A Home for the Navy.

Southern Cross, Volume 9, Issue 50, 1 March 1902, Page 3

A Home for the Navy.

The British navy, now more interesting than ever, because, in a way, it has been bracketed with,that of Japan, is the only thing British that has no fixed place of abode. Ships are launched, ships are put into commission, and they wander from station to.station to the order of the Admirably, and are most ‘at sea’ when really ‘at home.’ To remedy this the British Government are building the most colossal refuge harbour ever undertaken in the history of naval engineering. Particularly they are reclaiming 610 acres of the British Channel at Dover, and literally wailing it in, so that when the work is finished anchorage will be found for 21 first-class battleships, 100 cruisers, and innumerable gunboats and other small craft. The contract has already been let for this stupendous work, to complete which thousands ©f craftsmen will be engaged for the next four years or so, at a sum approximating to over four million pounds. The different breakwaters are in themselves extraordinary conceptions, which, when finished, will represent a triumph of engineering skill and handicraftsmanship. The Channel was excavated down to its solid bed of chalk and flint, and on this the concrete blocks of the foundation, each forty tons in weight, were laid and ‘ joggled,’ the latter practically blending them. Similar blocks have been laid, tier on tier, to carry the breakwaters to high-water, when the masonry part of the undertaking will be less complex and difficult. The contractors for this extraordinary work had to face an initial outlay of half a million pounds before commencing a single part of what is intended to be permanent, this alone indicating the arduous character of the labour and the great necessity of providing against mistake. So strong is the tide in the Channel, that the forty ton blocks are frequently shifted from position before there is time to » n o o>o-le ’ them, requiring that the work of laying them should be done over ao-ain. To lower the blocks cranes are employed of a sixty ton lifting capacity, and divers are ready to receive them the moment they are down, to adjust and fit them in position. Though the work has only been_ recently entered upon, it is the result of fifty years consideration of the subject, and if it has grown in scope and expense during this period it has been because of the expansion of the Empire’s naval necessities. The four points of the vast undertaking may be summarised thus : —An extension of the Admiralty Pier, at Dover, seawards for 2000 feet in length ; the building of a breakwater 4,200 feet in length three-quarters of a mile from the shore as the sea boundary of the harbour ; the construction of a sea wall the coast affected, and the erection thereon of sundry necessary buildings, stores, hospitals, workshop, and other offices.