Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol II).djvu/277

 Ch. 16., I ay, was the only intance; for I think there can be no other cae devied, wherein there is not ome owner of the land appointed by the law. In the cae of a ole corporation, as a paron of a church, when he dies or reigns, though there is no actual owner of the land till a ucceor be appointed, yet there is a legal, potential ownerhip, ubiting in contemplation of law; and when the ucceor is appointed, his appointment hall have a retropect and relation backwards, o as to entitle him to all the profits from the intant that the vacancy commenced. And, in all other intances, when the tenant dies intetate, and no other owner of the lands is to be found in the common coure of decents, there the law vets an ownerhip in the king, or in the ubordinate lord of the fee, by echeat.

alo in ome caes, where the laws of other nations give a right by occupancy, as in lands newly created, by the riing of an iland in a river, or by the alluvion or dereliction of the ea; in thee intances the law of England aigns them an immediate owner. For Bracton tells us, that if an iland arie in the middle of a river, it belongs in common to thoe who have lands on each ide thereof; but if it be nearer to one bank than the other, it belongs only to him who is proprietor of the nearet hore: which is agreeable to, and probably copied from, the civil law. Yet this eems only to be reaonable, where the foil of the river is equally divided between the owners of the oppoite hores: for if the whole oil is the freehold of any one man, as it mut be whenever a everal fihery is claimed, there it eems jut (and o, is the uual practice) that the eyotts or little ilands, ariing in any part of the river, hall be the property of him who owneth the picary and the oil. However, in cae a new iland rie in the ea, though the civil law gives it to the firt occupant, yet ours gives it to the king. And as to lands gained from the ea, either by allu- Rh