The Forrest City Times

SECRETARY HERBERT

Makes Important Discoveries on His Pacific Coast Tour—The New Puget Sound Naval Station To Be Thoroughly Investigated. Especially the Work on the Great Dry Dock Under Construction, Which the Contractor Has Been Slighting.

Washington, June 20.-The first result of Secretary Herbert's Pacific coast tour is an official investigation of the new Puget Sound naval station. Captains Asserson, Menocal and Prindle, of the civil engineers' corps, left New York very privately last Friday night for Seattle on a mission which has been carefully guarded. The importance attached to their trip will be appreciated when it is stated that they are the ranking officers of their corps. Capt. Asserson being in charge of the Brooklyn yard and Capt. Menocal of the Norfolk yard. It is understood that their expert opinion is required as to the usefulness of the new dry dock costing $600,000 now under construction. Some doubt has arisen as to whether its foundations are strong enough to carry the great ships of the navy for which it was designed. It is stated the contractor has not been driving the piles as deep as called for by the specifications, and that an effort has been made to use inferior concrete in the work. The contractor claims that he can not drive the piles as deep as demanded by the navy department, as the soil is harder than was indicated by the preliminary borings made before the specifications were drawn, and that the work he has done is good enough for all practical purposes anyhow. He is further of the opinion that the specifications for mixing the required 10,000 cubic feet of rubble concrete are unnecessarily severe.
To settle these questions three ranking officers are dispatched across the country, at considerable expense to the government, which Secretary Herbert thinks is much better policy than having the dock prove a failure when an emergency arises for promptly docking a 10,000 ton battle-ship.