Volume Nine - Pre-Victorian to the present day - even more aspects - Cefn-y-Wrâch . . .

We therefore request the Board of Trade to send down some competent person to make an official survey of the alleged channel through the shoal, with a view to a settlement of the continuously recurring question as to the fitness or otherwise of the said channel. We shall, as a body, be glad to defray the expense incurred, and to place our services and boats at the disposal of the surveyor.

Wednesday and Thursday next, the 20th and 21st inst., will afford excellent opportunities for surveying the shoal, inasmuch as the spring ebbs will be lower on those days than for many months to come.

Awaiting your reply,
We are, sir, your obedient servants."

A correspondent writes : - 'The Cefn-y-Wrach, which is now creating considerable interest in the town, is evidently an obstruction which it will be necessary to remove. The visit of Mr Plimsoll yesterday will be the means of calling public attention to it, and to the action of the Cardiff Pilotage Board. Mr Plimsoll was accompanied by Mr Roger Moore, hon. secretary of the Bristol "Protection of Life-at-Sea Association," who had another object in view. He was desirous of inspecting the nature of the shoal which forms the eastern bank of the channel through the Wrach, and over which vessels pass. According to the pilots, who were pointing out to Mr Plimsoll the nature of the channel through which last year over 8,000 vessels passed and repassed, it being a thing of daily occurrence for the ship's keels to strike against the top of the shoal, and the furrows along the shoal plainly indicated that vessels had passed over it striking the ground for a long distance. The surface of the shoal is covered with large boulder stones said to have been washed down the river Taff. The force with which the vessels would strike these stones would, in the opinion of Mr Moore, be sufficient to start some bolt or loosen some planking. The vessel would pass away, and would probably, when further strained during the first gale of wind she encountered, so down wiith all hands ; and but for the injury she received in going over the Wrach, she would have been able safely to weather the storm.