F 
FASCINE WORK IN N.S8.W. XXIX. 
work is used in New South Wales, and not for any comparison 
with stone embankments. For if stone can be used, from an 
economical point of view it should be. In the case of Long Cove, 
at one point stone was used with no success, as it was found that 
the stones kept sinking. Piles were afterwards used, and were put 
down to a depth of forty-seven feet, the last strata was softer than 
the upper crust, so that the building of a stone dyke at a one to 
one slope section, would cost infinitely more than the fascine work, 
The slips occurred through using the bank as a dam, a purpose 
for which it was never intended, large lakes of water were formed 
behind them by the use of sand pumps. This water would have 
at least a six feet head at low tide. Mr. Grimshaw pointed out 
in the case of the Moruya work, and he agreed with him, that it 
was started at the wrong place, and that it had not only the 
ordinary run of the tide but when a flood came there was nothing 
to protect it from the scour, consequently the water got both back 
and front of it, and gave it no chance whatever. The dykes of 
Holland are constructed largely of mud, and only faced with 
mattrasses of something similar in character to ti-tree ; weighted 
with stone or rip-rap, certainly they have much flatter slopes, 
which are necessary on account of their abutting on the open 
sea. An instance of the cost of stone ina finished dyke is Rozelle 
Bay, this is six feet wide on top, with a one to one slope on both 
sides, the bottom is fairly soft, the stone used was tipped over the 
ends of the bank, and the cost of stone here compared to fascine 
work, allowing for a subsidence of the latter of three feet, would 
be about two to one. He found that the stones had displaced 
the silt to a depth of from something like ten to fifteen feet, 
the average being eleven feet for a length of 1,650 feet of dyke. 
Fascines sometimes give a very ragged appearance to a bank, 
and the cost of facing up is about fifteen shillings per rod, but 
when a bank will stand about five years without having anything 
done to it, this extra payment for maintenance is very inconsider- 
able. The percentage of shrinkage is about 15% on the section 
of the bank during the first twelve months. 
