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Between these hill-ranges are many lakes by which they irrigate the crops mentioned, and amongst all these ranges there are no forests or patches of brushwood, except very small ones, nor anything that is green.
It is to the waters of these streams that the fertility of the oases is due, they being diverted from their course to irrigate the land. Three of the oases are of large size. Of these Khiva has the Caspian Sea as its western boundary, Bokhara lies more to the east, while northeast of the latter extends Khokand.
Before he had come to the oasis it had been inhabited by a Papago Indian tribe and a few peon families. The oasis lay in an arroyo a mile wide, and sloped southwest for some ten miles or more. The river went dry most of the year; but enough water was stored in flood season to irrigate the gardens and alfalfa fields. "I've got one never-failing spring on my place," said Belding. "Fine, sweet water!
Two million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars were allotted for the construction of the Shoshone Dam which will form a reservoir of water sufficient to irrigate 75,000 acres of land 50 miles farther down the river. Highest dam in the world. Height 328.4 feet. The Truckee-Carson project provides for the irrigation of 150,000 acres in western Nevada.
"But for the magnitude, scope, and the boldness of its purpose, the project to irrigate the great Colorado Desert is without a parallel in the arid West, if in the world.
It was estimated that in an area of 240,000 acres the ground-water lies within 50 feet of the surface and that in an area of 335,000 acres it lies within 100 feet of the surface. Detailed maps were made showing the location and extent of these areas." Nevada, because of its peculiar geographical and climatological situation, will always need to irrigate its land to produce crops.
Were the rest of the wealthy residents to imitate the Marabout, they would in a few years make Ghat a large and most lovely oasis of Desert. Water is complained of as to supply, but there is water enough to irrigate an oasis of five times the present extent. So in Ghadames, so almost in every Saharan oasis.
The company at the station was a large one, and to provide them with food was a work of difficulty. The Kuruman fountain, the source of the Kuruman river, issues from caverns in a little hill. It was the purpose of the missionaries to lead the water from the river to irrigate their gardens. For this purpose a trench was cut two miles in length.
In that direction there are a few small villages, where the inhabitants, having more water, are enabled to irrigate a little land, and raise hay, on which the mules and asses, employed in carrying the saltpetre, are fed. The nitrate of soda was now selling at the ship's side at fourteen shillings per hundred pounds: the chief expense is its transport to the sea-coast.
Lower Mesopotamia is entirely their creation, and if the time were to come when their vivifying streams were no longer to irrigate its surface, it would very soon be changed into a monotonous and melancholy desert. It hardly ever rains in Chaldæa. There are a few showers at the changes of the season, and, in winter, a few days of heavy rain.
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