Page:EB1911 - Volume 08.djvu/590

 the head waves are not more than 3 ft. high and the cross waves not more than 1 ft. high. The dredgings are taken 2 m. to sea, and the price for dredging and depositing from 800,000 to 900,000 cub. metres in 5 or 6 years was 7·25d. per cub. yd. The contractor offered to do the work at 4·625d. per cub. yd. on condition of being allowed to work either at Calais or Boulogne, as the weather might permit. Sand-pump dredging has also been extensively carried out at the mouth of the ports of Amsterdam, Rotterdam and on the north coast of France by sand dredgers constructed by Messrs L. Smit & Son and G. & K. Smit. The largest dredger, the “Amsterdam,” is 141 ft. by 27 ft. by 10 ft. 8 in., and has engines of 190 i.h.p. The hopper capacity is 10,600 cub. ft., and the vessel can carry 600 tons of dredgings. The pump fan is 6 ft. 3 in. in diameter by 10 in. wide, the plates being of wrought iron, and makes 130 revolutions a minute. The pump can raise 230 cub. ft. a minute from a depth of 33 ft., which, taking the proportion of 1 of sand to 7 of water, gives a delivery of 29 cub. ft. of sand per minute. The hopper containing 10,600 cub. ft. was under favourable circumstances filled in 40 minutes. The vessels are excellent sea boats.

Combined Bucket-Ladder and Sand-Pump Dredgers.—Bucket ladders and sand pumps have also been fitted to the same dredger. A successful example of this practice is furnished by the hopper dredger “Percy Sanderson” (Plate I. fig. 8), constructed under the direction of Sir C. A. Hartley, engineer of the Danube Commission for the deepening of the river Danube and the Sulina bar. This dredger is 220 ft. by 40 ft. by 17 ft. 2 in., and has a hopper capacity for 1250 tons of dredgings. The buckets have each a capacity of 25 cub. ft., and are able to raise 1000 tons of ordinary material per hour. The suction pump, which is driven by an independent set of triple expansion engines, is capable of raising 700 tons of sand per hour, and of dredging to a depth of 35 ft. below the water-line. The lower end of the suction pipe is controlled by special steam appliances by which the pipe can be brought entirely inboard. The “Percy Sanderson” raises and deposits on an average 5000 tons of material per day.

Grab Dredgers.—The grab dredger was stated by Sir Benjamin Baker (Proc. Inst. C.E. vol. 113, p. 38) to have been invented by Gouffé in 1703, and was worked by two ropes and a bar. Various kinds of apparatus have been designed in the shape of grabs or buckets for dredging purposes. These are usually worked by a steam crane, which lets the open grab down to the surface of the ground to be excavated and then closes it by a chain which forces the tines into the ground; the grab is then raised by the crane, which deposits the contents either into the hopper of the vessel upon which the crane is fixed or into another barge.

Miscellaneous Appliances.—There are several machines or appliances which perhaps can hardly be called dredgers, although they are used for cleansing and deepening rivers and harbours.

Kingfoot’s dredger, used for cleansing the river Stour, consisted of a boat with a broad rake fitted to the bow, capable of adjustment to different depths. At the sides of the boat were hinged two wings of the same depth as the rake and in a line with it. When the rake was dropped to the bottom of the river and the wings extended to the side, they formed a sort of temporary dam, and the water began to rise gradually. As soon as a sufficient head was raised, varying from 6 to 12 in., the whole machine was driven forward by the pressure, and the rake carried the mud with it. Progress at the rate of about 3 m. an hour was made in this manner, and to prevent the accumulation of the dredgings, operations were begun at the mouth of the river and carried on backwards. The apparatus was very effective and the river was cleansed thoroughly, but the distance travelled by the dredger must have been great.

In 1876 J. J. Rietschoten designed a “propeller dredger” for removing the shoals of the river Maas. It consisted of an old gunboat fitted with a pair of trussed beams, one at each side, each of which carried a steel shaft and was capable of being lowered or raised by means of a crab. An ordinary propeller 3 ft. 6 in. in diameter was fixed to the lower end of the shaft, and driven by bevel gear from a cross shaft which derived its motion by belting from the fly-wheel of a 12 h.p. portable engine. The propellers were lowered until they nearly reached the shoals, and were then worked at 150 revolutions per minute. This operation scoured away the shoal effectively, for in about 40 minutes it had been lowered about 3 ft. for a space of 150 yds. long by 8 yds. wide.

A. Lavalley in 1877 designed an arrangement for the harbour of Dunkirk to overcome the difficulty of working an ordinary bucket-ladder dredger when there is even a small swell. A pump injects water into the sand down a pipe terminating in three nozzles to stir up the sand, and another centrifugal pump draws up the mixed sand and water and discharges it into a hopper, the pumps and all machinery being on board the hopper. To allow for the rising and falling of the vessel—either by the action of the tide or by the swell—the ends of the pipes are made flexible. The hopper has a capacity of 190 cub. yds., and is propelled and the pumps worked by an engine of 150 i.h.p. From 50 to 80 cub. yds. per hour can be raised by this dredger.

The “Aquamotrice,” designed by Popie, and used on the Garonne at Agen, appears to be a modification of the old bag and spoon arrangement. A flat-bottomed boat 51 ft. long by 6 ft. wide was fitted at the bow with paddles, which were actuated by the tide. Connected with the paddles was a long chain, passing over a pulley on uprights and under a roller, and a beam was attached to the chain 14 ft. 8 in. long, passing through a hole in the deck. At the end of the beam was an iron scoop 2 ft. wide and 2 ft. 6 in. deep. When the tide was strong enough it drew the scoop along by means of the paddles and chains, and the scoop when filled was opened by a lever and discharged. About 65 cub. yds. of gravel could be raised by the apparatus in 12 hours. When the tide failed the apparatus was worked by men.

The Danube Steam Navigation Co. removed the shingle in the shallow parts of the river by means of a triangular rake with wrought-iron sides 18 ft. long, and fitted with 34 teeth of chilled cast iron 12 in. deep. This rake was hung from the bow of a steamer 180 ft. long by 21 ft. beam, and dragged across the shallows, increasing the depth of water in one instance from 5 ft. 6 in. to 9 ft., after passing over the bank 355 times.

A combination of a harrow and high pressure water jets, arranged by B. Tydeman, was found very efficacious in removing a large