Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume I

DOCKS. 181 A STEAM NAVVY DEPOSITING EARTH INTO TRUCKS AT NEW modern dockmaker’s task. He has to pro- vide naval and mercantile ports for ships that apparently never cease to grow longer and broader and deeper. Several years ago Lord Pirrie talked about the 1,000 feet ship as if it were a thing of the immediate future. People were sceptical as to the accuracy of the forecast, yet inside seven years Harland and Wolff were building at Belfast two vessels of 860 feet. Ten years ago the Clyde Trustees were told by the Admiralty that warships of greater beam than 80 feet were improbable for a long time to come, yet well inside that time Whitehall itself was ordering battleships of 85 feet beam. In fact, we seem to be only beginning to build big ships for both war and commerce. Want of space prevents a detailed account DOCK, SOUTHAMPTON. (Photo, 8. Cribb.) of the construction of the various types of docks. Moreover, there would necessarily be much repetition, as a great deal c . Construction. of the structural work is com- mon to them all. The simpler way will per- haps be to begin with the construction of a dock—the description will apply to either a wet dock or a tidal dock—then to take up the making of quays of the more important kinds, and finally to deal with dry docks and locks, and their gates or caissons. Where a dock has to be cut out of solid riverside ground, as was the case at Prince’s tidal basin on the Clyde, the engineering, though arduous, Excavating- , , . , . _ , Operations. is not troublesome, provided, of course, the ground on which the quays are to be founded proves as solid as the prelim-