The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

THE MARINE RECORD. ESTABLISHED 1878. Published Beery "Thissday by THE MARINE RECORD PUBLISHING CO., Incorporated. GEO. L. SMITH, President. C. E, RUSKIN, - - - - Manager, CAPT. JOHN SWAINSON, - - - Editor. THOS. WILLIAMS, Chicago, - - Associate. CLEVELAND, gE CHICAGO. Western Reserve Building. Royal Insurance Building. SUBSCRIPTION. One Copy, one year, postage paid, - - $2.00. ‘One Copy, one year, to foreign countries. - - $3.00. piveriably in advance, ADVERTISING. pate eres on ce Medes oat communications should be addressed to the Cleveland office. THE MARINE RECORD PUBLISHING CO., Western Reserve Building, Cleveland, Ohio. Entered at Cleveland Postoffice as second-class mail matter. CLEVELAND, O., APRIL 6, 1897. . Capt. George A. Zinn, Corps of Engineers, U. S. A., stationed at Milwaukee, advertises for proposals this week for dredging at Green Bay harbor, in Fox River, below De Pere, 50,000 cubic yards is to be dredged. TE Sore - The Hydrographic Office, Navy Department, Washing- ton, D. C., are about to issue a chart showing the forms or types of clouds according to the latest nomenclature. -A-book containing similar data is also expected from the ‘press at an early date. or - The Northern Steamship Co. announce from the ofhice of the vice president at Duluth, that Mr. I. M. Bortle is appointed general passenger agent of the company with headquarters at Buffalo. The order went into effect April Ist, signed by Mr. Farrington. oo 2 oe Reports from a score of lake ports within the past forty-eight hours show that the lakes with the exception of Superior and the Straits of Mackinac are practically open for navigation, whenever vessels like to force the passage. oe The Dixon Graphite Co., of Jersey City, N. J., have issued a blotter for April showing the universal Easter lily. We do not see that the Dixon’s Silica graphic paint is demonstrated in their new blotter, but it is evident that the Jos. Dixon Crucible Co. desire to keep to the front in their April publication. eI The hydrographic office issues of notices to mariners and the charts published are of direct interest to marine men. This branch service on the lakes is of more im- portance than anything which has occurred in lake navi- gation for several years past and should therefore be up- held from every standpoint of lake sailing and industries. ‘We may be pardoned for calling attention to a slight _ typographical error in the report of proceedings of the national board of steam navigation held in St. Louis. On page 20 it ruled that “Steamers of 200 tons and over 100 tons shall have on such bulkhead not less than ten feet abaft the stern.” Of course mistakes will happen even in the best regulated families and even with such a technical and highly skilled management as the national board has a letter or two is liable to become misplaced, but they would be hard put to it, if they insisted on carrying out to the letter the New York resolutions of March 17,. 1806, when Mr. D. M, Munger was secretary pro tem. ROTATION OF WINDS. A study of the law of storms should be useful, and in- teresting to many of our readers, and we herewith give a brief sketch, or synopsis of the marked and well-known characteristics of the cyclonic storm, referring to Pidding- ton or Dove’s law of the gyration of winds or any other standard work, to any one requiring a more elabor- ate explanation. While it is generally admitted by all authorities that moderate gales of wind travel over and expend their fury within a circle of 700 miles, such can- not always be said of the cyclone or hurricane, and in this connection we may say that the name changes only on ac- count of the geographical position as the typhoon of the China seas might appropriately be called a pampero if blowing on the east coast of South America, and the cyclone of the Bay of Bengal, or Indian Ocean, be named a hurricane in the Atlantic, while their characteristics are each and all essentially cyclonic. Hence, we may infer that the word cyclone covers the various terms in use over the globe. While admitting that there are local features to be considered marking the geographical location of the storm, yet the direction, velocity, etc., are similar. The cyclone has a double motion, rotary, and progressive, and moves in the northern hemisphere from right to left, or in a direction against the hands of a clock. In the southern hemisphere the opposite movement ‘s according to the law of storms, and the rotary motion is from left to right as.a person would read, or as the hands of a clock revolve. The center of a-cyclone bears about eight points from the direction of the wind, and to the right in the northern hemisphere, but to the left in the southern hemisphere, while the line of progress, that 1s, the line on which the center-of the cyclone moves is the central track of the storm. Authorities seem to coincide with the view that the rotary motion increases the effect of the progressive motion in the semi-circle, which is to the right of the central track, decreasing in that semi- circle which is on the left of the same line. To illus- trate this seeming paradox it is said that if a line be drawn through the center, at right angles to the central track, then at any, point on that half of it which is on the right of the central track, the effect of the wind is equal to the sum of both the rotary and progressive motions, but at any point on the other half, the effect is the difference of their motions, and in this case it may be clearly seen that the wind in the right hand semicircle rotates with and gains velocity on account of its pursuing the same path as the progressive motion, while in the left hand semi- circle the velocity of the wind, so far as regards its rota- tion must be decreaged by the amount of the progressive force as the path is opposite to that of the axis, or pro- gressive motion. An observer wishing to know on which side of the central track he is located, may note the direc- tion of the wind at short intervals, then if the wind veers to the right (the observer being supposed to face the wind), he is in the right hand semicircle of the cyclone, but if it veers to the left, he is situated somewhere in the left hand semicircle of the storm. Therefore in heaving a vessel to, she ought to lay on the starboard tack when in the right hand semicircle of the storm, and on the port tack when in the left hand semicircle, while if the observer is on the central track, the wind will blow directly and constantly from one-quarter of the compass during half of the duration of the storm, accompanied by hard squalls and a falling barometer. As the center of the cyclone ap- proaches the place of the observer, several effects may be noted among which may be mentioned a rapidly falling barometer, sky dark and threatening, wind increasing in weight, and squalls more frequent, but as the center re- cedes from the place of the observer, the barometer rises steadily, and the weather gradually moderates. oor TONNAGE. The word ton seems to have been derived more from the measure of liquid capacity than the unit of ship meas- urement, the word originally indicating a wooden vessel of the shape of a cask, used for the storage and trans- port of wine, and it is more than probable that the tun became the unit of measure for the ship from the fact that from an early period it was the custom of the British Government to charge import duties and charges on wine were levied upon it. The Nautical Magazine which Mr. Hall, who quotes original documents of an early date in connection with the revenues in England, says: “Out of five to give the true burden for merchant ships, a method every cargo of ten tuns, or above ten tuns and und twenty tuns, one tun to be purchased by the king at hi own price. Above twenty tuns two tuns to be so pu veyed, and no more, irrespective of the bulk of the car. Oo. A further regulation prescribing that one tun should taken from before the mast, and one behind it, points t the fact that the vessels of those times had but one ma and were not decked amidships, hence the best pract ‘measure of the size of ship would be the number of tun casks which would go into her hold. So far the wor tonnage had no connection with the size of the ship, but a certain connection between tunnage imports and ship- ping is shown by the fact that sometimes when a subsidy of tunnage was voted to the king it was specified that it was to be applied to the sea defenses of the kingdom. As eatly as 1379 the French éxacted from the. British ton- nage dues, and Richard II. ordered duties to be levied up- on vessels outward and homeward and that this wa upon vessels and not upon cargoes is proved by the fact that fishing vessels were to pay a certain sum while em ployed in fishing. However, as trade and commerce increased a definite mode of measuring had necessarily to be established, and several methods were devised and practiced at various — times. A shipwright and mariner named William Suther- land published a work in 1711 in which is stated two good ~ old ways for finding the tonnage of a ship; first to multi- ply the length of the keel by the length of the midship — beam, and also by one-half of the length of the beam, and to divide by ninety-four; the second rule is to take the length of the keel, breadth of the beam, and depth’ of. the : hold, multiplying them together and dividing by ninety- which at the present day and according to the models which are now put afloat would not only be erroneous, but ruinous to ship owners. Moorson, Bushnell’ and others have determined a system in the past equally faulty. Sterling’s rule for finding the contents of a curved body seems the more correct, and forms the basis of all yee present rules for tonnage and displacement. © ae or oo own LAKE LEVELS. While most eminent authorities concur in the belief ‘cna precipitation alone rules the level of the lakes, there are people who believe that submarine springs and possibly submarine rivers having a large outflow are accountable for the uniform and permanent depth found over the cen-. ter portions of the lakes, besides, the fact that so many boulders, and shoal-spots are now being located. by navigators, might lend a color to the submarine river theory. A strong under current such as would be forced from the boundary of a submarine river wherever it ap- proached the surface of the bottom, would readily account for the obstructions and shoal places being found in the many channels and fairways, which, up to the present time, were considered well known. Even admitting that some of the dangers to navigation had been previously known, but not marked, there is ample evidence to show that a hidden power is at work gradually causing more or less alteration of the bottom in several localities. Nor can the theory of ground ice making all of these changes be given too much credence. It may be advanced in argument that the larger ton- nage now being used on these waters, look closer to the bottom than the tonnage of twenty, or even ten years ago had any necessity to do, but this does not entirely account for the discovery of the boulders and _ shoals recently pointed out and marked by the government departments. DOO Ol OS The official number was awarded by the bureau of navi- gation, Treasury Department, Washington, last week, to the sailing vessel Carrington, 3,181 gross and 2,861 net tons. The Carrington was built by the Chicago Ship Building Co., and hails from that port. With the excep- tion of two canal boats of 135 tons built at Tonawanda and a 17-ton craft built and owned in Detroit, the fore- going is all of the lake tonnage registered during the week ending March 27, 1897. The thanks of the Record are due to Major Clinton B. Sears, Corps of Engineers, U. S. A., for a series of blue prints containing inclusive statistics of lake commerce at Duluth and Superior for the season of 1806, comparison — also being made with the commerce of the previous season,