Britain at Work
A Pictorial Description of Our National Industries

354 BRITAIN AT WORK. tender, and thence borne to the city stations in cabs and ’buses. Nowadays the largest steamer in the world can go alongside the Landing Stage, where a railway station lias been constructed, so that almost within five minutes of their arrival passengers are on their way to London in special expresses, which run in connection with the steamers. Before passing to a brief review of the docks, we may indicate the extent of the whole system. On the Liverpool side—which comprises the docks situate within the borough of Bootle — the total water area Photo: Cassell & Co., Ltd. UNLOADING SANI) AT THE DOCKS, LIVERPOOL. is 392 acres 3,807 yards, and the quay space is 25 miles 923 yards. The Birkenhead Docks have a water area of 164 acres 4,190 yards, and a quay space of 9 miles 925 yards. Thus the total water area of the Liverpool and Birkenhead Docks and basins is 557 acres 3,157 yards, and the total quay space is 35 miles 88 yards. The area of the whole dock estate is 1,614 acres. Let us now turn to a survey of the clocks. First, taking those which lie to the south of the Landing Stage, we find them compara- tively small, and in some cases so old as to be almost obsolete. The furthest south is the Herculaneum, which is interesting in that it has been blasted out of the solid rock, and because beside it are the depots for petro- leum, which comes from America and Russia, Liverpool importing nearly a quarter of Britain’s annual supply. These, depots have also been excavated in the solid rock. 1 here are sixty chambers altogether, each capable of holding 1,000 barrels of oil, the total capacity being over 12,000 tons. I he cham- bers are separated from one another by a solid wall of rock five feet thick, and they are so constructed that should an accident occur the oil cannot escape and flow into the docks. From the Herculaneum extends a chain of comparatively new clocks, the first of which is the Harrington with a water area of nine acres. Then comes the Toxteth with a water area of eleven acres and the most extensive transfer shed on the whole estate. This shed has a ground area of nearly five acres. It were unnecessary to describe in detail all the docks: suffice to mention those pos- sessing features of peculiar interest. Still in the southern system, then, may be cited the Brunswick-George group, which consists of about a dozen small clocks—the oldest on the Mersey. In these the water has to be kept at the requisite depth by means of pumping. Adjacent are the warehouses of one of Liverpool’s greatest trades—the importation of tobacco, in which the Mersey seaport has