| In | Spanish | Playa, | are from πλαγὰ, πληγεὶς. |
| Italian | Piaggia, | ||
| French | Plage, | ||
| Platin from πλήττειν, percuture. Perhaps from Plat, F. flat. | |||
| Greek, | αἰγειαλὸς, ἀκτὴ, from ἄγειν, agere. θὶν, θινὸς, à θείνω, ferio, quia littus fluctibus feritur. Clav. Homer. A. 34. Ῥηγμὶν, à ῥήσσω, frango, quia in litore fluctus frangitur. Ib. v. 437. | ||
[98] Rigor, à rectitudine dieitur, et est cursus aquæ rectum profluentis tenorem significans. Sic vigor stillicidii rectus ejus fluxus est. Calvini Lexicon juridicum, rigor. I have therefore translated it 'direction.'
[99] Justum incrementum [Nili] est eubitorum XVI; in XII. eubitis famem sentit: in XIII etiamnum esurit: XIV eubita hilaritatem afferunt: XV securitatem: XVI delicias: maximum incrementum, ad hoc ævi, fuit eubitorum XVIII. eum stetêre aquæ, apertis molibus admittuntur. Plin. hist. nat. 5. 9.
[100] This part of our subject merits fuller development. That the periodical overflowings of some rivers do not differ from the accidental overflowings of others, in any circumstance which should affect the law of the high water line, in the one more than in the other, will be rendered more evident by taking a comparative view of them. To begin with ordinary rivers. 1. These have along their greater part, and some of them through their whole course, natural banks adequate to the confinement of their waters, in the high water season, except in cases of accidental inundation. Here, then, the Roman authorities tell us the inundation does not change the bank, nor the landmark on it. 2. Along other parts, where the natural bank was not high enough to contain the river in its season of steady high water, the hand of man has raised an artificial bank on the natural one, which effects this purpose, with the exception, as before, of accidental inundations, where such happen. This artificial bank performs all the functions of the natural, and is placed under the same law. 3. In other parts of them, the natural banks are still not high enough to contain the high tides, nor have they yet been made so by the hand of man. Here then the law cannot operate, because the local peculiarities, as yet, exclude the case from its provisions. The ground so covered by inundation, has been, or may yet be, public property. But the legislator, instead of holding it as the bed of the river, grants it to individuals as far as to the natural or incipient bank, that they, by completing the bank, may reclaim the land, for their own and the public benefit, and, this done, the law comes into action on it. Much of this reclaimed, and unreclaimed land exists in all these states.
I proceed next to rivers of particular character. Of which among those analogous to the Missisipi, the Nile is best known to us, and shall be described. That river entering Upper Egypt at its Cataracts, flows through a valley of 20 or 30 miles wide, and of 450 miles in length, bounded on both sides by a continued ridge of mountains. Through most of this course, its natural banks are sufficient to contain its waters in time of flood, till they rise to that height, at which, by their law, they are to be drawn off. In low parts, where the natural banks are not sufficient, they have been raised by hand to the necessary height. In addition also to the natural bayous, like those of the Missisipi, they have opened numerous canals, leading off at right angles from the river towards the mountains, and sufficient to draw off the greatest part of the current passing down the river. These, in ordinary times, are closed by artificial banks raised to the level of the natural ones. When the flood is at a height sufficient for irrigating and fertilizing the fields, which by the Nilometer is at 16 cubits above the bed of the river, these artificial banks are cut, and the waters let in. The plain declining gently from the banks of the river, (which, like those of the Missisipi, are the highest ground,) towards the mountains, the waters are there stopped, as by a dam, and continue to rise, and diffuse themselves till they reflow nearly to the bank of the river. If the rise ceases there, the waters remain stagnant, and deposit a fertilizing mud, over the whole surface. But if uncommon rains above occasion a continuance of the rise till all the waters meet over the summits of the banks, then the motion of that in the river is communicated to the stagnant water on the plains, a general current takes place, and instead of a depositum left, the former soil is swept away to the ocean, and famine ensues that year. This, the traveller Bruce informs us, had happened three times within the 30 years preceding his being in that country. When the waters have withdrawn, and the river is returned into its natural bed, the banks are repaired in readiness to restrain the floods of the ensuing year. Such is the case in Upper Egypt. When the river enters Lower Egypt, it parts into two principal branches, the Pelusian and Canopic, which diverge and reach the Mediterranean at about 200 miles apart, including between them the triangle called the Delta. Besides these, there are, within the Delta, three natural Bayous, and two canals, dry at low water, which make up the famed seven mouths of the Nile. The mountains diverge so as do the main branches of the river, the eastern going off to the isthmus of Suez, and the Western to the sea near Alexandria. The waters lessened by depletion, and spreading over a widening plain are reduced, by the time they reach the base of the triangle at the sea, to one or two cubits depth. Banks, therefore, of 3 to 4 feet high, are sufficient to protect the country until here also they open the bayous and canals which intersect the triangle. Here then the case recurs of a river whose natural banks are partly competent to contain its high waters in common floods, and are partly made so by the hand of man; so as to furnish an ordinary high water line. In extraordinary floods it overflows these banks, and in ordinary ones is let through them. Yet these inundations as the Digest declares, do not change the banks. 'Nemo dixit Nilum ripas suas mutare,' &c. But when the river retires within its natural bed, the banks are again repaired: 'cum ad perpetuam sui mensuram redierit, ripæ alvei ejus muniendæ sunt,' ib. [See 2. Herodot. 6-19. Strabo 788. 1 Univ. Hist. 391-413. 1 Maillet Description de l'Egypte 14-121. 1 De la Croix 338. Encyclop. Meth. Geographie. Nil. 1 Savary 3-14. 2 Savary 185-275. 1 Volney 34-18. 4 Bruce 364-407.
[101] Squatters or Intruders on the public or Indian lands were repeatedly removed by the state of Virginia, before its cession to Congress, by the old Congress, (see Journ. 15 June 1785,) by the present government at various times, and, as is believed, by other individual states on the ground of natural right only. MS. Note.