DREDGING OTAGO HARBOR.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 538, 3 August 1869, Page 2

DREDGING OTAGO HARBOR.

Dredging operations in the new channel, in Dunedin Day, are going on successfully, and for some time past the beneficial effects of the work have been felt. Vessels of two and three hundred tons can now moor alongside the Rattray street jetty, and discharge and take in cargo. Tho original depth at high water along the retaining wall was seven to eight feet. Iu the narrow channel made by the dredging machine it is fourteen feet. The shallowest pari, of the channel, between the Port and Dunedin. is abreast of Macandrew's Bay, where it is twelve feet. Work is rather slow at present, owing to the time lost in placing the sludge securely within the wall by means of punts, and in waiting for fides. It is estimated that when the new travelling shoot or dischargintr apparatus now in course of construction by Mr William Wilson, of the Otago Foundry, is completed, the work of three months under present circumstances will be performed in one. The discharging apparatus, upon which an immense amount of labor has been expended, is now rapidly approaching completion. It has been launched, and is now upon three punts, moored at the reclaimed ground near Rattray street jetty. Its weight, when finished, will he about thirty tons, and its length 135 feet. When anchored, with one end over the wall, and the other secured to the dredge, the channel may be deepened to the width of 130 feet along' the retaining wall. While this work is in progress, a stone wall will be substituted for the wooden oae, and the latter will be used for the opposite side of the channel, along which the machine, with the aid of the shoot, will deepen it to the width of 130 feet, making a channel 270 feet in width, enclosed, so that there will be no risk of its being filled up.— Otago Daily Times.