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Wiol so Vale Department of Commerce. The establishment of a department of commerce would not involve any new functions of government. It would consist of certain bureaus detached from departments of the government with which they now have no co-ordinate relationship. The additional expense incurred would be mainly that due to the salaries of the secretary of commerce and of his immediate assistants. The following offices should be transferred from the incongruous and overloaded treasury department. 1. The bureau of statistics, which is nothing more nor less than a bureau of commercial statistics. 2. The life-saving service. This bureau attends to rescuing life and property in the case of wrecks, and is naturally an adjunct of commerce. It has no co-ordinate relationship to the treasury department. 3. The bureau of navigation, which in all its operations is related to maritime commerce. 4. The office of steamboat inspection, which has to do with the protection of life and property on steam vessels, and exercises important functions of a police nature. 5. The lighthouse board, whose function it is to guide the mariner on his way by means of lighthouses, lightships, buoys, beacons, fog horns and bells. 6. The United States coast and geodetic survey, whose chief func- tion is to determine the hydrography of our coasts, bays and rivers for the - benefit of commerce. ; : ; The marine hospital service, which exercises its power of quar- antine over the vehicles and routes of commerce. In the war department there appears to be but one office which could | properly be attached to the new department of commerce, viz., the office of the chief of engineers. This office, imperfectly designated by its title, is properly an office of public works. It is charged mainly with the duty of surveying rivers and harbors with the view to their improvement; of devising plans for improvements after-congress has made the necessary appropriations, and of administering the work of contracting for and exe- cuting such work under proper engineering supervision. Civil as well as -- military engineers are employed in this service. The office appears to be lacking in provision for the exercise of administrative judgment touching the relative commercial needs which are to' be subserved by the appro- priation of money by congress. This responsibility now devolves main- ly upon the committee on rivers and harbors of the house of representa- fives, and the committee on commerce of the senate. Of course, political as well as economic and commercial considerations have weight in the de- termination of the almost innumerable questions as to the amounts les shall be expended in the several states and congressional districts. ow far this should be modified by devolving such responsibility upon an executive office as well as the question as to whether the enlarged func- tion could or could not be better performed under the war department oF under the proposed department of commerce are matters to be detenminge by congress. . I am not prepared to express a decided epee une He questions without making a careul investigation of the subject in a executive and administrative: features. vate Z The interior department is the hodgepodge depatusent a the, £0) ernment. It has to do with public lands, patents, pensions, ae ian sea education, Pacific railroads, geology and census. A more etenoger oes set of functions it would be difficult to imagine. Only these oO oP ioe of the interior department, viz., the geological survey, ie ecieis ae and the office of the commissioner of railroads could me ie wan Ss ae transferred to the proposed department of commerce. : é tra Sarita first two admits of doubt; which must be determined y ee eale department of mines should ever be created, the geological survey naturally be assigned to it. tie . The. United States commission of fish and peleseoae POU ase tached office. It would probably find a proper home in the dep of commerce. : ee : The aoe, of American republics has a certain Een ee department of state. It "was established for the Pe Aenericatl ee distribution of commercial information concerning the publics," and it "'is Se by one tepublics in proportion to their population. : pee It aOR aiseenn that the proper connection of this bureau would be with the proposed department of commerce. | The intercolonial railroad commission, should undoubtedly, if continued, be connec 3 commerce. Satis fe ged dy, but 6x: The interstate commerce commission 1s a ee ee eee A te ercises important executive functions in regar vateitharced wine aaa commerce of the country. ae ge as fully uty of collecting information in regard \ ; Peete POrReE SS conditions as the exercise of its PES ee Ae ates "weg rniée demand. If it shall be decided to make the eee Eee tOehe sion a branch of the proposed department of iaataeneeee advisable to associate with it a bureau of ager aah ie ROS UeIy dig: The subject of a department of commerce ToRetioneé the people of this cussed during the last twenty-five years, that tablishment of stich a de- country are overwhelmingly in favor of a dio Jr., before New York Partment.--From a paper read by Joseph Nimmo, JT., Board of Trade and Transportation. : e kept in stock by the Marine now an independent office, ted with the department of 'Army and navy charts for the lakes ar Review, Perry-Payne building, Cleveland. ARINE from the several American , o commercial movements and . REVIE CLEVELAND, O., NOVEMBER 18, 1897. No. 21. Liquid Fuel ys. Coal in Duplicate Torpedo Boats. The annual report of Engineer-in-Chief Geo. W. Melville of the. United States navy again summarizes the conclusions of. the department regarding liquid fuel. Commodore Melville says: "The advantages to be derived from the use of liquid fuel instead of coal for certain classes of ships are so great that nearly every naval power has devoted considerable attention to the subject, and has conducted ex; periments with a view to determining the best apparatus and the necessary conditions. Our country being the greatest producer of petroleum, it is" only natural that the subject should have received attention from this bureau, and from 1867 to the present time the bureau has, at intervals, conducted experiments with various forms of apparatus and various kinds of fuel oil, the last having been noted in its report of last year. An experi- ment on a larger scale has also been authorized by the department, which, on the recommendation of this bureau, has made a contract for one of the new torpedo boats to be fitted for burning fuel oil. An exactly similar boat, building by the same contractors, will burn coal, so that an excellent opportunity will offer for a comparison of the two fuels. "That fuel oil has not hitherto been used for naval purposes is due to. the items of cost and difficulty of purchase, except in a few localities. On the Caspian sea, where petroleum refuse is plentiful and cheap, it has been in successful use for more than fifteen years. Experiments made about | ten years ago by the Pennsylvania Railway Co., under the direction of Mr. Theo. \N. Ely, chief of motive power, showed the entire practicability of burning 'reduced oil,' but the question of cost made its use, except in special cases, impracticable, as well as the fact that this railway, if using oil fuel to the exclusion of coal, would at that time have consumed more than one-third of the entire output of petroleum in the United. States. It is therefore quite evident that, as far as can now be seen, there 'is no prospect of the use of fuel oil in replacement of coal on vessels employed in general cruising. Inasmuch, however, as the traditional. policy of our navy has been a defensive one, it is probable that our torpedo fleet would. operate on our own coast only, so that if we can afford the cost we might readily adopt oil fuel for this class of vessels if, in extended practice, it ~ > proves as successful as the experiments lead us to anticipate. "The petroleum refuse or 'residuum' already referred to (which closely _ resembles the 'reduced oil' of the Pennsylvania railway experiments) has been tested so thoroughly that we are able to calculate the effect on radius of action of its use instead of coal. Its evaporative power is from 1.5 to 1.7 times as great as that of coal, and it can be 'pulverized' or 'atom- ized' with either compressed air or steam. The use of the latter is the simpler, but involves an extra supply of fresh water to replace that spent in the pulverizers. However, in good forms of apparatus this amount is less than 2 per cent. of the steam vaporized. A simple calculation will show that in one of our first-class torpedo boats, if enough space 'be re- served for fresh water to supply the amount lost in pulverizing the resi- duum, there can still be carried an amount of the latter more than equal in" - evaporative effect to the total amount of coal now carried. Inasmuch, © however, as an evaporator must in any case be supplied for ordinary losses, the simplest way to secure the needed fresh water would be by an increase of evaporator power, with, perhaps, a small reserve tank of fresh water for use at maximum power. If compressed air be used, the we'ght would probably be less, but the machinery would: be more complicated. "The advantages of fuel oil are: Greater evaporative power for same weight and bulk; ease of manipulation; perfect control of the combustion ~ to suit the requirements of service; rapidity of starting fires; cleanliness; absence of refuse and the necessity for disposing of it; smaller personnel - required in fire rooms, and (if it were in general use) ease and cleanliness in receiving and stowing on board. Against these advantages there are the disadvantages, if residuum is used, of cost (if adopted to a great extent), " difficulty of purchase away from our own coasts, and (unless used to a great extent) some trouble in receiving on board. If other forms of fuel. oil are used, some of these might be obviated, but the question of danger would arise. The balance of advantages is.so great where the use of fuel oil is at all practicable that. in the bureau's oninion, the department is fully justified in authorizing the experiments already provided for and any others which will tend to the early practical use of this form of com- bustible on our torpedo boats and other small vessels." ' Suggestions Regarding Fog Signals, Commander Folger, U.S. N., of Detroit sends to Capt. Geo. P. Mc- ; Kay of Cleveland a suggestion regarding fog signals for the lakes. As the vessel masters of the lakes spent a great deal of time over the question of fog signals in the "White law," now in force on the lakes, and as they. were greatly opposed to anything in the way of a complicated system of signals, it is quite probable that they would not take kindlv now to a sug- gestion involving change of any kind in the present law. Commander Fol- ger's suggestion may bring out a discussion, however, and it is therefore printed. 'He says: : Z "The law prescribes that vessels in a fog shall blow three blasts at stated intervals. I wish to suggest that vessels bound up shall (with these three blasts) blow one long and two short thus ---- -- --- vessels bound down to blow two short and ore long, thus -- ------. There will thus be one more doubtful element eliminated. I think there can be no confusion, as vessels are (except in crossing Lake Michigan) always going at least par- tially either up or down. If crossing Lake Michigan on a course directly perpendicular to the axis of the lake they can make the blasts of equal length, which will likewise be, in their special case, an indication of their course. For vessels overtaking other vessels, this would be especially ad- vantageous."'