Wright was appointed the trustee, and how faithfully he fulfilled the trust was shown by the ultimate report, that brought back to each investor the sum invested together with interest for the full time the money had been out of hand.

Eventually the ditch was sold to H. G. Leavitt and associates, and while it cost many times the original estimates, and while there was no doubt some waste and losses in the construction, it is pronounced by experts and engineers as one of the finest structural accomplishments in all the history of irrigation.

The needle dam, at the intake of this tremendous artificial river, is of such character that one man can in a few hours practically dam the North Platte river, or in the same length of time remove the dam. He can hold the water at a given inch in height, regardless of the fluctuating flow from day to day or hour to hour.

The wasteway constructed some distance down the ditch from the headgate, contains nineteen miles of re-enforcing steel rods, the body being of concrete. Massive iron gates that can be raised or lowered at will, govern the flow of the water into the main canal. Each day the ditch superintendent receives reports by telephone, the needs of the water users along the sixty-mile canal and that is the quantity

HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA

that goes through the gates. At the headgate the canal bottom is forty feet wide, and it will carry water a depth of eleven feet.