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Willis Thomas Lee

Publications and source records attributed to Willis Thomas Lee.

11 recordsLinked to original sources
USGS1915

Guidebook of the western United States: Part B - The overland route, with a side trip to Yellowstone Park

The United States of America comprise an area so vast in extent and so diverse in natural features as well as in characters due to human agency that the American citizen who knows thoroughly his own country must have traveled widely and observed wisely. To 'know America first' is a patriotic obligation, but to meet this obligation the railroad traveler needs to have his eyes directed toward the more important or essential things within his field of vision and then to have much that he sees explained by what is unseen in the swift passage of the train. Indeed, many things that attract his attention are inexplicable except as the story of the past is available to enable him to interpret the present. Herein lie the value and the charm of history, whether human or geologic. The present stimulus given to travel in the home country will encourage many thousands of Americans to study geography at first hand. To make this study most profitable the traveler needs a handbook that will answer the questions that come to his mind so readily along the way. Furthermore, the aim of such a guide should be to stimulate the eye in the selection of the essentials in the scene that so rapidly unfolds itself in the crossing of the continent. In recognition of the opportunity afforded in 1915 to render service of this kind to an unusually large number of American citizens as well as to visitors from other countries, the United States Geological Survey has prepared a series of guidebooks covering four of the older railroad routes west of the Mississippi. These books are educational in purpose, but the method adopted is to entertain the traveler by making more interesting what he sees from the car window. The plan of the series is to present authoritative information that may enable the reader to realize adequately the scenic and material resources of the region he is traversing, to comprehend correctly the basis of its development, and above all to appreciate keenly the real value of the country he looks out upon, not as so many square miles of territory represented on the map in a railroad folder by meaningless spaces, but rather as land - real estate, if you please - varying widely in present appearance because differing largely in its history and characterized by even greater variation in values because possessing diversified natural resources. One region may be such as to afford a livelihood for only a pastoral people; another may present opportunity for intensive agriculture; still another may contain hidden stores of mineral wealth that may attract large industrial development; and taken together these varied resources afford the promise of long-continued prosperity for this or that State. Items of interest in civic development or references to significant epochs in the record of discovery and settlement may be interspersed with explanations of mountain and valley or statements of geologic history. In a broad way, the story of the West is a unit, and every chapter should be told in order to meet fully the needs of the tourist who aims to understand all that he sees. To such a traveler-reader this series of guidebooks is addressed. To this interpretation of our own country the United States Geological Survey brings the accumulated data of decades of pioneering investigation, and the present contribution is only one type of return to the public which has supported this scientific work under the Federal Government. In preparing the description of the country traversed by the Overland Route the geographic and geologic information already published as well as unpublished material in the possession of the Geological Survey has been utilized, but to supplement this material Messrs. Lee, Stone, and Gale made a field examination of the entire route in 1914, Mr. Lee working between Omaha and Ogden, Mr. Stone between Ogden and Yellowstone, and Mr. Gale between Ogden and San Francisco. Information has been furnished by Profs. J. C. Merriam a

Bulletin↗
USGS1908

Water resources of Beaver Valley, Utah

Location and extent of area examined. Beaver Valley is located in Beaver County, in southwestern Utah, about 175 miles south of Salt Lake. It lies between the Tushar Mountains on the east and the Beaver Mountains on the west. The principal town of the valley is Beaver, which is most conveniently reached from Milford, a station on the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad. The valley, together with its neighboring highlands, occupies the eastern third of Beaver County, an area of about 1,200 square miles. A large part of this area, however, is rocky upland and unproductive desert, the tillable land comprising a comparatively small area in the immediate vicinity of the streams. Purpose and scope of work . The purpose of this paper is to present information concerning the waters of Beaver Valley and to point out ways and means of increasing their usefulness. The presence of a large amount of water in Beaver Valley results from local topograhic conditions, the water being supplied by precipitation in the highland to the east. Its conservation and distribution result from geologic conditions, the water being held in loose gravel and sand, which are more or less confined between ridges of consolidated rocks. The rock basins were formed partly by erosion and partly by faulting and surface deformation. In order to accomplish the purpose in view it is therefore necessary to describe the geographic and geologic conditions in Beaver Valley and neighboring regions. The investigation included the determination of the flow of streams and springs, of the manner of occurrence and quantity of the underground waters as shown by the geologic and geographic conditions of the region and by the distribution of springs and wells, and of the chemical character of the waters with reference to their adaptability to domestic use and to irrigation. The chemical data were obtained (a) by field assays, which are approximately correct and probably of sufficient accuracy to be of value in comparing the various waters; (b) by more exact analyses, some of which were made in the laboratory of the United States Geological Survey by W. M. Barr, and others by Herman Harms, State chemist of Utah, for the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad; and (c) by sanitary analyses, made also by Herman Harms. Cooperation . The work was done during the summer of 1906, the United States Geological Survey cooperating with the State of Utah through Caleb Tanner, State engineer, and with the county of Beaver through the supervisors of the county. In collecting the information the writer was assisted by J. F. Hoyt, of Nephi, Utah.

Utah↗