Bidspirit auction | VASCONCELLOS E SÁ (José Maria

VASCONCELLOS E SÁ (José Maria de). HISTÓRIA da Construção do Antigo Farol de “Cockburn”. Lisboa. 1951. - VASCONCELLOS E SÁ (José Maria de) HISTÓRIA da Construção do Antigo Farol de “Cockburn” . Lisboa: Tipografia da Liga dos Combatentes da Grande Guerra, 1951. XXIV-228 pp., 53 est.: il.; 250 mm. A detailed account of the construction of the Cockburn Shoal lighthouse at the entrance to Lourenço Marques Bay, a project that required successive and dramatic attempts at assembly. The shoal posed a formidable danger to navigation: according to the preface, from 1894 to April 1899, at least eight ships were lost in the bay due to the lack of a lighthouse to mark it. The plan for marking and illuminating the bay, drawn up by Commander Augusto Cardoso, included a system of luminous buoys and a lighthouse near the northern tip of the shoal; the Port Improvement Commission, created in January 1896 by Royal Commissioner António Ennes, was put in charge of the work. The French firm Schneider & Co. (Le Creusot), contracted in November 1896, lost four scaffolding structures in about 19 months and had its contract terminated. This was followed by the English engineers Bell & Wilson, contracted in November 1898, who lost another two scaffolding structures and saw their contract terminated in August 1899. By then, a legend had been created in Lourenço Marques about the insurmountable difficulties of this construction, and the situation of the city's commercial class, burdened by risks, freight costs, and maritime insurance surcharges, was desperate. On the seventh attempt, the management was entrusted to then Lieutenant of Engineering José Maria de Vasconcellos e Sá, interim director of the Port Works. The book describes the transport of the scaffolding from April 3rd to 5th, 1900, over more than 40 kilometers across the bay, the storm of April 28th-29th, which surprised it with 19 lives on it, and the nine months of construction work, during which the bay was swept by ten storms recorded at the end of the volume. With the inauguration of the lighthouse, the heavy maritime insurance surcharges ceased, and the Espírito Santo estuary, according to the press of the time, went from a port of perdition to a port of salvation. The volume includes a preface by a friend and former colleague of the author, who was captain of the ports of Lourenço Marques and Inhambane between 1895 and 1899, as well as documentary appendices, including letters and contracts with the construction companies. ⚑ Auto-translated via Google Translate