In other places in the valley temporary willow dams 1 or 2 feet high are made at convenient places, and the water carried several miles below on to the lands that are above the usual overflow; but these dams are carried away annually and have to be rebuilt, and frequently the river bed moves miles away from the mouth of the ditch or acequia, rendering it useless; but even if these difficulties in carrying the water from the bed of the river to the lands are overcome in the usual manner, it is evident that by reason of a great overflow, say, every seventh year, and a dry river in a like period, no system of irrigation for the Rio Grande can prove satisfactory that does not embrace a grand storage system sufficient both to restrain, to a great extent, at least, the tidal flow and maintain a constant annual flow, especially since the great immigration and settlement in its valley is constantly doubling the demand for water. Being on leave of absence in the city of El Paso recently, where I was a citizen before the war, having surveyed the first plat of the town and being well known to most of its citizens, I was invited by the city council to submit to it a plan for water supply and irrigation that would overcome the difficulties above referred to. It at once occurred to me that as the Rio Grande was the joint property of the two nations, and especially as the Mexicans had used its waters since time when "the memory of man runneth not to the contrary," that any plan to be acceptable and satisfactory must be international in character, and the works, both before and after completion, under the joint federal control of the two nations, the more so as riparian rights in this country, so far as regards irrigation, are not well defined by law, and could be best brought about in this instance by treaty stipulations between the two countries. The matter of restraining the tidal flow by storing the water, and thus protect the constantly changing national boundary, occurred to me--if it could be introduced into the project--as likely to secure encouragement and substantial aid in money from both governments. And further, that El Paso, being now a city of over 11,000 population, and having every prospect of being a large manufacturing city at no distant day--there being no place within 500 miles likely to compete with it--the subject of water power ought also to enter into the problem, which of necessity is of such vast proportions as to require all incidental aid possible to attach to it to insure its success.