154 
JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION IN THE WEST. 
BY J. C. INGLIS, C.E. 
(Read 18th December, 1884.) 
Harbours, and the questions relating to them, are only just now 
beginning to receive primary attention. There are various causes 
for this negligence on our part as a nation. Although an immense 
amount of money has been expended, and evidence collected in 
connection with the publication of the various Blue Books issued 
by the Government from time to time, remarkably little has been 
actually done. Committee after committee has sat and recorded 
its views in the most definite fashion, and generally in the same 
direction ; but with the publication of the Report its labours seem 
to end. Let us hope that the fate of the recommendations of the 
last Committee, some of which affect the West Coast, will be 
more fortunate. Undoubtedly the apparently insuperable obstacle 
to the improvement of our harbours has been the enormous cost of 
sea works ; nor, I fear, is this removed, although Portland cement 
and concrete have introduced a |new era in the construction of 
submarine works. However interesting this branch of the 
enquiry may be, we must pass it by this evening, and look at the 
economic and social aspect of this harbour question. Of all 
districts in Great Britain and Ireland, none are or have been more 
intimately associated with the sea than we in Devon and Cornwall. 
Our local history is mainly the chronicle of our " seafaring venture- 
some forefathers," while much of the inherited wealth of the two 
counties owes its origin to "pilchards" and, to be discreet, 
" maritime speculation." In those early days, before coal and iron 
created engineering science and enterprise, and made it so much 
easier to overcome and alter natural features, the snug, natural 
estuaries and bays of the South Coast were much more important 
than they are to-day. Charles Kingsley, in Westward Ho / gives 
us, it may be, a rather highly-coloured, but, it is generally admitted, 
a correct glimpse of West-Country life, and how intimately it was 
associated with the sea. 
