OYSTER BOTTOMS IN MATAGORDA BAY. 35 



extending in a southeasterly direction for about 1,000 yards. At its 

 inner end it is a dense 1 body of small clustered oysters, but a short 

 distance from the shore it becomes a scattering growth, gradually 

 merging with the surrounding soft mud. The 03'sters are of very 

 inferior quality. The bed next to this consists of a dense mass of dead 

 shells near the shore, with very few marketable oysters and a scattered 

 growth of small oysters extending upon the surrounding mud. The 

 other beds, which are smaller, consist of a shell bank nucleus with a 

 fringe of small scattered oysters. The Creek Patches are of practi- 

 cally no value commercially, and it is not known that they ever have 

 been. The entire bight between the mouth of Live Oak Creek and 

 Stump signal is covered with a foot of soft mud lying above a layer 

 of shells. 



DRESSING POINT SHOALS. 



The oystermen give this name to a bed running down the bay for 

 a distance of upward of a mile from Dressing Point, but in this 

 report the designation is extended to include two newer and unnamed 

 beds to the southward, which for convenience will be called Middle 

 and South shoals, respectively. These beds have a combined area 

 of about 477 acres, and it is estimated that at the time of the survey i 

 in March, 1905, they contained about 26,000 barrels of oysters over 

 3 inches in length. 



The original bed, long known to the residents as Dressing Point 

 shoal, and included in what this report calls the North shoal, lies at a 

 distance of between one-fourth and one-half mile off Dressing Point. 

 This old reef is about 400 to 600 yards in diameter, w T ith a depth of 

 about 1^ feet of water on the crest at the low-water plane adopted in 

 this report. The south side is abrupt, the soundings jumping from 4J 

 feet to 2J feet within a few yards, but the north margin slopes off 

 gradually from the crest to a depth of 3 feet at the edge of the bed. 

 Probings show that the deposit of shells and oysters is about 2J 

 feet thick, superimposed on a layer of sand and hard mud on the 

 north side, which gradually changes to a soft, muddy bottom south- 

 ward. That this part of the bed is quite old is shown by the 

 thickness of the shell deposit, which must be the product of many 

 years and by the circumstance that it was a well-defined shoal 

 fifty years ago when the hydrographic survey by the Coast Survey 

 was made. 



The growth of oysters on parts of the old shoal is dense, one section 

 examined giving an average per square yard of 100 oysters over 3 

 inches long and 40 of smaller size, but other sections were much less 

 productive, especially in oysters of the larger size. From this nu- 

 cleus of dense growth the north shoal stretches away in all directions, 

 but especially to the eastward and westward, the oysters becoming 



