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8 MARINE REVIEW. Around the Lakes. S. A. Murphy, who raised the steamer Ogemaw, which was sunk in Green bay, bought her at marshal's sale in Detroit a few days ago for $16,000. Capt. James Warwick, Sr., aged seventy-eight, for fifty years a sailor on the lakes and commander of several vessels, died at his home near Sarnia a few days ago. Breyman Bros. of Toledo have been buying more dredging apparatus. They purchased the dredge John T odd and two dump scows, Wednesday, from the Kirby-Carpenter Company of Menominee, Mich. The customs department steamer Calumet, built by David Bell of Buf- falo and to be used for boarding incoming vessels at Chicago, is said to be 'a very fast wooden craft. Her trial occurred at Buffalo, Saturday, and she will be ready to go to Chicago shortly. The Fisher Electrical Manufacturing Company of Detroit will equip steamer No. 53, the freight boat now nearing completion at the yard of the Globe Iron Works Company, with a complete lighting plant, including two twin navy sets and about 250 incandescent lamps. It is now probable that Capt. James Davidson of West Bay City will not do more this winter than build the schooner upon which work was begun a few days ago. The schooner is to be 245 feet over all, 41 feet beam and 21 feet depth of hold, and will probably carry 2,200 gross tons of ore on the present Sault canal draft. Williams, Daugherty & Upham of Duluth bid 15, 20 and 138 cents a yard on dredging connected with the deepening and widening of Portage lake canal, while the bid of Dunbar & Sullivan was 12, 30 and 12 cents. It is claimed that there was some irregularity about the bid of Dunbar & Sullivan. The contract has not been let as yet. As a result of the efforts of the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce in support of a plan of deepening, widening and straightening the Cuyahoga river, thus affording improved harbor facilities, the council of the city has decided to hold an open meeting on the evening of Oct. 3, with a view to discussing extensive inner-harbor work. A scheme for flushing the river during summer months when the water is in very bad condition is also talked of. By the passage of an act in the last congress intended to increase the time of employment to surfmen in the life saving service on the Atlantic coast, a question was raised as to whether this act, intended for the better- ment of one branch of the surfmen, would not make a cut in the wages of men on the lakes. 'The solicitor of the treasury has held, however, that the act was not intended to apply to contracts already existing with men in the service on the lakes. Some Features of the Waterways Convention. Harvey D. Goulder of Cleveland and Engineer A. 1. Cooley of Chica- go were the United States delegates in the Toronto waterways convention who succeeded in overcoming the demands of the Canadian representa- tives for endorsement of the St. Lawrence route alone in the resolutions summing up the conclusions of the convention. Their efforts in commit- tee to prepare resolutions that would be fair to both Canadian and Ameri- can routes met with strong opposition, but when resolutions of this kind were finally presented to the convention they went through without any delay. The resolution calling for the appointment of an international com- - mission of engineers to determine the outflow of the several lakes and re- port upon such works on the Niagara river as will control the level of Lake Erie, was prompted by Mr. Wheeler of the Cleveland chamber of commerce and other delegates who have given some study to the opinions of George Y. Wisner of Detroit on this subject. _ It was noticeable that there was little attention given to the Georgian bay--Lake Ontario ship canal question in the convention. Referring to this scheme,Mr. Cooley is reported to have said: "This old canal project will cost more than the great Manchester ship canal. It is one of those things which may be done in the far future, but it is not to be considered seriously as one of the questions of the day. I believe in deep waterways between the upper lakes, but the best route is by Lake Erie, and thence on the American side of Lake Ontario. This canal on American soil around Niagara falls could be constructed for $23,000,000,and I believe the route is much better than could be obtained by enlarging the Welland canal." Mr. Cooley has some very decided opinions relative to the attitude of the railways toward deep waterways. He did not believe, he said during a discussion in the convention, that there was an intelligent railroad man in the United States fighting the waterways. What the railroads said was: "Tf you make these waterways you will build up the country, and we shall reap benefits; go ahead, we are with you." Considering the question from a railway standpoint, the domestic movement was constant; the for- eign movement was asurplus movement. The domestic transportation determined the line of foreign shipment. There had not been atime --_. when there was not a better route down the St. Lawrence than down the Erie canal, and yet there had never been a time when there was not more freight down the Erie canal than down the St. Lawrence. So far as the representatives from the United States were concerned, they were not ad- vocating any particular route; what they were advocating was deep water to the sea. Many routes would one after the other come in time. "As surely," concluded Mr. Cooley, "as this continent is laid out as itis, so surely will the people be bound together by commercial links that will ignore all questions of nationality and all questions of sentiment and patriotism, because the almighty dollar will after all settle that question, and if necessary we will be all one people if we cannot settle it in any other way." Boiler Question in Navies. A writer in Engineering of London, issue of Sept. 14, discussing the boiler question, contends that while the practice of four leading naval powers--France, Russia, Italy and the United States--in the matter of the ratio of boiler capacity to engine power required, is almost identical, it is diametrically opposed to what is done in Great Britain. "In the ships of all these countries," he says 'such a boiler installation is fitted as com- pared with engine power, as to require a very moderate assistance from forced draught in case of emergency, and which secures the continuous maintenance at sea of a power in excess of the legend natural draught powers of our later and larger vessels. These people rely upon their boilers; we do not. We provide forced draught fans, and then just what boilers there may be room for when all other demands are satisfied. "The Americans adopt the precept laid down down by Dr. Elgar in his paper on 'Fast Ocean Steamers,' read last summer at the meeting of the Institution of Naval Architects. Speaking of a large proportion of boiler power, Dr. Elgar said: 'The necessity for this is also well known. The best results upon short trials are obtained with large engines and small boilers, but the best results at sea are obtained with smaller en- gines and large boilers. This is also an instance in which short trials fail as a standard of what can be done upon a long voyage at sea.' So the Americans put in rather larger boilers than we do, and rather smaller engines, that is, speaking generally. To secure a high speed on paper, their ships are tried at a so-called normal draught, with only a proportion of their load on board, and as the displacements published are usually those of this normal draught, the information is often misleading." In Reality a Power Company. Prgmotors of the Minnesota Canal Company, who have been trying to secure appropriations for their scheme from the government, are now admitting their plans. The real purpose of the company is to construct an extensive system of navigable canals and waterways with a view of utilizing the powers of the streams that flow into the head of Lake Supe- rior. These streams have a fall of 600 feet or more in a few miles, and two canals are planned, one to tap the waters of the St. Louis river, discharg- ing it at the elevation of 610 feet on top of the hill above Duluth, the other tapping streams to the easterly and discharging them also above the city. By the canal as at first designed 140,000 horse power is claimed to be available, but it is designed to enlarge the prism of the canal to such an area as will give 300,000 horse power. All of this, the engineers com- pute, will be utilized within a few years, and it is believed by them to be possible to so increase storage reservoirs as to ultimately supply, through a canal 300 feet wide on the bottom and 30 feet deep, 1,150,000 horse power. He had the Practical Schooling ofa Sailor. Capt. Adolph Freitsch, who has gained some notoriety by working his way down the lakes and crossing the Atlantic alone in a frail schooner, it appears, is a Finlander and consequently a former subject of the czar of Russia. He was born in the city of Abo, Finland, located on the Finnish bay at a distance of about 100 miles from St. Petersburg. Abo is a seaport of about 25,000 inhabitants. The captain's father was an attorney. Up to his niteteenth year he attended the Abo high school and naval academy. At an early age he evinced a predilection for the sea and enjoyed sailing when he was very young. At the age of nineteen Capt. Freitsch went to sea. He went through all the practical schooling of a sailor. He was em- ployed on board English and American vessels for some years and made several voyages to the West Indies. Then his father died and he decided to marry and take up a home in America. He was not successful ashore and after drifting to Chicago and Milwaukee he earned some money in the lumber business and became interested in a lumber schooner. The schooner was lost shortly after he had purchased her, and with her went all his savings. Later on followed his determination to build a small boat in which to return alone to his native country. A four-masted wooden schooner, which is to carry 5,600 feet of canvas, was launched at Bath, Me., last week and named Augustus Palmer. The boat was built by N, T. Palmer andis 208.8 feet over all, 39.5 feet beam and 19.2 feet depth.