Hydraulic Power on Wellington Wharf.

Manawatu Herald, 5 November 1895, Page 2

Hydraulic Power on Wellington Wharf.

All country visitors to Wellington make it a point to walk around the different Tees of the Queen's Wharf and Railway Wharf, and rightly too for there will be found more life and bustle than is to be found anywhere else in Wellington, and also forms an agreeable break to the acoustomed quiet of the country. The wharf is the beat for speedy discharge and loading of vessels of any wharf south of the Line, so at least every Wellington man say?, and there is no one to say him nay. But looking at what is accomplished it is possible that the assertion is true. The £1 inborn 1 Board has a fine revenue, and spends it judiciously and profit by. On the edges of the various Tee's will be noticed the rather ungainly objects called "Jiggers," in fact, small cranes worked by hydraulic power. The steamers mostly use their own engines for shifiiug cargo, but the stevedores, especially when an extra spurt is being made to load up, employ these in addition to the steamer's power. These jiggers can be obtained at three shillings and sixpence an hour with the services of the man who works it given in. This we have to place against two men otherwise employed, one at the winch and one at the falls, and as these men get one shilling and threepence an hour, the cost of the jigger is really brought down to one shilling an hour, a mere trifle. Tne use of this waterpower enables the storage accommodation in the wharf sheds to ba very considerably increased, by the casein which wool, cases, &c, are piled up right to the top plates. Running from end to end of the sheds, one on each side, is shafting with pulleys and hooks. When goods require shifting the claw hooks are placed on case and and then the pulley hook attached, and a man at the end of the shed turns a handle letting the water power on and the case is lifted without noise or b fther. No storeman or carter dreams of getting even warm in lifting any heavy package, these hooks are used, the goods placed on the dray, all free of cost to the carter, and away he goes. The wharfage is two shillings a ton including receiving and delivering charges. The prettiest work is to watch the dumping of wool. In each shed are presses for this work, but on the wharf there has to be a platform a little over two feefc above the floor shed, as the depth to which the press sinks had to ba regulated by the height of high water. The press, we will say, is iust opened for work, the bottom p.atform lowered to a foot below the stand. Water power lifts two bales on to stand close to press and two men stand them in the press on end. The press is then lowered till the bales disappear below the stand and two more bales are lifted on and placed •a end on the top of the first two bales. The press is then closed up, a handle turned to put the power on and up walks the bottom platform to half way between stand and top of preßS. Four iron bands are put round each bale and being longer than the bales, whilst under pressure, have two little buttons placed in the holes and turned so that the cross pieces hold. The press is then lowered and the bales ! expand until the bales are as tight as they can be, and the bales are rolled out on to the floor. Though 4 bales are pressed at one time only 2 bales are put together, thus the 4 bales mekt) 2 dumped bales. Four men work these presses and only take five minutes to put into the press, dump, fasten, and put on to shed floor, four bales of wool. The cost is therefore not great and the profit h greater.