A Treatise On The Principles And Practice Of Dock Engineering

IO DOCK ENGINEERING. of 3ö miles, the latter heilig équivalent to two-thirds of that of the quayage of all other wet docks in the world, excluding British ports. The docks constructed during the latter half of the 18th century were the Salthouse, the George’s, the King’s, and the Queen’s. These were devoid of quays, and much time and labour were wasted in the transfer and cartage of goods. The Princes Dock was opened in 1821, and five years later the Old Dock was closed. The Clarence Dock was built in 1830, the Waterloo in 1834, and the Victoria and Trafalgar Docks in 1836. These earlier docks were of very small size, rarely exceeding 10 acres. The Canada and Huskisson Docks, constructed between 1850 and 1860, marked a decided advance in this respect, and the size was still further increased in the case of the Langton and Alexandra Docks, opened in 1881, the former of which contains 21 acres and the latter, 44J acres. Larger, again, than these are the East and West Floats, on the Cheshire side of the river, containing 59| acres and 52 acres respectively ; but none of the docks in the Mersey Estate approach the size of the Victoria and Albert Docks at London. An immense floating landing stage, built in 1847, forms a prominent feature of the river frontage. It was burned down in 1874, but after- wards restored. There are similar, but smaller, floating stages at Woodside and Wallasey. The tonnage of vessels entering and leaving the port, which in 1831 only amounted to 1| millions, had nearly reached 19 millions before the end of the century, with a total of about 40,000 vessels. For the year just closed (Midsummer, 1903) the tonnage exceeded 23| millions. The management of the dock system, which is perhaps the finest under single control in the world, passed from the hands of a committee of the Town Council in 1858 into those of a public Trust, created by Act of Parliament, and called the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board, which, since that time, has administered it with striking success. The Port of New York. The premier city and port of the United States is possibly somewhat lacking in attraction for the dock engineer in that it has no docks, in the strict sense of the word. What are, by courtesy, termed docks are open areas of water formed by the projection of numerous timber jetties from the face line of the river quays. The city itself lies on an island between the Hudson and East rivers, in a well-sheltered position which calls for no further protection, while at the same time it is close to the open sea. A further reason for the absence of docks is the small range of tide, which does not exceed 5 feet, on an average. The construction of the river wharves, despite some supervision introduced at the beginning of last century, seems to have proceeded on no definite plan or system until the year 1870, when a special department was constituted for that purpose. The city is now