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Show 75 plateau province approximately 83,986 square miles; the mountain province approximately 85,190 square miles. The majority of the land within the drainage of this river and its tributaries is still owned by the Government The uses to which it may be applied must be confined largely to grazing and mining purposes, while local spots will admit of cultivation by irrigation process, in connection with the gradual development of the country, yet the husbanding of water becomes a matter of great import to all those who may at some future time occupy this portion of our interior domain. For a distance of 435 miles from the junction of the Green and Grand rivers it traverses territorial domain ; and all that part of the Grand River still traversing public lands, as well as the basin of the Green River, is now owned by the Government, with few exceptions, and the disposition of its waters is a subject over which the General Government should assume entire control. Legislation may be had defining more clearly and with greater certainty the rights of persons settling along the banks of main and tributary streams. It will be seen that the amount of precipitation, except in the mountainous province, is very small, and that little which is collected and, for which the river is the main channel of discharge, should be utilized in the most efficient manner. That can only be done by using its waters, so far as practicable, upon the land along its banks and within the immediate valleys adjacent thereto, and by artificial reservoirs. The measurement of the waters of this stream at proper points within the three provinces is a matter of importance, and the same should be ordered at an early day, so that the volume of water that could be made available for irrigation at stated intervals of the year, and especially daring the seasons best adapted to crops, might become known, to the end that general legislation could direct the pro rata uses of the same for purposes of irrigation, when needed by actual settlers who have acquired title from the Government, or who are about to do so in pursuance of the homestead- laws. There being no law upon this subject to protect the rights of settlers upon streams as against prior occupants, nothing now prevents the diversion of the water of any stream, not alone of this great river above the head of navigation, but of all those flowing through Government lands in this and all other drainage- basins of the " Western States and Territories, by interested proprietors, whose locus may have been selected at the point most likely to control the maximum of the waters of the immediate water- shed. It has been decided that water- rights guaranteed to settlers under the law of July 26,1866, ( Revised Statutes, p. 432, sec. 2339,) by a late opinion of the Supreme Court, rendered in the case of Basey vs. Gallagher, may inure under certain conditions. ( See the American Law Times and Reports, March and April, 1875, for decision of the court) The conditions of the case in question are best shown by the following extracts from the brief of the case, viz: " 4. In the Pacific States and Territories a right to running waters on the public lands of the United States for purposes of irrigation may be acquired by prior appropriation as against parties not having the title of the Government. The right exercised within reasonable limits, having reference to the condition of the country and the necessities of the community, is entitled to protection. This rule" obtains in the Territory of Montana, and is sanctioned by its legislation. u 5. By the act of Congress of July 2691866, which provides i that whenever, by priority of possession, rights to the use of water for mining, agricultural, manufacturing, or other purposes have vested and accrued, and the same are recognized and acknowledged by the local customs, |