The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-11-30
FINAL BLAST
HAS BEEN
FIRED
Harbor Contract About
Finished for Time
Being.

Yesterday forenoon the last blast for
the present harbor work was dis
charged in Honolulu harbor, and by
Thursday the contractors will be fin
ished and will await the judgment of
the Army engineers under whose di-
rection the dredging of the harbor has
been done.
The contractors have finished many
months ahead of their contract time,
and the job is said to have been well
done. The harbor has been greatly en-
larged, as much of the dredging in
cluded the removal of virgin reef. par
ticularly that at the old site of the
lighthouse and at the Eva end of the
harbor. The harbor has been dredged
there to a uniform depth of thirty-five
feet at low tide.
The big seoop-dredger Governor will
be moved over this morning to a po-
sition directly in front of the apron
over which the loaded cars are passed
to the new island from the scows, and
the debris from the cars which dropped
into the harbOr will be removed and
deposited on the island. The suction
dredger Reclamation will be moved
over to where the Governor last work
ed on virgin coral and will scOur up
the harbor floor.
Soundings show that the work has
been pretty well cleaned up, and with
the removal of the buoy over the elH
lighthouse site, big steamers will find\
that they not only have more room
in which to maneuver, but there will
be a tremendous cutoff just as they
pass the Myrtle bOathouse and the
Channel wharf, eliminating what has
always been an awkward turn hereto
fore.
Recently the Reclamation suction ap-
paratus encountered some material
which it could not handle, and. the at
tention of the blasters was called to
some hummOeks or rocks and they
were asked to blast it out. After the
blasting had been concluded. the Gov
ernor began to scoop up the debris,
and the dredger men found it was a
sort of mud of extraordinary density
and apparently foreign to the mud
usually found in the harbor. A single
ear of this stuff when passed over the |
apron appeared to weigh down the lat |
ter as if it were a whole train.
Inspector James II. Boyd began fig |
uring on the matter and came to the |
conclusion that the dense heap repre- |
sented part of the ballast cargo of a !
schooner which arrived here from ia
pan about 1850. There was some
trouble over the vessel and it was f.
nalIv purchased by local capitalists.
The vessel was brought into the har-
Dor and unfortunately turned turtle
and ssrk. At any rate. to raise the
vessel the ballast cargo had to be
pumped out, and the mud which the
Reclamation could not suck up and
which required blasting to dislodge is
believed to be a portion of this cargo,
mixed with other harbor muck.
The dredgers found very little money
or relics during the present contract.
A few timbers of old vessels which
sank in Naval, or Rotten. Row were
brought up. but as the harbOr has
been secured over so many times. the
coin finding opportunities were reduced
TO a minimum
Some time today the government au-
thorities will commence taking sound
inps of the entire harbOr with the new
sounding apparatus recently acquired.
This apparatus makes sounding an al
most perfect process and few mounds
escape. Data will be made up from
these soundings, which will include the
slips between wharves, and on these
will be based the specifications for
further 100000 contract to dredge
the harbor until the basin extends to
The lines approved by the Army engin-
,ers This new dredging, for which an
will have to be made,
viii take in the virgin area from the I
Quarantine wharf to the Eva end of +
he harbor. makai of the American
Hawaiian freight sheds, and including. .
Sumner Island and the site of the l
present Quarantine wharf. The latter, n
lnder the new harbor plans, is to be f
moved back quite a distance, so that =
he harbor will present uniform ap-
,earance. with no wharves or piers {
projecting into the maneuvering area. Y