962 TIiA^'■sACTIONs of the America?,' InstitutEc 



during the -whole six hours or so of the tide. On the contrary, they 

 onlj flow up there four and one-half to five hours per flood tide, 

 during most of the year ; and, for about six weeks time, in early 

 spring, during heavy thaws and rains up stream, there is actually 

 little or no upward tide flowage at all between this city and Albany. 

 Yet the river water, during all tlie flood'tides of this period of time, 

 is continually running down the stream. It does not, however, go 

 down to the ocean at Sandy Hook. When the flood tides come in, 

 all this North river water is compelled to turn its course and pass 

 around the battery into the East river ; consequently, all of this 

 vast body of water, which would do so much go"od, in its outward 

 flowage, by scouring and cleaning out our channel to the ocean, is 

 carried off" to Long Island Sound ; and there is no recompense in the 

 returning ebb tides. Moreover, the flood tides through the East 

 river, have a- velocity of four and eight-tenths to Ave miles the hour 

 while the ebb tides, at same state of tide, run only about four miles 

 the hour ; so that even the tides themselves do not balance each 

 other, the difference being against the ocean channel. These rapid 

 currents are continually deepening the " East river ;" and, as the 

 river deepens, the currents flow faster and faster, and the odds 

 against the ocean channel becomes greater and greater every year. 

 We would clear away all dangerous obstacles in our harbor and its 

 ■entrances; those at Hellgate, of course included. But it is per- 

 fectly plain that the East river entrance, at the Battery, while open 

 as now to the North river waters, cannot be deepened and widened 

 without great injury to our Sandy Hook channels. In 1857, it was 

 found that the East, river, .between the Navy Yard and the Battery, 

 had deepened three to six feet in about twenty years, and, in the 

 " south chifcmel," at Sandy Hook, where there was tioenty-mie feet in 

 1835, there was but eighteen feet in 1848, and only sixteen feet in 

 1853. It may not be that our ocean channels will all be reduced to 

 sixteen feet ten years hence, as Captain Brady, of the coast survey, 

 •supposes, and we would not adopt his plan of shutting off" the East 

 ■river entirely. Still we must do something in that direction. A 

 mere narrowing of the stream woul^ not answer the purpose. That 

 would only cause it to deepen, as in the narrow places at and near 

 Hellgate, where a depth of 120, and even 1-iO feet is found ; but we 

 must be able to control the East river entrance, and say to the 

 waters when we please, . "thus far shalt thou go and no farther." 

 'Gentlemen of the coast survey, Professor Bache, and others, have 



