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254 gine driving a right-hand propeller. The cylinders 25 x 41 x 68-inches in diameter, having a common stroke of -48 inches. Steam will be supplied at a pres- sure of 190 pounds per square inch from three single-ended boilers, 14 feet, 2 inches mean diameter by about 11 feet 10 inches long, having a total heating surface of 7,407 square feet. Limit Draft on Lakes HE war department, through Col. Mason M. Patrick, U.S. A., Detroit, has issued instructions regarding the navigation of Lake St. Clair, in order to avoid stranding. An official com- munication on this subject from Col.- Patrick is as follows: “Investigation has shown that there has been considerable shoaling in Lake _ St. Clair, particularly just below the St. Clair Flats canal. Dredging is in progress at present to remove this shoaling and very satisfactory progress is being made. The worst of the shoal- ing has been already removed, ‘the dredging having been carried over about one mile below the lower end of the west, or downbound canal. “It is still believed to be unsafe for vessels to traverse Lake St. Clair when drawing more than 19 feet 9 inches and the load draft of such vessels is re- stricted accordingly. “In view of the fact that on the run from the Soo to Lake St. Clair the fuel consumption will somewhat lessen the load draft, as observed at the Soo, by the time the vessel reaches the St. Clair Flats canal, instructions have been is- sued to detain at the Soo any vessel which is loaded to more than 19 feet 11 inches. Vessels upbound will likewise be loaded so that when crossing Lake St. Clair they will not draw more than 19 feet 9 inches. “The above restrictions upon the ves- sel draft are solely with a view to promoting safety and to prevent the serious results which might follow a stranding in the Lake St. Clair channel particularly at this time when every- thing must be done to reduce to a minimum the delays which boats ex- perience. It is hoped that all vessel owners and vessel masters will co- operate in the effort to prevent such de- lays. The restrictions upon the load draft will be enforced.” The Joseph Dixon Crucible Co., Jer- sey City, N. J., is distributing a book- let describing the use of graphite for cylinder lubrication. The adaptation of graphite for use with marine, gas and steam engines and with compressors is described. A number of testimonial let- ters are included, one of which details a saving of 52% per cent in the cost of lubrication. THE MARINE REVIEW mended for Freight Vessels by Engineer struction of freight ships is ad- vocated in a- special paper pre- pared for the department of com- merce by E. Platt Stratton, consult- ing engineer of the New York board of underwriters and formerly super- visor of the American bureau of ship- ping. The subject is one to which considerable attention has been drawn since the ship building boom arising from the war and the expansion of demand for an American merchant marine have gripped the country. The standardization of ships was advo- cated in the editorial comment ap- pearing in the June issue Of The Marine Review. Already several yards have adopted the plan of turning out standard ves- sels and it is generally recognized that if specialization of this type could be introduced into the industry, it would be placed upon a much more efficient basis, as indicated by the development of foreign yards where standard ships have been turned out. Mr. Stratton says: “Signs multiply of a disposition in Gfreweion of fiehe in the con- the United States so to standardize the construction of cargo types of steamships as greatly to reduce their cost. “In the construction of ships for carrying passengers and frefght and in the construction of the higher class swift leviathans that carry passen- gers, mails and express, standardiza- tion is not always practicable. But in the construction of the higher types of ships the United States is not as far behind ship yards of other coun- tries in the matter of cost as it is in the construction of the purely cargo type of ship. “Cargo steamships of from 1,000 to 10,000 tons deadweight capacity, on a block coefficient of from 75 to 80 per cent .of the cube of their length, breadth and depth, and a standard rate of speed not to exceed 12 knots, is the trend and the type of ship most useful for general trade. Such ves- sels are now built with double bot- toms for the carriage of water ballast which have become more and ke of a necessity to facilitate the hand- ling of the ships when light or in motion without cargo. Double bot- toms also offer great facility for the storage and use of any of the varie- ties of liquid fuel, which frequently are found to be more advantageous, rdization booste Wniiorm Type ot Construction Recom- Y G if not more profitable, than coal particularly when the cost of stowing it in the ship’s bunkers and the cog of firing it with man power are con. sidered. “All liquid fuels are piped direc to the furnaces, fed and sprayed into them under pressure which makes the fuel supply and combustion constant and uniform, thus doing away with all inequalities of steam pressures incident to replenishing, slicing and cleaning of fires when coal is the fuel being utilized. It should be here noted that much of the space con- tained within double bottoms exists . between the floors of the ship which internally support the bottom plates — of the vessel, and while this space exists between the ceiling of the ship’s hold and the outer plating or the vessel’s bottom absolutely no use was ever heretofore made of it except as a receptacle for the accumulation of bilge water. In the double bottom, therefore, it will be seen that liquid fuel utilizes a space for its storage that was not and could not be utilized for any other purpose, since many parts of the internal portion of the double bottom are quite inaccessible to the hand or the eye after such portion of the ship has been con- structed. “Vessels of the double bottom type of construction have also had a ten- dency greatly to reduce marine in- surance risks incident to the trams- portation of all kinds of dry and perishable cargo, for in ships of this type of construction, on taking to the gtound below the turn of the bilges, it is very seldem that a puncture ex- tends through both the outer and inner shell of the double bottom im a single contact. And before watet can reach the cargo this condition most invariably assures the salvage of the cargo before the vessel’s floors and frame can be forced up to fup- ture the inner shell of the double bottom, which generally continues 10 exist intact not only until the cargo is salved but the vessel itself floated for repair. Marine insurance statis- tics are full of such instances of only partial loss under general average where previously nothing but the total loss stared underwriters in the face when a vessel with a single bot tom grounded, under whatever con- ditions. “Incidentally, think what would be — the cost, detention or protracted: de —