Page:Twentieth Century Impressions of Hongkong, Shanghai, and other Treaty Ports of China.djvu/246

238 For example, directly one of the numerous threads passing through a drawing frame is broken, the driving belt is automatically thrown on to the loose pulley, and the attention of the attendant is thus immediately attracted.

Power is supplied by engines of 1,710 indicated horse-power, by Messrs. J. & S. Wood, and transmitted to the shafting by means of thirty-six cotton ropes. The build- ings are lighted throughout by electricity, generated on the premises. o expense has been spared to render the buildings fireproof, and as a further precaution a water roof — probably the only one in China — has been placed over the main building. The tank has a capacity of 9,000 gallons, and the water can be distributed at need to patent fire extin- guishers in any part of the enclosure. The workpeople are well cared for, airy and comfortable quarters for seven hundred having t>een provided. The factory has been estab- lished for nine years, and though, during that time, many difficulties have been encountered — the cotton famine in India, the corner made by Sully in America, and the Boxer troubles, amongst them — the Company has prospered, and yields the shareholders a satisfactory dividend. The manager of the mill is Mr. A. Shaw, THE QREEN ISLAND CEMENT COMPANY. In the construction of docks, harbour works, fortifications, and bridges, and in countless other ways, Portland cement is largely used, and practically the whole of the local supply is provided by the Green Island Cement Company, the general managers of which are Messrs. Shewan, Tomes & Co. Started on Green Island, near Macao, about eighteen years ago, the cement-making industry soon outgrew the facilities offered by that locality, and in 1899 a larger and more fully equipped factory was opened in the Colony of Hong- kong, on the Kowloon side of the harbour. Year by year the plant has been extended until to-day this factory occupies an area of upwards of 1,000,000 square feet, whilst the machinery, worth as many dollars, has an output of nearly 8,000 tons a month. Business is still carried on at the Green Island factory, which has an out-turn of nearly 2,000 tons a month, making the total production of the Company something like 120,000 tons annually. The Company also has a factory at Deep Water Bay for the manufacture of bricks and drain pipes. Green Island cement is considered to be fully equal to that of the best English and Continental manufacture. The Admiralty engineers regard it as unsurpassed in fine- ness and tensile strength, and it has been employed exclusively in the erection of the dock on the new reclamation. It is com- posed of clay and crushed limestone mixed in certain proportions, and burned in a kiln. The clay is found in the delta of the Canton River, and the limestone is brought from the neighbourhood of Canton. The materials are unloaded from the junks into overhead buckets, which convey it from the wharf lo the factory. There the stone is pulverised in a series of crushing mills, the first of which reduce about eiglit tons of stone per day to the size of ordinary road metal, and the last, called "Griffin" mills, convert it into a fine powder. The clay is also ground, and the two ingredients are then elevated to the top floor of the building, where they are mixed automatically. A further reduction takes place in the tube mills, in which the powder passes through a rotating iron cylinder cont.iining flints. In another m.ichine the powder is mixed with water, and issues in a continuous strip, of oblong section, which is sliced off into bricks. After being stacked for eighteen hours in drying tunnels, these bricks are fed into kilns, chiefly of the rotary type. The product of these kilns, known to the workers as "clinker." is then ground, first in ball and then in tube mills, and the resultant powder, Portland cement, is fed into specially con- structed trucks and stored in bins ready for packing. Bags for putting up the cement are purchased, but casks are made on the premises, modern coopering devices being employed. Power for the whole of the works is supplied from five Babcock & Wilcox boilers, the engines generating 500 and 350 horse-power respectively. The works are lit throughout by electricity. The general manager of the factory, Mr. V. Uldall, a man of great experience in the trade, has been in the service of the Company for fifteen years. He has under him a staff of nearly two thousand men; but if the persons indirectly concerned are taken into account the probability is that the enterprise gives employment to upwards of three thousand. The chief engineer is Mr. A. H. Hewitt, who joined the Company in that capacity in 1889, soon after its inception, and has since then been responsible for the building and running of its factories. He commenced his engineering career at Messrs. Maudsley, Sons & Field's works, was one of the earliest members of the "Junior Engineers," and became an Associated Member of the Institute of Civil Engineers in 1895. THE HONGKONG PIPE, BRICK, AND TILE WORKS. So important is the industry carried on in connection with the Green Island Cement Company at the Deep Water Bay Pipe. Brick, and Tile Works, that mention may well be made of it under a separate heading. The works are admirably situated at the western end of the bay, just opposite Aberdeen. The buildings cover a large area, and include kilns, drying sheds, offices, boiler and engine house, and everything appertaining to works of the kind. In the vicinity of the works are veins of the clay used for the manufacture of bricks, pipes, &c., and the raw material can thus be procured at nominal cost. The clay is first ground in a milling machine, and then mixed with water and other ingre- dients. It is next forced through a machine which delivers it in a continuous length of oblong section, and is cut up by means of a wire cutter. The bricks are dried by steam-heat, and then fired in kilns for about twenty days. Of the fourteen kilns in use three have a capacity of 30,000 bricks each. Fire bricks go through practically the same process, but the clay of which they are made contains from Xo to 90 per cent, of silica. In the manufacture of pipes finely powdered clay is carefully mixed with water to a certain consistency, and the compound is passed between heavy rollers to ensure complete pulverisation, and then into the moulding machine, where it is pressed into the required shape. The pipes are dried and then burned in kilns for over twenty days, after which they are brought to a white heat and glazed, salt and sulphur being the chief agents employed in this last- mentioned process. The lime required for the works is made from imported stone, and recently, by the erection of another kiln, the output was increased in order to meet a growing local demand for lime. The superintendent of the works, Mr. J. B. Witchell, who has been with the Company for about ten years, has been responsible for many improvements, tending both to save labour and to improve the quality of the products of the works. He lives on a hill overlooking the bay, and excellent quarters have been provided on a hill opposite for the coolies employed at the works. The general managers are Messrs. Shewan, Tomes & Co. THE HONGKONG ROPE MANUFACTURING COMPANY. No cordage equals in strength and durability that made from pure Manila hemp fibre, and it is no inconsiderable advantage to a place like Hongkong that it should possess such a factory as that managed by Messrs. Shewan, Tomes & Co., at Kennedy Town, where large quantities of this fibre are used in the making of rope. To one acquainted with the process of rope-making in the old-fashioned rope- walk, the rapidity with which the fibre in this factory makes its journey between the bale and the coiling machine is surprising. The raw material is conveyed on a private trolley line from the wharf to the storage godown, and, when required, the bales are ripped open and their contents passed through a series of preparing machines — "spreaders" and "dressers" — in which the fibre is made ready for spinning. On the "jennies" the fibre is spun into yarn of from one-sixteenth to one-eighth of an inch in diameter, according to the size of rope required, the yarn being wound on bobbins which contain, when full, about ten pounds. The next stage in the process is known as " forming." A number of bobbins are placed on the machine, and the yarns formed into a "strand," the thick- ness of these strands depending on the number of yarns in each and governing the size of the rope. The final process is that of " laying " the strands into rope, by means of an ingenious contrivance fitted with auto- matic brakes to regulate the tension, and, consequently, the hardness of the rope. Usually three strands are twisted together, but where more roundness or evenness is required, as in ropes for pulley-blocks, &c., four strands are taken and twisted round a fifth, which is known as the " heart." An- other form of rope for which there is an increasing demand is the " cable," which consists of three ropes twisted together in a laying machine. This form is used largely for mooring purposes, and in oil shafts such as those at Rangoon. The factory can turn out cordage of from half-an-inch to twelve inches in circumference, capable of bearing strains of from three hundred pounds to close upon fifty tons. The standard length is 120 fathoms, but any length up to 2,000 feet can be made to order. The superintendent is Mr. C. Klinck, who has been twenty years with the Company. His assistant is Mr. J. Stopani, and the labour staff employed numbers about one hundred and seventy.