EVAPORATION EXPERIMENTS ON KINGS RIVER. 328 



(9) A complete record of water rights for the entire State should be kept in a 

 State office, and these records should show not only, as at present, the original intent 

 of the claimant, but also the allotment of water by the proper authority, the date of 

 ditch or canal construction, the dimensions of the finished structure, its ordinary 

 flow, and its capacity; also subsequent enlargements and all other facts that are 

 essential in comparing its claim to water with those of other canals or ditches taking 

 water from the same stream. History and records of this kind can not be made 

 by the water appropriator, but should in large part be the result of original inquirj' 

 and measurements b}- State officials. 



(10) Litigation is not leading to a satisfactory solution of the water-right prob- 

 lems. The fault is not so much with the courts as it is with the uncei"tainty of what 

 is to be considered law. There is no intelligible rule of decisions. Each case is 

 peculiar to itself. No irrigator can ascertain his rights without an analysis of com- 

 mon law as applied in countries and under conditions that are hardlj- comparable 

 with those here prevailing. 



(11) Some method should be devised for establishing rules of decision in water- 

 right matters that will rest on a positive basis and that will not be susceptible of 

 varied interpretation. 



(12) The right to water or its use should pass to the land served and should 

 remain attached thereto. Canal owners should be considered common carriers. 



(13) The flow of the river should be increased at the low-water stage so far as 

 practicable by water stoi"age in mountain reservoirs. 



(ll) All rights conferred under franchises, or as special privileges, should, at 

 the termination thereof, pass to the people benefited, and such franchise or privilege 

 should not be renewable without their consent. 



Appendix. 



EVAPORATION EXPERIMENTS ON KINGS RIVER. 



The following tables contain the results of evaporation experiments made by 

 the State engineer's department of California' in the j'ears 1881 to 1885 at Kingsburg, 

 on Kings River. 



The pans used in making these observations were 3 feet square and 15 inches 

 deep. The water surface was maintained about 5 inches below the rim of the pan, 

 the required position being indicated by a metal galvanized iron pin rising in the 

 center of the pan to the desired height. The point of this pin was kep* barely 

 submerged. 



The amount of water required from time to time to restore its surface in the 

 pans to a normal elevation was measured in standard cups prepared for the purpose 

 and graduated to represent depth of water in the pan for which used. 



One pan was floated in the river, another was kept on the bank. The pan on 

 the bank, referred to as the pan in the air in the tables, was, after the fii^st three 



1 AVilliani Hammond Hall, State engineer. The department was abolished in 1891. 



