Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 January 1883 — The Havre Docks. [ARTICLE]

The Havre Docks.

The avant-port, or entrance harbor, is nearly dry at low-water, and our tender, even with her light draught, stirs the mud as she proceeds. But when the tide is in, the large steamers and sailing ships can safely proceed to the that have been dug from the money with an enormous expenditure of land and muscle. The docks and basins of Havre are all of man’s creation, and owe their existence to his industry and perseverance. They are eight in number and a ninth, and perhaps a tenth, will be added before long. Altogether the existing docks will accommodate 2,000 vessels, and by crowding them closely another hundred or two might be taken in. The largest is the dock of the Eure, and it has a superficial area of fiftythree acres, with a mile and a quarter of quays. The water in this basin has a depth of thirty feet, and a dry-dock opens from it capable of holding any or the ships that visit the port. Think of the labor necessary for making this dock and building the massive walls that form its sides, and then say if Havre is not deserving of all her present pros >erity. An older and smaller dock wiuu this is Bassin du Commerce, which is genHtlly filled with sailing ships, and sometimes has held as, many as 200 of them without impeding circulation. At one end of this dock is the square named after Louis XVI., and on pleasant evenings we will find a dense crowd there to enjoy the military or other music, and to lounge under the trees. Beyond the square and in full view from the dock rises the principal theater of Havre, and at the water’s edge is the machinery for removing the masts of ships or restoring .them to their places. The oldest dock of all is the Bassin du Roi, or Vieux Bassin, and it is also the smallest; it wasumade in 1669, and has latterly been enlarged so as to adapt it to the ships of the present day. It is difficult to ascertain the cost of the docks of Havre, as the old accounts no longer exist, and we have only the modem figures to guide us. Within the last twenty years more than $50,000,000 have been expended on them, and the work is still incomplete.— Thomas W.Knox, in Harper's Magazine.