796 REPORT— 1888. 



Above Datum 

 Feet 



Bottom of basin 3000 



Bottom of dock 3000 



Coping of basin and dock . . 7650 



Top of breakwaters . 78-50 



The shipment of coal will take place from eleven high-level coal-tips and four 

 cranes on the north side of the dock, and five low-level tips on the mole, and one 

 tip at the west end of the dock. Space for a larger number of tips exists on the 

 mole and on the south side of the dock and in the basin. Imports will be accom- 

 modated on the south and east sides of the dock. All the machinery wiU be worked 

 by hydraulic pressure from an engine-house and accumulators at the south 

 side of the dock, and two other accumulators on the north side of the dock. The 

 first sod of the dock was cut in November 1884, and it is expected that the docks 

 will be opened at the end of this year or the beginning of 1889. The engineers for 

 the dock works are the author and Mr. T. Forster Brown and Mr. H. M. Brunei ; 

 the resident engineer is Mr. John Robinson. The contractor for the dock works 

 is Mr. T. A. Walker. The cost of the dock works will be about 850,000?., including 

 the gates and all the hydraulic and other machinery, electric light, &c. 



2. Plant and Machinery in use on the Manchester Ship Canal} 

 By Lionel B. Wells, M.Inst.C.E. 



When the Association met at Manchester last year Mr. Leader Williams read 

 a paper giving a general description of the Manchester Ship Canal, and the author 

 proposes to give some account of the means adopted by Mr. T. A. W^alker, the 

 contractor, for carrying out the work. 



The Canal commences at Eastham, 5 miles above Liverpool, and extends to 

 Manchester, So^^ miles further inland, and is practically a continuous cutting. The 

 Canal is to be more than half as wide again as that of Suez, and, with extensive 

 docks and the deviations of the various railway lines to provide for, the earthwork 

 amounts to about 50 million cubic yards. 



The engineer has divided the work into sections, and appointed a resident 

 engineer to each. The contractor divides the work into nine sections ; each section 

 is assigned to an agent, with a separate staff of sub-agents and engineers looking to 

 the agent for instructions. To their charge is consigned the plant allotted to each 

 section ; they have their own workshops, means of repairing plant, &c. The 

 whole is controlled by an agent-in-chief with head-quarter staff in Manchester; 

 but each section is worked as a separate contract ; the individual responsibility of 

 the agent is thus secured by Mr. Walker, and the Canal Company hold Mr. 

 Walker responsible for his contract to complete the whole of the work. 



A commencement was made during the winter, and already the progress has 

 been very great, mainly with excavation, and especially on the sections at 

 Eastham and Manchester. 



The plant for a contract of such magnitude, to be completed within a limited 

 time, is necessarily great in quantity and of the most improved description. In 

 addition to the usual locomotives, which already number eighty-seven, there are 

 upwards of sixty steam-diggers of various models, some of which were referred 

 to in detail and photographs shown ; also new excavating machines were de- 

 scribed, which, under the name of the French or German Excavator, for each nation 

 supplies its especial machine, have been for the first time introduced into this 

 country. The action of the machine is that of a bucket-dredger, but instead of 

 being water-borne it is worked on a railway. 



Already the e:icavations exceed a million and a quarter cubic yards a month, 

 and the output is still increasing. 



' Printed in extenso in the Engineer, Sept. 21, 1888. 



