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298 \ fied last winter before the house rivers and harbors committee and the senate special committee that the pollution has become so serious and that it has moved down the river so rapidly that it has already reached Peoria and other Illinois cities, and within a few years will extend into the Missis- sippi river through the mouth of the Illinois river. Merely as a question of health, the time has come to give up antiquated methods and to adopt modern filtration and chemical treat- ment, such as was applied by Mas- sachusetts and New Jersey as early as 1887, and has been practiced in the large cities of Europe, such as Man- chester, London, Paris and _ Berlin for scores of years. Uses Double The Amount Granted The secretary of war in 1899 was asked by the city of Chicago for permission to divert 10,000 feet per second from the Chicago river into the Illinois river in order to prevent ‘the flowing of sewage into Lake Michi- gan. Only about half the amount was granted (4167 feet per second) in a revokable permit, subject to the action of congress and the future develop- ments of the sanitary district and the lake levels. Chicago, however, continued to take this water without getting further authority and gradually increased its limit up to nearly 10,000 feet, claim- ing the right to do this by its own state laws. The sanitary district was enjoined by the federal courts, how- ever, and this action led to a suit by the United States against the city, which finally reached the Supreme Court last February. The Supreme Court’s decision was in effect that the sanitary district must limit itself to amounts specified by the secretary of war, which up to that date were 4167 feet. The Supreme Court, how- ever, held that this decision need not interfere with any future permits that the secretary of war might give under conditions of existing law. After public hearings the secretary of war issued the new permit, which practically amounts to a_ statement that the war department temporarily waives the interest of public naviga- tion, only long enough to allow the city of Chicago to build modern sew- age treatment plants, the permit be- ing revokable whenever Chicago fails to show proper progress. Chicago now knows what must be done and the penalty for failure to act, and there will be no let up in vigilence on the part of the millions of people adversely affected by the present sit- uation to see that the city of Chicago MARINE REVIEW promptly and faithfully carries out her contract so that justice to all con- cerned will prevail. Recent Sales of Ships President Palmer of the Fleet cor- poration announced the _ following sales: AVONDALE, steel cylindrical tanker, 8974 deadweight tons, 5731 gross tons, for $47,590 to M. & J. Tracy, Inc., New York. LAKE OGDEN, lake type steel freighter, 2875 deadweight tons, 2018 gross tons, for $26,505 to the Atlantic & Caribbean Steam Navigation Co., New York. LAKE FLUVANNA, lake type steel freighter, 3525 deadweight tons, 23849 gross tons, for £25,000. LAKE GALERA, lake type steel freighter, 3525 deadweight tons, 2316 gross tons, for $25,000. Both of the above lakers were sold to the Baltimore & Carolina Steamship Co., Baltimore. with the understanding that betterments and alterations are to be undertaken. LAKE FAULK, lake type steel freighter, 4155 deadweight tons, 2598 gross tons, for $40,000 to the Cadwalder-Gibson Lumber Co., Manila, Peds HuKEY, steel ocean-going coal burning tug, 429 gross tons, for $45,000 to the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railway, Chicago. August, 1925 The president of the Fleet corpora- tion announced that with the delivery of the PRESIDENT WILSON on July 7, the sale of the five vessels on the California-Orient Line was completed and this line has been continued in operation by the new owner Dollar Steamship Line on the same schedule of service and without interruption of service as was provided for under operation by the Fleet corporation. The vessels included in the sale are the PRESIDENT CLEVELAND, 14123 gross tons; PRESIDENT LINCOLN, 14187 gross tons; PRESIDENT PIERCE, 14123 gross tons; PRESIDENT TAFT, 14123 gross tons; PRESIDENT WILSON, 14127 gross tons. Notice.is given of the discontinuance of the course in marine engineering at Lehigh university. The enrollment has fallen off to such an extent as to indicate insufficient demand. In volume 54 of your Nov. 1924 issue, on page 422, is an article, “Earth Inductor Compass Found Use- ful at Sea.” The invention described there was invented by me 24 years ago in Ger- many. It is described in detail in the Elektrotechnischen Zeitschrift of 1901, pages 403-405. See especially page 404, column two. DR. C. L. WEBER, 17 Fontane street, Berlin, Germany. The article in MARINE REVIEW for Nov. 1924, to which Doctor Weber refers credited Dr. L. J. Briggs and. Dr. Paul R. Heyl of the bureau of standards with the invention of this compass, and stated that for its in- vention these two gentlemen had been awarded the Magellan gold medal. On the receipt of Doctor Weber’s letter his claims were communicated to Doctors Briggs and Heyl, and the following reply was received from — Doctor Heyl: Doctor Weber is not the only per- son who has invented an earth in- ductor compass. Several patents were taken out for such an instrument be- fore the recent war. The verdict of time and the searching test of war have declared none of these earlier inventions practicable. Our invention was designed pri- marily for airplane use. The Great war closed without a satisfactory air- From the Editor's Mail plane compass on either side of the conflict. We made no claims for or- iginality for the earth inductor used as a compass. That is older even than Doctor Weber’s invention. Our invention contained certain novel fea- tures which, for the first time, made such an instrument practicable in air- craft. PAUL R. HEYL, Bureau of Standards, Washington, DB 4 As bearing further on the time re- quired for transportation by water on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, let me call your attention to the twenty-fifth tow of the Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., composed of the towboat ALI- GUIPPA and nine barges, which left Pittsburgh on March 4 and arrived in Memphis in seven days and six hours, and also to the arrival in New Orleans on April 3 of the A. O. ACKARD, belonging to the Carnegie Steel Co. with 11 barges loaded with 800 tons each, after a run of 12 days and eight hours for the 1940 miles from Pittsburgh to that city. S. A. THOMPSON, Secretary, National Rivers and Harbors Con- gress, Washington. The employes of Charles L. Rohde & Sons Co., ship builders, Baltimore, Md., have been offered group insur- ance by their employer.