d States Government alone has spent already sixty millions of
dollars under the Reclamation Act which went into effect in 1902, and
the end is not yet, for as the vista of human achievements in this line
broadens still greater works will be inaugurated and successfully
consummated. In Arizona, California, Colorado, South Dakota, Montana,
New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming the United States
Government already is working on or has completed twenty-six important
irrigation projects.

The most wonderful work combining the highest engineering skill and
daring is found in the western part of Colorado, where from Black
Canyon, an almost inaccessible gorge three thousand feet deep, the whole
Gunnison River has been diverted to the Uncompahgre Valley. To take the
water out of the river it was necessary to bore a tunnel six miles long
through a mountain from the canyon to the valley.

To determine the feasibility of diverting the course of the river, it
was first necessary to make an exploration of the canyon. No one before
had ever had the hardihood to even make the attempt, on account of the
extreme danger of a journey between the narrow black walls of this
gloomy abyss.

In 1853 Captain Gunnison discovered the river which bears his name. He
traced its course to where it plunged into a chasm so deep and dangerous
that he feared to follow it farther and named the gorge Black Canyon.
Some twenty years later Professor Hayden of the United States Geological
Survey, looking over the brink of the abyss, declared it inaccessible.

The State of Colorado, desiring to find some way of utilizing the waters
of the Gunnison River for irrigating the arid land adjacent, in 1900
called for volunteers to explore the canyon. Five men responded.

Provided with boats, life-lines, and other accessories, the men started
from Cimarron on their perilous trip. On the third day their provisions
gave out, and later they were obliged to abandon their boats and nearly
everything else except their blankets, which were protected in rubber
bags. They knew it was impossible to retrace their steps and that their
only salvation lay in going on. At night they rolled themselves up in
their blankets and tried to encourage one another. They travelled
fourteen miles between granite walls from two thousand to three thousand
feet high; and for sixteen days they were almost without food. Then they
came to a cleft in their prison walls which seemed to