Avulsion

[Lat. avulsio, from aveU lere, to pluck or tear awa^.] In the civil and common law. A tearmg off, severing, or forcible disruption; the sudden removal of soil from one man's estate to another's, by the immediate and manifest power of a stream, (vi Jluminis.) Dig. 41.

1. 7. Inst. 2. 1. 21.

A species of adjunction {adjunctio,) produced by a stream of water carrying away a large piece of a person's land at once, and depositing it on that of another, [his neighbor, vicinus.^ In this case, however, the property in the land so torn away is not changed until it has adhered so long to the other's land as to become part of it. Or, in the language of the Institutes, after it has adhered so long that the trees which it brought with it have taken root in the neighbor's land, such trees become his property. Inst. 2. 1. 21. This doctrine has been admitted into the conunon law ever since the time of Bracton. Bract, fol. 9. Schultes* Aquatic Rights, 116. 1 Crahb's Real Prop. 110.