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MARINE ., Around the Lakes, The Milwaukee winter fleet comprises sixty-eight steamers, twenty- one barges and thirty-nine schooners--a total of 128 vessels. The matter of securing telegraph and telephone communication be- tween the Manitou islands and Michigan main land is again being agitated. Capt. Albert S. Fitts will represent Toledo Harbor, No. 438, Associa- tion of Masters and Pilots, at the meeting of the grand lodge, to be held in Washington next month. The sum of $78,104.05 was expended in the operating and care of St. Mary's Falls canal during the last fiscal year. The expenditure for the present: fiscal year will probably exceed that of last by a considerable amount. 'Capt. James Reid's large wrecking tug Protector las been engaged by the Flint & Pere Marquette Railway Co. for service at Ludington during the winter, to assist the company's steamers through the ice when- ever necessary. : Capt. Sam Neff of 'Milwaukee has sold the scow A. R. Kellogg to O. S. Richardson & Co., Chicago coal dealers, for $500, and the new owners will in all probability put the craft in shape for coaling steamers in Chicago harbor. A note from Buffalo says that the dry docks at thar point have con- siderable repair work under way. The Lackawanna, Avon and tug May- tham are at the Union yard, and the Kearsarge, Rhoda Emily and Tacoma at the Mills dock. A notice from the hydrographic officials announces that the boulder on which the City of Bangor struck near the Canadian canal at Sault Ste. Marie on Dec. 12 has been removed, and there is now 19 feet of water between the piers ait the lower entrance to the canal. A dispatch from Pittsburg says that the Youghiogheny Gas Coal Co. of Cleveland, of which D. R. Hanna is president and T. E. Young vice- president, has purchased 459 acres of coal land in Forward township, Alle- gheny county, adjoining the Manown mine. The price paid was $75,000. At the annual meeting of Detroit lodge, No. 7, Ship Masters' Asso- ciation, the following officers were elected: President, A. J. McKay; first vice-president, H. C. McCallum; second vice-president, Wm. Roach; treasurer, Hiram Still; financial secretary, C. L. Wilson; marshal, Jas. Watt; warden, Wm. McLean; sentinel, Henry Berlin. New officers of the Cleveland tharbor, Association of Masters and Pilots, elected a few days ago, are: Charles A. Benham, captain; John Morrille, first pilot; Fred Hale, second, pilot; Harry Doville, captain's clerk; Samuel W. Gould, purser; Harry Doville, F. Place and William Sommerville, trustees. Capt. Charles Ai Pjenham was elected delegate to the meeting of the grand harbor, which will be held in Washington next month. -- Capt. Fred L. Pope, assistant inspector of hulls at Buffalo, has been promoted to the position of inspector, to succeed the late Capt. E. M. 'Marion. Capt. Pope was Capt. Marion's assistant and is thoroughly familiar with the workings of the office, he having been in the service for seven years. The position of assistant made vacant by the promotion of Capt. Pope will be filled from the civil service list, an examination for which will be held in February. Grand preparations are being made for the annual reception and ball of the Cleveland lodge, Ship Masters' Association, which will be held Jan. 12. The Grays' armory, one of the finest buildings of its kind in the city, has been secured for the festivities this year. Members of the execu- 'tive committee are: Captains Clinton G. Ennes, Richard Neville,-W. A. Collier, John N. Smith, Ralph Bryns, Thomas Jones, William Gerlach, Henry Stone, Albert Greenley, Claude M. Ennes. te It is more than probable that there is no truth whatever in the dis- patch from Duluth stating that the Oliver Mining Co. (Carnegia interest) had leased an undeveloped mine on the Vermilion range near the Chan- dler and Pioneer, and owned by John G. Brown and A. M. Miller. The Carnegie interest is not buying undeveloped property on the Vermilion range. The Duluth dispatch stated that the lease is for 20 years, with a royalty of 30 cents a ton, a bonus of $30,000 and a minimum output of 100,000 tons. Grain now afloat at Chicago aggregates 2,426,000 bushels. At this time a year ago there was only 214,000 bushels in vessels. A number of vessels, it is said, are now being loaded with Leiter wheat, on which the clique will pay 3 cents a bushel for winter storage and delivery at Buffalo. Most of the grain, it is claimed, is loaded by the vesselmen under a con- tract with the clique, which provides that the grain is either to be delivered at Buffalo or discharged again for shipment by rail. If the latter dis- position is made of it the clique is to receive a rebate. Officials of the weather bureau have asked congress for a special appropriation of $5,000, for the purpose of erecting a brick and stone building on the United States government reservation between the two locks at the Sault, to be used as an office for weather bureau purposes. There is little probability of appropriations of this kind being made by the present congress, on account of the policy of economy that will be pursued, but it would seem that if the weather bureau is really in need of special quarters at Sault Ste. Marie, provision could be made for offices in the spacious new building constructed in connection with the Poe lock. A dispatch from Duluth says of the shut-down at the Pioneer mine, a valuable Vermilion range property controlled by Oglebay, Norton & Co, and others of Cleveland: "Affairs at this mine are unchanged, ex- cept that those who thought its declared intention of suspending work a bluff are of the contrary opinion now, for the pumps are pulled, the trams taken up, the shops boarded up and the machinery painted. The lessees say they cannot operate economically unless they can mine more than the probable amount to 'be allotted them in the next pool. They have now on surface 200,000 tons, while their allotment will not 'be likely to be over 250,000 tons. They want an extension of the lease and a sliding scale of royalty, neither of which will be given by the freeholders, It may be a long shut-down." ' to advertising department, Nickel Plate Co., Cleveland. REVIEW. sa $ "bee ' Another View of the Shipping Question. In another part of this issue extracts are printed from a letter "sub- mitted by Charles H. Cramp to the Manufacturers' Club ot Philadelphia, in which Mr. Cramp says that English ideas and° doctrines penetrate every walk. of life and every branch of activity in the United States, and that this relation between England and this country forms the greatest underlying cause of prevailing financial and industrial conditions here, and more particularly in the ship building industry. Commenting on Mr. Cramp's letter, the Boston Herald says: "This statement from Mr. Cramp sounds a good deal like statements that were made years ago by Mr. Cramp's predecessor, Mr. John Roach. Mr. Roach used to hold that it was a national disgrace that the American people should have so much of their ocean transportation carried on by vessels sailing under the English flag; that this disgrace could be brushed away if the government would vote large subsidies to American shipping, and then he (Roach) would agree to build any number of ships and steamers to supply the needs of customers drawn into the business by the hope of getting the subsidy. In Mr. Roach's opinion, no citizen of this country could be a patriotic American and refuse to accord to Mr. Roach this opportunity to engage in a highly profitable business. It is, of course, needless to remark that this is only another illustration of the sentiment conveyed in the phrase, 'The old flag and an appropriation.. There are a large number of gentlemen in this country who are earnestly desirous of exploiting their patriotism and of having the country made tremendously patriotic when such outbursts have the effect of bringing hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars into their own pockets. 'It has been said that our ship builders-are in a position to build better and cheaper vessels than can 'be built anywhere else in the world; but if that is the case, we cannot understand why these builders, such as Mr. Cramp, are so strenuous in insisting that the laws which now prevent us from purchasing foreign-built ships should ibe maintained, for certainly it we can supply ourselves with tonnage of a better character or at lower prices on this side of the Atlantic than it can be bought elsewhere, there need be no fear that any amount of foreign built tonnage will come under she American flag. If it is demonstrated 'by practical experience that American sea-going tonnage is now as cheap as any built elsewhere, and that it is not this obstacle that prevents us from building up a great ocean carrying trade, then it will be possible to successfully urge the adoption of some plan of subsidizing our merchant marine to equalize the cost of maintenance. Until the opportunity is given us, in the same way that it has been given the Germans, to build up a merchant marine by the pur- chase of ships of foreign construction, if these are cheaper than home- built ships, it will not be believed that Mr. Cramp's methods are effective, or that his reasons for urging the plan are disinterested. Those who be- lieve that Americans are entitled to a very large share of the ocean carry- ing trade which the English now possess, and believe that we could obtain these by our greater skill and enterprise if we were given an opportunity to freely acquire the tools of their trade--that is, ships--can hardly be condemned as wanting in love of country. Mr. Cramp, however, is so desirous of lining his own pockets that anything which stands in the way of speedily doing this is looked upon by him as certainly anti-American." A Very Large Dipper Dredge. Hingston & Woods, dredging contractors of Buffalo, will have two new dredges next season. The machinery for both will be built by the Bucyrus Steam Shovel & Dredge Co. of South Milwaukee. One of the dredges will be of the dipper type and will be the largest of its kind in this country--probably the largest in the world. The weight of the dipper, which is calculated to scoop up 8 cubic yards, will be 15,000 pounds. The weight of the dipper and a load of earth is calculated at 25,000 pounds. The digging resistance of the dredge will be about 37 tons. The dredge will have double high-pressure 18 by 24 engines, and the two main hoist- ing gears will be each 12 feet in diameter with 12 inches face. The boilers and hull are to be built at Buffalo. The hull is to be 135 feet long, 44 feet wide and 13 feet deep. The dredge is to be of the boom type, not here- tofore seen on fresh water, but common on the seacoast. It is intended for general use on the lakes. The second machinery outfit is for an elevator dredge intended principally to be utilized in canal work. 'This dredge will be constructed with removable pontoons, so that when engaged in harbor work it will have a width of 33 feet 6 inches, and when going through a canal the width can, by removing the pontoons, be reduced to 17 feet 6 fnches, or narrow enough to allow it to pass through locks. There is no elevator dredge now on the lakes, although such dredges have been used in the past. This dredge will have a conveyor 75 feet long that can carry material from one side of a canal to the other and for a considerable dis- tance beyond the towpath. The hull and boilers of this dredge are also to be built at Buffalo. It 1s expected 'that the elevator dredge will be ready for service by May 1, and the dipper dredge by June 1. At the rate of increase that has prevailed during the past two or three years-in the commerce of canals at Sault Ste. Marie, the freight tonnage of these canals, which represents only the business of Lake Superior, will exceed 50,000,000 tons ten years from this time. » An up-to-date lithograph map of the Alaskan gold fields, printed in six colors, complete and accurate. If interested, send five 2-cent stamps Dec. 31, 393. Army and navy charts of the lakes are kept in stock by the Marine Review, Perry-Payne building, Cleveland. S. ENGINEER OFFICE, Duturn, Mryn., { e Noy. 30, 1897. Sealed proposals for build- ing substructure for south pier, Duluth Ship Canal, will be receivedt here until noon, Jan'y 15, 1898, and then publicly opened. Information fur- nished on application. Clinton B, Sears, Major, Engrs. jan. 15