extent the redemption of all these lands will require extensive and comprehensive plans for the execution of which aggregate capital or coöperative labor will be necessary. Here individual farmers being poor men can not undertake the task. For its accomplishment a wise provision embodied in carefully considered legislation is necessary." He also suggested legislation to authorize the organization of irrigation districts and of pasturage districts, providing in particular "that the right to the water necessary for the redemption of an irrigated farm shall inhere in the land. and the right to the water shall pass with the title to the land.”

As Director of the United States Geological Survey from 1881 to 1894, Major Powell persistently urged suitable legislation, and in his various writings from 1878 to 1894 he stated definitely that the general government must of necessity deal directly with the irrigation question. His reports were much discussed by those who were interested in the development of the west, and under his frequent and urgent presentations the subject attracted more and more attention from year to year.

Finally, in 1888, his views, which were strongly seconded by several members of Congress, were recognized by Congress to the extent of the authorization of an investigation of the practicability of constructing irrigation reservoirs in the arid region. Several months later an appropriation of $100,000 was made for the work and in the next year an appropriation of $250,000.

The original resolution authorizing the investigation (joint resolution of March 20, 1888, 25 Stat. L., 618), is notable for the clarity with which it defines the irrigation problem. It reads:

Whereas a large portion of the unoccupied public lands of the United States is located within what is known as the arid region, and now utilized only for grazing purposes, but much of which, by means of irrigation, may be rendered as fertile and productive as any land in the world, capable of supporting a large population, thereby adding to the national wealth and prosperity;

Whereas all the water flowing during the summer months in many of the streams of the Rocky Mountains, upon which the husbandman of the plains and the mountain valleys chiefly depends for moisture for his crops, has been appropriated and is used for the irrigation of lands contiguous thereto, whereby a comparatively small area has been reclaimed; and

Whereas there are many natural depressions near the sources and along the courses of these streams which may be converted into reservoirs for the storage of the surplus water which during the winter and spring seasons flows through the streams; from which reservoirs the water there stored can be drawn and conducted through properly constructed canals, at the proper season, thus bringing large areas of land into cultivation and making desirable much of the public land for which there is now no demand: Therefore, be it

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled: That the Secretary of the Interior, by means of the Director of the Geological Survey, be, and he is hereby, directed to make an examination of that portion of the arid regions of the United States where agriculture is carried on by means of irrigation, as to the natural advantages for the storage of water for irrigation purposes, with the practicability of constructing reservoirs, together with the capacity of the streams and the cost of construction and capacity of reservoirs, and such other facts as bear on the question of storage of water for irrigating purposes; and that he be further directed to report to Congress as soon as practicable the result of such investigations.

The sundry civil appropriation act of the same year (act of October 2, 1888, 25 Stat. L., 526), seemed to give evidence of an intention on the part of Congress to enter upon a comprehensive scheme of construction for irrigation works for, after making appropriation for the surveys of the arid regions. just mentioned, it provided that "all the lands which may hereafter be designated or selected by such United States surveys for sites, for reservoirs, ditches, or canals for irrigation purposes, and all the lands made susceptible of irrigation by such reservoirs, ditches, or canals, are from this time henceforth hereby reserved from sale as the property of the United States,

and shall not be subject after the passage of this act to entry, settlement, or occupation until further provided by law."

Under this sweeping authority the Geological Survey designated as "lands made susceptible of irrigation" virtually all the lands in the arid region,1 and these lands were accordingly withdrawn from entry. A widespread protest from persons in the arid region, adversely affected by this action, soon made itself heard and by resolution of February 14, 1889, the United States Senate authorized a select committee of seven, to be known as the Select Committee on Irrigation and Reclamation of Arid Lands, to consider the whole subject. During the months of August and September, 1889, the committee conducted meetings at a number of points in the territory affected. The majority of the committee, headed by the chairman, Senator Stewart, severely criticized Director Powell for having expended so large a portion of the funds appropriated for irrigation surveys in developing general topographic maps of the arid region, and for his general policy of withholding from settlement all lands susceptible of irrigation until such time as their disposition should be decided upon by Congress.2

As against the course thus pursued by Director Powell under the act of 1888, Senator Stewart proposed to place all unappropriated waters under the control of the several states and territories; the minority of the committee, however, favored the division of the arid lands into irrigation districts upon the basis of natural drainage basins, entrusting a large measure of the control over reclamation development to the people resident within each basin.

Although neither of these proposals received favorable consideration by Congress, the opposition voiced by the major

'The survey upon which the action of the Geological Survey was based is frequently referred to as the Powell Irrigation Survey. The results of this survey were published in the annual reports of the Geological Survey from 1890 to 1893 inclusive.

"The report of the committee together with the record of the hearings held by it was printed as Senate Report No. 928, 51st Congress, Ist Session.

ity report to the existing policy of reservation found legislative expression in an act (act of August 30, 1890, 26 Stat. L., 391), by which the whole of the act of 1888 providing for the reservation of "sites for reservoirs, ditches or canals for irrigation purposes and all the lands made susceptible of irrigation by such reservoirs, ditches or canals" was revoked except as to reservoir sites, the segregation and reservation of which was expressly continued. In the following year, a further curtailment of the policy of reservation was evidenced in section 17 of the act of March 3, 1891 (26 Stat. L., 1095), which provided that reservoir sites "shall be restricted to and shall contain only so much land as is actually necessary for the construction and maintenance of reservoirs excluding so far as practicable lands occupied by actual settlers at the date. of the location of said reservoirs." By the same act, moreover, as has been indicated in foregoing sections, the application of the desert land law was extended, and rights of way over the public lands were granted to irrigation companies; and in 1894 the principle of state control, urged by the majority of the Senate committee in 1889, was recognized in part, as already indicated, by the adoption of the Carey Act.

The apparent reaction in this act from the policy embodied in the acts of 1888 and 1889 was further indicated by the failure to provide any funds for the further prosecution of the investigation "of the extent to which the arid region of the United States can be redeemed by irrigation." In spite of the lack of any express appropriation, however, the duty of selecting reservoir sites for segregation still remained with the Geological Survey, as already indicated, so that, in connection with its regular work of topographic mapping, the Survey continued to devote much attention to this subject. In addition, in 1894, a specific appropriation of $12,500 was secured by the Survey "for gauging the streams and determining the water supply of the United States, including the investigations of underground currents and artesian wells in arid and semiarid sections." The appropriation for this purpose

steadily increased, amounting in the fiscal year 1903, in which the Reclamation Act went into effect, to $200,000. Since that time it has risen as high as $250,000. The data secured by the surveys and investigations made under these appropriations were, and continue to be, of primary importance to the Reclamation Service in all the exploratory phases of its work.

The period from 1894 to 1902, the year in which the Reclamation Act was adopted, was marked by a continual extension of the policy of encouraging state and individual reclamation development. In 1895 the right of way over the public lands was extended, as already indicated, to water works intended for use in mining, quarrying, and lumbering. In January of 1897, the occupation of reservoir sites was made available to the stock-raising industry, and in the next month even reservoir sites hitherto reserved by designation of the Geological Survey were thrown open to entry. In 1898 the right of way acts of 1891 and 1895 were still further extended, while in 1901 the general right of way act, to which reference has already been made, was enacted and the policy of the Carey Act was made permanent.

Though the progress of legislation during the years 1891 to 1901 thus had reference solely to the construction of reclamation works by states and by private enterprise, the advocates of reclamation by the national government had by no means been idle during this period. The hearings of the Senate committee in 1889 and the legislative and public discussion which followed their reports had served to increase and strengthen the interest in the national aspects of the subject. In 1891, there had been held a so-called National Irrigation Congress at Salt Lake City, and while this gathering had resolved in favor of the grant to the states and territories, in trust, of irrigable lands, there had been a strong sentiment in the congress in favor of a thoroughly national treatment. At a second Irrigation Congress, which was held at Los Angeles two years later, the necessity for federal con