutenant John Gunnison in 1849- 50, the railroad reconnaissances of John Gunnison and John C. Fremont in 1853, and three important Utah War explorations by Lieutenant Joseph Ives, Captain John Macomb, and Captain J. H. Simpson. As historians Wallace Stegner and William Goetzman explain, the impact of these military surveys fueled the engines of Manifest Destiny and defined the boundaries of the American empire. But the scientific method remained beyond the capacities of most Americans, including those who settled Utah. 4 As a result, local exploration, while notably practical, collected little empirical data. This began to change in the years after 1870 as the various branches of the natural sciences developed. Scientific institutions including the Department of Agriculture, museums, universities, and the U. S. Army contributed to this process. However, where the definition of Utah's water resources were concerned, none was more important than John Wesley Powell's U. S. Geographical and Geological Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region. As Wallace Stegner put it, the breakthrough of the scientific method constituted " the second opening of the West." 5 Powell's pioneering application of science to the classification of land and the measurement of water in relation to irrigation was absolutely central to the development of water administration in Utah. Brilliant himself, Powell attracted an extraordinary cadre of scientists, most of whom made Utah studies their stock in trade. Between them they did much to define the character and use of Utah resources. Notable among Powell's assistants were his brother- in- law A. H. Thompson, G. K. Gilbert, and C. E. Dutton, each of whom contributed to Powell's bench mark Leonard J. Arlington, Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter- day Saints 1830- 1900 ( Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1966), Chapter VIE passim. Two good treatments of this idea are: Wallace Earle Stegner, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West ( Houghton Mifflin Company Boston: The Riverside Press Cambridge, 1954); and William H. Goetzman, Exploration and Empire: The Explorer and the Scientist in the Winning of the American West ( New York: Knopf, 1946). Wallace Earle Stegner, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian. |