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Show 28 CHARACTERISTICS OF WATERCOURSE channel is formed necessarily contains water in greater or less degree, and this water-bearing zone may be very limited in extent or may extend to considerable depths and for considerable distances on each side. The water-bearing zone adjacent to a previous surface channel is called in the court decisions the "underflow" or "subflow" of the surface watercourse. It may be in contact with the ground water table in the region through which the stream flows, or may be separated from it. A surface stream throughout part of its course may be discharging water into the ground; elsewhere, it may be taking water from the ground; and in other places, there may be neither an underground inflow nor outflow, but only a surface flow supported by the water in the subterranean channel or reservoir-a physical balance. At a given point on a stream channel, there may be an inflow from the ground at one time and an outflow into the ground at another time. Some of the water that passes from the surface stream channel into the ground becomes permanently separated from the subflow and enters the classification of percolating water. Other surface stream water that seeps into the subflow remains therein and moves downstream as a part of that subterranean body of water. Therefore, the flow in a watercourse does not mean solely the visible surface stream, but includes likewise the underflow, where there is one. The underflow is as much a part of the watercourse and as important from the standpoint of rights in the watercourse as is the surface flow; for if the waters within this subterranean area are withdrawn, the surface waters tend to sink into the voids to take their place. The legal implications of this are widely recognized in court decisions. Although definitions of a surface watercourse seldom refer to associated waters in the ground, nevertheless the underflow is a physical part of the whole and the courts have held it to be a component part. The association between surface watercourses and diffused surface waters and ground waters is therefore very marked. The legal significance of this association is highly important, although it has not been established in all instances. ELEMENTS OF WATERCOURSE Typical Definitions Judicial Definitions of "watercourse" and of its component parts appear in high court decisions rendered throughout the West. The accompanying footnote brings together citations of cases in which some typical definitions have been given by western courts over the 90-year period from 1875 to 1965, arranged chronologically.6 6Barnes v. Sabron, 10 Nev. 217, 236-239 (1875); Geddis v.Parrish, 1 Wash. 587, 589, 21 Pac. 314 (1889); Simmons v. Winters, 21 Oreg. 35, 41-42, 27 Pac. 7 (1891); Rait v. Furrow, 74 Kans. 101, 105, 107, 85 Pac. 934 (1906); Jaquez Ditch Co. v. Garcia, 17 N. Mex. 160, 161, 124 Pac. 891 (1912);/« re German Ditch & Res. Co., 56 Colo. 252, |