Britain at Work
A Pictorial Description of Our National Industries

356 BRITAIN AT WORK. THE OIL SHEDS AND THE ELECTRIC RAILWAY. a high pre-eminence. For the more expedi- tious handling of this enormous traffic in tobacco, another warehouse, which is said to be the largest structure of the kind in the world, has been built at the Stanley dock on the north side of the Landing Stage. This warehouse covers an area of 2 J acres, and comprises fourteen floors. It is 725^ feet rang* and 165 fest wide. The floors are designed to carry 100,000 tons. The north system, part of which lies within the borough of Bootle, comprises the newest and most commodious docks. Altogether there are in this section some forty wet and graving docks. Those nearest the stage are for the most part devoted to the very large Irish and Scottish trades.' The extreme north- end docks are probably the scene of the heaviest traffic ; most of the great American and Canadian lines load and unload here. The Huskisson Dock, for example, is seldom to be found without a White Star or Cunard leviathan. One of the chief trades of this part of the clocks, as indeed it is of Liverpool as a whole, is the importation of cotton. The annual import to the Mersey port is nearly three million bales, which is practically eleven-twelfths of that of the whole country. Perhaps the most common sight along the clocks is the lorries laden with bulging bales of cotton making their way to the numerous warehouses throughout the city. . Another very extensive trade, which is almost wholly transacted at the north docks, is the importation of grain. Special ware- houses have been erected for this traffic, and at the Alexandra Dock a granary, after the style of the American elevator, has been built capable of holding 120,000 tons. The annual grain import to Liverpool is about 200,000,000 tons. The timber trade is another very large Li verpool industry. Its chief home is at the Brocklebank and Canada Docks, in the northern system. Naturally this industry demands a considerable amount of space, and along the clocks mentioned there is quite a street of timber merchants’ offices ; and, though the aspect of the wood-yards is not very interesting to the pedestrian, the scene from the Overhead Railway—from which, by the way, the best view of the whole system of docks is to be had—is singularly impres- sive, the great yards with their immense piles of all kinds of wood presenting a picture that cannot fail to affect the imagination. 1 he Birkenhead Docks run inland some- what, and thus seem less massive than those on the Lancashire side. The two largest, however, are the biggest on the Mersey. The West Float has a water area of 52 acres 319 yards and a lineal quayage of 2 miles 210 yards, while the East Float has a water area of 59 acres 3,786 yards and a lineal quayage of i mile 1,673 yards. The next in size to