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Show 296 REPORT OF THE CHIEF OF ENGINEERS. Without it the entire gold region might have been inclosed in large tracts, under the pretense of agriculture and grazing, and eventually what would have sufficed as a rich bounty to many thousands would be reduced to the proprietorship of a few. Aside from this, the legislation and decisions have been uniform in awarding the right of peaceable enjoyment to the first occupant, either of the land or of anything incident to the land." (Per Heydenfeldt, J., 5 Cat., 397.) The case here laid confirms the occupant by possession as against the parties subsequently appropriating the waters under like conditions, and declares the doctrine which must determine, in other cases of occupancy after perfection of title, a more thorough and complete recognition of the rights to a specified amount of water, because of prior appropriation, which amount can be limited by nothing short of the entire volume of discharge. That this right has been claimed and maintained, to the detriment of incoming settlers, in the State of California, is well known. The difficulty arises because of the actual severing of the water from the land, its natural bed and mate, by legislation looking to the protection of settlers and other owners in their vested rights, real or supposed. Unless this can be remedied, it is plain that the area west of the one hundredth meridian, and, indeed, still other areas lying between this line and the Mississippi lliver, cannot be settled except at local points, which will be selected principally because of the opportunities to use the entire water-supply with the greatest certainty, and the several tracts will thus fall into the hands of speculators and other large holders, to the detriment of that class of settlers most likely to enter and occupy these outlying lands, and establish the nuclei of a continuous cordon of settlement from east to west through the entire interior; small settlements though they might be, still they would be susceptible of a healthy increase by immigration, provided that the rights to each settler of an equable distribution of the water should be guaranteed by law. This cannot, however, be completely accomplished, until the gauging of the streams and measurement of the outlying districts are made by meandering the water-sheds, estimating the geographical conditions of each, bringing all into districts arranged according to the physical configuration of the country-the divisiou being usually made by drawing lines normal to the general course of the main stream at each point selected for observation-and by determining the arable aud arid portions within these districts, with the general profile of the country, a law could finally be framed that would provide for the entire equable distribution of the waters within each basin or water-shed. To this end it is suggested that, at an early day, the gauging of the rivers and principal creeks be commenced, not alone in the valley of the Colorado, but in all the basins of drainage of the entire western country. This can only be done by establishing a certain number of stations that can be made meteorological stations, furnishing a part of their data for the use of the Weather Bureau, when they can be reached by telegraph, and at which the gauging and changes in the streams can be ascertained, as well as the areas of the water-shed and the source of the main stream, with pro-hies of lines of irrigation-canals, and marked depressions fitted for storage-reservoirs, with estimates of evaporation, while the amounts of arable and timber and grazing sections can be determined by the moving field-parties engaged in the prosecution of geographical surveys, so that prior to actual occupation an exact knowledge can be had of the amounts of water needed to irrigate certain classes of soils in the several localities. None.-I am indebted to Hon. Montgomery Blair for reference to tbe decision of the Supreme Court regarding water-rights under tbe law of 1866.-O. M. W. |
