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- 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 inadvance. Single copies 10centseach. 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, 1896, contained the names of 3,333 vessels, of 1,324,067.58 gross tons register in the lake trade. The number of steam vessels of 1,000 gross tons, and over that amount, on the lakes on June 30, 1896, was 383 and their aggregate gross tonnage 711,034.28; the number of vessels of this class owned in all other parts of the country on the same date was 315 and their tonnage 685,204.55, so that more than half of the best steamships in all the United States are owned on the lakes. The classification of the entire lake fleet on June 30, 1896, was as follows: i Gross Number. Tonnage. RILGMININVESSOLSse crscectsisctssesckutoctoscanstetycaadsonsseeeseancverce 1792 924,630.51 Sailing VesselS ANd DArges.........cssersescsecssecrseecesese 1,125 354,327.60 MUTT HIRD ORCS icekisircsdctnvtssccstcovertesstecettacesaessastrrsoneCest 416 45,109.47 TNOGAL sitter ccstese Pal ca aetieacansenertecteesee 3,333 1,324,067.58 The gross registered tonnage of the vessels built on the lakes during the past six years, according to the reports of the United States commissioner of navigation, is as follows: _ Year ending June 30. 1891 : 204 111,856 45 % s tf I SODE Bese huss tiachicciee cuswscenccecdacve 169 45,968.98 As of se BOBS G55, scstoseniboanaedvancesscsoen 175 99,271.24 se " a 1894...... BERs Gates ee atccetereccteres 106 41,984.61 . ss * ABO GR amar eee shes cuca jpueneSteicoteasensts? 36,352.70 id * = SOG Retirtcct eter trees casrenesstncatie 117 108,782.38 MNO Gllseesectascesvesecostsccececsssacevesssarcceesscssscssacezs 864 444,216.36 ST. MARY'S FALLS AND SUEZ CANAL TRAFFIC. (2 vou. UOpicial Lteports 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 8,484 8,352 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 _4@ per cent. of the whole, but largely in American vessels. Heavy battleships with 'still heavier guns and armor cause great strains in dry docks, but the faults developed by these big ships of late in the Brooklyn navy yard dock and in government docks elsewhere - will not serve as an argument against the construction of timber dry docks. There are ten or twelve timber docks on the lakes, ranging in length from 300 to 500 feet, and there are half a dozen more at Phila- delphia, Newport News and other points on the Atlantic coast, all of which were successfully built and placed in operation imediately upon their completion. It may be said, of course, that the lake docks are sel- dom subjected to even the strain of a loaded vessel, but they are found capable, nevertheless, of withstanding the strains for which they are built, and the same may be said of successful wooden docks in private ship yards on the coast. Defective construction seems to be the diffi- culty with these naval dry docks, as with many other government works. "Thereare all sorts of explanations of the tremendous leakage of water into the Brooklyn dock," says the Army and Naval Journal, "but none of them seem to be quite satisfactory. It cannot be true that the water which is percolating through the surrounding soil to the amount of hundreds of gallons a minute, comes through a gap in the sea wall. When the facts are finally arrived at, it will be found that the real fault is in the abutments, which have not been properly con- structed. To provide a sufficient remedy it will be necessary to put down new sheet piling to a sufficient depth and to build a coffer-dam around the abutments, all of which will cost probably not less than $25,000. The fault developed in this dock will probably revive criti- cism of the whole system of timber dry dock building, but not rightly so, The Mare Island (Cal.) dry dock, which is concrete laid upon pil- ing, required sixteen years to complete, and cost about $3,000,000, and is only 500 feet long. This is about five times the cost of a serviceable timber dry dock greater in its dimensions. Timber dry docks have justified the theories upon which they are constructed by their perfor- mances. The one at Hrie basin has been in constant use since 1864 and there are numerous other satisfactory docks in different parts of the country built on the same principle.' Engineering journals from England contain lengthy accounts of trials of the torpedo boat Turbinia, and all of them give up columns of space to discussing her machinery. They are all inclined to the opin- ion that the torpedo boat of the future will be propelled on the turbine principle. The inventor has been approached by several well known companies, who are desirous of taking over the patents, but it is prob- able that an independent company will be formed with sufficient capital to experiment further with a view to applying machinery of this kind to ordinary merchant vessels. As the demand for higher speed in the torpedo boat chasers increases, the builders are meeting with new diffi- culties in fulfilling their contracts with the government. The 30-knot destroyers are evidently proving troublesome, as several of the contrac- tors have had repeated trials without attaining the required speed. Even some of the firms that have been entrusted with the building of the 27-knotters have been unable to fulfill the conditions as yet, so that altogether, notwithstanding the fact that the prices paid for these flyers were considered high, the contractors are in most cases likely to find their anticipated profits dwindling away, owing 'to the difficul- ties to be overcome. The United States navy is not alone in the work of conducting experiments with nickel steel for marine boilers. Experiments with plates of this alloy are now being made quite extensively in England. The limit of steam pressure in cylindrical boilers is practically fixed ' by the thickness of shell required for them, and as nickel steel posseses a much higher tenacity than ordinary boiler steel, it is hoped that the former may be able to replace the latter in a satisfactory manner. If a good trustworthy nickel steel up to fifty-four tons per square inch can be secured, as compared with the twenty-seven to twenty-eight tons of mild boiler steel, it is quite evident that manufacturers can go on still further increasing steam pressures in cylindrical boilers without inerease of thickness to the shell. This would be a great boon to the mercantile marine, which so far shows no great love for the water tube boiler, but a strong attachment to the long-tried Scotch type. A complete report of the official trial of the revenue cutter Gres- ham, which will leave the ship yard of the Globe Iron Works Co., Cleveland, in a few days, for regular service on the St. Mary's river, is contained in the May number of the Journal of the American Society of Naval Engineers. The report was prepared by First Assistant En- gineer C. A. McAllister of the revenue cutter service and goes into all details of the vessel and results of the trial. As the Gresham attained a speed of practically twenty statute miles an hour on this trial, she may be classed among the few very fast vessels on the lakes. There are probably not more than three others in her class. In a communication elsewhere in this issue, Col. G. J. Lydecker of Detroit asks vessel masters to exercise special care in the navigation of the new Grosse point cut. Gen. Alger of the war depatrment had considered the question of promulgating rules for the navigation of this channel. He decided, however, that vessel owners and vessel masters were equally interested with the government in the care of this new waterway and concluded that a cautionary notice would be sufficient. It is to be hoped that it will be found that this confidence in the vessel masters has not been misplaced. Twenty-four naval vessels of different types, now under construc- tion in several ship yards throughout the United States, will be com- pleted before Noy. 1. The list includes one battleship (Iowa), eight gun- boats, thirteen torpedo boats, one sub-marine torpedo boat and a tug. Five battleships--Kearsarge, Kentucky, Illinois, Alabama and Wis- consin--are also under contract to be completed in 1899. Advices from the northwest are to the effect that country grain eleva- tors have recently sold 2,700,000 bushels of cash wheat, the same to go out by way of Duluth during the last of May and the first of June. These shipments have probably helped to cause the slight improvement that has been noted within the past few days in Duluth grain freights. Col. John W. Barlow and Col. Henry M. Robert of the United States engineer corps have changed places as division engineers. ol. Barlow takes charge of the northwest division with headquarters at Green Bay, Wis., and will be succeeded by Col. Roberts in charge of the southwest division. Why not patronize the Nickel Plate road on your next trip to New York City or Boston. They operate solid through trains, elegantly equidped with palace sleepers, and fine day coaches attended by uni- formed colored porters, whose duties require them to look out for the comfort of passengers. Magnificent dining cars. The popular low rate short line. 48 June 10