Edwards

Plaintiff is the owner of a ditch used to convey water to a large number of families and to the inmates of the Southern California Insane Asylum for domestic and other uses. The course of the ditch at the point in question was along a hillside, and above the ditch the lands were uncultivated and not owned by defendants. Below the ditch and extending to its center are defendants’ lands.

Plaintiff acquired a right of way or easement over defendants’ lands by prescription. When the ditch was first dug it followed generally the contours of the land. There were two depressions running down the hillside to defendants’ lands. A short flume carried the water of the ditch across one of these depressions originally; at the other the ditch was built on the ground. These depressions were slight, but formed drains for the land above the ditch and led into and some little distance over de *664 fendants’ land, where they spread out and disappeared as distinct channels. The ditch was reconstructed later—about eight years before the action was commenced—and was converted into an open cement and stone-walled ditch, and was built upon the ground at the depressions referred to, leaving no passageway…