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Show Hyde- D 627 Q Upstream from Comb wash? A Yes, that comes up from Colorado, McElmo wash on the north side Q Have you ever engaged in any enterprise to attempt to confine the San Juan river to a definite channel? A Yes, we have done that; that was our big trouble. Q At what point did you do that? A Did most of that at Bluff and at Rincon, at the trading post. Q You are referring to the trading post near Mexican Hat? A The mouth of Chinle wash; we had trouble in all the places. One instance there, there was a sand ledge, sand shale, lime shale protruding over the river about twelve or fourteen feet high; the river came and hit it solid; we went to work and built a pier on the top of the ledge, cottonwood log pier, notched up hog pen style, about twelve feet high, and filled that with rock; then over that we put a big, heavy cottonwood, extended it over the river channel beyond the edge of this cliff; built a water wheel so the wheel would hang in the river current at the face of this cliff. We got it to going; started to raise a little garden with it; and went out one morning and the river was over one hundred yards the other side of it, a sand bar filled in up to eighteen inches deep on our lower paddles; quit us entirely. That is common in that shifting sand, if that is the idea you want. Q Did the river at that point ever get back where you had built 2595 |
