270 LEGAL. [Aug. 



had extended perhaps 300 feet. It was not always at the same rate ; 

 it depended on the winds and waves. It had been much more rapid 

 in recent years. The town is on a cliff, and it must, they srdd, have 

 been several hundreds of years since the sea was up to the cliff. 



Lord Coleridge observed that the title of the Crown being- 

 admitted to the foreshore, and the question being as to the title to 

 the laud acquired by accretion, that seemed to resolve itself into 

 this : Whether it was by gradual and imperceptible accretion or by 

 perceptible accretion, the title of the Crown being alleged to attach 

 in the latter case, the title of the claimant in the former. It was 

 apparent that in this case the accretion had arisen in part from 

 artificial causes, not causes purely natural — that is, from the harbour 

 works ; but would that of itself make any material difference as to 

 the law of the case ? 



The case was adiourned. 



THE POLLUTION OF THE RIVER TAY. 



Siu Robert Drummond Moxcpjeffe v. The Lord Provost, 

 Magistrates, and Council of Perth. 



THIS case, whose inception was noted in our December number 

 (vol. X. p. 159), was decided by Lord Trayner in the Outer 

 House of the Court of Session, Edinburgh, on July 9 th. As it 

 traverses points of general interest, we give the judgment at some 

 length. 



Lord Trayner said that he found it established as matters of fact, 

 (1) that the water of the river Tay, as it flows past the pursuer's 

 property, is polluted by the discharge of the sewage of Perth to the 

 extent which renders it unfit for primary purposes ; and (2) that the 

 same part has been polluted by the same causes for a period of more 

 than forty years, to the extent of rendering the water unfit for 

 primary purposes. The defenders presented a body of evidence on 

 the subject of the use of the water for primary purposes which was 

 irresistible. It amounted to this, that more than forty years ago, 

 and since, no one used the water at Priarton for primary purposes ; 

 that young people were warned against it ; that water for domestic 

 purposes was got at private or public wells, and never from the river ; 

 that sailors and others employed in or near the harbour and banks of 

 the river went elsewhere for water ; and that ships leaving the harbour 

 did not fill their water-casks until they had got half a mile or 

 farther down the river below Friarton. The pursuer met this body 

 of evidence by saying that within the last forty years the water had 

 been drunk and otherwise used by the persons living on the island. 

 That might be taken as true, but it did not prove that the water 



