OCR Text |
Show Sllll' JJttLDINU ON TUB PACIFIC Coast. With a coast line of thousands thous-ands of miles in tho United Slates, with an apparently inexhaustible supply sup-ply of superior timber, with one railroad rail-road across the continent and two others in course of construction, with magnificent bays and harbors and aomo of tho finest sites iu the world for seaport towns, the development of ship-building on tho Pacific coast to a great industry is only a matter of time. Wo note in the San Francisco Bulletin of the 20th, an article on the ship Wildioood, lately built at Port Madison, Washington Territory, for Meiggs & Gawloy, a San Francisco firm. Tho model of the Wildwood is that of a full clipper, and she is described de-scribed as a paragon of beauty, ller dimensions are: "Length of keel, feot; over all, 200 feet; breadth of beam, -11 feet 10 inches; depth of hold, 22 feet 1 iuoli;" and she has a carrying capacity for general merchandise merchan-dise of 1,700 tons, and lor lumber, ol' 1,000,000 feet. Tho vessel is exclusively exclu-sively of native timber; and is note- ! worthy as beiug built in a portion of tho country to which attention is beginning be-ginning to be prominently attracted. There is no question that Pugct Sound from which the material of tho vessel was obtained, with its inexhaustible resources, will become a place of great importance when the Northern Pacific railroad is completed; and while tho west coast will have several leading entrepots of commerce, there is every reason to believe that shipbuilding ship-building will become one of its leading industries, and vessels oonstructei there float on every ocean of the world. |