148 THE RAISING OF THE DRY-DOCK DEWEY. 
In contributing to the discussion of this paper, I feel that I must somewhat 
reverse the order of the subjects as considered by the paper. To me the most impor- 
tant part is the personal achievement of the men who accomplished the work of 
raising the dock. We, as engineers, can plan and cause construction to be created, 
but after they are completed and tested they pass out of our charge and care, and 
in this instance we have an example of a structure requiring about two years for its 
completion at a cost of approximately $1,500,000, being to all intents and purposes 
completely lost or rendered practically valueless within a few hours, save for the 
knowledge and energy of those engineers who happened to be on hand at that par- 
ticular time, and to them I wish to pay the tribute which I consider due; that is, 
that the knowledge and ability shown in raising and floating the dry-dock Dewey 
under the conditions, was as great or greater than that required to design and con- 
struct the dock. 
To lay out the work for the month’s campaign which resulted so satisfactorily, 
was a stupendous undertaking. ‘The paper deals with only the barest details of the 
accomplishment. The getting together and connecting up of the pumps with their 
steam and water piping, the gathering of vessels and floats to provide the necesary 
power, the building of the cofferdams, and the correlating of all this equipment to 
get the most out of it in the very short time that the operation continued day and 
night under high pressure, is a test which tries out men and material, and the suc- 
cessful accomplishment of the work should not pass without its proper recognition 
by engineers, and I, for one, am glad to have the opportunity to acknowledge the 
high quality of the work. 
The second important feature of this paper, to which I should like to call 
attention, is the very high appreciation I have for the Bureau of Yards and Docks, 
and the Bureau of Construction and Repair for the very frank and complete manner 
in which this information has been presented. My entire engineering experience 
leads me to believe that it takes the very highest kind of moral courage to allow all 
the facts to speak for themselves under all circumstances, and I am equally certain 
that, given this courage, the result will always more than justify the action. 
Floating dry-docks are of very great importance, both from a military and 
commercial point of view, and may be said to be an absolute necessity. The num- 
ber, however, is very limited relative to ships, and our experimental and recorded 
knowledge relative to their operation is correspondingly limited. Therefore, the 
knowledge contained in this paper is of the very greatest importance to those who, 
like myself, are earnestly studying the problem of their construction. 
I should now like to take up some of the matters of information which the 
paper contains and comment upon them relative to the effect they should have upon 
the future design and construction of floating dry-docks. 
Generally speaking, it would seem that the cause of the sinking of this dock was, 
first, the corrosion of the air discharge pipes, which being submerged when the dock 
was lowered, allowed water to enter on the port side, causing the dock to list, and 
that, as soon as this list was established, the water commenced to flow from the 
