334 LEGAL. [Sept. 



assistance is gained from this case, for the only question before the 

 Court was whether the accretions in question might properly upon 

 evidence be considered by the jury as " imperceptible ; " but when 

 dealing with this, Lord Tenterden, in delivering the considered 

 judgment of the Court, said that the word " imperceptible " must 

 be understood as meaning " imperceptible in its progress, not 

 imperceptible after a long lapse of time." In the case of the Hull 

 and Selby Eailway, Baron Alderson, in speaking of the rule in 

 question, gives the same explanation as is given by Lord Hale, 

 saying, " That which cannot be perceived in its progress is taken 

 to be as if it never had existed at all ; " and in the Attorney-General 

 V. Eees, 4 De Gex and Jones 55, Lord Chelmsford approves Baron 

 Alderson's language. Neither the language of the Digest nor 

 Bracton could be applied to this case, or that, according to Lord 

 Hale, it was " so insensible that it cannot be by any means found 

 that the sea was there ; " or, to use his other expression, " that the 

 gain is so insensible and indiscernible by any marks that it cannot 

 be known." On the contrary, the witnesses, who had the best 

 means of observing, are able by marks and measures to indicate 

 what was gained. This is clear from the evidence given by John 

 Henderson, late chief officer of the coastguard at Lowestoft, and 

 James Swan, who has lived there all his life, and has for the last 

 fifty-three years been a harbour and gat pilot there. Henderson 

 said that, shortly before the construction of the north pier had been 

 commenced, the beach above ordinary high- water mark immediately 

 to the north of the pier began to advance, and the line of ordinary 

 high-water mark to recede, and that this advance of the beach and 

 receding of the line of ordinary high-water mark could be plainly 

 perceived from time to time as it went on ; that when the wind was 

 blowing strongly from north-west to north, with a high wind, it was 

 often visible from day to day ; and that he had often noticed during 

 the prevalence of such winds that the ordinary line of high-water 

 mark receded some 10 or 12 feet in a single tide, leavins; an 

 accretion of sand and shingle many feet in depth over the high- 

 water mark of the previous tide. This having been proved by the 

 evidence, judgment was accordingly given for the Crown. 



The Value of Land in the Itchen Valley. — This case, 

 Hammond and Others v. Lord Ashburton, was tried last month at 

 Winchester, before Mr. Justice Field and a special jury, to whom 

 it was sent by the Court of Appeal in Chancery. The action was 

 with reference to a piece of sedge land (four acres) and the water 

 rights attached thereto at Itchen Stoke, dividing the properties of 

 Captain Hewson, of Ovington House, and Lord Ashburton, of the 



