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Ship of the Month - cont'd. nery for us to describe, and we have no information about the donkey boiler with which she originally was fitted. Assuming that she looked almost exactly like her near-sister AMAZON (and we have no reason to think otherwise), we can say that AUSTRALIA had a straight stem and a counter stern, and only a little bit of deck sheer. Her two stockless anchors were suspended from hawseholes set near the stem just above the loaded waterline. She had a half-topgallant forecastle with only an open rail around its head. The foremast was stepped abaft the first hatch and, for reasons unknown to us, it was equipped with a boom. Between the fifth and sixth hatches was set the bridge structure, comprised of a fairly small texas cabin, containing the master's office and quarters, while the small pilothouse, which had three windows in its face, was placed on the navigation deck above. There was a small visor over the centre pilothouse window and a window and door were set in each side of the house. An open rail ran around the navigation deck and another around the monkey's island. Another open rail ran down either side of the spar deck. The mainmast was positioned one hatch abaft the bridge structure. Aft there was a small deckhouse protected by a closed steel taffrail, and a rather short mizzen mast rose one hatch forward of this cabin. A single lifeboat, worked with radial steel davits, was positioned on the port side of the spar deck just forward of the cabin, and immediately forward of the cabin rose a very spin­ dly smokestack which, like the masts, had very little rake. AUSTRALIA, like the fleet's other steel barges and most of its wooden steamers, had a black hull. Her cabins were a reddish-brown originally but later were white. The stack was all black and the masts appear to have been buff. Not long after the 1897 barges were in service, the Corrigans appear to have had a change of heart about having wooden steamers towing the big steel barges. They took the earliest of these barges, AURANIA, and had her fitted with steam power by the Ship Owners' Dry Dock Company, of Chicago. She was equipped with a triple expansion engine built by the Detroit Dry Dock Company and one Scotch boiler from the Dry Dock Engine Works, Detroit, and this was all new machinery built for the ship. AURANIA seems to have operated very successfully, although likely towing wooden barges ra­ ther than the steel ones as she had only 700 indicated horsepower. She was only to last for ten more years, however, for on April 29, 1909, she foundered in Whitefish Bay off the lo­ wer end of Parisienne Island after her steel plating was damaged as she tried to fight her way upbound through heavy ice. To this day, she has the distinction of being the only steel-hulled vessel ever lost by sinking caused by ice on Lake Superior. The success of AURANIA's conversion seems to have inspired the Corrigan fleet to do other steel barges in somewhat the same manner. The next of the barges to be converted to a pow­ ered steamer was AUSTRALIA, but in her case, the power plant was not new but rather came from one of the fleet's wooden steamers, the 1887-built AURORA which had burned whilst caught in ice on the Detroit River on December 12, 1898, and which was rebuilt as a barge in 1900. The AURORA was said to have been one of the most powerful wooden steamers on the lakes and the Corrigans wisely retained her engine. Details of AUSTRALIA's subsequent con­ version were carried in the July 17, 1902, issue of the "Marine Review". "The lake freighter AUSTRALIA, which was recently converted from a tow barge to a screw steamer by the Shipowners Dry Dock Co. at North Halsted Street bridge, Chicago, is reported to have made over 12 miles an hour on a run from Escanaba to South Chicago, and has done very well in towing the POLYNESIA of the Corrigan fleet. "In the work of changing this vessel at the Chicago yard, new channel steel intercostal stringers were fitted right-fore-and-aft to strengthen the hull, besides a new stern frame and rudder and after body bossed for propeller shaft. The engine is of triple-expansion type with cylinders of 20, 33 1/2 and 35-in., diameter and 42-in. stroke. The usual auxiliary machinery was installed and the electric light plant and steering gear overhauled. Steam is furnished by two Scotch boilers, 12 1/2 ft. in diameter and 12 ft. long, built for a working pressure of 175 lbs. per square foot (sic - read "inch" -Ed. ) and equipped with the Morri­ son furnaces and Ellis & Eaves induced draft. "A new steel deck house was built aft for the accommodation of officers and crew, and a new pilot house and texas forward. The vessel was also furnished with two raking and gracefully