alſo all caſtles, houſes, and other buildings: for they conſiſt, ſaith he, of two things; land, which is the foundation; and ſtructure thereupon: ſo that, if I convey the land or ground, the ſtructure or building paſſeth therewith. It is obſervable that water is here mentioned as a ſpecies of land, which may ſeem a kind of ſoleciſm; but ſuch is the language of the law: and I cannot bring an action to recover poſſeſſion of a pool or other piece of water, by the name of water only; either by calculating it's capacity, as, for ſo many cubical yards; or, by ſuperficial meaſure, for twenty acres of water; or by general deſcription, as for a pond, a watercourſe, or a rivulet: but I muſt bring my action for the land that lies at the bottom, and muſt call it twenty acres of land covered with water[1]. For water is a moveable, wandering thing, and muſt of neceſſity continue common by the law of nature; ſo that I can only have a temporary, tranſient, uſufructuary property therein: wherefore if a body of water runs out of my pond into another man's, I have no right to reclaim it. But the land, which that water covers, is permanent, fixed, and immoveable: and therefore in this I may have a certain, ſubſtantial property; of which the law will take notice, and not of the other.
Land hath alſo, in it's legal ſignification, an indefinite extent, upwards as well as downwards. Cujus eſt ſolum, ejus eſt uſque ad coelum, is the maxim of the law, upwards; therefore no man may erect any building, or the like, to overhang another's land: and, downwards, whatever is in a direct line between the ſurface of any land, and the center of the earth, belongs to the owner of the ſurface; as is every day's experience in the mining countries. So that the word "land" includes not only the face of the earth, but every thing under it, or over it. And therefore if a man grants all his lands, he grants thereby all his mines of metal and other foſſils, his woods, his waters, and his houſes, as well as his fields and meadows. Not but the particular names of the things are equally ſufficient to paſs them, except in the inſtance
- ↑ Brownl. 142.
of
