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a the Demand for Tonnag e Has Encouraged Southerners to Develop a Shipbuild- ing Industry That is Surprising the Rest of the Country by Its Rapid Growth HE south is rapidly becoming “a ship building center. The wider recognition of the impor- tance of ships in successfully prose- cuting the war with Germany is being met in the south by expanding some of the existing yards and by building new ones. Its excellent lumber sup- ply places the south in a peculiarly advantageous position to play an im- portant part in supplying the wooden ships which the government wants built in such large numbers. The south has been alive to the need of such ships and for some months past has been preparing to build more of them. At the opening of this year, the south Atlantic and gulf coast yards were building 35 vessels and this number has been increasing steadily. Yard at Slidell Among the companies taking part actively in this revival is the Slidell Drydock & Ship Building Co., Slidell, La. Its yard is located just across Lake Pontchartrain from New Or- leans. The company has completed three 2,000-ton steamers and has start- ed work on eight other vessels of THIS IS RAPIDLY BECOMING A FAMILIAR SCENE IN the same size. Contracts have been signed for several slightly smaller steamers, for two big auxiliary schoon- ers and for a river steamer. The Carter Packet <Co.,: for which. the Slidell company recently built the river steamer Criipper, also ordered an- other steamer, of similar size design, STERNPOST CARVED FROM ONE PIECE OF LOUISIANA OAK 213 By H.H. Dunn and cost, which was delivered this spring. She is named Fritz Satmen, after one of the officials of the ship building firm, and will engage in the Mississippi river service. Purchases Large Slips The huge Chalmette slips, at New Orleans, which enclose’ a basin 700 x 1,600 feet, with an average depth of 50 feet, have been sold by the Southern railroad to J. W. Thompson, St. Louis. Work has been begun on the construc- tion of a ship’ building yard which will accommodate one vessel of the size of a battleship and three smaller craft. The Chalmette slips were built when New Orleans hoped to obtain great trafic from the Panama canal. They cost about $4,000,000, and something around this figure must have been paid for them by Mr. Thompson. Approximately $10,000,000 more is to be expended in equipping the yard, bringing the total cost up to nearly $15,000,000, according to an announce- ment by the purchasers. The big basin, which opens into the Mississippi river, will be closed by lock gates, thus main- taining any depth of water desired, regardless of the rise or fall of the THE SOUTH