the west side of the Crosby Channel off the north-measured mile marks has now joined Great Burbo, and the run through the bank south of Askew's Spit has shoaled considerably. On the south side of the bay, however, the results are very different, for Hoylake has almost quite silted up, all the fishing boats of any size lying at anchor in the lake commence to take the ground before half ebb tide. The Horse and Rock Channels are likewise steadily deteriorating. In 1833 the thirty feet contour extended up the channel from sea to within one and three-quarter miles from Leasowe Lighthouse; now the entrance to the Bight of Hoyle is barred by a shoal with as little as fifteen feet on it. This was, however, foreseen some years ago, for people then began to shake their heads and lament the sad fate of Liverpool as a port since the Rock Channel was then already showing signs of silting up. Now one feels disposed to think that the complete closing of this minor channel will have the advantage of giving to the main Crosby and Queen's Channels the tidal waters which it now absorbs.

It is now time to refer to the dredging process which is in operation on the bar of the Queen's Channel. The idea of using artificial means to give permanence and improvement to the bar first presented itself to Captain Denham when, upon the silting up of his new channel, in 1838, the new cut appeared. Having obtained the necessary authority from the Dock Committee, he provided a harrow of about twenty feet in length, composed of several old chain cables, spiked here and there, and fastened to a beam of ten feet fitted with a chain bridle. This harrow was to be towed along the ground by a tug on a strong ebb tide, with a view of disturbing the sandy bottom of this new cut, and driving the loosened sand seaward. The first trial was made on the 20th November, 1838, the harrow

G

being towed in a tidal line across the cut from deep to deep. A month later a second harrow and steam tug were added, and brought to work transversely to the tide. This process was carried on as the weather permitted till the 1st January, 1839, and again resumed on the 25th of March of the same year, and on the 9th of October it was discontinued on the approach of winter. The work was held in abeyance till August and September, 1840, when, after about thirty days, it was brought to a final conciusion, after a total outlay of £3425, it not having been found of any permanent use. In recent years it has been determined again to try artificial means to deepen the bar of the Queen's Channel, but not in the manner above referred to. The idea this time was, on the inception of Mr. Geo. B. Crow, the chairman of the Marine Committee, to make an experiment and let the process be that of dredging, i.e., to take up the sand from the bar by means of sand pumps and suction tubes, fill the wells of hopper barges, and convey it out at the back of the high banks north and south of the bar, and there deposit the sand. Two hopper barges, Nos. 5 and 7, were accordingly prepared and placed on the bar, the lower end of their tube or pipe was fitted with sharp teeth of steel to grapple the firm and solid sand. The pumps were set in motion as the pipe was being lowered, so that the suction effect might be acquired, and it was soon found that the sand followed the water into the wells upon the pipe reaching the bottom. As the wells of the hoppers filled with sand, the surplus water flowed over the tops of the wells and sides of the vessel. The trial was first commenced in September, 1890, and was so successful that the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board decided to continue the operations on a greatly increased scale.

In May, 1892, a Twin Screw Sand Dredger was con

tracted for with the Naval Construction and Armament Company of Barrow, which was to cost about £58,000.

This vessel was launched on the 4th of March, 1893, and was received in Liverpool on the 14th of June. She has been named the Brancker, after the highly esteemed chairman of the Dock Board. She is 320 feet long, 46 feet 10 inches wide, and 26 feet 6 inches deep. She has hopper capacity for 3,000 tons of sand in eight wells, four on each side, and can steam when loaded at the rate of ten miles an hour. The propelling machinery and boilers are situated aft, and the sand pump machinery and hydraulic pumps forward of the hoppers, which occupy the central position of the length of the vessel for a distance of 100 feet. The main suction pipe is a cylindrical steel tube 39 inches in diameter, the upper end of which is hung to the vessel, close to the pumps, at the fore end of the hoppers, and passes down through a well or opening along the centre line of the vessel.

In this well the pipe can be raised or lowered by means of steel wire ropes attached to its lower end and worked by a hydraulic ram, erected on the frame over the hoppers.

During the first half of the year 1893, the operation of dredging was carried on by the small dredgers Nos. 5 and 7, as the weather permitted, and as it was generally favourable, not less than 712,680 tons were then removed.

The condition of the bar within this period was improved materially in the channel or cut of 1000 feet in width, which it had originally been decided should be set out for dredging purposes. This cut has its centre on the leading line formed by the Crosby and Formby Lightvessels in one; and by the end of June 1893, for a width of five hundred feet along the centre,

the minimum depth was nineteen feet, with seventeen to eighteen feet on either side.

The Brancker since that date has come on the scene, and by the end of the year no less than upwards of one and a half million tons have been removed, viz., one and a quarter million tons removed by the Brancker, and 350,160 tons by the two smaller vessels. Consequent on these improvements, which by the month of October gave twenty feet as the least water in the centre, with nineteen feet at the sides of the dredged cut, it was resolved to mark it with gas buoys. Two pillar gas buoys, each showing a flashing light, were placed on the south side of the cut, and two can gas buoys, each showing a fixed light on the north side. The Bar Lightvessel was also moved so as to join, two miles outside the bar, the line of the two inner Lightships.

A further improvement has since come about in this way :—As the sand was removed and a cut of twenty feet made at low water of spring tides, the depths got too great to enable the pipes of the small dredgers to reach the bottom towards high water, so that they were placed on the southern side of the dredged cut, where the water was shoaler. This, of course, tended to widen the cut, so that in July last it was recommended that four hundred feet might be added to the width of the dredged cut, by removing the two south bar pillar gas buoys that distance to southward. This was done on the 31st of that month, and the last survey of the bar indicates depths of twenty feet as the least water in the dredged cut, with a sounding or two of nineteen feet on the north side.

Having thus described the great improvement that has taken place on the bar of the Mersey, I may refer to other improvements which have recently been made on the dock estate. I have stated that in 1845 the Liverpool docks