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May 21, 1953 Mias Jewel Mason Spencer Bibbs School 1900 North Davis Street Pensacola, Florida Dear Jewel: This letter is written in response to your inquiry re­garding our water supply. We do not have any rivers In this part of the desert, so w® obtain our water from the artesian or underground channel. The water in the artesian channel comes from snow meltage- in the Charleston Mountains, about 35 miles west of Lae Vegas, and flows underground until w© tap the supply with & well— whereupon the water rises to the surface and overflows. We then capture the water in a pipeline and transmit it to a large concrete structure called a settling-basin. At this point it drops any small grains of sand It may have picked up in the underground channel, and emerges from the settling-basin as clear, sparkling artesian water. It is then carried through more pipelines to the big reser­voir, thence into the city, where smaller service lines carry the water into homes and buildings. We have, at the present time, eleven big artesian wells, drilled to a depth of 4©0 to 1200 feet, and these wells produce more than fif­teen million gallons per day. The population of Las Vegas is about 30,000 and it is located in Souther Nevada. Sorry we have no pictures to send you. Good luck with your booklet. Very truly yours, L. R. Maag LRM/dm