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UUlliL ~ 234 OREGON LAW REVIEW [Vo1.36 continuous flow to provide water for domestic purposes or, in the quaint phrase of the Wyoming statute, "water for man and beast. "48 After quoting extensively from the opinions of Justices Brewer and White in the Rio Grande and Gutierres cases, the Oregon court held that 9 the plain inference,.. is that, in the opinion of the eminent jurists quoted, the act of March 3, 1877, was such a reservation by the national government to and for the public and such dedication thereto of all its rights in and to all the waters flowing through its public lands for irrigation, manufacturing and mining pur- poses, as to abrogate the modified common-law rules upon the subject, in so far as applicable to all lands entered after that date,49 Thus the settlers who had failed to appropriate waters for any of the three 1877 purposes nevertheless were entitled to a riparian right suf- ficient to provide stream flow for domestic needs-that and no more, Was the government itself so limited and restricted as to its remaining lands? That it was so limited was undoubtedly the view of Commissioner King. In pointing out the importance of navigation, he said: , . . the act was not intended to permit appropriators to deplete the flow to such an extent as materially to impair the navigation of the rivers to which such streams directly or indirectly may be tributaries. The reason for this is plain: To permit an interference with navigation would be to deprive the entire public of a valu- able right, which at all times has been recognized as paramount to that of the individual desiring such interference; while to permit an appropriation of water depriving the owner of the land through which it may flow of its use for irriga- tion, affects such person only, So far as the government may be concerned by the depletion of a particular tract of land of such benefit, if any, it is recouped by the reclamation of a like tract for which the diversion causing the injury may be made.5o , The last sentence .anticipates the very argument advanced so recently in the Pelton decision: that the government in some way can assert a claim to unappropriated waters generally and without reference to state laws, But any such general claim is inconsistent with the depletion which is the very heart of appropriation procedure, The depletion is part and parcel of the whole policy of stimulating the taking up of homesteads, Hough v. Parler certainly is a typical case in point. Those claiming as riparians with the plaintiff Hough owned some 4,000 acres of riparian lands on Silver Creek. The defendent appropriators had instituted diversion works, etc., sufficient to carry water to 7,000 acres, To ap- portion and allocate the water available to all this area on some sort of pro-rata basis would have resulted, due to shortage of water, in in- sufficient supplies for any, The economy would have been destroyed, whereas, by applying, as the court did, the law of appropriation for "Wyo. COMP, STAT. ANN. see. 71-402 (1945), 4951 Or. at 403, 98 Pac. at 1097, [;0 J d, at 405, 98 Pac. at 1097. (Emphasis added,) r