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18 Denig will become a general inspector with his principal offices at the Midvale Steel Works. . It is believed that the Russian govern- ment has at last decided to sell the great Nevski ship yard to the English group. of financiers known as the United Fi- nance Corporation. The German and American groups of financiers which de- sired the yard are thus defeated. The , concession will probably prove valuable as the government builds cruisers, tor- pedo boats and submarines at this yard and will undertake to continue to give the yard its full proportion of all state contracts and offers a guarantee that the orders shall be of a specified value per annum, 'The decision in the face of the strenuous efforts of the German and American syndicates to get possession of the yard is said to be due to the desire of the Russian government to promote friendliness between Russia and Great. . Britain. Another chapter has been added to the attempt to shorten the time of passage for passengers and mails of the trans-Atlantic lines for Montreal through the trans-shipment of them at North Sydney, N. S., the journey thereto by rail being accomplished in seven hours less time than is con- 'sumed by the liners. The little Canad- ian government steamer Montcalin' which has been attempting the trans- fers, was first quite badly damaged by being carried against the side of a liner and now is. reportéd to be ashore on a bar at the entrance of Sydney harbor, after a trip out to the Canadian Pacific liner Empress of Ire- land, whose commander refused to at- tempt the transfer of the passengers and mails in the fog. Bodies of. four of the eleven men drowned in the sinking of the naval launch in Hampton Roads recently have been recovered. 'The launch has been raised and on examination it is believed to have been crushed by a wire cable towline. It is apparent that the senior of the six midshipmen real- ized the dangers of the trip, as the night was black and squally, and a strong ebb tide was running against a stiff half gale. That he went forward to a place beside the coxswain was shown by the fact that a handkerchief, marked with his initials, was recovered from the coxswain's box. The finding of the handkerchief and the fact that the helm was hard over and the engine set for backing shows that whatever brought about the disaster, inattention on the part of the men in the launch was not a contributory cause. It is announced by the navy depart- ment that the president has approved the report of the naval personnel board, \ 'THE. Marine. REVIEW which has selected for compulsory re- tirement under the terms of the naval personnel act the names of fifteen of- -ficers, including five captains, four com- manders, four lieutenant commanders and two lieutenants. The list is as fol- lows: Captains--Albion V. Wadhams, Richard G. Davenport, James P. Bull, Rogers H. Gall, and Frank E. Sawyer. Commanders--William Winder, John F. Parker, John C. Colwell, and William G. Cutler. Lieutenant Commanders-- Lewis J. Clark, Charles S. Stanworth, William H. McGrann, and George Mal- lison. Lieutenants--Charles Webster and Newton Mansfield. The captains retired are engaged in the following duties: Capt. Wadhams is captain of the Nor- folk navy yard; Davenport is captain of the battleship Georgia; Bull is com- mandant of the naval training station at Yerba Buena, Cal.; Gall is president of the naval court-martial at Norfolk and Sawyer is commandant of the naval training station at Newport, R. I. The secretary of the department of commerce and labor has' approved the findings of the commission appointed to investigate the charges against Henry M. Seeley, inspector of hulls of the port of New York, preferred 'by his colleague, Theodore T. Mersereau, in- spector of boilers at the port of New York. The commission, which con- sisted of Lawrence O. Murray, assist- ant secretary of commerce and labor, and Herbert Knox Smith, the commis- sioner of corporations, reports that "each and every charge against Mr. Seeley should be absolutely dismissed as there is nothing to support any of them, in any way, shape or form what- soever. We do not deem it necessary to take up these charges separately or to consider in detail in this report the facts brought out in evidence. The reason for taking this position is be- cause of the absolute insufficiency and triviality of the evidence produced to support the charges. We find abso- lutely nothing to justify, even in the slightest way, any impropriety in his official conduct; nothing to show any lack of ability or fidelity to duty." Rear Admiral Burwell, commandant of the Puget Sound navy yard at Bremerton, Wash., has sent an urgent request to the navy department for the construction of two more dry docks in addition to the one author- ized by congress a year ago, and upon which construction has just com- menced. Rear Admiral Burwell be- lieves that with the natural increase of the fleet upon the Pacific and con- sidering the fact that the deeper draught vessels cannot get into the dry dock at the navy yard at Mare: Island, Cal., extensive additions will' have to be made at Bremerton. , It is uncommon for a plow to be used in discharging a cargo from a steam- er, but one was recently used in dis- charging a cargo of niter from the German steamer Ammon at San Fran- cisco. The niter had in some manner congealed in the vessel's hold and was so hard that the stevedores could not make an impression upon it with picks and shovels. Capt. Harry Goddale and Capt. Bennett, of the California Stevedoring Co., were in a quandary as to what to do when one of the stevedores suggested that a plow would solve the problem. Tackle was fitted to the plow, power being sup- plied from the winch; and it was found to work successfully, the plow digging deep furrows into the niter. A bill for subsidizing the proposed line of steamers from Norway to Cuba, Mexico and the southern states has now been laid before the Norwe- gian Storthing, the amount of the state aid asked for being an annual al- lowance of 100,000 kronor for the period of three years, and a member of the Storthing Committee on Ways and Communications has given notice of a motion to the effect that govern- ment shall 'take up shares in the new undertaking to the extent of 300,000 kronor. At a conference just held between the aforesaid committee and Mr. Bryde, the ship owner who is promoting the new line, Mr.: Bryde made a proposal that, in the interests of the fish-exporting trade, three ves- sels, instead of two, should be put into the line, so as to make it possi- ble to dispatch a steamer once a month instead of once in six weeks. The committee could not, however, fall in with this suggestion, and rec- ommended that a third boat should be put on after the service had lasted a year and a half. An understanding was arrived at, however, as to the ports the steamers will be bound to call at on the outward voyages, name- ly, at first, Stavanger, and, later on, " Christiansand and Christiana. Some northern ports will also be included in -the itinerary if it should appear advisable, and Bergen will be regular- ly visited as soon as it may prove practicable. It has been further set- tled that the rates of freight shall not exceed the lowest existing rates via Hamburg, but the maximum figures will require government sanction. It was reported soine time back that Mr. Bryde's application for a subsidy had been refused, but the introduction of this bill into parliament points to a change of policy in that respect.