Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

“ But the Roman law is not like a deed or a modern code prepared uno flatu. History plays too large a part to make it safe to generalize from a single passage in so easy a fashion. Alongside of the rule as to rivers we find that the right of alluvion is not recognized for lakes and ponds (D. 41, 1, 12) ,-a rule often repeated in the civil law codes; e. g., Philippine Civil Code of 1889, arts. 366, 367; Code Napoleon, art. 550; Italy, Civil Code 1865, art. 454; Mexico, art. 797. If we are to generalize, the analogy of lakes to the sea is closer than that of rivers. ”

“ The presumption that the foregoing provisions of the Law of Waters express the understanding of the codifiers as to what the earlier law had been, becomes almost inexpugnable when we find that the other leading civil law countries have adopted the same doctrine. The Code Napoleon, after laying down the Roman rule for alluvion in rivers (arts. 556, 557) , adds at the end of the latter article: 'Ce droit n'a pas lieu a l'egard des relais des la mer,' which seems to have been adopted without controversy at the conference. ”

“ We have neither heard nor found anything on the other side that seems to us to approach the foregoing considerations in weight, not to speak of the respect that we must feel for the concurrent opinion of both the courts below upon a matter of local law with which they are accustomed to deal. ”