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WORK IN THE SMALLER YARDS. The Davis Dry Dock Co., Kingston, Ont., for several smali boats of 60 ft. in length and under. C. E. Bird, Sagatuck, Mich., is build- ing a-ferry boat 60- ft; long for J. C. Everett, 125 South Clark St,, Chicaga, Ill, The boat will cost $3,500 and will be fitted with a gasoline engine of 15 He. The Sheriff Mfg. Co., -Milwaukee, Wis., are supplying the machinery for *the tug Peter Reiss, building at Stur- geon Bay, Wis., for Oley Groh, of Sheboygan, Wis. The engine of this tug will be single high pressure, 24 x 26 in: They will also supply the ma- chinery for the towing tug building for Reibolt, Wolter & Co., and for a fishing tug building for Martin Fren & Co., Milwaukee, Wis. A. R. Kenyon, Marine City, Mich, rebuilt and repaired boats to the value of $50,000 during the past year. James Davidson, Bay City, Mich., is building a couple of very large scows, but has no new construction in the way. The dry dock is full of work. Extensive. repairs are being made on the schooner Chieftain, on account of her recent collision with the steamer Troy. Substantial work is also being done on the steamer Jay Gould and the tug Charlie O. Smith. The steam- er Cartagena is undergoing extensive alterations, having' surface condenser and salt water machinery installed for her trip to the coast. Riebolt, Wolter & Co., have orders named Peter Reiss for Groh _ Bros., Sheboygan, Wis. The tug will be 90 ft. long and will cost $15,000. WH Mullins, Salem, ©. is: very busy in building launches from 16 to 35 ft. in length and from 3 to 60 H. P. His annual output of steel rowboats is now about 8,000. The Midyear Steel Boat Co., De- troit, Mich., is now putting out a com- plete line of small pleasure launches from 16 to 25 {t,in length. The East End Boiler Works, De- troit, Mich., is building a fire box- boiler 10 ft. by 16 ft., allowed 125 lbs. pressure for the steamer Jesse H. Far- well, owned by Wm. HH. Follette, Tonawanda, N. Y. DM. Swarms. Marine Works, Stillwater, Minn., is building a side wheel steamer for A. Guthrie, of St. Paul, Minn., to be used as a pleas- ure boat. The steamer will be a dupli- cate of the David Swain except that it will be 10 ft. shorter. Machinery is also being installed in a steamer for the Royal Route, Natchez, Miss. The engines are triple compound of the Swain patent oscillating type. Sturgeon | Bay, Wis., are building a wooden tug' *'T. Heffelfinger, Engine. "TAE. Marine. REVIEW SITUATION AT BUFFALO. Buffalo, Jan. 8--The winter season is now fully launched, but with no ap- pearance of winter the lake fleet is tied-up just as if it was held fast by ice. It is now fully six weeks since the icy season is to be looked for and yet not a cove nor a slip contains a trace of ice. This open state of the harbor has enabled the fleet owners to lay their vessels up with the utmost ease and with the smallest expense. Had they chosen it would have been easy to sail right along. till now, that is to say, if the insurance people could have been made to see the point. Buffalo.. has about same-sized fleet as in. other since the fashion to winter' so much grain here afloat set in. This is a way the ship- pers, especially of wheat, have taken to get even with the railroads ior failing to move the grain during the lake seasom. It turns out, too, 'that as much grain, flour and flaxseed were received here during the past season as 1p while iron ore receipts steadily increase are like- ty to do: so right along; as they do not depend very much on the roads. Buffalo is smelting her own ore main- ly, and is fast becoming an iron cen- ter. Except: tar the seasons any, recent .season: Quite a good part of the grain- laden fleet is this winter laid up at the breakwater in the outer~ harbor, which is a very quick and easy way to dispose ar. 4 soo-foot steamer, while to lay her up inside takes a deal of hunting and calculation, to which must be added an inspection of the bottom of the river, to see of it is not too near, and includes a good dock fee. It is all free outside. There are now twenty-two big vesséls tied up for the winter outside. Work on the fleet of grain carriers to be unloaded at once is expected to come to an end this' week, as about 200,000 bus. waiting at the end of last week. The elevators are full of storage grain, which is a_ great change for the better, .as they often used to winter empty. Of the winter-storage fleet the fol- lowing have wheat: W. L. Smith, F. J. Wallace; A. Stearn, E. F. Howells,. J. B. Cowle, M. C. Smith; "L. C. Smith, H. Coulby, 'J. P. Walsh, Panay, H. B. Nye, Sina- loa, Bransford, Wisconsin, S. S. Cur- ry, Sonora, H. A. Hawgood, C. B. Leon- ard, H. B. Hawgood, M. A. Hanna. The following have flaxseed: Capt. Thomas Wilson, F. R. Robbins, A. Carnegie, J. M. Jenks, Sonoma, Martin Mullen, H. Steinbrenner, J. G. Butler. The Thomas Adams, W. D. Rees and M. there was only C. Elphicke have-oats and the fol- lowing have mixed cargoes: A. G. Brower, wheat and rye; Saxona, wheat. and flaxseed; C. M. Warner, Chilt, oats: and -barley; Luzon, G. W. French, oats and rye. . The cargoes foot up 5,552,230. bus. of wheat, 2- 306,554 bus. of flaxseed, 1,605,644 bus. of . oats, 195,325 bus. of Barley aaa 145,500 bus. of ryé,*a grand total a: 9,805,262 bushels. It is a "very" significant fact that of this fleet of thirty-nine vessels twen- ty-two are. five years. old or less: ihirty were built during this century of half a dozen years and all but one of the others go back no farther than the '90's. Nothing could point more | surely to the great change made of iate in the build and fashion of the lake fleet. The new steel pattern has done much towards simplifying the: lake trade. In. grain alone it has so entirely cut out the leaky bottom that it has almost entirely driven out of Lusiness the once prosperous and somewhat numerous wet-grain mer- chant. The odd thing about it is that it has not done for insurance what is was expected to do. The lake bot- tom is as much of a menace to the new bottom as it was to the old. The growth of passenger traffic, the need of deeper harbors and better docks: are in line with the changes in construction, but there is soon to be another problem to face, the need of small vessels. A ship builder at Ton- awanda said the other day that there was to be quite a large amount of work done there on mostly wooden hulls this winter and he had received several offers to take hold of two-deck steamers of the older pattevn and cut them down into barges. An effort will be made to save the smaller craft in order that they may save in turn the trade of such ports as Tonawanda, now the largest receiving port of lum- ber in the world, and yet never to see any of the vessels of the larger: size. Lake Ontario shippers are also stir- ring about to increase the tonnage on that lake. The same ship builder re- ports that there are offers made for quite a number of vessels to' go to that lake and enter the local coal trade, with some idea of trading also to ihe upper lakes if that trade should | spring up again. There is more de- mand for local Lake Ontario coal car- riers and apparently the demand is. still to grow'if car shortage contin- ues. Will the present small-sized fleet last till the need of small ports and local traffic is well fixed and outlined, or will builders have to provide new vessels before it is known what it is to be? Jon W. CHAMBERLIN...