increased facilities for them. One of the worst defects of our great barge port of London is the utter want of barge canals and barge ponds about the docks. The quays and sheds which have docks on one side should have floatage for barges on the other. To my mind this is one of the greatest defects of the port. For be it remembered that nearly 80 per cent. of all the goods that use the docks, import or export, goes away or arrives in barges, and not by road or rail. Even the railway companies send goods from their waterside depôts to the docks in barges, and fetch them from the docks in barges; while the dock companies themselves use barges to shift cargo from dock to dock. The barge problem is for London a very serious problem, and there are practically no provisions for its solution.

In short, the port needs much money to be spent on it; but the levy of dues on cargo, in the Liverpool and Glasgow fashion, would provide ample funds. And to this no doubt we shall come, Trust or no Trust. Many of the traders, however, while admitting the necessity in principle, are by no means in favour of an application which will affect their particular industry. Their attitude, in fact, is very much that of the proverbial herring-dealer, who was in favour of free trade in everything except herrings.

WE

CHAPTER V

GRAVING DOCKS

E have been giving a good deal of attention to the subject of docks-closed docks and tidal docks-without, so far, any recognition of another and very different, and in its place very important, kind of dock-the graving dock. Before passing to the subject of the great Manchester Canal, then, let us glance at the subject of graving docks.

A necessary adjunct to every port is ample graving dock accommodation. In old days, when ships were small, they could be grounded at high water, and examined from keel to water-line when the tide left them high and dry. Nowadays, for purpose of repair, painting, or Lloyd's Register classification survey, ships must be placed on an even keel in graving or, as it is more often called, dry dock. This is a long, narrow basin, sometimes capable of being made into two by a middle [120]

division. The ship having been hauled in, the entrance is closed, and the water is pumped out till the dock is dry. The sloping sides are nowadays provided with stone steps, or 'altars,' from quay edge to bottom.

When the ship's keel 'takes the blocks,' as it is said, she is kept upright by props or shores which, raking or vertical, rest firmly against the steps, while these latter also serve to support the workmen's scaffolding. For small vessels 'cradles,' 'gridirons,' 'patent slips,' and 'floating docks' are occasionally used, floating docks being, however, often made to carry vessels of considerable size. Such docks are shaped like a wide capital U, open-ended, with hollow sides or walls. Το admit a ship, these walls are filled with water till the dock sinks to a depth at which the vessel can move into it. The water is then pumped out and air admitted, when the huge structure rises till its floor is above water. These unwieldy machines are, when required, towed by slow and laborious process across the ocean to the port at which they are to be used, and where their presence is a great advantage to the port.

When a steamer breaks her shaft or loses her propeller blades on the high seas, or is hauled off a rock in need of bottom repairs, the first thing

her owners and underwriters have to consider is the nearest port at which she can be dry-docked, and in such circumstances it is common to tow a ship 1,000 miles or more to be docked and repaired. In 1902 a huge floating dock was being towed from England to Durban-a port desiring to compete with the Cape for ship repairs-when, unfortunately, it got ashore at Mossel Bay. Eventually the dock, valued at £72,000, proved a total loss, much money having in addition been expended in attempts to salve it. It is understood that a new dock, double the size, to receive a vessel of about 8,000 tons, is now being built to take its place. A floating coal depôt is about to be constructed on the principle of the floating graving dock, to carry 13,000 tons of coal, and to be equipped with the latest appliances for rapid loading. These floating structures are becoming highly important features of the world's mercantile economy, and their value and utility seem likely in the future to obtain still wider recognition.

And not merely for mercantile purposes; for our warships at certain foreign stations they are practically indispensable. Bermuda is a notable instance. The new Bermuda Dock is said to be the longest and heaviest floating graving dock yet constructed. This monumental edifice'-it is

* I.e., August, 1903.

not easy to hit on a satisfactory term for it—is 545 feet long, with an inside width of 100 feet. The two side-walls, each carrying a powerful electrically worked travelling crane on what we may call the parapet, are 13 feet wide at the top. The height of the walls is 53 feet, enabling a vessel to be docked drawing 32 feet of water. The dock can take the Campania, and, in case of war and the commissioning of this leviathan, may have to do so. The Campania is, it is true, longer than the dock, but not on her keel-line, which is just the length of the dock. But with vessels now built, as they are, of steel, it is not necessary to support the whole length of the vessel in dock. It is stated, for example, that the Empress of China, which was placed on the floating dock at Barrow, exceeded the length of the dock by 213 feet, the excess being divided between the two ends as overhang.

The Bermuda Dock was launched in February, 1902, and towed, viâ Chatham, to Bermuda in the spring, her value being set at about £227,000, the insurance risk to cease on acceptance of the dock by the Admiralty authorities at her destination. The operation of launching was in itself no small undertaking. Somebody well said that it was 'like launching Milan Cathedral.' The guidebooks refer to this wonderful edifice as a 'huge