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Show ARKANSAS RIVER LITIGATION 503 proprietors, and so, each is bound to use his common right, as not es- sentially to prevent or interfere with an equally beneficial enjoyment of the common right, by all the proprietors. * * * "The right to the use of flowing water is puhlici juris, and common to all the riparian proprietors; it is not an absolute and exclusive right to all the water flowing past their land, so that any obstruction would give a cause of action; but it is a right to the flow and enjoyment of the water, subject to a similar right in all the proprietors, to the rea- sonable enjoyment of the same gift of Providence. It is, therefore, only for an abstraction and deprivation of this common benefit, or for an unreasonable and unauthorized use of it, that an action will lie." As Kansas thus recognizes the right of appropriating the waters of a stream for the purposes of irrigation, subject to the condition of an equitable division between the riparian proprietors, she cannot complain if the same rule is administered between herself and a sister State. And this is especially true when the waters are, except for domestic purposes, practically useful only for purposes of irrigation. The Arkansas River, from its source to the eastern end of the Royal Gorge, is a mountain torrent, coming down between rocky banks and over a rocky bed. Along this distance it is of comparatively little use for irrigation purposes. After it debouches from the Royal Gorge it enters a valley, in which it wanders from one side to the other through eastern Colorado, southwestern Kansas and into Oklahoma, with but a slight descent, and presenting but little opportunities for the development of water power through falls or by dams. Its length in Kansas is about three hundred and fifty miles, and the descent is only 2,320 feet, or less than seven feet a mile. There are substan- tially no falls, no narrow passageways in which dams can be readily constructed for the development of water power; and while there are some in eastern Colorado, yet they are of little elevation and mainly to assist in the storing of water for purposes of irrigation. So that, if the extreme rule of the common law were enforced, Okla- homa having the same right to insist that there should be no diversion of the stream in Kansas for the purposes of irrigation that Kansas has in respect to Colorado, the result would be that the waters, ex- cept for the meager amount required for domestic purposes, would flow through eastern Colorado and Kansas and be of comparatively little advantage to either State, and both would lose the great benefit which comes from the use of the water for irrigation. The drainage area of the Arkansas River in Colorado is 26,000 square miles; in Kansas, 20,000 square miles; and all this area, unless the stream can be used-for purposes of irrigation, would be left to the slow develop- ment which comes from the cultivation of the soil. The testimony in this case is voluminous, amounting to 8,559 type- written pages, with 122 exhibits, and it would be impossible to make a full statement of facts without an extravagant extension of this opin- ion, which is already too long, and yet some facts must be stated to indicate the basis for the conclusion to which we have come. It must also be noted that, as might be expected in such a volume of testimony, |