The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1905-12-31

! If the plans outlined by Lieutenant
!. S!attery, United States Army Engineer
h Corps. go through, Uncle Sam viii
a spend more than one and three-quar-
ters millions of good American coin -
A and about Honolulu just as fast as the
a money can be had
q The plans for the fortification Of
Pearl Harbor and Honolulu, which
have already been recommended by the
Secretary of War to Congress and
which call for s715,O00, are based on
recommendations from the local office
of the War Department, but they are
merely "reiterations'' of the recommen-
dations made by the Board of Army
Engineers which was down here four or
five years ago. The only difference is
that this time Lieut.. Slattery was able
to report that there was now land
available for the construction of heavy
batteries and on the strength of that
7 encouraging state of affairs the Secre-
tary of War sent the item to Congress
for the first time and Delegate kuh1o
has introduced a bill to cover the ap-
preparation.
BIGGEST GUNS TO BE USED.
The fortifcations that will first be
put in will probably be 12-inch batter
les with a ten-miIe range. They will
be built in such way that when the
guns are in they can all be trained on
a single ship or fired at different YES
sells. None of them will be visible from
the sea, but will be of the disappearing
kind. There are no larger batteries In
use in the United States at present,
the larger caliber having been found
undesirable for actual use.
None of the ships now affoat can fre
with anv precision at a greater distance
than five miles, so the protection to the
harbor is easily attained. The method
of shooting these enormous rifles is to
have the entire fiela, whether water
or land mapped off very carefully into
small sections and the firing is directed
by signals indicating the particular
section, the gunners not seeing what
they are shooting at.
The fortffcatfons will doubtless be
tuilt IN pairs, ore Of each l-ia3 at
Pearl Hsrbor and Honolulu. AS I4ie'i-
tenant Slattery stated yesterday, neith-
er the Pearl .1ochs nor the city of
Honolulu is protected unless they are
both protected. They are inseparable
parts of the whole and as the fortif-
catior of both places is of prime inn
portance at once, the lieutenant hopes
to see the appropriation asked for
made.
NAVIGATION TO BE SAFE
GUARDED.
But In addition to the fortifications
which are national in their bearing, the
army engineer has big plans for Homo
lulu and Oahu in the way of light
houses and dredging. The lieutenant
wants a million for the completion OF
the dredging of Honolulu harbor in ad-
dition to $4,000 more for three light
houses, a new set of range lights for
Honolulu harbor and a magnificent
lighthouse with first order light at
BIakapuu point for the benefit of ves-
sells coming from San Francisco. This
light will be visible eighteen to twenty
miles at sea and is proposed to be or
the flash pattern. That is to say, it
will shine steadily for few seconds
and then. as it revolves; it will show
brilliant flash. This is considered
preferable to the type which flashes
and then is dark. /
NEW LIGHTS FOR HONOLULU.
The lights for Honolulu will be of the
fourth order and will be visible for ten
to twelve miles. The old lighthouse in
the harbor is about to fall down and
will have to be removed any way when
the rest of the dredging contract is let,
as the land on which 1t stands Is to
become a part of the harbor. The new
lighthouse and keepers quarters, as
proposed by the lieutenant, are now
the subject of hard work in the local
Army Engineers Office.
If the plan goes through as Mr.. Slat-
terry has designed it, the lighthouse
will have a tower high enough to place
the light forty feet above the level
of the sea. Below will be four rooms
each for two keepers, fitted up In good
shape for comfort and business COM
bined. The construction will be con-
crete throughout and, while costly, IS
absolutely substantial and permanent,
requiring practically no repair. The
estimated cost of the lighthouse in the /
harbor is $50 000 A bill for this is now
before Congress introduced by Dele
gate Kuhio.
ESPLANADE LIGHT.
On shore there will have to be a new
range light which will have to be SO
located that the new lighthouse light
and the shore light will be absolutely
in line only when the observer is di-
rectly in the center of the new chan
nel- This new lighthouse will be of
very handsome design and can bel
placed either at the corner of Fort