supremacy and between individuals contending for economic power. This resulted both from the great productiveness of the country, and from the economic system in vogue, together producing wealth in such abundance as to stimulate the avarice of the greedy, and to produce general indifference to the public welfare.

This is pointed out by Josephus in Book V., Chapter II., in which he says:

"They applied themselves to the cultivation of the land, which producing them great plenty and riches, they neglected the regular disposition of their settlement, and indulged themselves in luxury and pleasures, nor were they longer careful to hear the laws which belonged to their political government."

This marks the beginning of the violation of the principles of the economic democracy of Moses, as indicated by the statement, "They neglected the regular disposition of their settlement," which will be treated at length in a subsequent article, the quotation being made here to show that economic inequality is not essential to the production of wealth. Enough, we trust, has been said upon this period of Jewish history to make it clear that those who regard Hebrew nationality as dating from the reign of Saul are almost as far from the truth as would be the historian who should date Grecian nationality as beginning with Alexander, or Roman nationality with Augustus Cæsar.

It was the wealth that was produced largely under the economic democracy which an ecclesiastic aristocracy under David and Solomon concentrated into a temple costing nearly five billion dollars, and took an army of 183,600 men, working under military compulsion, seven years to build, the money having been collected during the reign of David.

Still more of this democratic wealth

was aristocratically used by the erection of a royal palace by Solomon. Although the figures are not given, it is fair to assume, both from its dimensions and the time required to build it-thirteen years as compared to seven, for the temple— that it approached in cost that of the temple itself. This palace was imitated by many palaces built by the rich nobility.

This congestion at Jerusalem of wealth produced for the most part under the aristocracy under the first three kings, Democracy and appropriated by the of the ten tribes who revolted under was the ground of complaint on the part Rehoboam, the fourth king, and set up a government of their own, which will be considered as one of the chief disasters following the violation of the Mosaic code of Economics, to be treated in the next article of this series.

During the period of the Kings the political principles of the Mosaic law having been abandoned, there was but small chance for the economic law to assert itself. Nothing but pathologic data, therefore, is furnished by this period.

After the return of portions of the two tribes from the Babylonish captivity, however, observance of the economic law was renewed, and notwithstanding the payment of heavy tribute to their Eastern conquerors, after the reëstablishment of the Mosaic system under Nehemiah, by the abolition of rents and interest, and the cancellation of all debts and mortgages, not only was a large degree of material prosperity enjoyed by all classes, as shown by the liberal contributions toward rebuilding of the temple, but a great religious revival followed, Sabbath observance was reestablished, and the standard of social morality was elevated to a higher level than it had held since the days of Joshua.

GEORGE MCA. MILLER.
Glen Ellyn, Chicago, Ill.

INSIDE VIEW OF WEST PORTAL OF GUNNISON TUNNEL,

Through which will flow Gunnison river to

Uncompahgre Valley.

unoccupied acres, thought forty years ago to be inexhaustible, but already crowded. Already there is almost no public land left cultivable without irrigation. The unprecedented rapidity with which these acres have been overrun and settled with the multiplication of transportation facilities, the rapid denudation of forests revolutionizing climatic conditions, have led the Federal government to consider the situation as a national problem.

The problems of the reclamation service are not merely those of engineering, but include many complications of political and social conditions, and involve many phases of science, practical more than theoretical, worked out day by day by the highest grades of men the government can secure, intellectually and scientifically, and as to personal character. The personnel of this service, especially, must be above matters of selfish consideration. The United States government

requires under the Geological Survey, of which this service is a part, that no official shall have any personal or private rights in the lands or mineral wealth under survey.

The foundations of the work of the reclamation of our arid lands were laid by a man of as rare insight as heroic spirit, Major J. W. Powell. The story of his thrilling descent and exploration of the Colorado river, is one of the most daring chapters of the pioneer history of the North American continent. One etching will hang high on the walls of fame. At the bottom of that strange cleft in the earth, called the Grand Cañon of the Colorado, stands Major Powell wishing to advance, and his little-party who fear further to tempt the turbulent and unknown rapid below. This devoted scientist was determined to draw straws with death. "I will go down in one boat," he said, "and if at the head of the rapid I see I can get through alive, I will lift my arm -the only one he had. "If I do not lift it, you may return." And he shot down into the boiling current. The last they saw of him was his uplifted hand. The man was spared who was yet to serve his country in peace with as patient and able service as he had served it in war; the man who was to be the genius of the future exploration of the Great American Desert and solve the riddles propounded by the sphinxes buried in its sands. His report to Congress, Lands of the Arid Regions, the classic on the subject, caused Congress in 1888 to authorize him as Director of the United States Geological Survey, to investigate the extent to which the arid lands could be reclaimed by irrigation. The work was carried on for twenty years, by a corps of engineers known as the Division of Hydrography of the Geological Survey, of late years under Mr. F. H. Newell, now Chief Engineer of the Reclamation Service, of which he, perhaps, more than any other man living, is creator, and whose affairs he has ably and economically administered. One finds

in Mr. Newell's instructions and addresses to the two hundred and fifty engineers under him, constant appeal to the highest motives and insistence on the strictest economy and effectiveness, laying these down as the fundamental measures of promotion in the service. "The American engineer," he says, "is a man who can do for one dollar what another man can do for two dollars."

When the law was enacted setting aside the sale of public lands in thirteen states and three territories to be used in the construction of irrigation projects, the newly-organized service fell heir to a large body of data regarding the flow of streams in arid regions, their fluctuations, opportunities for storage and diversion, and other geologic facts; and these extended through a sufficient number of years to determine at once that certain localities were and others were

not adapted to economical irrigation, with a certainty of sufficient water to warrant the project; and Mr. Newell stepped into his place at the head of the service familiar with every detail of a work in which for years he had been the leading spirit.

Following is a table of the work now under construction, by the Reclamation Service, every project including within its further plans, the great enlargement of the areas to be reclaimed. That which is now under way and which will be finished ere long is tabulated on page 40.

The Minidoka project in Southern Idaho will eventually reclaim 130,000 acres on both sides of Snake river, and water will be raised by developed waterpower to the bench-land above the line of the gravity ditches.

In the Hondo project in New Mexico, near Roswell, the capacity of a large