804 OYSTERS, AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 



an area, approximately, of 5,730,000 square yards. 

 On the shoalest parts of the beds the bottom was found to 

 be a stratum of shells, with a light covering of mud and a 

 substratum of hard sand. On these shoal places the 

 oysters and shells were most abundant. The oysters were 

 not evenly distributed over the entire bed, but grew in 

 detached patches and ridges on and in the vicinity of the 

 shoals, with numerous narrow mud sloughs intersect in 

 and separating them. The deep water was found over 

 these sloughs, and, generally speaking, the shallower the 

 water the larger the number of oysters and the thicker and 

 more solid the bed, this being especially true about the 

 boundaries, where the beds rise abruptly from the main 

 channel, and where great difficulty was found in attempting 

 to penetrate them with the probe ; while in the interior 

 portions and in deeper water the surface stratum was of 

 shells and mud, with six feet or more of soft mud under- 

 neath. 



The oysters on the three beds are of the 

 class known among the dealers as " snaps." They are 

 small and poor, single or in small clusters of two or three, 

 and when not transplanted are used for canning. There 

 was no sponge or grass attached to the shells, and but very 

 few of the usual inhabitants of a bed other than the oysters 

 appeared to be present. Young oysters, of about one 

 year's growth and under, predominated, and the proportion 

 of young to mature oysters was greater on the shoal spots 

 and ridges at the edge of the bed than elsewhere, owing, 

 probably, to the fact that such portions of the bed being 

 shoalest, hardest, and cleanest, they offered superior points 

 for the attachment of the drifting spat. 



The oysters from the Jail Island Bed were considered 

 superior to any in the river for planting purposes, though 



