TIMARU HARBOR BOARD.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2198, 9 May 1891, Page 1

TIMARU HARBOR BOARD.

A special meeting of the limaru Harbor Board was bold on Wednesday, there being present Messrs E. Acton (chairman), Stumbles, Talbot, Fiatman, Morris, Wilson, Gibson, Hill, and Manchester, and Captain Wooloombe. At the last meeting of the board it was decided that Mr Napier Bell should be consulted, and report on the best method in. his opinion of dealing with the travelling shingle. Mr Bell is on the staff of the Midland Railway, and the chief engineer, Mr B. Wilson, decided that Mr Bell could not report except through him. He offered .to visit iimaru with Mr Bell and to report for £llO. After fully discussing the question it was decided to accept the offer. The chairman informed the board that the account from the Marine Department for Mr O’Connor’s services as a commissioner was £l9 1 Is Mr James Wellman, 0.E., patentee of the Wellman pump dredge, was introduced to the board, to confer with them respecting the suitability of his dredge for lifting the shingle, A

letter be had written a week or two ago, drawing attention to the construction and capacity of bis machine and the work it is doing in Otago, was read. In reply to questions Mr Wellman stated that the shingle on the beach at Timaru would be easily lifted by his pumps. On the goldfields they often lilted rough stones up ; to half a hundred-weight, He explained his patented appliances for preventing shocks and saving wear, and another speciality was the nozzle. A pump to discharge 300 tons of spoil per hour would require an 18 inch pipe. Such a pump would discharge a great deal more working under the best conditions, but he understood the board proposed to work the pump from a high staging, and the high lift would reduce the velocity of the water in the suction pipe. There need be no fear of the reduced velocity not lifting the shingle, as a siphon with only 14 inches of fall would lift sovereigns. An 18-incb pump would require engines of 120 to 180 h.p, indicated. He did not think there was much sand in the shingle to flow out of the hopper with the water. The pump would be quite suitable for dredging the harbor, ordinary work, not lifting rocks of eource. It would not work in a swell any more than a ladder dredge would. He would giro a guarantee of working capacity and against unusual wear and tear. It would take about nine months to gee a dredge, from sending plans Home to delivery. He was going Home in a couple of months of so and returning, and if the board gave him an order he would see the machine built and come out with it and set it going. The working cost of the dredging, including repairs, would be about 2£d or 3d a yard. A small machine would cost as much in running expenses as a large one, the some men being wanted. On the gold dredges only two men were employed on the dredge, the nozzle man and the engined river. He thought it would be the cheapest to get the hopper barge built at Home, taken to pieces and put together here. It was agreed that Mr Marchant, the board’s engineer, should give Mr, Wellman all the particulars be could so that he might give a rough estimate of cost, and the meeting terminated.