BALTIMORE v. McKIM.—3 BLAND. 463

been acquired under the Act allowing owners of lots to extend
them into the water, it must now be considered as the property of
the State. 1745, ch. 9; Harrison v. Sterett, 4 H. & McH. 540.

But considering the bed of this basin as being property, like all
the other lands of the State, which are covered with navigable
water, to which a legal title might have been acquired by any one
from the land office, subject to the uses of navigation, &c.; or
as being property; a title to portions of which might have been
acquired according to the Act allowing certain lots to be im-
proved; 1745, ch. 9; yet it appears, that both of those modes of
acquiring title to it were, in some respects, modified by a subse-
quent Act of Assembly, by which it is declared, that the port
wardens should ascertain the course of the channel; that no wharf
should be extended into the basin, so as to divert the course of
the channel; and that no person should make a wharf without the
permission of the port wardens; who were directed to prevent any
obstruction to the navigation, and to keep the harbor clear for the
use of * vessels. April, 1783, ch. 24, s. 8 and 9; 1753, ch.
27. Whence it appears, that no wharf can be extended 471
beyond the margin of the channel, even with the consent of the
port wardens. And these port wardens having, as directed by
this law, made a survey designating the lines of the channel, that
is the line, now commonly called the port warden's line, beyond
which no improvements can be made into the basin.

These provisions do certainly restrict the mode of acquisition
given by the Act for making improvements; 1745, ch. 9; and
assist in giving perpetuity to the public right of navigation with
which the soil was originally encumbered, by requiring, that care
should be taken to keep it always free from, obstruction. This last
Act, it is therefore evident, cannot be so construed as to give any ad-
ditional facilities to acquiring title to, and making fast land of any
portion of the bed of the basin; but, on the contrary, as directly
curtailing those means by which a title to, and the use of it, might
previously have been obtained. The port wardens could give to
no one a right to encroach upon the basin in any direction, or to
make a wharf where, prior to the passage of this law, he had no
such right; they might limit and control the then existing powers
of individuals, but could give them no new powers or rights what-
ever. This is the view which has long since been taken of this
law by the Courts of justice. Harrison v. Sterett, 4 H. & McH.
540; Smith v. Hollingsworth, ante, 381.

Hence it is manifest, that the permission given by the port war-
dens to John Smith, to fill up and build a wharf on eleven feet of
Gay street, was wholly illegal and a mere nullity; and as to the
farther encroachment upon Gay street, it has not been intimated,
that Smith and others had even a pretext or shadow of legal au-
thority to do what has been done by them.