THE USE OF SMALLER STREAMS SOMETIMES INTERFERES WITH THE USE OF THE LARGER.
A river emerging from a mountain region and meandering through a valley may receive small tributaries along its valley course. These small streams will usually be taken out first, and the lands which they will be made to serve will often lie low down in the valley, because the waters can be more easily controlled here and because the lands are better; and this will be done without regard to the subsequent use of the larger stream to which the smaller ones are tributary. But when the time comes to take out the larger stream, it is found that the lands which it can be made to serve lying adjacent on either hand are already in part served by the smaller streams, and as it will not pay to take out the larger stream without using all of its water, and as the people who use the smaller streams have already vested rights in these lands, a practical prohibition is placed upon the use of the larger river. In Utah, church authority, to some extent at least, adjusts these conflicting interests by causing the smaller streams to be taken out higher up in their course. Such adjustment is not so easily attained by the great body of people settling in the Rocky Mountain Region, and some provision against this difficulty is an immediate necessity. It is a difficulty just appearing, but in the future it will be one of great magnitude.