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Be MARINE REVIEW. To Solve Problems in Hydraulic Engineering. Reference has been made to the use of the hydraulic laboratory, now being built within the grounds of Cornell University, Ithaca, Nae, 10T the purpose of conducting experiments with models of ships, according to methods long ago adopted by several European governments and soon to be taken up by the United States navy in the model tank now building at Washington. These experiments with ships' models will, however, be only one of the numerous uses to which the Cornell laboratory will be applied. It will be the largest and most complete hydraulic laboratory in existence. The opportunity for a hydraulic installation of this kind is afforded by the peculiar conformation of a stream that runs within the property of the university. The plant will include a dam, a canal, a waterfall, a standpipe and a laboratory building. The maximum water capacity will be 1,700 cubic feet of water per second. The canal is. 450 feet long, 16 feet wide and 10 feet deep. It is estimated that but for the natural conditions afforded at Cornell, $3,000,000 would not provide this laboratory, which is expected to solve a great many problems of the highest importance to hydraulic engineers. Speaking of the experiments that may be undertaken, Prof. A. E. Fuertes, director of the college of civil engineering, says: ; : "To deal effectively with water, it is necessary to be equipped with apparatus and accomplishments entirely different from any which would be required in other specialties in engineering. It has been believed that the limit reached in the progress of hydraulics is due mainly to the lack of opportunities for proper experimentation on a suitable scale. And this is all the more strange, since almost every nation on the face of the earth is obliged to spend in the aggregate fabulous sums of money in the improvement of rivers, harbors and coast defenses. Yet a large number of unsolved doubts of tentative hydraulic works are forced upon the engineer. This laboratory will enable the engineer to devise any single simple problem, and after study of its constructions, add to the original problem such disturbing new conditions as may enable him to discriminate between the effects of individual, simple causes and their combined interaction. A hasty survey of the causes of failure in many of the river improvements upon the Danube, Rhine, Rhone and our own Mississippi, reveals the necessity of better data and a settlement of the long-disputed theories of transportation by dragging and by suspension in water. That we will be able to solve some of the great prob!ems in engineering is almost certain from the superior nature of the equipment. "These great problems affect the whole range of engineering, and with a view to solving some of them we have mapped out the following range of experiments: Studies upon the dragging and suspending power of water at the various stages of saturation with sediment; the effect of transverse, longitudinal and submerged dams, under standard conditions, which may be modified at will by certain disturbing influences; deter- mining the corrections to be made in the beds of streams so as to give them the most permanent longitudinal profile; studies upon the condi- tions of such rivers as build their minor beds above their major bed; studies of canals, bars and deltas, and of the disposition of sediment from rivers into quiescent water, and against high tides; study of the condi- tions affecting the tangents and curvature in water courses, looking to securing permanence of channels and depth of water; studies upon the delivery conditions of the watersheds of streams and the tributaries which feed canals, in reference to the amount and kind of mniiter suspended by floods, the inter-relations of the deliveries of tributary floods; also such studies as may prove useful for determining the co-efficients of flood vol- ume, the length of dams, spillways and height of floods over them, so as to perfect the formulas for the delivery of watersheds. The watershed of the Cornell canal covers 117 square miles, which will be most perfectly surveyed, topographically and geologically. "With this canal experiments can also be made upon current meters and the motion of water in open channels, in pipes and over weirs, under variable conditions of velocity, materials of bed, conditions of surface contractions and heads. Then there is the determination of the resistance of motion of boats in canals, the effect of waves, etc., and experiments on water-jets, forms of water-wheels, buckets, and forms of propellers, in- cluding water propulsion; which subjects by themselves will give rise to a large number of investigations. "The uses of this laboratory will not be restrained simply to ques- tions strictly classified as of hydraulic importance. For example, on the sanitary side, the relations that should exist between the grade of a sewer, its size, and the volume of flush water required to produce a given effect are almost entirely unknown. Many of the labors undertaken by the various boards of health can be extended and made useful much more rapidly than under the cramped conditions usually enjoyed by them. It is hoped that this laboratory may aid the boards of health in directions as yet unattainable by reason of expense and lack of facilities." Lieut. A. H. Scales and Ensign G. C. Day, naval officers who have been assigned to hydrographic office duties on the lakes, are now with Lieut. Stafford at the Cleveland branch office acquainting themselves with details of the work. Lieut. Scales will probably go to the new branch office at the Sault and Ensign Day to Duluth. Officers of Chicago lodge No. 3, Ship Masters' Association, for 1898 are: President, C. H. Hubbard; first vice-president, L. B. Coates: sec- ond vice-president, Fred T. Weimar; treasurer, Wm. W. Shaw; secretary, Frank B. Higgie; delegate to grand lodge, John Jenks. Laird Brothers, the Clyde ship builders, recently launched from their yards the torpedo boat destroyer Express for the British government, the largest and fastest destroyer afloat. Her length is 235 feet, and her speed is to be 83 knots an hour, equal to nearly 38 miles. The annual meeting of the Grand Harbor, American Association of Masters and Pilots of Steam Vessels, will open in Washington on the 17th inst., which is also the date of opening of the annual convention of the Marine Engineers' Beneficial Association in the same city. All charts sold by the Marine Review are corrected to date of sale. Encouraging Outlook in Iron Mining Districts. In view of preparations that are being made for shipments from new mines, referred to further on in this article, it is evident that, without any pushing, the production of 1898 for the two Minnesota iron ranges can be made something enormous. It is now generally believed it may amount to from one and a half to two million tons more than for the season just closed. a a scale as to indicate that this belief is general among mining managers, but the railroads that carry the ore to market are adding to facilities enough rolling stock, motive power, stock and dock room, tankage, main lines, etc., to handle with the greatest ease fully 2,500,000 tons more than ever before. Labor on the ranges is receiving better pay at the close of the year than for a long time, and the demand for experienced miners" has been such as not only to absorb the entire floating population of the districts, but to cause the return of hundreds of men who, during the late depression, had migrated to more promising fields in the far west, the south, the new north, and in foreign countries. Stock-piles on both Minnesota ore ranges are more closely shipped than for many years, one company having got rid of ore that had been on surface for the past five seasons. It is estimated that there were on both ranges at the close of navigation not over 500,000 tons of ore in stock, Mines that did nothing in the way of winning ore during the year were enabled toward its close to make shipments of what they had held in stock, and quite generally availed themselves of the opportunity. For this reason any increase in shipments for the coming year will make and keep the mines very active for the entire season, and labor will be remuneratively employed. No strike shadow has cast itself over the Minnesota districts, and none is expected. The Miners' Union, which has endeavored to make matters unpleasant on the Marquette range in Michigan, has gained no foothold in Minnesota for several reasons, and without it there is no likelihood of labor troubles of magnitude. There are now on the Mesabi range six of the class of mines known as "steam-shovel" properties, where the ore is first stripped of the super- incumbent earth, and then mined directly by shovels into cars, without underground work of any nature, and very often without any loosening of the ore or preparation for the shovel. These six mines are all prepar- ing for greater outputs the coming year than before, and all are stripping off more and more of the surface. Two of them are new mines, and were shippers in a very small way--one, the Sparta, shipped in 1897, while another, the A*tna, has shipped only one cargo, and that several years ago. Both are large deposits, the latter being a portion of the celebrated Mountain Iron ore body. Four of these mines, the Biwabik, Mountain Iron, Oliver and Mahoning, have already opened a great quantity of ore, either one sufficient, as far as utility goes, to supply the United States for an entire year, and probably very much longer. More steam-shovel mines may yet be found on the Mesabi, but the probability is not great. While explorations have not been active the present year, they have been sufficient to cover fairly well the ground that had not been before explored, and it is now for the first time safe to say that the Mesabi will probably see few more mines than it has already opened or explored sufficiently to prove. Of these latter explorations there are a number on the range that may become active mines in a year or two. Some of them indicate very large and important deposits of ore. Strange as it may seem, there are indications that there is a better field for the skilled explorer on the Ver- milion range than on the Mesabi. The former has. been cast into the shadow and somewhat neglected during the exploitation of its newer competitor, and now presents a very cofisiderable area that offers an inviting prospect for the explorer. Many mines of h'gh-grade hard ore are likely to be found on the Vermilion in the next few years. Twenty-two mines shipped ore from the Mesabi the present year, and four from the Vermilion. On the Mesabi four mines were idle during all or nearly all of the year. There are no present indications that all of these idle mines will be put in operation during 1898, but most of them will probably resume soon. There are on the Mesabi range six mines-- the Sparta, Genoa, Roberts, Penobscot, Commodore and part of the Lake Superior group--that have not passed out of the initial stages of development, and on all these active work is now under way in prepara- tion for a greatly increased business the coming year. Not one of these properties can be classed as a small mine, or even as of ordinary size; all are great deposits, and each is of better than the usual richness of Mesabi ores. Their part in the output for next year is considered to be a very important one. On the Vermilion range the Zenith mine stands in the same position as do the six above referred to, and it, too, is a great deposit of unusual value. Four mines that will make their initial ship- ment in 1898 are now being developed on the Mesabi, the A<tna, Day, Elba and Pillsbury, while on the Vermilion there are two that are ex- pected to become active shippers to some extent during the year. These latter are the Section 26 and Southall, as well as, perhaps, one or two properties that are not yet in so forward a stage of development as they. All of tthese new mines are likely to be added to the class of big ones -- Duluth correspondence in Engineering & Mining Journal. Henry R. Worthington are contemplating enlargements of their present storage capacity for castings for their standard sizes of pumps. ~ They carry in storage from two to three months' supply of all standard castings of 6-inch stroke pumps and smaller sizes, and it is now proposed to extend this system to standard pumps of much larger sizes. Hon. D. M. McPherson, well-known as the manager of the Halifax graving dock, retired gn the first of the year. His successor has not been appointed and probably will not be for some time to come. Mr. Me- Pherson was at one time mayor of Halifax and is now a member of pat- liament. Chicago Harbor No, 33, American Associition of Masters and Pilots has elected the following officers for 1898: Captain, John Jenks; first pilot, L: B. Coates; second pilot, Wm. Brown: purser, James Grion; captain's clerk and delegate to meeting of Grand Harbor, Geo. Tebo. Indeed, not only are preparations by mines on such 4 . |