Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume III

78 ENGINEERING WONDERS OF THE WORLD. rubble foundation was dumped from cars and barges, and levelled carefully by divers. This foundation is about 20 feet high, and is brought up to 10 feet below low water. Along its crest a Titan and two floating cranes laid sloping 35-ton blocks, a number of which were thrown at random along the exterior world, and equipped with every facility. The harbour has an area of 543 acres, and an average depth of 28 feet at low water. Six and a half million cubic metres of sand and 50,000 of rock were removed by dredges. The port works consumed 2,000,000 tons of stone and concrete. There are about 3| miles DIVERS, DIVING-BELL, AND A LARGE GRAB FOR LEVELLING THE SEA BOTTOM. side. The breakwater has an average width of 97| feet and a length of 2,400 feet. It may be mentioned that the Titan crane, weighing 360 tons, was flung off the break- water by a gale, but was recovered, and used for further harbour building. The south-east breakwater, 3,070 feet long and 65 feet wide (average), was formed of rubble, capped with concrete blocks and mass concrete. In addition to the moles, Messrs. Pearson built an inner protection wall, and by means of quays and piers converted Vera Cruz into a first-class artificial port, equal to any in the of piers and quays. The total cost is calcu- lated at about £3,000,000 sterling. An even greater undertaking carried out by the same firm of contractors is the new Admiralty harbour at Dover, constructed during the years 1898-1909. It has an area of 610 acres, and is one of the largest artificially enclosed sea-water spaces in the world. The work to be done—shown on the accompanying plan— consisted of—(1) lengthening the old Admir- alty Pier 2,000 feet; (2) reclaiming and excavating out of the cliffs an area 3,850 feet long by 250 feet wide ; (3) building a 3,320-