reason ceases,
property immediately takes place. Thus the most strenuous
advocates for the liberty of the seas universally allow,
that friths and hays naturally belong as an accession to the
proprietors of the surrounding continent. These have
properly no more bond or union with the land, than the
pacific ocean would have; but having an union in the fancy,
and being at the same time inferior, they are of course
regarded as an accession.

The property of rivers, by the laws of most nations, and by
the natural turn of our thought, Is attributed to the
proprietors of their banks, excepting such vast rivers as
the Rhine or the Danube, which seem too large to the
imagination to follow as an accession the property of the
neighbouring fields. Yet even these rivers are considered as
the property of that nation, thro' whose dominions they run;
the idea of a nation being of a suitable bulk to correspond
with them, and bear them such a relation in the fancy.

The accessions, which are made to lands bordering upon
rivers, follow the land, say the civilians, provided it be
made by what they call alluvion, that is, Insensibly and
Imperceptibly; which are circumstances that mightily assist
the imagination in the conjunction. Where there Is any
considerable portion torn at once from one bank, and joined
to another, it becomes not his property, whose land it falls
on, till it unite with the land, and till the trees or
plants have spread their roots into both. Before that, the
imagination does not sufficiently join them.

There are other cases, which somewhat resemble this of
accession, but which, at the bottom, are considerably
different, and merit our attention. Of this kind Is the
conjunction of the properties of different persons, after
such a manner as not to admit of separation. The question
is, to whom the united mass must belong.

Where this conjunction is of such a nature as to admit of
division, but not of separation, the decision is natural and
easy. The whole mass must be supposed to be common betwixt
the proprietors of the several parts, and afterwards must be
divided according to the proportions of these parts. But
here I cannot forbear taking notice of a remarkable subtilty
of the Roman law, in distinguishing betwixt co