Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 66.djvu/120

116 to use pumps. For this purpose plans are being made for the development of water power and the use of this in pumping by electric transmission. It is believed that in this way considerable areas of desert land can be reclaimed which are now out of reach of water obtained by the usual methods. Scientific investigation is being pushed along these lines, and also in many other directions, and of the employment of cement and concrete in construction. In short, the scientific work, while subordinated to the so-called practical side, is receiving constant attention from the various experts.

Assistance is being given to the reclamation service by the operations of the other divisions of the hydro-graphic branch. These are three in number: first, the division of hydrography, which has to do with the scientific measurements of the flow of the streams; second, the hydrologic division, which is studying the hydro-geology, or the bringing together all the facts bearing upon the occurrence of water in its geologic relations, and third, the hydro-economic division, which has to do with the quality of water and the relation which the changing qualities have to the industrial uses. In particular the quantity of saline matter carried in solution is of prime importance to the question of irrigation, and next to this the character and amount of material carried in suspension.

The operations of the Hydrographic Branch, including the Reclamation Service, illustrate the evolution which may take place under suitable auspices from the small beginning of a scientific investigation, leading up step by step to the practicable operations of applied science in building great works to endure for centuries. It is significant of modern times to find the engineers and scientific men taking a larger and larger part in the executive business of the world, and bringing to it the training of the technical school and laboratory, as distinguished from that of the counting-house or lawyer's office.