OCR Text |
Show fl WHAT WESTERN STREAMS CARRY. H " 7 The geological survey has been making u test of some stream 1 waters of the western pant of the United States to determine the H availability of the streams' for irrigation and other purposes. The H quality of the water available determines its usefulness quite as H 1 much as the quantity. Some waters contain ingredients that make H it impossible to use them for irrigation unless certain precautions H , are taken in applying them to the land and in draining them off. H ' Certain iugredicnts in water make it unitvaikblc or destructive if H used in boilers and the quality of water used in a manufacturing H ' plant may very largely determine the quality of the product of man- Hl ufacture. H Generally speaking the streams of the. west arc available for H irrigation purposes but the government report proves that some riv- H era carry great quantities of dissolved substances which if deposited H on irrigated land would injure the fertility. The total amount of H dissolved material discharged by a number of western streams is H almost beyond estimate. The government experts claim the Colorado H river discharges during an average year into the Gulf of California H 338,000,000 tons of mud and silt as suspended matter. Tn addition kWL to this the dissolved substances in the water include 4,550,000 tons H of sodium salt; 3,740,000 tons of Glauber's salts; 4,000,000 tons of H lime-; 2,400,000 tons, of gypsum; and 4,800,000 tons of Epsom salts. H I In spite of all this dissolved material the Colorado at its mouth is fl j ' not considered to be a stream of unusually high mineralization for H that region of the country. The reason is that the river also car- H ' ries so enormous an amount of water that the dissolved salts con- 1 ; stitute a comparatively small proportion of the total discharge. H ' Other streams in tho country contain dissolved salts in great- H ' cr concentration for example, the Elm Fork of Red river, in H Oklahoma, discharges nearly 1,300,000 tons of common salt an- 1 nually. Although this amount is not so great as that discharged by Hj ' the Colorado it is much greater in proportion to the size of the area H 'j drained. Tho discharge of salt from tho Colorado is equal to 20 B tons annually to each square milq drained hy the river, but tho Hl salt in Elm Pork of Red river is equal to t,680 tons per .square mile H t of area drained. Tho same river discharges annually 177,000 tons B of magnesium chloride, 168,000 tons of Epsom salts, 690,000 tons H of gypsum, and 54,000 tons of lime. Tho quantities, too, arc con- H siderably groater than thoso carried in tho Colorado in proportion H t to tho size of the drainage area. t m- ' Belle Fourche river, at Belle Fouroht, South Dakota, discharges H 191,000 fons of gypsum, 79,000 tons of Glauber's salts, and 236,000 H tons of Epsom salts. The mud and silt carried in suspension by this river amount to 1,100,000 tons. Milk river at Havre, Montana, discharges dis-charges annually 41,000 tons of soda; Payette river, in Idaho, ' discharges 46,000 tons; Salt river at Roosevelt, Ariz., discharges 288,000 tons of salt and 170,000 tons of Epsom sails; and the Rio Grande discharges 245,000 tons of lime and 368., 000 tons of Glauber's salts. |