1901.] HAUPT — METHODS OF IMPROVING OCEAN BARS. 63 



construction and maintenance, than any or all other methods 

 attempted by the Government, as the accompanying statement, 

 compiled from official statistics, will attest. An inspection of this 

 exhibit will show that the cost per foot of depth gained at six other 

 ocean bars ranged from $166,000 to $893,000, the average being 

 $468,560, so that the cost at Brunswick is only about ten per cent. 

 of that at other points where large annual expenses are still required 

 for maintenance. 



The work at Brunswick was undertaken by a private citizen of 

 that place, at his own risk and expense, under contract with the 

 Government for payments only after the results were secured, in order 

 to save the commerce from annihilation. The officer in charge 

 states that to build there a pair of " high tide jetties which might be 

 expected to create and maintain an ample channel would be pro- 

 hibitory. Jetties to low tide could be expected merely to preserve 

 the channel location and reduce the cost of dredging. The esti- 

 mated cost of these is $2,829,608. The interest on this sum 

 at three per cent, would be $84,888.24 per annum, or probably 

 much more than enough to create annually, by dredging, the 

 channel depths and widths required by the act." 



In a subsequent part of his report the officer in charge estimates 

 that the requisite channel could have been created by removing 

 125,000 cubic yards at a cost of only $18,750. It may well be 

 asked why this discovery was not made and applied at an earlier 

 date and the $253,646 already paid the contractor for his channel, 

 secured after seven years of labor, have been saved. 



While this conclusion leaves the whole matter of cost problemati- 

 cal and guarantees nothing, it also assumes that low tide jetties would 

 fix the channel and reduce the cost of dredging, whereas the result 

 would be to admit and impound the littoral drift between them and 

 so increase the amount to be removed if it did not entirely obliterate 

 the channel, as has happened at Cumberland Sound, immediately to 

 the south, where this plan was tried by his predecessor and signally 

 failed. But if the cost of maintenance were even as low as $60,000, 

 this at three per cent, would represent $2,000,000, and the single 

 reaction breakwater could be built on this bar for less than half 

 this sum, which would create and maintain the channel ; but the 

 author of the report dismisses this method with the remark that 

 its theory is " fatally defective," and further that the breakwater 

 at Aransas Pass built on this plan " is not located according to 



