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accommodation will have to be adequate to the requirements of a rapidly-growing industry and extending commerce.
Tamsui Harbour is likewise being improved. It is the natural port of shipment for the produce of North Formosa; but the river has a troublesome bar at its mouth, over which ships drawing more than 13 feet cannot pass, so the engineering works to be undertaken by the Government include jetties projecting seaward from each bank to lead the river out into deep water, followed by the removal of the bar, and systematic dredging to deepen the anchorage, and binding along the river banks and quays. When finished, Tamsui will make a port fitted to receive steamers of 2,000 to 3,000 tons.
Takow, or Taku, has for harbour a sheltered bay or lagoon, several miles in length, separated from the sea by a sandbank, the entrance where the sandbank dips below the sea level being narrow. But there is less than 15 feet of water-depth in the lagoon and on the bar, and in order to improve the port and render it accessible to large vessels, the Government will dredge enough of the lagoon to form shelter for four or five ocean-going craft, and will proportionately widen the gap at the entrance. Ultimately, Takow is also to have a breakwater.
The Government has always paid the utmost attention to the lighting of the coasts, and much has been done in this respect in Formosa and the Pescadores group since they became parts of the Japanese Empire.
At present the lighthouses established are:
Fuki Point (in the extreme North) |
2nd order. |
Kelung Harbour |
5th order.„ |
Petao Point |
4th order.„ |
So-o (Suao) |
4th order.„ |
Garambi (extreme Southern promontory) |
1st order.„ |
Takow (Taku) |
6th order.„ |
Anping |
6th order.„ |
Pescadores—Bako |
4th order.„ |
Pescadores—North Rock |
1st order.„ |
Paksa Point |
3rd order.„ |
Tamsui River |
6th order.„ |
Over 2,000 miles of telegraph and 600 miles of telephone line have been erected in connection with the postal service, which maintains post-offices in all the principal towns and villages, numbering in all 109.
The foreign mails are shipped from Kelung direct to Japan by the steamers of the Osaka Shosen Kaisha. From Tamsui and Anping the mails for Chinese ports go by steamers of the Douglas Lapraik Company or the Osaka Shosen Kaisha.
Submarine cables have been laid to telegraphically connect Formosa with the mother country and with the Pescadores.