Report of the Board of Shell Fish Commissioners. 31 



The boundary line between the contiguous waters of Baltimore 

 and Kent Counties passes through the oyster grounds generally 

 known as Tea Tables and Gales Lump, and for convenience in 

 description, charting and buoying, the parts of both grounds lying 

 on the Baltimore County side, have been placed together and charted 

 as one bar and given the name Tea Table, the name Gales Lump 

 being given to the parts of these grounds situated on the Kent 

 County side. 



Tea Table bar as laid down on the oyster chart includes the num- 

 erous small oyster lumps situated on the soft muddy bottoms at the 

 lower end and on the eastern bank of the blind channel, or slough, 

 west of the "middle ground" upon which Gales Lump bar has been 

 developed. It also includes a large area of more or less continuous 

 oyster bar on the hard, sandy and sticky bottoms on the western 

 part of the middle ground. The general level of the channel bottom 

 upon which the lumps at the lower end of the bar are situated, is 

 19 to 22 feet below the level of mean low water. The oyster-bear- 

 ing lumps rise several feet above the surrounding bottom, however, 

 the depths over the lumps varying from 9 to 12 feet, hence the 

 appropriate name of Tea tables for the whole area. The depth of 

 water over the high sandy middle ground is about 11 feet, grading 

 off to depths of 13 to 21 feet over the sticky and soft bottom west 

 of the middle ground. 



The results of the examinations made on this bar indicate that 

 55 per cent, of the oysters with which it was stocked during the 

 Fall and Winter of 1908 were killed during the Spring of 1909, 

 and that 48 per cent, of the oysters with which it was stocked at the 

 time of the survey had attached to the shells during the Summer of 

 1909. They afforded evidence also that the destructive effects of the 

 Spring freshets had not been equally severe over the whole area, for 

 at some of the stations no dead oysters (boxes) were found, at 

 others a small percentage only were dead, and at others the per- 

 centage of dead oysters among the living was as high as 50 and 75. 



The natural oyster bar to which the name Millers Island has been 

 given includes the lumps of the soft muddy bottom on the west 

 bank of the slough opposite Tea Table bar and the adjacent sandy 

 bottom upon which oysters and shells were found. It is covered 

 with water 10 to 19 feet in depth. All of the oysters and "boxes" 

 taken at the examination stations were small, none being 2 l / 2 inches 



