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THE MARINE RECORD. v4 Soo OOOO eer ee ee Ee ere errs Ss Se eee ASHTABULA’S INCREASED FACILITIES. The Ashtabula Beacon, in a recent issue, summar- ized as follows the increased facilities for discharging and loading cargo at that port: Ashtabula’s facilities for the handling of ore and coal this year are in marked contrast to those of last year. From year to year the railroad companies interested at this port have spent thousands of dollars in making im- provements and this year is no exception. A brief summing up of the different improvements being made here will give the people an idea of what is being done and will show that Ashtabula is not going to be behind, but will retain her distinction as the greatest ore re- _ceiying port in the world and rank high in the shipping of coal. . On the Lake Shore side a long stretch of dock has just been completed and will probably be used by the Minnesota Transportation company in connection with their docks on the opposite side of the slip. On this dock the Lake Shore Railroad company will erect 10 or 12 Brown hoisting machines. The Brown machines have been in use on the harbor docks for years. . At No. 5% dock on the Lake Shore side the Youghio- gheny River Coal Company are having builta mammoth car-dump machine, which will make a great saving of time in comparison with the machines formerly used on this dock. Lake Shore dock No. 1 will also be fitted out and the old crane machines replaced with new ones of a different make. : : Last year eight cantilever conveying machines were built on the P. Y. & A. dock and this spring two more have been added to the same dock. Their speed for un- loading is well known. ’ At Laird & Sons’ shipyard a large scow is being built for M. A. Hanna & Co., and will be used for the fueling COL boats. ‘These improvements with the 20-foot channel and the breakwater that the government is expected to _ build will bring more trade to this port and advance Ashtabula’ business interests more than ever before. OP TELEPHONING BY WATER. The United States Lighthouse Board have carried out experiments which demonstrate that telephoning can be carried on at sea with vessels near shore. An iron- armoured submarine cable was laid from Sandy Hook at the power station of the Gedney Channel Electric Buoy System, out to the Scotland Lightship, five statute miles, of which one-half mile was underground across the Hook. A copper-wire gridiron arrangement was fixed at the end of this cable, and by this and other methods, an electrical diffusion area was created, different electrical potentials, sufficient for prac- tical purposes, being found at any two points 100 feet or so apart on the water’s surface. The lighthouse tender Gardenia, suitably equipped with transmitting and receiving circutts, found that there were over sixteen acres of water around the lightship throughout which telephonic conversation could be carried on with Sandy Hook Station, and while under fullsteam. Asthe Gardenia has a wooden hull without sheathing, two plates of sheathing metal seven feet by three feet were attached to bow and stern, and wires were run ftom them to the pilot-house. The plates were about 113 feet apart and sufficient potential difference existed over the sixteen acres to operate the telephone well. : rrr ee The battle ships Indiana and Massachusetts are wonderful boats. There is not the’r superior anywhere. They are the best in the way of battle ships that have ever yet been launched. They really put the Cramps in the lead as builders of war ships. Is this not a tribute to American energy, skill, and genius in ship building . that must be subscribed to by all maritime people? The cost of these vessels will be pointed out as being against them. Butitis only a short time ago it was claimed that such vessels could not be built in the United States at any cost. And in war vessels the cost is of minor importance where the best generally means the most successful, and also the cheapest in theend. Foreign nations buying war ships should look at the American kind. They are models which excite the envy of other bullders. As the predictions over the inability of the Americans to build the best war vessels have turned out false, it may be taken for granted that the predic- - tions as to the inability of the American to build a merchant marine will be notruer.—New York Maritime Register. eel agape 28 LE NOTiCE TO MARINERS. FOG BELL AT PORT DAI,HOUSIE. A bell has been attached to the platform of the range light tower near the outer end of the east pier at Port Dalhousie, Lake Ontario, and willbe rung by hand, as a fog signal, in reply to fog signals from vessels desir- ing to make the canal. THE WRECK OF THE ADAMS. The obstruction on which the barge Teutonia struck ast week proved to be the wreck of the schooner G. W. Adams, sunk by ice last fall. Capt. F. B. Haekett has placed over the spot a float with two bright lights, which will be left there until the wreck is removed. The wreck is two miles west frcm Colchester and four and one-half miles north-west from Colchester light. NOTES FOR NAVIGATORS, Supt. G. A. Marr, of Portage Lake Canal, reports that the annual dredging in the upper canal has been completed and that there is now a 150-foot channel from Portage Entry through to Lake Superior. Considerable dredging has been done at Sandusky and there is now seventeen feet of water at the B. & O, coal and ore docks. ee COLONEL LYDECKER IN CHARGE. General Craighill, Chief of Engineers, U.S. A., has assigned Lieut. Col., G. J. Lydecker, already stationed at Detroit, and in charge of improvements on the east coast of Lake Michigan and the West coast of Lake Huron, to the additional duties of the conduct of the 20- foot channel and Sault canal improvements which were in charge of thelate Gen. O. M. Poe. The assignment has been given as temporary, but as the duties of Gen. Poe’s force are in a.manner temporary, the arrange- ment may be considered as permanent. ‘The offices will now be consolidated, and the force at Lieut. Cavanaugh’s offices will doubtless be transferred to the offices of Col. Lydecker in the Telephone Building, Detroit. Col. Ly- decker will also have charge of the sale of engineers charts. ED oO MARYLAND AND DELAWARE CANAL BILL. Senator Elkins, of West Virginia, has introduced in the Senate a bill to provide for the construction of the Maryland and Delaware Free Ship Canal, as a means of military and naval defence and for commercial pur- poses. ‘This canal, connecting the waters of the Chesa- peake and Delaware Bays, is not to be less than 100 ft. wide at the bottoin, 30 ft. below mean low water and 178.ft. wide at low-water level, and sufficient to allow the passage of vessels of the largest size in use in ocean traffic. The Secretary of War is authorized to appoint a commission to select the most desirable of the three cen- tral routes known as the Southeast Creek route,-the Centreville route and the Queenstown route, An ap- propriation of one million dollars is carried in the bill. -__,- OEE a NEWLY ENROLLED TONNAGE. Following is a list of lake vessels to which official numbers and signal letters have been assigned by the Commissioner of Navigation, for three weeks ended April 25: Official TONNE - Rig. Name. ~~. pas, | Home Port.!Where Bui No. A Gross. | Net. Ms te 107,219 (Schr.|Armenia 2,049.76] 1,919.78] Pt. Huron |W. Bay City 3,678 [Schr |Bertie 43.95) 35.77/ Detroit |Mt. Clem’ns 3,679 |St. s.|Bloom’r Girl] 95.43) 64.85) Chicago |Ludington 127,131 |St. s.|0’v ofBangor| 3,690.90) 2,976.38] Pt. Huron |W. Bay City 77,216 |St. s.|J. T. Martin 47.83] 32.53] Pt. Huron |Port Huron rr re DETROIT RIVER MARINE POSTOFFICE. A number of our subscribers have already directed that their addresses be changed, upon the opening of navigation, so that ‘lax RECORD will be sent to-them in care of the vessel on which they will be engaged, via the Detroit River Marine Postoffice. This river service will be continued this season, and made even more efficient than last year, and we call the attention of our subscribers to this arrangement as according a certain and reasonably prompt delivery of THE RECORD, week by week, to those engaged in the trafflc up and down the lakes, THE LIBRARY TABLE. Professor James T. Bixby, Ph! D., whose portrait forms the frontispiece of Arena for May, contributes a paper to his number on ‘‘Professor Roentgen’s Discov- ery and the Invisible World Around Us.’’? Other con- tents are the second part of Dr. J. Heber Smith’s ‘‘Man in His Relation tothe Solar System;’? ‘““‘Why the West Needs Free Coinage,” by C.S. Thomas; “The Land of the Noonday Sun,’ continued, by Justice Walter Clark, Li. D.; ‘‘America’s Relation to England,’ Eveleen Laura Mason; and a number of other able papers on various subjects of interest, besides valuable literary contributions in short and serial form. An able and suggestive symposium under the title of “The Engineer in Naval Warfare” is presented as the opening feature of the May number of the NortH AMERICAN REVIEW, the contributors to it being such eminent authorities as Commodore George W. Melville, Engineer-in-chief of the United States Navy; W. S. Ald- rich, Professor of Mechanical Engineering in the Uni- versity of West Virginia; Ira N. Hollis, Professor of Engineering in Harvard University; Gardiner C. Sims, of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers; and George Uhler, President of the Marine Engineers’ Beneficial Association. ‘The noted French astronomer, Camille Flammarion, writes most interestingly of “‘Mars and Its Inhabitants,’ andin “Men Who Might Have Been Presidents,’’ Joseph M. Rogers of the Phila- delphia Inquirer, throws some important light on the presidential elections of the past. ‘‘Western Feeling Towards the Kast,” is succinctly portrayed by Senator William V. Allen, of Nebraske. ‘‘The United States and Great Britain; A Reply to Mr. David A. Wells,” affords Mayo W. Hazeltine opportunity to criticize the former’s statement of facts set forth in his article in the April Review. Other topics dealt with are: ‘‘Con- stitutional Suffrage for Women,”’ by W. S. Harwood, “Great Britain’s Service to Civilization,” by Capt. A. S. Crowninshield, U. S. N. FOUR WELL-KNOWN BROTHERS. Capt. William T. Brown, formerly in command of the steamer Oscar T. Flint, and a brother ot Capt. George A. Brown, of the steamer Arrow, has been appointed pilot of the steamer North West. Capt. Brown has three brothers, each of whom are well known along the chain of lakes as vesselmen, having followed the lakes from boyhood. Capt. Wesley Brown, formerly in com- mand of the steamer Centurion and a part of last sea- son master of the North West, is now superintendent of the Northern Steamship Line. Another brother, John, 1s master of the steamer Margaret Orwill. Sherman Brown, the youngest of the four brothers, will not sail this year, but will remain ashore at Detroit, where he is engaged in business with his father-in-law.—Sandusky Register. p- EEE — a MOVEMENTS OF FRIEGHT. Marquette—Shipments of ore for the week ending May 2 were 55,332 tons, and of lumber 1,100,000 feet. Ashtabula—Ore receipts for April, 27,583 tons, as campared with 1,905 tons in 1895. Coal shipments were 42,417 tons, as compared with 10,445 tons in 1895. Buffalo—There was on dock here May 1, 16,317 tons the smallest quantity reported for a number of years. Ashland—Shipments for the week ending May 2 were 15,000 tons of ore and 1,600,000 feet of lumber. Gladstone—Shipments for week ending May 2 were: Ore, 6,000 tons; grain, 332,000 bushels; lumber, 1,500,000 feet; cedar, 51,000 pieces; flour, 50,000 barrels. --eennEn a Imports at the port of Tacoma, for April, 1896, were as follows: Oriental merchandise, per N. P. steamship Strathleven, $123,000; previously reported, $775,000; total imports for four months, $898,000; imports for same period last year, $2,052,250. Exports were as follows: 125,390 bu. wheat to Africa, $62,695; 35,392ibarrels flour to Africa and China, $106,176; 7,222,358 feet of lumber to Australia and coast ports, $69,343; 29,825 tons coal to San Francisco, $90,700; merchandise to China and Japan, $88,451; merchandise to British Colambia, $30,131.51; total, $447,496.57; previously reported, $1,796,303.97; total exports four months, $2,243,800 54; exports same period last year, $1,690,366.93. Deep sea arrivals for April, 31; deep sea departures, 36; inward registered tonnage, 37,740; outward registered tonnage, $39,847; inward cargo tonnage. 2,450; outward cargo tonnage, 45,837,