Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 2).djvu/454

 with a width of from thirty-five to fifty feet, and another is one thousand and two feet long, and eighty feet wide. There are also wet docks belonging to the Corporation of Liverpool and other persons, comprising water-space of upwards of eleven acres. The warehouses, though perhaps affording less convenience and accommodation than those of London, are likewise upon a large scale. Only three docks, the Albert, Stanley, and Wapping, are surrounded with bonding warehouses: the other docks have warehouses contiguous to them, but as a large portion of the produce, both free and subject to duty, is conveyed by railway or barge to Manchester and other inland towns, accommodation storage is not required to the same extent as in London. The tobacco warehouse, however, is six hundred and thirty feet in length, with a width throughout of three hundred and fifty feet; while there are warehouses for the reception of corn capable of receiving four hundred thousand quarters of wheat or other descriptions of grain. Nearly all the docks are surrounded with open sheds on the quays for the reception and temporary stowage of goods and produce. Many of these are handsome structures, and all of them substantial and very commodious. There are besides in the Nelson, Princes, and in one or two other docks, "transit sheds," one storey in height and substantially built, where ships can be discharged with extraordinary rapidity, and their cargoes safely stored until it suits the convenience of the owners or consignees to remove them to the warehouses. Steam dredging-machines are ready whenever re