BINNEY'S CASE.—2 BLAND. 131

capacity to carry water sufficient for mills, as well as navigation,
they are proofs, that for want of a guard-lock at its inlet, it is alike
unsafe and dangerous to both, since the swollen torrent, which ob-
structs navigation, might sweep a mill to destruction by the same
kind of force which rends and prostrates the banks and mounds of
the canal itself.

But it seems to be a still greater mistake as to the nature and
causes of these issues and sluices, to cite their long continuance as
furnishing a presumption, that the owners of the land, over which
they flow, have a right to consider them as permanent streams on
which they may erect mills. Presumptions of fact are conclusions
drawn from particular circumstances. They are such inferences as
are found by experience to be usually consequent upon or coinci-
dent with certain known facts. A presumption of right always
* supposes some tacit or implied admission of him against
whom it is brought to bear, that the title claimed is well 139
founded. The principles of common law, presumptions arising
from lapse of time, and those statutory limitations which have
been introduced to quiet the rights of individuals, are among the
most balmy principles of the law, and should always be highly re-
spected. Dudley \. Dudley, Prece. Chan. 249; Charlwood v. Mor-
gan, 1 New Sep. 06; The Rebecca, 5 Rob. Ad. Rep. 104; Lingam v.
Hcnderson, 1 Bland, 272. Before a presumption of right can, how-
ever, be founded upon the continuance of certain circumstances
during any length of time, it must be shewn, that such circum-
stances necessarily involve an admission of the right of him by
whom it is claimed. There must appear to be such an obvious
connection between the circumstances and the right, that so soon
as the circumstances are established, an irresistible inference im-
mediately arises that the right as claimed must also exist. 1 Ev.
Pothier Ob. 472; 2 Ev. Pothier Ob. .119; 4 Stark. Evi. 1234.

Bat the fact of there being rents in a canal affords a just founda-
tion for presuming, that it has been badly constructed; or that it
is exposed to such floodings as to diminish its utility and make it
very expensive to its owners. It by no means follows as a fair
consequence from such facts, or from their long continuance, that
the owners of the canal had made such sluices, or suffered them to
continue with an implied or tacit understanding, that they might
be considered as constant streams applicable to mills. There is
no obvious or natural connexion between such circumstances and
the existence of such a right in any form; nor has such a right
been found by experience to be usually consequent upon, or coinci-
dent with any such known facts. The continuance of such cir-
cumstances does not, in any manner, involve an admission of any
such right; nor do they stand in the slightest degree related as
cause and effect. If the canal had been protected, as it ought to
have been, by a guard-lock at its inlet, its supply of water would