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JO NEWS. AROUND THE LAKES. CLEVELAND. Major D. H. Pond, Capt. George Gibson, and others have been in Columbus making all the efforts in their power in the interest of the naval reserve bill, which is now under consideration by the committee on military affairs. Delegations have gone to Washington this week to appear before Congressional committees in the interest of bills appropriating money for Cleveland harbor im- provemenc, regulating rafting on the lakes, and to erect anew custom house, and in opposition to the Detroit bridge bill. The Lorain Times is authority for the statement that Capt. Ralph Lyon, master of the Zenith City, was of- ferred the captency of the North Land, withasalary of $2,100 for four months. The Times says Capt. Lyon could not accept the offer, as he had closed a contract to Sail the Queen City, now building at the Cleveland ship- ard. i = The Cleveland Marine Engineers will enjoy their 15th annual sociable and dance at Merrill’s hall, on the even- ing of Feb. 10. William H. Kennedy, Ll. W. Weeks and H. T. McAuley form the committee of arrangements. While in most places the west breakwater basin has a depth of sixteen feet, yet, because of some few obstruc- tions it will not be advisable for any vessel drawing mcre than ten feet of water to use tne western entrance to the harbor next spring. The plans for the proposed bridge over the old river bed at Willow street, have not yet been completed, the council has authorized D. E. Wright, director of public works, to advertise for bids for building the bridge, which will be 300 feet long and is estimated to cost $140,000. Cleveland Lodge, No. 4, of the Ship Masters’ Associa- tion, has issued very handsome and elaborate invitations to their annual reception and ball, which will occur at Army and Navy Hall, Wednesday evening, February 12. The Great Western Band and Orchestra will furnish music for the occasion, and the usual excellent supper will beserved. ‘The affair will be in charge of Captains A. B. Nelson, John McNeff, R. C. Pringle, C. EB. Ben- ham, Client G. Ennes, Chas. H. Wallace, Thomas Jones andjA. J. Greenley. Officers of the Wilson Transit company for 1896 are: Capt. Thomas Wilson, president, treasurer and general manager; R. MclLauchlan, vice-president; Harvy D. Goulder, secretary; board of directors, J. B. Upson, George I. Quayle and W. D. Rees. ‘ Newly-elected officers of the Richardson Transporta- tion company are: President, H. J. Webb; vice-presi- dent, Henry C. Ellison; secretary, treasurer and gener- al manager, W. C. Richardson; directors, H. J. Webb, Henry C. Ellison, W. C. Richardson, F. W. Leck, Har- vey D. Goulder, Thomas Jones and K. J. Jackson. Thomas J. W. Quirk, a well-known and aged citizen ‘of Cleveland, died at his home No. 1222 Curtis avenue, Sunday morning. As early as 1850 he was one of the most prominent men in the lake traffic, and sailed on the larger vessels of the earlierdays. ‘The funeral ser- vices were held at 2 o’clock Tuesday. The tug R. E. Goodill was sold by United States Mar- . shal for $510. CHICAGO. Special Correspondence to The Marine Record. Captains George McLeod, of Buffalo, and Daniel Mc- Leod, of Cleveland, held surveys on the steamers Chas. S. Parnell and Kittie M. Forbes in Miller Bros.’ dry- docks during the past week. The steamer Kittie M. Forbes, which loaded corn at Armour’s ‘‘K’’ elevator recently, sprung a leak a few _ hours after she received her cargo. She was towed to the Minnesota elevator and had her cargo taken out, about1,200 bushels of which was wet. She was then placed in dry-dock when it was discovered that some planks on her bottom on the starboard side had been forced in by contact with some obstruction at the bottom of the slip, which is thought to be a portion of the wreckage from the tug Morford, which was blown up near the mouth of that slip last fall. Ata recent meeting of the Chicago Steamship Co. Capt. James S. Dunham was elected president, treasurer and manager of the company. The rebuild on the Dunham Towing Co.’s tug T. T. Morford is being pushed forward and will be completed by Aprilist. She will receive a new marine fire-box boiler; 8% x 16, to be 150 lbs. steam pressure, which is being built by Johnston Bros., of Ferrysburg, Mich. The repairs to Capt. Dunham’s schooner A. Mosher, to damage done by collision with the steamer Rochester last fall are nearly completed. Palmer, Cook & Calbick chartered the steamer Toltec for corn for winter storage and delivery at Kingston in the spring at 43gc. and the steamer W. P. Ketcham and consort George B. Owen for corn to the same place at 4c Ga John Prindiville chartered the steamer Pontiac for 105,000 bushels of corn for winter storage and de- livery in the spring at Buffalo at 2¥%c. |. Wiley M. Egan chartered the schooner B. I), Penning- ton for corn for winter storage and delivery at Buffalo in the spring at 23<c. The Independent Tug Line towed the steamer Egyp- THE MARINE RECORD. tian to the Iowa elevator; the steamer Nyanza to the Union elevator, the steamer C. Tower, Jr. and Foltic to Armour’s EF elevator, the schooner Fillmore to the Daville elevator, the schooner Peshtigo and the steamer Charles H. Bradley to the Indiana elevator all to load grain for winter storage; the steamer J. Kmory Owen and schooner Michigan to their winter dock at Pea- body’s coal yard. An official statement of Chicago’s receipts and ship- ments of lumber during the last calendar year shows total receipts of 1,637,389,000 feet. This is to be com- pared with 1,566,150,000 feet in 1894. Shipments out of the city during the year were 771,944,000 feet as against 639,199,000 feet in the year earlier. She receipts show an increase over 1894 of about 4.5 per cent, while the shipments exhibit an almost corresponding increase of 4.2 percent. According to the report of the Chicago dock committee, receipts by lake were about 15,000,000 feet less than in 1894. It is apparent then that there must have been a considerable increase in the receipts by rail, and probably other pine than white profited by the increased business. WILLIAMS. ' BUFFALO, Spectal Correspondence to The Marine Record. In the statistics given last week the total registered tonnage of vessels entering this port in 1895 was given as 4,684,093, and that of vessels clearing as only 466,568, although the addition of the component figures given showed a considerably larger tonnage. The trouble lay in the omission of a figure, the true sum being 4,665,698. Two bills have been introduced in the State Senate for the benefit of canal men. One provides for the ap- propriation of $170,000, to be expended by the Superin- tendent of Public Works in purchasing six floating ele- vators, four to be located at New York and two at Buf- falo, to be run by steam and to have a capacity of 10,- 000 bushels per hour each, and fixes the charge for ser- vice at {c at Buffalo, and %c at New York for loading direct into ocean steamers. The charge here is now 13c and 1.5c at New York. The. bill provides that the floaters shall be ready by May 18, 1896. ‘The other bill provides for a fine of $1,000 to be as- sessed against any railroad convicted of discriminating in freight rates. Capt. J. J. H. Brown, President of the Lake Carriers’ Association, presented a mass of interesting data re- garding Buffalo’s commerce, to the Merchant’s Ex- change Monday evening. He gave the figures con- tained in last week’s RECORD and pointed out that while Boston was the second seaboard port, the tonnage en- tered and cleared there in 1895 was about 5,800,000 tons as compared with 9,350,715 tons for Buffalo, 9,172,373 tons for Chicago, 7,245,234 tons for: Milwaukee, and 5,649,527 tons for Cleveland, for a much shorter period. The entire amount expended in- Buffalo harbor by the government up to January 25 is $1,616,443.69. Glasgow has expended in dock and harbor improvements upwards of $60,000,000, and Liverpool 110,000,000. The Exchange adopted stiring resolutions protesting against the construction of bridye piers in Detroit river, and endorsing the Grand Island bridge over Niagara river. The hearing on Buffalo’s breakwater extension will occur Friday. Capt. Lymans has been granted permission by the War Department to accompany the _ delegation to Washington. The steamer Topeka is still on the bottom and in de- cidedly bad shape on account of her cargo and the low water. Experts are of the opinion that some one will have to pay asmart sum to repair her when the grain is out of her. : : DULUTH AND SUPERIOR. Special Correspondence to The Marine Recoré. The quantity of soft coal burned on the Ohio Coal Co.’s dock’s was 2,500 tons. The Hale-Palmer Exploration Syndicate has discoy- ered a bed of first-class ore over 1,600 feet long and of good width and depth, on property near the Genoa mine. The syndicate which cousists of Judge Hale, Roswell Palmer, and one or two others, has an option on the property. Some little wheat has been chartered here for May shipment at 3%c to Buffalo, Some of the boats which are serving as winter storage for wheat cargoes were placed on a basis of 34 to 33%c¢ for carrying the cargo to Buffalo in the spring, according to the figuring of vesselmen, though allowing %c a month carrying charge as made by the elevators it would hardly amount to that much. : The foreign insurance syndicate, which last winter contracted to take all the wheat and flour risks ont of this market, fared very badly, in spite of the fact that its losses out of this port, so far as grain was concerned, was below the usual proportion. The syndicate was going to make shippers and itself rich by having no middleman, and local vessel brokers felt pretty blue over having one branch of. their business wiped out. But $50,000 loss on grain alone, besides very heavy losses on flour, was too much for the syndicate, and it won’t be in the market on the same basis this season. Grain shippers, too, have not been. satisfied with the experience, and they have suggested their readiness for a switch back to the old conditions, provided the old companies make the concessions they have talked of. It is understood that an average rate of 30c has been offered. ‘The syndicate made a rate last year of 15c on vessels valued at $100,000 or over, but 30c on all others. But this discrimination often worked as a hardship to shippers who could not get $100,000 boats. FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. Toledo marine engineers willdance at Odd Fellows’ Temple or February 12. Rumor has it that Ingar Olson, of the Milwaukee life- saving station, has been appointed keeper of the new station at Bailey’s Harbor. Ice in Maumee River carried away two spans of the Lake Shore Bridge now building at Toledo, against which the vessel owners and masters are protesting. ~ The loss is estimated at $50,000. Sandusky’s city council has appointed Paul Miller, - Sidney Kilbourne, H. Hommel, James Flynn, and R. E. © Schuck a committee to go to Washington in the interest of an appropriation for that harbor. Lake underwriters are quoted by the daily press as agreeably surprised to find that repairs to ‘‘touch-and- go’’ damages sustained by vessels last’season foot up at about one-fifth the estimated cost. Parties in Ludington are negotiating for the Pere Marquette Lumber Co.’s dock and water front property, presumably in the interest of some railway company, supposed to be the Chicago & West Michigan. The work of building the new ore dock at Presque Isle, Marquette, has already begun, and will be finished early in the spring, or as soon as the new railroad is completed. T. A. Kearns, of Chicago, is the contractor. The report comes from Sault Ste. Marie that lumber- men in that vicinity, who have entered into season contracts for Canadian timber or lumber, are very much disturbed over the possibility of an investigation of the duty on lumber. General Flagler, Chief of the Ordinance Corps, ex- presses himself in prior of a line of forts from Ogdens- burg to Duluth. Congressman Woodman has intro- duced a bill to fortify Fort Brady sufficiently to defend the Sault locks in cases of emergency. Thieves broke into the cabin of the steamer I. Watson Stephenson at Marinette recently during the temporary absence of Capt. John Nicholson, who is shipkeeper, and carried away goods to the yalue of about $200. Among the articles taken was a valuable diamond and some other jewelry. It is possible that the stranded schooner Commerce will soon be sold at marshal’s sale. The debts out- standing against the vessel, it is reported, will reach $4,000 or more, which isa larger sum than the owner feels able to pay. This indebtedness was incurred in the endeavor to get the’Commerce afloat x Hard coal production for 1895 in the Eastern mines reached the enormous total of 46,545,000 tons. This surpasses 1894 by some 4,000,000 tons, and is higher than that of 1893, which was a record-breaker, by more than 3,000,000 tons. This is more than the demand of the anthracite trade can stand, says Black Diamond, and must have resulted in the accumulation of considerable stocks at the mines. Col. S. B. Dick, president. of the Shenango railroad jine and car ferry line, was in Washington last week. He advocated, before the House Committee on Rivers and Harbors, the placing of wing breakwaters extend- ing diagonally across the ends of the piers some 500 or 600 feet out into the lake, in order to facilitate the en- trance of vessels into the harbor. Thisis the same sort of breakwater that is wanted at Ashtabula. Nathaniel P. Stewart has commenced suit against the H. M. Loud & Sons Lumber Co., of Oscoda, laying his damages at $2,500. In his declaration the plaintiff alleges that on March 23, 1895, he entered into a con- tract with the defendants to sail the tug Petrel during the season of navigation for $60 a month and board, and that in July following they discharged him with- out cause. His bill of particulars amounts to $410. Capt. James Burns, 17th United States Inf., in a paper published at Columbus last week, Says that in case of war with Great Britain Cleveland or Chicago would be the first place assaulted. He said the capture of Columbus would be of more importance than the taking of any post south of Fortress Monroe, and sug- gested, among other things a canal across New York to be 100, feet wide at the bottom and of sufficient depth to be used profitably for commerce in time of peace and to admit the smaller naval vessels to the Great Lakes in time of war. : Major Wm. Ludlow, formerly U.S. Engineer at De- - troit, in charge of lighthouse work, now military at- tache at the court of St. James, and who served on the Nicaragua Canal commission, has been instructed to visit other famous waterways including the Suez Corinth, Kiel, North Holland and Manchester Canals, and the Caledonian system of interior navigation for the purpose of securing data and eXamining their en- gineering features, and their adaptation to problems to “aia in constructing a canal across the American sthmus. . —_— 6 Mnager Homer J. Carr, of the Lake Marine News Association, announces that in addition to its regular news service the association is preparing to cover Sault Ste. Marie and Mackinaw direct to private subcribers during the coming season and suggests that vessel men wait until March before closing any arrangements at these points. The Marine News Association expects to be able to offer them inducemeuts not hitherto possible under the old system of vessel reporting.