150 BINNEY'S CASE.

ration, as to the terminations of the great line of canal navigation,
which it was the design of this law to cause to be constructed.
The court cannot think, that this act of incorporation is so very
obscure as it has been said to be, in relation to the terminations of
the projected canal. But, allowing it to be so, to a considerable
degree, it will be fit and proper, after so much argument has been
bestowed upon the subject, to say something as to the extent and
nature of the external help, that may be called in upon this occa-
sion.

No verbal proof can be admitted to explain a written contract,
much less should it be allowed to introduce such testimony to shew
what was the true meaning of an act of the legislature. If the
language used be absolutely contradictory and absurd, the law can-
not be carried into execution, and the design of the legislature, how-
ever well known it may be from inference or other circumstances,
not having been expressed, must altogether fail, (c) A latent ambi-
guity is one which is not apparent upon the instrument itself; but
becomes so by applying it to the subject to which it relates; as, if
it disposes of a tract of land by name, and the maker of the instru-
ment has two tracts of the same name; in such case proof is
allowed to shew which of the two was meant. But this act of in-
corporation is not charged with being ambiguous in this sense;
nor is it alleged, that its otherwise clear phraseology has been in
any manner thrown into doubt and confusion by any exhibition of
the facts, circumstances, and things to which it relates; on the
contrary, those great objects, the rivers, and the mountains of
which it speaks, now as when it was passed, had their existence
in nature on the surface of the country, unchanged and un-
changeable; and therefore, a latent ambiguity, in any legal sense
of that expression, cannot be shewn to exist by any proof whatever.

The act provides for the making of a 'navigable canal from the
tide-water of the river Potomac.' And the question arising out of
this expression is, as to where the canal shall begin. Hence it is
obvious, that the proof of facts and circumstances of any kind, as
evidence of what was really intended to be the point of beginning
thus described, can only be allowed on the ground, that it is ad-
missible thus to assist in the interpretation of expressions which
are doubtful upon their face, and so to aid the court in making out
the sense of the legislature by other means than the language used,

(c) l Blac. Com.91.