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DOCKYARDS [GERMANY; RUSSIA. improved as a secondary station ; Bastia to be provided with a are being increased by the building of two great dry docks analogous floating dock ; and minor establishments to be formed at Calvi to those at Wilhelmshaven. There are at the present time four and the He Rousse. building and patent slips, four dry docks, and two floating docks. Docking facilities are being increased in Algeria, and the naval A new harbour for torpedo craft is being constructed in Wick Bay, station is being united with that of Tunis. Bizerta, the Tunisian south of the mouth of the Kaiser "Wilhelm Canal. No account of port, has been made a naval base by the deepening and fortifying of Kiel would be complete without a reference to the Germania Yard, the canal which is the approach to the inner lake, upon which which is now an establishment of the Krupp firm, and is capable naval establishments are being constructed for the refitting, coal- of constructing vessels of the largest class. There are ten building ing, and provisioning of the fleet. There are arsenals also at Saigon slips in this yard, ready or projected, four having lately been built and Hai-phong, and an establishment at Diego Suarez, which is and roofed in, so that work can go on in all weathers. The being extended. Howaldt works at Kiel are also of great importance, and have The subsidiary establishments in France are the gun foundry at large building facilities, which are being added to, with a floating Ruelle ; the steel and iron works at Guirigny, where anchors, chains, dock for ships of 11,000 tons. and armour-plate are made ; and the works at Indret, on an island Danzig is a yard of lesser importance, but very completely in the lower Loire, where machinery is constructed. There are equipped for the building of small armour-clads and cruisers. Here many private shipbuilding establishments in the country, the are two building slips and one dry dock. The Schichau Shipmost important being the Forges et Chantiers de la Mediterranee at building Works at Elbing (where torpedo craft are built) have also La Seyne, on the lesser roadstead at Toulon, where very many an important establishment at Danzig, and vessels of the largest French and foreign warships of the largest classes have been built. class have been built there. The Yulkan Yard at Bredow, near The same company has a building yard at Graville, near Havre. Stettin, the Weser Company at Bremen, and the establishment of Other establishments are the Ateliers et Chantiers de la Loire, at Blohm & Voss at Hamburg, are other important private estabSaint Nazaire ; the Normand Yard, at Havre j and the Chantiers lishments which have built many vessels for the German navy as de la Gironde, near Bordeaux. well as for foreign states. Germany.—With, the expansion of the German navy Russia.—In Bussia the naval ports are of two classes. considerable additions have been made to the two prin- The most important are Cronstadt, St Petersburg, and cipal dockyards. These are Wilhelmshaven, the naval Nicolaieff. Of lesser importance are Reval, Sveaborg, headquarters on the North Sea, and Kiel, the headquarters Sebastopol, Datum, Baku, and Vladivostok. The laston the Baltic, Danzig being an establishment of lesser named port does not lose importance through the acquisition importance, and Kiao-chow an undeveloped base in the of Port Arthur, which, however, is rapidly becoming the chief Shan-tung peninsula, China. The chief official at each Russian naval base in the Pacific. The administration of home dockyard is the superintendent (Oberwerftdirektor), the larger ports, except St Petersburg, which is under who is a rear-admiral or senior captain directly responsible special regulations, is in the hands of vice-admirals, who to the Naval Secretary of State. Under the superin- are commanders-in-chief, while the smaller ports are under tendent’s orders are the chief of the “ Ausriistung ” depart- the direction of rear-admirals. All are directly under the ment, or captain of the fleet reserve, the directors of Minister of Marine, except that the Black Sea ports and ordnance, torpedoes, navigation, naval construction, en- Astrabad, on the Caspian, are subordinate to the commandergineering, and harbour works, with some other officers. in-chief at Nicolaieff. Latterly Sebastopol has grown in The chiefs of the constructive and engineering departments importance, and will ultimately become a purely naval are responsible for the building of ships and machinery, harbour, the commercial harbour being removed to Feoand for the maintenance of the hulls and machinery of dosia. The Russian Government proposes also to remodel existing vessels; while the works department has charge the harbour works at St Petersburg and Cronstadt, and it of all work on the quays, docks, &c., in the dockyard and is stated that the latter will become a naval port only. port. A great advance has been made in increasing the The Emperor Alexander III. Port at Libau, on the Baltic, efficiency and capabilities of the imperial dockyards by in a region less liable to be icebound in the winter, is introducing a system of continuous work in the building approaching completion. Considerable progress has been of new ships and effecting alterations in others, and German made in building ice-breaking vessels, by which it is hoped material is exclusively used. to maintain open passages to the ports during the winter Wilhelmshaven, on the Jade, is an artificial port, and has been months. A small port is being formed on the White Sea, constructed entirely since the year 1857, when extensive works which may ultimately be connected with the Gulf of Finwere undertaken to protect the port from the inroads of the North land by a canal through the lake region. Sea. The old port is on the western side, where, communicating with the sea by the fitting basin, is a building harbour with three There are two Government dockyards in the city of St Petersdry docks and two building slips. Here two other large dry docks burg, both under the supervision of the port admiral. The most are now being constructed at a total cost of 12 million marks, important of these is the new Admiralty Yard in the centre of partly contributed by the North German Lloyd in consideration the city, where both building and repairing work goes forward. of the navy forgoing the right to precedence over all vessels of the There are three building slips in the yard, of which two, for tlie mercantile marine in regard to the use of the company’s dock at construction of the largest battleships, are new and of stone. The Bremerhaven. This renunciation only applies to times of peace. slips are housed in, so that the building work can go on in all The new docks will admit the largest men-of-war, even if lying weathers. At this yard there is also a very large experimental deep in the water through the flooding of compartments, and will basin, some 400 feet in length, for trials with models of vessels. be provided with very powerful pumping apparatus which will The yard is well provided with appliances, and there are two large empty them in hours. After the war with France a second machine-shops. The Galerny Island Yard is a little lower down building period was entered upon at Wilhelmshaven, and works, the river, and is an important building establishment entirely including another harbour entrance, were continued until 1886. devoted to construction. There are twTo building slips for large A new mole is now being built on the east side, where a third vessels, besides numerous workshops, storehouses, and other buildentrance to the harbour is projected, as well as the construction of ings, and a very fine moulding loft about 500 feet long and nearly a great basin and other works. There are at the present time two 100 feet broad. The battleships Alexander II., Gangut, Poltava, large building slips at the yard, a floating dock, and the five dry Petropavlovsk, Sevastopol, and Orel have been built at the Galerny docks, built and building, alluded to above. The machine-shops, Yard. ordnance, and other stores and magazines are very extensive. The Baltic Yard is near the mouth of the Neva, and was The North Sea station is now in direct communication with originally known as the Baltic Shipbuilding and Engineering the arsenal at Kiel, on the Baltic, by way of the Kaiser Wilhelm Works, but it was taken over by the Ministry of Marine, which Canal from Brunsbiittel, on the Elbe, to Holtenau, on Kiel Bay. owned most of the shares, in 1894. Since that time the establishKiel is an extremely important naval station on the eastern side ment has been enlarged, and a new stone building slip, 520 in of the Schleswig-Holstein neck and on one of the finest harbours length, completely housed in, has been finished, and numerous in the world, and possesses a fully equipped arsenal equal to all buildings have been erected. Here the Purik, Bossia, Gromoloi, the requirements of the Baltic command. Kiel itself has greatly and other powerful cruisers were built. The Baltic works are now grown since the war of 1864 gave it to the Prussians. The directed by a constructor of the imperial navy, but the work is arsenal is provided with a complete establishment for the building, not entirely confined to warship building. fitting, and provisioning of a great fleet; and the docking facilities The dockyard at Cronstadt is the principal arsenal for supplying
