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4 NEWS AROUND THE LAKES. a ’ ~ CLEVELAND. Facrs Asour ANOraER CONTROVERSY BETWEEN THE Crty AND THE UNITED STATES ENGINEERS. CLEVELAND, August 5. Some controversy has again arisen over the damage to the steamer Say When on July 18, of last year, which was incurred by striking a sunken wreck in the west breakwater basin. The matter was taken up by the city Board of Control which, without investigating either the law or the facts, passed resolutions calling the attention of the Secretary of War to the occurrence, the resolutions being virtually a complaint of the manner in which Col. Jared A. Smith was attending to the office duties—this too, without communicating in any way with Col. Smith on the subject. Spurred on by the acts of the board of which he was the ex-officio secre- tary, the mayor’s private secretary, Mr. McClure, took . occasion to also go off at half-cock and to write, in a let- ter enclosing the resolutions, some amazing statements expressed in a most unequivocal manner, and represent- ing that he had personal knowiedge of the alleged facts, which were that sundry ancient wrecks decorated the bottom of the harbor, and were a constant menace to commerce of the port. The letter and resolutions were at once referred back to Col. Smith, who instituted an investigation, but was unable to get any but the most evasive replies from either the mayor, his secretary, of the Department of Accounts and General Gossip, to which the matter for some mysterious reason was referred. They admitted that they had been without p2rsonal knowledge of the facts on which they so glibly expressed themselves, but said they had been told by two gestlemen connected with the marine fraternity, whom they mentioned by name. A survey of the harbor was instituted and six submerged wrecks were found, every one of them inside the harbor lines, and all of which it devolved upon the city toremove. The only obstructions outside the harbor line were a stump, close to the breakwater, with about 18 feet of water over it, a timber embeded in the bottom in 20 feet of water,which has since been remov- ed, and about 5C feet of the wreck of the old steamer Wah- napitae, which lies at the end of the breakwater near the light, and in a position where no vessel could strike it without first running upon the riprap protection of the breakwater. This very mishap occurred to a Northern Line steamer a year or so ago, which struck the riprap and injured her bottom. Had the riprap not been there, the breakwa'er would have been badly damaged. Capt. Todd, master of the Say When, pointed out, as closely as he could, the place where he struck the ob- struction. He might have struck at either of two places, very close to the spot he pointed out; but one of these is 150 feet, and the other 350 feet inside the har- bor line. Should Col. Smith attempt to remove any of these wrecks which the city’s boy mayor has so loudly complained of. he would have done the work at his own expense, for any claim presented for harbor operations inside the harbor lines would certainly be disallowed by the War Department. It is little wonder that Col. Smith referred to the letter and the resolutions as an act of extreme discourtesy to his office, as well as an un- warranted slander upon the commercial facilities of the port; for not one of these wrecks lies in any position near where any freight or passenger boat has any busi- ness whatever. Now it appears that the mayor is ‘‘dipleased’’ at the language of Col. Smith’s report. And what is more, the owner of the Say When, ex-Congressman White, of whom out of all this crowd it can be said that he ‘tought to know better,’’ has resented the statement in the report in a public interview, and has allowed himself to be quoted as making a very serious charge againt the engineers’ office. If the statement imputed to Mr. White is true, he should lay his information, with proper affidavits, before the War Department. If the charges are untrue, or if he has been misquoted, he owes it to both himself and the engineer in charge to set himself right. The writer had the pleasure, several months ago, of seeing a carefully prepared chart of the outer and inner harbor, projected on a large scale, with the location of all these wrecks plainly marked. If the city administration is so anxious for their removal, why has it not taken sufficient pa'ns to look the matter up and to remove the wrecks? Not that it is really neces- sary, for the space they occupy will all be dry land in a few years; but this escapade seems rather an aggrava- ted case of the absurdities to which we have become so accustomed in this and other city administrations. It is only just to stste, however, that the gentleman who now occupies the post of secretary to the Mayor and the Board of Control, has too much sense. tact, and modesty to soil good writiug paper with unautheiticated state. ments tending to belittle and cast reflections upon his own city and port. Among the more prominent visitors to this port this week were Capt. Wesley Brown, of the Northern Steam- ship Line, and Capt. Howard Shaw, who has charge of Eddy-Shaw fleet Mr. W. J. Wood, the well-known marine architect, has been spending his vacation with friends in the city, and in camp with Troop A, of which he is a member. Mr. Wood has been with the Goodrich Transportation THE MarinE RECORD. Co,, of Lake Michigan, for more than a year past, as de- signer and superintendent of construction of the steamer Iowa, and has been retained to look after con- templated improvements and additions to the com- pany’s fleet for another year. CHICAGO. ONE SIDE OF THE STORY OF A LAKE MICHIGAN COL. LISION—Por?t Sraristics FOR JuLy—THE NEW STEAMER IOWA. Special Correspondence to The Marine Record. OFFICE of the MARINE RECORD, t Cuicaco, August 5. The Hurson Line steamer F. & P. M. No. 1, bound for Milwaukee, collided with the schooner George Sturges Sunday night, at 10:30 o’clock, about four miles off Waukegan. The schooners Sturges and Elgin were in tow of the Independent Line tug D. P. Hall. The story is that the tug, seeing the steamer approaching, sig- naled her, blowing two whistles, and the steamer re- sponded with one; the tug gave two blasts in response, and kept on her course with the schooners. The steamer answered with two blasts and starboarded her wheel to ago astern of the Sturges, and then, without giving another signal, put her wheel to port and struck the Sturges on the starboard bow. She then ran ahead of the schooner and across her bows, getting the tow line under her bottom, and nearly rolled the tug over. The tow line was cut by the steamer at about the same time it was let go by the tug to prevent her rolling over. The Sturges received some damage to her rail and cat- head and head-gear. The master of the steamer has since resigned. 3 Henry B. Burger, shipbuilder, of Manitowoc, was in Chicago on Saturday. J. J: Rardon & Co, chartered the steamer Arizona and consorts Plymouth and Scotia for corn to Kingston at 23%4c, the steamer George H. Hadley for corn to Buffalo at1%c. Capt. John Prindiville chartered the steamer Philip Minch for corn to Buffalo at 1%c, the steamer Frontenac for corn to Port Huron at»1%c, the steamer Norwalk for corn to Kingston at 25¢c. Carr & Blair chartered the steamer Lindsay for corn to Port Huron at 1%c, the steamer George T. Hope for corn to Buffalo at 1%c, the schooner J. C. Fitzpatrick for corn to Fair- port at 1c, the steamers Tampa and John F. Eddy for corn to Port Huron at 1¢c, the steamer Coralia for corn, South Chicago to Fairport, at1%c. It isestimated that the Coralia will beat all former records considerably, and the last record which was accorded the steamer Queen City by about 20,000 bushels on the same draft of water, J. A. Calbick & Co. chartered the steamer James H. Prentice and consort Halsted for corn to Sarnia at llc. Despite the depression in lake business, which has caused a considerable portion of the lake fleets to go into ordinary, the custom house figures for the port of Chicago for July show the largest amount of tonnage entering and clearing for one month in the history of Chicago. ‘The total arrivals for the district amount to 1,035,671 tons, there being 1,415 vessels. Of this 202,970 tons are charged to South Chicago, and 728,418 tons to Chicago. The coastwise clearances amount to 991,789 tons, of which 298,853 tons were from South Chicago, and 692,936 tons from Chicago. The lumber steamer I. Watson Stephenson, owned by IL, W. Stephenson, of Menominee, was yesterday fined $500 for violating Title 52 of the Revised Statutes concerning vessels. The Stephenson was boarded by the revenue cutter Calumet several days ago anda num- ber of passengers were found on board, although the boat had no passenger license. The passengers were guests of the boat’s owners, but the letter of the law was violated. : ; The old schooner Tempest, which had been disman- tled and allowed to remain idle for a period of ten years or more, was towed into the lake by one of the Dunham Line tugs and sunk last week. ‘Che Tempest was built at Racine by Gilson in 1848. She came out originally as a fore-and-after, but in 1869 was rebuilt, lengthened and given a mizzenmast. The measure- ment of the craft in enlarged form was 156 net tons. During the World’s Fair an effort was made to have the Tempest fitted out and exhibited as a representative of the old time fleet of lake vessels, but the idea was aban- doned. (siJames L.. Higgie, Jr., Receiver for the Vessel Owner’s Towirg Company, sold the tug Protection to the Dun. ham Towing and Wrecking Company for $4,250 cash. The steamer George Dunbar has been laid up, Captain Turner thinking it better to lay her up than to run her into debt. The Goodrich ‘Transportation Co.’s new steamer Iowa arrived here Tuesday morning, at 10:50, on her maiden trip to thisyport. She made the run from Mani- towoc in twelve hours and fifty minutes, which is con- sidered a good run with new machinery. Her dimen- sions are 203 feet keel, 218 feet over all, 36 feet beam, 12% feet hold; engine steeple compound, 21 and 44 by 36; two Scotch type boilers, 10% by 10 feet, allowed 140 lbs. steam pressure. C, I’. Klmes, Chicago, built the engine, and John mohr& Sons the boilers. The Iowa is a three-decker ; she has 52 staterooms on the cabin deck, and 24 on the hurricane deck; also a fine smoking- room on the hurricane deck. There is a handsome stairway leading from the main cabin forward to the ladies’ vestibule on the hurricane deck, and also a hand- some stairway from the main cabin aft to the upper aft staterooms. ‘The stairways and offices on the steamer are finished in hardwood of birch; the saloon, and up- per cabins and staterooms, are painted Nile green, and the carpets are moquette of light green, with pink flowers. The fittings and furnishing throughout of Cabins and staterooms are very neat and tasty, and they have all modern conveniences and comforts for the traveling public.. The Iowa was built by Burger & Burger, at Manitowoc, and isas good as the best of wood and iron and workmanshipcan make her, and in addi- tion to the heavy, well-fastened timber wtth which she is built, she has a truss of diagonal steel strapping. Her officers are Captain J. C. Raleigh ; first mate, Wm. Oetling; chief engineer, J. Bushman; purser, C. B. Hamilton; steward, Henry McCarthy. ‘The Iowa will leave here Wednesday evening on the route between Chicago, Grand Haven and Muskegon, taking the place of the steamer City of Rome until further orders. : WILLIAMS. BUFFALO. : Goop LUMBER AND GRAIN RECEIPTS IN SPITE OF THE APPARENT DEADNE:S—LINERS IN COMMISSION AGAIN. Special Correspondence to The Marine Recora. Burrao, August 4... These are the days when the vessel owner is wonder- ing where he is at and what he will be at next week. Coal freights took their final plunge Monday, when shippers refused to pay more than 20c to any port, and vessel owners said, ‘‘ Do please let us have some to carry at that rate, or we must tie up,’’ but even then the shippers held off and appear not to be ready to send it forward in any quantity. So far, next touothing has tied up here. A few of the sinaller line boats stopped a short time, but they are mostly in business again. But it will have to come yet, to all appearance. j There is a strange boom in the lumber trade, so far as this port is-concerned. With the lumbermen com- ~ plaining that there is nv life in the business, all at once the boats began to pile the lumber into this port, and they brought us a matter of 62,000,000 feet in July, which is more than half the entire amount of the season. The fleet has now dropped off somewhat, but the receipts promise to be large for some time yet. Then the grain has poured in with scarcely any abate- ment on account of the midsummer season, and it pro- mises to be much the largest season in the grain busi- ness, whether there is any more ore or coal to carry or not. Already the total grain and flour received exceeds 75,000,000 bushels, with the fleet coming in still large. It will have to be settled here and now, apparently, ashether there are any 400-foot boats that can carry grain at 2c or 1c per bushel ‘and make a living, — going up light. These are hard lines; but they have — opened the way for carrying freight at a great reduc- — tion from the old rates. But for occasional pinching times there would still have been a 12c rate from Chicago to Buffalo, just as there wasin the ’60’s, with vessels still carrying cargoes of-10,000 bushels. i Everybody 1s talking about the monster load brought in here this week by the new steamer Senator, 238,062 bushels of oats, or 3,808 tons, and wondering when this — style of going one better is going to stop. It appears that the Senator is not going to bring down any more grain right away. She has proved what she can do on the Lake Superior draft, and will now go for ore to Lake Superior. As she has a good contract, she will not need to get back to Chicago till the elevators fill up again. It seemed almost incredible to observe her 13-foot mark part way out of the water when she began to discharge at the Bennett elevator. ie ‘There was the usual big crowd at the launch of the Union Liner Ramapo last Saturday, and there were some extras out besides. The wheelmen and wheel- women were, of course, out in force, and the roofs and masts of vessels in the vicinity were black with young- sters. One roof was so loaded down with them that one newspaper man took some notes preparatory to writing the scene up if the roof fell in. On a convenient shed roof the management had prepared a sort of grand tand for the reporters and photographers, which was” a decided novelty here. Probably the most enjoym- t was taken in by a company that came from out of th city in a carry-all. Weare not used to seeing the 20+ foot mark on vessels launched for the lake trade, but was remarked that the second cipher on the Ramapo was far enough down her side to be submerged withou coming up to her yanp ways. a Of course the vessel offices are filled these days with talk on the political outlook, but somehow there has n free-silver orator developed here yet among vessel men May be some other port has a few to spare aud will lenc us one, just to keep the talk lively. Capt. H. Smithi one of the men who never says much of a matter un- less there seems to be reason for it, so he merely wear a very yellow marigold in his buttonhole and remark quietly that he is for gold, The schooner St. Lawrence will never find ont wht hit her on her trip down the lakes, it seems, Afte doing some patching afloat she has gone into dry-do to compiete the job. oa Mayor Jewett has appointed a strong citizens’ com mittee to advise in the matter of developing the wate