The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1870-06-21 00:00:00

PROPOSED GREAT DOCK AT PORTrAND.
To as Rdif or._
_ _

SI longoontinued and increasing distress in
tte once prosperous island of Portland has been com-
mented on from time to time In your columns, till I no
afraid we are getting somewhat reconciled to a state of
things which MUM like the commeneement of the
Cotton Famine in Lenceshire, and to be content to
allow it to remain, because It truly •geots .boot 8,000
people. But let me entreat say of your readers who,
In these times of pushing and striving. and cutting
down, when one can hardly " make two ends meet,"
even with full employment, to passe and consider the
condition of • population like that I have mentioned,
shut up in their island with their staple trade dyine
away from under them, and redoes& after a winter in
which they have suffered the loss of almost all their
swinge, to • summer in *birth. at the brightest time of
the yen, they can only work three or four days in the
week, or at all events, expect to be paid for that short
time. It is true that a few have adopted the resolu-
tion of parting with their natiVe felb, sod going to a
far country to retrieve their fortunes, and noose
attend them I But we have to do, and soon shall have
snore to do, with those who AM unable to adopt
intensive resource of emigration, for the very r
that no money is left. The summer time is • season
when men and their families can endure privations
more cheerfully ; but the next winter is approaching,
sod without hope of seiendment, it must be • terrible
est. The went is evidently that of demand for the
i valuable stone so plentifully supplied from Portland.
I And I rennet help thinking that while the immense
piles of ready-worked stone, enough to build several
teens, remain in the Government works at the epeeist
quarries, there is little hope of the demand beCorning so
brisk as to tell in any way upon the supply. And yet
there is • pleas crying with open month to any obser-
vant visitor, for thousands neon thousands of tons of
that very due. waiting idle at an easy distance. What
is the one great want to Portland Harbottrof Refuge?
What is that needed above all others to make it a brat-
clam naval station, a matchless port for foreign and
colonial mails, and tire great mercantile emporium in
the South? I take it, dr, this great nerd is • dock, or
• series of docks, proportionate to the importance of
the position. The island itself, it is a truism to repeat,
Is fitted to be the Gibraltar of England, a fortress attn.
lately impregnable, and even unanailable. It is even
superior to Gibraltar, for the bay there is also over.
locked by the Spanish port of A Igeeiras, end who knows
mint great guns may do by and by? But the harbour
of Portland is also guarded by the Nothe, our own
fort, and English guns 'weep every part of its waters.
The anchorage is gambol 5m well as it can be by the
great Breakwater, the position, LS near 58 possible in
the centre of the south coast of Regina, aad opposite
the rival French harbour of Cher bourg, is unsurpassable,
and there is only one need. What is it that Cherbourg
possesses which Portland does not? Only two things a
griello of fortifications on the lend side, which Portland
does not require, or which could easily be supplied in
Wyke Matish, and a series of wet and dry DOCKS
These lest are the greeted need at Pertland, for no
crippled vessel of very large sin ean be repaired there,
so that although the ordinary feet of ooasters receive
every 585111551104 to WeyMOtith, at Our repairing docks,
the large Indiatnen and Other long voyaged vessels are
compelled to pee on to some other port, perhaps
Sonthempton, and H.ll, ships of war go to Plymouth
and Portsmouth. Yet at Portland is a place fitted by
Nature to be the site of all kinds of docks, and, as if to
attract attention thereto, Nature herself has formed it
into one of the nearest possible imitations, by making
two piers @cross the sea side of it with an entrance
through which the sea fills It at high tide and drains it
at the ebb. I mean of course the Mere, close by Port-
land railway station. This is • triangular piece of space
enclosed by the Chesil Beach on one side, the land of
Portland on the other, and partly divided from the
Harbour by two spits of clay and shingle, one running
from Portland Castle about 200 yards, there is then an
opening of about 100 yards, and thence another spit
runs to the main body of the beach from 500 to 700
yards in iennth. liThe bottom of the Mere is mud, and
stones, ending in stiff blue clay—a continuation of that
which makes Portland Roads, the beet anchorage in the
world. The Mere is about an isosceles triangle in
shape, the base being 550 yards, and the two sides about
1200 yards long, thus enclosing an areaof about 300.000
squ.re yards. Now the clink. of Cherbourg, from Fort
de Hornet to Fort Lonelet, aro only 1600 yards, aid
the width is between 500 and 000 yards. Thus it will
be seen that the Mere at Portland is of a site sufficiently
near the dock space at Cherbourg to be a very e
able rival. But Cherbourg bee also a commerebril=,
and • reserved dock in the town itself, and at • &damn
from the specially fortified docks for purposes of the
Fleet. There would be no difficulty in rivalling and even
surpassing these in the long line of sheltered coast from
the inner Portland Breakwater to the point where the
road starts from Smallmouth beach to Weymouth. All
along here the coast hoe is low, acid everywhere
accessible from vessels in the docks which might be
formed there, by cutting channels through the cliy,
that easels of deep draught might reach the shore, or
running out piers. There are no cliffs for • long distance
and if the traffic reqoired etch an extension, there is
room for the construction of something like • mend
Liverpool. At least two miles of shore would be
available for this purpose. But at present lam writing
of. the Mere, which I propose should be the nucleus of
this great system, being prominently pointed out by
Nature. Along 1200 yards or so, one of its longest
sides, the Portland railway runs. This railway can be
loaded with stone to I may say, an almost illimitable
extent. At all events the amount of stows required for
°anorthic the Mere into a vast aeries of wet and dry
docks can be provided from shove at • very cheap rate,
even faster than it could be used. The oonstrectors of
such doeks would have in effect tbe stone falling to their
hands, for down the stone railroad would descend such
immense stores as would take armies of workmen
to use up. Fancy the impetus given to the
trade by such works! Why Portland would leap at
once from almost the zero of despondency to the height
of prosperity. Full time and fall wages would be the
order all over the island, the Portland railway would
have its receipts immensely increased, the gas works
close by would be required to light the town that must
spring up around the reilway testicle, and further in
towards Chesil and Fortune's Well. And the results
would be lasting as well as brilliant. Portland would
become what she ought to be- the great central port of
the south of England, mail services would be naturally
started from hire, for nob facilities would compel their
being treated to this Harbour, and • gran, strong,
'heap fortress, tort, and town, would be added to the
d3llllOlOllll of our gracious Queen. There is oae doubt
only on the matter—the 0410111 of Weymouth for her
wow, Them, with your permission, I take leave
to say, are no insignificant, that they may well be
reserved for a future letter. Rut Portlanden cannot
expect these great advantages I have mentioned to drop
into their mouths, if they will scarcely open them.
The Load Board should glee up their petty squabbles
about hone hire, and drains, and curbstones, and unite
to enforce on the Government the immense importance
of trolling the mere into cloaks. They mast represent
how their stone trade is rapidly falling off, so that
Government money might be well employed to save the
population from nun. They should show how Port-
land, matchlem as a harbour, and as a fortress, requires
docks to make it • great port. They should have a
survey (no difficult matter) of the Rare, show its size,
its tides, its position, its surroundings, the quality of
the nil at its bottom, they should animate the price
at which stone en be delivered ion the spot, and how
fast, what Labourers and workmen can be supplied, and
at what wages, and they should point out the un-
perelieled position Portland occupies as a south central
Port. These memoranda should be reduced to the
form of memorials to the Admiralty, to the Board of
Trade, the House of Commons itself, and anybody and
everybody concerned, and presented and urged by our
county members. If Weymooth members will unite to
press forward the matter, so much the better; but it
must be remembered thatit is not Weymouth backwater
that is being fought for, but Portland Mere, and that
the meil service is not to be simply an comition for a
grand dinner in Wrifmouth Rings, but one of the sup-
ports of a greet town that shall ultimately unite For.
tune's Well. Chesil, and Castietown, and be one of the
most populous= on the southern cont. Let the cry be
" Portland for the Portla.oders 10 and Weymouth her-
self will soon rejoice in the prospect of another Ply•
month under the heights of the Verne—a Plymouth
that shall send her nia times as many visitors as the
chews excursionists from Bristol and iteth.—youre
truly,
JEBBRVKII.