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The sum provided in the bill now pending will build a few lighthouses where they are most needed and will provide additional can buoys and gas In of this coast the gas buoy will be a particu- buoys. the tidal canals larly acceptable aid. Yt Is at once a channel buoy and a. beacon; it is rel- atively inexpensive. It can be main- tained in isolated waters with prac- It has found eminently satisfactory and ac- tically no attention. been ceptable on the Atlantic coast. and Great Lakes. It is to be hoped that a liberal of the priation will be invested in modern proportion new ap- gas buoys. As a nation we have steadfastly re- fused aid to our merchant marine un- til it has now dwindled to practically nothing. The least we can do is to provide aids to navigation and pro- tect the remnant of shipping still un- der. the American flag. The bill. for the lights ard buoys along the Alaska coast should be passed. DIFFERENTIAL ON FUEL COAL. The committee appointed by the Lake Carriers': Association to see if the differential which now exists be- tween the price of fuel and cargo coal on lake vessels could not be extinguished, has already submitted the matter to the Interstate Com- merce Commission for consideration. The committee consists of President Livingstone, H. S. Wilkinson and G. A. Tomlinson. It was stated in last week's Review that the differential was 10 cents a tony .As a miatier of. fact 'it: is 40 "cents a: ton, - the differential of 10 cents is that which the railways charge the coal shippers for the coal that goes into the steam- er's bunkers. It is this feature which is, of course, clearly discrimination in rail rates that the committee has brought to the attention of the Inter- state Commerce Commission as a violation of law. The coal shippers charge the steamer 40 cents per ton more for fuel coal than for cargo coal. Ten cents of this is the dif- ferential which the shippers pay to the railways. The lake carriers' commit- tee believes that whatever reason may have at one time existed for this added charge, it no longer' obtains. It cer- tainly costs 'the railroad no more to haul fuel coal from the mines than it does cargo coal. All that is done is to cut three cars from the train. TAE Marine REVIEW when it reaches a Lake Erie port and dump them into the fuel bunk- ers instead of into the cargo bunkers. The shipments of bituminous during 1908 were approximately 16,- 000,000 tons. The average coal cargo for the season was 4,000 tons. There- fore an average of 4,000 cargoes were carried. A vessel of 4,000 tons capaci- ty would consume on a trip from a Lake Erie port to the head of the lakes about 150 tons of fuel. Multiply- ing the number of cargoes by 150 tons would give a consumption of 600,000 tons of fuel coal. The extra cost of this to vessels during 1908 was $240,000. The lake Carriers committee believes that business prin- ciples do not justify this extra charge COal © - and are determined therefore to elim- - inate it AROUND THE GREAT LAKES. The steamer A. C. Dinkey, building at Lorain for the Pittsburg Steamship Co., will be launched on Feb. 6. Mr. J. A. Gilchrist, assistant man- ager of the Gilchrist Transportation Co:; has resigned. 21 fall. The. city will. dedicate the site and the government will allow its cus- tomary bonus. . 7s ; The Akers emergency steering gear is meeting with great favor and is being installed on four new steamers now building on the great lakes for 1909 delivery. The steamers Wexford and J.) A. McKee are laid up at Collingwood, Ont. They are owned by the West- ern Steamship Co., of Toronto, and are. managed by -'W. J. Bassett, of 'Collingwood. Mr. Frank S. Masten, of the firm of Goulder, Holding & Masten, was operated upon at the Harbor hospi- tal, Detroit, for appendicitis, He is reported to be doing well. Capt. John Leisk, of Milwaukee, one of the most successful masters on the great lakes, and one of the best liked, died as the result of an operation at a' Chi¢ago hospital 'last Friday. Capt. Leisk sailed the steam- er H. H. Rogers for the Pittsburg Steamship Co. | It is reported from Pittsburg that the coal carrying railways All of the engineers employed on Pittsburg district are contemplating. the vessels operated by Capt. John Mitchell have signed contracts for the year 1909. The steamer Tecumseh burned at her dock at Goderich' on: Jan. 16, and the hull now lies in 20 ft. of water. It is reported that contract has been given to the O'Boyle Bros, Con- struction Co. for the construction of a new. dry dock at the Canadian Sault. The steamers Bennington, Burling- ton, Averell and Haskell, of the Rut- land Transit Co.'s fleet, are laid up at Ogdensburg, N. Y. The Matthews Steamship Co:, To- ronto, has ordered in Sunderland, a steamer for its service between Mon- treal and Fort William, The vessel Cleveland, on Monday next. ' The advisory committee having charge of the co-operative insurance plan of lake vessel owners will meet in the office of M. A. Hanna & Co, will be named Mapleton. The Great Lakes Towing Co. will build two steel tugs to be duplicates of the A. C. Harding during the pres- ent year. The company will do the work itself. Advices from Fort William are to the effect that the American Ship Building Co. will furnish capital to build a big dry dock and ship repair plant at that port. President James C. Wallace and Robert Logan, general manager, of the American Ship Build- 'ing Co. looked over the ground last advancing the rate on coal and coke to Lake Erie ports five cents a ton. A general meeting of the coal opera- tors will be held in Pittsburg on Feb. 2, to protest against the ad- vance. The Licensed Tugmen's Protective Association, in session at Toledo, elected the following national officers: President, Martin Cole, Duluth; first vice president, T. V. O Connor, Bur falo; second vice president, Owen McAntee, St. Joseph,- Mich.; third vice president, James Donovan, Ash- tabula; secretary, H. H. Vroman, Buffalo; treasurer, Peter Gagnon, Two Rivers. Capt. John Mitchell has given an order to the American Ship Building Co. to modernize the steamers John J. McWilliams and Lagonda. Ue boilers will be taken off the main deck and placed on the tank top with coal bunkers just forward of the boilers. All the main deck beams and stanchions will be taken out and arch girders __ substituted. Vessels constructed on the girder system have such great advantage over vessels of the old type of construction at the unloading docks that many owners are figuring upon altering their ships. The cost is not as large as might be thought, as a great deal of the steel taken out can be used over again. In fact the steamer ought to earn in a single season the cost of alteration through better dispatch. a in the =