444 
The PVater Ecunomi/ of France 
tinuously Qjereuuiter), and when the nature of the land through 
which it flows is such as to constitute a highway. It matters not 
whether a public stream takes its source in a private property, it 
becomes public property so soon as it reaches a public highway, 
such as an old invariable channel, or the natural bed of a valley. 
Noil insj)ici)nus prijicipiuiii aqiue uiidc decarrit, sed alveos ct meatus 
nude transit in vctustissiinum aquarium cursum. It is in that part 
of the legislation which refers to running water that we must 
seek those enactments which deal with inigation and drainage 
waters. 
The old Roman law completely overlooked the waste water 
from irrigation ; it deals only with running streams, derived from 
their very source {jpue a cajnte duciintur) ; but in the north of 
Italy, where for many centuries a regular and general system of 
irrigation has prevailed, the attention 'of legislators has been from 
very remote times drawn to this subject, and the French law is 
now substantially in accordance with the Italian. This waste 
water from irrigation is termed in Italy by the name of collaticia. 
It is true the Roman law treats of a kind of percolating water, 
which it terms sudores* but this evidently applies to spring 
water naturally oozing out through the land and then flowing 
away in a continuous stream. The legislation on this waste 
water from irrigation clearly enacts that the proprietor from 
whose land it flows must provide at his own cost a proper out- 
fall, for which every facility is given him, so as to cause as little 
damage as possible to the properties lying at a lower level. The 
absolute owneiship of irrigative canals was also recognised by 
the Roman law ; and there are still extant in the south of France, 
especially in Provence and in the eastern watershed of the 
Pyrenees, about Mont Louis and Perpignan, many ancient canals 
used for irrigation, the grants of which date from a very remote 
period. Indeed, when that part of the country was under the 
dominion of the Visigoths, and, after them, of the Moors and 
Saracens of Spain, the old Roman customs seem to have been 
carefully preserved, and the rights acquired by the owners of the 
soil religiously respected. 
The drainage of marshes and fen lands has at all times been 
the object of special legislation. In the old Roman law the defi- 
nition of fen land was thus worded : — Aqua minus profunda, 
pulam latins diffusa, qua: etiam quandoque siccatur.^ During 
the feudal regime in France the fens belonged to the lords, 
but the Revolution of 1789 vested the ownership of all Avaste 
parts in the parishes ['■'■communes"). In the years 1860 and 
1861 the French Government have passed new laws to faci- 
* ' lust, de Aqua (Estiva, et Quotidianii.' 
t ' Jus Gcorgicilm,' Hi), iii., cnp. N. 
