[2] 
41 
inconvenience; because easterly winds, which are rare, alone tend to 
form that bar, while the current which ensures the subsidence of tliat 
wind, and both the current resulting from westerly winds, which are 
the prevailinj^, will successively operate to remove it. 
The Board have considered the liabits of the waters of Lake Erie 
and Presque Isle Bay so peculiar and so different from those of ri- 
vers, W'here similar expedients are ge<ierally unavailing, as to jus- 
tify the project which has been described above. But so difticult is 
it to foresee all the effects where such inconstant and powerful agents 
are to operate, that they might not have ventured to propose it, were 
it not a necessary part of the only plan which can be resorted to in 
the event of the augmented current failing to do, or to do thoroughly 
the work here assigned it. 
Supposing then that the current is not fotnid strong enough to 
clean out and narrow the passage, it will be necessary to continue 
the embankment inward to deep water, and to clear out the whole by 
dredging. 
Should it be found that the current leaves a deposite in the channel, 
the line of piles must be drawn up or sawed off, when as but a small 
part of the waters will go through the channel, the deposition will 
be very inconsiderable. 
It now remains to describe the project more in detail. 
The dike from Hospital to Block-House Point, must be a single 
row of contiguous piles 25 feet in length, having their tops three feet 
above the surface of the water. The touching sides of the piles should 
be hewed. 
Each embankment should be formed by first driving a row of con- 
tiguous piles, like the above, along tiie edge of the channel. A line of 
round timber should then be laid upon the sand at the distance of 12 
feet towards the shore; from the line of piles, connecting these round 
timbers every 12 feet with the line of piles, by round tie-pieces mor- 
ticed both to the piles and the timbers. Upon the first row of round 
timbers a second must be raised, connected to the line of piles in the 
same way (but to different piles) as the first, by similar tie-pieces. 
Then a third row of horizontal timbers, and so on until the line of 
horizontal timbers is even v.itli, or a little above the surface. The 
line of timber being raised to tiie proper height and connected with 
the line of piles round, 25 feet |)iles should be dr-ven every 16 feet, 
so as to bear against the inside of the line of hoiizontal timbers. 
Another row of round piles, about 15 inches diameter, and 25 feet 
long, should then be driven on the inside of tiie line of contiguous 
piles and bearing against it, as guard-piles, or fenders; these should 
be 16 feet apart and conncrtcd to each other at top by a 15 inch 
square cap-piece, morticed on; the height of the toj) of this cap- piece, 
and of the top of the line of contiguous j)ilcs, siiould bo about 3 feet 
above the water. Rafters should tliesi be laid e\ery 4 feet morticed 
at one end into the cap-|iiece, and at the other into t!ie iijipcr hori- 
sontal timber. The space being then filled \\ith brush and sand and 
11 
