824
200 feet out from the Fraya wall, at which latter point it joined the natural surface of the mud.
8.
The ridge was high and irregular under the pier, my sections showing a knob at a distance of 100 feet from the Fraya wall, with only 5 feet of water on it at low tide. It can readily be understood from this how, immediately on the removal of the shore half of the pier, there came to be increased trouble with cargo boats grounding, and why Mr. Howard's letters on the subject of silting became more frequent and voluminous.
The piles of such piers as Mr. Howard's
7.
are usually driven quite through the mud, and into the hard ground; and in estimating the proportion of the pier compensation fund to be awarded to Mr. Howard, it was assumed that his wharf was so constructed. By this method of reckoning he was awarded, I should say, about $8,000 for timber which did not exist; and I am afraid the quality of the existent timber was over-rated, for it decayed with astonishing rapidity, and had the pier not been designedly removed it would very soon have disappeared from natural causes.
8.
From all this it would appear, at a superficial glance, that Mr. Howard has been very well treated in the matter of the pier; but, according to the principles adopted in fixing the compensation to be paid to him in respect of his lot, if his pier had been valued at nothing at all he would have received an additional sum, by way of compensation for his lot, equal to the amount which has actually been awarded to him in respect of his pier; and his nett position as regards compensation would have been neither better nor worse than it is now.
9.
I do not think that Mr. Howard was entitled to any compensation for distortion of his pier, caused, through the rising of the mud, by the depositing of the perre perdue. The terms of Mr. Howard's pier licence placed him completely at