J. N. F. Told of Progress on Haifa Harbor Project

According to an important communication by the Palestine Government to the Jewish National Fund, satisfactory progress is recorded in the building of the Haifa Harbor which will be the finest of its kind in the Middle East.

“History is being made at the Haifa Harbor Works and the engineers and men concerned are getting a grip of the huge task with which they are confronted,” states the Palestine Government. “Even to the non-technical eye the real progress made during the past few weeks is apparent. Since September, between seven and eight hundreds tons of heavy plant and machinery have arrived at the Railway Jetty, Haifa, and out of this there has grown locomotives, steam derrick cranes that can lift 15 tons and more and steam travelling cranes that play with blocks of stone five tons and over.

“There has been much preliminary work of all kinds to do but now that the temporary service railways—of which there are more than five miles—are laid, locomotive sheds, stores, fitting, blacksmith and carpenter shops, coal stages, water tanks, explosives magazines and other items necessitated by work of this nature are in being, a definite start is being made with the Permanent Works. In October, the first large stones quarried near Athlit were dumped on the site of the Main Breakwater and between two and three thousand tons are already in position. The steam derrick crane handling these blocks of stone has already moved forward some twelve metres seawards.”

This Harbor will make Haifa the chief port of Palestine and of the vast inland behind it, stetching to Iraq and beyond. The large land reserves acquired by the Jewish National Fund in the vicinity of the Harbor will rise in value as the port of Haifa expands because it is bound to expand to the Northeast where this land lies. The Carmel Range prevents expansion in any other direction.