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r _ including all tributaries, into an Upper and a Lower Basin. The boundary between the two was set at Lee's Ferxy,ll which was considered to be a natural dividing point between the tributaries of the Upper and of the Lower Basin states. At the heart of the Compact is the allocation scheme contained in Article III. Because of their pivotal significance to the subject of this paper, Paragraphs (a) through (d) of Article III are set forth in full: (a) There is hereby apportioned from. the Colorado River System in perpetuity to the Upper Basin and to the Lower Basin respectively the exclusive beneficial consumptive use of 7,500,000 acre feet of water per annum, which shall include all water necessary for the supply of any rights which may now exist. (b) In addition to the apportionment in paragraph (a) the Lower Basin is hereby given the right to increase its beneficial consumptive use of such waters by one million acre per annum. (c) If, as a matter of international comity, the United States of America shall hereafter recognize in the United States or Mexico any right to the use of any waters of the Colorado River System, such waters shall be supplied first from the waters which are surplus over and above the aggregate of the quantities specified in paragraphs (a) and (b) ; and if such surplus shall prove insufficient for this purpose, then, the burden of such deficiency shall be equally borne by the Upper Basin and the Lower Basin, and whenever necessary the States of the Upper Division shall deliver at Lee Ferry water to supply one-half of the defi- ciency so recoghiked in addition to that provided in paragraph (d). (d) The states of the Upper Division will not cause the flow of the river at Lee Ferry to be depleted below ah aggregate of 75,000,000 acre feet for any period of ten consecutive years reckoned in continuing progrdssive series beginning with the first day of October next succeeding the ratifica- tion of this compact. -5-