New-York Tribune from New York, New York • 31

DOVER EXCBLSIS. ENTUUSIASM CREATED BY THE GERMAN IMPROVEMENTS AND CHANGES OF CHANNEL ROUTES. Dover, October 2. Among the Cinque Ports and two Ancient Towns, Dover alone has kept its grip upon the Bea. Sandwich, which once guarded the inshore Passage to the Thames, now lies two miles inland, and its harbor, where the British navy was i.

is a sandy waste. The ancient havens of Hastings. Rye. Wincheisea. Hythe and New- Roir.ney have been filled with the wash of the Sussex rivers and the swirling sands of the eastern drift.

Dover alone has survived the ravages of the tides and southwest winds, the accumulations of shingle and the unceasing wartare of nature. The man Pharos, high upon the chalk cliffs, still looks with hollow eyes upon a bail or. It is not the ancient Dover, for as the sea receded the town was rebuilt on the -d of the oldtime harbor, and the river, which was once filled with sailing craft, was finally converted into a dribbling drain under th streets. Henry VIII and Elizabeth saved the town by creating a new port, as a work of national defence; and. while its commercial fortunes declined through the sluggishness of its merchants, it retained its hold upon the sea.

From the crest of the chalk cliffs Dover resembles to-day an octopus, with tentacles gripping the shelving ledges of rock up and down the coast, and with jointed arms pushed far Inland Into hollows and ravines. The Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports Is the Constable of Dover Castle and the btuUr bead of the Harbor Board; but the town now i.as a new a king and a foreigner. The ierman Emperor has come to the rescue of old port and given to its commercial fortuned a royal fillip. The six delegates, who have returned from Potsdam, describe him as finest gentleman on the Continent and the best man of business. In receiving Sir Willlam Harbor Master John Iron and their colleagues, he put on the uniform of a British admiral, and thereby dispelled the illusion that Dover was exposed to another foreign congest, as in the times of the Danes and the Normans; and when he had sent them in royal carriages to the military review and entertained them at th- palace with cakes and ale.

he quickly settled down to business, looked at the drawings of harbor improvements and of distances, and by suggestions equivalent to commands to the managers of the two chief German steamship lines, put the determining weight of his hand in the scales in favor of the restoration of the commercial prestis- of one of the Cinque Ports. No contra has been made, but there is a definite promise that the North German Lloyd and Hamburg-American from Bremen and Hamburs will fall at Dover in outward and inward voyages as soon as there may be adequate barbar accommodation. Bo decisive is this imperial edict that enthusiasts in the town are disposed to favor a change in the ancient device of the Cinque Ports, by which three half-eagles shall be added to the three half-lions and the throe half-boats. The harbor Improvements were planned ten years ago on a comprehensive ale The Dover Harbor Board undertook to create a commercial harbor with a (off water area of seventy-five acres, a new entrance by lock to the inshore ducks now in use. and an Immense pier with unrivalled facilities for railway and steamship accommodation.

The Admiralty, stimulated by this display of local energy, decided to encircle the commercial harbor with an. outer belt of breakwater as to provide a naval harbor with I low water area of 610 acres. The same engineeni were employed by the Admiralty and the local authorities, and the two schemes were rendered homogeneous. The Admiralty work consisted of the construction of three breakwaters, with a total length of 9.520 feet, and the estimated cost was M.0W.000 has been be. NEW- YORK TRIIU'XE ILLUSTRATED SUPPLEMENT.

gun on two of the breakwaters, the Adn ra pier now in use by steamers of the Cham vice having been extended nearly one thousand feet to the limit the propose commercial harbor and the east arm having been completed for one-thirl of the length. When th Be two breakwaters are finished, an Intermediate south breakwater 4. linn feet in length will be constructed, with openings of 800 and 000 feet at each end for the entran ies tj the naval harbor. As the SHAKKSrKARE CLIFF, WITH L'HE TO FOLKESTONE. depth of at i be from to forty fer-( the south breaks iter the Channel with the lartsest battleships, will have safe borage In Dover Harb way will be brought back one of the Cinque Ports under the ancient Pharos, wh- re the sea kingdom was created and where the Spanish Armada received one of Us reverses.

The Admiralty girdle of breakwaters annot be buckled together before the close of 1907. but the calls of the Merman liners will not be deferred more than two years. The work of the Dover Harbor Board ia already well advanced. THE PIER, Now under proi ess of extension. nders for for mpletion ol the eommen ial port, which will lie like a pocket in the broad folds of the Admiralty harbor, will be invited speedily.

The Prince of Wales, or East Pier, has been carried out from 1,260 feet by an iron viaduct; and 1,650 feet by solid masonry. This breakwater, now 35 feet from edge to edge, will be doubled in breadtb from the viaduct outward, and will i ted by a viaduct and drawbridge with the railway stai This work, with the construction of the short spur from the extension of the Admiralty can be completed in the course of two The Deutschland, the Kaiser Wilhelm der Gi and their sister ships can then find amp depth of water at outer extremity of the East Pier PLAN OF PROPOSED WORKS AT DOV Elt HAItBOU and midway in the Admiralty pier behind the spur Three and possibly four of the largest ommodated it these landing stages, from which passengers can be tly to and from London trains. These arrangements can be carried out bel ire the of the outer bt It of breakwaters or of the inner harbor works. The landing stages will be covered and connected with waiting rooms and modations. The railway journey to or from London will require than two irs a mark? I ipon either Liverpool or Southampton.

The work on the commercial harbor cannot be finished before the end of 1905, nor can It less than $2,000,000, although the nominal estlmate is somewhat lower. In addition to the breakwater, curved viaduct an.i spur already ed, there will be the reclamation of a land area 900 by feet, a rearrangement of to the inshore docks, and the construction of an immei i Btation between the Admiralty and the East Piers for the accommodation of j' 1 The present i rted into a wet dock into the Granville and Well ngt Docks, inshore aters wl by a 1" feet in length, over which a swing bridge will be thrown for conne with the landing stages of the East Pier. The water station will be built on jetty Jutting out from the lalmed area, and will roofed over. This water station will t.ik» the place of railway stations now in use, and will be 1.40U by 350 feet in dimensions, or two and a half timea large as the Charing Cross station, London. There II be four broad lines for eighteen trains, and berths for seven more Channel steamers, in addition to the landing stages for ocean liners on the piers at either side.

These extensive works will be constructed by the town of Dover without expense to the railway companies, and the cost ntually be borne by travellers, the present poll tax of a shilling being raised to half a crown. The agreement of the Hamburg- American and Norddeutscher Lloyd lines to make Dover a calling port has imparted tremendous impetus to the commercial ambitions of the old town under the chalk cliffs. This will involve the abandonment of Cherbourg. Southampton and Plymouth as ports for the German lines, and a material shortening of the outward and inward voyage across the Atlantic. Sturdy champions of Dover, like Mr.

John Iron, whose grand was harbor master before him, when the Duk of Wellington was Warden of the Cinque I contend that after two years passengers ht from Paris to Dover in prefer Cherbourg or Havre, and that Liverpool and ton will be successfully rivalled aa ports of departure for America. When Sir William Crundall, with genial face and the dence of things Jaoped for. closes his eyes and rattles off the distances involved in and North Sea traffic. It is difficult to resist the elusion that Dover is the hub of the universe and possesses the shortest lines of communication with every pert on the Continent Certainly, if the German Emperor has ordered the two great lines of Bremen and Hamburg to make Dover their only port of call in the Channel, it is not unreasonable to look for the concentration of the Folkestone, and Harwich traffic In a harbor within the shortest distance of the chief Continental ports. With the outer harbor a naval station and the inner harbor a entre for Continental and transat lain: traffic, the ancient glory of one of the Cinque Porta will be restored, the best wine of ing kept to the last.

N. HOUSE SUPERSTITIONS. FEAR OF GHOSTS AND NUMBER THIRTEEN DISAPPEARING IN THIS CITY. estate men are gradually forgetting of the oldtime superstitions which used to cause us much trouble" said a dealer the other lay to a Tribune reporter. "The number of houses which cannot be rented or sold 0:1 account of being haunted or because some terrible was committed on the premises 5 rapidly decreasing.

We run across only a people who balk at living in house No. 13. Ev-ti elder! men who have made big fortunes arbeginning to believe that there 13 nothing in th old lying that the aged rich man builds mansion only to lie in It. New- Yorkers ar-entirely too practical to hold to old superstitions; besides, the bis apartment houses whi. we are building aJI over town are blotting nut the old houses which may have hail histori-s." "Tell me something about the haunted houses which are still standing in this city," the agent Wis requested.

'Now you are getting on dangerous ground. In these lays of well defined libel laws can't talk about a man's property in a way that will depreciate its value without paying well for your fun. Circulating ghost storiei about particular houses is not calculated to im prove their renting value, and the owners be able to show that we had done them rea' damage There is one bouse in West Eleventhu. that is never more than half filled, became years ago some one thought the house was haunted, and the story of the terrible ghosts that walk about the halls at night has I handed down from tenant to tenant. Thare other haunted but we are all trying to forget where they are, hoping that tht stories will be forgotten.

It is generally dim cult to rent or dispose of houses In which sensational rimes have been committed. Long trials in which the bouses figured'prominently usually cause them to remain vacant a long time. "The idea, that it Is unlucky to live in No. VI is rapidly disappearing. I know of but one woman who has given her house a new number because it was No.

13. John D. Rockefeller, jr. certainly ii is no regard for unlucky thirteen. H-- will begin housekeeping with his bride at No.

13 West Fifty-fourth-st." There was a time when rich men hesitated about building mansions in which to spend their declining years. The superstition started through the death of several men of wealth after moving into tine homes, the construction of which they began late in life. Some of the finest homes now building in this city are for men who are well along in years. Among them may be mentioned Andrew palace in between Ninetyfirst and Ninety-second and the residence which James B. Haggin is building on the site of the old Progress Club.

HIGHEST of wat From Land of Sunshine. The highest waterfall in the world, geography tells us, is the Cerusola cascade, in the Alps. having a fall of 2,400 feet; that of Arvey. in Savoy, is 1, 10t 1 feet, and falls of the Xosetnita Valley rang" from to 1,000 feet. But higher is the fall in the San Cay tan canyon, in the State of Durango, Mexico.

It was discovered by some prospectors ten years ago in the great Barranca district, which is called the Tierra.s Desconocidas. While searching for the famous lost mine. Naranjal, a great roar of water was beard. With great difficulty the party pushed on and up and down the mighty chasms, until they beheld the suoerb fail that is at least feet 3.