Kevievr of Reviews, 2013/06. 



Leading Articles, 



285 



LIFTING A WHOLE CITY. 



Among many wonderful chapters of civic romance, 

 one of the" most remarkable is that of Galveston as 

 told in the American Review of Reviews by Mr. W. 

 Watson Davis. Galveston stands at the eastern end 

 of a long, low island off the coast of Texas, between 

 the surge of the Mexican Gulf and the placid waters 

 of Galveston Bay. It is the converging point of 

 fiftv-three steamship lines and nine railway systems. 

 It 'exports one-third of the wheat sent from the 

 United States, and ranks third among the exportmg 

 ports of the United States. In 1900 a great storm 

 sweeping in from the Gulf destroyed more than 8000 

 inhabitants and nearly twenty million dollars' worth 

 ot property. Galveston was written down as a city 

 of the past. But with invincible pluck the city set 

 to work in a few months to restore its fallen fortunes. 

 First it cleaned out the corrupt municipal govern- 

 ment, and by a majorit}- of six to one put its go- 

 vernment in the hands of a Commission consisting 

 of the Mavor and four Commissioners appointed by 

 the Governor of Texas. In four months three 

 eminent engineers had planned the erection of a 

 solid concrete wall along the Gulf front, and the 

 raising of the city's grade, the whole undertaking 

 to cost 3I million dollars. Two years after the storm 

 the contract for the building of the sea-wall was let, 

 and in July, 1904, the great wall was completed. It 

 is of solid concrete, 16 feet high, 16 feet thick at the 

 base, and 5 feet at the top. It skirts the Gulf front 

 for 3^ miles. Along the sea side of it extends a 

 breakwater, or riprap, 27 feet in width, composed of 

 rough blocks of stone. More difficult than the erec- 

 tion of the sea-wall is the problem of raising the 

 grade of the whole city. It " means the filling m 

 with earth or sand from the top of the sea-wall back 

 across the island to the bay front, from a height of 

 17 feet at the wall to 8 feet at the bay." The busi- 

 ness section next the bay, because of its many large 

 stone buildings and protected situation, is not in- 

 cluded in the area to be elevated. It was estimated 

 that \i\ million cubic yards of material would be 

 necessary to fill up. The progress of the work is 

 thus described: — 



The three fundamental divisions In tiie problem of grrade- 

 raising were— first, the obtaining of the material; second, 

 its transportation; third, its distribution. Tlie solution ot 

 the problem was as ingenious as simple, and was in accord 

 with the most advanced engineering practice. From the 

 coast of Gei-many have come four powerful suction dredses 

 —the Bohn, with a capacity of 550 cubic vards; and the 

 Texas, Leviathan, and Galveston, each with a capacity of 1500 

 cubio yards The Holm was the first to arrive. In conjunc- 

 tion with two •'cutter" dredges, and some forty 'since in- 

 creased to seventy) steel " scrapers," pulled by mules, it 

 began the construction of a ship canal in rear of the sea 

 wall This canal, when finished, will extend for two and 

 one-half miles, and is 200 feet wide and 21 feet deep. It is 

 the key to the solution of the problem of transportation 

 and distribution of erade-raising material. Tlii-s material 

 is to be sea sand, obtained from the bay and off the bar. 

 The suction dredge steams to sea, and drops to the bottom 

 her receiving main. The engines begin to throb, and into 

 her roomy " hopoer " pours semi-liquid sand and water. 

 "When loaded she" turns on her homeward trip, and, deep- 

 laden, enters the canal. As the canal progresses, the 

 dreflges establish pipe stations at the head of each street 

 ending thereon. At these pipe stations they discharge their 



loads by expelling them through 42-inch mains, extending 

 up each street. At the ends of the mains gush out sand and 

 water. The sand settles and the water flows off. At no 

 time will the base of distribution — the dredge— be more 

 than a mile and one-quarter from the point of discharge. 

 Grade-raising is progressing from the edge of the canal 

 toward the bay. After the grade has been raised, the 

 dredges will fill the canal by discharging their loads into 

 it, backing out as they do so. 



Night and day, operations are continuing, each dredge^ 

 making five or six round trips in twenty-four hours. The 

 contract time for completion of the work is Januar.v 1st. 

 1907. In little over two years will 250 men— the combined 

 strength of the grade-raising force — build, virtually, a 

 mountain. 



There is something suggestive of a great epic in 

 this Titanic struggle with the sea, and not a little of 

 grim- humour in the way in which the undaunted 

 American derives from the bosom of the enemy his 

 means of frustrating its future attacks. The cost of 

 raising some three thousand buildings will be borne 

 bv the o^vners. 



MANNING TO GLADSTONE. 



The Dublin Review Recalls the suggestion of Mr. 

 Purcell in his ■" Life of Cardinal Manning," that his 

 letters to Mr. Gladstone were so damaging to Man- 

 ning's character for straightfonvardness that the 

 Cardinal destroyed them before his death. We now 

 learn, says the reviewer, that the letters were never 

 destroyed, and that they are to be published m 

 extenso in Father Kent's Life of Cardinal Manning- 

 From advance sheets of Father Kent's work, the 

 reviewer finds that "the letters are transparently 

 candid, though not quite so intimate or full as those 

 to Sir Robert Wilberforce." It appears from what 

 is reported in the review that these letters will 

 be chiefly of interest to those who are concerned 

 with, the successive developments of the Oxford 

 Movement and the gradual turning of Manning to- 

 wards the Church of Rome. In 1843 Manning, still 

 within the Church of England, writes to Gladstone, 

 " All our powers of intellect, learning, and personal 

 energy will do nothing without a life in the spirit of 

 the three vows. And we are not taking this line. 

 We are civilising the Church, not sanctifying God's 

 elect." In 1848. writing from Rome in the year of 

 revolution, Manning says:- — 



When I think of our social state, the only account I can 

 give of it (as I often have to do to Italians) is that we are 

 a republic under a hereditary president, that the middle 

 class, which is two-thirds of the political force of Eng- 

 land, is the government of the country, and that i>eople do 

 not make revolutions against themselves. 



Of the revolution in progress he says: — 



What the bearing of this may have upon the Church is 

 less easy to say. It falls in with an old belief of mine in 

 which I think vou share— I mean that the Church of the 

 last ages will be as the Church of the first, isolated and 

 separate from the civil powers of the world. In the flr=!t 

 ages the Church won them by making them Christian ; in 

 these days they are renouncing the Church by making 

 themselves again merely secular and material. And in this 

 has long been and is now my fear for the Church of Eng- 

 land. I am afraid it viill be deceived int-o trusting the 

 State too long, and thereby secularising itself. 



This hope of a Church free from entangling alli- 

 ance with the State will doubtless be treasured, and 

 bv others than Liberationists. 



