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Show 286 APPROPRIATION OF WATER claimed the right either to grant or to reject; and he could make his appropriation only pursuant to the grant if he received one. This act was in effect until 1880. The 1852 law was replaced in 1880 by a statute which made the county selectmen ex offlcio water commissioners of the county and which recognized accrued rights to water acquired by appropriation and provided for their determination and orderly recordation. But it contained no procedure for making new appropriations.329 An intending appropriator diverted and applied water to beneficial use and thereby appropriated it, as before, but without the terms and conditions which the county court had previously been authorized to impose and which, in many instances, it apparently did. During this period, "rights to the use of unappropriated waters were not acquired without a taking and diverting and using them."330 The 1880.law remained in effect until a procedural law was enacted in 1897.331 California Gold Rush.- Water laws that evolved during this vital period in California history were generated on public lands of the United States, which Mexico had ceded by virtue of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.332 This treaty was proclaimed July 4,1848, less than 6 months after the discovery of gold in the Sierra foothills. There was little or no organized government in the mining areas in these early years, and little or no law other than that made and enforced by the miners themselves.333 The miners took possession of the land and the gold and the water needed to work the placer mining claims. They established and enforced rules and regulations governing acquisition and holding of mining claims, based on priority of discovery and diligence in working them; and they applied the same principles to the acquisition and exercise of rights to the water that they needed. These regulations and customs were strikingly characteristic of earlier mining enterprises in the Old World (see "Establishment of the Appropriation Doctrine in the West" in chapter 6). Each mining camp made its own rules regarding location and working of mines and governing appropriation of water. The rules differed in detail from one locality to another, but the fundamental principles were substantially uniform. The right to appropriate water was customarily initiated by posting a notice at the place of intended diversion, and it was established by diverting water and applying it with due diligence to beneficial use. One who followed the rules acquired a right superior to those of later appropriators. The principle of "first in time, first in right" was fundamental. It was strictly enforced. 329 Utah Laws 1880, ch. 20. 330Coray v.Holbrook, 40 Utah 325, 338, 121 Pac. 572 (1912). 331 Utah Laws 1897, ch. 52. 3329Stat. 928. 333 A very early statute provided that in actions respecting mining claims, proof should be admitted of the customs, usages, or regulations established at the bar or diggings embracing the claim: Cal. Stat. 1851, ch. 5, § 621. |