136 HAUPT — REACTION BREAKWATER AT ARANSAS PASS. [Oct. 6, 



States Engineers having general jurisdiction over river and harbor 

 improvements, in January of the following year (1888), with the 

 view to their introduction by the only parties who could use them. 

 The Board, however, made a report on the i6th of March following, 

 concluding in these words: '' The views are purely theoretical, are 

 unconfirmed by experience and contain nothing not already well 

 known, which has a useful application in the improvement of our 

 harbors," thus making a direct issue with the conclusions reached 

 by this Society. 



On learning of this report, accidentally, some time later and 

 being anxious to confirm ^' the views " by establishing a precedent, 

 applications were made to several Chiefs of Engineers in succession, 

 on June 30, July 30 and September 14, of 1888, requesting an 

 opportunity to make a demonstration, but without eliciting any 

 response whatever. 



This report of the Board was so directly at variance with the con- 

 clusions reached by this distinguished Society, and apparently so 

 erroneous as to the observed movement of littoral drift, that a dis- 

 cussion thereof was carefully prepared and read before tliis Society 

 on January 18, 1889, under the title, *' Discussion on the Dynamic 

 Action of the Ocean in Building Bars."^ 



A copy of this paper was likewise mailed to the members of the 

 Board of Engineers, but elicited no reply. On February 24, 1888, 

 the subject was also presented to the Committee on River and 

 Harbor Improvements of the House of Representatives, attracting 

 much interest and close attention, but no action. Thus the efforts 

 to create additional commercial facilities and to demonstrate the 

 truth of a physical law appeared to be thwarted and there remained 

 nothing to do but to await an opportunity. 



This did not occur until 1895, ^^ six years later, when the Gov- 

 ernment decided to concentrate all the appropriations for the West 

 Gulf coast upon the great problem of creating at least one deep- 

 water entrance at Galveston and abandoned the remaining ports to 

 private enterprise. 



Then it happened that Mr. George W. Fulton, President of the 

 Coleman- Fulton Pasture Company, and thoroughly familiar with 

 the conditions at Aransas Pass, Tex., from a residence of over fifty 

 years, and Mr. Brewster Cameron, of Tucson, Ariz., succeeded in 

 persuading the Aransas Pass Harbor Company, holding a franchise 



^ See Proceedings of March, 1889. 



