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MARINE REVIEW. Around the Lakes. Robérts water tube boilers will be used in the steel tug to be built by the Union Dry Dock Co. of Buffalo for the Maytham Tug Line. Invitations announcing the launch of the revenue cutter Algonquin at 2:30 p. m., Dec. 8, have been issued by the Globe Iron Works Co. of Cleveland. ; : .,. A distance of 50,000 miles was traveled by the Detroit & Cleveland Steam Navigation Co.'s passenger steamer City of Alpema in fifty-eight round trips made during the past season between Toledo and St. Ignace. Draft water at Ballard's reef, Detroit river, during the past week was 17 feet to 17 feet 6 inches, excepting on Monday, Nov. 29, when under a strong northwest wind the draft was at times as low as 16 feet 4 inches. Elmer E. Ennes, who was employed as chief engineer of the steamer Louisiana and other vessels owned by Capt. John W. Moore, died in Cleveland on Friday last of consumption. He was thirty-five years of age. Receipts of grain and flour (flour included as grain) at Buffalo to Dec. 1 aggregate 242,140,306 bushels, against 200,567,871 bushels on the same date in 1896 and 142,749,020 bushels in 1895. Hard coal shipments from the same port on the same date aggregated 2,097,929 tons, which is somewhat less than the shipments of 1896. Ashtabula's ore receipts this season will aggregate full 3,000,000 gross tons. This is more iron ore than is received at any other port in the world. A like amount, approximately, has been received at Cleveland. This is the business that has built up several prosperous towns and cities in Ohio and Pennsylvania along the shore of Lake Erie. Shipments from Bay City during the season now closed were: Lum- ber, 80,719,209 feet; lath, 2,670,000; shingles, 550,000; and salt, 49,960 bar- rels. The receipts of lumber were 23,668,150 feet. In 1896 shipments were: Lumber, 45,668,000 feet; lath, 150,000; and shingles, 275,000. On Dec. 8 the thirty years of corporate life of the Detroit & Cleveland Steam Navigation Co. will have ended. A new company will on the same day be organized, to be named Detroit & Cleveland Navigation Co. (leav- ing off the word steam), which will assume all the liabilities of the old com- pany and will buy all its property. There will be no change of policy. Another steel tow barge, the Australia, building at South Chicago for James Corrigan of Cleveland, was launched on Saturday last. In all di- mensions but beam the Australia is aduplicate of the Amazon, launched fron the same yards last spring, but the former is 2 feet wider andi will be a correspondingly larger carrier. The Amazon now holds the record for large cargoes on the lakes. The dimensions of the hull are: Length over all, 388 feet; keel, 376 feet; beam, 48 feet; depth, 26 feet. There are twelve cargo hatches. The new vessel will carry about 6,500 net tons on 17 feet draft. Few tears would be shed by vessel owners if the underwriters were called upon to pay for a few more vessels like the Joseph Paige, which stranded on Vermillion point, Lake Superior, Wednesday, and was pro- nounced a total loss. The Paige was a good vessel in her time but she was beyond the money-making mark. The danger of loss of life is all that is taken into account by vessel owners in discussing accidents of this kind. John F. Wedow of Cleveland was managing owner of the Paige. She was insured in companies represented by Smith, Davis & Co. of Buffalo for $12,500. Not all of the shore-captains in charge of the different fleets of lake vessels are disposed to make a trip to Lake Superior late in the fall. When it was decided, a few days ago, to send the steamer Rees to Fort William for a cargo of grain, Capt. Morton of the Wilson line concluded to make the trip with the captain of the Rees. If there was danger of the vessel being caught in ice at the head of the lakes, Capt. Morton might undertake some measures for her release while on the ground which would involve responsibility or a large expenditure of money that might cause the cap- tain of the Rees to: hesitate. Capt. C. E. Benham of Cleveland, managing owner of the steamer NEREEEE which was destroyed by fire at Escanaba Monday, had only $3,000 insurance on his five-eighths interest in the vessel. The insurance entire was only $6,000. The No: 4 ore dock at Escanaba, as well as the vessel, is almost a complete loss. The railroad loss on dock and cars is put at $150,000. The dock was 46 feet 'high and 1,500 feet long and had 250 pockets, with a capacity of 32,750 tons of ore. As there has been a larger dock capacity at Escanaba than the ore trade of the past two or three years has required, it is stated that the dock will not be rebuilt. At Chicago and Sturgeon Bay, Wis., there are schools of navigation in which young men from lake vessels may receive instruction that will cer- tainly prove valuable to them. The Chicago school is at No. 20 Michigan avenue and is under the direction of W. J. Wilson. The school at Stur- geon Bay is conducted by Clarence E. Long of the Sturgeon Bay Advo- cate. Circulars sent out by both schools indicate that they are attempting no great show of science, but are prepared to give to the young man, or even to the experienced vessel master, a great deal of sound a that may be profitably added to practical experience aboard ship. Bot ay these schools are worthy of encouragement and great advantage wou " be gained from the establishment of more of them around the lakes. pe matter giving full particulars of these schools may be had upon applica- tion to the addresses noted above. The office of the Marine Review, Perry-Payne building, Cleveland, is stock includes all publications of the hydrogra : charts made by the army engineers corps. The yes sclouasier wae. las charts published two or three years ago ; value in the list that has been increased almost every week of late. eS are those fixed by the government, which do not represent even ade ; s like Green bay of paper and printing. Sets of sectional charts = foes as $15, may now and Georgian bay, which in time past have sold as hig be had on a single sheet at 30 cents to $1. will find new ones of far greater. Tl Lifting Large Rocks. : : ADs ; Referring to the recent accident to the Buffalo steamer Lackawanna at Ballard's reef, due to striking rock thrown up in the work of channel excavation, a correspondent at Amhertsburg says that as tows were?con= stantly carrying away the floats placed over such: obstructions, the con- tractors have tried, as far as possible of late, to give notice to vessels ap- proaching from both directions of the condition of the channel. 'If deep- laden ships will be sure of keeping the upper range open a little to the west," he says, "they will clear the spot where the dredge has been working. Dredging operations that are being carried on by the Canadian government along the water-front at the town of Amherstburg will prove of great advan- tage. The stretch of channel that is being dredged extends out 300 feet from the dock. At several points well out in this channel boulders weighing full four tons have been raised, and they were so smooth irom big vessels rubbing over them that you would have thought they were sand-papered. A few days ago the dredge raised an oak saw log about 16 feet long and 3 feet diameter, and in it was imbeded a large blade from a steamer's wheel. Vessel men of this place who talked with Capt. Thomas Jones of the steamer Iroquois are of the opinion that the obstruction which his vessel met with near Colchescer several days ago was not the wreck of the steamer Grand Traverse. They are quite certain that this wreck has been cleared to a depth of more than 20 feet, and they say that from the bearings given by Capt. Jones it is more than probable that the Iroquois struck at Little's point. Capt. Jones, whose vessel was bound up with coal, says that as near as he can judge he was about two miles above Colchester reef light, the light bearing E. S. E. 2% miles with Little's point just abaft the beam." Notes of New Ships from the East. _ New York, Dec. 2--Plans of the composite steamer for which bids will be opened by the Coast and Geodetic Survey, Washington, Jan. 11, may be had by ship builders after Dec. 7. There is an appropriation of $125,000 for this vessel, which is intended for service in Alaska. She is to be delivered on or before Feb. 1, 1899, but' speedy delivery is desired and will be taken into account in awarding the contract. In the compe- tition for the construction of the new sailing vessel for the naval academy, for which there is an appropriation of only $125,000, or one-half the esti- mate of the navy department, the Bath Iron Works bid $112,600 and Lewis Nixon of the Crescent Ship Yard, Elizabeth, N. J., $121,950. While both were within the limit of the appropriation of $125,000, each bidder specifi- cally stated that he had cut out a number of articles provided for in the specifications, and it will remain for the department experts to. determine how the award shall be made. Other new orders recently reported are: Gas Engine & Power Co., Morris Heights, New York, a steel steam yacht, 103 feet over all, for a member of the New York Yacht Club; W. & A. Fletcher Co., Hoboken, N. J., a side-wheel passenger steamer to replace the Hudson river boat Catskill, the hull to be built at the yard of T. S. Marvel & Co., Newburg, N. Y.; New England Co., Bath, Me., four-masted wooden schooner, 182 feet long, for Capt. L. J. Stevens of Clinton, Conn.; Joseph Thomas & Son, Spring Gardens Baltimore, wooden steam yacht for William H. Evans of Baltimore. The four fruit steamers for the West India trade which the Cramps of Philadelphia are to build for the Boston Fruit Co. will be modern in all particulars. They will each be 290 feet long, and 36 feet beam, with a deadweight carrying capacity of from 2,500 to 2,700 tons. They are to be 15-knot vessels, and are intended for passengers as well as freight, the passenger accommodations being designed for about 100 persons. The company that is to use these vessels now owns or has under charter some sixteen steamers. . The Lake Submarine Boat Co. of Baltimore now claims to have dem- onstrated in trials of the experimental boat recently built at that place the entire practicability of Lake's system of exploring the bottom of the seas, locating and recovering sunken vessels and their cargoes, as also its uses in the coral, pearl and sponge fisheries, etc. The company- anticipates giving a series of trials exclusively for the press, to precede public trials, and newspaper representatives have been invited from different parts of the country. Cargo Records--Lake Freight Ships. The Rockefeller steamer George 'Stephenson has just moved 323,250 bushels of clipped oats, weighing 6,137 net tons, from South Chicago to Buffalo, the vessel drawing about 16% feet. This is full 5,000 bushels more oats than had ever been moved in a single cargo on the lakes. Fol- lowing is the corrected list of cargo records: Iron Ore--Schooner Amazon, owned by James Corrigan of Cleveland, 5,631 tons gross, or 6,307 net, Duluth to South Chicago, draft of 17 feet 1 inch; steamer Empire City, A. B. Wolvin of Duluth, 5,622 tons gross, or 6,296 net, Two Harbors to Cleveland, draft of 17 feet 2 inches; schooner Polynesia, James Corrigan of Cleveland, 5,477 tons gross, 6,134 net, Du- luth to Fairport, draft of 16 feet 8 inches. Grain--Steamer Crescent City, A. B. Wolvin of Duluth, 225,000 bush- els of corn, equal to 6,300 net tons, South Chicago to Buffalo, draft of 17 feet; schooner Amazon, James Corrigan of Cleveland, 205,572 bushels of wheat, equal to 6,167 net tons, Fort William to Buffalo, 16 feet 8 inches draft; steamer Empire City, A. B. Wolvin of Duluth, 205,445 bushels of wheat, equal to 6,163 net tons, Duluth to Buffalo; steamer Geo. Stephen- son, 'Bessemer Steamship Co. of Cleveland, 323,250 bushels of clipped oats, equal to 6,137 net tons, 'South Chicago to Buffalo, draft of 16% feet. Coal--Schooner Polynesia, James Corrigan of Cleveland, 5,654 net tons of bituminous, Cleveland to Duluth, 16 feet draft; steamer Carnegie, Wilson Transit Co. of Cleveland, 5,369 net tons of bituminous, Cleveland to Duluth. A coal loading plant similar to that on the docks of M. A. Hanna & Co. at Ashtabula, is to be erected on the Baltimore & Ohio dock at San- dusky and will be finished in time for the opening of navigation next season.