are still practiced, modern harvesting machinery is replacing the hand sickle, the sulky plow supplants the sharpened stick, and the threshing of grain is now performed by modern methods, and rarely by means of goats and ponies. Splendid highways of concrete and macadam connect the farming communities with numerous thriving towns, and the quaint groups of adobe houses, which here and there rise in the desert, are the last remains of vanishing races that are slowly giving way to modern progress. [Illustration: SIX YEARS FROM DESERT LAND A rich and fruitful farm on land barren in 1912] _The Shoshone Dam_ In northern Wyoming, near the eastern entrance to Yellowstone National Park, the South and North Forks of Shoshone River plunge downward from the steep slopes of the Rockies and unite in a broad level-floored valley which in early geological times was a beautiful mountain lake. At the lower end of the valley the river rushes abruptly into a deep and narrow canyon. The entrance to the canyon, which is only sixty feet wide at the bottom, was selected as the site for the Shoshone dam. Before construction began it was necessary to blast a highway through the gorge for a distance of eight miles, in order to connect the work with the nearest railway. This highway is now a part of the road system into the Park, and is known as Cody Way. [Illustration: DRYING ALMONDS On the Orland Project, California] Nearly a year was spent in investigating bed rock conditions before the foundation was placed. Enormous boulders eighty feet in thickness were discovered in the bed of the stream; the removal of these, owing to the narrowness and depth of the canyon, proved expensive and difficult. Before any work was undertaken in clearing the channel of obstructions, the river was passed around the dam site by means of a tunnel. During the early period of construction the laborers were taken to and from their work, hundreds of feet below the camp, by means of baskets, and skips were suspended on cable ways across the gorge. Sudden floods, extreme cold weather, short seasons, and other unfavorable conditions greatly retarded progress. The dam is a wedge of concrete, with curve up stream, 328 feet in height, and 200 feet long on top. It has restored the lake of olden times, and this beautiful body of water is now one of the attractions of the trip to the Park. The stored water will be utilized for the irrigation of 150,000 acres of land on the mesa (a high, broad, flat table-land) below Cody. This region until 1907 was a worthless and uninhabited desert. Today it is occupied by more than 700 farm families and three growing towns. _Conquering the American Nile_ [Illustration: LAGUNA DAM, ARIZONA-CALIFORNIA Length, 4781 feet; 19 feet high. Division Gates, 17×33 feet, are the largest in the world]