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Show UNDERGROUND WATER U3E0 IN IRRIGATION (Continued from last week) The United States Geological Survcv h is made a series of investigations of tY- u e.lerground water resources of t'te we. t'-rn half of tie State, in whi-h numerous shallow-water tracts exist. The reports based on these investipa- ' t ons show that an important amount of irrigation could he accomplish-1 1 hv tip utilization of underground sut plies that , have hitherto remained unproductiv ; a id they outline in nome detail meth- ds j : f or the economic development of these i supplies. Without question, when th-- ; agricultural possibilities of west - n ! Utah shall have been fully reali:'.- d m my small tac's ag2;re2;ating a vi r.' j consid?rable total acreage will be successfully suc-cessfully irrigated with water pumped h from wells. s In July, 1011, at the request of Rep- resentative Howell, the examination of i Boxelder County, a part of Tooele County, and a certain small area in southern Idaho was undertaken by Everett Carpenter, of the United States Geological Survey, who makes the following preliminary statement. Boxelder and Tooele counties, which lie in the northwest portion of the State and together cover about 12,000 square miles, include ext.nsive alkali desert and mountainous areas that cannot be eultiv ited, but they al-o contain large tracts of rich soil that require only the applieation of water to m ke them produce pro-duce bounteous crops These counties li ; almost entirely in the Great Basin and include most of Great Sole Lake, j West and southwest of the lake, at an elevation only a few f;et above it -stretches a great barren, boggy alkali J flat known as Salt Lake Desert. This i monotonous waste is uninhabited and j worthless for either agriculture of j grazing, butnorthanl south of the flat and lake are isolated mountain ranges j separating broad, open valleys th it ! contain arable land. j At some time in its past history this! r gion was much more humid than at present and contained a vast inland sea , thot covered most of the territory occu- pied bv the two counties, the tops of , the highest ranges forming peninsulas or chains of rockey islands. Daring j this period quantities of sand, clay, and gravel were washed from the neighboring neighbor-ing mountains and spread out on the1 bottom of the sea. The flood waters that'pour into the valleys from time to time penetrate and saturate to a certain level the porous sand anil gravel thus accumulated, which in consequence contain con-tain more or less ground water. The most favorable areas for irrigating irriga-ting with well water are not as a rule on the upper parts of the slopes, where the water level is far below the surface nor on the low tracts, where the ground water is so near the surface, that injurious injur-ious amounts of alkali have accumulate.!, accumula-te.!, but. in the intermediate zones, in which the depth of water is not great and the water is in general of excellent quality. Flowing wells that supply sufficient wider for irrigating small tracts have b -en obtained near Malad, Idaho and near Willard, in Boxelder Couty, and Erda anil Grantsville, in Tooele County Utah. One small flow has also been ound in Park Valley. At Kelton artesian arte-sian water has been obtained, but its quad y renders it unfit for irrigation, especially on the alkali soil that exisls in this locality. (To be continued next week) |