Directory_and_Chronicle_1920 — Page 1026

HONGKONG

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1908, and the mills were closed about a year later. A Brewery, designated the Oriental Brewery, was opened at Laichikok in 1909. It was equipped with the most modern plant having a capacity of about 100,000 barrels of beer per annum, and an ice- plant was worked in connection with the Brewery, but this concern also has had to close down.

The works of the Hongkong and China Gas Company are situated at West Point and at Yaumati, and those of the Hongkong Electric Company at Wanchai. A new power- station for the Electric Company is in course of erection at North Point, on a site reclaimed from the sea for this purpose. The city is illuminated partly by gas and partly by electric light, the latter having been introduced at the end of 1890. Among the industries pursued by the Chinese are glass blowing, soap making, vermilion and soy manufacture, tanning, dyeing, boat building, etc.

There is excellent Dock accommodation in the Colony. The Hongkong and Whampoa Dock Company, Limited, have three extensive establishments, one at Hunghom, Kowloon, one at Tai Kok Tsui, and the third at Aberdeen on the south side of Hongkong Island. The establishments of this Company are fitted with all the best and latest appliances for engineering and carpenter's work, and the largest vessel in H.M.'s Navy on the China Station has been received into the No. 1 Dock at Hunghom. The docks and slips are of the following dimensions :-Hunghom :-No. 1 (Admiralty) Dock-700 feet in length, 86 feet in breadth at entrance at top and 70 feet at bottom, and 30 feet depth of water over sill at ordinary spring tides. No. 2 dock -Length on kcel 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 fcet; 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 a number of large steamers have been launched in the Colony for the Controller of Shipping in Gt. Britain as well as for some well-known British firms. 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 becoine 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 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, burbine steamers, steam yachts, torpedo-destroyers, steam launches, tugs and lighters. The establishment throughout has been fitted with the latest time-saving appliances rocurable. The chief motive power is electricity, generated by gas engines, the gas producing plant being the largest installed in the Far East. The electii: shears situated

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