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

ee THE MarRINE REVIEW LIVERPOOL SHIPPING LETTER. - Liverpool, Feb. 5--A return just issued by Lloyds Registry of vessels lost, condemned etc. during the quarter ending Sept. 30, 1905, shows a total for all countries of 49 steamers aggregating 66,016 tons gross, and of 74 sailing vessels aggregating 47,380 tons. Of the steamers lost the United Kingdom con- tributed 20 of 25,780 tons, and of sailers, nine vessels of 11,784 tons. The proportions to the total owned are in the case of steamers .25 per cent of the number, and .18 per cent of the tonnage, and in sailing vessels of .62 per cent of the number and .90 per cent of the tonnage. Deal- ing with the totals, all types and countries, viz., 123 vessels, aggregating 113,396 tons, the losses are classified as fol- lows:--Abandoned at sea, nine vessels of 7,161 tons; brok- en up, condemned etc., five of 2,375 tons; burnt,. four of 8,415 tons; collision, 13, of 14,858 tons; foundered 13, of 5,480 tons; lost, etc., two, of 3,372 tons; missing, 10, of 10,018 tons, and wrecked, 67 vessels of 61,717 tons. The Liverpool Underwriters' Association report that the casualties to vessels of 500 tons gross register and upwards which have been posted in the Loss Book dur- ing the month of January this year numbered 563, as against 560 in January, 1905; 489 in January, 1904, and 522 in January, 1903. Of these 538 were partial losses, the total losses being 25 as under: British: 4 sail of 5,801 tons, and 5 steamers of 12,444 tons (compared with 1 sail, of 921 tons and 5 steam. of 7,276 tons); :Foreign: 6 sail of 5,207 tons and Io steam of 23,314 tons (as against ~g sail of 13,445 tons, and 15 steam of 27,258 tons in Jan- uary,1905), a total of 25 vessels, aggregating 46,766 tons, as against 30 vessels of 48,900 tons in January, 1905. The nature of casualty is given as follows:--collisions, 168; strandings, 155; weather damage, 129; damage to machin- ery, shafts and propellers, 72; fires and explosions, 23; founderings and abandonments, 6; and other casualties, 10. The marine engine of the future is believed in many quarters in Britain to be the turbine with oil fuel. The dream of the engineer is to get rid of his boilers, and to that end experiments are being carried on by some of the ship builders who have become firm believers in this meth- od of propulsion, and generating power. Sir William White C. B., late constructor to the British Admiralty in the first of four lectures on Modern War- ships before the Society of Arts said that naval architects had learned practically nothing from the recent warfaze in the far east. Tsushima and other sea battles. had merely confirmed their theories. Proceeding to describe the evolution of the warship, Sir William showed how the gun dominated the design. Every other quality of the vessel had to be accommodated to it in order that no quality should be developed extremely to the detri- ment of the whole efficiency. By means of lantern slides he traced the progress of the armor-clad, from the Inflexible with her low sides, through the monitor-like Howe to the Royal Sovereign, with her great freeboard, her highly placed guns, and her secondary armament. He then showed the difficulties which beset the designer of warships in the internal arrangement of his ships. He had to get all the strength he could for the support of his gun armament, and at the same time keep down weights in order not to increase the displacement. 'This he was able to do with the paztial use of special steel. Much the same effort to save weight was necessary in the engine room. On Saturday last the Empress of Ireland, the second f of the two new large steamers for the Canadian Pacific. Railway Company, was launched from the yard of the Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Company, and the middle of summer should see both of these new vessels on the regular Liverpool and Canada service of the com- pany. The Empress of Ireland, like her sister ship, Em- press of Britain, is 550 ft. in length, 65 ft. in breadth, 4o ft. in depth to upper deck, of 14,500 tons gross, 20,000 tons displacement, and 18,000 h. p. Both will have splen- did accommodation for 310 first class, 470 second class, 500 third class, and 270 stecrage passengers, 1,550 in all. The Empress of Britain, launched in November : last, is expected to be ready for delivery in April, and the Em- press of Ireland about June. Mr. Archer Baker, the European representative of the C. P. R. Company, speak- ing at the launch said the company operated 348 miles of line in 1881; now they operate 11,000 miles. - They had now 54 steamers'on the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the lakes and rivers of Canada. Their earnings for the last half year showed an increase of $3,000,000, and on their pay bill there were now 35,000-employes. The coming passenger season to Canada, it-is stated here, will witness impoztant developments in the way of faster steamers being placed on the Liverpool and. Cana- dian service.. The. C...P. R. -Company'snew.. liner,' the Empress of Britain, 14,500.tons, will sail on her maiden voyage eazly in May, and in June, she will be followed by her sister ship, Empress of, Ireland. There is a rumor that the International Mercantile Marine Company, which controls the Dominion Line, will.transfer two of their fast steamers running in the United States trade to the Canadian service at the opening: of the St. Lawrence sea- son but there is no confirmation '.of the rumor here. -- It is also rumored that a well known. Liverpool and New York liner may be placed on the Canadian service to meet the growing competition. The Allan line will have a splendid fleet of steamers running between Liverpool and Canadian ports, and their turbine boats have pzoved very popular. They have placed orders for two more turbine steamers. <A report also comes from. Montreal that the Dominion Steamship Company will place two large new steamers on the service at. the opening of navigation in 1907, but nothing appears to be known in Liverpool ship- ping circles about the matter. Mr. Bartram, a prominent ship builder, speckine at the annual' meeting of the Sunderland Chamber of Commerce, stated that the prospects of trade on the Wear were ex- ceptionally bright. All ship builders there had orders booked to keep them busy for a whole year, and the work- men were assured of work in ship yards and orde:s were taken at the end of last autumn at bed-rock prices. The price of material had since gone up $5 per ton, and this might check matters, but all depended on freights. These had been very low, but had now advanced, and if they went up further, it meant increased prosperity to ship- builders. fe The Motor Boat Club of America, having challenged the Motor Yacht Club (the present holders), to race for the International Motor Boat Cup, the contest will be held in British waters, probably at Cowés, some time between the 6th and 18th of August, this year. Great interest is being taken in the new Shi building yard now being built at Birkenhead for Messrs. Cammell Laird & Co., which, when completed, will play an import- ant part in the ship building trade of the kingdom, and do - much to restore to the Mersey the position it occupied 30 or 35 years ago as a ship building center. Details of all that is going on are not available, but it can be said*that there is ample accommodation for eight building berths, and that ships up to 1,000 feet can be laid down when the ac- commodation is ready. If it is ever found necessary to build ships of greater dimensions, the berths can be even lengthened some two hundred to four hundred feet. The