THE' SUNDAY OKEGOKIAN, "PORTLAND, NOVEMBEE 15, 3903.
31
.TO TRANSFORM CALIFORNIA DESERTS
THREE GREAT NEW PROJECTS UNDER THE
NATIONAL IRRIGATION ACT
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CEMENT IBBIOATIOX DITCH NO WATER LOST.
(UPrER) THE DESERT BEFORE IRRIGATION. (LOWER) IRRIGATED BEDLANDS, CAUFOBNLl.
THREE great new projects In Cali
fornia which the Government Is
considering under the National ir
rigation act will, if undertaken, add In the
neighborhood of 1,000,00) acres of wonder
fully fertile land to the reclaimed area of
the Golden State. Government engineers
have been engaged upon preliminary sur
veys for upwards of a year, and in South
ern California, a few weeks ago, 4.000,000
miner's inches of water of the Colorado
River were filed upon and appropriated
by the Government, which means in real
ity the entire flow of this "Nile" of Amer
ica. The entire surrounding land over
4.000,000 acres has also been reserved.
The ultimate reclamation of land through
the great system of dams and canals
eventually to be constructed on this river
alone will be something over 1,000,000 acres,
but the first step In this work will prob
ably reclaim about 800,000 acres, of rich
delta land.
The stqond project which has been ln
. vestigated ig the storage of the waters of
the King's River, about midway between
Los Angeles and San Francisco, formed
J by two large mountain streams heading
( far up in the snow-capped Sierras. The
! regular flow of the King's River irrigates
today an enormous acreage in the fertile
San Jcaquln Valley, while the storage of
i Its waters by the Government would In-
crease its irrigable capacity by at least
1 100,000 acres. At present Its flood waters
' flow wholly to waste, as does likewise
almost the entire Cow of the Colorado
River, flow Ing through the extreme south
ern part of the state and emptying Into
the Gulf of California.
Still another enterprise which has com
mended itself to the Government engi
neers is what is known as the Clear Lake
project. In the northern part of the state.
Situated 1000 feet above sea level, Clear
Lake is a beautiful sheet of water, cover
ing 40,000 acres. By stretching a low dam
across Its lower end and raising its sur
face only six feet, 240,000 acre feet of wa
ter could be stored, sufficient to irrigate
over 200,000 acres of the highly
productive land of the Sacramento
Valley. Here, where there is consider
able rainfall, much less water would be
necessary for Irrigation than in the south,
cm part of the state, where both aridity
and an almost tropical climate necessi
tate heavy Irrigation. Clear Lake project,
all In all. Is declared by the Federal en
gineers to be one of the best Irrigation
propositions in the West.
California's Share Two Millions.
Of the $16,000,000 and over, now to the
credit of the reclamation fund, California's
share ie more than 52,000,030, and It is
desired to begin the expenditure of this
sum as soon as the best projects can be
determined upon. In the meantime, the
Secretary of the Interior is authorized,
under the act. to reserve Jthe water rights
and withdraw the land wfcich may be irri
gated, as well as the reservoir and dam
sites, from entry under the Desert Act,
the commutation clause of the Homestead
Act. and the Timber and Stone Act. Were
It not for this express provision in the
1
Irrigation law, which provision, by the
way, was vigorously opposed by the
Western land-speculating Interests at the
time of Its pendancy, every acre In these
three, or In fact any other government
projects, would be filed upon under the
above land laws the njomont the Intention
of the Government to establish Irriga
tion works under the Irrigation law be
came apparent.
The reclamation service officials con
stantly find the results of these miserable
laws operating against the Government's
plans. Only after comprehensive surveys,
preceded usually by preliminary Investi
gations and reconnaissance occupying
months of time, can any storage site be
pronounced practicable, warranting the
Government In withdrawing the land
which will probably be Irrigated there
under, yet any even preliminary surveys
f are watched eagerly by local land dealers
and speculators, and with the first inti
mation that the project may be favorably
considered, filings are made by the hun
dred, so that in every project which the
Government has taken up, a large propor
tion of the land to be Irrigated has been
found to be In the hands of private own
ers, not settlers living upon It, and anx
iously waiting for Uncle Sam to furnish
them water or perhaps augment their In
sufficient supply, but speculators and
stock Interests, who have likely never seen
the land, but who "acquire" It and are
simply "holding It for a rise."
i Thip Is the reason that the true friends
, of Western development are urging an
' overhauling of the land laws, under which
j such plundering Is possible.
' Unless the nation acts with reasonable
I promptitude, before the engineers can got
I around to the question of Irrigation every
acre of public land will have been taken
up under a trio of laws which, had they
been framed especially for land-looting,
could not have been greater successes.
The real friends of the national irri
gation act throughout the country who
are expecting to see the building of a
great empire in the heart of the West,
adding wealth and population to the na
tion and increasing her strength and in
fluence, must not rock themselves to sleep
In the eaay belief that this will come
about under the conditions as they exist
today. They must make one moro de-
J termined stand before Congress and effect
j the repeal of these land laws; then th
I national Irrigation law will be free to
) work out a great and beneficial transfor
mation of the desert Into homes.
GUT E. MITCHELL.
PHOTOGRAPH ING SPOTS ON THE SUN A Picture of Old Sol Taken Every dear Bay for Six gears
rASHINGTON, Nov. 9. (Special
correspondence.) Daily, for nigh
on to six years, it has been the
ivontof Uncle Sam to steal a portrait of Old
Sol, and. there being no Joshua in these
Cays to halt the chariot of the God of
Iay, these photographs of his features
have had to be taken by the snapshot
process, in spite of the vast chasm of 93,
000,000 miles which soparates l(lm from us.
Receiving by courtesy of Rear Admiral
C M. Chester, superintendent of our
3Caval Observatory a permit to Inspect
this fascinating work, I yesterday slung
my camera across my shoulder and
struck out across the new Rock Creek
culvert. It was a June morning in No
vember, and Phoebus at my back
burned with a fever which in my imag
inationbespoke some internal seizure
taking him out of season. It was a
cloudless day. only the blue, Indian Sum
mer haze resting on the hills: but alto
gether favorable above for the feat which
1 anticipated. I climbed over the western
hill to the city of dazzling white, mosque
like, round-domed buildings wherein our
national astronomers work, and followed
the path beyond where stands, in the
open, the colossal camera with which,
tender Admiral Chester's direction, the
dally sun portraits are snatched from
the heavens.
The Mammoth Camera.
This great camera Is about 50 feet long
over all. Its lens stands Isolated upon a
Tier of masonry to the north. It3 bel
lows is a narrow, inverted trough really
a. bhed with peaked, shingled roof about
SS Jeet long. Its box Is a house whefeln
men might live with comfort. An un
wieldy snapshot aparatus for you or me
to lift and aim aloft, to be sure! And, If
stationary, why Is It directed toward the
low, northern sky t hither Old Sol has
never been known to stray?
I knocked at a little white door and a
man stepped out of the big camera box. I
naked him this question, and many oth
ers, as you will directly see, for he was
the man who for these six years back
had taken the dally portraits of the sun.
2 had been directed to George H. Peters,
one of the" Naval Observatory's scientific
staff, and this was he, a most careful,
methodical genius, as I discovered. A
rrhlte box, with a little peaked roof a
box which might have been mistaken for
a beehive by you or me was lifted by Mr.
Peters from the pedestal of masonry at
the north end of the long apparatus. Thus
Tras disclosed a metallic plate on which
rested two large disks of glass. That
nearest the long shed leading into the
little house was mounted in a vertical
frame and looked dlrtctly through the
dark shadows within the shed. This was
the lens of the big camera. It has a
diameter of five inches and will focus its
image at a point 39 feet distant. On the
some metallic plate, but north of the
lens and mounted on a slanting pivot. Is
a. mirror which gathers the sun's Image
from the southern sky and projects it
back southward, through the lens. But
to look at this round piece of glass you
would not suspect that it were a re
flector. Placing your eye near to it you
could see through It. It Is transparent
and unsilvcred. And Just as a piece of
ordinary plate glass will reflect the sun's
rays, so will this unsilvered mirror. But
it casts a double reflection one from the
front and the other from the back surface.
If the two faces be parallel, the reflec
tions will overlap. But the surfaces of
this carefully made mirror are sufficiently
at an angle, one to the other, to throw one
reflection of the sun 18 Inches above the
other. The lower and more perfect that
f-oni the outer face of the glass Is di
rected into the big lens, which projects it
through the long shed or tube forming
the bellows, so to speak, of the apparatus.
Sun's Candle Power.
But why Is this mirror not silvered? To
understand this you must realize for a
moment the tremendous luminosity of the
f-v To reproduce its light artificially
you would have to travel 93,000,000 miles
away from earth and there arrange In
the sky a cluster of one and one-half
octillions (fifteen hundred and seventy
five .billions of billions) of sperm candles,
weighing one-sixth of a pound each, and
burning 120 grains per hour. Such a tre- j
mendous light would burn a hole into the
film of the fastest photographic plate
known, In the least possible fraction of a
second for operating a camera shutter. By
leaving the silver off the surface of the
reflector, the luminosity of the sun Is re
duced to one-twentieth of what it would
be were the looking-glass surface allowed J
to remain.
The box of the big camera Is divided
into several rooms, the box proper being
an ample dark room, such as photog
raphers employ to develop ordinary photo
graphs. In the north wall of this .apart-
ment Is a window opening into the long
shed Which we call the "bellows," and
covered by a big, camera shutter, behind
which stands a skeleton plateholder,
mounted upon a pedestal of Iron, which
itself rests upon a pier of masonry ex
tending Into the earth. The lens outside
being stationed upoa one pier and the
photographic plate In the holder resting
upon another. Jars and vibrations of men
moving near are thus avoided. The dark
room being tightly closed, the sensitive
plate being put In the holder with Its face
toward the shutter, and the Image of the
sun being projected by the mirror
through the shingled camera "bellows"
and against the closed shutter, all that
now remains to be done Is to open the
shutter and allow the imago to Impinge
upon the plate.
I was now to witness the actual photo
graphing of the gun's Image, the explana
tion of the apparatus having first been
given to me in the technical lingo which
astronomers employ. At 11:30 A. M.,
standard time. Dr. G. F. Culon, an as
sistant, uncoverea the lens and mirror,
while Mr. Peters stationed himself in the
darkroom and adjusted the plate in its J
"wuci. jj ui.ii ui uiircLui lunuus ill u.
wheel the assistant caught the sun with
the mirror and reflected It through the
lens so that its image exactly covered a
black bull8eye on a target painted upon
the outside of the shutter. This target I
could see by glancing through the dark
chamber inside the shed. Dr. Culon then
produced from his pocket a dark-red glass
in a metal frame, through which he J
squinted at the sun to assure himself that J
no small rifts of cloud might be trespass
ing in the path of vision. Satisfying him
self on this point, he called through a
speaking tube the reading of a thermom
eter, which hung near the lens. "Sixty
nine!" said he. "All right!" came Mr.
Peters' voice through the tube. This ob
servation, was essential to the sharpness
of the picture, inasmuch as changes of
temperature alter the volumo of the lens
and mirror and change J.hc focal length
of the former. Mr. Peters was holding In
his hand a screw which moved the plate
holder either farther from or nearer to
the lens. To adapt Its distance to the
thermometer reading was a matter of
great care, although not of very vigorous
turning at the screw. Between the cold
est day in Winter and the hottest day In
Summer the focal length' of the lens Is
altered nearly an Inch.
"All right?" came the voice from the
little house.
"All right!" answered the voice of the
assistant.
"Snap!" replied the shutter.
And Old Sol's portrait was taken.
Ten minutes later the specialist emerged
from the darkroom, holding up against
the window-light a glas plato 7x7 Inches
square, transparent at the borders and
with a round black spot 4.3 inches In di
ameter in the center. In the upper half of
the big black spot were several transpar
ent blotches, ragged at the edges.
"Well, I got them all right," said Mr.
Peters, with a smile of satisfaction.
"Got what?" I asked.
"Sun spots!" said he.
Wlien the plate was dried, he cut the
date of the exposure Into the transparent
edge with a diamond, and filed It away In
a pigeonhole. In the same case reposed
850 such plates, all filed away with their
diamond-cut records.
This solar photography, begun In Janu
ary, 1S9S. had been quietly carried on at
the naval observatory until a few weeks
ago, when the vanguard of the sun spot
procession, which has since excited the
scientific world, made Its first register
upon Mr. Peters' negatives. It was he
who first announced on this side of the
water the approach of these great
blotches on the sun's surface. The naval
observatory is the only institution in the
new world which keeps a photographic
diary of the sun's doings. Its photo-hello-graph
for such is the scientific name of
the great camera described Is the only
Instrument of the kind now being dally
used In America.
Measuring the- Spots.
To measure these great spots each day
Is, of course, a simple matter. It being
known what fraction of the sun's great
diameter Is represented by the diameter
iof its small photographic image, a scale
applied under a microscope to any mot
tled negative will approximate the di
mensions of the spots if a simple formula
be applied. The largest spot yet photo
' graphed by the photo-heliograph was
conspicuous on October 5. It was about
rnOOO -miles long by about E0.C00 miles
i wide. A great cross formed by 21 earths,
i side by side, horizontally and seven
earths, one on top of the other, vertically,
could enter this great spot, presuming it
to be a cavity. But are sun spots vast
cavities, as many astronomers opine?
"This great spot, photographed on Oc
tober 5, and then seen on the solor limb,
or edge, appears on the negative to be a
projection rather than a depression,"
said Mr. Peters. "There appears to be a
slight elevation both In the umbra, or
dark central shadow, and In the penum-
I bra, or gray fringe surrounding. Profes
sor Hale, of the Yerkes observatory seems
to think, as a result of his spectro- hello
graph work, that the umbra and penum
bra are elevations. In the neighborhood
of the spots there seem to be eruptions
where the solar matter Is projected out
In space and somewhat cooled by expan
sion and radiation. Falling back into the
sun again, in the form of sun spots, this
matter is seen as a darkened area, like a
cinder floating on a sea of fire.
"It is our Intention to ultimately meas
ure up and publish the changing condi
tions as well as the areas of these spots.
Examination of the negatives, thus far,
reveals that sun spots appear almost al
ways on those portions of the sun's face
which correspond with our tropics of Cap
ricorn and cancer. There can generally
be detected a gradual drift from the near
est pole, but never across the equator.
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KEIXECTING SUN INTO CAMKRA.
GREAT SUN SPOT, OCTOBER 12, TROtt MB. PETERS' NEGATIVE.
i -
"In 1909 our photo-heliograph work will
have covered a sun spot cycle. According
to our observations the minimum, or pe-
,rIod of least spots, was in 1900, and we
j estimate that tho maximum ought to ba
j due about 1904 or 1905 probably in 1904.
I The average cycle Is about 11.1 years, but
J there Is less time between the minimum
and the next maximum than between the
maximum and the following minimum.
cioseiy loiiowlng the maximum proper
there often appears to be a secondary
maximum, so to speak.
"The sun, of course. Is a star the only
one to which we are sufficiently near to
study Its surface In detail. Hence, It Is
very desirable to study the sun In order
that conditions of other stars may be
understood; also because It Is the giver
of light, heat and the many other forms
of energy on -which we are dependent.
The sun, of course. Is a vast reservoir of
heat, which it gives forth by radiation.
As It cools off it must necessarily con
tract, and the amount of contraction bal
ances "the amount of heat given off, so
that its temperature is maintained nearly
uniformly over long periods of time. It
Is figured that the sun's shrinkage In di
ameter Is about one foot a day. If the sun
is hotter at the time of the sun spot
maximum the result would seem to be an
Increase of the amount of evaporation on
earth, and a consequent increase of our
rallfall."
Aside from its purely scientific Interest
in such phenomena, the naval observa
tory has a special Interest In sun spots,
Inasmuch as some solar physicists now
claim to find that the prevalence of these
phenomena .has some bearing on naviga
tion. Coincident with their appearance
disturbances of the magnetic neddle
which directs the mariner on his way
are felt. The largest group of sun spots
observed within the present cycle ap
peared on October 5 and disappeared Oc
tober 17. Inquiry at the Coast and Ge
odetic Survey divulged that Its standard
magnetic observatory at Cheltenham,
Md., noted a general magnetic disturb
ance, setting In about September 27 and
lasting up to the present writing. Be
tween the 10th and 14th of October an un
usually great disturbance was felt, and
this was at its height on the 12th, when
the aurora was very bright In the north
ern sky. On October 19, when another largo
sun spot was just coming into view, an
other remarkable magnetic disturbance
was felt at the Cheltenham observatory.
JOHN ELFRETH WATKINS, Jr.
Truth Is Great.
On entry Patmore.
Here, in this little bay.
Full of tumultuous life and great repose.
Where, twice a day.
The purposeless, glad ocean comes and goes.
Under high cltlts. and far from tho huge town,
I sit me down.
For want of me the world's course will not fall;
When all Its work Is done, the He shall rot;
The truth Is great, and shall prevail
W hen none cares whether It prevail or not.
Wgrm&nwle
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curea Eczema and Tetter. AT).
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Derma-Soyala, 1 per bottle, exprea<3.
Denaa-Koyale Soap, 35 cents, "by at&U.
Botb 1b ono paelxace, 9123, express paid
Portraits and Testimonials sent on request.
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