822 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIV. No. 885 



with water and its derivatives — all looking 

 toward increasingly complete control and 

 utilization for the public benefit, while 

 largely in cooperation with individuals and 

 state institutions, the growing knowl- 

 edge is applied and the control extended 

 from year to year in increasing degree; in 

 the Department of Commerce and Labor 

 the bureau of corporations has made a 

 systematic investigation of navigation 

 with a view to better regulation of both 

 natural and artificial facilities; and in the 

 same department the census bureau has 

 reckoned the actual control of water for 

 irrigation. Under the federal legislation 

 and administrative operations, water is 

 not only measured more accurately than in 

 any other country but is steadily passing 

 under control in the public interest, largely 

 through cooperation with individuals 

 and states, yet always in such wise as to 

 exemplify and establish the common in- 

 terest of all the people in the water of the 

 country. The advance in this direction 

 during the last decade has been especially 

 rapid; and though apparently little noted, 

 it is among the most significant in our en- 

 tire history with respect to knowledge, use 

 and administration of the natural waters. 

 28. Especially in connection with mu- 

 nicipalities, a usage has arisen with grow- 

 ing necessities which is congruous with 

 current legal practise in detail, although 

 incongruous with the foreign legal notion 

 that water is a mere appurtenance to 

 land: in all leading cities adequate water 

 supply is provided substantially at public 

 cost, and such lands as may be required to 

 accommodate mains and reservoirs or other 

 works are acquired for the purpose by 

 condemnation or otherwise, while in many 

 cities the lands required for catchment 

 areas are either condemned or purchased, 

 or else arbitrarily protected from contami- 



nation — all in accord with the principle of 

 the greatest good to the greatest number; 

 in some cities (notably Los Angeles) the 

 income from power developed by the head 

 of the water is, or is to be, applied in 

 liquidating the cost of both waterworks 

 and land; some municipalities (again 

 notably Los Angeles) allot the surplus 

 water to irrigation for the common benefit, 

 while in many towns and cities the surplus 

 is used in sewerage systems sometimes de- 

 signed to repay costs through useful dispo- 

 sition of the sewage. The several cases 

 mark growing recognition of the funda- 

 mental fact that water is the prime neces- 

 sary of life and the primary resource, and 

 serve to establish, at least in inchoate form, 

 the doctrine that as population grows 

 dense in relation to the quantity of water, 

 land necessarily becomes a mere appurten- 

 ance to that resource on which the lives of 

 the people depend. 



29. Under the generally progressive de- 

 velopment of legal relations throughout 

 our history, a foundation has been estab- 

 lished not only in equity but in law for 

 constructive action by state and federal 

 legislatures, and for judicial decisions 

 more in accord with current knowledge 

 and existing conditions than with archaic 

 standards developed in other countries of 

 different conditions. 



30. The essential principle of natural 

 equity on which specific legislation may 

 rest has already found expression, both by 

 statesmen and by powerful associations of 

 citizens including both jurists and pub- 

 licists, in the incontrovertible proposition 

 — now become axiomatic — that all the 

 water belongs to all the people. 



PROPOSED APPLICATION OP PKINCIPLBS 



31. Any action looking toward better 

 utilization and development of the water 

 of the country must be influenced by the 



