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

From the Editor’s Mail To the Editor I have read with much interest the article in your October issue entitled. Suggestions for Better Ship Design, in which the author discusses the pos- sibility of increasing passenger traffic by changes in vessel construction which will make water travel more attractive to the traveling public. His criticisms and suggestions, I believe, are pertinent. Anyone who is familiar with both will undoubtedly agree that passen- ger accommodations on lake over- night services suffer in comparison with those of similar services on the seacoast. Coastwise companies, in their postwar construction, have ap- propriated many of the comforts and luxuries of the modern transatlantic liner, with the result that the “‘night boat’’ out of New York or Boston, or a vessel on one of the slightly longer runs up or down the coast, offers in- terior arrangements which may be compared favorably with those of the most up-to-date hotel. Adhering to an Old Pattern Lake passenger boats, on the other hand, continue to adhere to the pat- tern of years ago. The persistence of the gallery deck arrangement and the absence of well furnished public rooms, where the passenger might forget weather conditions outside and feel the ease and security of a lounge ashore, are noticeable on the most recent of lake craft. Clean and neat, staunch and reliable, the better mem- bers of the lake passenger fleets may be; but it is questionable whether they deserve the description ‘‘pala- tial,’ so often applied in company literature—at least in the modern sense of the word as determined by present-day refinements in living con- ditions. The newest of the lake Erie steam- ers, for instance, though supreme examples of their type, are not, from the passenger’s standpoint, basically different from Crry oF Derrorr II of 1889, and no boat on Lake Michigan at the present time can offer a patron much more than could, say, the ViR- GINIA in 1891. In contrast, compare the developments in railroad equip- ment in the last forty years, or, more striking, the progress in automobile luxuries in even the past ten years; likewise, the numerous betterments that distinguish the home or hostelry of today from that of the ’80s or 90s. Or, on saltwater, note the tremendous advance of MANHATTAN upon ST. PAUL; of AcADIA and SAINT JOHN upon a sound or coastal steamship of a half- century back. To the limited number, including myself, who enjoy water travel be- 50 cause it is water travel, irrespective of other features, the matter of the arrangement and furnishing of pas- senger quarters is perhaps unimpor- tant. Indeed, we’d be inclined to pre- fer a ship that obviously is a ship to one that attempts to be a cross between a speedboat and the lobby of the Grand Hotel. However, for the great majority of travelers, on either business or pleasure, a water route is only one of several ways to the destination, and is to be chosen only if it satisfies the traveler’s de- mands for speed, comfort, and reli- ability better than do the competi- tive services. Making Boat Travel Attractive The ship will always be slower, except where a natural cutoff gives an advantage. But cannot this handi- cap be more than offset by making marine transportation so comfortable, so luxurious, that it will become the ready preference of the average trav- eler? The Great Lakes are histori- cally interesting and scenically at- tractive, and the lake boat, with its roominess and cleanliness, is poten- tially a more comfortable conveyance than a train, automobile or bus. If, as the writer in the October MARINE REview implies, the lake lines would make use of the fullest devel- opments of marine architecture, fol- lowing the practice of coastwise com- panies in ridding their ships of bare- ness and plainness and giving them the atmosphere of a cozy hotel, it should be possible to attract many a traveler who now considers lake travel archaic—attract him not only in summer, when weather conditions are most favorable, but during the many other months of the open sea- son as well. A ship that by its meagerness of furnishings and its in- terior design constantly reminds the passenger that he is afloat is likely to prove very disagreeable in cold, rough and stormy weather. On the other hand, architecture and appoint- ments such as characterize the best accommodations ashore can put the passenger at his ease and remove that feeling of insecurity which bad weath- er at sea brings to the average per- son. I am not unmindful of the exist- ence of certain operating conditions peculiar to the Great Lakes, nor am I unsympathetic with the difficulties that have beset lake lines in recent years. All-year service, for the most part (there are exceptions), is im- possible because of ice, so that re- turn on investment is’ generally limited to eight or nine months of the year at best; and where the run MARINE REVIEwW—April, 1933 depends only upon resort or excur- sion traffic, the earning period is no more than two or three months. The automobile and motorbus have cut in upon the lake business, so serious- ly in certain cases as to send ships to lay-up or, worse, put companies into receivership or out of business. Current economic conditions have added to the problems. Obsolete Equipment is Doomed But no relief is likely to come so long as obsolete equipment is con- tinued in use. It is almost certain that passenger traffic will not in- erease—rather it will go on decreas- ing——unless Great Lakes services are made more attractive. On the other hand, it is possible, though to be sure not certain, that changes in ship de- sign as suggested in the MARINE RE- virw’s article would more than pay for themselves in increased patron- age. The lakes are not carrying any- where near the volume of passenger traffic they merit. The reason: pos- sibly may be found in the companies’ adherence to the traditions of years past, their failure to provide accom- modations comparable to those a per- son can find elsewhere. An attempt to remedy the condition may, it is true, be economically futile, in view of peculiar operating conditions. Cer- tain coastwise managements, how- ever, seem to have taken a correct step in bringing out new swift and luxurious equipment, and lake oper- ators perhaps should consider the pos- sibilities more thoroughly than they heretofore have. John Fraser. Roos To the Editor: Sometime ago I wrote you regard- ing the probable date of the launching of the first iron boat on the Lakes. If I remember correctly, you answered you had no record of it. I have just read in an autobiography of Capt. Alex McDougall some facts that might interest you. I remember telling you that I went with a bunch of boys from school one day down to David Bell’s shipyard in Buffalo to witness the launching of the propeller MrercHANT. If there were any pennies in our bunch, every one of them would have been bet that she would go direct- ly to the bottom when launched, and there would have been no takers. McDougall says the first iron boat built on the Great Lakes was the United States naval ship MicHI@aAn, then the MrrcHant owned by the Evans Line of Buffalo and soon after the PHILADELPHIA. All this in 1858. In 1871 the InprA, CHrna and JApPAn be- longing to the Anchor line were built. I am inflicting this letter on you in the hopes that you might be interested. George G. Barnum