Report of the Board of Shell Fish Commissioners. 37 



the tide for the period of 3.10 feet and a mean range of 1.4 feet. 

 The maximum range at Love Point Light, indicated by observa- 

 tions made from July 9th to August 4th is 2.4 feet, the mean range, 

 .88 foot. 



The oyster bottoms in Chester river proper which were surveyed, 

 but which, upon examination, failed to measure up to the adopted 

 standard of a natural oyster bar, aggregate a total area of about 

 850 acres. These exhausted oyster bottoms, varying in size from 

 3 to about 200 acres, are distributed at numerous places along the 

 entire river shore beginning at a point about two miles above Melton 

 Point oyster bar. In addition to this exhausted bottom there are 

 barren bottoms thought to be suitable for oyster culture aggregating 

 an area of about 150 acres in the immediate vicinity of the ex- 

 hausted bottoms, making in all about 1,000 acres of bottom on the 

 Kent County side of the Chester river on which oyster culture could 

 be carried on with profit. 



LANKFORDS BAY. 



(Shown on chart of Natural oyster bars, No. 30.) 



Lankfords bay, at the point where it joins Chester river, is about 

 three-fourths mile in width. Two miles above its mouth where it 

 has a width of about half a mile, it divides into an east fork and a 

 west fork, each of which is productive of oysters, the former to a dis- 

 tance of about three miles, the latter to a distance of two miles. 

 Five oyster bars are located in the part of the bay below its fork, 

 three in the east fork and four in the west fork, all of which were 

 charted to contain 493 acres. 



In practically all localities where the bottoms are formed by 

 either soft mud or bald sand, oyster bars were either absent or had 

 been exhausted. 



With the exception of Drum Point bar, the productive oyster 

 grounds in the part of the bay below the fork are confined to the 

 sticky mud bottoms on either side of the mid-channel over which 

 the depth of water varies from 8 to 23 feet. The part of the 

 channel included within the limits of Drum Point bar, although 38 

 feet in depth, was stocked with oysters. The channel at other places 

 is deep, soft and barren, but as it is narrow and not suitably located 

 for oyster culture it was thought proper to include it with the 



