street, that the drainage of a swamp,
formerly owned by the author, has drawn down the wells on that street,
situated many rods distant from the drains. Those wells are upon a sandy
plain, with underlying clay, and the drains are cut down upon the clay,
and into it, and may possibly draw off the water a foot or two lower
through the whole village--if we can regard the water line running
through it as the surface of a pond, and the swamp as a dam across its
outlet.

The rights of land-owners, as to running water over their premises, have
been fruitful of litigation, but are now well defined. In general, in
the language of Judge Story,

"Every proprietor upon each bank of a river, is entitled to the
land covered with water in front of his bank to the middle thread
of the stream, &c. In virtue of this ownership, he has a right to
the use of the water flowing over it in its natural current,
without diminution or obstruction. The consequence of this
principle is, that no proprietor has a right to use the water to
the prejudice of another. It is wholly immaterial whether the party
be a proprietor above or below, in the course of the river, the
right being common to all the proprietors _on_ the river. No one
has a right to diminish the quantity which will, according to the
natural current, flow to the proprietor below, or to throw it back
upon a proprietor above."

Chief Justice Richardson, of New Hampshire, thus briefly states the same
position:

"In general, every man has a right to the use of the water flowing
in a stream through his land, and if any one divert the water from
its natural channel, or throw it back, so as to deprive him of the
use of it, the law will give him redress. But one man may acquire,
by grant, a right to throw the water back upon the land of another,
and long usage may be evidence of such a grant. It is, however,
well settled that a man acquires no such right by merely being the
first to make use of the water."

We are not aware that it has ever been held by any court of law, or even
asserted, that a land-owner may not intercept the percolating water in
his soil for any purpose and at his pleasure; nor have we in mind any
case in which the draining out of water from a well, by drainage for
agricultural purposes, has subjected the owner of the land to
compensation.

It is believed that a land-o