510 , 
A succession of skeleton towers may 
be placed at proper distances, which 
may be braced together so as to form a 
quay on their tops, where it may be 
thought requisite or convenient. I pro- 
pose a sufficient number of these towers 
to be placed in advance of such solid 
masonry as may be thought indispen- 
sable to the safety of the shipping. 
These towers, by permitting the sea to 
pass in some degree through them, 
would not be so liable to be overthrown 
by its force as a solid wall, yet would, 
I imagine, break the mass of water, so 
as to render its fury harmless.—Your’s, 
&e. Tuomas Howe tt. 
Clare Street, Bristol, 6th Dec. 1824. 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
Sir: 
= requesting you to give publicity 
to this letter, I flatter myself that 
common humanity will, as on similar 
occasions, insure your assent, as it in- 
duces me to inyite attention to a sub- 
ject which I hope will interest your 
readers in general ; those, especially, who 
are connected with the navigation of the 
German Ocean. 
Having no immediate concern myself 
in either foreign or coasting trade, some 
apology might be necessary, were it not 
that the disastrous consequences of the 
late turbulent weather must have ex- 
ited emotions of pity in all. However 
remote, by inland residence, from the 
scene of suffering, humanity cannot fail 
to commiserate the distresses recorded 
in the daily papers, or to sympathize in 
the anxiety for promoting any design 
which may contribute to obviate the 
perils by sea upon our eastern coast. 
They whose interests are deeply in- 
volved in commercial pursuits which 
expose the navigator to all the horrors 
of frequent tempest, in the neighbour- 
hood of shoresalways numbered amongst 
the most dangerous, and so often fatal 
to their fellow-creatures, need no de- 
scription, I should hope, of the loss of 
property from vessels stranded or in- 
gulphed, to stimulate their exertions 
in behalf of such an object. By the ex- 
ertions of intrepid boatmen, and by the 
aid of Captain Manby’s apparatus, many 
lives have been happily saved ; but it is 
melancholy ‘a relate what numbers are 
too often “exposed to wreck, in the 
neighbourhood of those shores, beyond 
the reach of such assistance. 
We daily and hourly hear many la- 
mentations, that between Harwicu and 
the Humsgr there is no HARBOUR to 
Projected Harbour at Lake Lothing. 
(Jan. 1, 
which vessels in impending danger can 
resort. But lamentation availeth no- 
thing; and whilst, with submission to 
Divine ProvipENCE, we endeayour to 
check the progress of epidemic disorders, 
why do we not employ the means within 
the sphere of human abilities to prevent 
the increase of shipwrecks? The sub- 
ject of this oft re-echoed lamentation 
ought, years ago, to have been obviated. 
Some little time since, a project was 
formed for opening a passage from 
Lowestoff to Norwich. Whether that 
design was rational or irrational is of no 
importance to the present object; but 
in the discussion of that subject, evi- 
dence was elicited that Lowestoff Roads 
are more tenable in a storm than those 
of Yarmouth ; and that a capacious har- 
bour, well-adapted for a considerable 
number of vessels, might be formed in 
Lake Lothing.* An application to Par- 
liament cannot fail of meeting its appro- 
bation; and the expense of forming 
the harbour is, from all the information 
I have received, too inconsiderable to 
be put in competition with the loss of 
lives and property from the want of it ; 
and merchants and mariners possess the 
means of ascertaining the practicability 
of the design, and its competency to the 
end proposed. 
Let that fact be well ascertained, and 
all maritime towns connected with the 
traffic and navigation of those coasts, 
will readily co-operate in the effort for 
providing such a place of refuge. No 
opposition can be apprehended from the 
Lords of the Admiralty, or from the 
Masters and Brothers of the Trinity 
House;—from the under-writers at 
Lloyd’s, or the merchants and mariners 
trading 
* Lake Lothing is a fine iece of water, 
upwards of a mile and a quarter in length, 
situated about half a mile to the southward 
of the town of Lowestoff, on the coast of 
Suffolk. Its average width is from 270 to 
290 yards, containing at least 160 acres 
of water. Its average depth, in the middle, 
is about ten feet ; and this might be regu- 
lated by flood-gates, and by taking advan- 
tage of the tides, so as to be made deeper, 
if required. Its narrowest end, to the high 
water-mark of spring tides, is less than 
400 yards. 
It has been declared by a person com- 
petent to judge of the subject, and perfectly 
acquainted with the spot, to be well formed 
by nature for a harbour, whether considered 
as to its size, depth, surrounding shore, con- 
tiguity to the sea, and comparative height or 
level of its surface with that of the sea at 
high or low water. : : 
