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18 MARINE REVIEW. ~ MARINE REVIEW Devoted to the Merchant Marine, the Navy, Ship Building, and ' Kindred Interests. Published every Thursday at No. 418-19 Perry-Payne building, Cleveland. Ohio, by THe Marine REVIEW PuBLicHING Co. SUBSCRIPTION--$2.00 per year in advance. Single copies 10 cents each. Convenient binders sen., post paid, $1.00. Advertising rates on application. Entered at Clevelund Post Office as Second-class Mail Matter. President McKinley's order that all registry fees for documenting foreign vessels in Cuba be abolished seems to meet with general ap- proval. The Cubans will thus be enabled not only to purchase vessels wherever they may desire, but an impetus will be given to the carrying trade of the island, which was virtualy stifled during the period of Spanish rule by the onerous tax imposed. The ultimate effect of this liberality of action will be to induce in time the establishment of ship yards in Cuba, but in the meantime doubtless many orders for vessels will be given to American and English builders. In marked contrast to the benefits to be derived in the case of Cuba is the embarrassment likely to result. by reason of the failure of the last congress to pass a bill restricting trade between the United States and Hawaii to American bottoms. This would seem to add one more to the already long list of the inexcusable blunders of the recent congress with regard to shipping matters, and it is all the more regretable by reason of the fact that the bill passed the house by a unanimous vote and was reported favorably by the senate committee, only to fall a victim to the individual objections of one or two senators. Senator Frye of Maine, ever the staunch champion of shipping and ship building interests, has again placed the representatives of these industries under obligations by his energetic work, the disinter- ested sincerity of which suffers no detraction from the fact that it was not successful. Under the system of free register, which unfortunately still prevails, it is known positively that ship owners of several nations, notably Japan, England and Germany, are making plans to secure regis- try under the Hawaiian flag, although that emblem really no longer ex- ists in law. Thesé foreign competitors maintain that once having ob- tained this register the United States government can not consistently deprive them of what they can maintain are their rights under the Hawaiian laws. About 90 per cent of the commerce between this country and the Hawaiian islands is now carried on in American bottoms, but this supremacy can not of course be expected to continue many months under present conditions. Of course there is a chance that when congress does act it will fail to recognize as valid the position taken by the foreign vessel owners. There is occasion for a commingling of satisfaction and regret in the announcement that the old plan of sending United States naval cadets to Europe for education as constructors will be resumed again this year. The whole subject has been considered during some months past from a number of different standpoints. A course.in naval architecture was, it will be remembered, established at Annapolis two years ago by Naval Constructor Hobson, but the undertaking was not a success and it was then proposed to have a number. of young men, chosen from each year's graduating class at the naval academy, sent to a private institution of learning in this country that makes a specialty of such a course. The plan, however, met with very vigorous opposition and was eventually abandoned. Now the failure of congress to appropriate the funds neces- sary to construct at Annapolis the building neéded for the course has compelled its discontinuance there, and the whole subject is again re- ceiving attention. The latest announcement is that it has-been definitely decided to assign two of the cadets to. Glasgow university and to send two others to Paris. There is no doubt that a good course in naval architecture, if not an absolute necessity, would at least prove a most valuable adjunct to the Annapolis institution, and with the ever increas- ing attention given to training in this branch by Great Britain and the more progressive foreign powers, our willingness to slight it must be regarded as in the nature of a serious reflection. In this case, as in sev- eral others with which everybody conversant with maritime or naval matters is familiar, the responsibility would seem to rest with the last congress, whose blunders in judgment regarding naval affairs does not seem to have been confined by any means to its ridiculous action with regard to the price of armor plate. The growing regard in Great Britain for American ship building methods and machinery and the men who are responsible for them has not been better evidenced than by the prominence given to the papers read by representatives of the United States at the recent meeting of the Institute of Naval Architects in London. Three papers on distinctive- ly American subjects is, it must be conceded, a decidedly liberal' rep- resentation, and reports of the gathering are unanimous in indicating that in no other treatises presented was a deeper and more general interest manifested than in the papers of Engineer-in-Chief Melville of the United States navy, ex-Engineer-in-Chief Haswell and Mr. W. I. Babcock of the Chicago Ship Building Co. Fredricka is the name selected for the Welland canal size steamer to be built at the Craig yard, Toledo, for the Porto Rico Steamship Co. of New York. This is the vessel that is to follow the one now on the stocks for Miller, Bull & Knowlton of New York. Both vessels will be managed by Miller, Bull & Knowlton. A second electric crane, 10-ton type, will be erected shortly at the Toledo yard. ( The two large wooden schooners building at the ship d f i ¢ I ' yard of James Davidson, West Bay City, Mich., will probably not go into nee until about June 1. There is also building at the Davidson yard a large wooden tug for the Thompson Towing & Wrecking Co. of Port Huron. [April 13, THE NEW BOOKS. The Arithmetic of the Steam Engine is the latest work of E. Sher- man Gould, author of "A Primer of the Calculus." The object of the volume is to furnish a clear and concise digest of the fundamental prin- ciples of the steam engine, and the practical calculations based upon them. 'While not entering into the more 'abstruse mathematics of the subject, it is believed," says the author in his preface, "that these few pages contain all that is necessary to solve the ordinary problems re- lating to steam in its applications to the steam engine." The prepara- tion of the work is said to have grown out of the need for a collection © of simple and accurate facts and rules, such as are embodied in few if any of the works of this class heretofore published. Any merit it may possess is found not so much in matters new as in the presentation of accepted facts of the subject in readily accessible shape for practical use, Published by D. Van Nostrand Co., New York City. Nevil Monroe Hopkins is the author of a very interesting work on "Model Engines and Small Boats," which has just come from the press and in which there are outlined new methods of engine and boiler mak- ing, with a chapter on elementary ship design and construction. While the author deals only with the direct-acting screw type of marine engine and gives direction for the making of shell and water-tube boilers only, it is claimed that the introduction of the system detailed in this volume for constructing small steam cylinders without patterns and castings, and boilers without the use of special tools, will enable a person with mechani- cal ability to apply the methods in a general manner, embracing almost any type of model engine and boiler. A chapter on elementary boat design is given, followed by a system of hull construction using wooden ribs in combination with cardboard plating, which has given entire satis- faction under trying circumstances. Published by D. Van Nostrand Co., New York. An exceedingly valuable contribution to the maritime literature of the period is the volume on "Tides and Kindred Phenomena in the Solar System," by George Howard Darwin, Plumian professor and fellow of Trinity College in the University of Cambridge, which has just been | published in this country. The work comprises in substance the lectures delivered in 1897 at the Lowell Institute, Boston, Mass., by Mr. Darwin, and an idea of the character of the work may well be gained from a para- graph of the preface in which the author says: "A mathematical argu- ment is, after all, only organized common sense, and it is well that men of science should not always expound their work to the few behind a veil of technical language, but should from time to time explain to a larger public the reasoning which lies behind their mathematical nota- tion. To a man unversed in popular exposition it needs a great effort to shell away the apparatus of investigation and the technical mode of speech from the thing behind it.' Heretofore most writings on the subject of tides have been comprised in the chance chapters which popular works on astronomy devote to the subject, but these works to the average student of the subject, even in a superficial way, seem inadequate inas- much as none of them contain explanations of the practical methods of observing and predicting the tides, or give any details as to the degree of success attained by tidal predictions. The latter chapters of this new book are devoted to the consideration of several branches of speculative astronomy, with which the theory of the tides has an inti- mate relationship. Admittedly the problems involved in the origin and history of the solar and of other celestial systems have little bearing upon life on the earth, yet these questions can hardly fail to interest those whose minds are in any degree permeated by the scientific spirit, and for the gratification of such an interest no better medium than this new ie dae could possibly be imagined. The book is handsomely illus- trated. Published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston and New York. BRITISH INSTITUTE OF NAVAL ARCHITECTS. The fortieth session of the British institute of naval architects, held in London the latter part of last month, was exceptionally well attended. The annual report of the council showed that financially the institution was in a very satisfactory condition, despite the fact that receipts were less than in former years, owing to no summer meeting having been held in 1898, while disbursements were above the average, due to the pub- lication of an extra volume of "'The Transactions" last year. During the year sixty-four new members were elected, while the losses due to deaths and withdrawals amounted to forty, leaving a net gain of twenty- four. Among other actions taken was the provision of a new class of associate members, intermediate between full members and associates as at present constituted. The president, Lord Hopetoun, took occasion to remark in the course of his annual address that it was the abnormal demand for ship. building material that accounted for those instances in which the tenders of firms in the United States for steel plates for British ships had been accepted. The papers read were well received and in almost every instance provoked lively discussion. The annual dinner of the in- stitute proved quite as enjoyable as on former occasions. A summer meeting of the institute will be held at Newcastle-on-Tyne. _The-many friends of Mr. J. W. Fitch, secretary of the Cleveland Ship Building Co., will be pleased to learn that he has made such rapid progress from the effects of injuries sustained in a street car accident some time ago as to be able to sit up. His physicians now express hope that if he continues to improve as rapidly as in the past he will be able within two or three weeks to be back at his desk. _ Frank S. Masten has been admitted to the law firm of Goulder & Holding, Cleveland. The firm now is Goulder, Holding & Masten. Mr. Masten has been gradually relieving Mr. Goulder of a great deal of detail in the large admiralty practice of this well-known Cleveland office for two or three years past and he has made friends among vessel men in all parts of the lakes.