The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

8 | MARINE REVIEW, CHICAGO LAKE INTERESTS. WESTERN OFFICE, MARINE REVIEW, t No. 13 Western Union Building, CHICAGO, Ill., Aug. ite A boom in grain seems impossible this year. For all the world it looked last Saturday as if this week would bea big one in the grain trade. No sooner had Monday come, however, than speculative influences began to stop ship- ments, and by Tuesday grain freights were in pretty bad shape: Several big carriers were on the market and shippers were unable to talk rates at all dur- ing most of the day. Late in the afternoon by picking up small lots here and there the boats which were ready to load were all supplied. Most vesselmen haye given up the prophet business for the season, and will hereafter be con- tent with taking things as they come from day to day. Prophesy has been mighty risky work all this year. The impression is general among those who are in a position to know that the Chicago Ship Building Company will build its large drydock on the Calumet the coming winter. While Manager Babcock disclaims that the matter was "settled, yet from trustworthy information it can be stated that in all probability a dock will be built. Several big capitalists are interested in it in connection with the ship building company. As one of them expressed it the other day, the chances are about ten to one in fayor of the dock. Marine men think that they can get the' United States district attorney here to bring suit against the city of Chicago to'stop the construction of South Halsted street bridge. law, which makes it the duty of the official to bring suit. Milchrist is certain to avoid commencing action if it.can' be averted. him six months in which to do nothing in the Canal street bridge case, and at District Attorney the same rate of progress Halsted street' bridge will' be constructed and° in' They base their belief upon the plain provisions of the It took operation before Mr. Milchrist has finished studying up the law which is to™ guide him in securing an injunction. The marine' interest might as well understand first as last that the help of the district attorney will give them is not worth the trouble. What ought to be done is quite plain. The Lake Carriers' Association should hire a competent attorney here and' bring injunc- tion proceedings against the city immediately. ~ The question of bridges -over , Cleveland, Buffalo and _ Detroit yessel owners are really more interested in Chicago river than are Chi- Chicago river is not a local question by any means. cago vesselmen, outside of the tug lines.- The old Lake Carriers Association took the ground that Chicago river affairs were local in character and it could The railroad propeller lines did not take this view and: 'not interfere here. _ they spent several hundred dollars in giving the Saranac excursion last season, which resulted so favorably to the'marine interest. take speedy action in this bridge business. St. eawnence Canal: Improvement. Special Correspondence to the' MARINE REVIEW. Kineston, Ont., Aug. 11.--Suspended in the canals department are plans and specifications for sections one and two of the Soulanges canal. The con- tract will be awarded this month. 'Three sections on the upper end are now under construction, andthe 'appearance of the foregoing specifications indi- cate that the government intends pushing the work as vigorously as possible. The Soulanges route shows a practically straight canal, 14 miles in length, and' in point of navigability it isin marked contrast with the crooked Beauharnoison the other side of the St. Lawrence. The construction of: the Soulanges will complete the Canadian canal system on the St. Lawrence, and establish a uni- ' form depth of 14 feet. Sections one and two constitute one of the largest canal contracts eyer offered in Canada. The cost will be in the neighborhood of a million. Oswege is making an effort in the elevator line. A movement is on foot there to erect an elevator with a capacity of 400,000 bushels, at a cost of near- ly $500,000. The material to be used will be iron and steel, and the structure will haye two legs. It will be possible to load from twelve to eighteen cars simultaneously on the landward side. This announcement has lent fresh energy to the Kingston scheme. The minister of militia was in Kingston Saturday, when a deputation of the board of trade asked him for the Tete du Pont bar- racks as a site for an elevator. He replied that the government would serious- ly consider the matter. Some steamers began running summer Sunday excursions this season, but they were not allowed to make more than two or threetrips. The Evangelical Alliance notified the owners that unless the excursions were stopped writs would be issued and heavy fines inflicted. The result was that the boats laid up on Sundays. One of the steamers implicated was the Princess Louise. She is now down in 12 feet of water, haying been run into by the tug Rescue, and almost cut in two at midships. She is owned by Capt. Rothwell. When the City of Owen Sound went down in 110 feet of water in the Georgian Bay she was abandoned, the depth being considered too great for She has been raised however, by Wm. Leslie, of These pontoons the operation of wreckers. Kingston, who used his patent iron pontoons in the work. are 46 feet in length, and about ten feet in diameter, round, with cigar-shaped ends. They are divided into three compartments by watertight bulkheads, and are built of heavy steel plates, strengthened with longitudinal and cross braces. 'To prevent undue rolling the pontoons are built with bilge keels, and It is to be hoped that the -- new organization has shaken off the conservatism of the old body," and ' will: . these craft will be afloat again. reached, are carefully guarded. have a well at each end, through which chains are brought up and effectively | held by coggles, The lifting capacity of each pontoon is 100 tons. When. the pontoons were first used on the steamer Armstrong the chains broke. They were then reduced to half the size and tried on the City of Owen Sound with great success. The plan of iron pontoons was advanced by Capt. J.S. Dunham of Chicago many years ago, but it remained for Mr. Leslie to put the theory into practice. Dozens of pace lake boats lie within the depth of 100 feet of water, and if the new invention is the success it is claimed to be all Among these wrecks is the large steel steamer Brunswick, which lies in about 90 feet of water off Dunkirk, N. Y. The wooden steamer Smith Moore is in less than 100 feet off Marquette. The Richelieu and Ontario company has given its new steamer Col- umbian, built by the Delaware River Ship Building Works, Chester, Pa., a test which proved very successful. The new boat is a steel twin screw of 702 tons burthen. Her lines are claimed to be perfect, and much finer than the lake propeller. travel. There are two engines, one for each screw, each with an independent boiler to carry 160 pounds pressure. Her speed, however, is somewhat disap- It was expected she would go 17 miles per hour; if she covers 14 she will do well. The probabilities are that the company will add another steel steamer to their Tine next year. The Columbian will run between Kings- ton and' Montreal. "Several | lake - ship builders figured on this contract, and Dut fora misunderstanding as to draft it oe have come to them. pointing. Conference on the Canal Tolls Matter. Special Correspondence to the MARINE REVIEW. WASHINGTON, D=-C.; Aug. 11. --Secretary of State Foster has had a con- ference with Mr. Herbert the Br itish: charge affaires, over the question of tolls on the Canadian canals, in connection with the retaliation measure passed The conference was quite extended, but the results, if any were It is said that Mr. Herbert intimated that the discriminating tolls charged-against American vessels for using the Cana- dian 'canals, while within the letter of the 'treaty between the two countries respecting the navigation of the canals and~- the St. Lawrence, was probably not in accordance with the spirit of the doctiment. He disclaimed any knowl- edge ofan intention on the part of the dominion government or that of the mother country to enter upon or to authorize | a series of reprisals against the United States in case President Harrison acts under the terms of the new law. He probably recognized, if he did not admit, the disadvantage of such a course, as it would at once lead to the' entire: suspension of the greater part of the traffic of Canadian transcontinental lines. 'While President Harrison does not usually act precipitately i 'in public matters, it is probable that whatever delay there may be in issuing a SEE. va be due' to a consideration of interests on this side of the border. - The secretary of the treasury has- issued a circular to- customs officers in regard to yachts, which provides'that:"'on and after Jan: 1, 1893, licenses for yachts will have inserted therein a statement of the length, ee adi and depth, the gross tonnage, deductions under section' 4153, revised: 'statutes, as SEE aby: the act of Aug. 5, 1882, and a citation of the last document. by congress. Story of an Invention. Suggestions that have led to. valuable inventions have often --been carelessly made. About seven years ago the captain of the steamer Ohio was very careful to have the fog signal blown reg- ularly. In reply to the order one day the engineer asked what he would give if he made a machine that would blow the signal itself. 'Whatever it costs" replied the doubting captain. Nothing more was said, but at odd moments the engineer kept punching away at a piece of boiler iron. 'Two years later the Ohio was loading at Ashtabula and she blew three whistles, and strangely too, no one pulled the cord. 'The captain came down the dock from up town, and wanted to know what the trouble was. 'The engineer said he was just trying that whistle mach- ine. 'The captain brought a number of friends aboard to see it, and they all said it ought to be patented. 'Ihe engineer said he would n't make another for any money, but he got it patented and he changed his mind; and now there are 150 of them on lake steamers. 'The original machine is still working on the Ohio. As the Ohio is a towing steamer, her fog signal is three blasts of the whistle. When a machine was ordered to blow one blast the engineer worked two whole weeks to accomplish : - ; : : it. He hadn't figured on blowing one whistle when he was working at the first machine. SEND 50 CENTS IN STAMPS TO THE MARINE REVIEW FOR ae PHOTOTYPES AND GR, AVURES OF LAKE STEAMERS NEATLY BOUND, She has all the élegance in the interior demanded by modern -- i