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BALTIMORE v. McKIM. 469
And, by a late act of the Legislature, it is declared, that indivi-
duals may locate and obtain an exclusive title to oyster-beds, in
any navigable waters, in the manner therein prescribed, without
applying to the Land Office, (d) And, as it would seem, the
General Assembly may, for the benefit of the public, grant to an
individual any navigable water together with the land which it
covers, (e)
At an early period an obscure and unsettled notion seems to
have prevailed, that the owners of the uplands had a sort of in-
choate or pre-emptive right to the contiguous marshes, lying be-
tween their uplands and the shores of the tide, (f) And such
marsh was, by the land law of 1699, declared to belong absolutely
to the land to which it was adjacent; (g) but, that law has been
long since repealed, and I find nothing which shews, that the
owner of a tract adjoining navigable water could claim any sort
of title to any part of the land covered by the tide beyond low
water mark; because of its being immediately adjacent to the land
held by him. (h)
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(d) 1829, ch. 87; Scratton v. Brown, 10 Cora. Law Rep. 385; Attorney-General
v. Burridge, 6 Exch. Rep. 354.—(e) 1826, ch. 212; 1827, ch. 33; 1828, ch. 54.—
(f) Land Ho. Assis. 147, 157.—(g) Land Ho. Assis. Append. 9.—(h) But a fee
simple owner may extend a wharf into a river so as he does not thereby injure the
navigation or fishery; 1835, ch. 168.
HYDE'S CASE.—To His Excellency Robert Eden, Esquire, and the Honourable
Daniel Dulany and John Morton Jordan, Esquires, commissioners for the sale of his
Lordship's lands.
The petition of Thomas Hyde, of the city of Annapolis, humbly sheweth, That
your petitioner is seised in fee of a lot of ground on the south-east side of Bishop
street, and at the head of the Cove, south-west of the city, which said lot begins at
a locust post standing upon the bank by the said Cove; and runs from thence south
eighty degrees, west ninety-nine feet to another locust post; then north sixty de-
grees, west two hundred and seventy feet to another locust post at the end of the
line of Bishop's street; then with Bishop street north-east one hundred and forty-
eight feet and one-half, to a locust post of Mr. James Carrol's lot; then with a
straight line to the beginning.
Your petitioner further sheweth to your Excellency and Honours, that your peti-
tioner's first course extends the whole length of the head of the Cove, and nearly
parallel to the same; and that originally the tide-water flowed up to his said
course; though now, by the filling up of the Cove for the purpose of a tan-yard, a
considerable piece of ground intervenes between your petitioner's first coarse and
high water mark; which said ground, your petitioner, to present controversies
hereafter, is willing to purchase of Ms lordship, Your petitioner therefore prays a
special order for a warrant of resurvey of the said lot and ground; and that, upon
paying a reasonable consideration for the said ground, your petitioner may have
patent for the same; and your petitioner as in duty bound will pray, &c.
1st April, 1771.—The commissioners for the sale of his lordship's manors, &c.
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