[12] The settlers had made desert or homestead entries on the land, were actually in possession of it, and had an equitable right to it; but the original survey of this part of California had been found inaccurate and defective, and the Government would not--possibly could not--issue patents until boundaries had been more clearly defined by a re-survey. The settlers, therefore, could not raise money on their farms by mortgaging them, because the legal title was still vested in the Government. This became a very serious matter when they wished to help the Southern Pacific in its fight with the river. [13] Maxwell Evarts. [14] Where the soil, on the site of a proposed levee, is loose and porous, so that water percolates rapidly through it, a “muck-ditch” is dug, to a depth of six or eight feet; material of more solid consistency is packed into it, and the levee is then built on the impervious foundation. [15] The text of the agreement may be found in Report 1936, House of Representatives, 61st Congress, 3rd Session, Jan. 18, 1911. [16] The northern part of this dam, across the by-pass and intake, was built under the immediate supervision of Superintendent Thomas J. Hind, and the southern part, across the second crevasse, under that of Superintendent C. K. Clarke. Both were Southern Pacific engineers. THE RECOMPENSE One might naturally suppose that when a private citizen, at the head of a great railroad company, averted a national calamity, and saved for the country public property that was actually worth $25,000,000 and that had a potential value of “from $350,000,000 to $700,000,000,” he would be entitled, at least, to the thanks of the national legislature. If, even in Russia, a railroad president, at the request of the Czar, controlled a great flood in the Volga, barred that river out of the city of Astrakhan, and saved from total destruction “700,000 acres” of fertile land potentially worth “from $350,000,000 to $700,000,000,” he would certainly receive the thanks of the nation, expressed in a suitably worded resolution of the Duma and the Council of the Empire. It is more than probable that, even in China, something of this kind would have been done for a railroad president who had controlled a disastrous flood in the valley of the Hoang-ho. But no such acknowledgment of valuable service was ever made by the Congress of the United States.