s of the lost outrigger, and how I
should replace it. My host soon solved the problem for me. I was to
drive to the scene of the late disaster in his light, covered wagon,
load it with the canoe and cargo, and take the shortest route to Love
Creek, six miles from Lewes, stopping on the way at a blacksmith's for a
new outrigger. We drove over sandy roads, through forests of pine and
oak, to the village of Milton, where a curious crowd gathered round us
and facetiously asked if we had "brought the canoe all the way from Troy
in that 'ere wagon." The village smith, without removing the paper boat
from her snug quarters, made a fair outrigger in an hour's time, when we
continued our monotonous ride through dreary woods to a clearing upon
the banks of a cedar swamp, where in a cottage lived Mr. George Webb, to
whom Bob Hazzle, my driver, presented me. Having now reached Love Creek,
I deposited my canoe with Mr. Webb, and started off for Lewes to view
the town and the ocean.

Across the entrance of Delaware Bay, from Cape Henlopen Light to Cape
May Light on the southern end of New Jersey, is a distance of twelve
statute miles. Saturday night and Sunday were passed in Lewes, which
is situated inside of Cape Henlopen, and behind the celebrated stone
breakwater which was constructed by the government. This port of refuge
is much frequented by coasters, as many as two or three hundred sails
collecting here during a severe gale. The government is building a
remarkable pier of _solid_ iron spiles, three abreast, which, when
completed, will run out seventeen hundred feet into the bay, and reach
a depth of twenty-three feet of water. Captain Brown, of the Engineers,
was in charge of the work. By the application of a jet of water, forced
by an hydraulic pump through a tube down the outside of the spile while
it is being screwed into the sand, a puddling of the same is kept
up, which relieves the strain upon the screw-flanges, and saves
fourteen-fifteenths of the time and labor usually expended by the
old method of inserting the screw spile. This invention was a happy
thought of Captain Brown.

The government has purchased a piece of land at Lewes for the site of a
fort. Some time in the future there will be a railroad terminating on
the pier, and coal will be brought directly from the mines to supply the
fleets which will gather within the walls of the Breakwater. Here, free
from all danger of an ice blockade, this port will become a