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believed, is a: very low average rate for first cabin; $45, which is equally low for the average second cabin, and $25 for steerage, the steamship lines for the first 10 months of 1908 are confronted by a deficit of $19,316,390 from the 1907 figures, as follows: First cabin--14,223 passengers at S100. inks ees Si ee $ 1,422,300 Second cabin--51,192 passengérs at $45 2,303,640 Steerage--623,618 passengers at $25. 15,590,450 Pre ee Total deficit ..... iy ea $19,316,390 These figures cover 'Canadian. as well as United States Atlantic port business. The figures by months show that the greatest outward move- ment took place in April, which is usually one of the most active months for inward travel. GOVERNMENT AID TO SHIP- PING. Epitor Marine Review:--On _ this side of the ocean such a thing as an American cargo steamer or sailing ves- sel is unknown, while British, French, German, Danish and the flags of every other nation are seen on all kinds of - vessels. One cannot help but admire the pa- triotism of the British nation, for here every individual is willing to be taxed so that the government can pay sub- sidies to British steamship lines. The wisdom of paying subsidies to British steamship lines is shown from the fact that taxpayers of England profit greatly by reason of the trade of other countries which is encouraged by rap- id communication. South America, In- dia, Japan, China, Australia and every country on the globe is connected with England by swift subsidized mail steam- ship lines and an order by mail to Eng- land from any one of these countries receives prompt attention and England gets the lion's share of the world's busi- ness. The United States cannot hope to compete with England or even France or Germany until it adopts the policy of those nations of subsidizing lines of swift mail steamers. Trade certainly follows the flag, at least England, France and Germany have found it so and every one of these countrics foster their oversea trade with subsidies. The mail ship is but the forerunner of the ocean tramp as when trade increases the mail ships cannot transport all the freight. When will the United States wake up and reach out for its share of the world's trade by adopting the same methods which have been found suc- cessful by all the great European na- tions? ; England, France and Germany each class. "TAE Marine Review have subsidized mail steamship lines to North and South America and to China and Japan, in fact every ocean today is furrowed by their steamships, fostered by their governments, which are di- verting business to Europe and away from the United States. How long will the American people and the United States government con- tinue to sleep? RicHarp P. Joy, (Detroit, Mich.) London, Oct. 9, 1908. NAVIGATION IN SAN FRAN- CISCO SCHOOLS. The board of education of the city of San Francisco has decided to es- tablish a class for the teaching of navigation and seamanship. It is to be located in the Humboldt evening high school and instruction is sched- uled to begin Nov. 1. The board was actuated in its decision by requests from the naval militia, ship owners' association, merchants' exchange and board of trade, Mr. John FT. McMillan, for 4 atmn- ber of years in the hydrographic of- fice in this city, was appointed in- structor, of the class. Mr. McMillan, who is an Annapolis graduate, is par- ticularly well qualified to instruct the class, his long Service 'in, the. navy, as navigating officer, and his connec- tion with the naval militia and hydro- graphic office, having fitted him for the duties of instructor, and he will begin his work with a good-sized Mr. McMillan hopes to secure from the board, within a short time, navigational instruments to be used in connection with the course, and he also intends to take his class on an occasional cruise with the naval militia. FERRO-CONCRETE FOR SHIP BUILDING. The following communication to the London Times on ferro-concrete-- for ship building, from Clark & Standfield, 11 Victoria street, Ss oOW., London, is of interest to ship build- ers: Sir:--The use of ferro-concrete for the construction of floating vessels as carried out by be of such general interest that any other application of this material for kindred purposes may, we think, be worthy of record. One of the orig- inal claims of John Standfield's de- positing dock was its ability to lift and put afloat monoliths of concrete. It was not, however, until it was un- derstood how to make such mono- Signor Gabellini should -- 27 liths float of themselves that any- thing came of the idea, and the first pe-son to adopt it, as far as we are aware, was the engineer, to the port of Barcelona, who utilized a small section of the depositing dock 'that we designed for that port for picking off the depositing stages, on which they were built, the ferro-concrete blocks which form the extension of the harbor at Barcelona. This was merely an adaptation of an existing dock to this purpose, but the result was quite successful; and_ recently the Japanese have decided to use this method in the construction of the quay walls for the new harbor at Kobe, and we have .been requested by the bureau of finance to prepare drawings for a depositing dock with the special view of dealing with con- crete blocks °120 ft. longi by 26 te broad, and varying from: 62 ff to. 41 ft. in height. The blocks will be molded on timber stagings built along the foreshore, and will be hollow, with sufficient displacement to float of «themselves. When the ferzo-con- crete has matured, they will be lifted © off the staging by the special deposit- ing dock, taken into deep water, al- lowed to float off the dock by sink- ing the latter, and then towed to their destination. When in place, they will be forced to sink by admitting water into the interior, which is di- vided by 'bulkheads into separate compartments, so as to allow tthe sinking to 'be controlled. The ferro- concrete shells will then be filled up with coarser concvete, and probably the different blocks keyed together so as to form a monolith of the com- plete quay. We venture to think that the de- positing dock should prove far more suitable for the construction of buoy- ant ferro-concrete structures than the ordinary floating dock, as used by signor Gabellinii The former is not occupied the whole time the struc- tures are being molded and matured, for they are built on timber piles along the foreshore, and one dock can serve almost any length of such staging, as but a few hours would be required for the whole operation of lifting the blocks off the staging and depositing them afloat. In the present proposal for the Kobe quay walls, the layout would be for six ferro blocks in various stages of construction, and allowing three months for the molding and ripening of each block, the 79 blocks, which comprise the entire scheme, could be completed and deposited in