During late years, the business firm just alluded to, whose interests in, and efforts for, the welfare of the port have so long been unflagging, has made a vigorous attempt to revive the American cotton importations. For the last few seasons several of their shipments, about ten, have annually arrived, and there is every prospect that when the dock is completed many more vessels will be chartered. A large shed for the reception of cotton was erected in 1875, in Adelaide Street, by Messrs. B. Whitworth and Bros., who have also established a permanent office in the town. In 1859 the trade between Fleetwood and Belfast had developed to such an extent that a larger covered area for the temporary warehousing, loading, and discharging of goods was urgently called for, and towards the close of that year a space of about 190 feet in length, by 30 feet wide, was walled in and roofed over on the quay, adjoining the building then in use for the same purposes. Four years later, in 1863, two steam cranes were placed on the wharf by the North Lancashire Steam Navigation Company. Subsequently other cranes, working on a similar principle, have been added to those experimental ones, and gradually the old system of hand-labour at the quay-side has been superseded by the adoption of this more expeditious and economical plan. Shortly before the last-named facilities had augmented the conveniences of the wharf, a fresh description of mooring appliance was laid down in the harbour, and consisted of two longitudinal ground chains of 1,000 feet each, attached at intervals of 50 feet to two sets of Mitchell’s screws, which were worked into the clay in the bed of the stream. The bridle chains, shackled above to the mooring buoys, were secured below to the ground links between the attachments of the screws, the buoys being so arranged that each vessel was held stem and stern, instead of swinging round with the tide, or stranding with one end on the large central sandbank, as heretofore.