180 ARTIFICIAL WATERCOURSES. 



it ; and if in mining or draining his land he taps a spring, he cannot 

 be made responsible. This was a natural spring, which had acquired a 

 natural channel from its source to the river. It is absurd to say that a 

 man might take the water of such a stream, four feet from the surface." 

 Martin B, added : " I am of the same opinion ; the owners of land ad- 

 joining a stream, from its source to the sea, have a natural right to the 

 use of the water. A river begins at its source where it comes to the 

 surface, and the owner of the land on which it rises cannot monopolize 

 all the water at the source so as to prevent its reaching the lands of 

 other proprietors lower down" (26 L. J. Exch. 146). 



It was held by the Court of Queen's Bench in Magor v. Cliadtvick (II 

 Ad. ct E. 571) that, in ihc ahscnre of a sj)ecial custom, artificial water- 

 courses are not distinguished in taw from natural ones ; and that a title 

 may be gained by 20 years' user, as well to the former as to the latter. 

 Therefore, where owners made an adit through their lands to drain the 

 mine, which they afterwards ceased to work, and the owner of a brewery, 

 through whose premises the water flowed for 20 years, after the working 

 had ceased, had during that time used it for brewing, he was held to 

 have gained a right to the undisturbed enjoyment of the water, and the 

 mines could not afterwards be worked so as to polhde it. But qnmrc 

 whether a universal practice in the neighbourhood to resume the use of 

 such adit waters for mining purposes after a long interval might not 

 have been set up in answer to the claim of easement, thereby raising 

 the inference that the party claiming used the water, not of right, but 

 only during the accidental disuse of the adit, and with knowledge that 

 the mine-owners reserved to themselves a power to recommence work- 

 ing, and thereby disturbing the waters. And as to the flow of water into 

 or from collieries, see Insole v. James, Smith v. Kenrick, and Clegg v. 

 Dcarden (12 Q. B. 576). 



Wright V. Wdliams (1 M. & W. 77) decided that a claim by an owner of 

 a copper mine to sinJc pits on his own lands, to fill such pits with iron, 

 and to cover the same with water pumped from the mine, for the purpose 

 of precipitating the copper contained in such water, and afterwards to let 

 off the water innn-egnated with metallic suhstances into a watercourse on 

 the land of another, is a claim to a watercourse within the second section 

 of 2 & 3 IIV//. IV. c. 71, and that in a plea under that statute, it is suf- 

 ficient to allege that the user had existed for 40 years l)efo^-e the com- 

 mencement of Die suit, and it need not be alleged to have been for 40 

 years before the act complained of in the declaration. The decision in 

 this case was again confirmed by the Court of Exchequer in Ward v. 

 Robins, and fully approved of and acted upon by the Court of Queen's 

 Bench in Ricliurds v. Fry. 



