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16 MARINE REVIEW. AROUND THE GREAT LAKES. At a meeting of the directors of the Cleveland & Buffalo Transit Co. Lae es a quarterly dividend of 114 per cent., payable Feb. 1, was de- clared. The steamer Meteor of ‘Canadian canal dimensions, building for Messrs. Hawgood of Cleveland, was launched at the yard of the Craig Ship Building Co. at Toledo, Wednesday afternoon. Capt. Charles Ross, late of the steamer Alice Stafford, will next sea- son command the steamer Hennepin, which is to take the place of the Stafford on the route between Gladstone and Owen Sound. The keel for the large car ferry for the Pere [Marquette Railway Co., to be finished for the opening of navigation in 1902, was laid at the Globe yard of the American Ship Building Co. in Cleveland a few days ago. Capt. William Parsons Robinson died at Milwaukee last Sunday at the age of sixty-two years. During his sailing experience he owned inter- ests in and commanded the schooners Dreadnaught and Ethel. He was born at Thomaston, Me. Companies which held fire risks on the burned steamer City of Louts- ville aré said to have paid over to the Graham & Morton Transportation Co. the sum of $40,000 and taken possession of the wreck.. The hull will be floated and with its machinery sold to the highest bidder. The Graham & Morton Co. is still searching. for a steamer to take the Louisville’s place. One of the New York papers claims to have learned that at a con- ference held in that city a few days ago it was decided to next season change the route of the big passenger steamers of the Northern line, North West and North Land, running them between Chicago and Buffalo instead of Duluth and Buffalo. A strange sight in the vicinity of Dunford & Alverson’s dry dock at Port Huron a few days ago was the steamer J. E. Mills shifting the steamers Business, A. L. Hopkins and Argonaut; just a little midwinter towing. The Mills had an odd experience going up from Marysville, as the river was running full of ice. The Licensed Tugmen’s Protective Association at their annual meet- ing in Buffalo elected the following officers: Grand president, Michael Ryan, Duluth; first vice president, Capt. Harry Coulter, Cleveland; sec~ ond vice president, Capt. T. V. O’Connor, Buffalo; third vice president, Capt. Caspar Bartley, Escanaba; grand secretary, E. E. Hand, Conneaut; treasurer, G. C. Kendig, Erie. z A large steel freight steamer that is to -be controlled in the office of Hutchinson & Co., Cleveland, will be launched at the Globe yard of the American Ship Building Co. Saturday, Feb. 9, and will be named John T. Hutchinson, in honor of the well-known even-tempered and‘ happy vessel owner of that name. The new vessel will be sailed by Capt. John Smith, formerly of the Brazil. : a : Masters of the Lehigh Valley line vessels just appointed for the com: ; ing season are Mauch Chunk, P. McCarlane; Wilkesbarre, D. Driscoll; . Tuscarora, William. Williams; Saranac, ‘Charles Potter; Seneca, J. White- side; E. P. Wilbur, Charles Fuller. The engineers have not been-named. ” The Wilkesbarre was launched last summer, but the Mauch Chunk prob- ably will not leave the ways before the opening of navigation. p _Capt. Charles A. Miner, a well known lake master, died at his Home ie No. 107 Birch street, Cleveland, this week. He fell into the hold of the ”.}: steamer H. J. Johnson-at Ashtabula last winter and never recovered from. injuries received at the time. He was compelled to leave his boat at Du- luth on the last trip of the season. Capt. (Miner was forty-seven years old and had sailed the Queen of the West, George Presley and H. J. Johnson. ~ The Buffalo Elevating 'Co. has awarded contracts for the construction. ’ of an elevator to replace the Dakota, which was burned in August last: The structure is to be at least 50 per cent. larger than the burned Dakota. It will be 75 by 275 ft. in size, whereas the Dakota was only about 100 ft... square, and its capacity will be 1,250,000 bushels. It will be 170 ft. in height, of fireproof construction, the-bin floors being of expanded metal, the ground floor of granolite and the other floors of steel. There will be two movable marine towers, two canal legs and four in stores and four out stores. The operating power will be electricity, about 1,000 H.P.- being required. The bins are to be of steel and circular construction. Ten tracks will be laid to facilitate the loading of cars. The new elevator will be ready for business by the middle of (May. The site chosen is on the city ship-canal at the Peck slip, one of the best locations in the harbor. TWO VERY LARGE SIDE-WHEEL STEAMERS. The Detroit Ship Building Co., one of the consolidated concerns of the great lakes, has a contract, signed on Saturday last, for the two very large side-wheel steel steamers that are to inaugurate a regular service between Detroit and Buffalo in the spring of 1902. This line has been talked of for some time past. It is now-a-reality. ‘Mr. McVittie of the Detroit Ship Building Co. is the leading spirit in the enterprise. The ships are to be designed by Frank E. Kirby, and it is said they will cost about $650,000 each. They will surpass anything of a side-wheel steamer kind on the lakes. The new line will be controlled by stockholders of the Detroit & Cleveland Navigation Co. and the Cleveland & Buffalo Transit Co., which are already operating large side-wheel steamers on Lake Erie. It. is understood that stockholders of the Detroit. & Cleveland company will take one-third of the stock of the new company and that a like amount will be taken by stockholders of the Cleveland & Buffalo com- pany, while the other third will be placed by Mr. McVittie. In Detroit the new line will use the Detroit & Cleveland company’s terminal facili- ties, bearing one-third of the shore expenses of both companies, while in Buffalo the terminals of the Cleveland & Buffalo company will be used and the shore expenses divided equally. At Detroit the D. & C. Co. will derive special advantage from the new line as a feeder for its Lake Huron division. Dimensions of the steamers have not been fully determined as yet. They will be about 20 per cent. larger in hull and machinery than the Cleveland & Buffalo company’s steamer City of Erie. They will have inclined, three-cylinder, compound engines, and eight boilers fitted with Howden system of draft. The run from Detroit to Buffalo.is 256 miles and it is said that the steamers will be scheduled to make the trip in 12 hours, which is at the rate of about 21 miles an hour, Sr [January 31, THE DULUTH STOKER. (Mr, A. B. Wolvin of Duluth, recently elected president of the Lake Carriers’ Association, and under whose direction some twenty or more of the finest steamers on the great lakes have been built within the past four or five years, is very progressive, and has in several instances been first to take up appliances that have proven highly beneficial in the opera- tion of modern freighters. He was first to adopt quadruple expansion engines and water tube ‘boilers for freight steamers, and in this regard some of his vessels have represented the highest practice known to ship building throughout the world. He was first to build lake freight steamers of 500 ft. length and 8,000 net tons capacity. The steamers J. J. Hill, J. W. Gates, I. L. Elwood and Wm. Edenborn of the 500-ft. type, now owned by the American Steel & Wire Co., but still managed by Mr. Wolvin, were built under his direction. . ; Some time ago Mr. Wolvin undertook the task of developing a mechanical stoker that would be suited to use aboard ship. He caused trials to be made of two or three kinds of stokers well-known to steam users and which are to be found in successful operation in great num- bers of steam plants ashore. As far as can be learned, none of these stokers were found equal to the requirements aboard ship. On the tour 500-ft. ships above referred to there was tried last season a stoker manu- factured by the Duluth Stoker Co. of Duluth, Minn., of which Mr, Wolvin is president and W. O. Root manager. This stoker is said to have worked very successfully, so much so that it is to be applied to four other large steel freighters now under construction at yards of the American Ship Building Co. for the Peavey Steamship Co. of Duluth. In the case of the steamer J. W. Gates _an elaborate test was conducted last Season to ascertain the value of the stoker, and it is claimed that results showed only 1.5 Ibs. of ordinary slack coal burned per indicated horse power per hour for all purposes. The stoker is said to produce no smoke. : The Duluth stoker consists essentially of a set of grate bars carried from front to back of furnace over a number of fair leaders by two endless chains, one on each side of the furnace. At the back of the furnace the chains and bars pass over a drum and thence back over fair leaders to the front of the furnace again. At the front of the furnace the chains pass over sprockets, from which they receive motion. The bars each have two wrought iron lugs on lower edge, which hook into the chain, alternate bars hooking in from opposite sides.. The upper faces of the bars are toothed and lock into each other, leaving sufficient opening to form air spaces for burning the coal. From this construction it is evident that a bar can only be removed and replaced when it is passing over the sprocket wheel in the front of the furnace, for at no other time will the teeth be entirely disengaged from each other. The sprockets at the front of the furnace, which give motion to the chains and bars, may be driven by any suitable device, but ~as the motion is very slow, worm gearing is best adapted for this purpose, the worm gear being driven by a small oscillating engine, immediately above the box containing the gearing, thus making a very compact and fe simple arrangement. At the front of the furnace also a hopper extends the whole width, into which the coal is shoveled. On the boiler front, and forming the back of the hopper, is a distributing and regulating plate, which extends across the full width of the grate, and is carried above it to. whatever thickness is desired to carry the fire. At the front of the fur- ‘nace, and extending back about one-third the length of the furnace, is a brick arch, and at. the back there is an apron plate through which are a » number of openings to allow a supply of air to enter over the fire. The “speed of the bars from front to back is so regulated that coal shall be . entirely consumed in the passage, and the speed will, of course, vary with the draft.and thickness of fire carried. The ashes and clinkers are dumped into an ash pan at-the back end of the furnace. While it is the intention of the Duluth company to pay especial at- tention to applying these stokers to steam vessels, it is claimed that they - are.equally well adapted to stationary plants, and have been so applied in a number of instances where ability to make steam without producing smoke was of special importance and value. PROVIDENCE WINDLASSES. - = In the Marine Record of Dec. 20, 1900, there was published a list of orders received by the American Ship Windlass Co., Providence, R. l., the past year, for vessels on the great lakes. Since this list was published the American Ship Windlass ‘Co. has received the following additional orders for Lake vessels: Steamer building by Jenks Ship Building Co., Port Huron, Mich., No. 8 steam capstan windlass. Hull No. 49, building by Chicago Ship Building Co., No. 8 steam capstan windlass; No. F steam capstan. Hull No. 50, building by Chicago Ship Building Co., No. 8 steam capstan windlass; No. F steam capstan. _ Hull No. 100, building by Buffalo Dry Dock Co., No. 7 steam capstan windlass. . ea Hull No. 142, building by Detroit Ship Building Co., No. 8:steam capstan windlass; No. F steam capstan. 2 Hull No. 148, building by. Detroit Ship Building Co., No. 8 steam capstan windlass; No. F steam capstan. . 2 _ Hull No.. 309, building by American Ship Building Co., Lorain, O., No. 8 steam capstan windlass; No. F steam capstan. Hull No, 310, building by American Ship Building Co., Lorain, O., No. 8 steam capstan windlass; No. F steam capstan. The American Ship Windlass Co. has also received an order for a No. 8 steam capstan windlass and a No. E steam capstan for a steamship build- ing by the Collingwood Ship Building Co. of Collingwood, Ont. It would seem as though the merits of this windlass were well understood by the ship building and ship owning public of the lakes, as nearly all of the ships built on the lakes last year had this windlass, and it is said to have advantages which no other windlass built anywhere in the world pos- sesses. _ This company builds also the Shaw & Spiegle towing machine, which has been-applied to all the large towing vessels built on the lakes in recent years, some of them up to 8,000 tons capacity, and which is also in use in different parts of the world,