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10 MARINE REVIEW. MARINE REVIEW. DEVOTED TO THE LAKE MARINE AND KINDRED INTERESTS. Published every Thursday at No. 516 Perry-Payne building, Cleveland, O. Chicago office, (branch), No. 726 Phoenix building. SUBSCRIPTION--$2.00 per year in advance. Single copies 1ocents each. Convenient binders sent, post paid, 75 cents. Advertising rates on appli- cation. _ The books of the United States treasury departinent contain the names of 3,761 vessels, of 1,261,067.22 gross tons register in the lake trade. The lakes have more steam vessels of 1,000 to 2,500 tons than the com- bined ownership of this class of vessels in all other sections of the country. The number of steam vessels of 1,000 to 2,500 tons on the lakes on June 30, 1893, was 318 and their aggregate gross tonnage 525,778.57 ; in all other parts of the country the number of this class of vessels was,on the same date, 211 and their gross tonnage 314,016.65. The classification of the entire lake fleet on June 30, 1893, was as follows: Gross. Class. . Number. Tonnage. LEA ESS Stretsdstsrescaccteesssactsrecidssscssse 1,731 828,702.29 GAtlit SAV ESSEIG Mores cat seacdin set ives coe satvsensesexs 1,205 317,789.37 Catralapoats..:.ccciesccstsossveestcecceees Ruseecasee 743 76,843.57 Barges........0 pantccanarioacscueees BOCOSOBBCCOBOREDIOON 82 37,731.99 NOE A esc er ee ii vsalessercsersedesecestoss 3,761 1,261,067.22 The gross registered tonnage of vessels built on the lakes during the past five years, according to the reports of the United States com- missioner of navigation, is as follows: Number. Net Tonnage. MOOQremtanneceacistsecebisses'eceees sescieseadtoese 225 107,080.30 TOQOm cress oe csscrciceseiescctoatssecaleescces 218 - 108,515.00 VOOM eee noes se ccsle sce vdos sb ecoeees jheeve races 204 111,856.45 TOO Deveson sasecasncadeccots Mee soso sisiccss 169 45,168.98 MOO Serseeccrsdeereecssetest oceslitesensonveaocts 175 99,271.24 PROtAL a eccscsdeescscer ienceses cts seve = 9 471,891.97 ST. MARY'S FALLS AND SUEZ CANAL TRAFFIC. St. Mary's Falls Canal. 1892. 1891. 1890. 1892. 1891. 1890. No. vessel passages 12,580] 10,191] 10,557 3,559 4,207 3,389 Ton'ge, net regist'd|10,647,203|8,400,685|8,454,435||7,712,028|8,698,777|6,890,014 Suez Canal. Days of navigation... 223 225 228 365 365 365 Entered at Cleveland Post Office as Second-class Mail Matter. A PROMINENT government official, who spent a year or more on special duty connected with lake shipping, was heard to remark, in a dis- cussion regarding the extent of lake commerce, that he was very forcibly impressed with the modesty of lake vessel owners, who, as he put it, went to Washington with hatin hand begging for river and harbor improve- ments, when the great interests which they represent would warrant them in not only asking for,bftt demanding,appropriations far in excess of those accorded to any other section of the country. We have no desire to crit- icise the work of the legislative committee of the Lake Carriers' Associa- tion in Buffalo, but it does seem that a little more vigorous policy with reference to appropriations would result in a more satisfactory distribu- tion of government funds intended for the assistance of shipping. If it were not for the danger of defeating the raft towing regulations that have been incorporated in the river and harbor bill, that measure, as well as the civil sundry appropriation bill which preceded it, would be open to criticism from the lakes. A dispatch from Washington says that Secretary Keep has asked Senator McMillan to cause amendments to be made to the civil sundry bill providing for new lights at North Manitou island, Death's Door passage and Crisp's point, Lake Superior. Instead of only these three items, there should be an addition of a dozen or more new provisions for aids to navigation in the bill, and even then the lakes would be getting only a fraction of the appropriations to which they are entitled, in view of the amounts accorded to the Mississsippi river and its tributaries. AN INTERESTING correspondence on the subject of the use of passing signals in fog will be found in another part-of this issue. The question was brought up by one of the best known managers of steam vessels on the lakes, and all vessel masters will find it to their advantage to read the opinion expressed by Mr. Harvey D. Goulder, marine lawyer of Cleveland. Since the last meeting of the board of supervising inspectors of steam ves- sels, special importance is attached to the law providing that passing signals are never to be used except when steamers are actually in sight of each other. In thick weather, when vessels can not see each other, fog signals only may lawfully be given, and pilots should, upon hearing the fog signal of another vessel, ahead or on either bow, run slow with fre- quent stoppages, until the fog signals of the opposing vessel are heard abaft the beam, A sHor? time ago a letter sent out from the office of the REVIEW and intended for a friend residing on Joseph Campau avenue, Detroit, Mich., was, by mistake, addressed "Chicago, Ill." A few days later, the friend in Detroit, who had, strange to say, received the letter, returned the envelope to us. It had been forwarded from Chicago to Detroit with a notation made by a rubber stamp to the effect that the deficiency in di- rection had been supplied by the Chicago post office; all of which goes to show that Uncle Sam has an admirable postal system. VESSEL owners as well as grain shippers will be interested in know- ing that for the first three months of 1894 the exports of Indian corn amounted to 20,839,000 bushels, against 9,854,433 bushels in the corre- sponding part of 1893. The increase of about 11,000,000 bushels is a gain of more than rio per cent., and the shipments of the first quarter have been at the rate of over 83,000,000 bushels in the whole year. Evidently this American cereal is gaining favor in the markets of Europe. ALL Is not harmony among the lake and rail lines and a slashing of rates may be expected at any time after the season is fully opened. It would not be at all surprising to learn of an announcement from the Great Northern putting Duluth on a level with Chicago in the matter of rates, Over Lapping Shell Plates. "Helps and Hindrances to Improvements in Ship Building" is the title of a series of articles that have been running for some time in Fair- play of London. The writer has evidently been connected with the ship building business fora long period of years,as he discusses in a very interesting way the various changes that have occurred in methods of con- struction. In one of the latest articles of the series he says: "The practice of jointing the ends of shell plates by overlapping them instead of fitting them flush, end to end, and butt-strapping them, is now receiving constant and notable sanction in daily practice. Some ten or twelve years ago certain north-east coast ship builders began to leave the beaten track of smooth flush-butts, and to adopt in their stead over-lapped joints. The raison d'etre of this step lay originally, no doubt, in the say- ing of weight and of riveting work thereby effected. Many ship builders and ship owners, however, were disposed at first to question the efficiency of the method, while others looked on with feeling of disfavor and mild disgust at what was termed the ' unsightly,cheap looking job.' But exper- ience has shown, especially in very large steamers, that the over- 'lapped joint, though less sightly than the flush-butt with single inside butt-strap, is nevertheless equally strong and efficient. Not only so, but, in the case of double butt-straps with outside as well as inside projecting straps, it is even more sightly and equally efficient. Builders and owners alike have gradually been led to set aside their objections as to appear- ances, and to adopt the system for the top sides of vessels in which high speed and consequently a flush-bottom are desiderata, and for the shell throughout in vessels where speed and even elegance are secondary to utility and economy. Within the last three years or so, moreover, an im- proved form of the over-lapped joint has been introduced by the firm of Harland & Wolff, Limited, Belfast, by which the shell-plates are scarphed --thinned and tapered away at the corners--for the width of the landing, thus dispensing with the tapered packing in the landings at the overlaps. This forms a much fairer, more easily made watertight, and more sightly seam, and a surface offering less frictional resistance. As regards the strength of this system of lap-jointing, Messers. Harland & Wolff remark, in a communication to the writer: 'We thereby obtain a connection whichis the nearest approach to the strength of the solid plate, and which has exhibited during exhaustive experiments an initial resistance to shear not approached by any other joint in existence.' Lap-jointing, it may be needless to remind the reader, was adopted in the case of the Campania and Lucania so far as the major portion of their shell was concerned. Doubtless this fact, and the other, that Messrs. Harland & Wolff are now adopting the lap-joint in all their large steamers where double butt-strap joints are still considered advisable by the registries, will give even greater impetus to the adoption of the system in large passenger and cargo ships. Hydraulic and other machine tool makers have hastened to aid the shipbuilders in providing powerful machines designed to bevel the ends of the plates, and to effect the necessary tapering of the thickness of plating in way of the landings which this method of lap-jointing necessitates." A twin-screw steamer of 500 tons, 170 feet long and 30 feet wide, has been successfully launched on Lake Titicaca, in the mountains of Pern, on what is said to be the highest navigable water in the world. The steamer was built on the Clyde and transported by water, rail and llamas and mules to its present position--13,000 feet above the sea. It has, so far as records are available, been left to a German-owned and German-built steel clipper, the Philadelphia, to claim the honor of having covered the distance between Sandy Hook, New York, and Sidney Heads in less time than any ship that has ever made the voyage. She did the run in seventy-seven days. Her best run was 338 miles in one day.