Definitions from Black's Law Dictionary: 2nd Edition and Ballentine's Law Dictionary as are available for each term in each dictionary.
  • Ballentine's Law Dictionary

    Gradual washing up of sand and earth so as to increase the quantity of land owned by a riparian proprietor. See 22 Am. St. Rep. 195.

  • Black's Law Dictionary: 2nd Edition

    That increase of the earth on a shore or bank of a river or to the shore of the sea, by the force of the water, as by a current or by waves, which is so gradual that no one can judge how much is added at each moment of time. Inst. 1, 2, t. 1, § 20. Ang. Water Courses, 53. Jefferis v. East Omaha Land Co., 134 U. S. 178, 10 Sup. Ct 518, 33 L. Ed. 872; Freeland v. Pennsylvania EU Co., 197 Pa. 529, 47 Atl. 745, 58 L. ItA. 206, 80 Am. St. Rep. 850. The term is chiefly used to signify a gradual increase of the shore of a running stream, produced by deposits from the waters. By the common law, alluvion is the addition made to land by the washing of the sea, or a navigable river or other stream, whenever the increase is so gradual that it cannot be perceived in any one moment of time. Lovingston v. St Clair Co.unty, 64 111. 58, 16 Am. Rep. 516. Alluvion differs from avulsion in this: that the latter is sudden and perceptible. St. Clair County v. Lovingston, 23 Wall. 46, 23 L. Ed. 59. See Avulsion.