96 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



The process by wliicli in all our cities we go on increasing the 

 land area, by diminishing that of the water, is worthy of more 

 than a passing examination. To obtain deep water, we extend 

 from the natural bank a pier or wharf, until it reaches the 

 required depth. The current which once passed by the bank, 

 now passes by the end of the pier, and gradually the space be- 

 tween the bank and the pier is filled up with silt and mud, there 

 being no longer a current to keep the material suspended, or to 

 carry it onward. Soon the line of shoal water is pushed out 

 until it is nearly as far beyond the end of the wharf as it was 

 formerly from the bank. The pier is again built out, the shoal 

 goes on in advance, and thus there is a struggle between art, 

 directed by injudicious means, and the powers of nature, which 

 can have but one result. Two such jiiers inclose a space which, 

 by becoming shoal, is no longer useful as water, but being filled 

 up, become valuable as land. Meanwhile, the East river is 

 diminished to two-thirds of its original width, and but for the 

 timely interference of the State Legislature, prompted by public 

 opinion, the com'mercial prosperity of the city might have been 

 seriously affected. As it is, the danger of the removal of the 

 great marts of commerce to neighboring localities in or out of the 

 State does not seem to be sufficiently appreciated. Diminish the 

 facilities for commerce here, and it will infallibly seek them else- 

 where. 



The great advantages of docks and warehouses have been fre- 

 quently pointed out, and yet the recommendations of the State 

 Commissioners on harbor encroachments, and their advisory 

 scientific counsel, are thus far unheeded, and property owners are 

 determined to interfere by filling up instead of by excavating, by 

 piers and wharves instead of by docks and basins, by stores in 

 streets, instead of warehouses on piers. This must drive the dock 

 system to Brooklyn, to Gowauus bay, to Hoboken, and to Jersey 

 City, if the same spirit does not also fill the water spaces there, 

 and carry the docks down to the flats below Jersey City, making 

 in the future new cities arise better adapted in their arrangements 

 to the wants of the commerce of the times. The laws on this 

 subject are as inflexible as any other natural laws. You may as 



