WATER APPROPRIATION FROM KINGS RIVER. 283 



but who were farseeing enough to recognize the vahie to their enterprise of controll- 

 ing also the water to Kings River and other streams to the south as well as the over- 

 flow of Tulare Lake. Their project was on too stupendous a scale to be carried out 

 in its entirety with the means at command, but it indicates that the value of effecting 

 a control of the water available for irrigation was early appreciated. From the 

 notices recorded it is inferred that they claimed the first right to water running in 

 Kings River. The records also indicate their intent to dam up Lake Tulare, using the 

 same as a reservoir and availing themselves of the flow of Kings River sloughs, the 

 Mussel Slough, Four Creeks, Deer and Elk creeks, Bayou River, Tule River, White 

 River, Poso Creek, Kern River, Kern River sloughs. Goose Lake, Buena Vista and 

 Kern lakes, and Buena Vista Slough. It was also proposed by the same company to 

 utilize by appropriation the waters of Summit Lake and its tributaries; also to con- 

 vert a 15-mile stretch of Kings River, near the point where it leaves the foothills, 

 into a reservoir for storage purposes. As ultimately constructed, the canal of the San 

 Joaquin and Kings River Canal Company received its supply of water from San 

 Joaquin River at the point where the same is joined by Fresno Slough. Kings River 

 contributes to the supply of the canal but little water — only that which through 

 north-side delta channels reaches Fresno Swamp, and succeeds in passing the num- 

 erous north-side Kings River irrigation canals, and even this water, as it flows only 

 at times when the San Joaquin River is furnishing an abundant supply, can hardly 

 be construed as being an important contribution to the water taken by that canal. 



The idea of utilizing Tulare Lake as a storage reservoir for irrigation purposes 

 was revived a few years later, when the legislatui'e passed an act authorizing the 

 formation of a west-side inngation district. The studies for this district relating to 

 water supply and canal system were made and all preliminary steps for its organiza- 

 tion were taken. The bonds authorized, however, were never sold, and no district 

 works were constructed. 



SANGER FLtTME. 



Sanger Flume and Lumber Company uses a certain amount of Kings River 

 water, diverted from the stream far up the mountains, to float its lumber to a delivery 

 at Sanger, about 14 miles east of Fresno. The water of the flume- — about 15 to 20 

 cubic feet per second — is, by agreement with the Fresno Canal and Irrigation Com- 

 pany, turned into the Lone Tree Channel, one of the branches of the Fresno Canal. 



DITCHES OF CENTERVILLE BOTTOMS. 



Earliest among the users of Kings River water for pui-poses of irrigation were 

 the settlers in the Centerville Bottoms. The bottom lands were naturally well, and 

 frequently excessively, watered by the network of high and low water channels in 

 which the river flows through the bottoms and to a final concentration in a single 

 channel near the lower end of the bottoms at the Narrows. Control of water in these 

 channels and its diversion were readih' effected. A few cobbles piled into a channel 

 to increase the flow in another, even a high-water slough, has frequently been the 

 basis for thereafter claiming it as a ditch or canal. Some of the ditches now in use 

 in the Centerville Bottoms are of recent construction. In the case of some of these 

 newer canals, their owners, claiming that they w«re constructed for the benefit of me 



