Mr. Froideville proposes to set up two lines of these breakwaters, for a length of about 7½ kilometers, starting at the north from Cape Heve, taking in depths of 15 meters (the best that are found in the Little Roadstead), passing in front of the Eclat shoal and the heights, and ending opposite the entrance of the present port.
The first row is designed for breaking the force of the waves, and the second for lending its aid in times of high tempests, and stopping the surge that has escaped from the first.
The extreme simplicity of this project has permitted its promoter to affirm that in a few months, and with nine millions, he can inclose the Havre roadstead.
The Little Roadstead, being thenceforward protected, will become an excellent port of refuge in bad weather. In addition, a system of lighters, or, better, a few floats connected with the shore and forming a rock, will permit vessels to take on their cargoes with great rapidity.
Mr. Froideville's project presents the further advantage of rendering it easier to put the port of Havre quickly in defense. A certain number of floating batteries, anchored behind the breakwaters and protecting the advances of torpedo boats by means of their firing, would make a formidable defense. Not having to perform any evolutions, they might without danger be invested with armor plate thicker than that of ordinary ironclads. In order to complete the system, there might be erected upon the Eclat shoal an ironclad fort like that which defends the entrance of Portsmouth.
An English chronicler of the fourteenth century, in speaking of his country, places it above all others, and declares that men are handsomer, whiter, and purer blooded there than elsewhere, and he says that this is so "because it is so." We would not like to imitate his naive reasoning, and yet, for defending the very original system proposed by Mr. Froideville, we have only our conviction, which we share, moreover, with a large number of sea-faring men and engineers. Mathematics are powerless to predict to us with accuracy the manner in which the floating breakwaters will behave, but experiment remains. Let the promoter of the project, then, be given authority to inclose a few hundred meters, and if, as we suppose, the breakwaters shall remain immovable in a northwester, a maritime revolution will have been brought about.—La Nature.
IMPROVED CATCH BASIN.
In 1882, M. Bacle published in Le Génie Civil a study of the sewer systems in some of the large foreign cities. There may be found there a description of the Liernur system at Amsterdam, Leyden, and Dordrecht, in Holland, and in certain cities of Germany and the United States.