SEA- FISHERIES LABORATORY. 167 



Explanation of the Chart. 



Entrance to the Lane Estuary. 



The sketch chart has been reduced from the 6-inch 

 ordnance map (Lancashire Sheet XXXIV). Sandbanks 

 uncovered by ordinary tides are represented by fine stippling. 

 Hard, stony foreshore is represented by coarser stippling and 

 small circles. The extensive salt marshes of this district are 

 represented by short horizontal lines. The positions of the 

 mussel beds and the places where mussels were re-laid are 

 indicated by coarse cross-hatching. 



The narrow strip of clear water is the main channel 

 leading to Lancaster and Grlasson Dock. At low water of 

 ordinary tides it is only a few feet in depth, and it is still 

 shallower at low water of spring tides. It is about 300 feet 

 in width on the average. Small, shifting channels run from 

 it towards the " becks," or brooks, ashore, and through the 

 salt marshes. Many of these smaller channels are not shown 

 on the sketch chart. 



The main course of the stream is along the deepest part 

 of the estuary during the first part of flood tide. When the 

 banks are covered the stream passes over them, in the main 

 following the trend of the estuary, but with numerous 

 irregularities in direction and velocity due to the conformation 

 of the sea bottom. When the banks are covered by the flood 

 tide, the water on them may be regarded as bacteriologically 

 pure, since it comes in past Sunderland Point from the Main 

 Lune Channel, a passage widening out into Lune Deep, 

 practically the open sea. The flood stream runs for four to 

 five hours, the ebb stream for seven to eight hours. The 

 higher parts of the banks are soon uncovered, so that the 

 water ebbing from off them has not had time to become 

 polluted from the upper parts of the river. There is hardly 



