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increased simplicity, notwithstanding many recent improvements in this
direction. Permanent fittings, partly in iron, are being slowly introduced.
The iron and wooden decks on which cattle are carried have almost in all
cases been covered with temporary boarding or with movable wooden flooring
in sections, and the difficulty of lifting these coverings has always been an
obstacle to perfect cleansing. There are good grounds for believing that the
same manure was allowed to lay between the deck and the flooring for many
voyages.
The sectional flooring was retained on board from trip to trip until
saturated with cattle droppings.
The present tendency is to dispense with all temporary flooring and to bed
the cattle on the iron decks, and where the deck is wood to allow them to
stand on sheathing that has been permanently laid and caulked.
The time occupied in cleansing the cattle spaces will be very much lessened
and the work will be done more satisfactorily.
During the year 1890 there were admitted into the Yictoria and Albert
Docks 185 Atlantic cattle steamers, being at the rate of seven every fortnight.
Of these, 112 entered the Victoria Dock and 73 discharged in the Albert
Dock.
The numbers in each month varied from two steamers in January to 10 in
June in the Albert, and from seven in December to 18 in February in the
Victoria.
In almost every case the cattle were discharged in the river, the exceptions
being National Line steamers.
The average number of oxen carried by the Albert Dock steamers was
431, giving a total of 31,463 for the year under consideration, and on the
Victoria Dock steamers as many as 55,552 were brought into the Port of
London, being an average of 496 per vessel.
It will be seen, therefore, that the dung and litter from over 87,000 oxen
had to be discharged into barges in these two docks during 1890.
Being desirous to know the amount to be dealt with, I measured the
quantity of dung and litter contained in a pen that had been occupied for 18
days by four beasts on the main deck of the steam ship" Holkar,'' from
Philadelphia.
The pen was 10 feet long, 8| feet deep, and the bedding and dung when
levelled was 8J? inches high.
This gave 60 cubic feet, or 15 cubic feet for each animal.