THE PORT'S ADVANCE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 112, 13 May 1911, Page 9

THE PORT'S ADVANCE.

A YARD AS AN INDEX. * THE BUSY HARBOUR BOARD. 1 Old times and new meet and mix in | the Wellington Harbour board's yard by Waterloo-quay, Here may be seen 3 the latest planing machine swiftly lickJ ing the roughness off a. huge s-quaied log of hardwood, and not far away lies ono 1 of_ the nrst pieces of totara from tho i original Queen's Wharf. This specimen • was dug out of the "made ground" Dear the Victoria ytatue in the" course of a recent excavation. The yard where tne ' totara relic lies was itself under t water about twenty years ago. What will happen to tho sound old stump? It , will probably be cut up into posts or , batons for a fence, and ttie chips and , shavings will help to feed the furnace at . Uhj board|s hydraulic pumping-station jusL opposite the carpenter's shop. That. t will bo the fate unless "Old Wellington", , enthusiasts secure the memorial of a i time that has passed and of the progress , that has been achieved. In this yard, too, may be seen totara ( that wave and worm have sadly worried. It has come from the Queen's Wharf. , into which it went down for its work in sound heart twenty-six years ago. The . teredo, or marine borer, does nofc attack totara, says Mr. Moore (the board's chief . carpenter), but there in a many-legged , active insect that gnaws the hardest , totara. First, the muscles bunch on the wood, and furnish comfortable shelter for the timber's foes. Machinery shaves down the venerable planks and piles. Every useful piece is saved to do some- , thing for the Harbour Board, and the fragments, the shavings and general litter, have a happy despatch in the furnaces over the way to give pov/er for the hydraulic cranes. An old anchor here and there, and' various ,old materials that breathe an old song of ships and tie sea, make the yaid a pretty place for meditation. It sends the thoughts to one old yard by the Thames, where Dickens set his terrible Quilp and the irrepressible Kit, wh</ waltzed on his hands and clicked his heels at the menacing dwarf. The scream of an automatic saw turns the eyes to , see the flashing disc gnawing through the iron heart of one of Australia's toughest trees. -The saw softly, glides back for another bite, and another. A conspicuous feature of the yard is a ?i'S fc , crane that has a total sweep of , 112 ft (a jradius of 56ft from the foundations) rhe v machine's giant clutch makes hght work of a 25cwt length of jarrah. , rhe«e enormous pieces of hardwood were squared by strong hand-work in the Australian bush. The bushman is armed with a squaring axe, and deft strokes are guided by good eyesight. Here and there in the stack one may see the 'prenii j of some n6W cn »«n- Timber dressed thus by the squaring-axe comes in duty free; milled timber is taxed. ■ When Mr. Moor© joined the Harbour Board twenty-three years ago thb carpenters shop was a very small affair, i without machinery, near the head of the Queen's Wharf, and the staff averaged about twelve. To-day the superintendent! has thirty-four men,, including painters with carpenters. This number would' be far greater if the shop, and yard were not well equipped with labonr-saving , machinery;. Not long ago, for instance, the big pieces of hardwood had to have their faces adzed by hand; to-day the shaving is done by a machine, which is ' soon ready to whisper "next, please." j