PORT BOWEN.
Is now only visited by vessels seeking shelter. The wharf is in good order, but no cattle have been shipped since 1887.
BROADSOUND.
Since October last the staff at this port, which previously consisted of a pilot and three hands, has been considerably reduced—the coxswain only (who is also a boatman pilot) being retained. The trade to the port is merely one small steamer, making about four trips a year.
PORT MACKAY.
So far but little improvement in the Pioneer River appears to have resulted from the construction of the stone training walls. Raising the wall from Fisherman's Bank down stream to its present termination will have a beneficial effect, and remove the possibility of small vessels—when not under command—resting upon it at high water. Its additional height will also prevent the sand (as in February last, when the sea made a breach through East Point) from being carried over into the main channel and leaving a deposit of some 18 inches on the top of the wall. The upper stone wall commencing at Magazine Island has proved beneficial, by creating a scour resulting in the removal of the upper flats. At East Point the bar beacons have been removed again (for the third time in ten years), in consequence of the continual growth in a south-westerly direction of the extreme end of the sand spit.
The older portion of the wooden retaining wall on the south bank of the Pioneer River is in a most unsightly and dilapidated condition, owing to the combined ravages of white ants and cobra; the newer portion is also being quickly destroyed from the same cause. The stone retention wall which extends along part of River Street is, however, well constructed, and likely to prove of permanent utility.