Report-of the Board of Shell Fish Commissioners. 145 
Bill to the extent of their holdings. Chapter 129 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 referr ed 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 Com- 
mission 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 firma, 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 de- 
grees it shall go to the owner of the land adjoining, and that 
the ownership rok land may be lost by erosion or submergence, 
the one consisting of the gradual eating away of the soil hy 
the operation of currents ‘and tides and the other by its dis- 
appearance 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 alluvion or dere- 
liction 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 en- 
eroached on the owners during that long period until one hun- 
dred and fifty acres of land was apparently under the navi- 
gable waters of the State, and it was held that the owners’ 
rights could not extend below high-water mark as it now 
exists 
LS a oor 
