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25
The " Holkar " did not land any fodder at Deptford when discharging her
cattle, and from this it was assumed that, owing to short supply, there may
have been considerable economy in the use of hay and less bedding than
usual.
This assumption was borne out by subsequent measurements taken on the
steam ship " Nessmore," from Baltimore. The passages of the two steamers
were identical in length, but here a height of 10 inches gave nearly 18 cubic
feet of dung and litter to each animal.
We have then, when taking a mean of 161 cubic feet per ox, the very large
aggregate of 1,435,500 cubic feet of manure that had to be discharged from
cattle steamers in these two docks in one year.
Measurements were taken afterwards of an ordinary dung barge of 36 tons
register. Under hatches her capacity was found to be 2,646 cubic feet, showing
that at the time of registration no deduction had been made for crew
space.
But as dung barges always carry more or less of a stack on the hatches,,
these were also measured, when it was found that one foot in height on a
stack increased the load to 2,901 cubic feet, and two feet of stack to 3,177
cubic feet as the amount of dung that could be carried on a barge of this size.
As there are very few cases of barges carrying dung cargoes all below
hatches it is useless to consider how many would be required to remove nearly
one and a half million of cubic feet of dung, &c., but with one and two feet
stacks the respective numbers are 498 and 454. If the mean of these figures
is taken as a reasonable estimate, then 474 barges of manure must have been
loaded in the Victoria and Albert Docks during 1890.
This is equal to one barge and a half for each working day in the year, and
averages two and a half barges for each cattle steamer.
Bad weather in the Atlantic is sometimes responsible for the removal of
nearly all the dung and litter from an exposed deck, but otherwise the whole
of the accumulation in the pens remains undisturbed.
The time occupied in discharging the dung and litter in dock depends in the;
first place on the number of beasts that has been carried and the number of
decks occupied as cattle spaces.
But the construction of the steamers with respect to cargo ports on the
lower decks and the facilities for getting barges alongside both to port and
starboard are also important factors in the matter.
The litter of 200 oxen can be discharged from an upper deck in eight hours,
and when four times that number is carried on three decks there should be no
difficulty in getting the work of discharging finished in 24 hours. Allowing
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