T

HE North Platte Project is located in southeastern Wyoming and western Nebraska and extends about 250 miles along the North Platte River below its junction with the Sweetwater. The water for this project will be stored at the Pathfinder reservoir, which will flood about 23,000 acres, and will impound about one million acre feet of water.

This amount of storage is made possible by the construction of the Pathfinder dam, about three miles below the junction of the North Platte and Sweetwater Rivers, in a granite canyon. The dam is to be 210 feet high, about 100 feet thick at the base, 16 feet at the top, and will be of arch form, having a radius

of 150 feet. It is expected that this work will be completed in 1908.

By means of gates in the diversion tunnel will be regulated the amount of water necessary for irrigation purposes on the North Platte Project. The water will be let directly into the North Platte River bed below the dam and will flow down the present channel to various points where it will be diverted for use on the lands to be irrigated.

Although there are several canals proposed on the North Platte Project, all of which are to receive water from the Pathfinder reservoir, only one of these, the Interstate Canal, is yet under construction. This canal when completed will be about 150 miles in length and will irrigate approximately 150,000 acres of land, exclusive of bottom lands already under irrigation by minor canals. The average elevation of this land is between 3,800 and 4,200 feet above sea-level.

It is well located for irrigation purposes, and the principal products, alfalfa, corn, sugar-beets, oats, potatoes, etc., will find ready markets in Omaha, Denver and central Wyoming.

The farm unit under this project will be 80 acres. The soil is of excellent quality, free from injurious substances.

The construction of this canal has been undertaken under three sections of approximately fifty miles each. The first section of fifty miles has already been completed and is now in successful operation. The second section is under construction at the present time, and surveys for the third section are in progress.

All the structures, dams, flumes, culverts, etc., are of permanent character, being constructed of re-inforced concrete, so that the cost of maintenance and operation will be reduced to a minimum.

This project is served by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railway between

HIS project has for its object the irrigation of 147,000 acres of land in the Uncompahgre Valley of Colorado. This is to be accomplished by turning the waters of the Gunnison River into the valley by means of a tunnel six miles long.

The Uncompahgre Valley lies on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains at an elevation of between five and six thousand feet above the level of the sea. It is approximately 30 miles long by 7 miles wide, and contains some of the most valuable land in Colorado for raising apples and peaches.

The land under this project is really a series of small valleys and mesas, all draining into the Uncompahgre River, which runs into the Gunnison River at Delta, at the lower end of the valley.

The general trend of this valley is from southeast to northwest, and the Uncompahgre River, which rises in the high

peaks of the Rocky Mountains around Ouray, run lengthwise of the valley. The Gunnison River below Delta runs in a northwesterly direction to the Grand River, which is one of the main tributaries of the Colorado River, flowing into the Gulf of California. About twelve miles above Delta the Gunnison River makes a sharp turn to the south, where it issues from a very deep and precipitous canyon called the "Box Canyon of the Gunnison." Between this canyon and the Uncompahgre Valley lies a high range of mountains, attaining in places an elevation of about nine thousand feet above the sea, or nearly three thousand feet higher than the upper end of the Uncompahgre Valley. The Gunnison tunnel pierces this range of mountains at the most favorable place, and is designed to carry 1,300 second feet of water to the Uncompahgre Valley to supplement the very inadequate supply now furnished by the Uncompahgre River.

The Marshall Pass branch of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad runs nearly the full length of the valley, entering it by way of Cimarron Pass and Cedar Creek, just where the tunnel empties into the main canal of the irrigating system.

The town of Montrose, at an elevation of 5,800 feet is the largest town in the valley, and is the junction for the branch lines of the railroad to Telluride and Ouray, where some of the richest gold and silver mines of the world are now in operation. Besides Montrose the towns of Olathe and Delta are found lower down the valley, the latter being at the junction of the Uncompahgre and Gunnison Rivers. Delta is an important shipping point for fruit, both fresh and canned, as well as live stock and farm products of all kinds.

About 60,000 acres of the land under this project is suitable for raising Colorado (Spanish for red) apples, and certainly for looks, taste, and keeping qualities better apples are not easily found. Nearly all of this land is now in private

ownership, but a great deal of it is awaiting the advent of the water before being planted in apple and peach orchards. Last year in many places $500.00 per acre net was realized from good apple orchards in and around this valley, and there is no doubt that a most extensive business in apple and peach raising will be done when an adequate supply of water is assured on the completion of the Gunnison tunnel.

The fruit land is found on the mesas adjoining the bottom land along the Uncompahgre River. The latter is more suited for raising grain and root crops, sugar beets being a very productive crop. With an assured supply of water three to four crops of alfalfa can be relied upon every year. The mesas are generally gravelly loam, and the bottom land adobe clay, which although rather difficult to work, is extremely fertile.

The work of excavating the Gunnison tunnel was commenced in the fall of 1905, but the contractors who undertook the work made a bad failure of it, and about the end of May, of same year, turned over their plant and equipment to the Reclamation Service and abandoned the work. No time was lost, however, as the engineers of the Service picked up the work where the contractors left off, and

have continued it night and day without intermission ever since.

In the September following, new bids for completing the tunnel were asked for, but these were all so high that the engineers recommended their rejection and the continuation of the work by the government.

Since the work was started there has been a serious rise in the price of both labor and material, so that the cost of the tunnel may possibly go as high or higher than the last bids on it. This, however, cannot be told until the tunnel is finished.

To carry the immense amount of water necessary for the successful irrigation of the land under this project, some very large and expensive canals are being built in the valley, and the works in connection with these canals are of the most substantial character.

Although the Gunnison River has an immense drainage area, and a very large run-off every year, most of the water comes in the months of June and July when the snows are melting in the high mountains. For this reason it is necessary to store some of the flood waters of this river for use in the months of August, September and October, when the river gets very low in dry years. A large reservoir site on the Taylor River, one

of the main tributaries of the Gunnison, was discovered a few years ago, and withdrawn from entry, so that when the land in the valley is nearly all under cultivation, this reservoir will be used for the storage of flood waters to supplement the natural flow of the Gunnison River at its low stages.

The Gunnison tunnel will have an average section of water way of 100 square feet, and the water will have a velocity of 13 feet per second, when the tunnel is full. The tunnel will be lined throughout with concrete.

So far, the material passed through on the river end of the tunnel has been mica schist and pegmatite, with occasional veins of quartz and hard, close grained, granitic rocks. Large quantities of water have been found at this end of the tunnel, at times aggregating 500,000 gallons per day, but many of the waterveins have drained out, so that at the present writing the water to be pumped from this end of the tunnel does not exceed 200,000 gallons per day.

The valley end of the tunnel runs for a distance of 4,000 feet through a com

paratively recent deposit of gravel, sand, and boulders, with occasional seams of soft clay and frequent veins of water. This ground is extremely dangerous to handle and some caves have occurred, but it is all now securely timbered, and the water is slowly draining out, so that, when the permanent lining of concrete is put in, it can be made as safe and secure as the remainder of the tunnel.

A shaft 260 feet deep was sunk at a distance of one mile from the valley end of the tunnel and from the bottom of this shaft two headings were advanced until one of them met the heading from the valley portal last month, and the other, which is in Benton shale, has advanced over a mile towards the river heading. At the present writing about one-half of the tunnel has been excavated and about three miles still remain to be done. It is expected that the tunnel will be finished in the year 1908, but no promises can be made on this subject as the uncertainties in tunneling are many and various, and the engineer's troubles are not over until the tunnel is finished, and sometimes not then.

The Strawberry Valley Project is designed to supplement the water supply in the Provo Valley of Utah, which now has an inadequate supply from Spanish Fork, and some small streams which drain into Utah Lake.

This valley is situated in what is known as the Great Basin, being a depression in the mountainous country without any outlet to the sea. The Great Basin includes the Great Salt Lake, and Carson and Humboldt Sinks.

The Provo Valley is higher than the Salt Lake Valley and contains Utah Lake, which is fresh water. The Utah Lake drains through the Jordan River to the Great Salt Lake. Provo is probably as old as Salt Lake City, and this valley is one of the first settled by the Mormon community, and is now thickly populated with the descendants of the people who crossed the mountains with Brigham Young in an early day.

The land has been subdivided as the population increased, and now there is

not enough water to go around. To supplement the water supply and give the farmers sufficient for their crops every season, it is proposed to carry about 50,000 acre feet of flood waters from the headwaters of the Colorado River, on a tributary called the Strawberry River, through the rim of the Great Basin by a tunnel 31⁄2 miles long. This water is turned into a tributary of Spanish Fork about 30 miles above the heads of the present irrigating canals, and will furnish an additional supply for irrigation for the Provo Valley in the latter part of each season.

The tunnel will have a capacity of 500 second feet of water, will be lined throughout with concrete, and will be fed from a reservoir in Strawberry Valley, formed by placing a dam 50 feet high across the Strawberry River. Work on the tunnel has not vet commenced, but bids are now advertised for August 30, of this year, and it is hoped to have this work well advanced when Winter sets in.