J901.J HAUPf — METHODS OF IMPROVING OCEAX BARS. 71 



3. "The Single, Curved Breakwater." 



The report next analyzes the reaction breakwater partially built 

 by private capital at Aransas Pass, stating some of the requirements 

 it was designed by its inventor to fulfill, namely: (1) It must be 

 located on the windward side of the channel. (2) It must be de- 

 tached from the shore to admit the full tidal prism. (3) It must 

 produce a continuous reaction across the bar by its curved trace. 



Another requirement, which the author professes not to understand 

 clearly, is that " the breakwater has to be curved to produce reac- 

 tions similar to those found in the concavities of streams and hav- 

 ing radii sufficient to maintain channels of the requisite depths;" 

 also " the breakwater must change the conditions of equilibrium of 

 flood and ebb currents in favor of the latter." 



This last, he adds, " is too vaguely stated to admit of discussion." 

 After stating that the first and second of the above requirements are 

 directly contrary to each other, the author proceeds to predict what 

 should happen, but which, unfortunately for his forecast, after some 

 four years of exposure, has not happened. The channel has not 

 shifted its position, there has been no dredging, nor any expenditure 

 upon any part of the work for maintenance, and the depths have in- 

 creased in the lee of the breakwater to a maximum of twenty-five 

 and a quarter feet and a minimum of fifteen and a half feet, although 

 large gaps were left in the breakwater at both ends when the work 

 was suspended in 1897. 



The sophistries and opinions suggested to discredit these unpre- 

 cedented results are best answered by the results themselves, as 

 the report acknowledges "at Aransas Pass to-day there is prob- 

 ably a minimum depth of fifteen feet with over twenty feet close to 

 the jetty." This is therefore the admitted result, with barely half 

 of the work contemplated in place. 



The author next proceeds to show that not only is the theory de- 

 fective, but that it has not been correctly applied ; and to sustain 

 this assumption he must, perforce,Jnvert the direction of the littoral 

 drift, ignoring entirely the former Government experience when the 

 old curved jetty was built on the other side of the channel, and 

 resulted in failure. 



After concluding that the reaction breakwater is not built in ac- 

 cordance with the theory of its designer, the author then attempts 

 to build up a case of two jetties by statements such as these : 



" It seems plain that most of the operation is that simply of two 



