Page:The National geographic magazine, volume 1.djvu/343



Vol. I.

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Society:

I was invited to address this society I had no material at hand on the subject. I have come to the east without any notes or memoranda whatever, from which to prepare a lecture or address, no statistical data which would make a paper valuable, no notes of characteristic facts to render an address interesting, and no time to write anything to guide me in any way to a proper treatment of the subject. Some of your members have thought that I have written something worthy of being read, and hence this invitation to address you. But, even if they are right, people who can write cannot always talk, so if I fail in this address, I shall hope, on the basis of their opinion, that you will find in the reports I have written something worthy of reading. The subject has been announced as the "Problems of Irrigation in the United States." I should like very much to speak broadly on that subject, but I am unable to do so, for the reasons I have given, and shall have to speak rather of irrigation in California, trusting that something which is said, may, perchance, be valuable in relation to the subject at large. Irrigation in the far west, generally, is attracting a vast deal of attention. This is particularly the case on the Pacific Coast—the field with which