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they relate. What, however, has contributed still more to the enlargement of the work, is the copious accumulation of judicial authorities, in further and important illustration of those which had previously been cited. But, beyond this explanation of its great increase in size, the addition which has been made to the use of water, as a motive power, has thrown open new sources of litigation, and has thus associated the subject more largely with the rudiments of general jurisprudence. This extended use has required a judicial construction of particular grants, and of written and unwritten contracts, of legislative acts and of constitutional law, which, while it has much enlarged the volume, has vindicated the soundness of the assertion of Lord Mansfield, that the predominating characteristic of the Common Law is, that it is a science of principles.

Actuated by a strong disposition to afford an entire, correct, and comprehensible view of the Law of Watercourses, as it has thus been elaborated and expanded, the author has been indefatigable in research, to collect it, and studious in exertion, to present it with accuracy and perspicuity.

In the Appendix will be found the statutes of Massachusetts, Maine, and Rhode Island, authorizing the owners and occupants of mills to overflow, subject to certain liabilities, the lands of other persons. The statute of Virginia, in relation to the same subject, which

is substantially different in its provisions from those just named, is also given. That of Kentucky, and those of other western and southern States,. are modelled so much after the law of Virginia, that it has been deemed inexpedient to swell the size of the volume by inserting them. The Appendix also contains forms of declarations, to be used in actions for injuries done to, or by means of, watercourses.

Following the Appendix is an Index, though this has been rendered almost superfluous, as so much attention and care have been bestowed on the arrangement and fulness of the Table of Contents.

PROVIDENCE, June 25, 1850.

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