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So ENR Ra Po AEP ae Ee OE 26 MARINE REVIEW AND MARINE RECORD. MODEL AND STORY OF THE WILLIAM R. CROWELL. The model of the steamer City of Detroit, worked out by Mr. R. J. Barrow of Cleveland and published two weeks ago jin the Review, caused Mr. Harry E. McArthur of Saginaw, Mich., to send on a photo of a model which is the product of his own jack knife. It is a model of the tug William R. Crowell. The story of the making of the model is told in Mr. McArthur's own woids as follows: Chapter 1--One beautiful morning in the latter part of Tune, 1903, the sun was just starting from Muskegon to Chicago _and the scene was a grand one as I saw it from the Rush street bridge in Chicago, and that which made it more perfect was a tug and vessel coming into the Chicago river. As it came threugh the draw I could not help but admire the tug. Being scmewhat of a genius I promised myself that. sometime I would reproduce the William R. Crowell in the form of a working model, having no picture or anything to work from only a good eye and memory. The dimensions of this.tugboat are as fol- lows: Length, 30 in.; beam, 614 in.; depth, 6 in. The boiler is made from a piece of seamless brass tube, 3 in. in diameter : Model of the Tug William R. Crowell. and 7 in. long, with alcohol lamp so arranged that when the 'boiler is filled-the lamp will have burned out before the water 'in the boiler is dangerously low. The engine was carefully built, having a cylinder 34 in. diameter with 7% in. stroke. The 'propeller wheel was made from a full view of the Sheriff's Mfg. -Co.'s ad in the Review--that is the cut was used as a guide to 'build it. When once started she will run 114 hours in the water. The Crowell was one of the Dunham tugs and like the rest of her line was well kept up. Chapter 2, The Fate of the William R. Crowell.--On Dec. 3, -1893, (11 o'clock at night) the propeller F. W. Wheeler stranded 3 miles north of Michigan City, Ind. At once telegrams were sent to Chicago for tugs to go to the Wheeler's assistance. The tugs Perfection and William R. Crowell were sent and when about half way across the lake the Crowell blew a distress 'whistle and the Perfection ran alongside. While the crew climbed to the rail of the Perfection the William R. Crowell sank from beneath their feet and to my knowledge was never located. -- DULUTH NEWS NOTES, Duluth, Minn., Mar. 25--Night work has been suspended at the yard of the Superior Ship Building Co., where two ships for the Provident Steamship Co. and two for the Great Lakes & St. Lawrence company are being constructed. The first to be launched will be the St. Lawrence boats, about May is. Lhe .two ships for the Provident company will go into the water in June, the D. M. Clemson on the tst, and the D. J. Kerr two weeks later. Mr. Clemson is president of the Pittsburg Steam- ship Co. and Mr. Kerr is ore agent of the United States Steel 'Corporation. As soon as the Clemson is launched the keel of a 440-ft. ship for the Gilchrist company will be laid. _ A slight movement of ore from mines to Minnesota docks 'begins this week. It is only from mines whose stockpile room is filled already and will be small for some little time. No ore train schedule will be in force for some time. Contracts for the stripping of the small Mesabi mine found by the Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Co. in section 31 56-22 has been let to the Drake & Stratton Co., and preliminary work is under way. The mine will make a small shipment this year. Though the surface is not great the milling process is considerered best, in view of the character of the ore. Three good mines, Crosby, Deering and La Rue, are being opened this season at the new village of Nashwauk. 'The Deer. ing and La Rue will be under the management of Jos. Sellwood .of Duluth. These are the most westerly operating properties on the Mesabi range and will be considerable shippers this year, all over the Great Northern road. In all nineteen new mines are under development this sea- cape ie tea SS ke Sey [Mar. 26, son in the Mesabi district, in addition to as many more that made small preliminary shipments late last year and have been developed to produce largely now. Many of these mines will be but small shippers for the first year,.and others will take the place of some that will either go out of business or will reduce their output from a year ago, but the indications are for a very material increase over the year before. Such a new list has never been equaled on any Lake Superior range since mining began. . Mr. J. C. Evans of Buffalo, who is to be western manager of the Anchor Line after April 1, has been at Duluth for some days. Mr. Evans looks for an important year in the package and flour freight trade. 'he new steamship Tionesta, he says, will go into commission April 1. OUTLOOK FROM A BUFFALO STANDPOINT. Buffalo, Mar. 24.--The outlook here for the coming season is on the whole more favorable to the vessel owner than it was a month ago in everything but lumber and that remains as un- settled as ever. Nobody really knows whether the lumber fleet will make much of a season or not, but at least there have been worse outlooks than the present one. ~ 'tne start in hard coal has exceeded expectations. Not that there was any doubt of a demand and an early one, but it was feared that there would be no coal. While the country. was clamoring for coal the companies were not at liberty to disre- gard the demand znd lay down anvthing for lake shipment, but that demand suddenly stopped and the clamor ever since has been to shut off orders that had already been booked. At the same time the coal roads began to bring in more coal here than the west-bound roads could take care of and there was nothing to do but to allow it to accumulate. Soon one or two companies found themselves so filled up with coal that they began to look for lake tonnage to relieve their cars and thev began to take it at a tapid rate. It is stceted that from 125,000 to 150,000 tons of room has already been taken and 40,000 to 50,000 tons loaded. 'The fleet will start out as soon as April and insurance open, unless the indications are false. A letter from Port Colborne states that there is already open water enough on the north shore to en- able a steamer to reach Long Point, so that if no heavy wind down the lake sets in there will be no jam here to go through. 'Lhe prospective retirement of John J. McWilliams from the hard coal shipping trade, not yet officially announced, is one of the chief matters of interest in the lake traffic. As the head of the Lackawanna office here so long, he has directed the shipment of more hard coal by lake than any other man. He will now pay more attention to vessel matters, though abundantly able to retire from business permanently. Details of the change are not available at present. It is going to be a glorious season in package freight, as matters look now. Never has there been so much freight ready at this time of year as now. Indeed the rule is none at all west- bound for close to a month yet and not much east-bound unless it be a little flour, so that orain generally had to be taken till about the time of canal opening to piece out with. It is quite otherwise now. Weeks ago there was freight clamoring to go from both ends of the route. All this is on account of the fail- ure of the railroads to keep up with business. So badly handi- capped are they that they are not expected to interfere in any way with the lake lines, so that the authorities were able to hold their spring meeting here the other day and agree on last fall's rates both ways without the slightest expectation of being dis- turbed in them. The suit of the Maytham interest in the name of George W. Maytham against the St. Clair management of the steamer America brings to the surface a dispute that has been on ever since the steamer passed from the control of her Buffalo owners. They still have a considerable interest in her but are entirely dissatisfied with the management, so they undertook to dissolve the partnership, as they state, by offering to buy or sell, and not being able to bring about this sort of dissolution they have ap- pealed to the courts. The division of only $2,000 in profits from the America's season, as against $14,000 on the part of her sister steamer Brazil, is one of the causes of the difficulty. There seems to be no doubt of the building of the ship canal northward from the mouth of Buffalo river to the still water of the Niagara. Major Symons looked after that project and has carried it well on towards a certainty. Although he is not to be with us much longer, it is pleasant to know that he will still be within easy call and he has taken too much interest in Buffalo to forget us when we may still need him. With the improvement to the steel plant four miles southward and the ship-canal four miles northward, and four miles more of inside waterway, there is room for indefinite development. The elevator situation is not as promising as it used to be, even when the unthinking or envious public was crying out "monopoly" or "piracy," for the railroads can hardly handle the reduced number now in use and a restored canal system is much needed to enable us to hold the lead we have so long maintained, and whicn once lost will be a distinct loss to the leke trade as a whole, for no other port can take it up successfully and it will scatter to many routes. JoHN CHAMBERLIN.