to "demand and recover" tolls for the passage of logs, and to stop and detain them until the tolls are paid, it can maintain an action to recover toll. But if a summary remedy only is given by statute to enforce the payment of tolls, a promise to pay them is not implied, and an action of debt or assumpsit will not lie.2 A promise to pay toll is without consideration, if the promissor is not legally liable to pay.3

1 Bear Camp River Co. v. Woodman, 2 Maine, 404; Penobscot Boom Co. v. Baker, 16 Maine, 233.

2 Turnpike Co. v. Brown, 2 P. & W. 462; Dorman v. Turnpike Co., 3 Watts, 126; Beeler v. Turnpike Co., 14 Penn. St. 162; Chestnut Hill Turnpike Co. v. Martin, 12 Penn. St. 361; Kidder v. Boom Co., 24 Penn. St. 193; Russell v. Turnpike Co., 13 Bush, 307; Turnpike Co. v. Van Dusen, 10 Vt. 197; Witt v. Jefcoat, 10 Rich. (S. C.) 388. See Middle Bridge Co. v. Brooks,

13 Maine, 391; State v. Dearborn, 15 Maine, 402; Middle Bridge Co. v. Marks, 26 Maine, 326; Chase v. Dwinel, 7 Maine, 134; Hunter v. Perry, 33 Maine, 159; Penobscot Boom Co. v. Lamson, 16 Maine, 224; Proprietors v. Hahn, 28 Maine, 300; Louisville v. Bank of United States, 3 B. Mon. 138. 158; Penobscot Boom Co. v. Penobscot Lumber Association, 61 Maine, 533.

8 Waterloo Turnpike Road Co. v. Cole, 51 Cal. 381.

158, 159. The effect upon private rights of sudden changes caused by the

currents.

160, 161. Defences against the sea and rivers.

162-165. Apportionment of alluvion between coterminous proprietors.

166. Islands.

167, 168. Wharfing out.

169. The Massachusetts Ordinance of 1647.

170-173. The right to occupy flats under the usages of Connecticut, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania.

174. The same in California.

175. In New York.

176. In Maryland.

177. In Florida and Oregon.

178. In Virginia.

179. Wharfing out in fresh waters.

180, 181. The outward limit of the right of extending wharves, etc.

182-190. Rights of fishery.

191. The right to ice.

192. Wrecks and waifs.

193. Ferries.

194. Description of boundaries upon streams.

195. Boundaries upon tide water.

196. Boundaries upon non-tidal waters.

197. Description limiting to bank.

198. The location of a stream's thread as a boundary. 199, 200. Boundary when limited to high-water mark or bank. 201. Course of stream not always followed as a boundary. 202. Boundaries of towns, parishes, and nations upon waters. 203. Boundaries upon lakes and ponds.

§ 148. Riparian rights, according to the strict meaning of the term, are such as follow, or are connected with, the ownership of the banks of streams or rivers.1 Those whose lands border upon tide waters are called "littoral" proprietors, and there appears to be no word or phrase of sufficiently broad meaning to include both riparian and littoral, although each is sometimes used to denote the other.2 The distinction between tide waters and fresh, or between public and private waters, is not necessarily a material consideration in determining questions relating to riparian rights, since riparian rights proper depend upon the ownership of land contiguous to the water, and are the same whether the proprietor of such land owns the soil under the water or not. In Lyon v. Fishmongers' Co.,3 Lord Selborne thus states what is now to be regarded as the established law upon this subject: "The rights of a riparian proprietor, so far as they relate to any natural stream, exist jure naturae, because his land has by nature the advantage of being washed by the stream; and if the facts of nature constitute the foundation of the right, I am unable to see why the law should not recognize and follow the course of nature in every part of the same stream. With respect to the ownership of the bed of the river, this cannot be the foundation of riparian rights properly so called, because the word 'riparian' is relative to the bank, and not to the bed of the stream, and the connection, when it exists, of property on the banks with property in the bed of the stream depends not upon nature, but on grant or presumption of law. The title to the soil constituting the bed of a river does not carry with it any exclusive right of property

1 1 Riparian is derived from Latin Stoddard, 7 Allen, 158, 167; 9 Gray, ripa, a river bank. 521, note; Hamilton v. Manifee, 11 Texas, 718; Smith v. Power, 14 Texas, 146.

2 Littoral is derived from Latin litus, the sea-shore. It is now in general use, and should be employed 31 App. Cas. 662; L. R. 10 Ch. rather than " riparian," in respect to 679; Diedrich v. Northwestern Railthe shores of the sea, and, also, ac- way Co., 42 Wis. 248; Stevens Point cording to important authorities, as including "riparian." Regina v. Keyn, 2 Ex. D. 63; Boston v. Lecraw, 17 How. 432, 433; West Roxbury . Mo. App. 266.

Booming Co. v. Reilly, 44 Wis. 295, 305; Morrill v. St. Anthony Falls Co., 26 Minn. 222; Meyers v. St. Louis, 8

in the running water of the stream, which can only be appropriated by severance, and which may be lawfully so appropriated by every one having a right of access to it. It is, of course, necessary for the existence of a riparian right that the land should be in contact with the flow of the stream; but lateral contact is as good jure naturae as vertical."1 "It is true that the banks of a tidal river, of which the foreshore is left bare at low water, is not always in contact with the flow of a stream, but it is in such contact for a great part of every day in the ordinary and regular course of nature, which is an amply sufficient foundation for a natural riparian right." All riparian rights depend upon the ownership of land which is contiguous to and touches upon the water;2 and, in the case of tide waters, upon the ownership of the land above and adjoining the edge of the water at ordinary high-water mark. They do not attach to any lands, however near, which do not extend to the water. A mere right of way along the banks, reserved in a grant of land bounded by a river, being merely an easement, does not deprive the grantee of his rights as a riparian proprietor.5 But if the granted premises are bounded in terms by a public road which separates them from the water, they extend only to the centre of the road, and the grantee is not a riparian owner. So, if a meander line, run by government

1 Miner v. Gilmour, 12 Moo. P. C. 131; Chasemore v. Richards, 7 H. L. Cas. 349, 373, 382. See, also, Lord v. Commissioners of Sidney, 12 Moo. P. C. 473.

2 Jones v. Johnston, 18 How. 150; Johnston v. Jones, 1 Black, 209; Bates v. Illinois Central Railroad Co., 1 Black, 204.

3 Ibid.; Lyon v. Fishmongers' Co., above quoted; Deerfield v. Arms, 17 Pick. 41; State v. Brown, 3 Dutch. 13, 648; Hoboken Land Co. v. Hoboken, 7 Vroom, 540, 550; Hayden v. Long, 8 Oregon, 244.

4 Ibid.

5 Hagan v. Campbell, 8 Porter, 9; Stetson French, 16 Maine, 204;

Stetson v. Bangor, 60 Maine, 313; Barclay v. Howell, 6 Peters, 498; Parish v. Stephens, 1 Oregon, 59; St. Louis Public Schools v. Hammond, 21 Mo. 238; Rowan v. Portland, 8 B. Mon. 239. If the width of a street is clearly defined in a town plat, land lying between the street and the lowwater mark of a river is not thereby dedicated to the public. McLaughlin v. Stevens, 18 Ohio, 94; Kennedy v. Jones, 11 Ala. 63.

6 Banks v. Ogden, 2 Wall. 57; People v. Colgate, 67 N. Y. 512; Jewell v. Lee, 14 Allen, 145; Allegheny City . Morehead, 80 Penn. St. 118; Brisbine v. St. Paul Railroad Co., 23 Minn. 114; Allen v. Munn, 55 Ill. 486;

surveyors in surveying the public lands, leaves between such line and the bank of the stream a considerable body of land which is above the ordinary stage of the water in the stream, and is covered with vegetation or timber, the patent of the surveyed land is limited by the meander line and the patentee is not a riparian proprietor.1 When a title to land enclosed by a river is acquired by disseisin, and the disseisor occupies as near the river as convenient, it may amount to a possession of the whole lot, if such was his intention, although there is a narrow strip uncultivated along the river; and he may thus be entitled to riparian rights.2

§ 149. Riparian rights exist on the banks of navigable waters as well as of unnavigable streams. In the former case they are subordinate to the public right of navigation; and, while in a non-navigable river all the riparian owners might combine to completely divert, diminish, or pollute the stream, in a navigable river the right of navigation would intervene and prevent this being done. The rights actually exercised by the proprietors of land on the shores of tide water are often dissimilar from those enjoyed by proprietors above the flow of the tide, since salt water is less available in the arts, or for irrigation, etc., than fresh. But a littoral proprietor, like a riparian proprietor, has a right to the water frontage belonging by nature to his land, although the only practical advantage of it may consist in the access thereby afforded him to the water, for the purpose of using the right of navigation. This right of access is his only, and exists by virtue and in respect of his riparian property. It is distinct from the public right of navigation, and an interruption of it is an encroachment upon a private right, whether caused by a public nuisance, or authorized by the legislature.

Field v. Carr, 59 Ill. 198; Cowles v. Gray, 14 Iowa, 1; Grant v. Davenport, 18 Iowa, 179; Mariner v. Schulte, 13 Wis. 692; Arnold v. Elmore, 16 Wis. 509; Yates v. Judd, 18 Wis. 118. A right of way may be appurtenant to land, from which it is divided by a navigable river. Lazaretto Road, 1 Ash. (Penn.) 417.

In