Surface

When a statute, making a lot-owner liable for damage from his excavating more than nine feet below the "surface of the adjoining lots," is to be applied to a place where there has been a change made by filling or grading, the word surface must be construed to mean the existing or artificial, and not the original or natural, surface. Burkhardt v. Hanley, 23 Ohio St. 658. "Surfacing," in a contract for railway construction, does not include filling in between the ties, nor raising the road-bed. Snell v. Cottingham, 72 Ill. 161. Surface water ceases to be such after entering between the banks of a watercourse. Jones v. Hannovan, 55 Mo. 462.