one-quarter of what I had been offered for it before the water came on it. The melting snows in the spring never used to affect us. We had a fine orchard on the property. Now the melting of the snow covers half the land.

Q.-Give us your opinion of the cause?

A.-It is from the debris brought down from the mountains. The sand and sediment fills up the river.

Q. What proportion of the washing land-hillside land-up in that water-shed, is cultivated to crops and ploughed up?

A.-I could not tell you, exactly.

Q. How would it compare with the tailings from the mines. It has been claimed before this committee that this filling in is to be attributed as well to the wash from agricultural lands as to the mines. Give us as close an approximation as you can?

A. The greatest fill we have had in the American River was deposited in eighteen hundred and sixty-two and in eighteen hundred and sixty-eight. Previous to eighteen hundred and sixty-two the amount of farming done in the mountains was very limited. What has been done since that, I do not know. I know the nature of our agricultural lands is not to wash out into the river. After the flood of eighteen hundred and fifty-two we had but little high water in the American River until eighteen hundred and sixty-two; but once or twice that the river was out of its banks. In very great high water, in sixty-two, we had a continuation of freshets that brought down this great deposit of sediment. I have seen different deposits; some one place and some another. One place it would be coarse sand, and not a hundred yards from there it would be fine sediment. The current has a good deal to do with that.

Q.-I suppose you have noticed the mines, and have seen their dumps? Have you noticed whether the coarser material lodges above?

A. Yes; the farther down the river you go, the finer the deposit. Q.-Now, has any of these coarse tailings, or rocks, got into the river?

A. Well, not to any great extent, in this section. Up at the falls, or rapids, we used to have a ford, and the bottom was of coarse cobbles; but since that has been covered up I have not seen any in the river. Just where the railroad bridge crosses the river now the bed of the stream used to be covered with coarse rocks, but now there is nothing but sediment and sand.

Q.-Since the flood of eighteen hundred and sixty-two, have you been up the American River up to a point where you again come to bowlders?

A. I don't remember. now how far up. Wherever there is very much fall you will come to rocks and bowlders.

Mr. Ostrom-About how much farming land-what was formerly known as bottom land-has been destroyed on the American River bottoms?

A.-Well, not a great deal entirely destroyed. It has been injured. I think the place I had was injured the worst, because it was so situated. There was an island near me covered with willows that caught this debris, and when the bed of the river rose it was inclined to make a lake. Sloughs that would be dry in early days would since swim a horse. This coarse sand on land is valueless. I

don't think the land is worth as much by fifty to seventy-five per cent. as it was before that sand deposit came there.

Q.-About how much would that land be worth now if it was in its former condition?

A.-I was offered, in eighteen hundred and fifty-eight, for the poorest part of my land, one hundred and twenty-five dollars per acre; and I was offered one hundred and twenty dollars an acre for fifty acres that I sold three years ago for twenty-five dollars an acre, after I had planted an orchard and put fences on it.

Q-About what amount of personal property, improvements, etc., that would necessarily attach to the land in addition to the loss of the land?

A. The loss of personal property has been very great. Much of the land was not improved to any great extent; it was kept for raising grain. But all the land that was planted to orchard was ruined. I had a fine orchard that was entirely destroyed. It destroyed, out of six thousand trees-I lost five thousand that were entirely destroyed. That orchard produced, in eighteen hundred and sixty-four, fourteen thousand dollars worth of fruit. I generally sold about ten thousand dollars worth a year. I have since sold the property, with all the improvements, for six thousand dollars; and I have never seen the time since that that I could have got that much for it.

Mr. Garver-Are orchards as valuable now as they were then? A. Yes, sir. I raised as much the year before it was destroyed as I did five years before that. Peach orchards are getting very scarce

now.

Mr. Ostrom-Have you ever formed any opinion as to any mode of relief.

A. Yes, sir; a very decided one. I think these canals are the only hope of reclaiming these counties. From all the light I can get on the subject I think it is practicable. I have never had any faith in levees. I have seen the effects of leveeing.

Q.-You having lived here for a long time, I would like to ask you if this city, and its surroundings were free from the damage and destruction from this debris what effect would it have on the appreciation of property?

A.-Well, that is a hard question. Good land around here--this land below the city, has been rating from one hundred and fifty dollars to three hundred dollars an acre. All this land north of the city, that is now covered with willows and brush, ten or fifteen years ago was all cultivated to vegetables. It is worth nothing now; you can judge from that what the land would have been worth. I ceri tainly think that the mines ought to be controlled. My idea is, that if any commission is to be appointed they should have power to act. You must not wait too long to apply the remedy; if you do you will swamp us. I would have a commission appointed by this Legislature. I would go to the extent of having them carry out the remedy; and I have the same opinion in regard to the canal. I would think, without having given the matter much thought, that the money should be raised by general taxation. The whole State is benefited by it. I don't see any other way at present. We must quit the county if it is not stopped.

Sworn and examined.

L. F. MOULTON,

I am a farmer, and reside in Colusa County, nine miles above Colusa, on the east bank of the Sacramento River. I am more particularly acquainted with the Sacramento River. I have been acquainted with the Yuba and Feather also. In eighteen hundred and fifty-three-four I was acquainted with the Yuba at Marysville. Then it was a clear stream, and the banks, I should say, were twentyfive feet, at least, above the water. Now they are filled up very much from the mining debris. Some say it is from the ploughed land, but I don't think one-millionth part comes from the ploughed land. In Butte Creek, where I am interested, there is a canal that comes from the Cherokee Mine, some four hundred feet wide, and sends its deposits down on our land. It is filling up the lands very fast, and must injure and eventually destroy it. The sediment is no benefitit is a positive injury, and the substance that comes down with the water in time of floods is pipe clay, and entirely poisons the land. I don't think this would ever decompose so as to make good soil of it. There is sometimes a certain class of stuff brought down that will, in time, decompose; but it is not pipe clay. I think that this poisons the land. It gets so hard that you can handle it in big chunks like a rock. It is like alkali in its effects. This winter the company's canal has broken in several places, and it has run out and destroyed a great deal of property. There are some places theresection thirty-five-that it has filled up from sixty to one hundred feet wide. The upper portion is filled up entirely. From there down it has filled the creek up entirely, and destroyed the channel entirely. And then it will commence and run through it again, with a fresh addition of water.

Mr. Waters-Has this filling up of the creek caused any overflow? A.-It has that tendency. It has only been running down there about a year; it used to fill up above; it has filled up the country above to a great extent, until now it is getting down to us.

Q-Have they left these tailings there in such a way that heavy rains will not wash them away into the rivers and into the valley? A.-They have made no provision, except to make their canal point straight at us. We get the whole force of their tailings. I think it is their intention finally to discharge it into the Sacramento River.

Q.-What is the fact?

A. The fact is, that it does run into the Sacramento River, through this culvert, put in there by District Number Five. I have seen it running through there.

Mr. Ostrom-Is this land valuable that these tailings are covering up?

A-It sells at from twenty dollars to fifty dollars an acre.
Q.-You say it has only been running about a year?

A. Yes, down that far. It has been running above that several years.

Q.--Has it done a good deal of damage?

A. Yes, sir.

Q.-State your opinion as to the remedy. ·

A. That is a sticker. I have thought the matter over--and I am something of a civil engineer, too. The only remedy I can see is to build dams to hold back the tailings. They did propose to do that at one time. The river will only carry off the light stuff; the heavy material will stay there. I have advocated this plan of canals for a great many years; but as the thing advances I am rather timid about it. I am rather inclined to think the best remedy is to stop the tailings up there in the mountains. I don't think they have any right to throw their tailings down on the farming lands. I think the mining interest is increasing and the farming interest is increasing, and it seems to me the miners should be compelled to take care of them. I don't know; they may have rights, but I can't see it.

Sworn and examined.

GEORGE W. HANCOCK,

I am a farmer and stock raiser. I have been a stock raiser more particularly than a farmer. I am acquainted with the Bear, American, Sacramento, Yuba Rivers, and with the adjacent lands on both sides of the rivers, above Sacramento and Butte Slough, and below Sacramento on the west side, and above Butte Slough on the west side of the rivers. On the channel of the American River there was a few years ago a little cut made across a point, which was one hundred or so feet wide, which now carries all the water at low water. I have been acquainted with the Feather River, and have noticed it at Nicolaus, and where formerly it had a natural break of twenty-five feet, this year it only has fifteen, with a levee nine feet eight inches above the bank. I lived on the Sacramento River when I first came to the country, just above the city; was there in the flood of eighteen hundred and sixty-two. They used to have a gravel bar, and since the flood of eighteen hundred and sixty-two, there has never been anything of it. There are three things, one of which we have got to do. One is to take care of the mud, the other to take care of the water, and the other is to get up and leave the country. I have made some estimates, and I find the cost of cutting through this ridge of Montezuma Hills-there has been a survey there and it is nine miles, and the highest point is twenty-six to twentynine feet to have it one thousand feet wide will cost, at ten cents per yard, which is a very low estimate-I believe that it cannot be done for a million of dollars-the figures are nine hundred and thirtyeight thousand six hundred and sixty-six dollars. I believe that it would be giving a commission too much power, to give them power to carry out any plan they might devise, unless it should be a good one, and I don't believe that any cheap plan can be made. There is a way to get rid of this mud, and that is to run it into these low tule lands and fill them up. This patch of land north of the city-fifty thousand acres Bear River and part of the Yuba River could be turned into that. Canals would have to be built to run it in there. It will only answer for a time-I could not tell how long a time, but for Bear River it will last for a number of years. In some placesone place in particular-Bear River has filled up sixty or seventy feet, and covered up one of the finest bodies of land I have ever seen. It varies from that depth to about twelve feet at the mouth. None of the ground covered by this debris ever produces anything but

your canal, and yet it seems as though we have only gone far enough into the matter to show how necessary it is that a thorough investigation, such as spoken of in my former report, should be made.

5. From the testimony of a number of the earlier settlers around the shores of the lake, with whom I have conversed, I find that the surface of its waters has been subject to very great fluctuations. during past years. It appears that, as a general rule, in seasons of heavy rainfall its waters are raised to a high flood level, and that during succeeding comparatively dry years they gradually recedethe high water and the low water elevations of each succeeding year being somewhat lower than the corresponding stages the preceding season-until by another rainy winter it is brought up to flood level again.

6. In October, eighteen hundred and seventy-one, the season of low water for that year, the elevation of its waters was found, by accurate surveys made at the time, to be one hundred and ninetyfive and seven-tenths (195.7) feet above the base subsequently used as that of your surveys, which, being made in September, eighteen hundred and seventy-six, established the elevation at one hundred and ninety-five and twenty-two one-hundredths (195.22); and now, in December, eighteen hundred and seventy-seven, the waters stand at one hundred and ninety-one and seven-tenths (191.7) feet above the same plane of reference. Thus the level of the lake has fallen three and five-tenths (3.5) feet during the past fifteen months.

7. But little water has reached the lake during that period, through any of its visible tributaries. Kern River, in the past spring freshet, contributed some water, and King's River contributed some at periods during the winter and spring, but not any of the waters of the Kaweah, Tule, or White Rivers reached it above ground. Baseing an estimate upon the information I have been able to collect of the flow of the two first rivers mentioned, into the lake during this time, I am satisfied that they did not together contribute sufficient to raise it half a foot within its present border. Suppose they did contribute that amount-half a foot of depth-the loss from the lake's surface by evaporation has doubtless been five and a half feet; so that, as it has only been actually lowered three and one-half feet, it must have received a supply equivalent to one and a half feet in depth over its surface by percolation. In this connection it should be remembered that the rainfall in its vicinity has been insignificant-not over one or two inches during the period under consideration.

8. The effect of this lowering of the surface of the lake has been to contract its area until now its waters cover about four hundred and twenty to four hundred and thirty square miles of territory. Its edge has now reached the line where the bottom, as a general thing, descends more rapidly, the great shoals around its border being for the most part uncovered, and it is safe to say that any further lowering of its surface would not contract its area in by any means a proportionate amount. Tulare Lake is now a clear, open sheet of water, of a depth from ten to forty feet throughout its body, though of course more shallow around its margin.

9. The territory which has been uncovered by the receding of the waters of Tulare Lake during the past year, is upwards of one hundred square miles in area. These lands are swamp lands, and for the most part have been regularly filed upon and claimed as such for years past. In some instances claimants are taking advantage of the present low stage of the waters to erect embankments for the reclamation of their lands in the future.

10. As pointed out in my former reports, it will be necessary to hold the flood waters in Tulare Lake at a height which will in a measure flood these lands, in order to insure a sufficient supply for the West Side District; unless a plan for their reclamation is combined with the West Side Irrigation project, and a very large channel for drainage be built out of the lake, from which the irrigation canal could start at a somewhat lower level. Though for the irrigation interests alone this may not be the best plan, when viewed from an engineering standpoint it is undoubtedly the only way the two great works can be harmonized, and, under the circumstances, it is the only plan which will avoid conflict of interests.

11. The lands reclaimed should pay a large proportion of the expense or cost of the great overflow channel. Thus the cost of the most expensive portion of the West Side Canal-the great cut out from the lake-would be shared by the reclaimers. Whereas, otherwise, the West Side District would no doubt be called upon for payment of damages should the works for its water supply render the reclamation of the lands around the lake more expensive.

In this connection I call your attention to paragraph four of my supplemental report, under date of March twenty-sixth, eighteen hundred and seventy-seven, in which, speaking of this reclamation question in connection with your project, after pointing out the probable conflict of interests, I said: "It is the opinion of your Engineer that these interests can be reconciled, and that steps should be taken to harmonize the engineering works of each with the other before any definite plan is adopted for either." I cannot too strongly reaffirm this view now.

12. Another subject worthy of your attention is the threatened diversion of a very large portion of the waters of King's River from the channel leading to the lake into other channels extending towards Fresno Slough and the San Joaquin River. This diversion is being made for reclamation purposes, by owners of lands lying in the delta of King's River, and by others for the purpose of drawing water for irrigation on to lands northward from the mouth of that river. The country towards which the waters have been partially led, by opening up Cole Slough and Murphy Slough, has a greater degree of inclination than that upon the route of the old channels of the river below the point of diversion, and the danger is that the waters will make a main channel in that direction, and thus be lost to Tulare Lake and to the West Side Irrigation Canal from that lake. It should be remembered that one of the features of the West Side Irrigation plans is the construction of an embankment and levee for the purpose of securing to the lake all the waters of King's River not actually required for irrigation above its mouth.