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tion will be let shortly. ee he ee ee Se Se ee : MARINE REVIEW. 7 1 A Modern Package Freighter. The steamer Starucca, which was launched by the Union Dry Dock Co., Buffalo, on Thursday last, was practically ready to take on cargo when she left the ways, and she is now in commission. This steamer ' will prove a valuable addition to the Union Line (Erie Railroad Co.),. as she is a modern package freight carrier and worthy of a full description. The Starucca is a steel spar deck steamer. with water bottom 54 inches deep. Her main hold is divided into nine compariments wi.h substin- tially constructed bulkheads of steel. Dimensions are: Extreme length over all at rail, 346 feet 10 inches; moulded length, spar deck, 343 feet; Jength, keel, 325 feet; depth, 28 feet; beam, 44 feet; sheer on spar deck, -4 feet forward, 2 feet 6 inches aft; sheer on gunwale, 5 feet 3.inches forward, 3 feet aft. The decks, main, spar and top-gallant forecastle, are entirely of steel, with no wood sheathing. The spars, two in number, gre made of steel plate in three courses, riveted with steel rivets; they ~ are 100 feet long and 24 inches diameter at deck, tapered to 6 inches at truck, This vessel is built with channel floors and Zee bar frames above the tank, and great care has been exercised in determining size and weight of material used' in construction, the result being an unusually strong ship. For handling water ballast she is equipped with two ver- _ tical duplex pumps, 8 by I4.by 16, manufactured' by the Deane Steam Pump Co. of Holyoke, Mass., and a single system of piping with a 10- inch main' and 6-inch suction in each compartment, all valves being :oper- ated from the deck. : > IE The engines were built by the King Iron Works of Buffalo. and are ~ of the vertical inverted triple expansion type, with three cranks and with cylinders 22, 38% and 64 'diameter, and, 42 inches stroke.- The engines are modern in every 'particular. There are four Scotch: boilers, built by the Lake Erie Boiler Works of Buffalo, two of them being 11 feet 6 inches diameter and 13 feet long, and two 11 feet 6 inches 'diameter by 12 feet length, with two furnaces built in each. All four boilers are to carry.a steam pressure of 175 pounds. Between decks there is a double- cylinder vertical hoisting engine, having cylinders 10 by 12. with line shafting operating double drums for all hatches... The steamer-is also fitted with steam capstan and steam windlass. manufactured by the Amer- ican Ship 'Windlass Co., Providence, R. I., and two Dunn stockless an- chors, manufactured by the Standard Steel Casting Co. of Thurlow, Pa. The steam steering gear is of the latest pattern, manufactured by Wil- liamson Bros. of Philadelphia. This, with the electric light machinery is placed in the main engine room, so that it will be entirely under the control of the chief engineer. The electric light plant consists of two Westinghouse dynamos, each 534 K. W., 125 volts, direct connecting to two Westinghouse junior engines with 6 by 5 cylinders. This plant was installed by the builders. Crews' quarters are located on the spar deck, the deck houses being of wood with steel coamings. They are of sufficient size to give ample room for all the crew, and they are heated throughout by steam and lighted by electricity. It is expected that the Starucca will carry 4,150 tons on 16 feet of water. At this draft she has a displacement of 5,610 tons, and it is expected she will have no difficulty in making 14 miles an hour. : Around the Lakes. A few small coasters are the only new vessels listed in the August supplement of the Inland Lloyd's register. Plans and specifications for the new life-saving station near Port Hu- ron have been prepared, and it is expected that the contract for construc- Grain men at Fort William are again talking of constructing a new elevator. They contemplate using steel in the construction, and it is pro- posed also to make the elevator one of the 'Jargest at the head of the lakes. A new fog signal station at Menominee, Lake Michigan, is ready for service. 'There are two plants for use under different conditions, and it 18 aid that the stronger whistle can be heard at a distance of twenty-five miles, Detroit papers report a falling off in the stock of the Detroit & Cleve- land Steam Navigation Co. from $35 to $30 a share, but it is quite probable that if any of the stock was offered at the latter figure buyers for it could be readily found in Cleveland. Receipts filed in the United States district court at Duluth show that the steamer George G. Hadley has paid the $5,000 salvage awarded recently to the owners, master and crew of the steamer Arabia, which picked the Hadley up on Lake Superior in a disabled condition in November, 1894. Capt. Freeman, well known to marine men in all parts of the coast as the manager of the marine and electrical department of the Mutual Life Nsurance Co. of New York, is on the lakes establishing state agents. The lake agency for New York has been placed in the hands of Capt. EL: Killeren of Buffalo, and the Ohio office will be in charge of Capt. Vien: Nickerson of Cleveland. 'This specialty with the Mutual Life, which is the greatest insurance company in America, has brought out an immense Patronage from marine men in the east. h An excellent chart of Green bay and approaches on a large scale as Just been published by the United States hydrographic office and may ae from the Marine Review. The chart is corrected to March 1, fea and takes in, with Green bay, the west shore of Lake Michigan tom Manistique to Kewaunee. It will be of great value to masters of ake Michigan trading vessels, as. well as the men in charge of the larger an and coal carriers trading to Escanaba. Soundings are in feet and que is a scale of statute miles attached. The price is $1.25, but the dart Is so complete in detail that it is larger than the single sheet charts of either Lake Superior or Lake Michigan. There are no | i i in the em- ess than thirty women light-house keepers in the ¢€ ee of the United States at present, and some of them have been in the a for forty years. Harriet E, Colfax, keeper of the light at Michi- n City, Lake Michigan, was appointed in 1861. : Re Army and navy charts of the lakes are kept in steck by the Marine view, Perry-Payne building, Cleveland. Failure of Crank and Other Shafts. One of the papers read at the recent Congress of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers in London is worthy of especial attention from ship owners in this country, as it deals with a subject that has been discussed a great deal of late, namely, the failure of crank and other shafts in the mercantile marine. The paper was presented by Mr. G. W- Manuel, superintendent engineer of the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co. It is the result of careful observation on all kinds of defects in various kinds of shafts. As the P. & O. Co. has been particu- larly free of accidents from the breaking of shafts, and as it is the largest steamship company in the world, the officers of the Bethlehem Iron Co. in this country, who are leading manufacturers of steel forgings, and who have been carrying out an educational programme among ship own ers on the subject of steel forgings versus wrought iron, will be especially pleased with Mr. Manuel's conclusions. He says: "Tron is now less used, especially for crank shafts; steel is gradually taking its place in ocean-going steamers, except for propeller shafts. Iron shafts are, 1 may say, made up of thousands of small pieces of selected iron, generally termed scrap, cuttings of old iron boiler plates, good navy ship iron, cuttings of forgings, old bolts, horse shoes, angle iron, all welded together, forged into billets, re-heated and rolled into bars, cut into lengths, and formed into slabs of suitable size for welding up into the shaft. Before the use of steel generally, considerable im- provement on the old method of faggoting, so-called, had been made, more powerful forging hammers used, along with more suitable furnaces and fuel; still, with all this care, I] may say there is not an iron shaft without flaws or defects more or less, and when these flaws became placed during the construction of the shaft in proximity to the greatest strain, and though there was no hot bearing (which no doubt would have made matters worse), they often extended until the shaft became unseaworthy; and, after all, the best wrought iron that could be made of the finest scrap from the best qualities of selected brands, iron shafts are 60 per cent. inferior in strength to the best mild cast steel made on the open- hearth system, cast into ingots, and forged down under the hydraulic hammer or press." ; Referring to mild steel forged shafts, Mr. Manuel says: "The term mild. steel applied to shafts in a general manner does not in my experience represent the condition of the shaft, for I have found very great differ- ences in the value and quality of mild steel (even as much as I found in wrought iron), depending largely-on the qualities of the iron used and the chemical and moulding operations of converting it into steel, and also the amount and description of mechanical work applied when being forged into shafts. In this connection there are appended tables showing these differences by actual tests. Mild steel was first used by the P. & O. Co. in 1880. The dimensions of the shafts were limited by the same rules as those for wrought iron shafts. The steel was made by the best makers, having a tensile strength of twenty-four tons per square inch, it being then considered inadvisable to exceed this limit on account' of former expe- riences with high tensile steel. The shafts made were crank shafts, and are still running. They have been in use seventeen years, and up to the present date no flaws of any description have been seen. The engines have been tripled, using the same shafts and bearings, and the working power increased. The percentage above the board of trade and Lloyd's rules, which fix the minimum size, is 24 per cent.; a percentage above the rules must be allowed, according to the experience of all ship owners, the same varying from the record of mishaps and losses and from the condemnation of shafts by the surveyors of the board of trade and Lloyd's registry. Since these shafts were first used the 'tensile strength of mild steel has been gradually increased, and we are now using it at thirty-two tons per square inch, the steel possessing equal, if not more, ductility and toughness, and suited to endure even greater strains than formerly. This has been arrived at by continued improvement in manufacture by the makers, so that the percentage allowed above the rules is now reduced to only 6 per cent., leaving a very slight margin. I mention this as there is an opinion that the reason some shafts are so free from mishaps is owing to their dimensions being so much above the rules that regulate those sizes, instead of to the superior quality of the material used. Tests shown in the tables here referred to extend back to 1880, and. they are independent of anything that has been done in this line by Lloyd's or the board of trade." . Enquirer-Pathfinder Yacht Race. Everybody who. had anything to do with the building of the Buffalo yacht Enquirer is, of course, very much pleased with her latest success in defeating Chicago's finest pleasure craft, the Pathfinder, ownéd by Mr. Morgan. Although the race occurred more than two weeks ago, the pa- pers around the lakes are still discussing it. As the Morgan yacht: was designed by Boeckel of Racine, who was associated with the Herreschoffs, and is fitted with a Thornycroft boiler, the victory of the Enquirer is all the more pleasing to her supporters. It is also noted that the Pathfinder's engines, which are of the quadruple type, are more powerful than those of the Enquirer. The Enquirer was built by the Union Dry Dock Co.. of Buffalo and engined by the Frontier Iron Works of Detroit. Her boiler is the Taylor upright water tube sectional boiler, manufactured by the De- troit Screw Works, and the fuel she used was Pocahontas smokeless semi- bituminous coal. Officers of the revnue cutter service, treasury department, will soon call for bids on another cutter, which is designed especially for service at New York, and for which an appropriation of $175,000 is available. This new cutter will be named the New York and will be about the size of the naval vessel Bancroft, which is attached to the European station. The New York will have a displacement of 708 tons, will be 188 feet long by 30 feet beam, and will be required to make 16 knots on her official trial. Lists of names of captains and engineers of lake ships, appointments of 1897, may be had from the Marine Review for $1. Vest pocket size. The Nickel Plate road sells homeseekers' excursion tickets at ex- tremely low rates, Aug. 17. Ask agents. 251, Aug. 16