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12 MARINE REVIEW. : DEVOTED TO LAKE MARINE AND KINDRED INTERESTS. Published every Thursday at No. 409 Perry-Payne building, Cleveland, Ohlo, . by John M. Mulrooney and F. M. Barton. SupscripTion--$#2.00 per year inadvanece. Single copies 10 cents each. Convenient binders sent, post paid, $1.00. Advertising rates on application. Entered at Cleveland Post Office as Second class Mail Matter. The books of the United States treasury department on June 30, 1895, contained the names of the 3,342 vessels,. of 1,241,459.14 gross tons registerin the lake trade. The number of steam vessels of 1,000 gross tons, and over that amount, on the lakes on June 30, 1895, was 360 and theiraggregate gross tonnage 643,260.40; the number of vessels of this class owned in all other parts of the country on the same date was 309 and their tonnage 652,598,72, sothat half of the best steamships in allthe United States are owned on the lakes. The classification of the entire lake fleet on June 30, 1895, was as follows: Gross rT PIL@ MIN VIECSSC] G8 oe secs ce acececccacehccancuncacscceaanstessesesi woes 17385. Sailing vessels 300,642.10 WNT E Odi ert..scsssccccrsseesees a 83,081.91 Totals EE ESTEE pret em 3,342 1,241,459.14 The gross registered tonnage of the vessels built on the Jakes during the past five years, according to the reports of the United States commissioner of navigation, is as follows: r - - . : : : : ; MMCATIONOING JUNC, VSO sce: scccccsserstccasse sean sssseeees nes 204 111,856.45 rad sf of 1892 169 45,968.98 i me oo 1893.. 175 99,271.24. ats $s so MSOAS al Soa Rn Costes 10: 41,984.61 ae sf $S 1895 93 36,352.70 PNG aca et aes oti odie date vondius cpedece aseeeesed 347 335,433,98 ST. MARY'S FALLS AND SUEZ CANAL TRAFFIC. (/ rom Oficial Ieports of Canal Officers.) ' St. Mary's Falls Canal. Suez Canal. 1895* 1894 1893 1895 1894 1893 No. vessel passages.,..........- 17,956 14,491 11,008 3,434 3,352 3,341 Tonnage, net registered..... 16,806,781} 13,110,366] 9,849,754|| 8,448,383] 8,039,175) 7,659,068 Days of navigation.............. 231 234 219 365 365 365 * 1895 figures include traffic of Canadian canal at Sault Ste. Marie, which was about Y per cent. of the whole, but largely in American vessels. In remitting a fine imposed upon a tug owned by B. B. Inman of Duluth the treasury department brings out the fact that licenses of officers of steam vessels are graded by the gross tonnage of such ves- sels. Eugene Miller was employed by Mr. Inman on the tug Edward Fisk, a vessel of 43.05 tons gross and 21.93 tons net. The engineer's license permitted him to act on steam vessels of 25 tons, but did not designate gross or net tons. The tug was fined $100, but the fine was remitted, as it was the opinion of the acting secretary of the treasury that there was no intention to violate the law. It was stipulated, how- ever, that the law should be complied with by the employment of an engineer entitled to act on the tug. In discussing the subject of sheathing the bottoms of steel ships, Chief Naval Constructor Hichborn says that. the fact seems incontesta- : ble that the cost of fitting sheathing to any cruising ship would be more than saved during a single three years' cruise by the decrease in coal and docking bills, without considering the question of the ability. of the ships to maintain the speed for which they were designed. There has been a strong prejudice in the navy against sheathing and the first departure from the established practice has been the composite construction of the six new gunboats now building. These vessels will unquestionably be of far greater value and be much less expensive to maintain from the fact of their bottoms being coppered. Officers of the Lake Carriers' Association who visited Washington afew days ago in the interest of more lights, fog signals, gas buoys, etc., for the lakes are highly pleased with the reception which they received at the hands of Admiral Walker, Commander Wilde and other members of the light-house board. They are of the opinion that their co-operation with the board while reports are being made up has resulted in a thorough understanding as to what is most needed in the way of aids to navigation, With so much accomplished the officers of the association may be depended upon to do their part to- wards securing appropriations when congress assembles, One of the leading firms that manufacture dynamos and motors in this country is at work upon a motor that will run at a speed of 10,- 000 revolutions per minute. This motor, if it can be successfully con- structed, will be used by the United States government on men-of-war to start the propelling machinery of Howell torpedoes just before they are fired from their tubes. This torpedo is propelled by the energy Stored in a small fiy-wheel inside of it, made to revolve at a speed of 10,000 revolutions, and at present a steam turbine is the only motor of simple form that is available to rotate the fly-wheel at that speed. Although the only new vessels asked for in the report of the con- struction bureau of the nayy are two composite sailing vessels of 1,100 tons, costing $500,000, as practice cruisers for the Naval Academy, it is not expected that these will conflict with the recommendation for three additional battleships which Secretary Herbert is confidently expected to make in his annual report. A Cleveland vessel owner who is well posted in insurance matters estimates that unless losses for the balance of the season are unusually heavy the underwriters doing business on the lakes will make a mil- lion dollars on this season's insurance on hulls, without any reference to profits on cargoes. A Final Letter from Mr. Fairburn. Editor Marine Review :--I received today an issue of the Review for Oct. 1, in which appears two interesting letters in reply to my letters on the Enquirer-Say When race, etc. As all my data and papers bear- ing on the subject are in Bath, Me., [ am not in a position and neither have I time nor inclination to go further into the subject. Allow me to state, however, that all my figures for dimensions of the Say When and Enquirer are based on those given by Mr. Ballin. If the founda- tion is wrong, it stands to reason that my calculations will not be ac- curate, but that is certainly not my fault. Mr. Ballin doubts the correctness of the I. H. P. of the Orienta, and he crudely "proved the figures to be wrong," in a way which may satisfy himself but not other unprejudiced theoretical men. I will state here, however, that the speed and power of the Orienta I did not guess at but obtained from a reliable source and they must stand unchanged until proved to beerroneous. Your correspondent's figures for displace- ment are such that they need no comment, but he should remember that mean draft means just what it states; that displacement is the weight of water a vessel displaces, or the weight of the vessel with her coal, stores, etc., and whatever may be on board, and not the weight of hull and machinery alone. Also, if the dimensions he supplied us with are correct, my figures remain unchanged, butif not correct, then I am sorry that I have wasted very valuable time working on unrelia- ble data. I thank Mr, Thrall for having answered my questions as regards the Taylor boiler. I have never seen this boiler, and I naturally thought that the cut as published in the Review was correct in detail, but ap- parently it was not. Yet, on this subject of theoretical efficiency of water tube boilers we might argue forever and not arrive at any defi- nite conclusions. If the Taylor boiler weighs but 8.3 pounds per square foot of heating surface, then I acknowledge that the boiler as regards weight is superior to any now in the market, 12 pounds per square foot being a very good standard for weight of modern water tube boilers. I will also state here that I am not interested financially in any water tube boiler, but I have noticed the great success of the Almy boiler on the coast, and I merely used it in my comparison as a typical high-class modern and successful water tube boiler. It is especially annoying to me to find that during this discussion figures which were given as accurate at the commencement have since been proved to vary in some cases as much as 50 per cent., and even now, I must confess, as an unprejudiced party, that I greatly doubt many of the figures given out by interested parties as accurate. In entering a discussion such as this has been, it would be well for all to remember that it is best not to give any figures unless their accuracy can be vouched for, and if any estimating is done, then it should be stated as such, so that any interested party can accept or refuse these figures as he sees fit. As the figures I had worked on are now in many cases said to be incorrect, then the result of my calculations and com- parisons are not worth the paper they are printed on, and we know very little more now than we did when we started. I am afraid, in fact, that we do not know as much, because there is doubt now in our minds as to the accuracy of almost all figures which are at this stage stated as authentic, which by the time this letter reaches you may have been proyen to be incorrect also. William A. Fairburn. Glasgow, Scotland, Oct. 21, 1896. If we did not get your boat in the list of sixty which we had pho- tographed in the Detroit river, we can geta picture of her if she passes the Sault in daylight. :