THE MADRAS HARBOUR. 



79 



frame which can run outwards to the extreme end of the 

 upper platform. This traveller again carries a third set of 

 rails placed transverse to the line of the breakwater, and upon 

 these run a powerful hoisting crab. All the movements of 

 the traveller and the crab and the hoisting of the latter are 

 performed by a steam engine fixed on the after- end of the 

 Titan, and the man in charge, by turning a handle or a 

 wheel, can " lift up," " lower," " go to sea," " go home," 

 "go north," "go south," — six separate movements at the 

 word of command of the foreman. 



The crab can just come over the spot to which the loco- 

 motive has pushed the block upon its railway truck. It is 

 there slung again, by the same lewises as served to lift it 

 from the platform on which it was originally made, run out 

 to sea, and lowered down on to the bed prepared for it by the 

 divers. Now all that has to be done is to remove the 

 lewises, so that another block may be placed upon it. This, 

 in the case of the bottom blocks, is done by the divers, but 

 in the case of the blocks above it is effected by the men above 

 by means of an ingenious device of Mr. Thorowgood's, by 

 which, with a sharp pull from above, the lewis is turned 

 through its required angle, and then, being free, is drawn up 

 by the Titan. 



By the repetition of this process eleven thousand and 

 twenty times, eleven thousand and twenty blocks had been 

 set up to the 31st of January last, resulting in 6,912 feet of 

 breakwater, rather more than one mile and a third. Abstract 

 numbers convey little idea ; so, for the sake of giving a fact 

 worth recording, I feel justified in claiming on behalf of the 

 Madras Harbour Works staff the construction of a greater 

 length of breakwater than has ever before been accomplished 

 in four years by two machines. 



This brings our history down to a very recent date. The 

 less we say about the future perhaps the better, except that 



