A Treatise On The Principles And Practice Of Dock Engineering

LIVERPOOL AND BIRKENHEAD DOCKS. 29 1881. 1891. 1901. 1911 (forecast). Length, . . . feet, Breadth, . Depth, . . . ” Loaded draught, . Tonnage, 460 45 30 24 4,900 507 541 31 27 6,980 599 65 39 32 14,150 780 82 50 39 26,000 We now proceed to consider the arrangements adopted under conditions actually prevailing at varions ports. Liverpool and Birkenhead Docks. The port of Liverpool (including Bootle and Birkenhead) possesses a system of docks which for extent, completeness, and efficiency may be escribed as unrivalled. To what degree these results are due to its administration by one authority it is difficult to say, but there can be no doubt that the single jurisdiction of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board, as a public trust, has conferred greater benefit upon the town and port of Liverpool than the conflicting interests of a number of separate dividend- earning companies have been able to afford to the Metropolis. , Llverp°o1’ 1<; must be admitted, possesses great natural advantages. Ihe town is favourably situated close to the seaboard of the St. George’s Channel, upon a wide and sheltered estuary, affording it a water frontage of over 6 miles.* It stands at the portal of the great manufacturing districts of Lancashire and the Midlands, and it is in close proximity to the coal-fields and the mineral wealth of the North of England and North Wales. Furthermore, it is linked by railways and canals with the whole ot the interior of Great Britain. It is, in fact, the great door of the West and as a port for goods, and, in a lesser degree, for passenger traffic, is Wie principal channel of communication with the United States and with Canada. Ihe tidal area of the estuary of the Mersey is about 22,500 acres, the P°rtlon of which is filled with a deposit of sand, resulting in about our-fifths of the area being above low water level of spring tides. The eposit is only prevented from permanent accretion and consolidation by erratic action of the upland water, which ploughs its way to the sea in constantly changing channels. This roving disposition of the stream s looked upon in many quarters as the salvation of the port, for were e estuary to become restricted by the accumulation of sand within it, and^r^y ^ receive tidal water would be correspondingly diminished, ‘ t result’ as regards the maintenance of the outer channel and ^Ppioaches of the port, would be serious. Hence it is that the River rsey, though by no means a model river, is left severely alone. of rivers Tent inolusion of Ga^ton within the municipal area inereases the amount liver trontage to 10 miles.