The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

12 MARINE REVIEW. 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. Supscrretion--$#2.00 per year in advance. Single copies 10 cents each. 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, 1897, corr tained the names of 3,230 vessels, of 1,410,102.60 gross tons register in the lake trade. The number of steam vessels of 1,000 gross tons, and over that amount, on che lakes on June 30, 1897, was 399, and their aggregate gross tonnage 769,366.68; the number of vessels of this class owned in all other parts of the country on the same date was 314, and their tonnage 685.709.07, 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, 189/, was as follows. Gross Number. Tonnage. Steam VeSSEIS ........ccceececerceee coccccccccvecscvccncces 1,775 917,235.40 Sailing vessels and barges.. 1,094 394,888.87 Canal boats ......-..ccceeceeee o61 37,978.28 TOtAl ..cccccccccccccccccccccesccescccsccccccscccere 3,230 1,410, 102.60 The gross registered tonnage of the vessels buut on tne lakes during the past five years, according to the reports of the United States commissione: of navigation, is as follows: ing June 30, 1893 175 99,271.24 wae ougy Be 1894 106 41,984.61 a "a "3 1895 93 36,352.70 e « " 1896 117 108,782.88 és = " 1897 120 116,936.98 Total ..ccccccccccesccccscecccccccccccrcsescssssece 611 403,327.91 ST. MARY'S FALLS AND SUBZ CANAL TRAFFIC. (From Official Reports of Canal Officers.) St. Mary's Falls Canals. Suez Canal. 1897 1896 1895 ; 1897 1896 1895 f vessel passages 17,171 18,615 17,956 2,986 8,409 8,484 PCE Ne etoran 17,619,988 | 17,249'418| 16,806,781 || 7,899,374 | 8,560,284] 8,448,388 Days of navigation............ 284 2382 281 865 865 865 To the person who gives the matter a moment's thought, there are manifestly two sides to the question of the difficulty experienced by the government in securing sufficient transports for army manceuvers, despite the fact that the newspapers generally have seemed to recognize only one and have heaped upon vessel owners who have declined to dispose of their vessels, or have demanded good prices for them, considerable of abuse, together with charges of lack of patriotism. The principal trouble, after all, seems to be found in the lack of vessels suitable for transport service, and for this the government, by its failure for years to in any particular degree foster the rebuilding of our merchant marine, has certainly made - itself indirectly responsible. As for the question of the prices demanded, they are in some cases manifestly not excessive, while in others there is even less ground for the criticisms which have been made, when it is taken into consideration that the vessel owner, who is obliged to interrupt the conduct of an established business to supply the government with ships, must rightfully expect to be reimbursed, not only for the actual outlay necessary to replace his vessels, but in some degree for the loss resultant from the interruption or probable entire loss of his business. An additional argument for the upbuilding of the American navy is submitted by the Army & Navy Journal, which says: "The commercial value of a navy is shown in the fact that the record voyage of the Oregon from San Francisco to the Atlantic immediately produced an invitation from the Russian government to her builders, the Union Iron Works of San Francisco, to send representatives to that country for the purpose of arranging contracts for war vessels. The cost of building in special lines has already been reduced in this country to the cost abroad, and some- times below it, as is proved by the fact that an American machine shop is now building the engines for the private yacht of a famous English ship builder, simply because the Yankee shop can make them more cheaply. The cost of ship building has been reduced materially since we began building the new navy, and if our ship yards and armor mills can be fully employed, the cost of future additions to it will be lessened still more. Navies cost money, but they bring compensating trade, and this again reacts on the naval resources of the country by the greater cheapness that results from constant employment and the better and more rapid con- struction that is done by trained gangs of workmen." Another of the new United States torpedo boats, the Mackenzie, built by Charles Hillman & Co. of Philadelphia, had her builders' trial on the Delaware one day last week. The vessel was in command of Capt. Paul Le 'Compt, with the engines in charge of Chief Engineer George F. Cole- man of the Hillman company and Chief Engineer George J. Burnap, U. S. N. The government was represented by Mr. Burnap, Naval Con- structor Hanscom and Past Assistant Engineer Robert Crawford. The Mackenzie made her speed trial on a measured knot at Deep Water point, on the Jersey side, almost opposite Wilmington, and she covered the dis- tance in 2 minutes, 55 seconds, almost equalling a speed of 21 knots per hour, 1 knot more than the contract calls for. This was accomplished, too, with her engine making only 294 revolutions to the minute. Naval Constructor Hanscom made a test of her manceuvering qualities, and the vessel, while running at full speed, was turned six times in the space of double her length, which is 101% feet. Both the naval officers and her builders are well satisfied. The governmental trial trip will be made at an early date. Irving M. Scott of the Union Iron Works, San Francisco, who has recently been congratulated by the press of the country On account of the performance of the battleship Oregon, is quoted as making some pretty interesting comments just previous to sailing on the North German Lloyd liner Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, to seek contracts for war vessels from the Russian government. Mr. Scott is accompanied on his trip to St. Petersburg by his son, Lawrence Irving Scott, a student at Cornell Unj- versity, and Dr. George Chismore, a San Francisco physician. In speak- ing of his mission, Mr. Scott is reported to have said: "A still better vessel than the Oregon can be built by simply developing her origina] design. The new vessel should have a longer hull, increased speed and greater coal-carrying capacity, the two latter being largely dependent upon the former. A supplementary battery of rapid-fire guns would make her still more formidable, and this could be managed by increasing the length of the hull. An increase of draft would not necessarily follow." The builders' trial of the Japanese cruiser Kasagi, under construction at the Cramps' yard, which was scheduled for Saturday, June 4, was pre- vented by reason of an accident. The vessel had proceeded about 65 miles when the bracket valve gear of the port engine broke. It was seen at once that a trial of speed would be impracticable, provision not having been made for repairs to the disabled part. The trial will not be held for at least two weeks. The guaranteed speed of the Kasagi is 22% knots, but there is a suspicion that the Cramps will not be greatly surprised if she attains 23 or even 24 knots. The final and official trial will be made later off the New England coast, but guns will not be placed in position until the vessel has been taken to England on her way to Japan. The officers who will have charge of the Kasagi were aboard on the recent trip, Eastern shipping papers. have been sadly mistaken in their recent boasts that the five-masted wooden schooner now being built by H. M, Bean of Camden, Me., will be the largest in the world. She is 274 feet on the keel and 325 feet over all, and is designed to carry 4,000 tons of coal. These dimensions are exceeded in several of the wooden vessels of the lakes and they are not to be compared at all with the dimensions of the modern steel tow barges, some of which would carry nearly double the estimated load of the Maine boat. It must be noted, of course, that the vessel building at Camden is in reality a sailing vessel, but the lake ves- sels, although called barges, are in most cases capable of caring for them- selves in event of separation from the towing steamer, and are otherwise equipped with all the appliances of a modern ship. There is a continuation of the decline in blast furnast production. Statistics prepared by the Iron Age show the weekly capacity of the fur- naces in blast on June 1 to be 225,398 gross tons, as against 234,163. tons on May 1, 233,339 tons April 1, and 234,430 tons March 1. The Iron Age, in discussing the situation, says: '"'This is healthy, because it has been evident for some time that consumption was not quite able to cope with the enormous supply. It is worthy of note, however, that stocks have not accumulated at any alarming rate, so that the disparity between product and requirements is not large. It must be observed, too, that what blow- ing out there has been among the furnaces, is almost entirely due to the necessity for making repairs, and not to a forced abandonment of the struggle." The senate last week passed the amended bill to organize a hospital corps of the navy. One of the amendments adopted struck from the house bill the proviso that the operation of the act should be limited to the dura- - tion of the present war with Spain. The bill as passed makes provision for a permanent hospital corps, to consist of pharmacists, hospital stew- ards and hospital apprentices of the first and second class. Enlisted men in the navy or marine corps are eligible to transfer to the hospital corps. Austria is by no means behind in the present universal activity in the building of war vessels. The new naval program which has just been drawn up by the minister of marine contemplates the construction of fif- teen battleships, varying in displacement between 6,000 and 9,000 tons; seven cruisers of from 4,000 to 7,000 tons; seven third-class cruisers of from 1,500 to 2,000 tons; fifteen torpedo boat destroyers of from 560 to 600 tons, and ninety torpedo boats. The inadvertent mistake of the Review in a recent issue in stating that the steel barge Australia was undergoing repairs at Duluth, has aroused the ire of a West Superior editor, who wishes it distinctly understood that all repair work at the head of the lakes is done at the yard of the American Steel Barge Co. at West Superior. Superior is justly proud of the barge works, and our humblest apologies are tendered. The roller steamer Ernest Bazin, which attracted considerable atten- tion in France previous to the death of the inventor, for whom the vessel was named, and which has been described in the Review, was sold recently to English buyers. The vessel cost $90,000 to build and was planned to revolutionize everything in the line of naval architecture, but when tried the greatest speed attained was only 7 knots. Canada is to have two more Atlantic liners, which, although not large or of the "flyer" kind, will be serviceable vessels. The Prince George, one of the new steamers for the Dominion Atlantic Railway Co., will reach this side about the middle of the present month, while the Prince Arthur will come a fortnight later. The will of the late Sir Henry Bessemer has just been probated in London. The gross value of the estate is given as $462,690, and the net value of the personal estate as $291,085, but the will indicates that during his lifetime he disposed of property of two or three times the value of that which he left. The report of Webbs' Academy and Home for Ship Builders for the year ending April 1, 1898, has just come from press. There are at present thirty-three inmates in the home and twenty-two in the academy. During the past year Mr. Webb contributed $30,000 to the support of the institu- tion.