Air


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AIR. That fluid transparent substance which surrounds our globe.
     2. No property can be had in the air it belongs equally to all men, being indispensable to their existence. To poison or materially to change the air, to the annoyance of the public, is a nuisance. Cro. Cr. 610; 2 Ld. Raym 1163; I Burr. 333; 1 Str. 686 Hawk. B. 1, c. 75, s. 10; Dane's Ab. Index h.t. But this must be understood with this qualification, that no one has a right to use the air over another man's land, in such a manner as to be injurious to him. See 4 Campb. 219; Bowy. Mod. Civ. Law, 62; 4 Bouv. Inst. n. 36 1; Grot. Droit de la Guerre et de la Paix, liv. 2, c. 2, Sec. 3, note, 3 et 4.
     3. It is the right of the proprietor of an estate to enjoy the light and air that will come to him, and, in general, no one has a right to deprive him of them; but sometimes in building, a man opens windows over his neighbor's ground, and the latter, desirous of building on his own ground, necessarily stops the windows already built, and deprives the first builder of light and air; this he has the right to do, unless the windows are ancient lights, (q.v.) or the proprietor has acquired a right by grant or prescription to have such windows open. See Crabb on R. P. Sec. 444 to 479 and Plan. Vide Nuisance.

A Law Dictionary, Adapted to the Constitution and Laws of the United States. By John Bouvier. Published 1856.
References in classic literature ?
went the ropes, and the balloon rose into the air without her.
He reached the edge of the tall roof, stepped one foot out into the air, and walked into space as calmly as if he were on firm ground.
The girl, greatly astonished, ran to lean over the edge of the roof, and saw the man walking rapidly through the air toward the ground.
The search continued under these conditions until the vitiated air compelled the divers to ascend.
Instead of the generous spread of surface with which it had taken the air, it was now a lean and hawklike monoplane balanced on long and exceedingly narrow wings.
He had already spent several months in this condition when the Prince of the Air whirled her away, to the grief and despair of every man on the island.
She had been removed to the keen air of Canada when she left her birthplace.
"For if it flies through the air it will not be unlike a bird, and I've noticed that all birds have tails, which they use for a rudder while flying."
I was scorching up, burning alive internally, in an agony of fire and suffocation, and I wanted air. I madly wanted air.
It was then they heard for the first time of the real scale of the Dornhof aeronautic park and the possibility of an attack coming upon them not only by sea, but by the air. But it is curious that so discredited were the newspapers of that period that a large majority of New Yorkers, for example, did not believe the most copious and circumstantial accounts of the German air-fleet until it was actually in sight of New York.
The next minute she was in the room and had run across to his bed, bringing with her a waft of fresh air full of the scent of the morning.
The body of the one-man air craft is about sixteen feet long, two feet wide and three inches thick, tapering to a point at each end.