]6S LANDS GAINED FIIOM THE SEA. 



CHAPTER VI. 



WATER. 



It was decided {Rex, 2)lainiiff in error v. Lord Yarlorovgh) by the 

 House of Lords, in concurrence with the unanimous opinion of the 

 judges, that lands farmed shtvly, (jradualhj, and im^jcrceptihhj, Inj 

 aUuvion on the sea shore, belong by general immemorial custom to the 

 owner of the adjoining lands, and not to the Crown. The owner of the 

 shore between high and low water-mark is entitled to such parts of the 

 adjoining soil as by the gradual and imperceptible encroachments of 

 the sea have been brought within those limits ; while the owner of the 

 land next adjoining high-water-mark is entitled to all the soil that is 

 added to his land by the imperceptible retiring of the sea ; and the 

 same rule holds good for rivers. In re Hull and SeUnj Raihcay, Lord 

 Ahinrjer C.B. referred in his judgment to the case of a ]\Ir. Adam, 

 where a river, containing a salmon fishery belonging to him, was 

 suddenly transferred to the land of his neighbour, who enjoyed it with 

 the valuable right attached to it. Afterwards, by another violent effort 

 of nature the river returned to its former channel ; yet in neither case 

 did the owner of the bed of the river lose his right to the soil. 



Lands gained from ilie sea. — In Tlie Attorney General y. Chamlcrs, 

 d-c, the Crown claimed to have the medium line (the boundary of the 

 rights of the Crown on the sea-shore) laid down as it would have existed 

 but for artificial- causes ; and it \\as held on appeal by Lord Chancellor 

 Chelmsford thai; lands imperceptibly gained from the sea by a party's 

 lawful use of his own laud, belong to the owner of the land adjoining, 

 unless it can be shown that the operations were intended to produce 

 this gradual acquisition of the sea-shore. And where a party claimed 

 the sea-shore in front of his property, on the ground that he had turned 

 his cattle upon the marsh, and that they had crossed the boundary 

 separating the marsh from the sea-shore, and that he had done this for 

 sixty years without interruption, it was held that where property is of a 

 nature that cannot easily be protected against intrusion, and, if it could, 

 it would not be worth the trouble of preventing it, mere user is not 

 feufficieut to establish a right («&,). 



