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g MARINE REVIEW. CHICAGO LAKE INTERESTS. WESTERN OFFICH, MARINE REVIEW, L No. 13 Western Union Building, CHICAGO, IIl., July 7. Notwithstanding all promises to the contrary, the Chicago grain trade is not doing much for the boats, and most vesselmen are not sanguine over the outlook for immediate business. The grain market seems bent on getting out of line for shipments, and shipments do not stay in line much over a couple of days ata time. The future is all guesswork, and altogether too vague to at- tempt prediction. The great event this week among marine men has been the war over the 'possession of dock facilities at the foot of Van Buren street for the excursion steamers, which have long done business there. The trouble culminated Tues- day in a pitched battle between the police and steamboat owners, but inthe end the steamboat men might be said to have been victorious. The fact seems to be that the so-called syndicate, which. was given the exclusive privilege of landing passengers at Jackson park, where the world's fair is to be held, made a serious mistake in inspiring the world's fair directors to make the effort to evict the steamboat men. The game was not worth the struggle. The eviction called attention in the most forcible way to the monopoly features of the syn- dicate's franchise and at once aroused strong public sympathy for the outside excursion boats. At best there are very serious legal doubts as to the validity of the contract made by the world's fair directors with the syndicate. Robert Rae, than whom perhaps no better authority can be found on the great lakes on these questions, has been outspoken for months in his belief that the courts would upset the contract as soon as it was brought before them. The steamboat men were divided among themselyes,and it would have been nearly impossible for them to have acted together had not some such effort as that of premature eviction been taken against them. This drove them all to- gether, and they are now in shape to make a determined fight uponthe fran- chise. Had the syndicate acted more wisely it would have got its building material upon the ground before starting in, that is if the excuse that the room where the boats now are is wanted for piers, is valid. The excursion boat owners say that there is nothing in this excuse and that the room is wanted for the two small steamers which now form the fleet of the syndicate. Asa matter of fact, there is such a wide discrepancy between the flamboyant promises of Mr. Henry when he received this contract and what has actually been done, that the plans of the company can best be judged when they materialize. At any rate, whatever the plans may be, the syndicate has made a very bad move in stirring up public sentiment against itself, and has rendered its future work all the more difficult, particularly if the franchise itself is to be attacked in the courts as the result of Tuesday's evictions. Another Grain Route to the Seaboard. Special Correspondence to the MARINE REVIEW. At last a lifeboat scheme has been launched at Toronto. The naval bri- gade has decided to build a craft after the style of the life cutters of England. She will be 32 feet long, 8 feet 1 inch beam and 33 feet deep. She will be air tight at each end and along the sides and be supplied with masts, sails, life buoys and cork fenders, and have a crew of twelve with coxswain, all of whom will have oil skins and cork jackets. A station will be equipped on one of the docks, at which a man will be continually on duty. There are nearly 300 in the brigade,some seventy of whom are uniformed and drilled regularly. Many of the members have served on both sea and lake. | The Seamen's Union has entirely lost the slight foothold it had here, and this year, it is safe to say, there is hardly a union man in Kingston. The shoveler's union has also disappeared, but the men appear to be making better wages than ever before. Krnesron, Ont., July 7.--For many years the Canadian Pacific Railway has been endeavoring to gain a direct entrance to New York state and a quick route to New York city. Governor Flower of New York has been here for several days going over the K. & P. Railroad with the Canadian Pacific officials with a view to leasing the former line to the latter company. Mr. - Flower is a large stockholder in the K. & P. Railroad. If arrangements are made the next step will be the bridging of the St. Lawrence at this port, in which enterprise the New York Central will join. Then wheat can be shipped from the north- west and sent straight through to New York for export. The carrying out of this project would relieve both the St. Lawrence river and the Erie canal routes of much trade, and afford facilities for sending grain through to the seaboard in much shorter time than is occupied at present. Forwarders are vigorous in disapproving of the scheme. While it will reduce the river trade, they claim that the bridge will make navigation dangerous, particularly for tows. The corporation of the town of Prescot, situated about fifty miles nearer Montreal than Kingston, has offered one of the forwarding companies here $100,000 and a large wharf if it will remove its transhipptng plant from here to that place. The old whaler Progress has passed here on her way to Chicago where she will be exhibited at the world's fair. ln Dew - ay < s wu The Progress was built about fifty years ago and was always considered a lucky ship.' She was one of the five whaling vessels that returned to New Bedford from the ill-fated expedition of 1871, and is probably the last of the old fashioned '"'spouters." She is rigged with a full whalers' outfit of boats, trypots, ete. The cabin is a regular mu- seum of whaler's curiosities. At Montreal her keel was removed so that she could pass up the canal. All along the line crowds of people assembled on the wharves to see her. _E. R. Holden, president of the Delaware & Hudson Railway, has reached ~ here with a $25,000 steam yacht called the Lotus Seeker. She is 72 feet long, has 10} feet beam and is of the Hereschoff build. Her owner states that she can go 22 miles an hour, which is fully 8 miles faster than the speed of any other steamer on the St. Lawrence. It is estimated that since the season opened forwarding facilities for fully one million bushels of grain had to be refused owing to the lack of storage. This will give an idea of the extent of the rush here during April and May. Even if accommodation could have been afforded here, the grain could not have been taken at Montreal, as the glut still exists there. Powerful Flash Light. _ Special Correspondence to the MARINE REVIEW. WASHINGTON, D. C., June 23.--The light-house board is in receipt of in- formation relating to a magnesium flash light which, it is said, is going to ptove fir'superior to anything now in use for light-house purposes. The light, which was devised by Prof. Schirm of Berlin, Germany, is produced by blowing a small quantity of magnesium powder with a current of air that has previously passed through pumice stone saturated with benzine into a benzine gas flame. The flash produced is exceedingly intense. With the use of ten centigrams of magnesium powder, it is stated that a flash of 400,000 candle power can be produced, which can be seen on 4 clear sunshiny day at a dis- tance of 6 miles. This flash light, in addition to its being very much more powerful than any known electric light, is far better adapted to light-house purposes on account of its rays lying in the red and yellow portions of the spectrum, instean of in the blue portions, as is the case with the electric light. The light-house board, after an examination of the report sent to it through the courtesy of Capt. Bingham, cops of engineers, military attache at Berlin, was so favorably impressed with the light that it has decided to order an ap- paratus to be used ia experiments at the general depot at Staten Island, N. Y. It is expected that this apparatus will arrive in the course of the next two months. The house committee on naval affairs has ordered a favorable report on a bill prepared by the committee providing for the transfer of the revenue cut- ter service from the treasury department to the navy department. The com- mittee will make an effort to secure a day for a hearing on the bill. It is understood that the conferees of the senate and the house on the river and harbor bill have reached an agreement on all the senate amendments to the bill except two, which are the Lake Washington canal project and the Columbia river boat railway project. On these the conferees were unable to agree. Minnesota Point Bridge. Special Correspondence to the MARINE REVIEW. - SUPERIOR, Wis., July 7.--Congressman H. W. Bentley's (New York) bill providing for a bridge over the St. Louis bay from Connor's to Rice's points has called out bitter protests from certain Superior peaple, who- charge that the bridge would detract business from Superior to the benefit of Duluth Such an objection will not carry much weight, but the question of the rights of ship- ping interests in the matter of bridge obstructions will, of course, act against the passage of the bill. The whaleback Thomas Wilson is establishing a reputation as a heavy carrier. Her last cargo of wheat--94,454 bushels--was exceeded only by 5,000 by the cargoes of the steamer 8. L. Tilley and her three consorts. Lieut. J. C. Moore of Detroit has been in the city on the matter of the proposed government life saving station to be erected at Minnesota point at a cost of $15,000 exclusive of equipment. Record of Speed and Big Cargoes. [ Masters or owners are invite 1 to report improvements on this list | Tron ore: Lake Michigan--Mary] land, Inter-Ocean Transportation Com- pany of Milwaukee, 38,507 gross, or 3 odd net tons, Escanaba to South Chicago; E. C. Pope, Eddy Bros. of Bay City Escanaba to Buffalo, draft 16 feet. Grain: H.C. Pope, Eddy Bros. of Bay City, 125,73 fics 730 bushels of corn, Chicago to Buffalo, draft 14 feet 8 inches; Western ee 've, Peter Minch of Cleveland, 112,431 bushels of wheat, Chicago to Buffalo; W. H. Gilcher,J. GC. Gilchrist of Cleyeland, 114,982 paebals of corn, (¢ : : , 3,239 gross, or 3,628 net tons, 4 eas thicago to Buffalo. Speec wego i i 1 I » Union Line of Buffalo, Buffalo to Chicago, 889 miles, 54 10urs and 16 minutes, 16.4 miles an Routt: Saranac, I Buffalo, Buffalo to Lime- Kilns, an hour. zehigh Valley Line of " as . esc 240 miles, 15 hours and 10 minutes, 16 miles $e SEND 50 CENTS IN STAMPS TO THE MARINE REVIEW FOR TEN PHOTOTYPES AND GRA TKAVUR ES OF AK E a Ws = BOUND. LAKE STEAMERS NEATLY