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"THE MARINE REVIEW 3 17 which is greater than the outflow during the season of second class voyagers. It is announced here that the White Star liner "Cufic" has been fixed to sail from New York for Australian ports with cargo about the end of June. Hitherto goods from the United States for Australia have been quoted a through rate via Liverpool by the line, and the sailing of the Cufic, which is a large twin-screw cargo steamer of 8,250 tons gross, is the first direct White Star sailing for Australia from New York. With the sailing from Liverpool to New York on Wednes- day of the White Star liner Baltic, the new mail arrangements came into operation. It transpired that two mail sorters had been placed on board an American out-going liner for the first time on behalf of the British government. These, 40 15 "tine derstood, will be associated with two American mail sorters who for the past two years have been employed by the American government in mail sorting. The two sets of officers --American and British--will, it is understood, co-operate with each other in eastward and westward mail operations. A special room has been provided close to the usual mail room, but otherwise no particular arrangements have been made or found necessary. In the course of a paper read at the Northeast Coast Insti- tution of Engineers on the damage done to boilers by oil scale, Mr. B. Morison pointed out that in passenger boats the source of danger is the auxiliary machinery, and particularly the deck machinery, which is often carelessly lubricated by inexperienced men, whilst in cargo boats the growing practice of using the main boilers for the working of cargo cannot fail to produce accidents unless great care is exercised and the necessary precautions adopted. In view of the fact that all marine engineers, and particularly superintendent engineers, fully understand and appreciate the dangers arising from oil in boilers, it is a mystery why a winch exhaust tank still con- tinues to be fitted on shipboard. The office of this tank is to receive the exhaust steam from the winches, to separate the oily water therefrom for use as feed water in the boilers, and to allow the cleansed steam to be discharged up the waste steam pipe. It would be difficult to find a parallel to this system as an example of engineering folly. There is no justification, whatever, for the expenditure of capital to find such an apparatus, and any heat there may be in the compara- tively small amount of oily water trapped in the exhaust tank is more than counterbalanced by the decreased efficiency of the heating surface in the boiler due to oily scale. The alternative is to employ an auxiliary condenser which condenses all the steam from the winches and other small engines. This system is universal in passenger steamers, and is now being rapidly recognized as commercially correct for cargo boats, as it results in economy of coal, better steaming and reduced boiler cleans- ing expenses: PRIZE CAPTURES AT SEA Douglas Owen has delivered a lecture before the Royal United Service Institute, London, England, recently upon "The Capture at Sea, Modern Conditions and Ancient Prize Laws." Enough of this lecture is reproduced below to show that the ancient prize laws were nothing less than piracy and even as late as 100 years ago high-handed things were done that would not be tolerated by the nations today. He said: In 1657 they (the Spaniards) loaded us with treasure. We seized two of their galleons, a portion of the great Mexican silver fleet, so richly laden with gold and jewels that it took thirty-eight wagons to carry the treasure from Portsmouth to London, which it entered, we are told, with great pomp. The Spaniards were a naval bank to us. In 1702 we took from them in Vigo Bay fifteen huge galleons, the value of the prize being estimated at not less than £2,000,000 of our money. The great galleon captured by Anson in 1743 contained treasure worth £500,000. It was landed at Portsmouth, sent up to Lon- don, and paraded in triumph through the city in a procession of thirty-two wagons, the ship's company marching with colors flying and band playing. Six years later we made a capture from the French--£300,000 in specie--which also was paraded through the city streets. Then, in 1761, came the great capture, the historic capture, of the Hermione, the Span- ish treasure ship from Lima. The admiral and captains re- ceived as their share £65,000 apiece, the lieutenants £13,000, warrant officers about £4,000, petty officers nearly £2,000, and even the common seamen £500 per man. We all know the story of how the men, on arriving at Portsmouth, bought up all the watches in the place and fried them over the galley fire. On the outbreak of the war with Holland, in 1781, we captured at St. Eustatia, in the West Indies, a fleet of about 150 merchantmen, mostly laden with valuable cargoes. In 1796 two frigates and a privateer captured a Dutch fleet of immense value; out of seventy-two vessels, only three escaped. In 1799 four men-of-war captured off Cape Finisterre two Spanish treasure ships. So vast was the booty that when the prizes reached Plymouth it required sixty-three artillery wagots to convey it to the citadel. In 1804 we lay in wait for and captured two more treasure ships, of which the value was immense. I may remark that we were not actually at war with Spain at the time, but this was a secondary consideration. Then came the Pallas's great prizes in 1806, After capturing ship after ship on the way to Spain, freighted with diamonds, dollars and ingots, the Pallas sailed into Plymouth, each of her mastheads decorated with a massive golden candlestick, originally shipped at Mexico for some cathedral of Old Spain. No wonder that the king's navy and its friends ashore thought much of the possibilities of prize. Owners of privateers, too, and their crews, and the speculators sending them to sea, made numerous and splendid hauls. In 1778 the Two Brothers, of Liverpool, captured a French East Indiaman with a cargo valued at 2,000,000 livres or more. The Amazon in the fol- lowing year captured and brought into Cork a Spanish galleon from Manila, "carrying the king of Spain's gold and silver," valued at about £1,000,000. In 1793 the Pilgrim captured a French East Indiaman with a cargo valued at £190,000. And so on. The excitement and the interest were constantly kept at the highest pitch, by capture big and little, whenever we went to war. CAN AMERICANS BUILD DREDGES? YES Editor Marine Review:--I note with interest the article in your issue of May 4 entitled "Can Americans Build Dredges?" I would answer most emphatically yes, and the fact that the parties referred to in that article went to Germany for their dredges is solely a matter of the personal predilections of the purchasers. One of the parties of the firm who purchased these dredges is a German engineer and contractor. Some American ship yards have not had the special experience in the design of different types of dredging machines, but that their construction facilities are adequate for anything that may be called for is undoubted. There are, however, engineers who have the requisite experience to design such craft, and this company stands prepared to design and furnish dredging machinery of any type, up to the largest size, and to suit any practicable conditions and to furnish the same complete under steam in any part of the world. ATLANTIC EQUIPMENT Co., A. W. Robinson, Consulting Engineer. New York, May 16. The side-wheel steel steamer Bristol which is being built by the Pusey & Jones Co., Wilmington, Del., for the Newport & Providence Railway Co. was launched last week, the sponsor bemg Miss Gertrude Messig. -The Bristol is 113 ft. long, 24 ft. beam and 11 ft. deep.