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MARINE REVIEW. 9 Novel Features in a Yacht. Perhaps the most interesting steel yacht ever built in America was launched last week at the yards of the Jonson Enginering & Foundry Co., New York. The vessel is the American, built for Commodore Archibald Watts, who designed her. She is 254 feet over all, 38 feet beam, 21 feet depth of hold, and draws 12% feet of water. She has two quadruple ex- pansion engines of 3,200 horse power and her estimated speed is 17 knots per hour. She has a coal capacity of 650 tons, sufficient for a 65-day cruise. Commodore Watts, who has at one time or another designed naval vessels, set out to gratify his wife's ambition for a cruising yacht that could not be burned, sunk or dangerously broken on the rocks, and the American is the result. Many officers of the United States navy have examined the yacht, either officially or for their own instruction. Chief Engineer George W. McGee, one of the government experts, is reported to have declared that the hull includes greater precautions against sinking than any battleship afloat, and that the success of Watts' invention will probably lead to many changes in the building of ships for both war and commerce. The yacht has 16 watertight compartments on either side of the keel. Above these lower compartments are nine steel bulkheads, which reach to the upper deck, two of them separating the deckhouse. The steel keelson is only 4 inches narrower than those used in the St. Paul and St. Louis. The frames of the steel ribs are Z shaped, whereas those in the Maine, reported to have been the strongest vessel of her size in the navy, were L shaped, although of the same thickness. All the decks are of steel, together with the two deckhouses, which are 70 and 40 feet in length respectively. The yacht will carry two 25-foot naphtha launches with The Merrimac an Expensive Luxury. The steamer Merrimac, which recently came into a pretty prominent place in the public eye by reason of her use as a cork for the imprisonment of the Spanish fleet in-the harbor of Santiago de Cuba, had been the sub- ject of no little discussion among marine men previous to that time, be- cause of some seemingly peculiar circumstances connected with her pur- chase by the government and conversion into the auxiliary fleet of the navy. The Merrimac, which was a steel vessel 330 feet long, 44 feet beam and 29.9 feet depth, was originally a Norwegian tramp steamer, and ran aground and was abandoned by her crew in the West Indies in the sum- mer of 1897. She was saved by wreckers and was purchased by T. Hogan & Sons of New York, who paid for her the sum of $48,000. The pur- chasers made extensive repairs upon the steamer--indeed, virtually rebuilt her--at a cost, according to figures furnished by them, of three times the original expenditure, making their total investment $192,000. The Mer- rimac was one of the many vessels offered to the United States govern- ment just previous to the declaration of war with Spain, and members of the board of auxiliary cruisers at that time made a careful inspection of the boat and rejected her, their refusal to recommend her purchase being based, according to unofficial statements, on not only her lack of adapt- ability for the purpose of the government, but her unworthiness of the price demanded by her owners. After her rejection by the board the Merrimac was sent to.Baltimore. and after an examination there by special agents sent on from Washing- ton, was purchased by the government for $342,000. When the news of the purchase of the vessel reached New York, the members of the board of auxiliary cruisers made no secret of the fact that they held to their orig- a) Es [From 1898 issue, Blue Book of American Shipping.] alconyappr motors, one large steam launch, a 3l-foot gig, lifeboat and ingy. _ _ The American is equipped with a complete outfit of Blake pumps, including vertical twin air pumps similar to those furnished by the Blake company for the United States naval and revenue cutter vessels. Great Britain's New Naval Plans. The announcement of the British admiralty's naval program for the ensuing year serves to call attention to England's progression along this line in the past, as exemplified by the parliamentary return which has also just been issued. During the period from April 1, 1887, to March 31, 1898, there was expended on ships, machinery, gun-mountings, etc.--exclusive of guns and ammunition--the sum of $247,500,000. During the last four years the annual average has been in excess of $28,090,000. The trend of British policy in naval matters is well illustrated by a comparison of these figures with those during the previous eleven years, from April 1, 1876, to March 31, 1887, when the total expenditure was $121,250,000, or less than one-half that during the more recent period. During the past eleven years 190 battleships, cruisers, sloops and gunboats have been added to England's navy, to say nothing of ninety-six torpedo boat destroyers. The aggregate displacement of the 190 vessels first mentioned is 955,000 tons, and the horse power of the engines amounts to 1,575,000. The cap- ital cost of the existing fleet is given as $486,005,000, as against $185,870,000 in 1887. The admiralty's program for the ensuing year is, however, described as modest. The tendency is plainly toward great ships. Preparations are being made looking to an extension of the building facilities at Chath- am and Davenport, with a view to placing the officials in a position to undertake the construction of three first-class battleships and cruisers at the same time. If all the contemplated increases in building facilities are made, the three chief dock yards will be able to build six or seven battle- ships simultaneously. Rear View of fast McMyler Ore Plant at Conneaut--Capacity about 5000 tons in eight hours. inal opinion regarding her and were in no way responsible for the pur- chase. Mention of the circumstances connected with the whole matter came about in an indirect way, during the discussion of the civil sundry appropriation bill in congress last week, and the assertion was made that the purchase was resultant from the request of a politician. One asser- tion made was that the government had been swindled out of $150,000, while from another source it was held that the price paid was just $242,000 more than the vessel was worth. The fact of the selection of the Merrimac by Admiral Sampson and the reported assertion of officers of Sampson's fleet that she would be more valuable at the entrance to Santiago harbor than above water, would tend to indicate that their opinion of the vessel was also none too high. Notwithstanding the struggle in which vessel owners are engaged to find cargoes with which to keep the lake fleet moving at any rate of freight just now, they find some encouragement in the evidences of a grain crop of unusual size. Reports indicate a total area seeded of 16,800,000 acres, which, added to the area in winter wheat--26,200,000 acres--makes a total wheat acreage of 43,000,000, or more than 3,500,000 acres in excess of last year. There is an increase of 8 per cent. in Minnesota, 22 in Iowa, 10 in Nebraska, 11 in North Dakota, 8 in South Dakota, 5 in Oregon and 20 in Washington. The average condition of spring wheat is the almost, if not entirely, unprecedented one of 100.9, as compared with 89.6 on June 1, 1897, and 92.5, the average for the last ten years. Charles Cramp Bowers, a nephew of the Philadelphia ship builder, has been appointed the designing and superintending engineer of Lewis Nixon's ship yard at Elizabethport, N. J. The unexcelled dining car service on the Nickel Plate road.--Begin- ning Monday, June 20th, breakfast will be served a la carte, on dining cars of Nickel Plate road. 85, July 14