Page:Vol 6 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/586

566 lowest portion of its bed, thence through Lake San Cristóbal to Lake Zumpango, whence it was to extend to a tunnel to be opened through the hills that close the valley on the north, giving exit to the water into the barranca of Tequisquiac. For nine years the work proceeded with more or less vigor, when Garay, having been appointed director-in-chief of the valley drainage, called attention to the fact that his original plan had been deviated from, and laid a new project before the government, in which he proposed that the tunnel and the cutting in the barranca should be abandoned, and another tunnel opened into the ravine of Ametlac.

Garay's project met with approval. It included an extensive system of navigable canals and irrigating ditches, all discharging into main arteries connected