270 IRRIGATION INVESTIGATIONS IN CALIFORNIA. 



amount of water, are ordinarily incorporated in the record,' and no determination is 

 possible from the record whether the water claimed in the notice is actually taken 

 and put to a benefical use, or whether the canal or ditch has been constructed, and of 

 what dimensions and capacity. No standard form of notice is prescribed bj' State 

 or county authorities, and the fact of the posting of the notice is not verified except 

 in a very few cases. If a claimant assigns his rights to some one else, and the location 

 of the claim is not stated with precision, it often becomes extremel}^ difficult to identify 

 the claim or claims made for any particular canal; in fact, without the aid of canal 

 owners and a complete search of the records of conveyances, it would be impossible 

 to assign the filings to the respective canals and ditches. 



The facts relating to canal construction, to date of completion, to original 

 capacities, to subsequent enlargement, to extensions and kindred matters, do not 

 become matters of record until a dispute between rival claimants to the same water 

 brings the canal owners into court, and even then the findings of the court, based 

 upon the weight and preponderance of evidence and conclusions reached by the 

 courts, should not always be considered final. 



Three hundred and fiftj^-five claims to water and water apportionments, the 

 latter made by the countj" boards of supervisors acting as water commissionex's, 

 could be identified with a fair degree of certaintj' as being intended to appertain to 

 Kings River or some of its tributaries. Thirteen others were so indefinitelj' worded 

 that thej^ afforded no reliable clew to the stream or locality where the original was 

 posted. These notices have been abstracted from the records of the three counties, 

 Fresno, Tulare, and Kings. The last-named county was formed a few j'ears ago out 

 of a portion of Tulare Countj\ 



By assuming an approximate equivalent for the claims which are indefinite in 

 the statement of amount of water to be diverted, and which fail to specif j' the dimen- 

 sions of the canal or ditch to be constructed, it is found that these filings cover an 

 aggregate of about 750,000 cubic feet per second, of which about 100,000 can readilj' 

 be identified as duplications. A mere glance at the estimated flow of the river 

 (p. 269) is sufficient to show the extent of exaggeration ordinarily indulged in by 

 the water claimant. 



The notices of claims to water from Kings River tributaries, so far as they could 

 be identified as relating to this stream, are scattered through the records of three 

 counties, Fresno, Tulare, and Kings.' 



INSUFFICIENCY OF THE RECORD. 



The first claim, recorded on July 28, 1863, was to "all the water" of Fish 

 Creek. 



Two years later Hiram Dennis described his appropriation as a "ditch 20 feet 

 wide." 



Jesse Morrow, in 1865, recorded a claim to part of the water of Kings River 

 sufficient for the purposes stated in his notice. 



Jesse Morrow, William Hazleton, and Harvey Akers, in January, 1866, claimed 



• A tabulated aljstract of the records of claims to water from Kings River was submitted with the 

 report. It covered 42 pages of type-written manuscript, and is too long for insertion liere. 



