Page:United States Reports, Volume 209.djvu/478

 452 OCTOBER TERM, 1907. Opinion ol l,h Coast. 209 I]. 8. stated in $hively v. Bowllr, 152 U.S. '1, 47, are that the State may use or dispose of any portion of the same "when that can be done without substantial impairment of the interest of the public in such waters, and subject to the paramount fight of Congress to control their navigation so far as may be. nec- �essary for the regulation of commerce." But it cannot be pretended that private ownership of the bed of the stream or of the islands, subject to the public fights, will impair the in- terest of the public in the waters of the Sault Ste. Marie. See Kaukauna Water Power Co. v. Green Bay & Mississippi Canal Co., 142 U, S. 254, 271,272. Therefore, if by the law of Michi- gan the bed of the fiver or strait would pass to, a. grantee of the upland, we may assume that it passed to the defendant, and we may assume further that the islands also passed. If, as we think, they belonged to the State, they passed along with the bed of the river. If they had belonged to the United States, probably they would have passed as unsurveyed islands and neglected fragments pass. Whitaker v. McBride, 197 U.S. �510; Grand RaFids & Indiana R. R. Co. v. B.ler, 159 U.S. 87, 91, 92. Of course other nice questions are suggested and- might be asked; for instance, how it would be ff the title to the bed of the stream was in the State and did .not pass with'the upland, and the islands remained to the United States. It still would be a reasonable propition that the islands fol- lowed the upland. But in the view that we have taken that may be left in doubt. The question then is narrowed to whether the bed of the strait is held to pass by the laws of Michigan. We .are con- tent to sesume that the waters are public waters. Gensee Ch! v. Fhh, 12 How. 443, 457. But whatever may be the law as to lands under the great lakes, Peop/e v. $beruod, 110 Michigan, 103, we believe that the law still is as it was de- clared to be in Grand Rapids & Indiana R. R. Co. v. But/er, 159 U.S. 87, 94, that "a grant of land bounded by a stream, whether navigable in fact or not, carries with it the bed of the stream to the cener of the thread thereof," and that this

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