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Show Beaver Farmers Visit Uur Farms j jliic Jtvuowiii account, ox tne lieuv- ci Uiiueis unu sluuems cvcu-l siuu w .iic niiuuiu i-unipmg JJlslllCt. Is tuiieii nuiu cne -oeavei' (liy r'ress: kjil xuunuuy, uct. 1 an excursion ..us tus.en uie luiiioru vaney Dy uic uo,s ui uie rtgiicuiturai ciasses oi uie ueaver iiign scnooi, acconipameu uy a cousiueraDie number of interested interest-ed citizens lor tiie purpose of studying study-ing me quantity and movement of un-uergruunu un-uergruunu waters in that valley. .iuuui ten cars of people went down, rjtsides the high school boys there were Mr. and Mrs. L. E. Harris, Mr. and Mrs. James Mayes, Heber Dean, Airs. Jos. R. Murdock, Mr. and Mrs. lvent Morgan, Supt. Carlisle, Frank smith, Robert White, County Agent, jfrice, Mr. and Mrs. Jos. Jackson ana a number of others. The excursion was met and cordially cordi-ally we corned by Dr. Bybee, Mr. Ca-ces, Ca-ces, the Weber brothers and a number num-ber of the Milford Lions club. They were shown around the valley where chey inspected and sampled several of the 200 gushing wells, which send forth their water from the vast underground un-derground reservoir to water i the thirsty desert on the surface. The size and discharge, the cost of installation, instal-lation, and the cost of operation of each well was erplained. The Grim-alfalfa Grim-alfalfa fields were inspected and one threshing outfit was visited and the seed inspected. Several model homes were shown to the ladies of the party. Then followed the climax of the trip : Director White of the U. S. Hy-drographic Hy-drographic Survey met the excursionists excur-sionists at one of his stations and after showing them his wells and instruments in-struments proceeded to give an illustrated il-lustrated lecture on the quantity and movement of the underground water in the valley. The lecture was given in the open air on the very ground he was talking about, above the vast reservoir of water he has been study ing and measuring for the last three years. His charts, wels and plant plats were before the crowd for inspection. in-spection. According to Mr. White, the water tables lies between 8 and 12 feet from the surface in the lower end of the valley and gradually getting deeper as the valley rises to the south. Very little of the water leaves the reservoir by the way of run off underground. Most of it is taken up by transpiration of the plants, and by evaporation. The later method, however, how-ever, is not considerable; no evaporation evapora-tion taking place at all from below seven feet. Mr. White explained his method of measuring the rise and fall of the water-table. He uses the same kind of instrument that is used by the U. S. Department in measuring running streams for power and irrigation purposes. pur-poses. He is the first engineer who has adapted this meter to this purpose. pur-pose. He drills his well down into the free water, 'then places a float upon the surface of the water. The float is attached to the machine above, which in turn is operated by a clock, writing every hange across a chart. It requires two weeks to complete each record, and it is absolutely abso-lutely correct if not interferred with. Mr. White showed that the water-table water-table raised several inches during each night and lower during the day. due to transpiration of the plant life on the surface. About 10 a. m., as the plants begin to drink their daily si'pply of mater the machine begins to record a sinking of the water table. ta-ble. Durinp the night they seem to rest and the water-table gradually comes back to normal. Even the native salt grass and grease woods showed a remarkable use of water during their frowing season. After the growing season is over, or in plowed fields, the machine records a straight line across the chart, showing show-ing conclusively that the accelera- tions recorded during the growing j season, are due to the transpiration of plants. According to Mr. White, the grea' est undeveloped resources of soutr, ern Utah, are its underground waters. wa-ters. He says with this water brouHr to the surface, the county lan ea 1y sustain twice the present population. popula-tion. Most of this water is acessible at a cost that will enable ordinary agricuture to return profits. Mr. White impresses one with th" thorou?hne.s of his knowedge of the subject. He has been studying this problem for the last three summers sum-mers in this valley and has made discoveries dis-coveries never before known. His headquarters are at Washington, D. C, and he has been sent directly by the Department to make this special investigation. |