Engineering and Economic Features of the Boulder Dam

Abstract

ALTHOUGH the present agricultural and commercial development of the Colorado River has been accomplished during the past 75 years, practically four centuries have elapsed since the first white man gazed upon its waters. During these centuries, the information left by the diaries of the intrepid Padres and explorers from time to time have given brief mention of the high waters and terrific floods which prevented their crossings or fought them in their endeavors to sail up the Lower River below Yuma. The Colorado River has a total length of approximately 1750 miles, a drainage area of 244,000 square miles and a total annual water supply of approximately 21,700,000 acre feet. The larger portion of this water is supplied by the melting snow from the summit of the Rocky Mountains in western Colorado and Wyoming, but an appreciable portion is also furnished by the drainage area below the junction of the Green with the Colorado, a section subjected at certain seasons to violent storms of short duration commonly known as cloud-bursts. The effect of these storms and of the fluc-