Now that the dock is on its way to Cuba, it is found that it draws too much water for the bay of Havana, and cannot be brought in and used there.
When this unpleasant news was communicated to General Weyler, he cabled to his agent in New York, asking him to send a dredging-machine over to Havana immediately. To the General's mind the whole affair was simple enough: he would get a dredging-machine, scoop out a channel, and have the dock in place in no time.
He was therefore much angered to receive a reply that there were several kinds of dredging-machines, and that to send him a machine that would do the work properly it would be necessary to know the nature of the soil of the bottom of the bay.
Now no one has ever dredged Havana Bay since the city was first founded in the sixteenth century, and there are no means at hand of obtaining the desired information. There will therefore be some delay before the required investigation can be made.
Added to this, the New York firm sent him word that a special machine will have to be constructed to dredge to the depth required by the floating-dock, that it will take six months to build such a machine, and another six months to dredge the bay. This makes one year before the $900,000 floating dock now on its way to Cuba can be of any use to Spain.
It seems a cruel waste of money at an hour when Spain is so poor.
The election of Señor Domingo Mendez Capote as President of the Republic of Cuba has been confirmed. Bartolome Maso was made Vice-President, and Cisneros, the ex-president, was made leader of the Congress.
General Gomez was appointed Minister of War, and General Garcia Commander-in-Chief of the army.