so far as such waters could be used, to the middle of the stream, provided the public right of navigation was not molested; and that State officers could not afterwards lease such surplus waters and authorize the lessee to prevent them from flowing over the dam, to the injury of the water privileges connected with the water lots thus sold.1 § 14. So, grants by the general government of the United States are construed by the Common-Law rule, unless there is something to exclude or qualify that construction. A grant by the United States of land lying upon the river Mississippi, without reservation, was held to pass to the grantee a title to the middle of the river. So the act of Congress establishing the Mississippi river as the western boundary of the Mississippi territory, and adopting the Common Law for the government of that territory, fixed the middle of the river as the boundary line; and the rights of the riparian proprietors on the east shore of that river must be determined by the Common Law. In Gavit's Adm'rs v. Chambers, in Ohio, the Court say, "If it be assumed that the United States retain the fee-simple in the beds of our rivers, who is to preserve them from individual trespasses, or determine matters of wrong between the trespassers and themselves? It cannot be reasonably doubted that if all the beds of our rivers supposed to be navigable, and treated as such by the United States in selling lands, are to be regarded as unappropriated territory, a door is opened 3 1 Varick v. Smith, 9 Paige (N. Y.) Ch. R. 547; and see 5 Ib. 138. 2 Middleton v. Pritchard, 3 Scam. (Ill.) R. 510. 3 Morgan v. Reading, 3 Sme. & Marsh. (Mississip.) R. 366. 4 Gavit's Adm'rs v. Chambers, 3 Ohio R. 495. for incalculable mischiefs. Intruders upon the common waste would fall into endless broils amongst themselves, and involve the owners of adjacent lands in controversies innumerable. Stones, soil, gravel, the right to fish, would all be subjects of individual scramble, necessarily leading to violence and outrage." The United States have no other rights within the several States than as a landholder, and when they grant a portion of their domain, such rights and such only as are incident to the land, pass to the purchaser.1 § 15. It is, therefore, obvious, that, in respect to tenants in common, whenever they make partition, by assigning the land on one side of a watercourse to one of the co-tenants, and the land on the opposite side to the other, the two tracts are separated by the thread of the river.2 § 16. Proprietors of islands own to the thread of each branch of the river, which, in its natural course divides it from the main land. And, where a watercourse is divided by an island, and the smaller portion of the stream dividing it descends on one side of it, and the residue on the other, the riparian proprietor of the main land by which the smallest quantity flows, is entitled to the use of no more of the water than naturally runs between his bank and the island.* 4. When Persons become Riparian Owners. § 17. It matters not what may be the intention of the grantor of land described as being bounded by a 1 Hendricks v. Johnson, 6 Port. (Ala.) R. 472. 2 King v. King, 7 Mass. R. 496. 3 People v. Canal Appraisers, ub. sup. 4 Crooker v. Bragg, 10 Wend. (N. Y.) R. 260. watercourse, or by words as comprehensive or in law equivalent; the grantee in such case will hold to the thread of the river, even if such was not the grantor's intention. As a reservation of a right of way in a grant of land so bounded, upon the bank of the stream, does not prevent the fee in the land from vesting in the grantee, it does not limit his riparian rights.2 § 18. What words employed in a grant of land bounded by a watercourse, will exclude the bed of the stream, and consequently all aquatic right, has, in this country, been a fertile subject-matter of litigation. It has been settled that territory described as "lying between" two rivers, is the whole country from their sources to their mouths; and if no fork of either of them has acquired the name, in exclusion of another, the main branch, to its source, must be considered as the true river. In South Carolina it has been held that where a certain survey called "Dean's Swamp" as a boundary, the creek or main stream of the swamp was intended, and not the outer edge or margin of low marshy land that frequently bounds the main stream.* § 19. A description in a grant calling for the mouth of "Lodge's Run" as the place of beginning, thence by several courses and distances to a stone bridge over the Run, it being in the main road, at twelve perches north-east of a certain corner, mentioned in a deed, &c., thence down along the said Run on the southwardly side thereof to the place of beginning, the said 1 See Ante, § 9; Waterman r. Johnson, 13 Pick. (Mass.) R.; Nickerson v. Crawford, 4 Shep. (Me.) R. 245. 2 Hagan v. Campbell, 8 Port. (Ala.) R. 9. 3 Doddridge v. Thompson, 9 Wheat. (U. S.) R. 470; Beuner v. Platter, 6 Ham. (Ohio) R. 504. 4 Felder v. Bonnet, 2 M'Mull. (S. C.) R. 44. described Run to be the boundary, was held proper to be applied by the Jury, and not the Court, to evidence that there was, at the date of the deed, a wooden bridge, and not a stone one, over the main branch, which was usually called "Lodge's Run;" and that there was a stone bridge over a gut or small branch of it, at the specified distance from the particular corner tree.1 20. A patent in North Carolina described the. land as lying on the north side of a river, and the line in dispute called for "a pine on the marsh branch, then along the said branch 320 poles, thence to the beginning," and the branch meets the river at a shorter distance. It was held that the branch was the boundary, and the mouth the corner of the land covered by the patent, and that the distance was to be disregarded.2 § 21. It has been held in Maine that if a tract of land is granted, fronting on and bounded by a river, the side lines are to be continued to the main stream, though they thereby cross a point formed by the junction of one of its branches with the principal river. Trespass was brought for entry upon land, which was the point of land made by the junction of a creek, called "Molasses Creek," with a river, called "Cathance" river, in Maine: and the plaintiff claimed the land in question as a part of a lot called "letter A.” The question was at first, by rule of Court, referred to arbitrators; and upon the coming in of their report, which was in favor of the plaintiff, it was contested by 1 Nourse v. Lloyd, 1 Barr, (Penn.) R. 220. 2 Carraway v. Witherington, N. Carolina Term R. 275; 1 Ired. (N. C.) Dig. 107. the defendant, and on his motion recommitted. After a second hearing, a report was again returned for the plaintiff and again contested by the defendant. It appeared from examination of the referees, that the principal controversy was whether the locus in quo was part of the lot called A, belonging to the plaintiff, or of B, belonging to the defendant. These lots in point of fact, upon actual survey, were situated as thus described by the continued lines; It appeared further before the referees, that a plan of these lots, with others, was made by John Merrill, in 1772; the part representing these lots purporting to be copied from McKenzie's plan, by which the lots were represented as lying farther down the river, and the road between the two lots as touching the river below the locus in quo, as appears by the dotted lines in the above diagram. The plaintiff hereupon contended that the lot A extended across the creek to |