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18 THE HONORABLE PETER WHITE. The Marine REVIEW is now pre- pared to deliver the second edition of The Honorable Peter White, a biographical sketch of the Lake Su- perior iron country. The book deals -with the discovery and development of: the iron mines of the Lake Su-- is. best perior region. Its purpose told in the preface, as follows: _ "This book is unlike any other in that it is really a romance though it deals with facts. There is no state- ment in it that is not the result of patient research. It has seemed best to write it while it was yet pos- sible, for the information which it con- tains has been secured at first hand. The industrial supremacy of the Unit- ed States among nations is due wholly to the purity, abundance, cheapness of mining and low rate of transpor- tation of Lake Superior ores. There | are living chronicles today of the early development of this region, men who as boys went into that country to develop it, then an unbroken wilder- ness, and from their lips the story has been secured. Obviously: if not written now it could not, in a little while, be written at all. So vast in- deed has tbeen the progress since that it seems incredible' that it should have occurred within the life- time of one man. Yet Lake Superior, in a commercial sense, is only 50 years old. The beginnings, there- fore, of this great iron industry are historically important and are of in- terest to every citizen in the United States, for there is not 'a man or woman today living who has not been directly or indirectly benefited by the great mineral wealth of the Lake Superior country and the labor of winning it and working it into the arts. "Tt has seemed just also to incor- porate the work under the title which has been given to it. Peter White, as a boy, assisted in stripping the first inon mine; he wrote the bill of lad- ing of one of the earliest, if not the first, shipment of ore--only six bar- rels, it is true, but how prodigious has the stream grown since; and more- over he is still active in this great in- dustrial theater. The first shipments of ore are traced through furnaces, refractory, rebellious and not easy to » smelt, because the early furnaces were not adapted to it. The painful haul- ing of the ore to the shore of the . lake in sleighs in the winter time and »-along-a plank road in the summer . time is depicted; the equally painful portage around the rapids of St. THe Marine REVIEW - Mary's river, to be loaded again upon tiny vessels; the tedious and expen- sive loading and unloading by wheel- barrows and gang planks; until in the course of time the portage gives way to the canal, the plank road to the most solidly constructed railways in the world, the wheelbarrows to the great docks with their pockets and chutes and the equally great auto- matic unloading .machines; and the tiny vessels to a fleet of ships so large that ocean liners scarcely rival them and so numerous that over a waterway 1,000 miles long one is never out of sight of the other--and all this within a single lifetime." The price of the book is $2, post- age 17 cents extra. - ROBERT CURR. Robert Curr, naval architect and marine surveyor, who has been en- gaged for a year or more in looking after ship construction and _ repair work in 'various great lakes yards, has permanently returned to Cleveland and opened office at No, 1024 Rocke- | feller building. Through his business connections he is now able to under- take the supervision of both hull and machinery. Mr. Curr's experience has been of the most extensive character. He served an apprenticeship of seven years in the ship yard of Gourley Bros., Dundee, Scotland. He then went with the Clydebank Ship Building MR. ROBERT CURR. Co., where he remained for five years. This famous yard latterly constructed the Lusitania, though at the time of Mr. Curr's connection with it it was owned by James and George Thom- son. At the conclusion of his service with the Clydebank yard he spent two years with Harland & Wolff at Bel. fast, Ireland. He then accepted the position of foreman with the Raylton Dixon Co., Middlesborough, England. Incidentally he visited all the ship yards in Great Britain and Ireland during his residence there. Moreover he had the advantage of a thorough training in Prof. Biles' Clydebank Sej- ence School. Mr. Curr came to the United States in 1900, and after a brief experience in Duluth entered the employ of the Cleveland Ship Building Co. During his stay there he con- structed three tugs for the L. P. & J. A. Smith Co. on his own account, renting the yard of the Globe Iron Works for that purpose. These tugs were completed from the mold loft with the aid of a scrieve board, the vessels being practically completed with the exception of the shell plat- ing below the sheer strake. This was quite an original procedure for the lakes and attracted much attention at the time. For the past seven years Mr. Curr has been actively engaged in marine surveying in various parts of the country. f MR. CURR'S BOOK. Mr. Robert Curr's book entitled "Lake Ship Yard Methods of Steel Ship Construction" is meeting with most gratifying success. This work is the only one of its kind in the United States and the salle indicates the lively demand that exists for it. The work is written in the every day language of the sjiipyards and is intended to be useful) to the ship- yard worker. A clear, every-day ex- planation is given of building a vessel from the mold loft floor. There is no other work extant ; which gives so much. information upon this sub- ject. Every piece of plate and shape is taken up and the method of lay- ing off is explained from the keel to the mast. : Joseph Supple, Portland, Ore. has been awarded contract for repairing lightship No. 50. This vessel was damaged by the Port 'Patrick, owned by Taylor, Young & Co.» Portland, and the matter of repairs was arranged by this firm. The Supple bid was not the lowest, but the time clause) entered large- ly into the decision. The Pelly Dry Dock | Co. Brooklyn, N. Y., is engaged in repairing the steam- er Lassell, owned by M¢Cauldin Bros. New York. She was recently badly damaged by stranding Qn the Florida coast.