Published Resources Details
Newspaper Article
- Title
- The Patent Slip at Pyrmont
- In
- Empire (Sydney, NSW : 1850 - 1875)
- Description of Work
- page 4
- Edition
- 24 May 1855
- Imprint
- 1855
- Url
- http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article60179624
- Description
Sourced from TROVE at the National Library of Australia.
- Abstract
This is a long and detailed article, the opening paragraphs are quoted here:
WITHIN the last few days a termination has been made to the construction of the Australasian Steam Navigation Company's New Patent Slip at Pyrmont, and the work is now permanently open for the reception and repairs of vessels of all tonnage. The establishment of so indispensable an apparatus to the mercantile security of this port, and its addition to the already well-known advantages of our harbour, call for some public acknowledgment of the skill and enterprise on the part of its promoters. Our postponement of this task till tho present time, has enabled us to see the scheme placed beyond the region of experiment, and to report with certainty of the engineer-ing triumph obtained. To trace the various mechanical processes by which such vast effects are produced, may be the appropriate occupation of the scions of an active enterprising people on an anniversary of her Majesty's Birthday.
The Australasian Steam Navigation Company, now possessing eighteen steamers, have long suffered much inconvenience, and loss from the want of accommodation for cleaning or repairing tho bottoms of their vessels, and determined, three or four years ago, on tho construction of a Patent Slip on their property at Pyrmont. Mr. Paterson, the Manager of the Company, was accordingly despatched to England to undertake, together with other matters, the engagement of a competent engineer and the transmission of the required machinery. His negotiations on this commission led to the engagement of Mr. James Scott, an able and experienced engineer, who had personally directed the formation of patent slips in different parts of the world, and who, besides being the inventor of highly approved ship-building machinery, had then recently distinguished himself by the discovery of a continuous action screw purchase for ships, lt was In Glasgow, in February, 1853, that Mr. Scott contracted with Mr. Paterson for the supply of tho newly invontod purchase, together with the entire machinery for tho slip, and also for his own superintendence of the work, and arrived in Sydney, in Decombcr of the same year, with the machinery. . . .