Judicial History	31

tional line, for the purpose of enforcing the criminal
laws and regulating the rights of navigation in the
Potomac River, was agreed upon.

	The Compact was thus referred to only as a matter of
	historical fact, there being no occasion to construe it.

K. Marine Railway Company v. United States (1921).
In the Marine Railway Company case (257 U. S. 47) , the
United States sued to recover possession of a piece of land
which lay in the Potomac River in front of the City of
Alexandria. The site of the land had been under water
until 1910-12, when the United States had constructed a
wall on the river bed and dumped behind it earth dredged
from the stream. The area thus reclaimed was then en
closed by a fence. The Marine Company, having title to
the adjoining land inshore and until that time a riparian
owner, destroyed the fence and took possession of the re
claimed strip. The case finally went to the Supreme Court.

	The Court cited the original grant to Lord Baltimore
	and a number of judicial decisions, all of which had de
	clared Maryland's title (and hence that of the Federal
	government) to extend to the southern shore of the river.
	Therefore, it decided, the reclaimed land lying in front of
	the well established Virginia boundary belongs to the
	District of Columbia.

	Brief mention of the Compact was made during the
	course of the opinion:

	The Compact between Virginia and Maryland in
	1785 also seems to us to have no bearing upon the
	case. It says nothing about the boundary in terms ....
	It was a regulation of commerce, and while with a
	view to opening up a route to the West it provided
	in Article 6 that the Potomac should be considered as
	a common highway for the purposes of navigation
	and commerce to the citizens of Virginia and Mary
	land, and in Article 7 gave the citizens of each state
	full property in the shores of the river adjoining their
	lands and the privilege of carrying out wharves, etc.,
	with a common right of fishing, it left the question of