the states of the Union have it in their power to prevent the hurtful monopolization of land.

To protect this right of property, whatever may be its origin or extent, the law has provided numerous methods to prevent the invasion of the right, and to redress wrongs by which it is violated. The laws for redressing injuries to the rights to life and personal security are comparatively few-the laws for the protection of the right of property are, as we shall see,

numerous.

§ 309. Kinds of property. There are two kinds of property which are the subject of individual ownership-real and personal, and these are subdivided into corporeal and incorporeal. There can be no individual or exclusive ownership of any object which can not be exclusively possessed or enjoyed; so that the elements of light, air and water, which a man may occupy and use by means of his windows, his gardens, his walls and other conveniences are his so long as they remain in his possession, but if he ceases to possess them or voluntarily abandons them, they return to the common stock, and the next taker has an equal right to seize and enjoy them. This principle applies to animals feræ naturæ, surface and subterranean streams of water, and veins or reservoirs of oil or gas beneath the soil. The doctrine of ancient rights which once prevailed in England, that is, the right that the first builder upon ground had to prevent the owner of the adjoining ground from erecting a structure that would shut out the light or air from the first builder's house has been abandoned in this country. The owner of the soil has the right, in the absence of boundary agreements to the contrary, to dig as deep and to build as high as he sees fit, so long as he conforms to the lines of

his own boundaries, and does not undermine or injure the land or buildings of his neighbor.

Real property consists of land and structures permanently affixed to land.

Personal property consists of such things as are movable and may attend the person of the owner wherever he may go, as goods, money, jewels, chattels and the like.

Corporeal property consists of such material things as may be apprehended by the senses, as lands, goods, animals, and may be the subject of actual manual possession and capable of being transferred by delivery.

Incorporeal property is that which consists in legal right merely, as choses in action, rights of way, easements and the like. It is a legal right which one man has, not to the property of another, but in it; as in the case of a right of way, the land is owned and in possession of one as corporeal property, while another has the single right of passing over it, which is incorporeal property. Both are valuable property rights and the owners of them respectively will be protected in their enjoyment by the courts. Incorporeal property may be acquired by agreement, or it may be created by operation of law, as when one sells a parcel of land in the center of his own field, the buyer by operation of law acquires a right of way over the seller's other land which surrounds his.

13-Elem. Law.

§ 310. Real property.-The law of real property, as it exists today in the United States, is full of intricacy. The commercial spirit of modern times has broken down many of the artificial barriers which the feudal system and the English laws of descent and tenures interposed to prevent the quick and easy transfer of landed estates. But enough of the old rules survive to confuse and perplex the student, and to tax the experienced lawyer, when he is called upon to decide concerning the rights of claimants to land. It is only intended here to give in outline some historical facts and general rules showing how and from what source titles to land are derived, and how they are transferred from one person to another.

§ 311. Titles in the United States.-It is a fundamental principle in the English law that the sovereign was the original proprietor of all the land in the kingdom. The same principle holds good in the United States as to all lands which are known as public lands. By the terms of their charters, the original colonies which became states reserved the right when the Union was formed to hold

and dispose of the land within the boundaries of their respective grants independently of the nation. Virginia, by cession of parts of her territory to the United States, abandoned her original claim, reserving to herself, however, certain portions now in the states of Kentucky and Ohio, which she bestowed upon her soldiers who served in the Revolutionary War. Titles to lands lying within the territories acquired by purchase and annexation since the formation of the Union, such as Florida, Louisiana, Texas, California, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, are held and derived from two sources.

§ 312. Land acquired by treaty. In acquiring these territories, so far as they were acquired by treaties and annexation, the United States agreed that titles held by grant from Spain, France and Mexico should be respected and treated as valid. Lands not granted at the date of the treaties became part of the public lands, and titles to such lands are derived from the United States.

§ 313. Indian titles. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when navigators from Europe made their discoveries upon the American continent, Spain, France, Holland and England tacitly agreed that discovery and occupancy gave title to the first comer, not only against other European nations, but against the native Indians. The absolute title of the Indians "yielded to the military, intellectual and moral power of the European immigrants." The Indians were allowed to occupy, but not to dispose of the land, except to the government within whose boundaries they lived. This rule grew out of the necessities of the case. To have allowed the Indian tribes to make transfers of land to other nations would have been a mischievous source of controversy and war.

The policy of our government has been to treat the Indians as wards. Whether our duty as guardian has been discharged with a due regard to the rights of our wards is a matter upon which opinions differ. Little by little, however, the Indian titles have been extinguished, and the Indians themselves have been confined to certain reservations, until now the lands they are permitted to occupy are a "mere patch" when compared to the immense domain which they used or possessed when the Europeans discovered the continent.

§ 314. Definitions.-Having considered the beginning or foundation of the titles to land in this country, we come now to speak of the interests which individuals may own in land. Things real consist of land, tenements and hereditaments. The term "land" comprehends any ground, soil or earth. It also includes all buildings erected upon it, though cases may arise where by agreement of parties, or by the nature of the structure and the intention with which it was placed upon the land, it may have and retain the character of personal property. Under the term “land” is included the water which covers the land, so that we do not speak of so many acres of water, but of so many acres of "land covered by water," which was the phrase used in pleading and conveyances, but now the term land will cover and include all water, whether of lake or stream, within its bounds. Tenement, in its original, proper and legal sense, signifies everything that may be holden, provided it be of a permanent nature; whether it be of a substantial and sensible or of an unsubstantial, ideal kind. But an hereditament, says Sir Edward Coke, is by much the largest and most comprehensive expression; for it includes not only lands and tenements, but whatever may be inherited, be it corporeal or incorporeal, real or personal. Hereditaments are of