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MARINE REVIEW. cia Around the Lakes. In an advertisement elsewhere in this issue Gen. Poe, De- troit, Mich., asks for proposals for furnishing twelve valve' frames and fourteen valves for the 800-foot lock at St. Mary's Falls canal. Capt. James Reid will try to release the schooner Minnehaha ashore near Detour. It is reported that he will receive about $11,000 if the boat is released by April 1, but for every day of delay after that date a reduction will be made. The annual meeting of the Wolf & Davidson Steamship Company occurred on the 16th inst. W.H. Wolf was elected president; David Vance vice president; F. R. Pingree secretary; John Saveland assistant secretary and Thomas Davidson treas- urer. William Murphy is building at the foot of Henry street, Buffalo, a wooden passenger steamer to cost about $ 30,000. She will be 140 feet long, 30 feet beam and ro feet hold and will have compound engines. James Conlon and Terrance Byrnes are in- terested in the boat, which will probably be sold when built. John Keenan and D. J. Murphy have begun business on Main street, Cleveland, under the name of the Lake Erie Boiler Works. They will construct small boilers, tanks, etc. Both are mechanics of long experience. Mr Keenan was with the Globe Iron Works Company of Cleveland, and Mr. Murphy with' the Pittsburgh Locomotive Works. : _ Rieboldt, Wolter & Co. of Sheboygan have contracted to build for H. M. Van Ells & Co. of Milwaukee a fishing tug 65 feet over all, 14 feet beam and 6% feet hold. She will have a 14x16 feet engine, and a boiler 5 feet 6 inches in diameter and 10 feet long, to carry 130 pounds of steam. Johnston & Co. of of Ferrysburg, Mich., will build the boiler. The Leatham & Smith Towing and Wrecking Company, of Sturgeon Bay, mentioned in the MARINE REVIFw last week, will utilize the steamer Thomas H. Smith for wrecking purposes. Her engine is to be placed amidship and other necessary changes made. The Smith measures 200 net tons and possess good power. Her draught is also suitable for the business. Boiler Inspector M. F. Chalk of West Superior, has been of- tered $1,000, all expenses and an insurance on his life for $14,000 if he will undertake a submarine search for the Pewabic, in which Oliver Pelkey lost his life last fall. Besides this, if the vessel is found, Chalk would be given one-half the proceeds of the sale of the cargo, which, as it includes 555 tons of pure cop- per, it is believed would be over $100,000. Mr. Chalk has been a professional diver ever since he was sixteen years of age, but is undecided as to whether to accept the proposal. Congressman Lockwood of Buffalo has introduced a_ bill to amend the law which requires vessels on the lakes to carry guns to fire line carrying projectiles. The amendment proposes to abolish the law so far as it applies to the lakes. In speaking of this matter in Washington, Mr. Lockwood said: "I introduced the bill at the request of the Buffalo Lake Carriers' Association. From year to year, it has been necessary to adopt a joint reso- lution exempting the lake vessels from this law, and the history of the lake carrying trade proves that only one wreck has oc- curred on the lakes in twenty years wherein one of those guns could have been of any service. It is an extravagant and ex- pensive requirement for which there is no warrant." The Washington correspondent of the Buffalo Express says: "Senator Hoar is preparing to use the information obtained in his tour as chairman of the committee on trade relations with Canada to introduce and push a bill directing the secretary of war to inquire if any discrimination against grain for American ports going through the Welland canal is practiced and if such is found the secretary is authorized to retaliate by imposing sim- ilar tolls on grain for Canadian ports that goes through the St. Mary's and St. Clair Flats canals. Sentor Hoar, being from New England, is quite open to conviction on this subject, for the pricipal complaint of discrimination comes from OpaousDuls, which receives grain for shipment over the Central Vermont railroad." At the official test of the Kingston dry dock, constructed by the Canadian government, the main pumps were started and the water of the dock lowered at an average of a foot in four minutes, and in one hour and seventeen minutes from the start the engines were shut down, the dock being empty. oe ee ity of the dock with the water at its present leyel is about 2,000,- ooo 'imperial gallons, so that the discharge during the test was in the neighborhood of 26,000 gallons per minute. The: main pumps are placed in the engine pit, some thirteen feet below coping level, and the discharge below the lowest ice level. 'The auxiliary engine which opens and shuts the gates and operates the drainage pumps is a double high pressure, reversing engine. The auxiliary pump is an 8-inch centrifugal, placed 35 feet be- low the coping level and is run at 700 revolutions per minute by a vertical shaft. A large steam fire pump is also placed in the engine room, guaranteeing ample security from fire te vessels under repair. Provision is made for an overhead-ttaveling crane to be used in overhauling the machinery. How to Hang a Man at Sea. "T don't know exactly how long the reading took, for I was busy taking my last look at my shipmates and the familar things about decks,--and wondering how the Albany's crew was. stationed to see the show, when the master-at-arms touched me on the shoulder aud led me to the Jacob's ladder in the wake of. the starboard fore-rigging. This I was told to mount. JI remark- ed I couldn't with my hands seized behind my back. That made a bredk in the performance while 'the first luff' had to come for'ard and have my arms set free. 'Then I mounted the Jacob's ladder, stepped over the hammock nettings and found myself on a staging built outside the ship, even with the rail and nearly under, but a little abaft the fore-yard. From the end of the fore- yard hung a block and through it was rove a piece of two-inch manilla stuff, the out-board end of which was led down to the stage and had a hangman's knot in. it. The part of the rope which led inboard was rove through a block in the slings of the yard, and attached to it was a stout netting made of inch hemp stuff, and containing twelve thirty-two pound shot. On theout- board side of the inboard block the manilla rope (on one end of which I was to be and on the other end of which already was the netting with the shot) was made fast to the yard by a lanyard in which was a slippery bend on one end, and the other end was led down a trap door in the stage and rigged in such a way that when the gun that was to cut the trap door seizing was fired,the fall of the trap door would pull the slippery-bend loose, the net- ting with the three hundred and eighty-four pounds in it wouid come down by the run, while I, with my weight of one hundred and sixty pounds, would go out and up to the yard-arm with the same speed. "i '"On the stage was no person but the master-at-arms, the chaplain and me. The master-at-arms placed me in the middle of the stage on the trap-door, fixed the hangman's knot under my right ear, seized my arms behind me again and tied my ankles together, and pulled the cap down over my face. All the time he was paying these little attentions he took mighty fine care not to set foot on the trap-door, tho' he had no rope about his neck. But he knew there was about ten fathoms of water under the old frigate's keel, with plenty of tiger sharks cruising 'round seeking what they might scoffup. 'Then the chaplain made a prayer and went down off the stage on deck and walked aft. Then 'the master-at-arms went away, and there I stood all alone with no sound in my ears but the rush of the tide along the frigate's side underneath me. They were waiting for the orderly at the cabin door to report it 12 o'clock, and when the bell struck it was to be the signal of the gunner to fire the gun which was to cut the trap-door seizing and send me aloft like a topmast-stunsail.- How I listened for that orderly to walk up to 'the first luff,, who was the officer of the deck on that occasion, of course, and say, 'it's 12 o'clock, sir,',no one can imagine ; and when I heard him stepping from the cabin door to the forward part of the quarter-deck, where I knew 'the old man' and 'the first luff' were standing, I stiffened myself for the swing. 'It's 12 o'clock, sir,' said the orderly, and I remember wondering whether they would swing me at the first tap of the bell or; wait until the last one had sounded. While I was wondering'about that, I heard quick steps coming along the starboard side of the spar-deck, mount the Jacob's ladder,and in less time than it takes me to tell it, 'the first luff' was reading my pardon," --Foretop Captain's Yarn,--The Rudder, :