SEA-FISHERIES LABORATORY. 467 



Terrace " sewer is also now discontinued, the area 

 formerly served by it being now served by the main 

 system. No. 5 is the " Thornton Road " sewer referred 

 to in my former report, it remains as it was in 1906. 

 No. 6, the " Bare Outfall," is also unchanged. It 

 discharges very near to low water at a position above all 

 the mussel skears. In addition to these sources of 

 pollution the men employed at the ship-breaking works 

 in the Old Harbour must also be reckoned with. About 

 200 men may be employed at times, and these use closets 

 which discharge directly on the foreshore. There are 

 also two small sewers, serving a population of about 

 4,000 people at Heysham. The positions of these out- 

 falls are not shown on the chart. They lie between the 

 Morecambe West End Pier and Heysham. 



There are also considerable changes in the positions, 

 and in the productivity of the mussel skears themselves. 

 Ring Hole, which in 1906 contained abundance of 

 mussels, and which had been selected for the transplanta- 

 tion of small shell-fish from Heysham Skears, is now 

 sanded up, and there is no suitable ground here for the 

 growth of mussels. The two important skears shown on 

 the 1906 chart, "Seldom Seen" and "Reap" Skears, 

 are now also sanded up. " Baiting Knot " Skear, which 

 lies on the other side of the channel, between the West 

 End Pier and the Old Harbour, still exists. But there 

 are, at the present time, very few mussels on it. The 

 beds known as " Little Skears " are also sanded over, and 

 do not bear mussels in sufficient quantity to count so far 

 as the supply of the markets is concerned. " Jacky 

 John " Skear, that one at the extreme western end of the 

 Heysham series, is also sanded over. All the other beds 

 remain very much as they were in 1906. 



Mussel ground exists at "Bare Ayre," that is the 



