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MARINE REVIEW. a 5 carriages and fixtures, weighs about forty-five tons. Each section of the stationary trestle weighs about forty-five tons. The total superstructure comprises about' 600 tons of structural work, for which the contract prices for structure erected, complete, ranged from 3.15 cents per pound in 1895 to 2.75 cents per pound in 1897. We are indebted to the Railway Review for the illustrations and description of this plant. Details of the Tilden Lease, With the formal transfer of the Tilden mine from John D. Rockefeller to the Oliver Mining Co., a few days ago, the office of the mine was re- moved to Ironwood, where Manager Cole will be located. (Details of the purchase of a controlling interest in the Norrie group of mines by the Cat- negie interest have been made public and now the particulars of the Tilden deal are also coming to light. The Tilden is leased for fifty years to the Oliver (Mining Co., the underlying leases from the fee owners to the Til- den company being correspondingly extended; the minimum amount to be mined every year during the life of the lease is 400,000 tons. The owners of the fee have reduced their royalty from 30 cents, the former fig- ure, to 25 cents per ton. The royalty to be paid the Tilden company by the Oliver Mining Co. is 50 cents per ton, of which amount the Tilden company retains one-half, the balance going to the fee owners. In addi- tion to this, the Oliver company pays to the Tilden company $36,000 in advance royalty, buys all unused material on hand at cost and pays to the Tilden company outright a lump sum of $500,000 in consideration of the development of the property and the improvements thereupon, this pay- ment of $500,000 be'ng spread over a series of years with interest at the rate of 5 per cent., $80,000 of the principal to be paid each year. It will be seen that the terms of this lease are much the same as those of the Moun- tain Iron lease of last year, from the Rockefeller to the Carnegie interests, with the important exception that the Oliver company is not bound in the Tilden lease to ship its ore in Mr. Rockefeller's vessels and that a reduc- tion in rail freights is not to be followed by a corresponding increase in royalty, as is the case in the Mesabi deal. The royalty of 50 cents per ton is decidedly a high one, in view of recent developments, and to that royalty must be added the interest upon the $500,000 bonus paid for the mine, her ae MEO" ni To Lengthen Big German Ships, Few, if any, more noteworthy undertakings in the way of steamship lengthening and reconstruction have been carried out in this country' than that which is contemplated in connection with'the Spree and Havel of the North German Lloyd fleet, the execution of whith has been entrusted to the original builders, the Vulcan Ship Building & 'Engineering Co. of Stettin, for whom, and for this undertaking specially, an immense floating dock is being constructed by 'Messrs. Swan & Hunter of Newcastle-on- Tyne. The Spree and Havel were completed in the early part of 1891 and- 1892 respectively, the dimensions being 463 feet length, 51 feet 10 inches beam, 87 feet depth, moulded, the engines being of the five-cylinder three- crank triple-expansion type, developing 11,500 indicated horse power, and actuating a single propeller of 21% feet diameter: The scheme of recon- struction of both vessels includes lengthening each of them 65 feet amid- ships, bringing up their length to 528 feet, augmenting the steam supply considerably, and substituting for the present single set of engines two new sets to drive twin screws. This latter feature will entail the recon- struction of the after end of vessel under water, as the shell is to be bossed out so as to envelop the shafts. The vessels have at present two boiler rooms, containing ten boilers, six of which are double-ended and four single-ended, all 15% feet diameter, and working into two funnels. What is contemplated is to part the hull at a point between the after of the two boiler compartments and the engine room, and there fill in the 65 feet of new length. This will provide a new boiler compartment, making three m all, and in it there will be three additional double-ended boilers, making up the total number of furnaces to sixty-six. The new twin sets of en- gines will be of the four-cylinder four-crank type, with two low pressure cylinders, the power to be developed being about 18,000 horse indicated. When tried for speed originally the Spree attained a mean speed of 19.6 knots, the maximum having been 20.1 knots, with the engines developing 13,000 indicated horse power, and making 70 revolutions per minute. The change from single to twin screw, the extra length of hull, and the en- hanced aggregate horse power, it is estimated, should yield an increased speed of at least 1% knots. ~The new engines will be balanced on the Schlick-Tweedy-Yarrow system, of the success of which in minimizing Ctta/ [reste Mill? 17055. 0B lMat5' bEL jo fads C6. 4-/381018" Mach 5 For cal? un Of T2/ of carriage fo 1 fate 5) SS Us O70 10 0°. i Dock lime Trestle Jower = OE AUR Fic. 4. SIDE AND END ELEVATION PLANS, OHIO COAL CO'S DOCK AT DULUTH. which,.on an average annual tonnage of 500,000 tons, would amount to 5 cents per ton. The Norrie royalty to the fee owners has for, several years averaged about 6 per cent. on the selling price of the seasons product de- livered at lower lake ports. By the acquisition of the Gogebic and Mesabi range mines, secured within the past twelve months, in addit:on to the Pewabic mine of the Menominee range, controlled previously, the blast furnaces of the Carnegie Steel Co. are assured a steady supply of He principal grades ore required. for many years to come. A ey ee grades might still be secured to advantage; for instance, a high silica ore, very low in phosphorus. 'Such ores can be bought in sufficient seus in the open market, or mines producing such grades may be acquire v the future, but in the main the Carnegie interests are now independent o ee Changes Gal be made at both Norrie and Tilden in methods of oar At the Norrie the caving system will be used and the pe gttee for oe a greatly curtailed. It is stated that it is the expectation to ma eee p ' of 1,000,000 tons with a force of no more than 500 men. Coal will be use as fuel, thus doing away with a large number of wood cutters. --_-- Mr. C. B. Calder, superintendent of the Dry Dock Engine Be was in Cleveland a few days ago and was elated over a eee wiiabes Detroit company in securing an immense amount ob wor 'he lica- in the line of alterations in ships, dice tOr st = ane he tion of the Howden hot draft. eens sies actnagh So eautt next said "to take an order for another ship or two, to receerk that the season, but if we get no more orders for new vessels oe ms an eee heads of our company will feel that they have stcuree 2 alto he effect eral work. Latest advices from Mr. Howden of Cee tie world is 623 that the total of Howden draft installations ee ae cane hee ee and the horse power aggregates 1,576,700. In ata % f the draft are eighteen or twenty large steamers on which the Dae erat 130 000. now engaged and these will increase the horse power ye HEE ies) Our concern keeps on announcing a new contract Se a ME iGagyear is for the passenger steamer City of Marquette, owne at be made at our of Marquette, Mich., on which general alterations Ww! works during the winter." vibration the latest example is the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, about whose good qualities in this respect those who have traveled in her are agreed. The Stettin company has accomplished a great amount of docking and re- pair work on the floating dock which at present lies alongside its works. With the immense dock to lift 15,000 tons and. carry a ship of 450 feet length, now being prepared by Messrs. Swan & Hunter, the firm will be well equipped for coping with the lengthening of the Spree and Havel, and for further work of this kind, which, apparently, both this and other large _ German firms regard as likely to increase and develop in the future. In the floating docks attached to the works of Messrs. Blohm & Voss, Ham- burg, many cases of lengthening have been accomplished--notably the North German Lloyd steamers Preussen, Sachsen and Bayern--and it is well known that this firm have recently completed for their own use an additional floating dock of the enormous capacity of 17,500 tons, being the largest dock of its kind in the world. It is 560 feet long, 88 feet wide and 30 feet deep, thus exceeding in all its dimensions the dock recently des- patched to Havana by Messrs. Swan & Hunter, which is 450 feet by 82 feet by 27% feet. Another Combination of Steel Interests. If everything works smoothly the negotiations for a colossal wire consolidation may be closed in February. The undertaking is by far the greatest and most far reaching recorded in the history of the iron trade. Its ramifications extend far beyond the wire trade proper. In fact, we are advised that the tonnage of steel will be over 100,000 tons a month. It involves the incidental acquisition of some large steel plants. It is based, however, on the complete control of the live wire rod capacity in the country, and is to place the entire wire industry, in all its branches, under the complete domination of the consolidation. The smaller works and the subsidiary industries must depend for their raw material upon it. To what extent power would be tempered by wisdom time alone can teach. As a buyer of steel, such an enormous aggregation of mills and works would have an overshadowing influence. If the negotiations now in pro- gress, with what is pronounced to be fair prospect of success, should end in a consolidation, then the whole iron trade of the country would have to face greatly changed conditions----Iron Age.