defence be adhered to
as it would be
to), in advance of the defences and the
breadth of water to be guarded is very great. It would also take a
long time to drive the piles, considering the length of
the barrier required and the depth to which they would have to be driven.
For these reasons I think
a barrier of sunken junks would be far better than one of piles; such a barrier should, however, be of the kind proposed by Major Whitmore in order to be really efficient; a single line of junks with their masts left standing and connected by nothing and entanglements would be
Easily destroyed by boats than the pile barrier, and as the junks would probably sink 8 feet in the mud, there would (on the opening of a gap in the
Even more
masts and
something) be a depth of prom
15 to 20 feet of water over the junks.
The junk barrier proposed
by Major Whitmore would be a
202
very efficient obstacle, but, as he has shown, it would
take two or three months to construct
and would cost £45,000 or £50,000; the natural decay of
the junks would in
course of time allow the stones to fall
out; and the great cost of construction renders such an obstacle quite unsuitable as a
permanent barrier to be constructed in time of peace; though it would undoubtedly
be
a
temporary
of great value as a measure in time of war, if
sufficient time and labour and materials were then available for its construction. This last, however, is a question
which may
be
open to considerable
doubt, there would on the outbreak of
war be probably a good
deal of work of
other kinds to be done; the anticipation
of
an attack
might
induce
many of the Chinese to remove elsewhere; and general considerations might render it expedient
to
abandon...