Cleveland Shipbuilding Co., 56 O. St. 655 (47 N. E. Rep. 582). While the general rule prevents any disturbance of riparian rights by public authority, past or present, without making compensation, when the interest of the whole people requires an improvement of the water front for the benefit of navigation and commerce it seems to have been the rule for the state, or the city of New York by permission of the state, to make such improvements upon the tide-water front for that purpose, without compensating the riparian proprietor, other than by giving him the preemptive right of purchase in case of a sale. As against the general public, through their official representatives, riparian owners have no right to prevent important public improvements upon tide water for the benefit of commerce. The principle upon which the rule rests, although sometimes foreshadowed, has not been clearly set forth. Although, as against individuals or the unorganized public, riparian owners have special rights to the tideway that are recognized and protected by law, as against the general public, as organized and represented by government, they have no rights that do not yield to commercial necessities, except the right of preemption, when conferred by the statute, and the right to wharfage when protected by a grant and covenant on the part of the state. Sage v. Mayor of City of New York, 154 N. Y. 61 (47 N. E. Rep. 1096; 61 St. Rep. 592, 38 L. R. A. 606).

Sec. 826. Riparian rights in navigable watersApportionment of flats and shore line. In the case of Groner v. Foster, 94 Va. 650 (27 S. E. Rep. 493), the supreme court of appeals of Virginia say: "Every riparian owner has the right to water frontage belonging by nature to his land. This right includes, among others, the right of access from the front of his land to the navigable part of the water course, and also the right to the soil under the water between his land and the navigable line of the water course, whereon he may erect wharves, piers or bulkheads for his own use or the use of the public, subject to such rules and regulations as the legislature may see proper to impose for the protection of the public. Gould, Waters, § 149; Norfolk City v. Cook, 27 Grat. 430; Railway Co. v. Faunce, 31 Grat. 761; Dutton v.

Strong, 1 Black 23; and Yates v. Milwaukee, 10 Wall. 497. In this state the enjoyment of the right is made subject by statute to the limitation that its exercise shall not result in the obstruction of navigation, nor in other injury to the private rights of any person. Code Va., § 998. Each riparian proprietor is entitled, in conformity to such right, to have the extent of its enjoyment upon the line of navigability of the water course determined and marked, and his proper share of the flats or land under the water for the purposes aforesaid set apart, and its boundaries defined. A court of equity has jurisdiction, and is the proper tribunal to make the apportionment, and to determine and establish the boundary lines of the coterminous owners. In making the apportionment, the prime object, upon plain principles of justice, should be to give to each proprietor of the shore, and as directly in his front as practicable, a parcel of the land under the water of a width at its outer end upon the line of navigability proportioned to that which it has at the inner or shore end. Wonson v. Wonson, 14 Allen 71; and Gould, Waters, §§ 162, 163. It is apparent upon the most cursory reflection, that this cannot be attained by a fixed rule of extending out to the line of navigability of the water course the divisional lines between the proprietors of the upland in the same direction that these lines reach the shore. The frequent curvature which generally characterizes the form of the shore forbids its adoption as a rule of division. It would only answer where the line of the shore was straight, the line of navigability equal in length and parallel with it, and the divisional lines approached the shore at right angles. Where the line of the shore of the line of navigability curves, either inwardly or outwardly, or the divisional lines of the uplands approach the shore at different angles, their projection in the same direction out to the line of navigability would necessarily, and unjustly, cause them to encroach upon the riparian rights of the several coterminous proprietors in the water frontage, and deprive some one or more of them of all access to, and benefit of, the navigable part of the water course. A just rule of division is to measure the length of the shore, and ascertain the portion thereof to which each riparian proprietor is entitled; next measure the length of navigability, and give to each proprietor the same

proportion of it that he is entitled to of the shore line; and then draw straight lines from the points of division so marked for each proprietor on the line of navigability to the extremi ties of the line on the shore. Each proprietor will be entitled to the portion of the line of navigability thus apportioned to him, and also to the portion of the flats or land under the water within the lines so drawn from the extremities of his portion of the said line to the extremities of his part of the shore. The general rule of division, therefore, is, as the whole shore line is to the whole line of navigability, so is each one's share of the shore line to each one's share of the line of navigability. The lines so drawn will be parallel or diverge or converge as the navigable water line happens to be equal and parallel with, or is longer or shorter than, the shore line. The rule stated above is that which has been adopted in apportioning riparian rights between coterminous owners in cases of a similar nature. It is the rule that was early adopted by the supreme court of Massachusetts in Deerfield v. Arms, 17 Pick. 41 (28 Am. Dec. 276), which was the case of an apportionment of a parcel of land formed by alluvial deposits on the margin and bed of Deerfield river, and has since not only been adhered to in that state, but has been followed by the supreme court of the United States, and by the highest courts of a number of states. Johnston v. Jones, 1 Black 222, 223; O'Donnell v. Kelsey, 10 N. Y. 412; Batchelder v. Keniston, 51 N. H. 496 (12 Am. Rep. 143); Railroad Co. v. Hannon, 37 N. J. L. 276; Lumber Co. v. Peters, 87 Mich. 498 (49 N. W. Rep. 917; 24 Am. St. Rep. 175); Land Co. v. Bigelow, 84 Wis. 157 (54 N. W. Rep. 496)." Va. Laws 1881-82, ch. 205; Laws 1883-84, ch. 148; Laws 1889-90, ch. 371; Code, §§ 1339, 2010, 2011, construed and applied-apportioning among riparian owners flats and shore line-port warden's line-low water mark as shore line. Groner v. Foster, 94

Va. 650 (27 S. E. Rep. 493).

Sec. 827. Title to and use of lakes. Under the Colonial Ordinance of 1641-47, great ponds and lakes belonged to the state and it may permit towns and cities to take water therefrom, for the domestic use of their inhabitants without being liable to pay damages to those who want the water for

the use of mills. The taking of a one-fifteenth part of the water supply of a pond having a daily capacity of 15,000,000 gallons for the use of a city is not an unreasonable use so as to give mill owners a right to complain. City of Auburn v. Union Water-Power Co., 90 Me. 576 (38 Atl. Rep. 561; 38 L. R. A. 188). Title to and dominion over lands beneath the navigable waters of the great lakes are in the states respectively within whose boundaries such lands are located, each state holding the fee thereof in trust for the people for the purposes of navigation and fishing. Ill. Act June 4, 1889, authorizing board of park commissioners for Lincoln Park in the city of Chicago to extend its boulevard and driveway over and upon the bed of Lake Michigan, and sell and convey the submerged lands which might be reclaimed in extending the driveway in the lake, is held to be within the power of the legislature. See opinion for further construction of this statute. People v. Kirk, 162 Ill. 138 (45 N. E. Rep. 830; 53 Am. St. Rep. 277). Ownership to the water line of a meandered lake owned by the state, gives no exclusive right to hunt or fish on the surface of such lake. Ne-Pee Nauk Club v. Wilson, 96 Wis. 290 (71 N. W. Rep. 661). It is held that an island lying in Lake Huron, Michigan, 600 feet from the shore, does not belong to the owner of the main land on the shore. Sherwood v. Com'r of State Land Office, 113 Mich. 227 (71 N. W. Rep. 532). Riparian owners upon a lake, the title to which is in the state, each have the right to construct in front of his land in shallow water proper wharves, piers, and booms in aid of navigation without obstructing it far enough to reach water actually navigable for such boats as are in use or appropriate to the lake. City of Madison v. Mayers, 97 Wis. 399 (73 N. W. Rep. 43; 65 Am. St. Rep. 127; 40 L. R. A. 635)

Sec. 828. Right of riparian owners to accretions. New land formed by accretion on account of natural changes in a river belongs to the owner of the land to which it becomes attached. Price v. Hallett, 138 Mo. 561 (38 S. W. Rep. 451). Land separated from the main land on one side of a river by reason of a sudden change in its channel, and left connected with the land on the other side in such manner as to be capable of identification, is not an accretion. Coulthard

v. Davis, 101 Ia. 625 (70 N. W. Rep. 716). Lands made by filling up a water front and constructing piers in a municipal improvement of the water front for the benefit of navigation do not constitute an accretion to the land of a riparian proprietor, but remain the property of the city for the benefit of the public as dry land just the same as when it was land under water. Sage v. City of New York, 154 N. Y. 61 (47 N. E. Rep. 1096; 61 Am. St. Rep. 592; 38 L. R. A. 606). Riparian owners of land bordering on non-navigable lakes, meandered by the government surveyors in 1851 and 1852, which never became wholly dry and their entire beds fit for cultivation until 1890 or 1891, are not entitled to the bed of the lake under the law of accretion; and the rule that a riparian owner of land bordering on rivers or streams, in the absence of limitations in his title, takes to the center thread of the stream, does not apply in Iowa to the case of a lake or pond. Noyes v. Board of Sup'rs., 104 Ia. 174 (73 N. W. Rep. 480). Particular addition to land held not to create an accretion. Bennett v. National Starch Mfg. Co., 103 Ia. 207 (72 N. W. Rep. 507). Md. Laws 1894, ch. 380, § 46, 47, construed— title to oyster beds-jurisdiction of equity. Powell v. Wilson, 85 Md. 347 (37 Atl. Rep. 216). For further construction of this statute, see Handy v. Maddox, 85 Md. 547 (37 Atl. Rep. 222). Va. Code, § 2137, construed and applied-applications for assignment of oyster planting grounds. West v. Adams,

Va. (27 S. E. Rep. 496). Mo. Laws 1895, act Apr. 8, 1895-grant of accretions and island formations to counties amended, Laws 1899, p. 276.

Sec. 829. Obstruction or diversion of water course. A riparian owner has a right to build barriers and confine the waters to the channel of the stream, but he cannot build and maintain a structure which would change the channel or project the waters against or upon the property of others in such a way as will result in substantial injury to such property. Parker v. City of Atchison, 58 Kan. 29 (48 Pac. Rep. 631). Where logs floated on a stream are carried upon the land of another by the wrongful erection of a dam by the owner of the logs he is liable for damages although he does not claim the logs. Kentucky Lumber Co. v. Miracle, Ky. (41