Directory_and_Chronicle_1909 — Page 1205

1012

HONGKONG

blocks; 120 feet wide at coping; 77 feet 6 inches wide at bottom; 88 feet width of entrance at top; 82 feet width of entrance at bottom; 34 feet 6 inches depth over centre of sill at high water Spring tides; 31 feet depth over side of sill at low water Spring tides. It can be filled in 45 minutes and pumped out in 2 hours 40 minutes. Founded on a solid rock bottom, it has been built of cement concrete and lined with granite throughout. A feature of the Dock in the caisson, of the new box-sliding type, weighing 400 tons and electrically controlled. There are three slipways. No 1 slipway is 1,030 feet long and 60 feet wide, capable of taking up two steamers each 300 feet long, drawing 18 feet, and having a displacement of 2,700 tons. The other slipways are each 993 feet long by 60 feet wide, capable of taking two steamers 200 feet long. drawing 17 feet, of 2,000 tons displacement. The building yard is 550 feet long, and 300 feet wide, and has been equipped with a view to the construction of passenger and cargo vessels, turbinesteamers, steam yachts, torpedo destroyers, steam launches, tugsand ligh- ters. The establishment throughout has been fitted with the latest time-saving appliances procurable. The chief motive power is electricity, generated by gas engines, the gas producing plant being the largest installed in the Far East. The electric sheers situated on the sea wall lift 100 tons at a radius of 70 feet and wagon and crane roads run the full length from end to end. This sea wall which forms the boundary of the yard is 3,200 feet long and built of concrete blocks of an average weight of 15 tons. There is a depth of 39 feet at high water Spring tides for the greater length of the wall, which will enable ships of

any size to berth alongside for the removal or fitting of heavy boilers, machinery, etc. The establishment is known as that of the Taikoo Dockyard and Engineering Co., Ld., of Hongkong. His Majesty's Naval Yard likewise contains machine sheds and fitting shops on a large scale, and repairs can be effected to the machinery of the British men-of-war with great expedition. A large extension of the Naval Yard including an important reclamation on the foreshore, the construction of a dock and erection of various workshops was completed in 1908.

THE PEAK DISTRICT

A well-made but rather badly graded mountain road leads up to the summit of Victoria Peak, with numerous other paths branching off from it at Victoria Gap along the adjoining hills. A tramway, on the wire rope system, runs to the Victoria Gap, where the stationary engine is fixed, the lower terminus being close to St. John's Cathedral. It was opened to traffic on the 30th May, 1888. Passengers can alight at the Kennedy, Bowen, and Plantation Roads, where stations are provided for their accommo- dation. Within the past few years the number of bungalows and houses on and about the Peak has increased so much that they now form quite a considerable alpine village. The Military erected a sanatorium on the heights near Magazine Gap in 1883, and in 1897 acquired the handsome and commodious Mount Austin Hotel for the same purpose. The Peak Club, which had been lodged in temporary quarters for several years, has now been domiciled in a neat building just below Craigieburn Hotel. It was erected in 1902. The Peak Church, an unpretending structure after the similitude of a jelly mould, was opened for worship in June, 1883. Comfortable accommodation for visitors is afforded at the Peak and Craigieburn Hotels. A finely-situated private Hospital has been erected at Victoria Gap, just above the Peak Hotel. The Victoria (Jubilee) Hospital for Women and Children, occupying a breezy site on Barker Road, was opened by Sir Henry Blake on November 7th, 1903. Yet another hospital, named "The Matilda. Hospital" is situated at the southern corner of Mount Kellett. It was built at a cost of about $350,000 and opened in 1906. The expense of erection and maintenance are borne- by the estate of the late Mr. Granville Sharp, who devoted the bulk of his fortune to provide such an institution for the benefit of persons needing it who are of European or American birth. A small public garden, or children's playground situated at the junction of Chamberlain and Mount Kellett Roads was opened in 1906.

The road from Victoria Gap westward leads to Victoria Peak, which is 1,823 feet. above the sea and rises almost abruptly behind the centre of the city of Victoria. On the summit is placed the flagstaff, from which the approach of the mails and other vessels is signalled. Not far from the summit of the Peak, on a most command- ing site, stands Mountain Lodge, the summer residence of H.E. the Governor, which was erected in 1901. An excellent and well graded road, commencing on the Bowen Road, leads to Magazine Gap, near which a second hill village of foreign residences has been formed on the southern side of the hills at an elevation of about 900 feet above the sea. Another road leads from Victoria Gap to Pokfulum and Aber- deen, and at the side of this, about half a mile from the Gap, a small granite cross has.