REPORTS ON TORONTO HARBOUR. 



37 



The Bar is now marked out by beacons nearly three quarters 

 of a mile wide in the centre from the west beacon, east, and car- 

 ries from three to six feet of water on the top, in ridges varying 

 from three to six feet ; over the whole top of this the sea ranges 

 and it is encroaching upon the deep water of the Bay, for the sand 

 shoots down from ten feet, where a buoy is laid on the slope, to 

 fifteen and sixteen feet water almost immediately. No greater 

 proof need be of the encroachments of the sand, and the resistance 

 it meets by currents. This resistance has been reduced the last 

 summer, and will be removed by every neglected breach, and 

 would be permanently so, to the ruin of the Harbour by a canal. 



The retrocession of the Peninsula is so gradual and uniform, 

 that with due care no apprehension for the Harbour need be felt 

 for a long series of years, unless neglect allow casual breaches to 

 exist, which any extraordinary storm may occasion ; then the evil 

 is apparent, as witness the effect of the present breach into the 

 Bay, a more rapid erosion and retrocession takes place. 



The preservation of the Peninsula, it seems, rests with the city 

 authorities ; then the city authorities hold the responsibility and 

 control the safety of the Harbour. With my opinions I should as 

 soon think of leaving my fences down and my corn-fields open to 

 the depredations of cattle, as expose this Bay for one season to the 

 consequences of the inroads of the Lake. 



The repairing of the Peninsula, maintaining it to a certain 

 height and width, the soiling, planting and seeding it, to secure 

 the surface against the action of the high south wind, will be im- 

 provements compared with the state of neglect to which it has 

 been consigned since the hour that Toronto became a town. The 

 thick growth of timber that the Lake spared has been plundered 

 off it, and so little has the Peninsula itself been appreciated in its 

 true light, that for the last few years it has rather been dealt with 

 as an island of Guano, than as a barrier upon which the safety of 

 the Port depended. 



I was once of opinion that the bar should be raised above water 

 by dyking, and the channel contracted from the Peninsula, but 

 with the experience of Erie Harbour before me, where they have 

 closed the entrance to a narrow channel by piers, it is more 

 clearly demonstrated to me that the largo body of water driven 

 over the bar by the S.W. wind is more valuable in its reaction or 

 undercurrent in resisting the encroachment of the bar upon the 

 Harbour and coursing round through the channel, than if the 

 same body of water were shut out and the maintenance of the 

 current at the channel left to the mere varying levels betwixt the 

 waters of the Bay and those of the Lake, and the small contribu- 

 tions from the Don. But be it understood that it is of necessity 

 that there be no breach or outlet of water to leeward. 



As to the shutting out the Don from the Bay of Toronto, that 

 can no longer be thought of, as it would largely effect private 

 interests, therefore it must be treated as an adjunct and made 

 valuable to the Harbour. Not only should the entrance to it be 

 cleaned out, but the whole of the bed of rushes entirely removed 

 from the head of the Bay, and the water be allowed to flow freely 

 in and out of the Don, the wave to beat upon the shore, and in a 

 short time a" clean beach would form all round the head of the 

 Bay, leaving only the mouths of the Don to be bridged over. 



The Bay is sufficiently large and contains surface enough to 

 contribute to a great reaction during the prevailing S.W. winds in 

 favor of the channel. It is ascertained that the water according 



to the wind fluctuates frcm one to four inches during 24 hours, by 

 correct index in the centre of the Harbour, and that the Harbour 

 contains a surface of nearly six square miles, that one inch rise or 

 fall of water causes 144 cubic inches for every foot of surface to 

 flow in or out of the Bay : that four inches rise or fall will cause 

 one cubic foot, or one cubic yard in every three of surface to flow 

 by the outlet of the Bay, in other words one-third of this surface 

 water in cubic yards to flow by the mouth of the Bay, principally 

 by the channel ; but if the wind be strong S.W. a more rapid cir- 

 culation is kept up by the water being blown over the bar, and 

 dammed back from returning that way by the wind and broken 

 water on it, it forces a passage by the channel. 



If this body of water be allowed to traverse to leeward through 

 a channel of 200 feet wide and 12 feet deep, which it certainly 

 would ; with such a sluice open, what is to retain the bar composed 

 of moveable sand in its position, if, instead of backwater, there is 

 a current over it, and through the Harbour from west to east ? 



It would certainly be an advantage to the Harbour if the system 

 of considering it an arm of the Lake were extended to the head of 

 Ashbridge's Bay, by making a wide opening of 700 or 800 feet 

 past the mouths of the Don, .through the cross beach, the rushes 

 dredged away, and the winds and the waves allowed to play freely 

 over the surface ; this large circulation would benefit the Harbour 

 and conduce to the health of the town, and the money that would 

 be, unprofitably to commerce and injuriously to the Harbour, 

 wasted upon an experiment, might have been applied with a better 

 chance of profit. The whole of Ashbridge's Bay might, in the 

 course of time, be converted into clear water and profitable land. 



It is certain that the Marsh is both too valuable and too mis- 

 chievous to be left much longer in the state it is in contiguity to a 

 large populous and wealthy town like Toronto. 



In looking to the channel I see no inconvenience likely to attend 

 it, but through neglect of the means of preservation such as the 

 dictates of science may point out. 



The North point of the Bar progresses West at the rate of 19 or 

 20 feet annually. It has taken 22 years to advance about 400 feet, 

 say it will take 50 years to progress Westerly 1000 feet, no further 

 than Mr. Shanley has laid out in extent from the Queen's Wharf 

 West, in his Report for an entrance to the town for the Toronto 

 and Guelph Rail Road. We will presume as a matter of course 

 also that the Harbour pier is carried West parallel with the ad- 

 vance of the point of the shoal 1000 feet in 50 years. 



The buoys and beacons with flags on them show the shape and 

 advance of the Bar, and it may be observed how it knuckles out 

 abreast of the old head of the wharf, showing its effect on the 

 shoal, the channel being 150 feet wider there than at the point 

 West of it. 



The channel has never yet been cleaned out since Toronto was 

 a harbour. I think it ought to be, and if it was dredged to a depth 

 of 14 feet in its best water when the Lake was at the lowest, that 

 it would require no more looking to for at least ten years, probably 

 twenty, as the longer the head of the pier, the more concentrated 

 the action of the flux and reflux. 



I cannot close this essay without claiming for myself larger and 

 closer observations, and more devotion of time to the interests of 

 the Harbour than has fallen to the share of many individuals for 

 the last twenty-five years, and I trust my age, my experience, and 



