OCR Text |
Show -21- husband the water. This canal should be, say, 45 feet in width and 10 in depth and forty miles in length through Mexican territory. We then can avail ourselves of the channel of Old River for thirty or forty miles through American delta, simply by deepening and straightening it, and finally extend it by smaller cuts some fifteen or twenty miles further up to the eastern depression of the basin, and to the base of the mountains. After reaching the American soil the lateral canals may be cut at such intervals as the requirements for irrigation may demand, and of course the expense will be in due ratio to the number required, and that can only be determined by actual experiment. The area of land which may be irrigated may be set down at 20 miles in width and 40 in length. This estimate must be taken with all due allowance, and in connection with the obstacles in making the estimate. There are, in the first place, a portion of the lands within the boundary which may be irrigated, all irreclaimable, owing to their formation and composition, such as sand-drifts, elevations, mud-volcanoes, alkalies, and salt-beds; and, finally, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to make an estimate of the volume of water which may be spared or safely taken from the Colorado River or the area of lands which a given volume of water will irrigate. All of this cannot be correctly fixed a priori^ and can only be determined by actual experiment. I can only say that there is the above-named amount of lands within the American boundary which will admit of irrigation from the Colorado River, and that those lands are unusually rich, being composed of clay, sand, marl, and shells, and withal presenting a remarkably favorable surface for irrigation. Ebenezer Hadley, County Surveyor of Los Angeles, and Deputy County Surveyor of San Bernardino. O. M. WOZENCRAFT. |