of public service with the fact, they ordered that surveys be made with a view to getting a water supply from there.

Within the last few weeks I have begun to hear of propositions. We found after a year's survey out there, a year and a half of diligent surveys and trips up and down the river, explorations and all the rest of it, that it was utterly impossible to get a gravity supply practically into the city of Los Angeles. That is a practical impossibility from an engineering standpoint.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Mulholland, at this point I might ask you if you are familiar with the Mono Basin country?

Mr. MULHOLLAND. Yes sir, very familiar with it.

The CHAIRMAN. Would it be possible to get additional supply of water from there?

Mr. MULHOLLAND. A small additional supply. We have great difficulty in finding, however, who owns it. We don't know. There have been about four or five different parties offering to sell it to us. It is a very expensive supply. It requires per unit of second feet, or any other unit of measurement that you might apply to it a very great expenditure. It is very expensive water to obtain. It will come by gravity but it is a mere addition. We would absorb it in three or four years. We have not got it now but it is not going to run away. It will be there for a great many years, it is not going to run off; there is nobody else to take it that I know of except people that claim it up there, and they are making some sort of use of it, I don't know what; it doesn't amount to anything.

The CHAIRMAN. Has the city exhausted all of the water supply in the Owens Lake country?

Mr. MULHOLLAND. Yes, sir. Yes, sir; there are a few improvements we can make up there that will increase the conservation, possibly to an average of 40 or 50 second-feet perpetually; we are working at that and have been working at it diligently for the past three or four years. We have been boring wells and developing the subsurface water there.

The CHAIRMAN. Have you studied the Mono Basin situation sufficiently to say how many cubic feet of water can be had there? Mr. MULHOLLAND. We have weekly measurements of water there for years, studied it intimately, and know it well.

The CHAIRMAN. Have you those facts with you at this present time?

Mr. MULHOLLAND: I have not; I could produce them.
The CHAIRMAN. Could you supply them for the record?

Mr. MULHOLLAND. Yes; I can. Our hydrographer wanders up and down the valley there and gets all this data. We have, in addition to that, the Government data, and such data as we made ourselves.

A gravity supply from the Colorado River I say positively is utterly impossible. There has a project been brought to my attention, one among three or four, the most promising one taking water at Bridge Canyon. It involves-is there a map of that here? You gentlemen will recollect, if you know anything about the topography of the State of Arizona and the Colorado River, that the river has sawed its way, cut its way, eroded a deep cavity a mile and a quarter deep, down into the bowels of the earth, down into the hard crys

taline rocks. It has cut down into those sandstones beyond them so that the river is down in a cavity. This colored part of this map of Arizona, this colored painting, is all above the level of the Grand Canyon; it is all above that level. The whole continental mass here is all above that level of the Grand Canyon. What advantage the State of Arizona would get from having a dam at Glenn Canyon in preference to one at Boulder Canyon I can not understand; I would be very glad to be enlightened on that.

As you come down to Bridge Canyon this part shaded here is the part that lies below the level of a dam or the water contained in a dam that might be constructed at Bridge Canyon. That involves drilling a tunnel through masses of mountains. You are positively under the surface of the ground for 78 miles. When you get to the end of it, here is the Colorado River in front of you with a depression of 1,700 feet. To siphon any such quantity as 1,500 second-feet across that would cost untold millions; there isn't that much money. Senator ASHURST. When we collect for foreign debt we will have that much money.

Senator SHORTRIDGE. When we do!

Mr. MULHOLLAND. We have surveyed this; I sent my surveyoors out there when I first heard of that thing, that proposition. I know that country well. I have been all over it; know it intimately from early days, when I was up there prospecting in '77 and $78. I knew about the railroad surveys that ran through there, and we marveled about the proposition of bringing water in here by gravity, and I would be so delighted to find that such a thing was possible. I knew, of course, it was all a dream, a pipe dream of the worst kind.

Senator ASHURST. A dreamer, you know, lives forever, but an idler dies in a day.

Mr. MULHOLLAND. I have had a good many dreams in my time, but I never dreamed of anything so utterly preposterous as that kind of a layout for water.

Senator ASHURST. Pardon me, Mr. Mulholland; it is not my dream; it is the dream of the Federal Government. Of course, you have read the LaRue report?

Mr. MULHOLLAND. Yes; I read that over night; there is something very entertaining in that.

Senator ASHURST. If you will give it a little more attention than one night, you will find it not only entertaining but quite illuminating and instructive.

Mr. MULHOLLAND. The essence of it is contained in a few paragraphs, that this thing might be done. At any rate there is a great mountain mass---all of that is above the water level of Glenn Canyon Reservoir. All of this is above the level of Bridge Canyon. How are you going to get through it? The way to do it is to let the water down the river until you can get it out. You can't get it out of the river from the point at Glenn Canyon. I have been up there; in Glenn Canyon you don't see daylight at all, hardly; until you get down to Lee's Ferry, you are down in a Canyon. You cannot get out of there without making a tunnel. Now, our proposition is wholly different. There is the very best we can do in re

gard to the elevation right here (indicating on map). The flood plane of the river is in this bend in here (indicating).

Senator ASHURST. Will you kindly indicate what that point is? Mr. MULHOLLAND. That is 10 miles above Blythe; this is Marie Mountains; we have surveyed the whole country to the north of there, surveyed to find means that would bring the water higher up. That lift, that is, lifting to here, is a very heavy burden, and will be a perpetually heavy burden on the water consumers of this city. We recognize that; we know that it is going to be costly water; I will speak of that in a minute. In pumping water in here in Los Angeles now in a few instances we are pumping it as high as 900 feet, so we are not terrified; we have done it before and we have got used to it. We will take the water out of the river, not directly out of the river at this point.

We can ignore the question of the mud in the Colorado River. We can get water very clear. Start out this way here, along this line, get through the easiest kind of construction work that can be found anywhere; open valleys, open deserts, abundance of water for construction purposes scattered here and there to be obtained, a wholly different proposition than the formidable one of building the Los Angeles Aqueduct. When we started to build the Los Angeles Aqueduct there were places on that route where we had to pipe water for just the ordinary consumption of camps, and for construction purposes 40 to 50 miles. We had 53 miles of tunnels in that job. We had to go through three mountain ranges.

Senator ASHURST. You had how many miles of tunnels?
Mr. MULHOLLAND. Fifty-three miles.

Senator ASHURST. And you condemn as impracticable a somewhat longer tunnel?

Mr. MULHOLLAND. This is one long tunnel?

Senator ASHURST. This is an age of science.

Mr. MULHOLLAND. We have been studying that science a long time.

Senator ASHURST. It would not be good policy to abandon your pursuit of that study at this time, either?

Mr. MULHOLLAND. No, sir.

We get along here until we come to the great backbone here: we have got a tunnel here that may be 24 miles, but we cut it in two by making a deflection, coming out into the San Jacinto Valley and deflecting to the north again. We will make two tunnels with an aggregate length of about 27 miles, and cut the longest tunnel down to about 13 or 14 miles. That is our greatest difficulty. greatest barrier.

We ask for not alone the water, but we ask for the power to pump it. We ask that we participate in the building, or the benefits to be derived from the building of the Boulder Canyon, Dam for power purposes. That is to be one of the principal sources of revenue for the dam; it will be perpetual. We do not need in the fulfillment of this design here we will require nearly 200,000 horsepower, but that will possibly not be needed for 30 or 40 years. We will begin small and as our needs grow we will add to the power we require.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the length of the aqueduct?

Mr. MULHOLLAND. 266 miles. It is 7 miles longer than the Los Angeles Aqueduct. This is the sort of job we are used to. We are pretty well broken in on this; we have done this before. It is only a few miles longer than the Los Angeles Aqueduct.

Senator PITTMAN. What is the character of construction of the aqueduct ?

The CHAIRMAN. Have you estimated the cost of the construction of this aqueduct?

Mr. MULHOLLAND. I will speak on that directly. I have not completed that estimate, but I can tell you, gentlemen, and I think this will be sufficient for your purposes, the per capita cost, considering the population here, will be about the same average per capita as the cost of the Los Angeles Aqueduct was, about $150 or $160 per capita. I think that will build it.

The CHAIRMAN. Couldn't you reduce that to concrete figures that we might have for the record? Haven't you some estimate or some kind of approximation of the cost of this aqueduct?

Mr. MULHOLLAND. That would result in a total figure of about $150,000,000, somewhere along there. It would be proportionate in per capita cost to the people of Los Angeles at the time of the building of the Los Angeles Aqueduct. They were not scared then, and I don't believe they will be scared by this, as the necessity is shown.

Senator SHORTRIDGE. There are no greater engineering difficulties to encounter?

Mr. MULHOLLAND. Positively none. We may encounter along here [indicating on map], as we swing down south on this reservoir, we will swing into the Hot Springs of the San Jacinto Valley. Hot water is not a pleasant neighbor when you get 1,500 feet under ground, but if we swing to the north we will be wholly under ground and exempt from this difficulty. The geology of this has been studied and we know what we are apt to run up against.

Senator ASHURST. Mr. Mulholland, would you mind if I asked you another question?

Mr. MULHOLLAND. No; pitch right in.

Senator ASHURST. Well, Mr. Mulholland, my questions are with courtesy and with recognition of your ability as an expert. Mr. MULHOLLAND. I concede that.

Senator ASHURST. In the language of a very famous Senator, "When I engage in a duel with a man like yourself my sword is tipped with a rose." I want to ask you how many horsepower will be required to pump this water here that has been diverted and is in the line.

Mr. MULHOLLAND. About 200,000 horsepower, possibly more than that when we get up to the full fruition of the scheme. Possibly as many as 250,000.

Senator ASHURST. What will be the lift?

Mr. MULHOLLAND. About 1,500 or 1,700 feet. I want to say in regard to that that of course myself and my colleagues are very familiar with the cost of pumping water, with the operation of pumping water. I can assure you, I can assure the people of Los Angeles that the cost, the added cost by reason of pumping that water, will be not to exceed five cents per hundred feet. We are

paying 13 cents for water now, or will be in a few days when the new rates go into effect; we are selling water here, compared with 183 cities, the rates returned by the Water Works Journal, of the Water Works Association, show us to be selling water here at far below the average rates. The average rate in the United States for 183 cities is 18 cents. We are selling here for 13 cents, or intend to sell for 13 cents. You can add 5 cents onto that for the pumping of this water, and still land within the 18-cent limit. Now, we should not be expected, with all the difficulties encountered by us in securing a water supply, to continue to supply water at lower than the average rate in the United States. We are away off here in the corner of the continent. Our freight rates average about 50 or 60 or 70 per cent higher on the bulky, weighty materials we use in the water works than in the ordinary cities in the East.

A few cities in the East with low rates, say like the lake cities of Cleveland, Chicago, Buffalo, any of those cities, there is water there, they just go and take it, all they have got to do is to pump it 100 or 150 feet. In Chicago and several of the other lake cities they limit the height they will pump water. They make the man who owns a high building pump it himself after he gets up above the third floor. We don't do that here; we supply 13-story buildings here without any added cost for pumping. We have got a very low water rate here and people marvel why it is so. Our freight rates are about $20 or $25 a ton for cast stuff, like iron pipe, as against $3 or $4 a ton in the eastern cities. Notwithstanding that, we have a low rate here.

Senator ASHURST. Mr. Mulholland, will you not have to bring a tunnel through 30 miles of solid rock; is it not a fact that you will have to bring the tunnel at one place through 30 miles of solid rock? Mr. MULHOLLAND. No, sir.

Senator ASHURST. What will be the longest?

Mr. MULHOLLAND. I have just explained the longest tunnel is not more than 14 miles. The aggregate length is about 24 miles.

Senator ASHURST. The aggregate length of tunneling would be about 24 miles?

Mr. MULHOLLAND. Yes; if we put it all in one straight tangent, but we can deflect it, make it about a mile longer, but achieve an opening to make two short tunnels instead of one long one.

I want to say this, with regard to the rate, while I am at it, that at the present rate the cost of our water here is a little bit less than half of our telephone service. We pay less for water than we do for talk. The raising of the rate to pay a five-cent charge on pumping additional to what we are paying now is not going to crucify us; it is not going to disturb the prosperity of the city. We will still have cheap water. We will be among the cheap class, even with this rate I have spoken of. That that will have to be added for the pumping of the water is no deterrent to our enterprise.

Senator DILL. Mr. Mulholland, where does your aqueduct start on the river?

Mr. MULHOLLAND. It starts a little north of Needles and comes down the river, comes down on the terrace North of Blythe at the foot of the Marie Mountain, along the bank of the river.