24 PRESENT AND FUTURE PROSPECTS OF 



which we all intend to keep, inviolate from tlie tread of 

 any invader. 



To ijive you some idea of the magnitude of this 

 work, only as far as the timber required in its construc- 

 tion is concerned, I give you the quantities which can be 

 regarded as the minimum required before it is com- 

 pleted : — Hardwoods, principally greenheart and rock- 

 elm, 25,000 cubic feet, and softwood, pitch-pine, red- 

 wood, &c., 75,000 cubic feet for permanent work ; and 

 for merely temporary staging, 550,000 cubic feet blue- 

 gum and other hardwood ; and pitch pine, &c., for super- 

 structure, 700,000 cubic feet ; so that an undertaking 

 which will consume some 27,000 to 30,000 loads, or 

 1,500,000 cubic feet, in its construction, is not a matter 

 which any timber-producing country can regard with 

 indifference. 



You will naturally ask why we were obliged to come 

 to Tasmania for these piles of 100 feet in length and 18 to 

 20 inches square? Could we not have got them in some 

 other quarter less distant, and at a smaller cost? In 

 reply to this, I can tell you that we could and did get 

 Yet J good timber of the same length and dimensions 

 from Vancouver's Land, and have employed already a 

 large quantity on the Dover Avorks. We foimd, however, 

 that this Oregon timber, which, I may mention, cost us 

 considerably less in price than Tasmanian bine-gum, 

 had certain disadvantages. In the first place, it has only 

 47 to 48 lbs. of specific gravity. This, in itself, is an 

 objection for driving purposes. In a place like Dover, 

 where we have to contend against strong tides and 

 currents, it is nearly impossible to get a pile of 

 Oregon 100 feet in length into position for driving it 

 into the ground, through 47 feet of water at low tide, 

 unless it is what we call "weighted" with old railway iron 

 at the end, and which entails an expense in material and 

 labour of nearly £10 per log. Then we have to reckon 

 in these submarine structures wjth a very small, but most 

 destructive, little insect caDed, in Latin, the " Terridce 

 iiavalis,'^ or, in plain English, a species of seaworm. We 

 found that in 21 months to two years' time this ravaging 

 little animal completely honeycombed an 18-inch log of 



