Directory_and_Chronicle_1922 — Page 1071

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HONGKONG

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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. In 1916 the capital of the Company was increased to $3,000,000. New land was purchased from the Government and 4 building berths and a new shipbuilding yard were built on the East of the old yard. The plant was extensively overhauled and at present the two yards are complete with all modern shipbuilding machines. The Hongkong and Whampoa Dock Company is capable of turning out steamers of 700 feet in length. Several large steamers have been launched in the Colony by this Company for the Controller of Shipping in Great Britain. The new work on hand at present consists of 4 oil bulk carriers of 412 feet each, two cargo steamers of 400 feet each, and one river steamer of 350 feet, in addition to one salvage tug and other small craft. 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, and 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 sides of sill at high 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. No1 slipway is 1,030 feet long and 80 feet wide, capable of taking up steamers 325 feet long, drawing 18 feet, and having a displacement of 3,000 tons. The other slipways are each 993 feet long by 60 feet wide, capable of taking steamers 300 feet long, drawing 17 feet, of 2,000 tons displacement. The building yard is 550 feet long, and 500 feet wide, and has been equipped with a view to the construction of passenger and cargo vessels, turbine steamers, steam yachts, torpedo-destroyers, steam faunches, tugs and lighters. The engine shops are most extensive and complete, capable of undertaking the building of all classes of steam engines, including geared turbines. 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 1909.

THE PEAK DISTRICT

A well-made but rather badly-graded mountain road leads up from the centre of the city 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 accommodation. The Military erected a sanatorium on the heights near Magazine Gap in 1883, and in 1897 acquired the commodious Mount Austin Hotel at Victoria Gap for the same purpose. The Peak Club is domiciled in a neat building at Plunkett Gap near the point of junction with Chamberlain Road and Mount Kellett road. It was erected in 1902 and enlarged in 1912 by the addition of a second storey. The Peak Church, an unpretending structure after the similitude of a jelly mould, was opened for worship in June, 1883. Extensive accommodation for visitors is afforded at the Peak Hotel. A finely-situated private Hospital, known as the Peak Hospital, is situated 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, partly as the result of public subscription, Yet