The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1909-01-12
(From Saturdays Advertiser.)
BY Ernest G. walker.
(Mail Special to the Advertiser.)

MAIL DDbcldl
WASHINGTON December 2s.-The
Bureau of Yards and Docks has signed
up the contract for dredging the chan
mel to Pearl Harbor and there is every
expectation that the work will be under
way within two or three weeks. For
the Hawaiian Dredging Company, the
papers were signed by President Den
ison and Treasurer Dillingham;. For the
Government, Acting Secretary of the
Navy Satterlee signed.
The company has two dredges in Ho-
nolulu harbor now, which can be set to
work Immediately. Some cabling has
been done to secure other dredges that
there may be just as little delay as pos
sible in beginning the work on large
scale. The contract calls for the COM
pletion of the work in three years. The
amount of material to be excavated is
5,O17,0o0 cubic yards.
Drydock Work First Thing.
The bids for the drydock at Pearl
Harbor are to be opened February IL,
by which time it is hoped to expedite
the beginning of actual work on that
important undertaking. When the con
tract for the drydOck is awarded, the
program of construction work for the
Improvement of Pearl Harbor will be
completed, as far as the Bureau OF
Yards and Docks is concerned, for the
present. In about year or year and
a half, the Bureau will take up the
building of machine shops, storehouses
and wharf. Those structures can wait
for a while as it is more urgent to has
ten operations on the drydock and the
dredging. While those two projects
will be in the hands of contractors two
officers of the Civil Engineer corps, Q
w. Parks and G.. s. Burrell, who are
now at Pearl Harbor, will continue
there to supervise and keep an eye over
the progress of the work.
Full Description of Great Dock.
The Bureau recently prepared a mem
orandum of the big drydock, explaining
in detail what it will be. This memo
randum was as follows:
81. The drydock at the naval sta
ton, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, is to b'
the largest ever constructed by thu
Navy Department. Its overall length
is li95 feet, whereas the longest docl
previously constructed, which is at Phil
adelphia, is 799 feet overall, and thu
Puget Sound drydock recently con
tracted for, is 500 feet, overall.
"2. An innovation, SO far as Ameri
can docks are concerned, is that there
will be four caisson seats, two as usua
at the entrance to the drydock an'
two others near the middle of the dock
dividing the main structure into an in
ner and outer dock. There will be TIVE
I steel caisson gates and the arrangement
will be such that with a ship in tn
inner dock the outer dock may be fille'
and emptied independently, thus allow
ing the ship upon which the most ex
tensive repairs are to be made to remail
in the inner dock while ships with mino
repairs are being locked in rapid sue
cession in the outer dock. By floating
the inner caisson from the drydock
ships of greater length than any now il
existence or planned could be docked
80. A trapezoidal form of head ha
been designed for this dock differen
from any hitherto considered. 1t is al
ranged so that three destroyers may b.
locked side by side extending to tn
very head end of the dock, Leaving
room for three other small craft in tn
inner dock. Bids will also be receives
for the usual forms of V-shaped an
arched head.