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' ~ MARINE REVIEW. Vot. XIII. CLEVELAND, O., APRIL 30, 1896. No. 18. Ore Sales and Freight Contracts, Another buying movement in ore was started early this week, and al- though the Carnegie company has not yet made any purchases, other Pitts- burg concerns have partly provided for their wants during the coming year. It is now quite certain that between 3,500,000 and 4,000,000 tons of ore has been sold, but this includes, of course, the ore that is consumed by furnace companies having interests in mining properties. The first big transaction in lake freights was closed on Tuesday, when Pickands, Mather & Co., agents for the American Steel Barge Co., made arrangements with M. A. Hanna & Co. and Tod, Stambaugh & Co. to give the whalebacks the great bulk of ore that they will require for the coming season. Some other tonnage that has been regularly employed with M. A. Hanna & Co, was also placed, and the rates were $1 to October 1 and $1.05 for the season, contracts in the latter case involving one trip in November. It may be taken for granted that this action on the part of Hauna & Co. and Pickands, Mather & Co., two of the largest concerns in the ore business, was for the purpose of establishing these rates for ships like those of the Miunesota Steamship Co., Mutual and Menominee transportation companies and other lines controlled by the ore dealers. This is further proven by the fact that Oglebay, Norton & Co. and other shippers have said to the owners of vessels regularly employed by them that they can have the same rates on quantities of ore in proportion to sales thus far made; In other words these rates are now established for boats of the ore companies and for such vessel owners as are not independent of ore con- nections. Ou the other hand there has been no business done through brokers as yet, and the individual vessel owners are still claiming that they will hold out for $1.10 as a season rate. This claim, which has been made for a long time past, is, of course, weakened by the big transactions just referred to, but it is nevertheless certain that the number of vessels taking chances on charters from trip to trip will be much greater than in the past seasons, unless further ore sales prompt an advance in season rates a little later on. Vessel owners are encouraged by the steady offers of grain at Duluth and Chicago. If this activity in the grain trade holds out for about a month, and if there is any improvement in the iron market in the meantime, the vessel owners who are asking for higher rates will certainly gain their point, as it is absolutely certain that every pound of ore sold on the $4 basis will be covered by lake freight immediately, and shippers will not dally over a 5-cent advance in freights. But for the present the only con- tract rates that can be quoted are those noted above, $1.05 for the season, and $1.00 to October I. Non-Bessemer Ores of Lake Superior. W. G. Pollock of the Pittsburg & Lake Angeline Iron Co. is of the opinion that producers of non-Bessemer ores in the Lake Superior region are making a mistake in sacrificing their mines as they have been doing for two or three years past. They are simply exhausting the ore deposits, he says, without receiving anything in return, and many of the companies have done business at an actual loss. Each producer is trying to see how low he can sell so as to get the start of some other competitor, and the resultis disastrous. The southern iron makers, Mr. Pollock says, are influencing this toa considerable degree. They have been send- ing pig iron into Detroit, and the railroads were hauling it to that place from Alabama for $4.a ton. Upon this they were actually losing money but they were obtaining business from other freights in connectionjwith the iron hauling that gave them a profit. The southern men are getting very tired of trying to make pig for nothing. It bas been a losing ven- ture, and Mr. Pollock thinks the time must be near at hand when they will be willing to change the present policy for one that will be more in keeping with legitimate business operations. He thinks it would be better for the interests associated with the mining of these ores if. they were in fewer hands. Then the business could be regulated' so as to prevent the present disastrous competition for a place in the market. As now practiced, it is simply a race for the survival of the fittest. Officials of the Carnegie Steel Company now make no secret of their connection with the Pittsburg, Shenango & Lake Erie Ry. Co. which con- trols ore docks and other terminal property at Conneaut. The railway company's alliance with the big steel company will relieve the manage- ment of a heavy financial load and result in an entrance to Pittsburg over the Carnegie belt line. On the other hand the Carnegie company will have another advantage over competitors in lower handling and carrying charges on its ore from vessel to furnace. Lake Erie-Ohio River Canals--A Government Report. The river and harbor act of August, 1894, contained an appropriation of $20,000 for survey of canal routes in Ohio connecting Lake Erie with the Ohio river. The report of the board of army engineers appointed to make this survey was submitted to congress, through the secretary of war, a month ago, but the first copies of it in print were distributed only a few days ago. It is a document of 120 pages accompanied by numerous maps and diagrams, and it probably contains more information regarding Ohio canals and the subject of enlarging them by lake connections than has ever before been collected in a single work. The board of army engineers in charge of the survey, as originally constituted, consisted of Gen. O. M. Poe, Col. Amos Stickney and Major Wm. L. Marshall, but upon the death of Gen. Poe, in October last, Major Wm. S. Stanton was appointed to fill the vacancy. These officers were, of course, wellenough acqainted with all of the details of lake commerce to know that acanal of 7 feet draft from Lake Erie to the Ohio river would not prove successful commercially But the duty devolving upon them was to prepare a report in accordance with the act of congress, and in this regard they have done well, as they have at least collected a great deal of information on the subject assigned to them. The cost of this information ($20,000) seems high, however, and can only be tolerated in measures like the average river and harbor bill. The act provided for a survey of the Miami and Erie canal, the Ohio canal and such branches thereof and such river and stream channels as may form available portions of a continuous canal connecting the waters of Lake Erie with the Ohio river through the state of Ohio, and a report as to the feasibility and advisability of improving and widening such canal to 70 feet at the water line, and deepening the same to 7 feet; also the con- struction of new locks not less than 150 feet in length and 21 feet in width, so as to provide capacity for vessels of at least 280 tons burden. The board reported the following routes as available: First, eastern route, Cleveland to Marietta; second, central route, Sandusky bay to Ports- mouth ; third, western route, Toledo to Cincinnati. On all three routes the water supply is such that, by constructing suitable reservoirs and en- larging the capacities of existing state works, and readjusting the summit levels of the canals by lowering them so that the storage can be made ayail- able, it is practicable to construct along any or all of the natural routes named a canal of the dimensions specified that may be operated at its full capacity for 275 days of each year. The estimated cost of each waterway of the prescribed dimensions is: Eastern route, $12,299,372; central route, including cost of feeder from Lewiston reservoir to the Scioto valley, $18,- 118,165 ; western route, $23,011,374. The relative merits of the three routes are cited at great length in the report. Opinions from Alexander McDougall, General Manager Charles E. Wheeler, of the Cleveland Canal Boat Co., and others are also included, and there is a great mass of statistics bearing upon barge traffic in different parts of the country. But the board concludes that while it would be "feasible" to build a canal of the dimensions specified in thetact, a waterway of such dimensions and capacity would, by inadequate depth in the canal and in the Ohio requiring a transshipment of freight, be so restricted in its benefits to interstate commerce that its construction, apart from an ade- quate improvement of the Ohio river, would not be "advisable." The board did not consider it a part of its duty to present any recommendation with regard toacanal of dimensions different from those prescribed in the act of congress, but the report covers the question of water supply and cost of construction for a canal having a uniform width of 85 feet and depth of 10 feet, which would admit the passage of vessels that might be considered of about the least practicable size for lake navigation: Accompanying the report is an excellent map of Ohio and adjacent territory, showing existing abandoned and proposed canal routes between Lake Erie and the Ohio river. For three months or more past the REVIEw has been publishing lists of captains and engineers of vessels owned in all parts of the lakes. The work is now complete and these lists, just as they appeared in the REVIEW, have been collected 'and printed in pamphlet form. The pamphlet con- tains the names of hundreds of captains and engineers, as well as the names and post.office addresses of all the leading corporations and firms that control vessel property. These small books are offered for sale by the REVIEW and will be sent to any address upon receipt of $1. Bibsock & Wilcox water tube boilers in combination with cylindrical boilers will be used in the cruiser Chicago, which is undergoing extensive alterations. This boiler will also be used in several of the torpedo boats.