"The line of railway from Nanaimo to Esquimalt touches the harbour, and
has a wharf at which coal from Nanaimo and West Wellington mines may be
delivered at any time.

"The graving dock, which has been some eleven years in progress, or
rather which was commenced eleven years ago, but which practically has
been constructed within the past two years, has a length of 430 feet on
the ways, and could easily have been made, in the first instance, 600
feet in length for a comparatively small additional cost. The cost will
have been, when completed, about $700,000, and it is now waiting only
for the entrance caisson, which is being made at the Dominion Bridge
Company's Works, near Montreal.

"The masonry of the dock is of a hard sandstone, the character of the
workmanship being very good, and the dock very dry and free from
leakage; it has been constructed, so as to save excavation, in a small
creek, but this has caused an additional thickness for the walls, and a
considerable quantity of filling behind them. It would appear that it
could have been built for very much less money had a site been selected
among the numerous rocky situations in the harbour, where the rock
would only have required facing with masonry instead of the work having
been done as it has.

"The naval-yard is a fair size; the workshop is small, however, and
apparently little or no materials for the repair of vessels are kept on
hand. It will be a necessity for this to be remedied if the graving
dock is to be of any use for ships of the navy. We saw two torpedo
boats, and some Whitehead torpedoes, the boats were built in Great
Britain for Chili, and purchased from the Chilians two years ago.