Director's Report

Extract

After the completion of the investigation of the fauna and bottom-deposits of the outlying grounds extending from the neighbourhood of the Eddystone to Start Point, a detailed account of which was given in the last number of the Journal of the Association, a systematic investigation upon a similar plan was undertaken of the inshore grounds. The general area originally contemplated for detailed charting may be roughly described as lying between the 30-fathom line and the shore, and extending from the neighbourhood of Bolt Tail to Looe. In such an area the conditions are necessarily much more complicated than those which were met with on the Eddystone to Start grounds, where the depths varied but little from 30 fathoms, and where any effect upon the bottom fauna due to wave action was very slight. A further unfortunate complication has been introduced by the fact that immense quantities of refuse have been deposited all over the grounds immediately to the south and west of Plymouth Sound, by barges working in connection with the harbour improvement schemes in the Hamoaze and at Keyham, as well as by the barges belonging to the Plymouth Corporation, which discharge the refuse from the town. To such an extent has this deposit taken place that many of the most fruitful dredging and trawling grounds in the immediate neighbourhood have been rendered practically unworkable, and we have been compelled to abandon any serious systematic investigation of a considerable portion of the area originally contemplated.