to the landowners on either side of
it in proportion to the extent of their riparian interest, while the new
one acquires the same legal character as the river itself, and becomes
public. But if after a while the river returns to its old channel, the
new channel again becomes the property of those who possess the land
along its banks.

24 It is otherwise if one's land is wholly flooded, for a flood does not
permanently alter the nature of the land, and consequently if the water
goes back the soil clearly belongs to its previous owner.

25 When a man makes a new object out of materials belonging to another,
the question usually arises, to which of them, by natural reason, does
this new object belong--to the man who made it, or to the owner of the
materials? For instance, one man may make wine, or oil, or corn, out of
another man's grapes, olives, or sheaves; or a vessel out of his gold,
silver, or bronze; or mead of his wine and honey; or a plaster or
eyesalve out of his drugs; or cloth out of his wool; or a ship, a chest,
or a chair out of his timber. After many controversies between the
Sabinians and Proculians, the law has now been settled as follows, in
accordance with the view of those who followed a middle course between
the opinions of the two schools. If the new object can be reduced to
the materials out of which it was made, it belongs to the owner of the
materials; if not, it belongs to the person who made it. For instance, a
vessel can be melted down, and so reduced to the rude material--bronze,
silver, or gold--of which it is made: but it is impossible to reconvert
wine into grapes, oil into olives, or corn into sheaves, or even mead
into the wine and honey out of which it was compounded. But if a man
makes a new object out of materials which belong partly to him and
partly to another--for instance, mead of his own wine and another's
honey, or a plaster or eyesalve of drugs which are not all his own, or
cloth of wool which belongs only in part to him--in this case there
can be no doubt that the new object belongs to its creator, for he has
contributed not only part of the material, but the labour by which it
was made.

26 If, however, a man weaves into his own cloth another man's purple,
the latter, though the more valuable, becomes part of the cloth by
accession; but its former owner can maintain an action of theft against
the purloiner, and also a condiction, or action for reparative damages,
whether it