DREDGING.

Otago Witness, Issue 921, 24 July 1869, Page 7

DREDGING.

Dredging operations in the new channel are going on successfully, and for some time past the beneficial effects of the work have been felt. Vessels of two and three hundred tons can now moor alongside the JKatfcray street jetty, and discharge and take in cargo. The original depth at nigh water along the retaining wall was seven to eight feet. In the narrow channel made by the dredging machine it is fourteen feet. The shallowest part of the channel, between tha Port and Dnnedin, is abreast of Maoandrew'a Bay, where it is twelve feet. Work is rather slow at present, owini? to the time lost in placing the sludge securely within the wall by means of punts, and in waiting for tides. It is estimated that when the new travelling shoot, or discharging apparatus now in course of construction by Mr William Wilson, of the Otago Foundry, is completed, the work of three months under present circumstances will be performed in one. — The discharging apparatus, upon which an immense amount of labour has been expended, is now rapidly approaching com pletion. It has been launched, and is now upon three punts, moored at the reclaimed ground near Rattray street jetty. Its weight, when finished, will be aboat thirty tons, and its length 135 feet. When anohored, with one end over the wall, and the other secured to the dredi? e, the channel may be deepened to a width of 130 feet along the retaining wall. While this work is in progress, a stone wall will be substituted for the wooden one, and the latter will be used for the opposite side of the channel, along which the machine, with the aid of the shoot, will deepen it to the width of 130 ft. , making a channel 260 feet in width, enclosed, so that there will bo no risk of its being filled up.