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_ figured up as follows: THE MARINE RECORD. ESTABLISHED 1878. Published Brees Thundiy by THE MARINE RECORD PUBLISHING CO., Incorporated. GEO. L. SMITH, President. Cc. E; RUSKIN, - - - - Manager. CAPT. JOHN SWAINSON,~— - - - Editor. THOS. WILLIAMS, Chicago, - - Associate. CLEVELAND, SRDSOR 2 CHICAGO. Western Reserve Building. Royal Insurance Building. : SUBSCRIPTION. One Copy, one year, postage paid, - - $2.00. One Copy; one yeat, to foreign countries. - - $3.00. Invariably in advance. ADVERTISING, Rates given on application. All 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 mratter. CLEVELAND, O., MAY 6, 1897. ' We have received from the Department of Marine and Fisheries, Ottawa, Canada, a copy of the list of lights and fog signals on the coast, rivers and lakes of the Dominion of Canada, corrected to January 1, 1897. The Hydrographic Office, U. S. N., Washington, D. C., have now for sale a cloud chart in colors, showing the va- rious phases of the clouds and giving the names by which they are known. This information is necessary for any one keeping an abstract log or noting meteorological data. . i Ole A rather interesting way of estimating the bulk cargo that one of the latest built lake vessels can carry has been The recent cargo of the Andrew Carnegie, from Duluth to Buffalo, would load 30u cars with 600 bushels each and that number of cars would make a string two miles in length. Seven locomotives would be required to handle that many cars if divided into trains, yet the Carnegie transports all this grain at a fuel cost of about one ton of coal per ten “miles. The seven locomotives would burn about 33 tons hauling the wheat ten miles. The Carnegie is not the largest carrier on the lakes either, althought this is her first grain cargo. With such records as the foregoing it is easy to see that the lake tonnage is the backbone of the country’s com- merce and in this connection is well worthy of the at- - tention of our legislators at Washington, when needed improvements in aids to navigation are asked for at the hands of the Federal government. ne em te The Hennepin Canal will certainly lower the level of the lakes and we would now suggest that direct measures be taken to ascertain to what extent this lowering of the level would be harmful to general commerce. The dis- charge of the upper lakes through the St. Clair River has been found to be about 217,000 cubic feet per second. The mean level of Lakes Huron and Michigan is 581 feet above the sea level; that of Lake Superior about 20 feet higher. The present discharge is about equal to the supply and the lakes remain at their mean level of 581 feet. Now, if we open a reservoir capable of taking off only one- twentieth of this supply, the corresponding decrease of levels ought to be easily estimated. Some years ago it was stated by an eminent authority that drawing off only 10,000 cubic feet per second would lower the mean level of the lakes from twelve to eighteen inches, and it seems probable that double the amount of waste would lower the level just so much more. UPBUILD THE MERCHANT MARINE. It is almost impossible to realize the reluctance with which congress deals in matters relating to or connected with the merchant marine, and especially towards legisla- tion favoring subsidies to be allowed in special cases. The fact that cargo has to be carried to England so as to reach South American ports, ought to put our legislators to the blush. Eminent men, including politicians, econo- mists, and patriots have pointed out time and again the suicidal policy of allowing other maritime powers to ride. rough shod, as it were, over our national importance and geographical privileges. The pen and voice have been brought into action to awaken the country to the coun- try’s good, and yet inaction seems the order of the day. Over forty years ago the United States ought to have interposed in behalf of her merchant marine, instead of which every maritime nation has been permitted to a pre- eminence on the ocean, and we remain a rank outsider as regards the oversea commerce. As we have stated before, France, Germany, England, Austria, Italy, Norway and Russia have adopted the subsidy policy, so as to have a commensurate influence in the commerce and carrying trade of the world; hence, the United States can no longer remain indifferent to the fate of its mercantile marine, but should liberally endow her shipping with a subsidy, either under the name of a tonnage bill, adequate compen- sation for the carriage of mails to the several countries, premium, bounty, or any other term if the direct word subsidy is repugnant to the views of our legislators. The pioneer British trans-Atlantic line was subsidized to the extent of $1,551,600, represented as compensation for the carriage of ocean mails, while the American line, managed by Mr. Collins, was obliged to go under, when the -pro- tection was withdrawn, and the shipping industry has waned ever since, principally through the inability of our citizens to grasp the situation. At least such is the most charitable construction to place on the facts that are presented before the country. We have’at length arrived at the stage where heroic measures’ are necessary to re- gain access to the markets which offer the best returns for our mechanical, natural, and agricultural products Treaties may stand in the way, but diplomatic relations had better be shattered rather than allow the nation’s life blood to remain stagnated, and our maritime supremacy retarded for another century. In 1870 statistics show that we carried 91 per cent of our freight, while today something less than 15 per cent is being transported in American bottoms, while at the same time we have the greatest possibilities of any nation in the world, with the certainty that in the near future the United States must naturally inherit the distinction of being the most promi- nent maritime nation on the earth, and the longer inaction continues, the more radical will be the ultimate measures required. While we may live to see the day when Amer- ican exports, and imports will be carried only in American bottoms, sailing under the stars and stripes, and the en- couragement given to shipbuilding and shipowning help to enrich the sixty different classes of skilled mechanics required in the construction and equipment of a large vessel, yet to obtain this end, protection alone would have been all sufficient three decades ago, and moderate sub- sidies would have assisted two decades ago, but now a measure of prohibition with a liberal aid from protection, and subsidies are absolutely necessary to regain the lost prestige of the United States on the ocean, well con- sidered measures encouraging the promotion of a mercan- tile marine must be piloted by skillful and patriotic hands through the tortuous channels of congressional legis- lation to a final and successful! result, and not allowed to be buried in the hands of an agricultural committee, or squelched by members of Congress, ignorant of the vast importance centered in the bills selected for their consid- eration. At the present day, it must be clearly remem- bered that we are at the mercy of foreign nations in the event of a speedy war, and a nonenity where ocean trans- portation is concerned. ——_——$—$—$—$—$$$ $$$ a Ee — — ——————___— LAKE LEVELS. The. theory of septennial cycles of high water and mini- mum. level, is or ought to be exploded, in the absence of any plausible reason being adduced to support it; and the same might be said of the sun. spot system, which argues that because the solar mountains are visible, we should experience a rise over the entiré body of water If celestial objects (eithe: included in the Jake ‘district. the'sun or moon) is to be admitted as exercising any” fluence at all, then a periodic rise and fall would eventuate with the usual currents, and other ocean phenomena-an observation does not tend toward a credence ‘of “t theory. Of course, local fluctuations occur at frequent intervals, but these may very properly be ascribed to the natural conditions existing in the locality. For instance, a strong surface current induced by the action of the wind may sometimes be experienced in mid-lake, or when near port, through the effects of a heavy precipitation of rain after. a period of comparatively dry weather. i The effects of the winter precipitation of rain over the entire watershed and area of the lake district, is not so clearly definable as an accepted theory ought to be. If it is admitted that fifty inches is the average annual pre- cipitation of rain in the temperate zone, the maximum stage of water should be prevalent in the early and later portion of the season of navigation; and the minimum dur- ing the entire early period, yet such is not the case. Again, the fluctuations of the lake level would be discernible dur- ing a droughty period; and both under currents and sur- face currents would be experienced, meandering around © to restore the equilibrium and supply the ics created by the large and constant exhaust. The process of evaporation alone is a Sowerk agent: continually at work to lower the level of an expanse of water and yet even after the heated term no diminution of the lake levels are to be found: There are some points of similarity Betwéenmttie great lakes and the Caspian Sea which is 740 miles ‘long ‘and 210 miles in average breadth and possibly deeper in some places than Lake Superior. The level of the Caspian sea remains stationary, because it is supplied by surface rivers, the outflow from the river Volga being no small quantity in itself. Yet all of this amount of water is annually being withdrawn from the surface of the Caspian by the process of evaporation and it canot be denied that a similar waste or exhaust is going on over the chain of lakes, to be sup- plied, as eminent authorities assert,’ simply by the precipi-) tation of rain over the watershed tributary to the locality... Considering the immense outflow caused by the. water finding its level, and the corisumption used by the popu- lation, coupled with the partial waste caused by: evapora- tion, we are not prepared to assert that submarine: rivers do! not exist. believing that such an economy actually does exist and until the philosophy of the question is more fully developed’ the advocates of the submarine river theory ‘ ‘may com-— mand an equal attention with the theorists who support: other causes attributable to the ruling of the lake levels” from purely surface supplies. It is, of course, admitted that even in the event of the lakes being kept at the usual depths by submarine springs, etc., the origin of the supply” is from .precipitation, but in dacth a case it is not from Bie surface inflow. : 3 Se ee Tn ‘referring to our cut of the tug, which the F. we Wheeler Co., of West Bay City, Mich., will build for Ww. G. Wilmot & Co., of New Orleans, La., and published i in last week’s issue of the Record, the enispeilders’ intend to get out a much finer vessel than ever they-have built before for ocean service. The tug Wilmot, built for the same owners in 1892, is to be very much improved upon, and, as we understand it, she will equal if not be the peer of anything on salt water. oo It is said that the frigate bird (fregata aquila) which is’ so well known to the sight of the ocean mariner, is a scien- tific aerial navigator, inasmuch that df caught in a cyclonic’ storm, such as the hurricanes which’ generate among the islands of the West Indies, they will at once determine possibly from instinct .(yet in direct accordance with the methods now in use by mankind), the probable center, or path of the storm, and by guiding themselves on the wing they shoot off at right angles to the storms center, Dr, Porter has quaintly suggested that-the instinctive. knowl-- edge’ practiced by the frigate bird is hereditary and that the specie had solved the problem of the laws of storms, anterior to boards of admiralty, navigators, or theorists, yet similar features are noticed in many animals, and to the laws of self-preservation whether arrived at by natural instinct or hereditary knowledge, may be. ascribed ‘the; In fact there are very plausible reasons for