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. "MARINE Around the Lakes. The first meeting of the Cleveland lodge, Ship Masters' Association, will be held on Friday, the 24th inst. : Kling Bros., boilermakers of Chicago, will build a marine boiler, 7% by 13 feet, and to be allowed 150 pounds pressure, for the tug W. H. Wolf of the Independent Tug Line. : The Butler & Ryan 'Co. of St. Paul thas secured the contract for im- provements costing about $100,000, to be made in the ore docks of the Chicago & Northwestern company at Ashland. At the ship yard of the (Globe Iron Works 'Co. today (Thursday) the third of the new lake revenue cutters built by that company for the gov- ernment will be launched and named 'Onondaga. 'Hingston & Woods, dredging contractors of 'Buffalo, are about to begin the construction of a large dipper dredge. The dredge will be mounted on a hull 44 by 135 feet and 13 feet deep. The capacity of the dipper will be 10,000 pounds or five tons of material. The (Detroit Dry Dock Co., which secured the contract for a new package freight steamer for the Western Transit 'Co., will take the steam- ers Badger State and Empire State in part payment, and it is said that an allowance of $30,000 will be made for these steamers. The Pittsburg, Blessemer & Lake Erie Road has given orders for thir- teen locomotives, dividing them among the Pittsburg, Brooks and Bald- win works. They will be delivered in February. It is the expectation that 1,300,000 tons of ore will be handled at Conneaut next year. Capt. Patrick Donahue, seventy-three years of age, died at his home in Cleveland, Sunday. At thirteen years he began sailing the lakes, and did not quit active service until five years ago. Among vessels which: he sailed in late years were the Chas. Wall, Richard Winslow and Pelican. A note from Ogdensburg announces that James G. Westbrook has been appointed superintendent of the Ogdensburg Transit Co., with headquarters at Ogdensburg, N. Y., vice 'Frank Owen, resigned. Mr. Owen will for the present continue to act as general freight agent. Plans are being made for lengthening the (Canadian steamers Sir S. 'L. Tilley and Seguin during the winter. It is proposed to add 60 feet to the Tilley, which will make her full Welland canal length, 260 feet. The iron steamer Seguin, which is 200 feet long, is to be lengthened about 40 feet. . Railroads running from the Vermilion and Mesabi ranges to Lake Superior ports are said to have earned the following amounts from ore traffic alone during the past season: Duluth & Iron Range, $2,260,000; Duluth, Mesabi & Northern, $1,900,000; Duluth, Superior & Western, and Wright & Davis, $191,000. During 1897 the side-wheel steamer City of [Detroit was in constant service for nine months and seven days, and made 174 round trips between Detroit and Cleveland, traveling 36,540 miles, besides trips to Put-in-Bay and running around while in port, delivering freight, so that in all she must have gone at least 40,000 miles. The steamer Idaho, sunk Nov. 6 near Long point, Lake Erie, lies in from 48 to 50 feet of water. There is 35 feet of water over the 'hull and 20 feet over the "arches." The upper works of the vessel 'have apparently been washed away, but the hog frames (arches) are intact. A buoy was placed over the wreck, but it cannot be expected to withstand the winter's ice. As the Craig Ship Buildin& Co. of Toledo submitted the lowest bid on the steamer that is to be built for the use of the United States engineer at Buffalo, it is expected that they will be given the contract. The steamer is to be of steel, 70 feet over all, 15 feet beam and 8 feet depth, and will have compound condensing engines with cylinders of 12 and 20 inches © diameter and 16 inches stroke. 'Low 'grade ore has been found on the hilltop above 'Duluth, about five miles from the lake, and considerable has 'been made of the find. For years float ore has been found in that general neighborhood. Local papers at Duluth report that the ore will be sent from the mines to docks in "chutes." The ingenuity of the newspaper writers is so great that a fall of 500 feet in five miles offers no obstacle to them in the way of sliding ore down by gravity. General Manager D. Carter of the Detroit & Cleveland Navigation Co. has about completed arrangements for expending $100,000 for im- provements in steamers of that line during the winter. "When I first became connected with this company," said Mr. Carter, in discussing these improvements, "there were not many $100,000 repair bills for the ships. That was forty-six years ago, and it makes me begin to feel old when I look around and see myself the only survivor of the original com- pany. I can't help feeling just a little bit lonesome." At Superior on Feb. 4 the property of the West Superior Tron & Steel Co. will be sold at sheriff's sale, preparatory, it is hoped, to reorganization. The debts iof the institution amount to about $1,750,000, which isa good deal more than the property could be duplicated for, it is stated. The bonds are held in large part by John D. Rockefeller, and it has been the fond hope of the people of Superior that he would bid it in and proceed to erect a modern steel plant, but probably nothing is further from his thoughts. The Schoen Pressed Steel Co. of |Pittsburgh is at work on an order for fifty all steel cars for the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Co. Some of these cars have already been completed and delivered to the road. Tihey are of the same type as the 1,000 all steel cars built by the Schoen Pressed Steel 'Co. for the Pittsburgh, Bessemer & Lake Erie Co. It is said that other coal and ore roads are preparing to place orders for cars of this kind, and that some coal companies that own large numbers of wooden cars are also figuring on replacing them with the steel cars. - Officers of the Toledo harbor, A'ssociation of Masters and Pilots elected recently, ane: 'Captain, Alex. A. Stevenson; first. pilot, 'Richard M. Quick; second pilot, Homer Durand; clerk and purser, George E. Hardy. Seven other officers are to be appointed by the captain. In the Cleveland harbor, No. 42, Capts. Chas Benham and Frank Place have been nominated for the honor of attending the annual meeting of the REVIEW. engineer. grand harbor, which will take place in Washington, Jan. 17. Officers will be elected by the Cleveland harbor next Monday evening. < William R. Linn is the name selected for the steel steamer building at the works of the Chicago Ship Building Co. for C. W. Elphicke and others of Chicago. The keel length of this ship is 400 feet; length over all, 420 feet; beam, 48 feet; molded depth, 28 feet. The water bottom capacity is figured at 2,400 tons. She will have a quadruple expansion engine. The carrying capacity of the Linn is estimated at 6,000 tons on 17 feet, and she is expected to average twelve miles per hour. The craft will cost complete about $210,000, and she is to be ready for service by April 1. Detroit newspapers report that the dry dock company of that city has closed a coritract with a syndicate of Puget Sound business men to build for service on that body of water a steel propeller, to be 165 feet over all, 154 feet keel, 27 feet beam and 13 feet deep. Her power will be in-a triple expansion engine of 1,000 horse power, steam to be furnished by two boilers at 165 pounds pressure, with Howden hot 'draft. The ves- sel will carry 1,000 passengers and 250 tons of freight and will steam six- teen miles an hour. Her draft light will be 814 feet, loaded 10 feet. 'Her cost will be about $75,000. The syndicate was represented by Eugene L. McAllister, formerly chief draftsman of the dry dock company and now of Seattle. The steamer is to be confined to the sound, running between Whatcom, Tacoma and Seattle. The dry dock company has three or four months in which to finish the vessel. She will be built up in the Wyandotte yard, every plate and frame being numbered. When com- pleted in this way the vessel will be taken to pieces and shipped by rail to destination. General Re-Survey of the Lakes. Editor Marine Review:--I have just read with interest the article in your issue of Dec. 16, entitled "General Re-Survey of the Lakes," and I hope you will correct a few misapprehensions under which the engineer officer quoted seems to have written his letter. The branch hydrographic offices on the lakes were established, not through the efforts of naval offi- cers, but through the efforts of civilians interested in the lake marine; though, of course, the navy department is always ready to do its utmost in aid of such enterprises. Surveying, even allowing that it "has nothing to do with seamanship," is certainly closely allied to the shipmaster's other art, navigation. The "old school line officer' practically no longer exists in the navy; and the effect of development in the navy has been to make. the line officer's duties and knowledge more and more. varied; not to. crowd thim from the quarter deck, but to extend his influence from keel to truck. 'A! study of the naval history of modern times will, I think, © convince this engineer officer that marine surveying is quite as much a part of the naval officer's profession as it is a part of that of the civil The subject of the proper training of young naval officers, which the engineer Officer dispioses of so easily, is too broad a topic to be treated of here. I may call attention, however, to the widely published. appeals of the chief of the bureau of navigation, the secretary of the navy, and even of the president in his last message, for more officers to man the men-of-war now in commission. This should dispose of the proposi- tion of the engineer officer to place naval. officers in positions where the duty can be as well, if not better, performed by civilian masters and mates, experienced in the work required of them. What a pity it is that everyone cannot trealize the truth of the engineer officer's remark "that every man can attend to his own business better than he can to some other fellow's." Detroit, Dec. 19, 1897. j HYDRO. Naval Expenditures and Mercantile Marine. The British Board of Trade has just issued 'an elaborate report on the naval expenditure and the mercantile marine of different countries, from which the following figures are taken: The total value of British maritime interests at the present time is estimated at $10,000,000,000. The imports and exports of France by sea are estimated at $1,323,500,000, those of Rus- sia at $364,000,000, and those of Germany at $2,023,500,000. A note ex- plains that this last figure represents the total foreign trade by sea and land of the German empire. The value of the sea-borne commerce proper of Germlany was estimated in 1895 at only $750,000,000, and it is suggested that the correct figure now would be less than $1,000,000,000. The sea- borne commerce of Italy is valued at $272,000,000, that of Spain at $271,- 500,000, that of Austria-Hungary at $102,500,000, and that of the United States at $1,662,000,000. The naval expenditure of Great Britain, as might be expected, is more than double that of any other country; but, if these figures are correct, it appears that the cost of the navy, regarded as insur- ance, is only about 1 per cent. of the value of the interests involved, though it amounts to more than 20 per cent. of the aggregate revenue of the United Kingdom, which bears very nearly the whole of the burden. Thus New South Wales contributes $235,000 to the cost of naval defense out of an aggregate revenue of over $45,000,000; Victoria, $350,000 out of a revenue of over $82,500,000; New Zealand, $100,000 out of a revenue of nearly $22,500,000; the South African colonies, nothing--except Sir 'Gordon Sprige's offer of a first-class battleship--and the Dominion of Canada, nothing; while out of an aggregate revenue of about $510,000,000 the United Kingdom spends $106,250,000 on the naval defense of the empire. "The story is a pure fake,' was what Charles H. Cramp said when shown a dispatch from New York stating that his company contem- plated putting $10,000,000 into a ship building plant at Seattle, to under- take the building of war vessels for the Pacific. Hie added that the Cramp company has no intention whatever of engaging in the ship building indus- try at any place other than Philadelphia. : _ In newspaper dispatches sent out from Cleveland the 'affairs of an ore pool. for, 1898 are already discussed, although*the ore dealers them- selves have not as yet held: a meeting. _ A celluloid calendar, one of the neatest of the season, is being dis- tributed in a limited way by the Magnolia Metal Co. of New York.