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70 stand the benefits that accrue to en- rollment. The club room privileges have been as extensively accepted as in previous years, and marked improvement has heen made in the advantages offered by these rooms. New and ~larger rooms have been provided at Ashta- bula and a shower bath has been in- stalled, which was impossible in the rooms formerly occupied at this port. The seamen's rooms at Detroit have been enlarged; improvements, includ- ing a shower bath, have been installed at South Chicago and more commodi- ous quarters are being sought in other - ports. In the officers' club rooms pianos have been installed, and the Victrola records have been added to materially, the selections being for the most part - music of classical character and by artists of recognized merit. In all rooms the subscriptions to the current magazines and periodicals have been liberal and the men have availed themselves to a greater extent in the reading of them. Welfare Work A pool tournament was arranged last season between teams of the En- gineers' Assembly Rooms and_ the Shipmasters' Lodge in Cleveland. Much enthusiasm and good feeling resulted and plans have been made for a more extended tournament during the pres- ent winter, to be participated in by representatives. of all of the Officers' Assembly Rooms maintained under the welfare plan. If the welfare plan needed any vin- dication, its purposes were amply justi- fied by the service it rendered in ac- counting for the men whose lives were lost in the great storm of Nov. 9, and in responding promptly with reliable information to the hundreds of in- quiries concerning men employed on vessels of the association, other than those wrecked. In the calamity which visited the Great Lakes on that date, - gix vessels of our membership were lost with their entire crews. By our system of registration the name and address of practically every member of the crew of each vessel was on file in our office, together with the name and address of a near relative or friend of each man. With this information at hand almost every body that was recovered from the wrecks was identi- fied and delivered into the hands of relatives or friends, who were thus en- abled to perform the last service that can be rendered for any person. In addition to this, the death benefits provided by the Lake Carriers' Asso- ciation furnished funds so necessary at such times and when, in most cases, money was not otherwise available. THE MARINE REVIEW Sad and horrifying as the loss of life was on this occasion, the death bene- fits, which were paid as promptly as possible, were of much practical help in time of need and saved so much of distress that comment is unneces- sary. The total amount paid in death benefits during the year was $18,245.60. This is $15,949.60 in excess of those paid in 1912. The number of pay- ments for 1913 was 123, as compared with 21 in 1912. Obviously the large increase was due to the November disasters, when 153 lives were lost from vessels in our association, of A. RR. RUMSEY, Chief Shipping Commissioner which number 132 were members of the welfare plan, with a total of $17,825 for death benefits. Of the 132 death benefits payable as a result of the storm-. of Nov. 9, 36 payments, aggregating $2,900, are still to be made, delay in which is due to faulty addresses of the _ beneficiaries or their residence in foreign countries. Efforts are being made to get into communication with all of these and as quickly as they can be reached these benefits will be paid. In addition to this, the machinery of the association has been placed at the disposal of the committee having February, 1914 charge of the distribution of the relief funds accumulated for the assistance of the families of the victims of the storm. Without the system of rec. ords, which we maintain, the work of this committee would have been greatly hampered and could be but imperfectly and incompletely _ per- formed, if, indeed, it could have been undertaken at all. Four-Mile Waves According to Prof. J. A. Fleming, several of the most powerful wireless stations are now. generating ether waves having a length from crest to -- crest of about four miles, and these disturbances can be "detected" at dis- tances up to 6,000 miles from their source. That is, four such stations would suffice to "girdle" the earth. Obviously, however, the ability to "detect" the signals over this vast distance, presumably under favorable weather conditions, is a very different thing from the power to maintain commercial communication along the route. As yet the wireless service available to the public covers but a third, or at most, half, this distance. There is as yet no means of deter- mining the practical limit of wireless communication. Improvements in ap- paratus, perhaps even some new discovery as to methods. of - stir- ring up the ether, may revolutionize the art and upset all present stand- ards. But at present even the most successful systems get into serious difficulties when called upon to main- tain constant communication over a line 2,000 miles in length. A _ recent British wireless commission was able tc secure but one demonstration on a line 1,000 miles long, although several companies declared their ability much to exceed this distance in a commer- cial installation. The Royal Mail steamer Cobequid stranded on Trinity ledge, Bay of Fundy, Jan. 15, becoming a total loss. The crew and passengers were res- cued by the steamers Westport III and John L. Cann, who responded to the calls of wireless, though owing to heavy weather and a blinding gale it was three days before all the crew were taken off. The Old Dominion Line steamer Monroe was sunk in collision with the steamer Nantucket, of the Mer- chants and Miners' Transportation Co.'s fleet in a dense fog about 24 miles southwest of Winter's quarters shoal light vessel at 1:30 a. m., Jan. 30, while en route from Boston to Norfolk. Forty-one lives were lost.