TRA>^SACTIOXS OF SECTION G. 977 



from my intention to either criticise the past work of the Corporation in relation to 

 their dock enterprises or to volunteer advice to them with respect to possible works 

 of improvement. 



Bristol is, at this moment, of gi'eat commercinl importance, as indicated hy the 

 value of its imports and exports, and occupied an even more important relative 

 ])Osition among British ports at a time when the ports of Liverpool, Glasgow, 

 Cardiff, or Southampton were almost or altogether undeveloped. So far as 

 Customs revenue is concerned, Bristol now stands third, and in regard to the 

 gross value of her sea-borne trade she is thirteenth among ports of the United 

 Kingdom. 



It is unnecessary, and it would be foreign to the objects of Section G, for 

 rae to attempt either to trace the economic reasons which have caused the long- 

 continued importance of Bristol, or to account for the rapid growth of other 

 ports more or less competitive with her. All such causes are to be found, at 

 least to a great extent, in considerations apart from the merely physical charac- 

 teristics of the sea, river, or land at tlie various sites, as, for example, in propin- 

 quity to markets or centres of production, in situation relatively to population or 

 to means of distribution, in individual or collective enterprise, in enlightened or 

 unenlightened administration. 



These circumstances have, in truth, at least as much if not more influence in 

 determining the history and prosperity of ports than wliat are termed natural 

 advantages of respective sites, by which I mean such matters as protection from 

 winds and currents, depth of water in the port itself and in its approaches from the 

 sea, the possession of soil adapted to the foundations of docks or quays, and ready 

 access to suitable materials for cheap and efficient construction. 



While recognising to the full the great advantages of such physical endowments 

 in the development of a great port, one cannot but remember that they form only 

 part of the problem, and that the business of engineers is to modify and direct 

 the great forces and characteristics of Nature for the use and convenience of 

 mankind. We have, in fact, to make the best of a locality which may or may not 

 be promising in the first instance, and history shows us that there are few places 

 which are hopeless for our purposes. Thus while, on the one hand, we see many 

 harbours in this country which mherit from Nature every feature to be desired for 

 the establishment of a port, but which remain u.seless for that object, so, on the 

 other hand, we find many of the great centres of trade established in situations 

 which possessed no such advantages, and where almost everything has had to be 

 supplied by painful exertion and great expenditure. 



As examples of these facts, I may uoint to the remarkable progress of 

 many commercial ports situated in IdcalitifS which were originally the reverse 

 of promising from an engineering jjuiut of view — to Glasgow, where twenty- 

 six millions sterling in value of exports and imports are annually dealt with 

 in ships of the largest draught, though it is placed on a river which only fifty 

 years ago was nearly dry at low water, for a distance often miles below the present 

 docks; to Newcastle, with a present trade of 1'-U millions sterling, which within 

 the memory of this generation was approached by a shallow river, entering a much- 

 exposed part of the North Sea over a dangerous sand bar. Sixty years ago the 

 Tyne could only receive (and that only at high water) a small class of coasting 

 vessels, whereas it is now navigable for deep-draughted vessels for a distance of 

 thirteen miles from the sea. The breakwaters also at Tynemouth, which have 

 been constructed under great difficulties, on a coast without a single natural 

 encouraging characteristic, not only make a valuable harbour of refuge, but have, 

 practically speaking, removed the external bar. 



In a similar way, as evidence of the truth of my proposition, I might point to a 

 multitude of other instances — to the great docks of Buenos Ay res, which city, when 

 I knew it twenty years ago. could not be approached within seven or eight miles by 

 sea-going ships of 15 or 16 feet draught ; to Calcutta, dependent on the dangerous 

 navigation of the Ilooghly, including the dreaded James and Mary shoals ; to the 

 creation of the port of Manchester, forty-five miles from the sea, approached^ by a 

 tide-locked canal which has cost thirteen or fourteen millions of money in its 



1898. 8 B 



