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wm AR 4 ON OE MORE ORDERS FOR TURBINE STEAMERS. Liverpool, July 4.--Following the example set by many of the channel services in Britain, the Belgian government has just or- dered three turbine mail and passenger steamers to be built to run in the Dover-Ostend service. The contract for the first of these has been placed with the Cockerill company. The vessel will be 310 ft. long, and 4o ft. beam, with a speed of 22% knots which will enable the voyage to be done in 2 hours, 40 minutes. The new steamer is to be a magnificent vessel and is likely to surpass in every particular anything of her class yet afloat. In dimensions she will be larger than the latest steamer of the line, the Princess Clementine, while in decoration and fittings she is-to be even more beautiful than that ship, which with other steamers of the Belgian govern- ment fleet have, as channel steamers, won the highest tributes of praise from those who continually journey by the more luxurious ocean liners. The ship will: be entirely fitted throughout with electric lights and will also have a very powerful electric searchlight. Electric cranes will also be fitted fore and aft to facilitate the embarkation and disem- barking of mails and luggage, and like other steamers of the fleet, she will have the very latest appliance of the Marconi wireless telegraphy installed on board, not only for the requirements of the service, but also for private messages from passengers*journeying by the route. The steamer is to be delivered for immediate service early next year, in time for the enormous influx of visitors likely to cross for the great 1905 International Exhibition at Leige, and for the throngs who cross to Ostend every summer. 7 I am able to give the following additional particulars of the turbine steamer, Manxman, launched a week ago by Messrs. Vickers, Son & Maxim, Ltd., for the Midland Railway Com- pany for their new steamship service from Heysham to Ire- land. The speed guaranteed by the builders is 20 knots, but it is not improbable that a rate of 22 knots will be realized. Of the three other vessels being built to form the service, viz. the Antrim, Donegal, and Londonderry, the latter as well as the Manxman is to be fitted with Parsons turbines, but there is this important difference in the Manxman that the steam' pressure will be 200 lb. instead of 150 lb. as in the case of all marine turbines so far fitted. As the two turbine driven ships are almost identical, there will be an opportunity of ascertaining whether increased pressure im- proves the economy. The accommodation on the Manxman consists almost entirely of large saloons, instead of the small private cabin in the night steamers. But as the vessel may occasionally be required for the night service, one of the saloons on the upper deck has been arranged so that it may be converted on short notice into a number of small cabins. The dimensions of the vessel are: Length 330 ft., beam 43 ft., and depth 26 ft. The ventilation is a novel feature; it is car- ried out on Stewart's thermo-tank system. This arrangement has been used very extensively in recent years on large emigrant vessels, such as ihose of the Cunard and American lines, but this is the first time it has been used on a channel steamer. It is an ingenious arrangement by which the air is extracted (in summer) by electric fans, and is circulated before delivery (in winter) through a coil of steam pipes. The steering-gear is of a novel type, being arranged to work either by electricity or steam. It is situated at the after end of the vessel, and controlled mechanically from the flying bridge. Messrs. Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson, Lid; of Wall- send-on-Tyne, have just booked an important order for a large pontoon dock from the port authorities of Vancouver. The details of the size and type of the dock have not yet transpired, but it is stated that the dock is intended for dry docking the largest class of ocean steamers, and will therefore constitute an important addition to the work in hand at the Wallsend establishment. The Cunard Steamship Co. are being advised to name their Rf NV ele wy two new express turbine steamers, Britannia and Columbia. It is said that as these two ships further link the old world with the new, those people by birth or descent settled on the other side of the Atlantic should also have consideration and their glorious country be represented in the name of the sec- ond_ boat. The Allan Line steamship Ionian, which has arrived this week from Quebec and Montreal, reports that on the out- ward trip the liner covered the distance from Tory Island to Cape Race in 4 days, 23 hours, which is one of the fastest, if not the fastest passage on record for this route. On Sat- urday, May 28, the Ionian made 325 miles, on Sunday 364 miles, Monday 367 miles, Tuesday 330 miles, Wednesday 336, Thursday 384, and Friday. 363 miles, arriving at Quebec at 11:30 p. m. on that day. Thursday's steaming of 384 miles is the Ionian's best yet. LLOYD'S REGISTER OF AMERICAN YACHTS. The second volume of the American Yacht Register pub- lished by Lloyd's Register of Shipping fully justifies the prom- ise of the first volume, issued last year, and gives the yachts- men what has long been needed, a thoroughly comprehensive directory of yachting. Much has been done during the year to correct and amplify the original information and in par- ticular to keep pace with the great change which is now taking place in the sailing fleet through the installation of gasoline engines. The list of power yachts, which includes 1,019 vessels, shows a very large number of old sailing yachts, once well known as cruisers or racers, which are now auxil- iaries. Very full details of the engines of these and of other types of gasoline vessels are given. The list of sailing yachts includes 2,099 vessels, making a total of 3,118 yachts of over 25 ft. over-all length in use in the United States and Canada. In this list every section of the two countries is represented from British Columbia to Nova Scotia, and from Southern California to Maine and Florida. 'The list of clubs includes 159, the burgee of each, with the officers for the year, and other particulars, being given. In addition, there are over 1,300 private signals of yacht owners, which, with the code flags and national ensigns, make up nearly sixty color plates of flags. The list of yacht owners includes nearly 3,000 names, with the address of each owner, the clubs to which he belongs, and the yachts owned by him. A list is given of the yacht designers and builders of the United States, with the various yachts designed or built by them, the official signal letters of all yachts are given in a separate list, and also a list of former names of yachts. A special feature of the book is the employment of the distinctive symbols of Lloyd's society to indicate the class and character of each vessel built under Lloyd's survey or specially classed by the society; thus giving an unimpeachable guar- antee of the nature of the original construction and the man- ner in which the yacht has been kept up. Though new to this country, the building of yachts to Lloyd's rules and under the inspection of the society's surveyors is the common prac- tice abroad, the owner reaping the benefit during his owner- ship of the vessel and also when he decides to offer her for sale. The book is published by Lloyd's Register of Shipping, 15 Whitehall street, N. Y. The price is $7.50 per volume. _The two French cruisers Democratie, being constructed at Brest, and the Verite, being built at Bordeaux, are each to be fitted with twenty-two Belleville water-tube boilers generating 18,000 H. P. With these additions the number of French Naval vessels equipped with Belleville boilers is forty-eight, the total horse power being 475,560. The excellent results obtained with the Belleville type of boiler in the cruisers Sully, Admiral, Aube and Marseillaise is responsible for the adoption of this type in these two latest cruisers.