to floor will be 43 feet, giving a flotation depth over keel-blocks of from 29 feet 6 inches, neap tides, to 33 feet, spring tides, at high water. It is built almost entirely of Portland cement concrete, the floor, altars, and walls being faced with this material. The cement is supplied from the Thames and Medway districts, and an excellent gravel is dredged from Southampton Water, quite near the works. The bulk of the concrete is mixed in the proportion of 8 parts to I, the facing to walls and floor, together with the culvert linings, being somewhat stronger, generally 4 to 1. A skin of 4 to I concrete is also laid on the under side of the floor, and carried up the back of the walls, so as to prevent any water which may accumulate there from soaking through the more porous concrete into the dock. This 4 to I concrete is made with special care, the large stones in the gravel being reduced in a steam crusher. The hollow quoins and cill quoins against which the dock gates close, are of granite from the Shap Quarries in West high, being thus very safe and convenient to work on. Access to the floor is given by eight flights of steps, and four slides for timbers are provided. The entrance gates are being constructed by Messrs. Head, Wrightson & Company, of Teesdale. They are built of steel with greenheart meeting faces, and weigh some 250 tons per leaf. They will be opened and closed by direct-acting hydraulic rams-a somewhat novel principle. The rams are being made by Messrs. Armstrong, of Newcastle. For emptying the dock, the water will fall into six large pits near the entrance. From these, three tunnels will lead it to the pump wells, which are placed behind the eastern wall and at a level of 10 feet below the dock floor. Over these an engine house is being built, to contain two 48-inch centrifugal pumps, made by Messrs. Gwynne, of Hammersmith. The pumps will be driven by direct-acting vertical steam engines, steam being supplied from a battery of seven boilers, of the locomotive type, in an adjoining building. This plant is designed to empty the dock in 21⁄2 hours if required. The dock will be fitted with every modern appliance for convenient working. Notably, a traveling electric crane is being built for it by Messrs Stothert & Pitt, of Bath, to lift no less than 50 tons at 80-foot radius. Two years ago the site of the docks was nothing but a mudland, covered by S. S. "OCEANIC" IN LIVERPOOL'S LARGEST GRAVING Dock. formed, the water was thrown out by two pumps, which still work day and night. to keep the works dry and safe. Excavation by hand and by "steam navvy" was next on the programme; and this was carried down as low as seemed safe. Heavily timbered trenches were then sunk along each side of the dock, and in these the massive concrete walls were built. It now remained only to excavate between the walls and build the huge dock floor. This work is being rapidly pushed forward to completion, piece by piece. The chief engineer is Mr. W. R. Galbraith, M. Inst. C. E.; and the resident engineer is Mr. F. E. Wentworth-Sheilds, Assoc. M. Inst. C. E. The contractors, Messrs. John Aird & Company, are represented at Southampton by Mr. J. W. Landrey. The Technical World A little smile to-day may be worth the most eloquent funeral sermon to-morrow. There are always two sides to an argument, but either side is much less than half of it. If people would make more of their own business, and quit minding that which is none of their business, their own business would be more prosperous. 溶 RUTLEDGE RUTHERFORD SUBSCRIPTIONS United States, Canada, and Mexico $2 per year Remit by Draft on Chicago, Express or Postoffice Money Order, payable to THE TECHNICAL WORLD. Subscriptions will begin with current issue. Changes of address should reach the publishers two weeks in advance of date of issue. Entered at the Postoffice, Chicago, Illinois, as secondclass mail matter. Advertising Rates on Application Copy for Advertisements must be received by the 1st of the month. Economy is half the struggle. One does not have to wait to be fleeced to prove that he is not a wolf. The less we speak of our personal virtues, the more conspicuous they appear. A happy, smiling, cheery face pays much of the fare in the journey of life. Many a man would be rich if he did not try so hard to appear to be. The value of a man's principles depends on what it costs him to cash them in practice. It's a good deal easier to sit up straight in church than it is to walk upright in the world. The editor would sometimes like to be a barber. He might then get in all the cuts he wanted. There is a great deal of broken English in this country to-day. The "ten commandments" are referred to particularly. Take a lesson from this: It is the steadygaited horse that covers the greatest number of miles in a day with the least effort. The Forestry Movement THAT trees make the weather, is a scientific truth impressed upon us each year by the alternating procession of disastrous freshets and parching drouth to which large areas of our plains and river valleys are exposed with periodic regularity. Now and then a railroad wreck, like that of the World's Fair flyer in Colorado, caused by the sudden rising of a mountain torrent, tolls its note of warning; but the lesson is as soon forgotten. Mr. Mitchell's article opening this number, not only reveals the folly and danger of recklessly throwing aside the protective woodland mantle that Nature designed to cover the breast of Mother Earth, but gives an attractive picture of the possible results of reforestation, and calls special attention to the admirable work of the Forestry Bureau, which deserves the support of Congress and of all live, intelligent, and broad-minded citizens. A particularly significant passage is that which insists on the fact that there is no necessary antagonism of interests between the forester and the lumberman. "It is the essence of forestry to have trees harvested when they are ripe, and followed by successive crops." Thus, in the long run, even the selfish, material welfare of all will be best ser ved through this eminently rational policy, not to speak of the reclamation of vast areas that now lie worse than fallow, or of far-reaching climatic effects that are essential to the conservation of some of the richest of our national resources. It is not only in the United States that the evils of forest destruction can be noted. A striking object-lesson is found in some of the northern states of Brazil, where, owing to the denudation of timber lands, the desolation of chronic drouth and torrefaction now reigns over vast regions that once offered every inducement to the settler. In the United States the waste of timber during the past fifty years has been almost beyond belief. The continental railroads alone destroyed millions of acres of forests. They slashed and burned recklessly in building their lines, and their engines set fire to and ruined vast areas. Settlers, with no thought of the future value of the timber, added heavily to the waste. And worst of all, the perambulating lumber camps, with a policy as short-sighted as it was avaricious, "cleaned up" untold wealth that lay so abundantly at hand. In one way or another, the ruthless hand of the destroyer has done damage that can be repaired only at the expense of many years. The work of the Forestry Bureau of the Government should be built up and strengthened by more stringent laws and more liberal appropriations. GOOD-BYE to the "hello girl!" Wel come the new era in telephony! The automatic or "girlless" telephone has come. Long-distance conversation by wire is now made nearly as simple a process as talking to a person in the same room with you. No waiting for connections to be made, no mistaking of numbers, no aggravations of a hundred other kinds born of human imperfection. The automatic telephone cannot err, any more than figures lie. Just turn the indicator to the respective digits of the number you want, and the automatic system does the rest. Instantly it rings the bell at the other end, and conversation may be begun without further delay. Of course all of us will miss the telephone girl's sweet voice with its oftenpracticed rising inflection, and we should be grieved to think that so many of the "hello" sorosis would be thrown out of employment were it not for the belief that her position will thereby be bettered. The soft voice she has cultivated from the gentle "Hello," and "Number, please," and "They're talking, call again, please," is sure to stand her in good stead in finding a more satisfactory way of earning a livelihood. earning a livelihood. The life of the telephone girl was not the most delightful in the world, anyhow. Her hours were long, her labors toilsome and unhealthful. There never was a successful invention to economize labor that did not work to the benefit of all concerned who had the disposition and the desire. to be benefited. Therefore we hope to see the telephone girl of yesterday holding a more exalted commercial position or dictating the duties of the household to-morrow. The automatic telephone has already been installed in Chicago and many other cities. It will add to our convenience and contentment. It is called the "girlless," "noiseless," "waitless," "cussless" system. Land Enough for All "LAND WITHOUT POPULATION is a wilderness. Population without land is a mob." It was James J. Hill, the uncrowned king of the Northwest, who said this. Mr. Hill did much toward equalizing the conditions in his chosen domain, and thus aided the Northwest in becoming rich and powerful. But what a vast area of uncultivated land still remains in the United States awaiting but the population to make it an empire, and what a myriad of vain toilers there are in the overcrowded districts of the United States and Europe that need only land to become the makers of an empire. An empire greater than all of America's new possessions and greater than the present America itself can be reared from the untilled soil of the Western States. This is the grand work the Salvation Army has undertaken. Commander Booth Tucker tells about it in this issue of THE TECHNICAL WORLD, and his splendid mission is bound to appeal to every person interested in this country's welfare. It is one of the most important movements of the age. Probably there is no organization better capacitated to perform this |