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Show AGRICULTURE UNDER IRRIGATION IN THE BASIN OF VIRGIN RIVER. By Frank Adams, Irrigation Awigtard. THE BASIN OF VIBGIJT RIVEE. South of the Great Basin and north of the Colorado River, comprising portions of southwestern Utah, northwestern Arizona, and southeastern Nevada, is an agricultural district perhaps as little known as any in the great Southwest. It is the region irrigated from Virgin River. (Map, PI. XIV.) Including the areas drained by all of the tributaries, the basin of Virgin River comprises a region of between nine and ten thousand square miles. Except during the summer cloudbursts the rainfall of much of this area never reaches the river; from some of it, as the upper Meadow Valley Wash, extending northward from the source of Muddy Creek, in Nevada, it never does. Consequently, the area included in the investigation with which this report will deal is considerably less than ten thousand square miles-not over six or seven thousand. This smaller area extends in irregular outline from the headwaters of the Virgin River in the 7.000-foot plateau of northern Kane County, Utah, southerly to its union with the Colorado in southeastern Nevada, approximately 200 miles. It is a typical mountain desert country, with its characteristic stretches of sand and sage brush, its cloudless sky and scorching sun. Much of the area, but that in Utah especially, was the center of volcanic eruptions and tremendous geologic displacements, until what is now the valley of Virgin River became in some sections a succession of faults and folds of intense scientific interest. Through these the stream and its feeders have slowly cut their way in winding courses, leaving the narrow valleys and flood piains which now support the thirty towns and villages of the region. The upper waters of Virgin River are in two branches, Zion Creek and East Fork or Long Valley Creek, the two joining a short distance above the settlement of Rockville, Utah. These flow for many miles through narrow canyons, below which they widen out enough in places to leave a few acres of tillable land. Below the confluence of Zion Crook and East Fork the valley of the river becomes more open. To the south is Hurricane Ledge, 5,000 and G,000 feet high, stretching away nearly 100 milew to the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, and forming one of the steps from the lower to the upper areas of the Colorado Basin. On the north, Colob Plateau, 8,000 and 9,000 feet high, forms the watershed from whose snows are fed the spring and summer flows of the Virgin River. West of Colob Plateau is a broken district in which North and La Verkin creeks have their sources, and flow southward to the river. Still to tho west the Pine Valley Mountains rise to an elevation of 9,000 feet, to feed Ash Creek on the cast and north and Santa Clara Creek on the west and south. Both are tributaries of Virgin River, the former entering it 4 miles below 207 |
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Original book: Utah exhibits [of the] State of Arizona, complainant, v. State of California, Palo Verde Irrigation District, Imperial Irrigation District, Coachella Valley County Water District, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, City of Los Angeles, City of San Diego, and County of San Diego, defendants, United States of America and State of Nevada, interveners, State of New Mexico and State of Utah, parties |