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o (.' ., ..... l\j C") C) The mean annual flow past Garden City for the period of record, 1923-49, is 175,900 acre-feet. Flow is quite variable and mean annual flows have ranged from 2,000 acre-feet in 1940 to 1,191l000 acre-feet in 1942. The mean annual rainfall at Garden City vas 1~.15 inches for the 27 years of stream-flow record, as compared to 19.19 inches for the preceding 33 years since 1890. Droughts of 1934-37 and 1940 were the worst recorded, though an earlier drought, in 1892-94, w.s similar, BelOW Garden City, near Larned, the Arkansas River again becomes a perennial stream. In its headw.ters, the Pawnee River has created rugged topography, and near Lamed it has cut a deep channel. Its contribution to the flow of the Arkansas River, in some years, is as great as the flow of the main stream above its mouth and its flood flow is frequently greater. However, aver 10,000 acre-feet annually are pumped from the Pawnee River for irrigation, and there is also some pumping for irrigation from Walnut Creek Which enters the Arkansas River near Great Bend. The rainfall record at Larned for 1904-49 shows a mean annual precipitation of 23.3 inches, which is about the same as the mean for the period of stream-flow record, but intermittent record from 1860-1904 indicates that this area has had periods of severe drought prior to 1923. The total ra1nf'all in 1872 vas only 7.97 inches. The mean annual flow at Great Bend, where the Arkansas River turns toward the southeast, for the period of record 1923-49 is 267,100 acre- feet. During several drought periods the river has gone dry at this point. The chemical quality of the river flow is fair to good in this reach. There is DO well-defined eastern border to the High Plains in Kansas, although the topography on the northern side of the Arkansas becomes more rolling below Great Bend, Near Hutchinson the Permian redbuds are en- countered, which extend to central Oklahoma, The soils in the uplands of this region are relatively impermeable and runoff is canparatively large except in the wide belt of alluvium, terrace deposits, and sand dunes in or near the valley. Below Wichita the topography of the basin becomes more rolling, the tributary streams are pereIlIlial, the rainfall increases to about 34 inches near Arkansas City, Kansas, and base or sus tained flow increases. At the Kansas-oklahoma state line below Arkansas City, where the drainage area is 46,000 square miles, the mean annual flow for the period of record 1923-49 is 1,855,000 acre-feet, The quality of w.ter at,this 2-2 \