HONGKONG
945
-Length on keel blocks, 371 feet; breadth at entrance, 74 feet; depth of water over sill at ordinary spring tides, 18 feet 6 inches. No. 3 dock-Length on keel blocks, 264 feet; breadth at entrance, 49 feet 3 ins.; depth of water over sill at ordinary spring tides, 14 feet. Patent Slips: No. 1-Length on keel blocks, 240 feet; breadth at entrance,60 feet; depth on the blocks, 14 feet. No. 2-Length on keel blocks, 230 feet; breadth at entrance, 60 feet; depth of water on the blocks at ordinary spring tides, 12 feet. Tai Kok Tsui: Cosmopolitan dock-Length on keel blocks, 466 feet; breadth at entrance, 85 feet 6 inches; depth of water over sill at ordinary spring tides, 20 feet. Aberdeen: Hope dock-Length on keel blocks, 430 feet; breadth at entrance, 84 feet; depth of water over sill at ordinary spring tides, 23 feet. Lamont dock-Length on keel blocks, 333 feet; breadth at entrance, 64 feet; depth of water over sill at ordinary spring tides, 16 feet, The Hunghom and Cosmopolitan Docks are in close proximity to the shipping in port and are well sheltered on all sides. The approaches to the Docks are perfectly safe and the immediate vicinity affords capital anchorage. The docks are substantially built throughout with granite. Powerful lifting shears with steam purchase at Hunghom and Cosmopolitan Docks stand on a solid granite sea wall alongside which vessels can lie and take in or out boilers, guns and other heavy weights. The shears at Hunghom are capable of lifting 70 tons and the depth of water alongside is 24 feet at low tides. There are other establishments at which shipbuilding and foundry work is carried on, and some good-sized steamers have been launched in the Colony. In 1908 the new docks constructed by Messrs. Butterfield & Swire at Quarry Bay, just inside the Lyeemoon Pass, were completed. The dock has been built to British Admiralty requirements, is the largest out of England,
England, and, while it is capable of accommodating the biggest vessels afloat, it has been designed to permit of further increasing its length if it should become necessary at some future time to do so. The dimensions of the dock are:-787 feet extreme length; 750 feet on the 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 is 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, turbine steamers, steam yachts, torpedo-destroyers, steam launches, tugs and lighters. 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 shears 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., Ltd., 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 (capable of accom- modating the largest ship afloat), 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, May, and Plantation Roads, where stations are provided for their accommo- dation, The Military erected a sanatorium on the heights near Magazine Gap in 1883, and in
in 1897
acquired the handsome and commodious Mount
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