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large amount of grass, sponge and sea weed, growing on the 
sand shoals, especially the one to the east of Herne Island and 
south of the Guilford Channel, is frequently torn up by the 
heavy gales and deposited on the beds with the same injurious 
effect that it had in Tangier Sound. Heavy southerly gales 
will sometime cover the beds above the Buoy Spit and Shell 
Bocks with mud for a short time but not sufficiently long, it 
is said, to affect the oysters seriously. 
EFFECT OF ICE AND GALES. 
The heavy gales that occur in winter and summer, though 
principally during the former season, increase or diminish the 
depth of water on the beds sometimes as much as three feet. 
Strong northerly and northwesterly gales have the effect of 
diminishing the depth of water by piling up any floating ice 
upon the leeward shores and cutting away parts of the shores. 
Heavy southeasterly and southerly gales will increase the 
depth of water on the beds, stir up the soft muddy bottom of 
the channels and beds above Shell Bock and during the win- 
ter, in addition to piling the ice on the leeward shores and 
planted beds near Ape’s Hole Creek, will pile it up on the 
Old Bocks, Buoy Bock and Shell Bocks. Generally speak- 
ing, the beds in this, as in Tangier Sound, are in too much 
water to permit their being uncovered by even the heaviest 
gales, or to allow the ice to ground upon them at any time; 
but those beds in shoal water, of about one fathom and the 
planted beds, which are generally in less, are subjected to 
both. The effect of gales and ice in Pocomoke Sound seems 
to be less than that in Tangier Sound, in consequence of its 
less extent and small area. 
GENERAL INFORMATION GIVEN BY OYSTERMEN. 
The following information is that derived from the answers 
to the questions propounded to oystermen. All the oyster- 
men and dealers that were encountered during the season, so 
far as was possible, were interrogated. That which was not 
