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1902.] MARINE REVIEW. 17 AROUND THE GREAT LAKES. It is estimated that fully 40,000 excursionists took to the water at Detroit on July 4. Capt. Frank Higgie of Chicago has sold the schooner Commerce to George Flood for $3,000. Capt. Flood will cut the boat down to a lumber barge and tow her behind the Sanilac. During the month of June the marine postoffice at Detroit delivered 43,425 pieces of mail and received 13,895. Money orders to the number of seventy-one were issued for an aggregate sum of $1,407.29, Passenger Agent Herman of the Cleveland & Buffalo line passes around a new advertising novelty about every week of late. They are all well selected. The latest is a desk tray bearing a very good colored likeness of the steamer City of Erie. The Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Co., one of the largest of the Lake Su- perior mining concerns outside of the Steel Corporation, is said to be negotiating for the famous Section 30 property of Minnesota. The Cleve- land-Cliffs company has no Minnesota properties as yet. Almost everybody who has had business dealings with the L. P. & J. A. Smith Co. of Cleveland within the past fifteen years or more knew John R. Semple, a trusted and faithful foreman in the several branches of dredge and towing operations conducted by that company, He died at his home in Cleveland Monday, aged fifty-six years. The offer of Drake, Bartow & iCo., of Cleveland, of $100,000 for the Roanoke Iron Co.'s furnace and $25,000 for the Roanoke Rolling Mill, both of which are idle and in the hands of receivers, has been declined by the creditors of C. R. Baird & Co., of Philadelphia. The Cleveland firm announces that negotiations are ended so far as it is concerned. Capt. M. Fitzgerald, master of the steamer Hadley, which took part in the collision near Duluth a few weeks ago in which the steamer Wilson was sunk and nine men were drowned, has appealed from the decision of the inspectors at Duluth, who revoked his license after an extensive investigation. The appeal is made to Supervising Inspector Sloane at Dubuque, Ia., who is in charge of the Duluth district. Canada's courts are also inclined to divide damages in collision cases wherever reason is found for doing so. In the case of the schooner J. F. Card, registered at Detroit, against the steamer Hiawatha, registered at Cleveland, an action for damages sustained in a collision between the two off Thunder bay on May 12, 1900, during a fog, Judge McDougall at Toronto has rendered an exhaustive judgment, in which he finds that both the schooner and the steamer were running at an immoderate rate of speed and that therefore the schooner can recover only one-half the amount of damage she sustained. If the parties cannot agree upon this amount, the same will be decided by the court after hearing evidence. The case was first tried at Sandwich last February. Customs officials of Chicago have compiled a list of the passenger carrying craft running out of Chicago, with the total number of passen- gers each may carry. The Lake Michigan boats only are considered, and of these there are twenty-nine, with a total capacity of 23,177. The biggest carrier in the fleet is the steamer Christopher 'Columbus, which is licensed to carry 4,000 persons. The smallest is the tug James Hay, which may carry fifty persons in the excursion business, but which as a tug carries © but four. The steamers Puritan and City of Milwaukee of the Graham & Morton line and the Virginia of the Goodrich line break even in the contest for second place in capacity, with 2,000 each. Other commodious vessels, with numbers they may transport, are: City of Chicago, 1,900; C. H, Hackley, 1,500; City of Racine, 1,100,-and Indiana, 1,000. NEW D. & C. STEAMERS--LAKE SHIP YARD NOTES. Formal announcement of the contract has not been made, but there is no longer any doubt as to the building of two very large side-wheel steamers for the Detroit & Cleveland Navigation Co. The vessels will be built by the Detroit Ship Building Co., and work upon them will begin as soon as details of design are completed by Mr. Frank E. Kirby, who is representing the steamboat company. One of them will probably not be completed until the spring of 1904. They will be 30 ft. longer and 3 ft. wider than the steamers Eastern States and Western States, just completed for the Detroit & Buffalo Steamboat Co. The passenger capacity of each will be 3,500, with sleeping accommodations for 1,000 and deck room for 900 tons of package freight. The Bertram Engine Works Co. of. Toronto has evidently given up plans for the establishment of a ship yard at some point in Can- ada where they could build lake freighters of greater dimensions than the limits of Canadian canal locks, as it is announced that the 5,000- ton steel freight steamer which the Toronto company was to build for James Playfair of Midland, Ont., will be constructed by the Colling- wood Ship Building Co., Ltd., of Collingwood, Ont. The Collingwood company also has an order for a similar vessel for Hagerty & Co. of Toronto, and its works will be very busy until next spring. The dock at the Collingwood works is to be increased to 530 ft. length. Prof. Durand of Cornell University, who is in charge of the en- gineering work connected with the establishment of the new St. Clair river ship yard (Columbia Iron Works), says that the first keel would be put down at once if material could be secured. It is expected that stock for the first vessel, the Boland-Prindeville lumber steamer, will be delivered shortly. The new company has given up, for the present at least, the construction of a grain carrier with hopper bottom, which was proposed some time ago. They find sufficient demand for vessels to delay building on their own account, and would undoubtedly have quite a busy establishment on the St. Clair river by this time but for delays which they are encountering on the score of material. Port Huron promoters of this enterprise are proceeding in a modest fashion but propose to have an excellent equipment upon a small scale, The company's idea is to have the plant grow as the demand for vessels increases, and therefore to avoid making the initial burden upon the | stockholders a heavy one. Of the ten steel steamers of Canadian canal dimensions for which orders were placed recently with the American Ship Building Co. by Mr. A. B. Wolvin, representing the syndicate that is to develop trade down the St. Lawrence to Quebec, four will be fitted with Babcock & Wilcox water tube boilers. The others will have Scotch boilers. These --_ SL steamers will afford opportunity for determining the relative value of water tube and Scotch boilers in lake freighters, as hulls and engines of all the vessels will be alike. The Lorain ship yard of the American Ship Building Co., working two berths, has launched in seven months seven steel steamers of a little more than 5,000 tons average capacity. With the present shop equipment. at Lorain work goes along more rapidly with only two vessels on the stocks than would be the case with three vessels. LAKE ITEMS IN THE SUNDRY CIVIL BILL. The sundry civil bill, as passed and signed, contains many items of interest- to the great lakes. In fact nearly everything that the Lake Carriers' Association sought is provided for in one way or another. The sum of $10,000 is appropriated to establish a light and fog signal station on St. Martin island, entrance to Green bay, Lake Michigan. The sums of $30,000 and $65,000 respectively are provided for tenders for ~ the inspector and engineer of the ninth lighthouse district. A lightship is to be provided to mark Peshtigo reef, Green bay, at a cost of $15,000. The sum of $10,000 is provided to complete a light and fog signal station to mark the outer end of the main channel entrance tv Toledo harbor. After much discussion $18,000 is secured for a light and fog signal sta- tion at Crisp's point, Lake Superior. The sum of $4,000 is provided for the maintenance of the lightship Kewaunee on the southeast shoal, Point au Pelee passage, Lake Erie, and $45,000 additional is provided for the construction of a modern steel auxiliary steamship to mark this shoal. A new light station will be provided at Conneaut harbor at a cost of $8,500. Other provisions in the bill are: Ashtabula harbor light station, $18,000; to reimburse the Lake Carriers' Association for the maintenance of. lights in the lower part of Detroit river, $4,000; Buffalo, N. Y., continuing harbor improvements, $200,000; Cleveland, contin- uing improvements, $107,000; Duluth harbor, completing improvements, $459,727.50; Ashtabula harbor, $200,000; Black river (Lorain) $300,000; pee river, $136,500; improving Hay Lake channel, St. Mary's river, $144,115. TO BUILD A BATTLESHIP IN THE NEW YORK NAVY YARD. Secretary Moody has selected the New York navy yard as the one in which to build the first-class battleship provided for in the naval bill. There was a spirited contest for this coveted work among the various cities in which navy yards are established but New York won because it offered the best existing equipment. The secretary was satisfied that the $175,000 specifically set aside by congress to prepare any yard for building a battleship could be utilized to the best effect at New York, where it will be used for erecting a large overhead traveling crane to serve every part of the ship and the shops which will be employed for working the ma- terial. At other yards it would have been necessary to expend the money for an altogether insufficient number of machine tools. This crane is ex- pected to effect a great saving of labor and time, and place the New York yard on an equality with the most modern private establishments in those respects. Some money as well as time will be saved in the transportation of 15,000 or 16,000 tons of steel from the mills to New York, and a great advantage of New York over all other localities is that of skilled labor. At Philadelphia and Norfolk the building of a, battleship would demoralize and to some extent exhaust the labor in neighboring ship yards on ac- count of the relatively higher wages paid to government employes, and the progress on government contracts on the Delaware and James rivers would be seriously retarded. The disparity of wages is calculated at 30 per cent., wholly in the time lost by the government, which under the statutes is handicapped 20 per cent. by the eight hour law, private estab- lishments working the force for ten hours on the same pay, and by the loss of eight working days as national holidays and of fifteen days for annual leave on full pay. The Boston yard had little consideration from Secretary Moody when he became satisfied that it would take at least two years longer to build a ship there than at Norfolk, if, indeed, it would not take that time to get that yard ready to carry on the work with any show of economy or rapidity. Admirals Melville and Bowles have already begun the preparation of the detailed plans for machinery and hull, and Admiral Endicott of the bureau of yards and docks was directed to prepare the slip ftom which the ship will be launched and to get out specifications for the big travel- ing crane. Admiral Bowles promises to lay the keel within six months, which will be one or two years. quicker than private contractors have made ready for the actual work of construction. Admiral Melville will make contracts for steel forgings for the shafts of the vessel within sixty days, and will have them turned before the hull is ready for them. The engines, Admiral Melville says, can easily be completed in two years, the steam engineering machine shops at the New York yard being superior to those of all the other navy yards and equal to those of the best private establishments. Admiral Bowles will spend nearly $3,000,000 on the hull of the battleship. Admiral Melville will have something more than $1,- 000,000 for machinery, and Admiral Bradford. will spend about $250,000. The armor and guns, which are taken from another appropriation, will cost about $2,000,000. It is estimated that of the total cost of the ship over $2,000,000 will go for labor. Secretary Hay has addressed a communication to the British gov- ernment regarding the appointment of a commission for investigation of lake levels, This is in accordance with the clause in the river and har- bor act authorizing the president to appoint a commission of three ex- perts on the subject to act with a similar body from Canada. The scope of the proposed investigation, together with names of gentlemen in this country who are mentioned as probable members of the commission, was dealt with at considerable length in a recent issue of the Review. Wash- ington dispatches insist upon referring to Mr. Harvey D. Goulder of Cleveland as the lawyer member of the commission. Mr. Goulder has said that he is not at all inclined to accept the place if-it is offered to him. He has favored the appointment of President Angel of Michigan Uni- versity. The American Car & Foundry Co. of Wilmington, Del., is com- pleting a new steam barge for the Philadelphia Lighterage & Transpor- tation Co., two large barges for the Reading railway and a harbor barge 66 ft. long for use on the Delaware. : # "* -