AZ vs. CA:04 California Exhibits, Vol. IV; Nos. 151-192

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-2- in turn, is conventionally placed at three to five per cent of the cost of constructing. In advance of any such investigation or expenditure, the preliminary data now available has been found unusually satisfactory and the costs assigned are intended to be conservative, even liberal. Under the circumstances, therefore, it is believed that the estimate will prove a safe guide. The tunnel, said to have been estimated by the Reclamation Service at twenty million dollars for fifteen and a half miles, is entirely feasible, but the rate of cost used is as low as can safely be entertained, even lower than safe for some types of construction. By following the boundary course, the length of tunnel may be reduced to approximately eight miles and the cost reduced proportionately to eleven millions, with relatively cheap construction through the remainder of the canal. An open channel through the sand hills, however, is also found entirely feasible, and while the cut in places is deep, the unit cost is low, showing, as compared with the tunnel, a final cost of but a fraction of the latter. The difficulty of keeping such a channel clear on account of blowing sand can be overcome, it is believed, within the amount allowed, by treating the banks and a margin on either side by the modern methods now in use for similar purposes and elaborately published in bulletins of the Department of Agriculture. For the first seventeen miles of canal, from the dam to the. boundary, much of which will be an enlargement of the present Yuma project canal and presumably to be done under the restrictions and supervisions of the Reclamation Service, the Services estimate plus $100,000. has been used in the following estimate:-