Having Now Reached
Love Creek, I Deposited My Canoe With Mr.
Webb, And Started Off For Lewes To View The
Town And The Ocean.
Across the entrance of Delaware Bay, from
Cape Henlopen Light to Cape May Light on the
southern end of New Jersey, is a distance of
twelve statute miles.
Saturday night and
Sunday were passed in Lewes, which is situated
inside of Cape Henlopen, and behind the
celebrated stone breakwater which was constructed
by the government. This port of refuge is much
frequented by coasters, as many as two or three
hundred sails collecting here during a severe
gale. The government is building a
remarkable pier of solid iron spiles, three abreast, which,
when completed, will run out seventeen
hundred feet into the bay, and reach a depth of
twenty-three feet of water. Captain Brown, of
the Engineers, was in charge of the work. By the
application of a jet of water, forced by an
hydraulic pump through a tube down the outside of
the spile while it is being screwed into the sand,
a puddling of the same is kept up, which
relieves the strain upon the screw-flanges, and
saves fourteen-fifteenths of the time and labor
usually expended by the old method of inserting
the screw spile. This invention was a happy
thought of Captain Brown.
The government has purchased a piece of land
at Lewes for the site of a fort. Some time in the
future there will be a railroad terminating on the
pier, and coal will be brought directly from the
mines to supply the fleets which will gather
within the walls of the Breakwater.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 104 of 310
Words from 28346 to 28620
of 84867
