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"TAE MARINE. REVIEW ; | 31 REPAIR WORK AT TONAWANDA. Tonawanda, Feb. 14.--The extra fine weather here during the last month has been productive of much ship building and before the season of navigation opens next April, there will hardly be a single lake vessel. which is wintered at the Tonawanda ports that will not have been rebuilt or given a general overhauling. Last fall it was figured that the amount of repairing and rebuilding to be done this winter here would not exceed the cost of $150,000 but since the weather has been so favorable the supply men and contractors say that the work to be done before next season will be the most extensive ever done in the history of the two ports. It is now estimated that the cost ofthe vessel repairing and rebuilding done and that to be done will be over $225,000. There are now nearly 400 ship carpenters and men working on the vessels in port. The single vessel that is receiving the most attention by the ship carpenters at the local ports this winter is the propeller Saint Louis, owned by the International Paper.€o., of Niagara Falls. The propeller is being dismantled and will be rigged up as a schooner before navigation opens in the spring. The Saint Louis was balt 1 'Cleveland, in 1864, and ts said to be the .hrer of the 1,0o00;ton,-vessels on the great lakes. For forty- one years she has traded between the upper lake ports and Buffalo and the Tonawandas with grain and lumber and. during that time she has towed some fifty schooners. After. towing for over forty years, three and some- times four barges, she will be cut and next season drag- ged:about by. her nose, instead of towing other barges. The Niagara Falls: Paper. Co. has purchased, it<is' ve- ported, a steel vessel of light draught to tow the. pulp wood carriers next season. Among the vessels that are now being repai-: ned and rebuilt are: propellers C. H. Green, Fred E. Meyers, R.. D.. Stafford, Buehl, A...Weston, Edward Smith, Ed. Smith, Cormorant, W. FH. Sawyet, and lL. 12 Barth anu Schoolcraft and schooners, Nestor, Bourke, Redfern Tuxbury, McWilliams, Eleanor, A. Steward, Case, and Genoa. Besides the above thé entire fleet of ore car- riers owned by the Tonawanda Iron & Steel Co., which are in ordinary here, are undergoing extensive repairs. Last year, during the navigation season, but' three steel vessels came down the Niagara river with iron ore; but next season the appearance of steel freighters of light draught will be a common, occurrence at the Tonawandas, for the Tonawanda Iron & Steel -Co. have already chartered a number of the steel carriers to bring ore here all next season. TONAWANDA'S BUSINESS. North Tonawanda, Feb. 14.--According to the annual report of the customs collectors of Tonawanda and North Tonawanda, the season of 1905 was one of the best in the history in all respects, while in respect to. the Canadian lumber receipts, last year's duties collected were the largest ever exacted at the local ports. The complete report shows that during 1905 there were. 469,- 847,900 ft. of lumber stock brought down the lakes and > unloaded at the Tonawanda ports, while of that amount 57,632,080 ft. was Canadian stock. According to the Tonawanda customs repo:k there was nothing but lumber and hay unloaded at the Tono- wanda docks last season, and there was not even a single cargo of Canadian stock landed there. Tonawanda's re- port shows that there were 96,512,077 ft. of lumber and 630 tons of hay received during: the season of 1905. Collector Smeaton's full report for the North Tona- wanda port shows that there were 373,320,023 tt, of lum: ber, 3,415,300 pieces of shingles; 115,149 pieces of lath; 65,835 cedar posts; 282,598 tons of ore, and 20,171 tons of? . pig iron received at North Tonawanda last year by ves- sel. His report also shows the valuation of merchandise 5 received by vessel was $977,449 while the total duties col-- . lected on foreign lumber here last year was $115,265.36. A compiled report of the two Tonawanda ports shows ° that the number of coastwise vessels arrived last season ° were: propellers, 452, and schooners, 356; coastwise ves- sels cleared: propellers, 463 and schooners, 382; foréign vessels entered were: propellers, 47, and schooners, 54; foreign vessels cleared, propellers, 40, and schooners, 45. ROOFING RULES. The Merchant & .Evans Co., of Philadelphia have © lately put out a hand book on sheet metals in building con- struction for architects, owners, engineers and builders under the general title of Roofing Rules. In the preface to this hand book Mr. Powell Evans, president of the company, says that having erected various factory and . residence buildings for his own use during recent years he has had occasion to experience the difficulties of se- lecting the various materials most suitable for the pur- pose in view, including the wide range of metals now universally required in building. As an owner can de- vote more time to the details of his individual enterpris- es than his expert advisor, who has many similar ones in charge, the work has been pzepared to present to owners and others in a plain and simple form the vari- ous points about metals in building construction with ~ the hope that it would prove of value in making a se- - lection of such materials. The cover of any building is of the greatest impo-t- ance. Upon it depends not only the durability and pres- ervation of the whole structure, but the safety of the, contents and the comfort of the occupants. The roof should possess the following principal qualities: It - should be storm proof; it should be fire and lightning: ' proof; it should be light weight, easy in repair and or- namental in appearance. Mr. Evans then considers the. qualities that enter into each one of these five divi- . sions of the subject. _He then traces the classes of covering, including wood shingles, composition (coal : tar and felt paper), gravel (slag), terra cotta (clay ttles), slate shingles, cement (pavements). Taking up the classes as enumerated thus he briefly describes their - various merits. On the subject of metallic roofing the handbook is especially complete and is especially volumi- ~ nous on the subject of tin roofing. All told, tin is the stand- ard for every roofing purpose; it is also thecleanest roof. Prior to 1890 the Merchant & Evans Co, was one of: © the largest importers and distributers of the best known ° brand of Welsh plates, but after the change in the Unit- ed States laws in 1890, which made the manufac- ture of tin plate possible in this country, the company © became pioneers in its. production at its Philadelphia works. In the art today black plate is a standard in pro- duction 'of steel rails, but the process and actual 'work in coating is what gives quality, value and endurance. Mr. Evans then describes very thoroughly the various pro- cesses in vogue of which the palm oil process is the best. The intricacies of the art of making roofing tin are very. exhaustively set forth in the book, and the conclu- sion is a convincing one, that the best of all good roofing © tin is Merchant's old method. The book is full of testimon- ials and is well worth possessing by anyone Lnirenic in.-7 the subject of roofing.