Definition of Water-Mark

A mark indicating the highest point to which water rises or the lowest point to which It sinks.
—High-water mark. This term is properly applicable only to 'tidal waters, and designates the line on the shore reached by the water at the high or flood tide. But it is sometimes also used with reference to the waters of artificial ponds or lakes, created by dams in unnavigable streams, and then denotes the highest point on the shores to which the dams can raise the water in ordinary circumstances. Howard v. Ingersoll, 13 How. 423, 14 L. Ed. 189; Storer v. Freeman. 6 Mass. 437, 4 Am. Dec. 155; Mobile Transp. Co. v. Mobile, 128 Ala. 335, 30 South. 645, 64 L. R. A. 333, 86 Am. St. Rep. 143; Morrison v. First Nat. Bank, 88 Me. 155, 33 Atl. 782; Brady v. Blackinton, 113 Mass. 245; Cook v. McClure, 58 N. Y. 444, 17 Am. Rep. 270.
—Low-water mark. That line on the shore of the sea which marks the edge of the waters at the lowest point of the ordinary ebb tide. See Stover v. Jack, 60 Pa. 342, 100 Am. Dec. 566; Gerrish v. Prop'rs of Union Wharf, 26 Me. 395, 46 Am. Dec. 568.