This latter one, in contracting the bay, would contribute to increase the force of the current, which, throwing back at the ocean its mud and pebbles, would give us the depths of 15 and 20 meters indicated on the map of Beautemps-Beaupre.

This year, again, two projects have arisen; one of them due to Mr. Thuillard-Froideville, and the other to Mr. Hersent.

According to Mr. Hersent, it would be necessary to surround the Little Roadstead with an insubmersible dike built upon the rocky shoals, which would begin at Cape Heve (which it would consolidate) and end opposite the entrance to the port at 1,600 meters from the jetties.  Through it there would be five passages.  Afterward another dike would be constructed, starting from the shore and running to meet the jetty designed to inclose the Little Roadstead.  On turning the angle at which it met the jetty it would be continued as far as to Berville.  Finally, a third dike, running from Honfleur to Berville, would complete the system.

Mr. Hersent’s project, which is one of the most remarkable of those that have been proposed, has one fault, and that is that it would require twelve years of work, and cost 158 million francs.

Mr. Thuillard-Froideville, completely renouncing masonry dikes as being too costly and taking too long to construct, proposes to inclose the Havre roadstead by means of floating breakwaters.  As we have already seen, the use of these between Cape Heve and the Eclat shoals had already been proposed in 1845.  As the project was abandoned, the models of these breakwaters are rare.

In Bouniceau’s “Marine Constructions” we find a curious figure, a sort of open framework of clumsy form anchored in a singular manner, and surmounted by rooms for watchmen, semaphores, posts for the shipwrecked, etc.  It is, indeed, the most complicated and most impracticable type that could be imagined.

Mr. Lewis’ model, which was exhibited last year at the International Fisheries Exhibition, was, on the contrary, one of the simplest.  It consisted of a strong piece of wood of nearly triangular section, the sharpest angle of which, being turned oceanward, was designed to cut the waves and cause them to break over it (Fig. 2).  If, by favor of divine Providence, this breakwater, which presents absolutely plane surfaces to the shock and pressure of the waves, is not broken to fragments in the first tempest, it will certainly acquit itself of the role for which the inventor destined it.  When we have a system of resistance to the sea, anchored and facing a certain direction, and consequently not being able to revolve around its axis as vessels do, care must be taken not to give it entire surfaces.

[Illustration:  FIG. 4.—­FROIDEVILLE’S BREAKWATER.—­MODE OF JOINING THE PARTS.]