36 Report of the Board of Shell Fish Commissioners. 



aggregate an area of 3,734 acres. They form an almost continuous 

 chain from the mouth of the river to Melton point; the few inter- 

 ruptions to the chain being due, in some cases, to the presence of 

 sand bars and muddy channels, in others to overworked and ex- 

 hausted oyster grounds. The exhausted areas, however, more often 

 involve the parts of bars only which are situated on the hard bot- 

 tom in the shallower waters near shore, the deeper lying parts of 

 such bars, situated on soft bottoms off shore, not having been de- 

 pleted to exhaustion. 



The oyster bars are confined to the shelf of bottoms between the 

 shore and the edge of the deep mid-river channel. The channel in 

 the Chester river usually presents abruptly sloping sides and very 

 soft, muddy bottoms, and forms a barrier beyond which the oyster 

 bars do not extend, although they have spread over much of the 

 muddy and sticky bottoms in the deep water near, and sometimes 

 quite to, the channel edge. The parts of the bars located on the bot- 

 toms of soft mud beyond the harder borders of the shelf are not 

 uniformly oyster-bearing, but present the usual lump formation pe- 

 culiar to all oyster-bearing muds. None of the oyster bars belonging 

 to the Kent County half of the river extend into the waters of Queen 

 Anne County, but parts of four of the Queen Anne County bars ex- 

 tend across the boundary line into Kent County; viz., Northwest, 

 Hollyday, Sheep and Piney Point bars. This is due to the fact that 

 the boundary line is intended to divide the river as equally as possi- 

 ble and at some places does not follow the main channel. 



Oysters begin to be found near shore at about the 5 or 6-foot 

 depth curve and end in depths varying from about 40 feet, in the 

 lower part of the river, to about 10 feet in the upper part. 



The density of the water of the river, according to frequent tests 

 made at examination stations on the oyster bars, during June and 

 part of July, was 1. 004-1. 0064 in the upper part; t. 0042-1. 008 in 

 the central part and 1. 0062-1. 0089 in the lower part. 



A very few observations were made on the velocity with which 

 the water flows near the mid-river channel. These indicate a 

 maximum velocity at points in the vicinity of Piney Point, of .85 

 mile per hour; .5 mile per hour over Chester river middleground 

 and .9 mile per hour off Melton point. 



The record of daily observations on the rise and fall of the tide 

 at Cliffs wharf from June 2d to 30th shows a maximum range of 



