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so far as he could discover seem to be ruled by any principle. The bar, however, presented no peculiarities which were likely to render it difficult to be successfully dealt with. It had on the contrary many advantages which with proper treatment made it most capable of improvement. It was composed of the finest sand, which was moved about by every disturbance in the water, whether waves from seaward or river currents from in shore. It was stated that there was at least thirty feet depth of this fine sand on it, and with a properly directed stream carried through a channel of proper width, this could not fail to be to agre at extent cleared away. Mr. Brunton felt convinced, from the success of the works at the Sulina mouth of the Danube, the Oder, the Tees, and other rivers which were in many ways similar to this, that by the proper execution of a well devised harbour scheme having piers running out into deep water to cause a scour over the bar, a very fair commercial port might be made at Niigata. The Shinanogawa, running for 250 miles through one of the most productive districts in Japan, offered, with a little improvement of its channel, an excellent means of transport for the various products to Niigata, and with a harbour there capable of admitting vessels of a good draught there could be little doubt of its success as a port. Works of the nature suggested would have the effect of deepening the bar to admit vessels of a draught of from twenty-five feet in very fine weather to about twenty feet when there was so much sea as to cause a ship to pitch considerably below her line of flotation; and though in some weathers it would be hazardous and perhaps impossible to enter between the piers at all, Niigata had the advantage of having, at a distance of thirty miles directly off the coast, the Island of Sado, where vessels might with safety anchor and wait for suitable weather to enter in. in this respect it had an immense advantage over all the harbours on the east coast of England, between the Thames and the Forth, a distance of 400 miles, along which coast there were none but tidal and river harbours, the entrances to which were most precarious, where the prevailing winds were easterly and right on the coast, and where the largest traffic in the world was carried on without a harbour of refuge of any kind. he effects of the Piers on the Bar at the Sulina mouth of the Danube might be here given, as the circumstances in which they were built were so analogous to what was required at Niigata. “The depth on the Bar in 1820 was from 7 feet to 12 feet. In 1857 the navigable channel was only 9 feet deep. In November 1859 the North Peer had advanced 3,000 feet and and the South Pier 500 feet, the depth on the bar was then 10 feet. On 30th November, 1860, the works being completed there was a good navigable channel of 12 feet; on the 31st December, of 13 feet; on 28th February, 1861, of 14 feet. Then came the breaking up of the ice, and the furious descent of the extraordinary high flood, but this time the swollen waters being confined between the two Piers and
