The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

June, 1909 A case in. point is. found..in. two boiler designs in the May number of Tue Marine Review. It is not long since the shells of these boilers would six plates; A decided advance was made when heavy have been composed of two courses of three plates each. plates could be had of a size which reduced the number in each course to two, thus cutting out two longi- But and tudinal in each boiler. the still while not, strictly speaking, a weak seams girth seam remained point, it made permanently tight work very difficult, because of the wunder- lying scarf of the butt-straps of the smaller . course, as. every knows. But the possibility of securing plates of a width which permitted the elimination of the girth seam, mak- with only ing a one-course boiler two plates and consequently two longitudinal seams, is a long step in advance, and it is entirely probable that single plate, - by before long we will have a single-seam boiler, and means of the electric, oxy-acety- lene, or Thermit welding processes, eliminate the butt-straps and _ rivets also. Welding the seam will, in it- self, operate to make larger plates possible because of the consequent reduction in thickness due to a 100 per cent joint. It is true that under the at. present the efficiency of the butt-joint is not considered, but the bill now pending which repeals all the laws under which the board has op- erated and places the framing and law as constituted, moss-grown enforcing of new rules entirely in the hands the board will make rational rules possible and. this of probably is the only feature in which it is to be commended. As matters stand the whatever to a butt-strapped seam and now, law has no application we have the strange anomaly of a steamboat inspection law which does not apply to perhaps 90 per cent of the boilers actually built, and but for the integrity of the boiler builders themselves and the vigilance of the classification societies and companies, the joint efficiencies might be anything at all. So far as actual control of the design of boilers is insurance engineer "TAE Marine REVIEW concerned the United States steam- boat inspection law is a joke, and not a very good one at that. IMMIGRANT TRADE. That the steady increase in the trans- Atlantic which has taken place during the past six months immigrant trade is a generally accepted sign of re- turning prosperity there' can be little doubt; especially when it is known that a large percentage of the immigrants passing through Ellis island are made up of those who took part in the wild of ,1908.. At. that tUme the outgoing steamers of the lines which exodus cater especially to the steerage trade were packed to the limit with home- going laborers and mechanics of all foreign nationalities, and in many cases temporary lodging places had to be found or built for the surplus await- ing shipment. For the greater part the of the panic-stricken continued, dying down O° a year embarkation eventually until the incoming and out- going trade balanced, or neariy so. The past four months of 1909 have seen vessels arriving daily at the port of New York with practically every square foot of steerage passenger ac- commodation taken, not to speak of showing in the When taken into consideration that the ma- a fairly respectable first and second cabins. it fs jority of these vessels are of modern construction and capable of accom- -modating on an average about 1,000 passengers, it will be seen that the trans-Atlantic trade is worth fighting for: so much so, in fact, that several OF. the between this country and Europe have recently added to their fleet. Competition is the life of trade, and, incidentally, is responsible for the lux- companies operating vessels urious passenger accommodations, tre- mendous freight capacities, life-saving and other equipment of the latest ad- ditions to the Atlantic ferry service. Among others might be mentioned the new Hamburg-American liner Cleve-' land, the Red Star liner Lapland, and the Atlantic transport Minne- waska. These vessels are of 18,000, 18,700 and 14,000 have accommodations for 3,250, 2,650 and 326 passengers--in the latter case liner tons respectively, | 159 the accommodations being exclusively for first class passengers--and have entered the service during the past two: months. Additions have been made to the fleet of nearly all the companies in the trans-Atlantic service during the New York has been feted month after past year. and dined board the new vessels as they arrived their maiden trip. Gigantic and powerful, the very em- bodiment of all that is finest and best in modern ship building, these vessels have proudly steamed up the North river to their berths amid the roaring salutations of the horns on the craft engaged in harbor traffic or tied to the wharves. month, on at that city. on The press of this country has devoted no little space to descrip- tions of each new arrival, giving in detail all that is new in fittings and and the equipment history of the liner's owners. All that is grand and great appeals to us. We are an enthusiastic people. The world-encircling voyage of our battleships, the plans for the Hudson- Fulton memorial celebrations or the friendly trans-Atlantic record-breaking competition of the two largest and fastest liners in the world all interest We should not enthusiasm forget, us to no little extent. in our however, that the great fleet of new vessels re- cently added the ferry is entirely foreign. trans-Atlantic The United States flag flying aft on the new craft to is conspicuous by its absence. A NOTEWORTHY PRODUCTION. attracted so CC, Lee Gas Washington It has fully Seldom has a paper much attention as that by Straub Producer Power,' tread at the meeting of the A. S&S. Mf. less on "Marine been reprinted more or in almost every prominent engineering journal in the United States and is beginning to reach us in foreign re- a valuable and prints also. It was timely contribution to current en- gineering literature, and will be more appreciated as time passes, and what now appears to be advanced, if not It does involve any assump- radical, ideas, are justified. not, however, tions; the rival systems have been