LOST PROPERTY. The man who loses an article does not lose his right thereto, and he may recover it from the holder whoever he be, unless his claim be barred by some Statute of Limitations or special custom, as sale in market overt. The rights and duties of the finder are more complex. If he know or can find out the true owner, and yet convert the article to his own use, he is guilty of theft. But if the true owner cannot be discovered, the finder keeps the property, his title being superior to that of every one except the true owner. But this is only if the find be in public or some public place. Thus if you pick up bank notes in a shop where they have been lost by a stranger, and hand them to the shopkeeper that he may discover and repossess the true owner, and he fail to do so, then you can recover them from him. The owner of private land, however, is entitled to what is found on it. Thus a man sets you to clear out his pond, and you discover a diamond in the mud at the bottom. The law will compel you to hand it over to the owner of the pond. This applies even against the tenant. A gas company were lessees of certain premises; whilst making excavations therein they came upon a prehistoric boat; and they were forced to surrender it to their lessor. An aerolite becomes the property of the owner of the land on which it falls, and not of the person finding or digging it out. The principle of these three last cases is that whatever becomes part of the soil belongs to the proprietor of that soil.