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question is raised. The definition as originally presented to 
the Legislature turned only upon the use of the ground by 
the public and provided that any land “whereon the natural 
growth of oysters is of such abundance that the public has 
successfully resorted to such beds or bars for livelihood, 
whether continuously or at intervals, during any oyster season 
within five years” should be natural bar. Upon the protest 
of a member of the Commission that this definition excluded 
from the consideration of the court all evidence, no matter 
how definite, as to the actual present-day condition of the bot- 
tom, an additional clause was added providing for the consid- 
eration of the present-day condition. 
The difficulties with this definition are the same as those 
which confronted the Commission when they considered the 
Goldsborough definition. It is a definition for the courtroom, 
turning primarily upon the history of the bottom in the past. 
It is possible under it to determine the general character of 
large areas, but it is absolutely impossible to fix the bound- 
aries of these areas with any degree of definiteness. Applied, 
as it must be in practice, to the drawing of a hard-and-fast line, 
indicating where the natural bar ends and the neutral zone 
begins, it is absolutely inadequate. Applied to this purpose 
it becomes palpably absurd, since no one knows the exact 
boundaries within which his attempts to secure a livelihood 
were successful; and even if he did know them at the time 
could not re-locate them after an interval of from three to 
five years. 
The above statement of course is inaccurate in special cases 
where, for example, the oyster bed extends to a steamer chan- 
nel, to a 30-foot line, to shore or to a line well marked by 
objects on land, but applied to the cases which most fre- 
quently arise, where such natural boundary lines do not exist, 
it has proved in actual operation very unsatisfactory. Some 
of the testimony under it has been grotesque in its indefinite- 
ness and it has been impossible to determine boundaries by 
the evidence given. 
Fortunately for the Commission and for the courts the cases 
which have actually arisen have been protests against definite 
areas and the testimony has either been broad enough to 
