An important step toward _making Vancouver one of North America's principal outlets to the Grient took place on February 21 when the Canadian Cabinet awarded the contract for the erection of a modern graving dock at Vancouver to J. Coughlan Sons, Ld. The order-in-council was signed the same day by the Governor-General, the Duke of Devonshire. The contract came within the scope of the Drydock Subsidy Act.
The subsidy on docks of the second class, as will be the one constructed in the present instance, is 4} per cent. on a maximum of $2,250,000 for a period of 35 years, or $112,500 annually.
The dry dock will be large enough to care for the largest vessel now plying the Pacific. It will be 110 It. wide by 750 ft. long, of sufficient size to accommodate any ship capable of passing through the Panama Canal. It will cost $3,750,000. Work has already commenced and with the employment of 500 men, the number being gradually increased to 1,500, the construction of this great undertaking is expected to prove a boon to those out of employment.
The dry dock will be modern in every respect. It will fill a much needed want and will place Vancouver in a position to-compete as a shipping port with Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco. It is anticipated that the Japanese steamship companies will find this an additional inducement to make Vancouver one of their regular points of call, Besides a drydock a marine railway and machine shops will be erected. The marine railway which will be completed in a year will take vessels weighing 3,500 tons. The graving dock will not be finish-for another two years.
The following are the dock's dimensions. Length from caisson top to headwall, 725 ft.: length from back of sill to headwall, 700 ft.; clear width of entrance at bottom, 110 ft.; depth over sill at high-water, 30 ft.
The minimum pensions for docks of the second class as fixed by the Drydock Subsidy Act are length from caisson groove to head, 650 ft.; clear width at entrance, ft. depth of water over sill at high-water, 35 ft.; depth of water over sill at ordinary low water, 25 ft.
The government is also considering erecting a first class graving dock at Esquimalt, Worxixe men's clubs in Leicesters hire and Northamptonshire have inaugurated a joint scheme for establishing a ce-operative brewery. and the man who had done it thought I was ' going out.'
"The hearing was adjourned, to give the jury an opportunity of seting the picture,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.