Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume I

BY C. J. BLANCHARD, Of the United States Reclamation Service. This extremely interesting Article informs us of the difficulties with which Americans have had to contend in the arid regions of the United States, and of the great Irrigation Works which have converted millions of acres of Desert into smiling Orchards and Corn Lands. IRRIGATION in the United States ante- dates by many centuries the written history of this continent. Impene- trable mystery envelops the races who first practised it in the warm valleys of the South- West. It is not improbable that, as far back as those stirring days when Rome was young, a semi-civilized people dwelt in Arizona and New Mexico, and by irrigation transformed a desert into a land of bloom and fruitage. Ages before Columbus sailed the unknown western seas, thrifty husbandmen there exca- vated many miles of canals, embracing thou- sands of acres. The remains , . , or their great irrigation sys- terns, which we can trace faintly beneath the dust and drift of centuries, indicate a surprising knowledge of engineering on the part of the primitive builders. They (l>408) follow with exactness the lines laid down by modern compass and level, except in localities where, by reason of comparatively recent volcanic action, the earth’s surface has been changed. The great steam-shovels of the Anglo-Saxon now excavating hundreds of miles of new canals in the valley have un- covered the ditches of this prehistoric people. Although construction took place before the age of metals, in many places the canals are cut in solid rock at a cost of time and labour which it is impossible for us to more than faintly conjecture. The irrigation works were of such magnitude that they evidently main- tained for a great period of time a prosperous and extensive population. The first written record of irrigation in the United States occurs in the interesting annals of the early Catholic priests in Southern 6 ' \ f VOL. II.