1 62 NINTH REPORT OF THE 



shellfish lands have been presented at this office. These applications have not 

 been filed and advertised (the usual course), but are held in abeyance until an 

 authoritative opinion, determining the matter of jurisdiction, may be had. The 

 question is now under consideration by the Attorney-General, as will appear by 

 his letter of November 9, 1903, as follows: 



State of New York, 

 Attorney-General's Office. 



Albany, November 9, 1903. 

 Mr. B. Frank Wood, Superintendent of Sltellfisheries : 



Dear Sir. — I beg that you will pardon my delay in acknowledging receipt of 

 your letter of September eleventh, requesting my opinion as to whether your 

 department has jurisdiction to lease lands under water of Cold Spring Harbor for 

 shellfish cultivation. 



The question you ask my opinion on is one intimately connected with the 

 applications of Walter Jennings and others for grants of land under water of 

 Cold Spring Harbor, in which the first hearing before the Standing Committee 

 of Remonstrances of the Commissioners of the Land Office (of which I am a 

 member) was held on the fifth instant. The several parties to these applications 

 were given a reasonable time to submit briefs. Upon consideration of the various 

 questions involved in these proceedings the question you ask will also be looked 

 into, when I will be pleased to answer your question. 



Respectfully yours, 



John Cunneen, 



A ttorney- General. 



Should it be decided that the jurisdiction for the purpose of shellfish cultiva- 

 tion in those waters is in the State, it will be necessary, as in the cases already 

 mentioned, to erect monuments for the purpose of a triangulation survey. 



In the year 1884 a United States Coast Survey signal, known as " Ludlum 2," 

 stood upon the northerly bluff of Center Island. This bank or bluff was gradu- 

 ally being worn away, and as the signal was of importance to our State oyster 

 survey the Commission, in 1888, placed a new signal point exactly ten meters in a 

 southerly direction from "Ludlum 2" and in a line with "Roosevelt's Windmill," 

 known as "Ludlum 3." The bank has since caved away, carrying with it the 

 United States signal. The monument over "Ludlum 3" had also disappeared 

 when, this past fall, the Surveyor of Oyster Lands, under the direction of your 

 Superintendent, undertook the relocation of this necessary signal. After many 

 measurements he succeeded in finding the "point,'' which consisted of a bottle 

 with a brass nail through the center of the cork, buried two and a half feet 



