| OCR Text |
Show Record all of the distance from Farmington to Arboles; and from Farmington to Bluff I followed the roar that leads down to the river. You could get into the river here and there through the canyon and view it, which I did, but in many places there was no passage- way along its banks, and from Farmington to Bluff I did 1837 not follow immediately down the bank of the river. I was in there in September, 1914. I would say that it was probably low water period, or nearly so, at that time, and I arrived at the general conclusion that the river during August and September is not at its minimum low stage but is at a low stage. I did not have occasion to cross the river between Farmington and Bluff on this trip, but on the survey we crossed it both above and below Bluff, that is, between Bluff and the dam site, and from Bluff up to the end of the reservoir site, some thirty or forty miles. We had to cross the river to make our surveys and in 1838 crossing took into consideration the character of the bed. The river bed was sand, quicksand, very dangerous in fording, and most places sand waves were running, some twelve to eighteen inches high. The water was shallow; when I say shallow, twenty- four to twenty- six inches deep on an average where we crossed. The water in the channel at Bluff was about twenty- four or thirty- six inches; " it ( twenty- four or thirty- six inches) seemed uniform throughout the whole stretch of river we worked on." A possible dam site was, of course, located in the canyon between two narrow walls, and at that particular point we had rock clear across the 1839 bed of the river. The contemplated dam was two hundred and fifty feet high and was located just below Chinle Creek, so as to take in the discharge of that creek. The contemplated dam would have submerged the entire area in the reservoir site, probably forty or fifty miles above the dam site. It would have submerged the 1840 town of Bluff and would have backed the water up some twenty- five miles above Bluff. I don't know of any stream between Bluff and Farmington, except possibly the Mancos, which I would call only a |
