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12 MARINE DEVOTED TO LAKE MARINE AND KINDRED INTERESTS. Published every Thursday at No. 409 Perry-Payne building, Cleveland, Ohlo, - by John M. Mulrooney and F. M. Barton. Susscrietion--$#2.00 per year inadvance. Single copies10centseach. Convenient binders sent, post paid, $1.00. . Advertising rates on application. Entered at Cleveland Post Office as Second class Mail Matter. The books of the United States treasury department on June 30, 1896, contained the names of 3,333 vessels, of 1,324,067.58 gross tous register in the lake trade. The number of steam vessels of 1,000 gross tons, and over that amount, on the lakes on June 30, 1896, was 383 and their aggregate gross tonnage 711,034.28; the number of vessels of this class owned in all other parts of the country on the same date was 315 and their tonnage 685,204.55, so- that more than half of the best steamships in all the United States are owned on the lakes. 'The classification of the entire lake fleet on June 30, 1896, was as follows: Gross : Number. Tonnage Steam vessels 792 924,630.51 Sailing vessels ANd DALZeS..........ccccccecccsserssesesscscsees 1,12 854,327.60 Canal boats.......... ee Maret serblereiteiacsscecesecacOeioheccaiine 416 45,1 TO taliseckiasiicsses DanaOnsisas nudes tueeeCeeaiss 3,333 1,324,067.58 'The gross registered tonnage of the vessels built on the lakes during the past pix Sears, according to the reports of the United States commissioner of navigation, is _ as follows: - et E Year ending June 380. 1891 204 111,856 45 Seneca wes s 1892 169 45,968.98 se eae ue 1893 175 99,271.24 as cf iss 1894 106 41,984.61 5 ss oo SO iy: seo ae cade 93, 36,352.70 ce ne e 1896 117 108,782.38 IT OUR Ree i asd Cac ov ach ceokebs te tatdddasatwesea'duietsoace 864 414,216.36 'ST. MARY'S FALLS AND SUEZ CANAL TRAFFIC. (From Official Reporte of Canal Offcere.) St.Mary's Falls Canals. Suez Canal. 1896* 1895+ | 1894 Number of vessel passages- 18,615 17,956 14,491 38,409 8,434 8,352 Tonnage, net registered...... 17,249,418] 16,806,781| 13,110,366'| 8,560,284| 8,448,383] 8,039,175 Days of navigation...... ...... 232 231 234 365 865 365 1896 | 1895 | 1894 1895 and 1896 figures include traffic of Canadian canal at Sault Ste. Marie. s _ Inthe North American Review for December Prof. R. H. Thurston, director of Sibley College, Cornell University, who was once a member oi the engineer corps ot the navy, comes to the assistance of the corps in its fight tor treatment equal to that accorded to the line officers. Mr, _Ihurston says: "So tar depleted has become the engineer corps that not an officer can be detailed tor duty to inspect the iron and steel furnished for ordnance; only one is detailed for inspection of armor; but two are to be found at the Boston navy yard, only seven at League island, and a baker's dozen or so at the New York yard. Not an officer is on the list of lecturers at the War College at Newport, and not one at the torpedo station. Meantime, of the deck officers, 838 were, at the time these figures _were gathered, at sea, and nearly 400 were on shore duty, of whom ninety were in the city of Washington. The iron and steel inspection boards, altogether, include but one-seventh engineer officers. 'The remainder are protessionally inexpert. The tremendous strain which has come upon this splendid body of officers through the gradual increase in the extent and ditficulty of its work and the decrease in its numbers, is reflected in the following instructive and pathetic figures: On the first of January, 1886, there were only 293 officers in the corps, and of these seventy-one, or one-fourth, were already on the retired list; but by Jan. 1, 1896, the pre- viously terrible record had become 173 on the active and 104 on the re- tired list--nearly two-thirds as many on the latter as on the former list. No such startling statistics are to be found in the annals of our own or ot any other navy. At this rate the retired list will soon become longer than the active list, and destruction of a faithful and patriotic body of men must, under existing circumstances, go on with continually increasing rapidity, until a final crash disables the whole naval service more com- pletely than would be the explosive destruction of all its guns." "Fastest merchant ship in the world" is the title fully earned by the _North German Lloyd steamer Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse. It is the hour- ly average that tells best the power of the Atlantic liner. Until the Kaiser made her recent fast run from New York to Southampton--5 days, 17 'hours and 8 minutes, which is better by 17 hours and 6 minutes than the eastward record of the American liner St. Paul--the Cunard steamship Lucania had the distinction of making the fastest hourly average across the sea. It was 22.01 knots. The Kaiser beat this by more than a third of a knot, her average being 22.35 knots. Maintaining this average, the Kaiser could cover the Queenstown route in about 5 days and 4 hours. The record of the Lucania on that route is 5 days 7 hours and 23 minutes. The big German ship has the best record for a single-day's run to the west- ward (made on her maiden voyage), and the only record she has to break now is the best single day's run to the eastward; she will doubtless do it as soon as she gets pleasant weather. On this last voyage from New York to Southampton she equalled the best eastward day of the Campania, 528 knots. This day's run is equivalent to about 566 knots on a westward nautical day of 24 hours and 50 minutes. The Kaiser covered 3,065 knots in daily runs of 401, 520, 518, 528, 525, 507 knots, and 71 knots to the Need-~ les. She had only one day really good weather, and this was the day when she made the big run of 528 knots. The builders of the Kaiser guaranteed that she would make an average of 22 knots on five consecu- tive trips. Mr. Gustav Schwab, the New York agent of the line, has no ccubt that she will do this handily in placid seas. REVIHW. The policy of building new docks and improving navy yards rather than entering into contracts for more vessels of war seems to have met with approvai from the press of the country. President Mckinley s en- dorsement of the plans ot the secretary of the navy in this regard has been given special prominence in comments on the message. In closing his report the secretary of the navy says that while the buuding of a ship is a definite fixed expense incurred once for all, the expense tor maintaining it, of providing it with docks, naval stations and other necessary facilities, of manning and equipping it, and of keeping it in repair--in short, of running the naval establishment--is and must continue to be a lange charge on the public treasury, and for a time, certainly, an increasing one. Econo- my, he admits, is necessary at large and in detail, not merely as a good theory to proclaim, but aS atl actual practice to perform. Wath the best exercise ot this virtue, however, expenses will, he says, be large in this as in every other department of government whicn represents the interest of a country so vast as ours. He believes, how- ever, that the people, whose arm the navy is and who evidently appreciate its potential usefulness, desire to maintain it at the point of highest ettict- ency, and will do so the more cordially the more trankly they are informed of its real and deserving needs and demands and ot the justinable cost they necessitate. It may be stated now that many who were inclined to treat the wire consolidation with sneering skepticism are taking the attair more seriously and there is being displayed a tendency to overrate the chances of success. in fact, its consummation is regarded by some as a torgone conciusion. 'That is going altogether too tar, although it is true that the chances or success have improved. What obstacie there is is not due to unwillingness to enter the consolidation. 'There are collateral questions to decide which too naturally come up in such extended and intricate negotiations. 'Their solution depends upon outside advice. tumor has been very busy, ' and in a number ot instances gives the consolidation a scope of interests which is quite unwarranted. in others the extent of the collateral and subs.diary property involved is subject to choice by the purchasers. All that can be said now is that the negotiations have made progress, but that they are far from the point where it is safe to refer to them as even close to a preliminary settlement. Jt will. probably take two months at least before the new company 1s in control, if matters run smoothly.--lron Age. Details of the lease of the Tilden mine, which was recently turned over to the Oliver Mining Co. (Carnegie interests) by John D. Kockefeller were published in the last issue of the Review. In one important particular the summary of provisions of this lease was in error. It was said that the Oliver company is not bound in the Jilden lease to ship its ore in Mr. Rockefeller's vessels. This is a mistake. The ore will be moved by lake in Mr. Rockefeller's vessels or in vessels provided by his represen- tatives for the transportation of it. This statement is made for the reason that the output of the Tilden mine will amount to at least 500,000 tons annually, and it is important that vessel owners should not be misinformed regarding so large a block of tonnage. The transportation of the output of the Norrie mine, also controlled now by the Oliver company, is another matter. This property was not secured by the Oliver company from Mr. kKockefeller but was purchased outright from other parties. Several dispatches from Philadelphia of late refer to meetings of a com~ mittee, selected at Washington some time ago by representatives of leading American steamship lines and organizations of ship owners and ship builders, to formulate tor presentation to congress some method for the enlargement of the American merchant marine. .This conimittee has taken no action and will probably not be heard from until after the be- ginning of the new year. The committee is proceeding carefully with a view to formulating a measure upon which all interests may be united. It is therefore probable that the shipping question will be given little at- tention in Washington until a report is had from these important in- terests, A ruling just made public by the treasury department is to the effect that under the civil service rules, section 158, applicants for appointment as local inspector of hulls of steam vessels on inland waters must have had at least five years' actual practical experience as master or first-class pilot of steam vessels on inland waters and the experience must have been under United States license of the highest grade granted upon the waters on which the applicant has been employed, which fact must be on record in the treasury department. An applicant must be free from defect of color blindness, and not under thirty or over fifty-five years of age. Mechanical Engineers, Several of the new officers of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, elected at the New York meeting, are well known in ship build- ing circles. Mr. W. R. Warner of Cleveland, the retiring president, said the meeting was the most successful in the history of the organiza~ tion, the attendance being about 600. New officers are as follows: Presi- dent, Charles Wallace Hunt, New York. Vice-Presidents, E. S. Cramp, Philadelphia; S. T. Wellman, Cleveland; W. F. Durfee, New York city; John C. Kafer, New York city; David R. Frazer, Chicago; Walter S. Russell, Detroit. Managers, Norman C. Stiles, Watertown, N. Y.; E. D. Meier, St. Louis; George W. Dickie, San Francisco; H. S. Haines, At- lanta; Gus. C. Henning, New York city; A. Wells Robinson, Milwaukee; James B. Stanwood, Cincinnati; Henry H. Suplee, Philadelphia; George Richmond, New York. Treasurer, William H. Wiley, New York city. Notices of two contracts for the construction of foundry buildings and machine shops have been sent out during the past week by the Berlin Iron Bridge Co. of East Berlin, Conn. One of the contracts is with the Flushing Gas & Electric Co. of Flushing, L. I., and the other with the Foxboro Foundry & Machine Co. of Foxboro, Mass. On Sunday last, with a strong wind from the west, the draft of water at Ballard's reef in the Detroit river was reduced to a trifle less than 16 feet and several times during the week it was barely 17 feet.