THE COLORADO RIVER CLOSURE.

The Story of a Three Years' Struggle to close a Breach in the Banks of a Great River.

AMONG tho many tasks that fall to the J-\ lot of the engineer is that of altering ^ ^ the flow of a river. Perhaps a stream bursts its banks and changes its course : it must be forced back into its original bed. Or, on the other hand, it may be necessary to divert a river from its natural path for irrigation or other purposes.

Such undertakings are usually effected without difficulty, by throwing dams across a breach in a broken bank, or by digging a new channel, as circumstances may need. But in the case of tho Colorado River outbreak and closure the problem was such as to make its solution a matter of world-wide interest.