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

20 MARINE REVIEW AND MARINE RECORD. [ May. -7,- DELAWARE RIVER SHIPPING MATTERS. ° Philadelphia, May 6--Edward J. Stotesbury, Richard H. Rushton and George F. Baker will have charge of the finances of the William Cramp & Sons' Ship & Engine Building Co. for the next few years. These three men were named by the directors at a meeting held a few days ago to act as voting trustees of the big corporation. The old directors, Thomas Dolan, Clement. A. Griscom, Morton McMichael, Samuel Dick- son, Charles A. Cramp, Henry W. Cramp, Edwin S. Cramp, William H. Barnes and Henry Seligman presented their resigna- tions but no action was taken. 'The resignations were laid on the table: Mr. Stotesbury in the new voting trusteeship will represent the deposits of stock which have been made with his firm, Drexel & Co., bankers; Mr. Rushton is president of the Fourth Street National Bank of Philadelphia and Mr. Baker is at the head of the First National Bank of New York. 'While the program for the future of the new Cramp company has not been announced by the new regime, it is certain that it will do whatever it can to increase the value of the stock which it holds as security for the loan it made the company of $7,500,000. The reorganization of the company means that the great Cramp plant is virtually under the control of the Morgan interests and that there will be a reconstruction of the cradle of the Amer- ican navy. It is. the vessels turned out from the Cramps--the warships and merchantmen--that have made the Delaware river the greatest ship building seaway in the world next to the river' Clyde. It is believed that the new regime is closely related to important snipping interests and that the reorganized Cramp company will do all repair work for the International Marine Co., which it is said would prove to be more profitable work than building warships. It is presumed, of course, that in due time new directors representing the interests of the parties who sup- plied the new capital will be elected and take the places of other directors. It will not be known who of the present directors will resign until definite action is taken, but it is said Samuel Dickson, W..h. Barnes and Clement A. Griscom will be three of them. More than 50 per cent. of the Cramp stock has been deposited with Drexel & Co. assenting to the plan of reorganization andi approving of the loan of $7,500,000. Five million of the loan is to be raised at once and the balance of $2,500,000 as needed. "The loan does not increase the indebtedness of the company," said one of the Cramp officials. "It means a refunding of the debts of the company for a period of twenty years. Less the discount, the rate of interest will not be far from 5 per cent. About three years ago we remodeled our plant at great expense and have since spent in improvements over $2,000,000. We have had to carry about $2,000,000 in material, supplies, etc., and this created our floating debt of over $4,000,000. When money be- came scarce our trouble began. 'The banks of New York and Philadelphia practically withdrew from the market as lenders on commercial paper, no matter how gilt-edged it was. We at once saw the necessity of creating a bond issue, and the matter was a subject of negotiation up to the time of the deal for the loan and a reorganization." Stockholders of the Cramps com- pany will vote June 25 on the matter of increasing the capital from $5,000,000 to $6,250,000 and the bonded debt from $1,800,000 to. $7,500,000. At the large ship yard of the New York Ship Building Co., Camden, the work of roofing over the new. drafting building, an annex to the office building, is now going on 'The draughting building will probably be occupied in about ten days. It is of brick, one story in height and has roof skylights. The founda- tion for the addition to the storehouse is about completed, and in about three days work will be commenced on the annex. The addition will be one story high, 80 ft. long by. 4o ft. wide, and will be built of brick and iron. The one-story copper shop, com- pleted recently, is now fitted up as a workshop and occupied. President Morse of the company is expécted home from Europe about the latter part of May, and when he returns it is likely the question will be decided'as to what use will be made of the land recently acquired, lying along Timber creek in Gloucester city. This land was occupied by the old Gloucester Iron Co. and the foundry and shop buildings on it are so delapidated that they will be torn down. Four ships are now on the ways--two of them being oil steamers 625 ft. in length. Plans for the new cruiser Washington, the contract for which was recently awarded the New York Ship Building Co. by the government, are now - engaging the attention of the draughting force. Work through- out the plant is brisk and a large number of employes have re- cently been taken on in the machine shops. Large numbers. of new dwelling houses are being erected by builders and specula- tors in the immediate neighborhood of the ship yard, and as showing the demand for them on the part of ship yard employes, all the houses are rented or leased long before they are completed. Rear Admiral George W. Melville, engineer-in-chief, United States navy, read a paper on "The Military Importance of Naval Engineering Experiments" at the meeting of the Marine Engin- eers' Club of Philadelphia, May 20. In part he said: "TI believe that Germany's battleships, for their tonnage, are the best afloat. The cost of the five ships authorized by the last congress for the United States navy will be $20,000,000. The armor, armament and equipment will cost an additional $15,000,000. so - that the actual cost of each battleship will be about $7,000,000. The excellence of construction in war ships, as well as in the building of merchant vessels, is not the result of a progressive series of failures, either in design, construction or operation. The success of the Germans can only be accounted for .by the: fact that reflection, study and research have governed them in» their work. It is her appreciation of the value of experimental work and investigation that has caused Germany to advance progressively and successfully. For 100 years Germany as a nation has carried on more original research along technical lines than any other power. America and England have put to prac- tical application many principles that Germany has established. Germany's expenditure in great part has taken place before the ship is laid down, while in the case of the rival powers tests and experiments have been conducted in discovering means to over- come avoidable defects." The board of directors of the Philadelphia Maritime Ex- change reorganized last week and the following officers were elected: J. S..W. Holton, president; P. F. Young, vice-presi- dent; Jos. A. Ball, treasurer; E. R. Sharwood, secretary; J. T. Kernan, assistant secretary; John F. Lewis, solicitor. Mr. Hol- ton, the new president, is secretary of the Sterling Coal Co. and a member of the board of port wardens. Mr. Young, the new vice-president, is the Philadelphia representative of the Atlantic Transport Line. 'The two new directors recently elected, John Baizley and Josiah Monroe, attended the meeting. The steamboat Penn for the Ericsson Line was launched at the works of the Harlan & Hollingsworth Co. at Wilmington, | Saturday. Miss Cadwalader of Philadelphia, daughter of the president of the Ericsson Line, was sponsor. All the officers of the company were present at the launch, which was successful in every way. 'Ihe Penn will ply between Philadelphia and Bal- timore. She is 203 ft. long over all, 23 ft. 10 in. beam and 9 ft. . draught. She has accommodations for 960 passengers and also considerable space for freight. : S James B. Canby, chairman of the grain committee of the. Philadelphia Commercial. Exchange, says anent the complaint of Berlin, Germany, dealers, that grain shipments from Phila- delphia are in bad condition: 'The troulfle arises from the. moist condition of western corn received at this port for. ship- ment. So wet is it, that although it passes inspection here when stored on the vessels, it generates heat and quickly spoils in transit. 'The complaint from Berlin is the first we have received for years." The battleship Maine, after having discharged her ammu- nition at the League Island navy yard, was taken to. Cramps' ship yards, Monday, where she will undergo repairs to two of her boilers and will have the supports oi her turrets and 6-in. guns strengthened. Pending the repairs, and contrary to the usual custom the Maine will not go out of commission but will -fly the pennant of Capt. Leutze during the whole time she is at the ship yard. Only a part of the crew, h wever, will remain aboard. - The oil tank steamer S. V. Luckenbach has been wholly given up as lost. She left Sabine Pass, March 21, for Philadel- phia, loaded with 800,000 gallons of oil, consigned to the Sun Oil Co. of Philadelphia. Capt. Thompson and crew of twenty- six men presumably went down with the vessel. 'There are at: present more than 1,200 men on the training ship Minneapolis at the navy yard. They are landsmen and are. being put in trim to be placed in the regular naval service. 3 In the United States court at Trenton, May 2, Eugenia C. Griffith brought suit contesting the right-of the United States court in appointing Francis McGovern-receiver of the Pacific Packing & Navigation Co., generally known as the trust.. Mrs. Griffith owns $280,000 of stock in the company and alleges that there was collusion to have a receiver appointed so that the: trust's business could not be wound up by the New Jersey courts. " Argument will be heard later. ae eee Among deaths in marine circles at Philadelphia recently are the following: Com/'dr. Julian St. Clair Ogden, government inspector at the Neafie & Levy ship yard, aged 55; Capt. Henry Behnken, in command of merchant marine vessels of German lines. for twenty-eight years, aged 69; Capt. John J. Smith, a: noted North Atlantic whaler, aged 72; John J. Willard, fore-- man at the ship building works of Lynn Brothers. Capt. James C. Sanford; United States engineer's corps,' who will relieve Col. C. W: Raymond as chief engineer of the Delaware river improvements, reached Philadelphia, Sunday, but did not take charge of the office at once. Colonel Raymond and Capt. Sanford made an inspection of the dredging and other operations in connection with the construction of the 30:ft. chan- nel in the river to the Delaware bay. The waters of the Schuylkill river have in past years washed down thousands of tons of anthracite coal and much of» it is deposited inthe several river dams. The Schuylkill River Navigation Co., operating near Hamburg, Pa., is extracting the' coal from the river bed by suction through a 6-in. pipe.. Three scOws, 10x32 ft., are at work, and similar. plants will be estab- lished at other dams on the river. . =e : A new dredging tug, the L. Y. Schermerhorn, owned by. and named after an officer of the American Dredging Co. of Phila- delphia, was given a trial spin in the Delaware river last Mon- day. The vessel is 110 ft. long and 'has 23-ft. beam. She was built at the company's Camden shops and 'will be tised in deep- ° ening the Delaware river channel. 5 'Two barges containing flowers will be towed out into the Delaware river below League island, decoration day, and on ar-_ riving in mid-stream the flowers will be cast overboard in re- membrance of the sailors and marines who perished in southern'