To anyone familiar with Nevada, there are dozens of such desert
reaches which must instantly suggest themselves to the mind, and it is
interesting to speculate, not altogether idly, on how advantage might
be taken of such conditions. The Bulletin particularly speaks of one
of these areas:

"In an investigation recently made by O. E. Meinzer, of the United
States Geological Survey of the Department of the Interior, in Big
Smokey Valley and adjacent area near Tonopah, Nev., the character of
the vegetation and other surface criteria show that the ground-water
stands within ten feet of the surface over an area of 130,000 acres.
The measurements made indicate that tens of thousands of acre feet of
water are annually contributed by mountain streams and by rainfall to
the underground reservoir, and that about the same quantity of ground-
water is annually discharged into the atmosphere through the soil and
the plants in the shallow water areas. It was estimated that in an
area of 240,000 acres the ground-water lies within 50 feet of the
surface and that in an area of 335,000 acres it lies within 100 feet
of the surface. Detailed maps were made showing the location and
extent of these areas."

Nevada, because of its peculiar geographical and climatological
situation, will always need to irrigate its land to produce crops.
Where irrigation waters are available, the soil has proved abundantly
fertile, but Nevada has been handicapped by a lack of water for these
very soils which would be capable of producing the best crops.

If, perhaps, underlying those fertile though now arid areas there is
such a reservoir of untapped waters as the Bulletin describes, there