The enactment of this bill ended a continuous effort on the part of San Francisco, covering a period of many years, to obtain the legal right to take water from Hetch-Hetchy. It marked the end of a contest, spirited and hard fought, which was participated in by the magazines and press the country over, and in which the great majority of publications outside of California opposed the plan of San Francisco. As this legislation affords legal opportunity for a water project primarily for domestic use, which is in itself a signal and notable work of engineering; as it affects vitally and strongly the irrigation interests of a state having a length of about 775 miles and a land surface greater than the combined areas of the six New England States, of New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Ohio—a State which James Bryce characterized as an empire within itself; as it gives a State a very important easement, likely to be enduring, in a national park sharing alone with the great Yellowstone National Park in distinctiveness and notoriety; as it is designed to provide the legal means of furnishing water and much power for the next 100 years for a rapidly growing metropolitan section, now more numerously peopled than any other west of Chicago, the Raker Bill and its accessories are of national interest. For the foregoing reasons inquiry is made: First—What is Hetch-Hetchy, and what, if any, are the present holdings and interests of San Francisco in the Yosemite National Park? Second—What is the Raker Bill? Third—What will be the operative effects of the Raker Bill on San Francisco and the rest of California outside the Yosemite National Park? Fourth—What will be the operative effects of the Raker Bill on the Yosemite National Park? I. What is Hetch-Hetchy, and what, if any are the present holdings and interests of San Francisco in the Yosemite National Park? (1) Until the agitation connected with obtaining water for San Francisco brought in the name of Hetch-Hetchy, the writer supposed Hetch-Hetchy to be probably the name of some Indian chief, some new brand of cigars or some noted trotting horse. Possibly some of those who read this article are still nearly as ignorant as was the writer then. Hetch-Hetchy is the name of a valley through which flows the Tuolumne River, and has tributary to it a watershed comprising 459 square miles. It lies entirely in Tuolumne County, California, entirely in the Yosemite National Park, of which it is the northern portion, and about 165 miles from San Francisco.