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

90} MARINE REVIEW. STEAMER WESTERN STATES ON THE STOCKS. One of the two paddle steamers--Eastern States and Western States--building at the Detroit works of the American Ship Building Co. for passenger and freight service between Detroit and Buffalo. To be the largest and most powerful side- wheelers on the great lakes. Fully described in the Review of Jan. 16, 1902. PROGRESS OF WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY. William Marconi, the inventor of wireless telegraphy, was the guest of honor last week at the annual dinner of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers at the Waldorf-Astoria. -Mr. Marconi gave an account of the progress of wireless telegraphy and said that already more than seventy ships carried permanent installations of his apparatus and that the system had been put to commercial use in Great Britain. ' He pes on to explain some of the practical workings of his invention as follows: "T think I am right in saying that there is a general belief that when a message is once intrusted to space by this system any one with a receiver may pick it up. This objection to the earlier form of operations has recently been largely overcome. It has been found possible so to attune one transmitter to one receiver as to make it practically impossible for any one not acquainted with the qualities of those particular instru- ments to read the message. This is not the case with the installation on ships, because when a ship wishes to communicate with another in emer- gency she wants to be able to call up any other ship within range. For this reason, the installations on all ships are uniform, but on land or between lands we now use attuned installations. It was found possible by attuned instruments to cross 200 miles of land and the power required for this was only such as is needed to run a small incandescent lamp. It was then determined to erect two comparatively powerful installations at Cornwall and at Cape Cod for the conduct of experiments across the Atlantic. Unfortunately a hurricane partly destroyed the installation at 'Cape Cod and necessitated a postponement for some months. Rather than let the interval go by, it was thought well by a temporary installa- tion at St. John's to try to cross 2,000 miles of ocean rather than 3,000 miles; so the attempt at Newfoundland was made with kites and balloons. We should have done more there, except for finding out that the Anglo- American Cable Co. had a monopoly of all forms of telegraphy there, and seemed to claim, in a certain way, a monopoly of the air and the sea. In England the British government has a monopoly of the telegraph, but I am glad to say that the government rather encouraged my work than attempted to interfere with it. I think that a permanent station will be established in Nova Scotia and the one at Cape Cod be repaired. "T do not wish to be too confident, but I think that it will be possible in a short time to transmit a message, or perhaps several messages at the same time, across the ocean in a commercially practicable manner. I think that it will be possible to bring about communication between people far apart at greatly reduced rates. Those at present are beyond the reach of people of ordinary means, but should my dream be realized the cost of cables may be very substantially reduced, and another link be forged in the ties that bind this country to Great Britain." A SENSIBLE SPEECH. . The "bobbin boy" of Scotland has said a great many sensible things but the speech which he delivered in New York last week is about the most sensible of all. It was not a long speech but a thoughtful one. In it he said that he had ac€quired more than a competence almost without intention or desire, but he said soberly and earnestly that beyond a com- petence wealth brought nothing desirable with it. He also said that business had never been a care with him, because he had never, particu- larly in later life; done any work that was worth speaking about. He had permitted his young partners to do the work while he did the thinking and the laughing. This is in reality the distinguishing characteristic of the great leader--recognition of the fact that the work which one man can actually do is very little, while the work which the organization can do, if unhampered, is unlimited. He adds that it took him some time to learn this but he learned it. Therefore vast as the Carnegie enterprises have been they have worried Carnegie very little. However the speech is so brief that we reproduce it in full: "Tt is one of the most cheering facts of our day that under present conditions the wages of labor tend to rise, and the price of the necessities of life tend to fall. There never was a nation so splendidly situated' as ours is at this moment in regard to labor. Every sober, capable and willing man finds employment at wages which with thrift and a good wife to manage will enable him to go far toward laying up a competence for old age. And here let one who has almost without intention or desire had himself loaded with somewhat more than a competence tell you soberly that what one has beyond this brings little with it, and sometimes_nothing desirable with it; what ail of you should strive for is a competence, with- out which Junius has wisely said no man could be happy.. .- "It took me some time to learn, but I did learn, that the supremely great managers, such as you have these days, never do any work them- selves worth sosaking about; their point is to make others work. while they think. FT applied this lesson in after life, so that; business. with me 'has. nevér been a care. My young partners did the work and-I did the laughing, and I commend to your. superintendents, and to yourselves, the _ thought that there is very little success where there is little laughter. The workman who rejoices in his work and laughs away its discomforts is the man sure to rise, for it is what we do easily, and what we like to do, that we do well. "I know of nothing which lifts and improves the service of a great line and adds so much to its safety as a staff which can rest in the knowl- _ edge that after they have grown old in the service their old age is made comfortable through the system of pensions. Before long no line will rank as in the front rank which has not this invaluable, I might almost say necessary element in securing a staff of trustworthy, intelligent, and loyal men filled with esprit de corps for the company they serve. It isa great delusion to say that labor and capital are foes, they must be allies, or neither succeeds. I have before used the simile of likening capital, business ability and labor to the legs ofa three-legged stool; the stool -- will not stand up without the support of all these three legs, and to dis- pute as to which of the three is most important is useless: It can never be determined, and if determined it would be of little consequence, since the great fact remains that they are all absolutely necessary for such suc- cess as we see on the New York Central railroad and other gréat trans--- portation lines of our country." ANOTHER EXPEDITION TO THE POLE. A press representative has had an interview with Capt. J. E. Bernier, the Canadian explorer, who is organizing an expedition to the north pole. Since Capt. Bernier's last visit to England, when he lectured before the Colonial Institute, in January last, he has been in Canada, where he has secured the active support and co-operation of the Dominion government for his scheme. Capt. Bernier, who is devoting his services gratuitously, estimates the cost of his expedition at $150,000. Of this he has already - secured $100,000, including a contribution of $7250. from the Dominior government, $5000 from Lord Strathcona, $1000 from Hon. R. R. Dobell, Canadian minister without portfolio, and $500 from the Earl of Minto, the Dominion governor general. He has also received large gifts from Canadian ministers, members of parliament, merchants and others. Capt. Bernier is now in London with the object of procuring from English subscribers the balance of $50,000 necessary for his scheme. The learned societies of Canada, including the Royal Society of Ottawa, the Quebec Geographical Society, and also the Royal Geographical Society, have all given their sanction to Capt. Bernier's scheme, and the Dominion minister of public works recently in the house of commons stated that "no man was better able to accomplish the object in view than Capt. Bernier." Roughly, Capt. Bernier's plan is to build a special ship for the expedi- -- tion of about 3800 tons net, and with a staff of six scientists and eight navigating officers to proceed from Vancouver for Bering strait, touching at Port Clarence in Alaska for coal and supplies. From there the expedi-' ' tion would proceed due north to a position 150 miles northeast of the point where the American vessel Jeanette was caught in the ice,' this track being the one used by various. whalers, and also by the American surveying expedition of 1881. By this plan Capt. Bernier claims that he would only become jammed in the ice at a point some 150 miles nearer to the pole than the Jeanette. , Drifting at the same rate as the Jeanette, Capt. Bernier says that he would pass within 100 or 150 miles of the pole in two years and a half. From that point part of the expedition would leave the vessel, after having made preliminary investigations of the ice. During these investigations the explorers leaving the ship will be in wireless telegraphic touch with the ship, and will plant at intervals of one mile numbered aluminum tubes, 18; ft: long, containing condensed provisions and acting as land marks. This portion of the work will be done by relays of men. Capt. Bernier himself will not leave the ship until these staffs have been erected to within about fifty miles of the pole. He will then leave his ship in charge of the second in command and proceed north until the pole is reached and soundings are taken. Capt. Bernier says that his expedition will be absent four years; but that, by his scheme and by the' use of natural drifts rather than fighting against nature, he is confident that he will be able not only to reach the pole but also to secure the various scientific objects desired. - é ITEMS OF GENERAL INTEREST. The big battleship Illinois has just come out of the floating dry dock at Algiers, La., having successfully demonstrated the possibilities of that structure. é x Will Fife, Sr., famous yacht builder, died at his residence in Fairlee, Scotland, last week. He was born about 1820 and had constructed some famous yachts, notably the Stella, Fiona and Latona. The Craig Ship Building Co, of New Jersey has been incorporated with a capital stock of $1,250,000. Its charter permits it to manufacture engines and to construct and operate ships. The incorporators are C. V. Childs, James R. Mapleloft and H. N. Smith. The steamship Nevadan, the second vessel to be turned out by the New York Ship Building Co., Camden, N. J., was launched this week. The Nevadan is 871 ft. over all, 46 ft. beam and 34 ft. deep. She is equipped to burn either coal or oil. The steamer was christened by Miss 'Mildred Morse, daughter of President Morse of the ship building com- pany. The vessel is for the American-Hawaiian Steamship Co. of New York. : Railway journals note each week a line of orders for new cars, show- ing no interruption in the activity prevailing for a long time past in this important industry. Orders recently summarized by the Railroad Ga- zette aggregate 18,710 cars of different kinds. This does not, of course, include the big orders placed some time ago by the leading roads. It is a collection of smaller orders from the short lines that are following the lead ofthe big companies. Representative Babcock's much-discussed bill has now been intro- duced.in the house., It places a number. of articles of the,iron and steel schedule oh the free list and materially reduces the duty on the rest. It is understood that the bill was framed after repeated. conferences,,with the iron.and gteel interests, the purpose being .to place the rates barely on a protective basis. The articles placed on the free list.are the heavy products of the furnaces, while the rates on other 'articles,of the schedule average about one-half the present rates.