[1] Waters and Water Bights—Running Water—Riparian Rights. Riparian rights do not mean ownership in any special portion of the water of a stream until such water is actually taken and used. In running water there can be no absolute ownership.

[2] Id.—Deed—Riparian Land—Reservation op Water—Construction op.—Under a deed reserving to the grantors the amount of water “held, used and claimed” by the former owner of the property, such grantors are entitled to only sueh amounts of water as were used by sueh former owner, the rights in the remainder of the water, in the absence of other priorities, being governed by the law applicable to riparian owners.

[3] lb .—Use op Water by Riparian Owners—Right to Irrigate.— A riparian owner may use the whole of the stream if it is necessary to satisfy his natural wants, and may consume all the water for his domestic purposes, including water for his stock, but if he desires to use it for irrigation or manufactures, and there be a lower proprietor to whom its use is essential to supply his natural wants, or for his stock, he must use the water so as to leave enough for sueh lower proprietor. Where the stream is small, and does not furnish more than sufficient to answer the natural wants of the different proprietors living on it, none of the proprietors can use the water for either irrigation or manufacture.

[4] Id.—When Riparian Owner Entitled to Water—Right to Divert on Land op Upper Owner.—A riparian proprietor is entitled only to the water after it reaches his land in its natural flow, and if in the natural flow of the stream there is insufficient water conducted to defendant’s land for his uses, he has not, as a riparian owner merely, the right to go on the land of an upper proprietor and divert the water from there.

[5] Id.—Division op Water in Proportion to Acreage — Proper Judgment.—As between the parties to the action, a judgment dividing the balance of the water, after the natural wants of the parties are satisfied, between them for irrigation purposes in the proportion that the acreage of each bears to the entire acreage of their riparian lands, is proper and reasonable.

3. Riparian owner’s right to use and detain water and to the natural flow of the stream, note, 79 Am. Dec. 638.

Meaning of phrase “domestic purposes” in relation to riparian rights, notes, Ann. Cas. 1912B, 621; Ann. Cas. 1914D, 563.

Nature of riparian rights and lands to which they attach, notes, 9 Ann. Cas. 1235; Ann. Cas. 1913E, 709; Ann. Cas. 1917C, 1026.

Correlative rights of upper and lower riparian proprietors generally, note, 41 L. R. A. 737.

[6] Evidence—Construction of Written Instruments—Admissibility of Parol Testimony.—When written instruments are not ambiguous, they may not be varied by parol testimony; and even though, during the course of the trial, the court considers certain instruments ambiguous, it does not commit error in refusing to allow the introduction of evidence of the negotiations and understandings of the parties thereto at the time they were executed where, in arriving at its judgment, it does not treat the instruments as ambiguous, but construes them correctly without the aid of parol evidence.