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24 _ MARINE REVIEW AND MARINE RECORD. WOLVIN ST. LAWRENCE ENTERPRISE. Northwest Grain Situation--General News Items from the Head of the Lakes. Duluth, Minn., Oct. 15.--The presence in the city this week of Mr. J. P. Gordon, manager at Quebec for the Great Lakes & St. Lawrence Transportation Co., directs attention to the St Lawrence enterprise on which Mr. A. B. Wolvin and associates have been at work for some time past. 'This is the line for which ten steel freight steamers of Canadian canal dimensions are now building at different yards of the American Ship Building Co. Mr. Wolvin is the general manager and Mr. Gordon was here in conference with him. He was also here to look after the ship- ment of the last section of a cargo of 270,0co bu. consigned from here to Liverpool and taken down the lakes by the vessels of this fleet, to be loaded on the steamer Minnetonka at Quebec, for de- livery at destination. It took six cargoes of the "canalers" en- gaged in the lake end of the service to load the Minnetonka. This is the first cargo of the kind that the Great Lakes & St. Lawrence company has taken through, but it is hoped that a large trade will be worked up. It would scem that for the present at least the Minnetonka and her sister ship Minnewaska are to be operated on the Atlantic in connection with the St Lawrence service of the Wolvin syndicate. It will be remembered that these two large tramp steamers were built by the American Ship Building Co. at the Globe works, Cleveland, sent down to tidewater in two sections and there put together for ocean service. The venture thus far seems like a losing one, both for builders and owners, namely on account of the marked decline in ocean freights that occurred about the time the vessels were completed. Nothing could be found for the Minnetonka to do after being put together at Quebec and she has been idle for at least a couple of months past. On the second steamer, Minnewaska, the loss has not been _ so great as she was paid for giving up her right to the dry dock at Quebec so that a big repair job might be hurried on a steamer that was badly needed for special service. When the Minnetonka and Minnewaska were ordered from the American Ship Build- ing Co. it was thought that Charles EF. & W. F. Peck of New York were largely interested. It would seem now that the in- terest of the New York house was not very large, as they are out of the management altogether. Mr. Wolvin is president of the company that owns the two lake-built tramps. It looks as though there would be no wheat in store at the head of the lakes at the close of navigation. There was a de- crease last week and now there is a further and larger decrease this week of about. 80,000 bu. This, coming at the time of year 'when receipts are at their best, is without precedent. The re- ceipts are large, but there is a tremendous demand for grain. Shippers and elevator companies are hungry for it. They are keeping close tab on receipts and follow each car as closely as they can. Mills are large buyers daily and will be grinding very heavily to the close of navigation and perhaps longer. Last week's receipts amounted to 2,500,000 bu., and there were shipped, together with local mill consumption, 2,573,000 bu. Flax and. barley stocks here are now each practicallv as large as wheat. Shippers are now paying 2% cents premium over December for cash wheat and may advance this premium still more. An immiense amount of flax has been taken here for export this fall. Some 1,350,000 bu. have already been sent forward to Europe from the head of Lake Superior. The indications are for a continued business of this kind. and the last day or two foreigners have been cancelling pur- = already made here, being able to buy their own wheat cheaper. : . he steamer City of Paris arrived here on Sunday with a cargo of hard coal, the second since spring. Dock laborers for the Northwestern Fuel Co., to which the cargo was consigned, refused to unload the boat unless they were given the privilege of buying one ton of coal each, and this was not denied them. The boat was unloaded Monday and the cargo distributed to the company's retail offices in Duluth, Minneapolis, and St. Paul. The sales were made at the old price of $7.50 a ton, one ton to a customer, as long as the coal lasted. This is an indication of the situation here now, and of the demand for fuel. The Fuel company might easily have asked $10 a ton for this coal, but ad- hered to the ante-strike price. The Lake Superior Contracting & Dredging Co., the united Upham and Barker fleets, is doing a lot of work in preparation of its new yards and docks at the old Barker site, West Superior. Large offices and docks will be erected and warehouses and ma- chine shops built. The company will maintain headquarters at Duluth but have its work done at Superior. T. E. Putnam, organizer for the International Brotherhood of Steam Shovel & Dredge Engineers & Cranemen of America, has been at the head of the lakes for some days organizing the local men into a branch of the union. It is also his intention to organize the steam shovel operators of the Minnesota and Michigan mining regions, and it will be interesting to note how the mining companies will lock at this step in unionizing their men. They have so far been able to keep union organizations out of the mines, and the men there are getting the best pay and have the best care of workmen anywhere. At the Sault, H. E. Talbott & Co. have the contract for erect- ing large steel and concrete ore receiving docks for the Algoma. Steel Co., an enterprise independent of, but connec i ec , al ; ted with, th - Lake Superior Power Co. Mr. Talbott was chief engineer for the Michipicoten road and has been identified with the Clergue Wheat exports are small, [Oct. 16, i some time. He built the compensating works at a a the river's flow commensurate with the in- crease from the new power canal and did such a job that he will be trusted with almost any contract there. The new ore docks will be about 2,500 ft. long and 300 ft. deep, and will be served with a set of Brown hoists running the length of the dock and delivering ore to the furnaces at its rear. Two furnaces are now nearly completed and will be in blast shortly. They will fur- nish hot metal to the converters. : Between 6,000 and 7,000 piles will go into the foundation of the new ore dock to be built at Escanaba by the Northwestern road. The dock will be ready for next year. RECOVERING THE STEVENS' CARGO OF COPPER. Buffalo, Oct. 14.--The final wind-up history of the Union Transit liner W. H. Stevens and her treasure cargo of copper does not promise to be auite as long drawn-out and fruitful of newspaper articles as was that of the old steamer Pewabic, which lay a matter of forty years in the bottom of Lake Huron, only to be discovered and robbed of her cargo when modern wrecking and diving appliances were sufficiently improved, but there is for all that a very interesting story of the work on the Stevens up to date and it may be added to quite materially before the copper is all afloat. ; I am personally a trifle sorry that the Stevens was found so soon after she was lost. There were so many opportunities for creating a veritable gold mine out of the Pewabic and so many of them were elaborated by good newspaper men and true, all endowed with Artemas Ward's "Rekesit Imaginashun," that it is really doing them an injustice to be able to turn the burned steamers cargo into unromantic money the very first season of her going down. 'he Stevens has been on the bottom of Lake Erie about an even month and already there has been a wreck- ing expedition hanging over her for weeks, sallying out vulture like from the Canadian harbor of Port Purwell every quiet day to dig after her copper. She was first reported afloat by the steamer Topeka on arrival here the second day after she burned. Most people said there was a good pipe dream getting an airing; but there were soon more reports to the same purport and in a few days D. H. Wilcox, a veteran Buffalo insurance agent and wrecker, with a few such bad jobs as the Western liner Idaho to the credit side of his ledger, was looking after her. On his first trip to Erie, as the American port nearest to the wreck, he failed to locate her and the New York insurance man who had come up to see about paying the loss went home without seeing her. There were soon further reports of her and though it was not supposed that she was within 31 miles of Presque Isle light, as it proved later on, Mr. Wilcox was soon in touch with an honest fisherman or two, who knew just where she was and pro- posed for a consideration to give her into his hands. It seems that there were plans on the part of certain fishermen to lose the boat a few times and find her again, also for a consideration, but the precaution was taken the first time she was sighted to obtain some good compass lines on her from several directions, so that in case she is not taken care of this fall and the buoy on her is carried off, she can be located pretty exactly in the spring. She is a little nearer Port Burwell than she is to Erie, 23 . miles off, and lies in 11 fathoms of water on a hard clay bottom, so that there is not much chance of her breaking in two or dropping into a hole right away, no matter what is done to her. Mr. Wilcox is not likely to have quite the bitter experience that he did with the Idaho, for it is not November yet and her cargo is solid stuff instead of the package freight that went down with the Idaho. His divers are not expected to see the bodily or ghostly faces of any men who were lost with the Stevens, for there was nobody lost and it turned out that all they saw on the Idaho were imaginary, but they saw them all the same. The Stevens expedition consists of the little schooner Eliza Allan, a staunch lumber and stave-bolt hooker, and the neces- sary diving outfit. Experience has taught the master of the expedition that a boat of that size, about 100 ft. long, is a better wrecker than a larger one, as she cen be held firm with kedge anchors in any water that a diver can operate in, while the larger boat will move about in quite a small sea. So far the work has been very unsatisfactory. Up to last Friday, when Mr. Wilcox was last in Buftalo, he had raised only a matter of 8 tons of the copper, but he is very confident of getting it all this fall, as he estimates that it will take him only about ten good days to do the work. As her flaxseed and flour are worthless and mostly out of the way and her decks are burned off it is quite easy to get to her. Still it has been very rough of late, and the little - schooner has had scarcely anything to do but wait. They say that Port Burwell is not exactly a metropolis to stop in and that the poor sailors have had to invent all sorts of amusement to keep them from stagnatin~. so if it turns out that the natives do not conclude after they are gone that they are all Sunday school boys nobody needs to wonder. 'They have assisted in saving over $50,000 worth of copper and have done well. JoHN CHAMBERLIN. _Plans have been made by the city engineer of Cleveland for radical changes in the part of the big Superior street viaduct that is immediately over the main river. 'The plans include a lift bridge structure over the river instead of the swing now operated at that point. This would be a great improvement from a vessei standpoint as it would do away with the center pier obstruction or which the swing rests. i ie