Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 2).djvu/456

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
  • houses are contemplated, which are to be fitted with

"elevators," on the American principle, for the purpose of unloading grain in bulk from the hold of the ships to the different floors.

Hydraulic lifts and repairing basins. But besides these wet-docks and warehouses, it is proposed to construct hydraulic lifts, each with a framework five hundred feet in length and sixty feet in width, capable of receiving and raising the largest class of vessels, and "admitting ordinary repairs and overhauling to be effected with safety, economy, and expedition." On the eastern side of the basin of these wet-docks there are to be constructed two graving-docks, with sixty feet width of entrance, each eight hundred and fifty feet in length, and having adjoining "lye-bye" berths of sufficient capacity to accommodate and facilitate the working and free entry of the largest description of ships. Between the graving-docks it is proposed to make another dock eight hundred and twenty feet long and one hundred and forty feet wide, to be specially adapted for repairing purposes, with quays one hundred and thirty feet in width, provided with the largest and most convenient class of cranes. These various new docks, with separate entrances from the river, are to be in direct communication with the existing docks, so as to form one almost unbroken line of the finest dock accommodation in this or any other country.

On the southern side of the Dock Estate, that is to the south of the existing docks, there is to be a half-tide basin to the east, in connection with the Brunswick basin, of one thousand one