The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1899-05-10
The u. S. DREDCER.
Will Be Used to Prepare Naval
Station Here.
PLAN TO HURRY WORK
/ Blasting Heavy Pumping-The Contractors
| Material Now on the
| Way.

|
upon the construction of the naval
| coaling station at Honolulu will be
| rushed from this time until its COM
| pletion, which is expected to be in
| about eight months. The contracts
signed by the officials of the depart
merit nave been received by the con-
| tractors, Cotton Brothers of Oakland
who will construct the piers, and
| Buchanan &c Campbell, who will do
the dredging for the slips. Word pre-
coded the actual arrival of the formal
| ly signed contracts by telegraphic
| notification from Washington to the
men who will do the work that they
would be given jobs, and they have
made all possible preparations for the
prosecution of the undertaking.
The work of dredging for the slips
will be one of some magnitude, as
there will have to be removed from the
bottom of the bay something like
100000 cubic yards of coral There
will be some little of this which will
offer easy dredging, as it is soft and
partially disintegrated by the flow
of fresh water from the stream
which comes into the bay at a point
close to the site of the coaling station.
The greater part of the dredging,
however, will be in hard coral, which
Will have to be blasted before it can
be elevated and sent ashore. For the
purpose of meeting the conditions
which obtain in the character gof the
bottom upon which they must work.
Mr. Buchanan has designed and is now
having cons ructed complete new
dredge or shovel which will be used to
bring to the surface the broken coral
rock after the blasting from the
bottom
The timbers for the barge, which
will carry the dredge, have been got
out here and put together, so that,
after the dismantling and shipping to
Honolulu, there will be little delay
and less expense in putting up the
float. These timbers have now beer
shipped in the Mary Foster, and there
will be ready for the machinery, when
floating platform upon which it is to
work. The dredge is of the pattern
Of steam-shovel which is used on the
railroads of the West, where it is
mounted upon a fatcar. There must
be in the case of the dredge an en-
tirely new plan of turntabla and boom,
for the reason that in this case the
dredge must be constructed to go to
a depth of 2S15 feet below low water.
Over the area which is to be prepared
for berths for the vessels coming in
to coal there is now from two to
eighteen feet of water at the ebb tide,
and there will be work for large gang
of men all the time during the carry
ing out of the contract.
There will be first a blasting out Of
the coral rock, which will be raised
and dumped into a hopper on board
a scOw which will be moored alongside
the dredge. On this scow there will be
placed a powerful pump, which will
keep such stream of water flowing
through the system of pipes leading
to the shore that every bit of the CO.
raj will be deposited on the low lands
about the docks and coal-bunkers.
All the machinery, except the turn
table and boom, will be made here
under the supervision of the men in
the employ Of the shovel company.
1t is expected that actual excavation
will begin about the 1st of June.