126 Report of the Board of Shell Fish Commissioners. 



of the Acts of 1862 expressly prohibits the right to issue any 

 patent to land covered by navigable water, and the rights of land 

 owners bordering on the shore of the navigable waters of the State, 

 with the possible exception above referred to, extend to high-water 

 mark and the land covered by water within the ebb and flow of tide 

 to high- water mark belongs to the State and is the subject of lease 

 under the provisions of this Act. 



Another question of interest akin to this is where a tract of land 

 lies adjacent or contiguous to a navigable river or water, as to the 

 interest of the owner of the land in any change in the shore line, 

 and the rule adopted by the Commission which is in conformity 

 with the decision of the Courts is that any increase of soil gained 

 from the sea either by alluvion, the washing up of sand and earth 

 so as in time to make terra flrma, or by dereliction, as where the 

 sea shrinks back below the usual water mark, in these cases it is 

 held that if this gain be little and little by small and imperceptible 

 degrees it shall go to the owner of the land adjoining, and that the 

 ownership of land may be lost by erosion or submergence, the one 

 consisting of the gradual eating away of the soil by the operation 

 of currents and tides and the other by its disappearance under the 

 water and the formation of a navigable body over it, and the 

 reason for the rule allowing the owner of the land to claim all that 

 is acquired by aluvion or dereliction is to make up for the possible 

 losses he may sustain by the sea encroaching upon his holdings. 

 In one case brought to the attention of the Commission a grant of 

 2,000 acres of land under a patent issued in 1867 was found by a 

 recent survey to contain only 1,850 acres, the waters on the shore 

 of this property having by imperceptible degrees encroached on the 

 owners during that long period until one hundred and fifty acres of 

 land was apparently under the navigable waters of the State, and it 

 was held that the owners' rights could not extend below high-water 

 mark as it now exists. 



III. 



RIGHT OF LOT HOLDERS TO TAKE UP 

 PLANTED OYSTERS. 



The rights granted by Section 112 of the Acts of 1906 to lessees 

 of ground for the purposes of oyster culture, is a subject about 

 which there is such wide difference of opinion and one of such 



