A Treatise On The Principles And Practice Of Dock Engineering

37° DOCK ENGINEERING. means of slides. Where there are no cranes these methods must obviously be adopted; but the question of unloading appliances is more suitable for discussion under the section of Working Equipment. On the landward side of the shed, will generally be found a roadway for cart traffic, often in conjunction with additional lines of railway. The level of the shed floor is another point concerning which opinion is divided. At some ports it coincides with the quay level; at others it is raised 3 feet or more above the quay, the object in the latter case being to bring it on a plane with the floors of waggons and carts so as to facilitate trucking. This method forbids, while the alternative method allows, carts and vehicles to enter the shed, and so to a certain extent to obviate trucking. Local practice, again, influences the decision as to which method in préférable. Fig. 350. —Plan of Shed Compartment at Liverpool. As illustrating the diversity of opinion prevailing in regard to the general disposition of sheds and warehouses, and the utter impossibility of formulating any definite or systematic regulations thereon, the following conclusion, unanimously adopted after a long discussion of the subject by the members of the Seventh International Maritime Oongress (Fourt/i Section —Seaports) sitting at Brussels in 1898, may be quoted :_ “ Question.—Warehouses and sheds: accommodation, size, mode of construction, means of access. “ Conclusion.—Considering the preponderating influence which variable elements in the different ports, especially the nature of the traffic and the commercial customs, must have on the conditions of the establishment of quays and warehouses, the Fourth Section is of opinion that there is no occasion to draw up general rules with regard to these conditions of estab- lishment, as the arrangements adopted in each particular case are of interest solely by way of indication for analogous cases.” Features of Construction. —Methods of shed construction fall largely under those of building generally, and it is not proposed here to discuss details which are common to ordinary structures, and for which reference may be made to any suitable text-book on building construction. Those