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Show DIGGING BIG CANAL ON COAST E. O. Wattis of tho Utah Construction Construc-tion company of this city, came In from Oakdale, California, yesterday afternoon to spend the Fourth of July and visit a few days with his family, recently loturned from a few weeks' visit in tho easL Mr. Wattis states that his company is doing a great deal of construction work on the coast, along the line of tho Southern Pacific and the North Western Pacific and In canal work. Tho work is progressing nicely, and so far this year no great difficulties havo been encountered. A large force of men and teams arc at work building a large canal for tho conveyance of water for the reclamation recla-mation of about 65,000 acres of land in the vicinity of Oakdale, which Is near Stockton, the water being taken from the Stanislaus rlvor. Tho land In tho Oakdale country is being reclaimed under a somewhat original plan, In that the owners have pledged their lands for the water that Is to be diverted from the stream On much the same plan as a city assesses abutting property for the establishment establish-ment of paving, sewer or sidewalk districts, tho lands in this irfigatlon project are assessed for the building of the great waterway, each acre being be-ing assessed according to its value and tho benefit It will derive from the canal. The plan seems to be a successful suc-cessful and satisfactory one and it is the opinion of Mr. Wattis that It -will become popular in farm districts. In making the canal, It was necessary neces-sary to boro a tunnel 7.000 feet through solid sandstone and it was accomplished in the remarkably sbort time of 90 days. The material was of a soft nature for rock and the electric elec-tric drilling machines penetrated It almost as readily as they would had it been clay. Engineers say, however, how-ever, that it was the most rapid tun-nel-maklnc ever accomplished in the United States. |