RECENT DREDGING IN CATTEWATER. 
401 
of the sayde havens and portes, and also to the ruyne, and utter 
undoynge of all the good townes within the sayde counties of 
Devonshyre and Cornewall, if remedy be not in that case spedely 
provycled." 
It was therefore enacted that the malpractices of these un- 
patriotic persons should be dealt with by Parliament, and that 
stream works should no longer be permitted unless the said 
"dygger, owner, or washer, shall make or cause to be made 
sufhcyente hatches and tyes in the end of theyr buddels and 
cordes" to intercept the "sayde stones, gravell, and robell," on 
pain of imprisonment. 
As the officers of the Stannary were carefully excluded from 
this Act, it is very doubtful whether much benefit was derived 
from it, since surveys were repeatedly made in the earlier half of 
the seventeenth century, with the view of the preservation of 
Cattewater. 
The vestiges of ancient stream works are scattered all over 
Dartmoor, indicating most clearly the extensive nature of the 
operations ; and in no part is this more clearly shown than in the 
vicinity of Har Tor, where, in addition to evidences of a British 
settlement, consisting of hut-circles and avenues, are to be found 
the ruins of miners' huts, and smelting-houses, almost concealed 
among the huge boulders which form one of the most romantic 
river-beds on the Moor. 
What with stream-tinning and mining, the rivers must have been 
veritable puddles, carrying down to the havens, in addition to the 
natural flood-wear of the soil and rocks, large daily contributions 
of " erthe, sly me, and fylth." 
There is no doubt that a great deal of the Cattewater silt is due 
to old mining operations, and especially so is this true of the silt 
found far down the harbour ; for, in confirmation of this, I may 
mention that it contains distinct traces of tin. 
Thinking that some idea of the amount of suspended matter 
in measured quantities of the water of the harbour, might be of 
some interest and possible utility, I have had a series of samples 
taken at half tide, on both the ebb and flow, at certain fixed 
points ; viz., the east and west ends of the Cattedown Wharf. 
