SEA-FISHERIES LABORATORY. 169 



far from Bazil Point. They were re-laid, first of all, at the 

 place marked a little way north-east from Bazil Point. The 

 sand banks are very high here, so that by the time the flood- tide 

 has reached this part of the foreshore the sewage in the lower 

 part of the channel will have become enormously diluted. 

 Whatever water ebbs from of! this foreshore, and down the 

 little channel passing it, will therefore be clean. As the tide 

 ebbs out the water in the channel will become more and more 

 foul, but it can no longer come near the re-laid mussels. The 

 experiments were made on 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th October, 

 1914. The highest spring tides were on the 4th (an 18 foot 

 6 inch tide at Liverpool) ; when they were begun the mussels 

 covered at 11 a.m. and uncovered at 3 p.m. At low water 

 they would be covered for about two to three hours on each 

 tide. The experiment made at Sunderland Point was made 

 under much the same conditions. In these experiments the 

 number of bacteria contained in a mussel was reduced from 

 about 12,000 to about 400. 



The place selected at Glasson was, as the chart shows, 

 much less favourable. It is very close to the outflow of sewage 

 from the River Conder. It is well up a steep beach, so that it 

 was covered for about three and a half hours on each tide 

 (two to five days after lowest neaps, a 12 foot 9 inch tide at 

 Liverpool). There was much rain, and the river was in flood. 

 The contamination was reduced from about 90,000 to 24,000 

 sewage bacteria per mussel. The results might have been 

 more favourable given better conditions, but the place is, 

 evidently, far from suitable. 



