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oysters were of a very poor quality, having deteriorated much of late years. In addition to the 

 deposit bj- the James River, the Nansemond Ridge and beds off Pig Point receive a portion of 

 the sediment brought down by the Kansemond River, but, other causes not operating, that deposit 

 would not be sufficient to seriously injure the beds. Below Jail Island, on the northern side of 

 the river, the beds are not so much affected by the deposit, and the oysters found on them are of 

 a better quality than those on the opposite side of the channel. 



Without incurring an expense not justified by the end sought, there is uo practicable means 

 of protecting the beds from this evil. Natural efforts appear to have sufficiently protected them 

 in the past, and, if they are guarded in other respects, the loss on account of the deposit of matter 

 brought down by the curreut, which is but occasional, will not interfere, to any great extent, with 

 the industry. 



Mulberry Point Beds. — These beds comprise an area (approximate) of 3,656,000 square yards. 

 They lie to the southward and westward of Mulberry Point, on the north side of the swash chan- 

 nel, and northeastern side of the main channel. 



Point of Shoals and Jail Island Beds. — The Point of Shoals beds lie to the northward and 

 eastward of the Point of Shoals Light, and comprise an area of 14,941,000 square yards, approxi- 

 mately. They are bounded on the southward-and-eastward, southward, and southward-aud-west- 

 ward, by the main channel, the one-fathom curve of which clearly defines the limit of the bed, 

 except for a mile and a half to the southward of the light. The northern boundary follows nearly 

 the edge of the swash channel, which separates this bed from the Jail Island Bed; the latter lies 

 to the eastward of the swash and northward of the main channel, and has an area, approximately, 

 of 5,730,000 square yards. 



Both the Mulberry Point and Jail Island Beds extend iushore as far as the sands which are 

 found about at the one-fathom curve. The hydrography of the accompanying chart of the river 

 was executed in 1874, and since that time very slight changes of depth of water can have occurred. 

 It may therefore be accepted as giving the correct depth at the time of our examination. It shows 

 that over the Mulberry Point beds the depth of water is from 1 or 2 feet in some places to 24 in 

 others; on the Point of Shoals beds the same irregular bottom exists, the depth being from 2 feet 

 to 30; and on the Jail Island beds from 3 to 16 feet are found. The soundings are given for mean 

 low-water, the plane of refereuce; the mean rise and fall of the tides is 2.6 feet, and the maximum 

 rise and fall 3.4 feet. The spring tides, however, fall 0.4 feet below the plane of reference, and 

 consequently all the beds are subject to the grounding of ice of more than 16 inches thickness. 

 As, however, the shoalest parts of the beds are situated on the boundary lines, they afford a 

 certain amount of protection to the interior portions, the ice piling along the borders instead of 

 lying in heavy masses upon the entire bed. 



On the shoalest parts of the beds the bottom was found to be a stratum of shells with a light 

 covering of mud and a substratum of hard sand. On these shoal places the oysters and shells were 

 most abundant. The oysters were not evenly distributed over the entire bed, but grew in detached 

 patches and ridges on and in the vicinity of the shoals, with numerous narrow mud sloughs inter- 

 secting and separating them. The deep water was found over these sloughs, and, generally speak- 

 ing, the shallower the water the larger the number of oysters and the thicker and more solid the 

 bed, this being especially true about the boundaries, where the beds rise abruptly from the main 

 channel, and where great difficulty was found in attempting to penetrate them with the probe, 

 while in the interior portions and in deeper water the surface stratum was of shells and mud, with 

 6 feet or more of soft mud underneath. 



On the Jail Island beds the bottom was of shells and light, yellow mud, the stratum being 

 about 4 feet thick; below it the bottom was mud. From the appearance of the shells I judged 

 that they had been covered for some time; and that, combined with the unusual thickness of the 

 shell stratum, leads to the opinion that this bed was receiving a larger amount of the sediment 

 brought down by the river than either the neighboring oyster areas. 



The oysters on the three beds are of the class known among the dealers as "snaps." They 

 are small and poor, single or in small clusters of two or three, and when not transplanted are used 

 for canning. There was no spouge or grass attached to the shells, and but very few of the usual 

 inhabitants of a bed other than the oysters appeared to be present. Young oysters, of about one 





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