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14 | MARINE REVIEW. Around the Lakes. Capt. J. Hursley of Sault Ste. Marie has chartered a tug which will take a wrecking outfit in afew days tothe schooners Moonlight and Kent, ashore on Chocolay beach, near Marquette. Two Pintsch gas buoys for Pelee passage, Lake Erie, to mark the middle ground and the shoals south and east of Pelee point, have been ordered from England, and it is expected they will be in position a couple of weeks hence. At the Franklin mine, Mesabi range, there is said to be 180,000 tons ofiron in stock, while the Canton mine on the same range has 150,000 tons. These stock piles indicate the preparations that have been made for a heavy ore movement. The tug Monarch with a wrecking expedition from Escanaba under the direction of Capt..Cyrus Sinclair, representing C. A. Macdonald & Co. of Chicago, is endeavoring to release the steamer Jim Sheriffs, stranded on Big Summer island. Owing to the late date on which an effort was made to organize a branch of the American Association of Masters and Pilots of steam vessels in Detroit, the matter will be postponed until the return of masters and pilots from their vessels in the fall. Cassier's Magazine for May contains an article on " Power Distribu- tion in the Cylinders of Compound and Triple Expansion Engines" by Wm. Henderson, and another on "American Naval Engineers, their Rank and Title" by Ledyard Catheart. During the present season the tugs S.C, Schenck, Roy, L. Birkhead A. Andrews, Jr., Fanny I. Baker, Frank S. Butler, T. M. Moore, Uncle Sam, Jos. S. nn and Wm. E. Rooney, will all be in the Toledo Har- bor Tug Line, of which L. S. Sullivan is manager. The new Wilson line steamer W. D. Rees, just completed by the Cleveland Ship Building Co., took 3,710 net tons of coal on her first cargo to Like Superior. The steamers' draft was 12 feet 10 inches forward and 13 feet 5inches aft. In addition to this cargo the big steamer loaded 200 tons of fuel. Another steamer built by the Cleveland company, the Chili, has just taken a cargo of 3,500 tons of package freight from South Chicago to Buffalo. The Cleveland Rolling Mill Co's boats, managed by Capt. W. C. Rich- -ardson of Cleveland, were the first of the ore fleet to move last week. The J. H. Wade was the first freight steamer to pass the Straits bound up, and the J. H. Devereaux was the first freight steamer to reach the Sault, bound for Lake Superior. Vessels of this fleet have been generally over- hauled during the winter. The Wm. Chisholm was given a new Scotch boiler, 133 by 14 feet, as well as new fuel hatches and part new iron deck. The most important change in the Devereaux is the substitution of three pole spars for the masts which she carried. The Devereaux was also given part new iron deck. Members of the committee of the Lake Carriers' Association, ap- pointed some time ago to look after the matter of ore trimming charges at upper-lake shipping ports, have agreed that the rate at Duluth, Superior and Ashland, where ore is largely of the soft kind, shall be 21% cents a ton, and at Marquette and Escanaba 3 cents aton. It is to be expected, of course, that in some cases the trimmers will demand higher rates than those noted, but members of the committee say they will endeavor to have all owners instruct their captains to trim with their crews or leave port without trimming, rather than pay higher rates. An unusual number of deaths is. reported among lake vessel masters. The death of Capt. Wim. Cowin of Cleveland is referred to eleswhere in this issue, and from Buffalo announcements have been made within a few days regarding the death of two of the best known masters of line boats. Capt. James Niland, whose last steamer was the Anchor liner Alaska, died at his home in Cape Vincent, N. Y.on Friday last. He was a brother of Capt. Martin Niland of the steamer Northern Wave. Capt. W. P. Garden, who died at his home near Oswego, N. Y., had been in the em- ploy of the Union Steamboat Co. since 1889. His eet command was the steamer Tioga. Mate John Wulke will succeed Capt. Garden in command of the Tioga. District Judge Swan of the United States court, Detroit, decided two, admiralty cases Tuesday. He dismissed the libel brought by E. M. Carlton and others against W. S. Jenks of the Phoenix Iron Works, Port Huron. The libelants claimed that the boiler company had insecurely fastened a boiler in one of the steamers, and that an explosion had resulted, for which they claim nearly $30,000 damages. The court held that the claim of the boiler being insecurely fastened had not been estab- lished. The other case -was that.of the Wallace & Cunningham Trans- portation, Company against the steamer H. E. Runnels. In the summer of 1894 the Runnels caught fire in Lake Erie off Ashtabula. Wallace & Cunningham's steamer New Orleans and another boat went to her rescue and towed her into port at Ashtabula. The court awarded salvage in the sum of $2,450, of which. $50 is to Re paid to the mate of the New Orleans. Opinions From Col, Lydecker on the Water Question. Col. Lydecker of the United States engineer corps, stationed at De- troit, has been interviewed on the water question. As might be expected, he takes the position of the late Gen. Poe that the deepening of the chan- nels has but little if any effect on the lake levels. The water may run off a little more smoothly than it did before, he says, but not in sufficient quantity to materially lower the Jakes. Lack of precipitation, hot sum- mers that cause great evaporation and the clearing away of the forests in the lake watersheds all contribute to the lowering of the water, but it is folly, he thinks, to attribute the decrease to any one of these alone. But with other army engineers who have of late changed their minds on the . question of dams, he is strongly in favor of the damming of the Niagara river as a method of raising the water in Lake Erie, and is of the opinion that dams would also raise the water in the Detroit river, and in Lakes Huron and Michigan. When asked whether any effort had been made on the part of army engineers to specially study the causes and effects of the rise and fall of lake levels, Col. Lydecker replied: "None that I know of. I suppose that if the government were to take the matter up it would begin by setting aside an appropriation, and it would have to be a big one, to pay the expenses of a commission of army engineers who might in five years of study and experiment, not only with the lakes themselves but with an immense area of watershed that supplies them, secure enough data to enable them to form a tolerably correct con- clusion as to the cause. This would be rich material for the scientists, but I do not see how it would better aid the government in devising means to stop the fall of water levels; still it might. What is of more consequence is the experimentation to find a suitable means to check the fall now without going to all this expense and time. Immediate effects must be had, and they can be obtained in other and more practicable ways, I think." In General, Appropriations in the river and harbor bill for South Chicago are said to be sufficient to provide 20 feet of water inthe Calumet river for about two miles up fromits mouth. This means that the ship yard, elevators and Illinois steel company will all have 20 feet of water at their. docks. Some big cargo records in ore from Escanaba to South Chicago may be looked for when the dredging provided for in these appropria tions is completed in October next. Consular reports for April, Vol. L, No. 187, contains an extended letter from J. B. Taney, counsel at Belfast, Ireland, giving a complete ac- count of the late ship builders' strike on the Clyde and in England and Ireland. The letter deals with the management of the men by their leaders in London and is very interesting. A copy of this number of the consular reports can be obtained through any congressman or senator. It is admitted on all hands now that the Detroit river bridge bill, as regards action in the present congress, is dead. The entire shipping interests on the lakes certainly have to thank Mr. Harvey D. Goulder, counsel of the Lake Carriers' Association, for the defeat of this bill. When he last visited Washington to oppose the bill, some of the most earnest supporters of the vessel interests had given up all hope of defeat- ing the measure in the senate. Now it is not probable that the bill will even come up for hearing in the senate. The latest bulletin regarding aids to navigation published by the hydrographic office notes the removal of a shoal recently found at the entrance to Chicago river. A notice from Dr. Wells Church of Drum mond, Mich., directs attention to a shoal with but 8 feet of water over it on the east side to the south entrance to Detour passage. 'The shoal consists of large boulders and is approximately 3,500 feet S. W. %4 W. from Barbed point (Crab island). It is also reported that the shoal shown on the charts 2,600 feet south from Barbed point lies about 3,200 feet S. E. \ S. from that point. The annual meeting of the stockholders of the Joseph Dixon Crucible Company was held at the Company's main office, Jersey City, N J., Monday, April 20, and out of a possible vote of 7345 shares, there were 7320 shares voted for the re-election of the old board, consisting of Edward F. C. Young, John A. Walker, Daniel T. Hoag, Richard Butler, William Murray, Alexander T. McGill, and Jerome D. Gillet. President k. F. C. Young, Vice-President and Treasurer John A. Walker, and Secre- tary Geo. E. Long were re-elected by the directors. Judge Joseph D. Bedle was also re-elected as counsel. Geo. H. Morrill & Co. of Boston, Mass., manufacturers, of printers' inks, are erecting a building over some new stills in. addition to their... already extensive plant. This building will be of steel construction | throughout, having steel siding, roof trusses, and covering, and the In- terior platform will be constructed in the same manner. 'The Berlin Iron Bridge Co. of East Berlin, Conn., has the contract for furnishing the complete building.