There has never been a good surrey of the North Branch. Ovvall the charts there A note saying the spring food comes in ith a bore, and the 1861 chart says with a current of 54 knots, In 1869, when came here, the bore came in through the North Branch and ran along the north side of the ship channel to North Tree, where it disappeared in the deep water there; it used to show a distinct. uninterrupted line of breakers 1h to 2 feet high, and it gradually became less marked till about 1874, when the bore was imperceptible, Some great chanve outside of the North Branch' must have taken place then and since to stop this great inflow of tide and to have caused the great changes in that locality after the disapperranco of the bore. An island was formed at Vine Point, another abreast of Plover Point, and all along from North Branch to Vino Point (4 miles below North Tree) the shoals have grown and extended a great deni, foreing the ship channel over to the right bank. Since 1887, when the Harvey Channel was surveyed, the channel abreast of the entrance of North Branch has shifted to the south-west or towards the right bank about 7 cables, and is still moving that way, washing away the northeast side of the Actwon and Dove's Nest Shoals. (There are indications that these shoals will become an island and ultimately may join the right bank of the river since "the Centaur crossing channel is closed.) Nearly the whole force of the current is now making its way through the Harvey Point Channel. The shoal is largely increasing across the entrance of North Branch, and the strong current now strikes Tsungming much lower down than formerly. The small channel that used to ran between Tsungming and the banks off it, is closing at the upper end. These sand banks and the Tsungming island bank have become a concave shape, consequently the current takes a turn to nearly south and across to the right bank of the river at and below Liu Creek, 14 miles above Woosung. The above changes that have taken place during recent years ipdicate that De Rijke was right in his theory and the North Branch is not likely to become the main channel of the Yangtze, What is really taking place is that the iver is gradually finding its natural bed as it has done higher up. The old chatts of the river show an island called Yinsha
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.