RIVER PROTECTION

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 412, 25 November 1868, Page 2

RIVER PROTECTION

{To the Editor of tlie Westport Times and Charleston Argus.)

Sir, —In your issue of Nov. 23, it is stated that tenders for the protection of the river bank had been accepted. This is a move in the right direction. The property-holders are apparently determiued that their properties shall not be swept away without some attempt being made to prevent the destruction of the entire street. The course of the river must be altered, or else the town of Westport will eventually be swept away. I do not know what means the successful tenderer intends to adopt for the protection of the street, but the work must be done before judgment can be passed upon it. Tho most efficacious scheme was the one mentioned at the meeting of the Progress Committee —namely, crates. These should be thirty feet long, by twenty feet wide,

and twenty feet deep, to be well bolted together with good stout pegs, and then to be filled with large boulderß. Professional engineers would be tho best and most efficient to lay these crates. Ido not doubt that had they been used when the river commenced to make the course it is now making, much ground that has since disappeared might have been" saved. At that time I was convinced that if a vessel of, say, eighty to one hundred tons had been sunk.by the side of the saw mill, the town of Westport would not be in the position of danger it is to-day. £SOO would then have dono what was wanted. Now Mr Blackett says it will cost from twelve to twenty fiousand pounds. This is a very large sum of money, but wherein consists the work for which this amount would be required ? The crates which I propose would consist of fifteen piles on each side, and ten piles for flooring, making a total of seventy piles for one crate. Tho cost of piles, at ten shillings each, would be £35. The laying, filling, and bolting, would cost £l7 10s. Twenty crates of the size mentioned will cover an area of twenty thousand feet, and the cost of these twelve thousand feet would be £IOSO. This is an estimate a long way different from £2o,ooo.—Yours &c, Protection.