400 GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW OF THE FISHERIES. 



open places called 'ponds.' Throughout these creeks and ponds, in tbe tide-ways and along the 

 edges of the sedge-plats and islands, oysters have always grown in great profusion. In addition 

 to this the bottom of the bay and of the Delaware River, from Cape May beach clear up to and a 

 little above Cohansey Point, at the southern end of Salem County, a distance of not less than 50 

 miles, is everywhere spotted with oyster-beds. These oyster-beds are not confined to the shallow 

 waters near shore, or to the sedge plats, but arc apparently scattered over the whole bottom of the 

 bay. Even the ship channel, 90 fathoms deep, contains them, as experimental dragging shows. 

 How this might have been a century ago I know not; but such is the present condition." 



