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Show Record the easiest way. In working the placer bars we used the river sometimes in connection with our work. I never knew of anybody down there 4471 that diverted the entire flow of the river. I never did it myself. In the canyon the river is confined to such an extent that it is impossible for it to change its channel. Outside of the canyon the river change its channel once in two or three years; sometimes it may change two or three times in one season; and as the water goes down and comes up it may change from day to day. I wouldn't say down every stage in the water brings a rearrangement of sand. The sand rearrangement usually occurs in the high water floods, and the spring floods cut those sand bars out and carries them down. I don't think it deposit them farther down. It raises the level of the river above the canyon, kind of spreads this sand out, and then when the water starts to go down it rearranges the sand, so that in one place in the river you may find a sand bar today, and it will not be there tomorrow. Every year I have been in Bluff I have observed floods in the fall of the year. I have seen the river raise 30 feet in one night. That does not have the same effect on the sand bars as the spring floods. The fall floods usually deposit sand, they raise it up and go down suddenly. The sand remains on all dead water. The spring floods raise slowly and fall slowly and the water eats the sand bars up. The result is the same in that it brings a rearrange-ment of all the sand bars. I would say the river channel or river bed above the canyon, that is, above Chinle Creek, was unstable, but I would not say that of the channel below Chinle Creek. Below 4474 Chinle Creek there are no sandbars to speak of as far as I have been. All of the sand bars I have spoken of are above Chinle Creek. William F. Oliver testified for defendant on direct 4475 examination as follows: I live in Blanding, Utah. I came to Blanding in 1911 from New Mexico. I am a cattle man. 647 |