| 'Alluvio est incrementum [adundatio, adaggeratio] agro tuo flumine adjectum, ita latens et paulatim, ut intelligi non possit quantum quoquo temporis momento adjiciatur.' | 'Alluvion is an increment [adundation, ad-aggeration] added by the river to your field, so latent and gradual, that the quantity added in every moment of time cannot be known.' |
This is the Roman definition.
In the Law Dictionary of the Encyclop. Method, voce 'Alluvion' by Le Rasle, the definition is:
| 'Alluvion, un accroissement de terrein qui se fait peu-a-peu sur les bords de la mer, des fleuves, et des rivières, par les terres que l'eau y apporte, et qui se consolident pour ne faire qu'un tout avec la terre voisine.' | 'Alluvion, an increment of ground which is made by little and little on the border of the sea, rivers or streams, by earth which the water brings, and which is consolidated so as to make but one whole with the neighboring ground.' |
To reduce the essential members of the Roman and French definitions to a single one, according with our own common sense, for certainly we all understand what alluvion is, I should consider the following definition as comprehending the essential characteristics of both.
| 1. 'Alluvion is an extension which the waters add insensibly. | 'Incrementum flumine adjectum latens et paulatim. |
| 2. By apposition of particles of earth. |
πρόσχωσις, adaggeratio. πρόσκλυσις, adundatio. |
| 3. Against the adjacent field. | Agro. |
| 4. And consolidate with it so as to make a part of it. | Qui se consolide pour ne faire qu'un tout avec la terre voisine.' |
I take this to be rigorously conformable with the French and Roman definitions, as cited from the authorities before mentioned, and that it contains not one word which is not within their unquestionable meaning. Now let us try the batture by this test.
1. 'Alluvion is an extension which the waters add insensibly.' But the increment of the batture has by no means been insensible. Every swell of six months is said [Derb xix.] to deposit usually nearly a foot of mud on the whole surface of the batture, so that, *when the waters retire, the increment is visible to every eye. And we have seen that, aided by Mr. Livingston's works, a single tide extended the batture from 75 to 80 feet further into the river, and deposited on it from 2 to 7 feet of mud, insomuch that a saw-scaffold, 7 feet high when the waters rose on it, was, on their retiring, buried to its top. This increment is, surely, not insensible. See the Mayor's answer to the Governor, Nov. 18, '08. MS.
2. 'By apposition of particles of earth,' or, by their adhesion. But the addition to the batture is by deposition of particles of earth on its face, not by their apposition or adhesion to the bank. It is not pretended that the bank has extended by apposition of particles to its side, one inch towards the river. It remains now the same as when the levée was erected on it. The deposition of earth on the bottom of a river, can be no more said to be an apposition to its sides, than the coating the floor of a room can be said to be plastering its walls.