200 O/i Docks — Dry, Wet, and Floating. 



vessels, it stands to reason that in a port which, like Hobart 

 Town, is visited by upwards of 92,000 tons of shipping an- 

 nually — where the vessels belonging to the port are increasing 

 daily — where ship -building is carried to an extent seldom 

 seen in a colony, and where the cheapness and quality of the 

 materials used, and the comparative cheapness of labour, 

 will, in all probability, lead to a still greater extension of 

 this trade, — it would be advisable to offer every possible 

 facility for the repair of the shipping trading in these 

 seas. 



Hundreds of vessels are employed in the trade of these 

 colonies — hundreds of vessels belonging to different nations 

 are employed in the whale fishery ; and it is not too much 

 to expect that, whenever any accident might render repair 

 necessary, many of these vessels would resort to this port, — 

 which is easy of access, where the climate is good, where 

 provisions and stores are cheap, — could we offer to them the 

 necessary facilities for the execution of the repairs of which 

 they might stand in need. 



As, therefore, the interests of the Colony are, I may say, 

 to a certain extent bound up in this question, I have thought 

 that a sketch of the different systems upon which dry docks 

 have been constructed, together with an account of the 

 difl&culties attendant upon their construction in different 

 localities, would not prove uninteresting, more especially as 

 introductory to a more minute account of a plan which has 

 been adopted in America, in a locality analogous, as far as 

 regards the rise and fall of the tides, to the harbour at 

 Hobart Town. 



Dry docks, for the reception of ships while under repair, 

 may be classed under two heads : — 



1st. Those where the space for the dock is excavated out 

 of the solid ground, and made secure by some means from 

 the percolation of the water. 



