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"MARINE REVIE Vou. XVI. CLEVELAND, O., JULY 1, 1897. Nok: Ohio River Launch with 30-Feet Drop. The ferry steamer Andrew Christy was designd by Frank K. Kirby, of Detroit, Mich., for service on the Mississippi river at St. Louis, Mo. She is owned by the Wiggins Ferry Co. Hull and cabins were built by Ed. J. Howard, Esq., at Jeffersonville, Ind. Nngines were built by the Detroit Dry Dock Co. The ferry is double ended, constructed of steel, 178 feet long, 48 feet width of hull, 12 feet over guard, 7 feet 6 inches deep; draft of water 30 inches. Paddle wheels are indepen- dently driven by two sets of compound engines, combined horse power 600. Steam is furnished by three boilers 48 inches diameter, 28 feet long, of the "usual Mississippi type, served by an independent feed pump The direct electric light machine was furnished by The Fontaine Co., Detroit, Mich. The boat was built well up on the bank of the river to keep her free when the water was high and at the time of the launch she was about 30 feet above water level, and about 150 feet from the end of ways. means that we must learn how to give the South Americans, for the same money, as desirable an array of manufactured articles as they are now able to obtain from Europe. The whole point in the effort to Increase our South American market lies in the fact that South Amer- ica already has so enormous a market with us. If there were not already a tremendous trade on the one side, there would be much less reason for the proposition to develop trade on the other side. It is likely that we shall gradually, though not at once, find a way to sell our own products to South America, to an extent approaching our purchases of South American wares. This will require direct lines of American shipping.--American Monthly Review of Reviews for July. Final "A" Bad for Ships. Insurance underwriters look askance at vessels which have a final "a"' in their names. The first letter of the alphabet is considered a hoodoo when it ends the name of a deep sea ship. Many of the most © MISSISSIPPI RIVER FERRY STEAMER ANDREW CHRISTY. The Triangular Course of Our Commerce. We have been accustomed to sell to Europe enormous quantities of breadstuffs, meats, cotton fiber, and petroleum. To meet the debt in part, Europe has been accustomed to carry her cheap manufactured goods to the South American market, where these goods are exchanged for coffee, hides, and various other wares demanded by the United States. Thus the main currents of trade have followed a triangular course, viz.: from the United States to Europe, from Europe to South America, and from South America to our Atlantic seaports. But now that Europe is buying more and more of her supply of breadstutfts, cotton, petroleum, and other necessities from more recently developed Bounces of supply in other parts of the world, it will not be so easy for us in the future as it has been in the past to pay for our South Ameri- can imports by selling wheat, pork, cotton, coal oil, etc., to Kurope. Tt becomes desirable that we should establish direct trade relations with South America and gradually equalize exchanges. This, of course, . serious wrecks of the last year have been of vessels carrying the hoo doo letter. One day, says the San Francisco Examiner, the telegraph announced that the British ship Androsa, from that port for Liver- pool with one of the most valuable cargoes that was ever carried out of that harbor, was lost within a few leagues of her destination. The next day word was received that the Orealla, bound from Victoria for Liverpool, had been swept by heavy seas and badly damaged. Her mate and one sailor were drowned. The wires told on the same day of the total loss of the British ship Villanta and the drowning of her master near Freemantle, and a few days later the papers gave the news of the loss of the steamer Wallapa and of the beaching of the Dora. During the last two or three years the most serious wrecks on the coast were of vessels whose names ended with the hoodoo letter. The wreck of the Colima was the most horrifying of all. Then came the loss of the steamer Columbia, and a few weeks later the passenger steamer Umatilla ran ashore and narrowly escaped destruction. 7 4