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tee i: % vy V3 SS ESTABLISHED 1878. (I VOL. XIX. NO. 44. CLEVELAND—OCTOBER 29, 1896—C To consider and take action upon all ‘general questions relating to the navigation and carrying business. of the Great... ~ Lakes, maintain necessary shipping offices and in general to protect the common interest of Lake Carriers, and improve the char- acter of the service rendered to the public. PRESIDENT. J.J. H. Brown, Buffalo, N. Y. VICE PRESIDENTS. Cleveland. C. A. Eddy, Bay City. Detroit GG. Hadley, Toledo, Bufialo. James McBrier, Erie. Chicago, Conrad Starke, Mitwaukee. Duluth. F. J. Firth, Philadelphia. Ogdensburg. SECRETARY. CHARLES H. Kerr, Buffalo, N. Y. ; TREASURER. @Gzorar P. McKay, Cleveland, 0. cel COUNSEL. ‘Harvey D. Goutprr, Cleveland. 0. COMMITTEE ON FINANCE. |. M. Hanna, Cleveland. D. C. Whitney, Detroit. E i Brown, Cleveland. W.P. Henry, Buffalo. James:.Corrigan, © Cleveland., J.J. H. Brown, Buffalo. H. A. Hawgood, Cleveland. David Vance, Milwaukee. ~ Thos. Wilson, Cleveland. R, P. Fitzgerald, | Milwaukee. M. A. Bradley, Cleveland. John G. Keith, -Chieago, J.C. Gilchrist.: Cleveland. J.S. Dunham, Chicago. E. M. Peck, Detroit. COMMITTEE ON LEGISLATION. Buffalo. James Corrigan, Cleveland. ene eae Buffalo. Wm. Livingston, Detroit. K. T. Eyans, Buffalo. James Millen, Detroit. P. P. Miller, Buffalo. Jesse Spaulding, Chicrgo. H. C. French, Buffalo. C. A. Eddy, Bay City. W. Bullard, Buffalo. Alex. MeDougl, _ Dulnth. Edward Smith, Buffalo. F. J. Firth, Philadelphia, H. M. Hanna, Cleveland. COMMITTEE ON AIDS TO NAVIGATION. : ay, Cleveland. W. M. Egan, Chicago. Ey areishecdoon: Cleveland. Frank Owen, Ogdensburg. H. G. Dalton, Cleveland. A. W. Colton, Toledo. B.L. Pennington, Cleveland. James Davidson, Bay City. Thomas Wilson, Cleveland. Alvin Neal, Port Huron, _ John W. Moore, Cleveland. M. M. Drake, Buffalo. W. S. Mack, Cleveland. W. Bullard, Buffalo, David C: Carter, Detroit. BEACH-COMBING FOR IRON ORE. It has long been recognized froma beach-comber’s standpoint that there are lots of fancy pickings to be gathered in along the beach; but there now comes from Milwaukee a dispatch stating that the sand of the beach of Lake Michigan alittle north of Waukegan, IIl., has been discovered to contain considerable iron, and a com- pany formed in Chicago, for the purpose of separating the iron from the sand and turning it into iron and steel. The company has been incorporated under the name of the United States Malleable Iron and Steel Company, with a capital stock of $100,000, by Henry H. Blake, Frank J. Kilcrane, and Manuel Friedlander. The pro- moters of the company have leased five miles of the lake front along the shore north of Waukegan, the property extending one-half mile or more into the country. The sand has been analyzed and is found to contain an av- erage of 10 per cent. of iron ore, which runs about 66 per cent in metallic iron. The ore is secured from the sand by magnetic separa- tors, and an experimental plant has been erected on the beach. ‘These separators willeach of them extract forty- two tons of ore from the sand per hour, and the capacity of the plant will be limited only by the number of sep- arators which are erected. The land is owned by asyn-_ dicate of Chicago and'EKastern capitalists. Itis expected that the company will be prepared in a very short time for business. It is proposed to erect a plant for the manufacture of iron and steel, and a process employed to manufacture products direct from the ore. Some small samples of iron and steel made from the ore have been tested and show a very excellent quality. A tool made of iron was twisted cold, showing nosigns of frac- ture. It has not been decided as yet whether the plant will be built near the beach or located in Chicago. PORTAGE LAKE CANAL. It is now announced that vessels drawing 15% feet can safely pass through Portage Lake channels by using care where the bottom is rocky. There is not less than 17 feet of water anywhere, and the soft bottom in the shoalest spots allow vessels to load safely to 151 feet. A depth of 16 feet could be carried, if. good and careful pilotage was displayed. —_— rr TO DREDGE LONG POINT CUT. There is an effort on foot to induce the Canadian government to deepen Long Point Cut so that light ves- sels can pass through it. There used to be six feet or more of water throughthe cut, but a late examination of it shows that not more than about a foot.can be de- pended on. ‘ The cut is fifteen miles inland from the light on the end of the point, and not more than a mile in length, so that boats sheltering behind the point could sail through the cut and save a detour of fifteen miles. The improvement at Port Dover, Ont., for the Con- neaut Car Ferry Line has brought Long Point into more use, as it isthe only shelter point for many miles up the lake. —_—— — A SOUND DEFLECTOR, It is the intention of the Light-House Department to provide the Milwaukee fog signal station with a sound deflector similar to those introduced with marked suc- cess at Lake Erie ports. The contrivance deflects the sound of the fog whistle lakeward and renders it in- audible on land in a ratio proportionate to the extent of the deflection. ‘Thus people of nervous disposition re- siding in the heart of thecity are not disturbed by the doleful sounds emanating from the whistle at regular intervals during the nights in thick weather on the lake. The sound given out by the principal fog signals not fitted with the deflector has been likened to a cow bel- lowing, but it would take a whole herd bellowing all to- gether to reproduce the volume of sound as heard on shore. EEE ee AMBERGRIS. ‘There has been a wholesale stranding, as reported in the daily papers, of a large number of sperm whales on a portion of the coast of New Zealand. This brought a London chemist to remark that ‘‘ambergrisisa peculiar accumulation in the intestines of diseased whales of a certain species, and is immensely valuable, sometimes rising toa price of £10 sterling for the ounce in the English market, forit is usedasa property, and nothing whatever can supply its place adequately in all really high-class perfumes, which it develops and accentuates ina wonderful way. - “Sometimes when a dead whale is discovered that same find produces a fortune at once to the lucky dis- coverer. I may say that I have known states of the market when ambergris could scarcely be got for love or money. One of the latest of the really authentic stories relating to ambergris deals with two Hobart Town fishermen, who, in 1891, begged, for some service rendered, the carcass of a whale from a ship’s captain. ‘This whale yielded a mass of ambergris weighing 2,603 ounces, of the value of $115,000, and one fact of the story is that the ship’s captain was so chagrined at passing the treasure by that he committed suicide. The mass of precious ambergris was consigned toa Londoner, who was artful enough to disposé of it in yery small quanti- ties, to keep the. matter a secret, and to take care that the market was not flooded. Ambergris is sometimes found floating near where whales congregate. “Thirteen years ago a wholesale chemist, like myself, HICAGO. S2 PER YEAR. 10c. SINGLE COPY bought an old business, and he noticed one package among the stock which hid, old servants of the firm said, been lying in the warehouse for years, it having come from the Wc«st Indies, and never, apparently, been opened. Examination revealed that this supposedly worthless parcel was a lump of ambergris weighing three hundred-weight, and it fetched 190 shillings an ounce at the then market price.”’ eer Enna HOW THE ENGLISH LLOYDS INSURE. “A man said to methe other day,”’ said Capt. J. C. Bur- ton, the well-known insurance agent of Detroit, toa Jour- nal reporter, ‘‘that the insurance companies must be mak- ing ‘a pretty good thing’ this year. I asked him why, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘you have had so few losses to cover.’ Yes, I'said, but we have been rebating on boats, lots of them, andit only takes a few accidents on large boats to cuta big hole in premiums, 1 can tell you. Now the English Lloyds come into this country, and can come into this state and get business and give a rate 3 per cent better than any other company, and still make just the same. You know there is a state tax of 3 per cent on the, gross premiums of a company doing fire or marine insurance business, Idon’t know anything about life insurance. For instance: A Detroit vessel owner wants a risk taken by the English Lloyds. He applies to the agents stationed in New York city. They forward the applica- tion on to Liverpool and it is made up. Now there is a law in this state and in New York state, and I guess in. the rest of the states, prohibiting an.agent doing busi- ness for boats owned in that state with a company not properly admitted to the state. they cannot have done for New York shipping in New York, they can make application to the Philadelphia office and have the application forwarded to Liverpool from there. The Lloyds is not admitted to a single state in this country, nor have they even so much as an attorney on this side of the water. In my recollection, however, there has never been a disputed case with them. Any one who would begin action against them must do so in England, and sooner than allow such a contin- gency to arise, and so jeopardize their great interests here, they are willing to pay alittle more. Their saving of three per cent on the gross premiums alone amounts toa large sum yearly. I would favor making the ad- mittance of foreign insurance companies a federal af- fair. Then they would have to stand on an equal foot- ing with the rest of us.”’ EE THE MUSKEGON’S DAMAGE. It now appears that the damage to the steamer Mus- kegon, incurred while dry-docking at Milwaukee, is not as great as was supposed. Surveyors who examined her as she rested in the dry-dock before being floated agree that the steamer can be put in as good condition as she was before the mishap for from $4,000 to $5,000. It is understood that the dry-dock company offered to place the Muskegon in thorough repair for $4,000 or submit the matter to arbitration, and in the event of the rejection of these propositions to enter into litigation. The dry-dock company attributes the accident to the fact that the engineers began drifting out two broken holding-down bolts, to replace which the craft was being docked, before she rested upon the blocks, and that when her weight began to rest upon these bolts, which exceeded in length the height of the keel blocks, they bent and sent the steamer ahead so that several blocks were tripped by them, which caused the forward end to drop upon the floor of the dry-dock, The Lloyds have another office in Philadelphia, and any business that,