[Illustration: FIG. 2.--LEWIS' FLOATING BREAKWATER.]
The defense of the port of Havre is a very important question, and one
that appears to be completely abandoned. Since Engineer Degaulle in 1808
advised the erection of a fort upon the Eclat, and requests have
periodically been made and projects drawn. The requests are forgotten, but
the drawings are in the Ministers' portfolios, and if France should
to-morrow have a war with a maritime power our great northern port might
be destroyed and burned by the smallest squadron.
Some years after Massas' project, two officers, Deloffre and Bleve, and an
engineer named Renaud, received a commission to search for a means of
closing a portion of Seine Bay. These gentlemen advised the erection of
two dikes, one on the Eclat shoal in the very axis of this reef, and the
other at Heve. Between these two masonry dikes was to be placed a floating
breakwater. This project, which was submitted to Admiral de Hell in 1845,
had a favorable reception, and the Admiral especially applauded the trial
of breakwaters, "which were much talked of in England, although the
effects that they might produce were not well known." Deloffre, Bleve, and
Renauds' project comprised two forts--one to the north and the other to
the south of the roadstead.
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