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Show F. II. Bigelow of Climafological Department Tells of Ae-complishments. Ae-complishments. H WORTH MUCH TO PBOPliK H OF THK UNITED STATES Vast Sum Being Spent by Oov- eminent for Hcnelit of the Public. Professor F. II. Blgelow, chief of the Tnitcd States government ellniatologlcal department, with headquarters ll J!" Ington, U. C, with Mrs. Ulpt-low. a stop-pine stop-pine :it the Knutsfcml hotel. Profcsoi Bisclow Is In Immediate charge of .1 new brunch of government work. p,",Il1? that has never boon attempted hefmo Mio scientific history of tiie world, tho measurement of the evaporation of watei under comprehensive coml tions. The evaporation of water from .snos, from water, from mud. from soil and from plants has heretofore only been Ssed it. One year ago the govornn tout ot-tacked ot-tacked the problem in earnest and as spent a good many thousand dollaia, ho much Professor Blgelow will not sa, In evperhnenls. The work Is being carried on a" over the United States, but more particularly in the west, where the nee s 1 of Irrigation are lite greatest. our thou- ?and are at work on the matter. 1 Imperial valley In California, where the nc wlv-formed Salton sea Is. was chosen tis t ho best place to make the observations In a desert. Professor Blgelow began pre-Urrlnary pre-Urrlnary work there last year, but nr-live nr-live observations only last I-ebruarj. ho sucivssful has bc-n the work Hint Pro-(essoi Pro-(essoi Blgelow thinks he has about worked out the mathematical formula nhlih expresses the rale of evaporation i.ulir all practical conditions. How Work Bogan. "Y began by building four towers, ac-'i Hfty feet high." said J'rofessor Blgc-low Blgc-low Saturday night In the Kniitsford. -On the ground and every ten feet up a tower we established a separate sla-Hon. sla-Hon. with pans and other Instruments lo measure the rate of evaporation, the rate of the wind, sun heat, humidity and other conditions. One of these towers is about three-quarters of a mile inland from the edge of the sea. another out in fl the water a few hundred yards, another 'ne and a half miles at sea. where the water is fifty feet deep. The Salton sea. bv the wav Is forty mjles long aim Kecntv feet" deep, and is evaporating at Ihe rate of about six feet a year. It will 'llsappear In from twelve to llfteen yearn. Bicnu.sc of Ihe high winds there, waves cci up as high as eight feet sometimes. "But to co back to the towers. e round that near the ground, say a foot ir two up. that the wind movement was hout half what it is up ten to twenty 'ret. Some times the greatest wind ae-loa ae-loa i: at the top of the towers, but not Uv.as. At least the greatest cvapora- 1 .Ion ls nt the ten and twenty-foot sta- 1 dons. The dlficrenco between somo of 1 fie upper stations and tlic ground sta- tion is often. In wind action, as high ns 70 per cent. Conditions over the nur-face nur-face of the land and the water differ greatly. Humidity near the surface of the water Is as high as SU per cent, while on the same lower at the flfty-fool flfty-fool station the humidity is only 30 per cnt Of course those llgures constantly vary, hut this illusti-atcs the relative proportion in most cases. 1 Evaporate at Same Hate. "Clear, muddy and salt water seems 'o cvaponito at the same rate. The Sal-..on Sal-..on sea at firsl was fresh water, but as It evaporates It has become somewhat braeklsli, though still drinkable. It - is very clear, however. In a short time It will of course become as. salt as your -alt lake and finally dry up and disap- "There are a great many fish, mostly carp. In the sea now. When they hear the Southern Paelllc trains coming through Ihe water they swarm to the trestles across parts of the sea and the passen-gc-rs catch them on lines as the trains j -lin six miles an hour. Sounds 'fishy, Ml admit, but it is done every day. "Salton sea has had no effect on the Miniate of Imperial valley. The water vaporatos. goes high Into the air and 'alls no one knows where. The effects of the water are felt only about 1000 feet back from tho edge. Otherwise the Jesert remains the same as it has always "The Camegie institue has Professor IUacDougol down there studying the ef-'eets ef-'eets on the soli and the growth of plant Ife on the ground left bare by the receding re-ceding waters. In a small way it may be like what once the whole earth was as tlic waters receded. Some wonderful ulentlfic discoveries have been made, I inderstand. along this line. Apparently jlaut life forms that was never In the .alley before; In fact, utterly unknown :o the desert country or tho Colorado ralley, where the water name from In the first place. But it is not a part of my work, although of great importance to the study of plant life, hence to tho 'armcr and orchard man. Stations at Lake Tahoe. "We are also maintaining observation stations at lake Tnhoe. up in the mountains moun-tains on the Nevada-California Hue. This Klvo? us the results on the evaporation if water as affected by higher altitudes, 'ighter air pressure, greater sunshine In a way. and other conditions. Eventu-allv. Eventu-allv. we will establish such stations In hundreds of different spots over Amcri-a. Amcri-a. en fli condition different. "Another part of our work Is the observation ob-servation of the evaporation from snow, nnrl in time, I suppose from Ice, especially espe-cially In tho hieh mountain regions. So fnr. we have. 500 snow bins scattered all iver the west These are about five foot 'rom tho ground, a. hollow cube five feet ia each edge, onen at the top so that be snow can fall Into them. This pro-vents. pro-vents. In a great measure, the drifting of snow which we have on the surface of tho ground. Hence wo get the actual snowfall as well as we can under these conditions. Knrmers, minors, and others, living near, measure tho snowfull and report It for a certain payment. "There are about thirty of these bins In rtnh. Wo have Invested ?20,000 In them so far. and will put out another t"00 bins this year. Wo need fully 10,000, and will have them in time. "Then we will know something about tho snowfall in the mountains. Today it Is all guesswork. Jhcre seems to be about three times as much evaporation In summer, bv the way, as In winter, in the Imperial valley. What It is In other regions re-gions no one knows. Kvcn Ice on tho coldest day evaporates, as everyone knows; even in the Arctic regions In winter. "The importance of the work cannot be overestimated. It will result in untold millions of dollars to the United States as time goes on. So far. every Irrigation Irriga-tion and water power engineer has had to guess at his water supply, and his loss by evaporation. In some cases lh? whole cost of the works has been a total loss, due to lack or information as to evaporation. Two cases occurred near San Diego. Cal. About 5300.000 was lost in building dams to make lakes thai lost so much by evaporation that the dams were useless. Irrigation Guess Work. "Today all Irrigation is guesswork, hit or miss. Wheat at one altitude, with a wind movement of an average of say ten miles an hour, needs less water than wheat at the same altitude where the wind blows twenty miles an hour. -and needs more water In July than In May. for Instance. All this affects how much water should be Issued to various head-gates. head-gates. A fanner with a south slope probably needs more water than one on a north slope. Today we do not know exactly, but this work Is to find out. "Say we build a dam fifty feet high, that will give us 1000 acres of water surface sur-face on the reservoir, and a 100-foot dam will give us S000 acres of water surface. Will tho extra flftv feet on the top of the dam pay? Today wo do not know, but this work will In tho end show just how high to build our dam, depending on its latitude. Its altitude, the wind movement move-ment in that section, and the relative humidity or dryness of the air. "The very foundation of the reclamation reclama-tion service today, the supply and loss of water. Is pure guesswork. Measurements Measure-ments of streams Is not reliable. A previous pre-vious scries of wet seasons will saturate satur-ate the ground and cause an unusually large How, even during a dry season, or the revprsc. The actual snowfall will tell the talc. "The government Is having great success suc-cess with Its experimental date farm in the Imperial valley, about thirteen miles north of I he present shore of the Salton sea. Eight thousand cuttings were put out this year. Before long the dates will be ready from settings of past years, and In time Imperial valley will produce from 10,000,000 lo 20.000,000 pounds of the very best quality of dates. "Imperial valley is the hottest Inhabitable Inhabit-able place In the United States. Yet It Is the garden spot of America. Its value is 100,000.000 to this country. Its soil Is the richest, and. from the Colorado river. Its water supply Is unlimited. "The Imperial valley Is Ilaniman's greatest monument. At a cost to himself him-self of $2,000,000 he saved It from the Colorado river. Had that break widened much more the whole valley would have been an utter hopeless waste of water, lie saved it. The Imperial valley is Ilar-rl Ilar-rl man's personal gift to the American people." |