NATIONAL ACADEMY BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS VOL. VIII 



shall fall into the hands of water companies, evils will result 

 therefrom that generations may not be able to correct, and the 

 very men who are now lauded as benefactors to the country 

 will, in the ungovernable reaction which is sure to come, be 

 denounced as oppressors of the people. The right to use water 

 should inhere in the land to be irrigated, and water rights 

 should go with land titles' (41). "The ancient principles of 

 common law applying to the use of natural streams, so wise 

 and equitable in a humid region, would, if applied to the arid 

 region, practically prohibit the growth of its most important 

 industries," because the water there "has no value in its nat- 

 ural channel. . . . Water rights are being practically sev- 

 ered from the natural channels of the streams ; and this must 

 be done. ... In the change it is to be feared that water 

 rights will in many cases be separated from all land rights 

 as the system is now forming. If this fear is not groundless 

 to the extent that such a separation is secured, water will be- 

 come a property independent of the land, and this property 

 will be gradually absorbed by a few. Monopolies of water 

 will be secured, and the whole agriculture of the [arid] coun- 

 try will be tributary thereto a condition of affairs which an 

 American citizen having in view the interests of the largest 

 number of people cannot contemplate with favor. . . . 

 The right to the water should inhere in the land where it is 

 used, . . . not to the individual or company constructing 

 the canals by which it is used" (42, 43). A natural result of 

 this invaluable report was Powell's appointment as a member 

 of the Public Land Commission by the Senate and House of 

 Representatives in 1879. 



The enormous import of Powell's conclusions may be under- 

 stood when it is recognized how many of them have been 

 given practical application on a large scale, in more or less 

 modified form, by governmental bureaus. Land classification 

 and stream measurement are now important functions of our 

 national Geological Survey; the same survey for a time re- 

 ported upon reservoir sites and upon the area and value of 

 forests, but the latter duty ha's later been given to the Forestry 

 Bureau, under which the greatest efforts are made to secure 

 adequate protection from forest fires; the difficulty which 



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