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THE MARINE RECORD. CONTROLLING THE MISSISSIPPI. DIFFICULTIES OF THE PROBLEM WHICH HAS SO SEVERELY TAXED AMERICAN EN- GINEERING SKILL. Modern Machinery, Chicago, has for its leading feature in the May number, an illustrated article on “The Control of the Mississippi,” in which is presented clearly for the general reader, the difficulties of the problem which has so severely taxed the skill.of American engineers. The features of the plan proposed by Captain Eads and others are outlined. Referring to the peculiar nature of the river and its floods the writer says: In addition to its habit of rising too high annually, the Mississippi is a very crooked, restless, and curious river. It caves off its banks on one side, and piles up against on the other. It makes detours east and west, exploring for a dozen miles or so, then curving back makes a circuit of twenty-five miles in which it has progressed southward only one mile. Sometimes it will even absorb a section of a levee. While the river is high there is little caving, but as it falls the bank tumbles in. As the river is nearly all bend, having very few straight reaches, the banks can, by courtesy only, be called terra firma; and the levees built upon them share this impermanent character. In an edi- torial once on the vagaries of the Father of Waters, the late George D. Prentiss said that God made laws to govern everything except the Mississippi. That He told to go and do as it pleased; and, he added, “it has been doing so ever since.” It has been compared to the Nile when solutions of these problems have been sought, but the Nile, which is also a silt-bearing river, takes a straight course to the sea, while the Mississippi takes as long a time to get to the ocean as ‘possible. The reason for it is that the latter river carries its own obstructions with it, washing out the decayed vege- tation of the tamarack swamps of Minnesota, the clay from the mountains of the upper Missouri, and the pul- verized soil of the prairies. It carries all this matter held in solution until too heavy to carry, then drops it in heaps, forming bars of sand and clay and loam; and since it takes less energy to go around these deposits than to go through, it goes around. The Nile descends a primeval desert not of its own making, and consequently when the floods fall from the heights of Kilimanajaro and from the Victoria Nyanza and strike the sands of the desert below Nubia, it cuts a straight channel to the sea. Once turned from the path of rectitude the tendency of a river is to increase the bends rather than to diminish them, as the upper side of the curve, encountering the ob- stacle of the bar, keeps on depositing sediment at that point until a peninsula is formed, around which the water flows with increasing erosive power on the outer edge. The water in going around a bend has an action which has its analogy in the inner and outer wheels of a vehicle. The - outside wheels must turn faster than the inside, and if the turn is sufficiently sharp the inside wheels come to a stop. So in the Mississippi the water sweeps majestically around the outer margin of the bend, while about the shores of the bars and peninsulas it has but a sluggish motion. Floods often cut across these bars and form others, so that the channel is constantly changing. re or ANEW TYPE OF DREDGE. The problem of maintaining a channel in the Mississip- pi river at low water is now believed to be solved by the use of a new and remarkable kind of dredge—a machine which, as described in the Scientific Press, San Francisco, will go through a sandbar at a speed of from five to ten feet a minute, cutting its way through a solid bank and leaving behind it a channel forty feet wide and twenty feet deep. Of course, it could not do its work at such an amazing rate as this if it were not for the water which it has to work with—this, in fact, is the secret of the whole performance. In front of this machine are six intake pipes, turned downward, and surrounding each of these is a cylinder fitted with kréves and kept in revolution all the time, so that the knives cut and chew up the sand and mix it with the water. In this way the process goes all around the intake pipes, and in the later the suction of great steam driven centrifugal pumps is pulling away at the loosened “mass of sand and water, immense solid streams of debris flowing in the pipes at a rapid rate. It is assumed that this method of maintaining low water navigation is practicable in all alluvial streams—applicable, in fact, to the Missouri, to the Illinois, to the Sacramento, the Volga, the Danube, the Hoogly, etc., engineering skill being able to calculate to the fraction of a foot what speed the current requires through the pipes to carry the sand in solution. IMPROVING THE ST. LAWRENCE ROUTE. The Dominion Government has let the contract for deep- ening the waterway from the head of the Galoups Canal to Prescott. This will give a distinctively Canadian chan- nel completely outside and independent of American waters. The Canadian Government will spend $2,000,000 in the work between Prescott and Iroquois, and the re- sult will be very important from a commercial viewpoint. — rr ee oe SLOW UP THROUGH THE PORTAGE CANAL. Capt. Barker, whose dredge is at work in the Portage Canal, has made a request that all vesselmen passing through there with tows call upon one of his tugs for as- sistance in passing his dredge, thereby preventing such ac- cidents as happened to the schooner James Mowatt a week ago. i oo THE TURBINIA. The Shipping World, of London, England, says: “With the further particulars now before us we have no hesitation in saying that the speed of 32 3-4 knots will yet be exceeded by this vessel, as it is evident that with a large steam pipe greater pressure can be got at the H. P. tur- bine. When running at the “record” speed with a 4 in. steam pipe the boiler pressure of 210 Ibs. was reduced to 165 lbs. at the high-pressure turbine, a drop of 45 lbs. which it is hoped to reduce to 20 Ibs. when the main steam pipe of larger diameter is fitted, and as the boiler is capable of easily supplying the extra amount of steam the new ar- rangement should mean an increase of about 20 pér cent. ini. p. h. At the trials mentioned the intermediate turbine BIDS ON DREDGING. ‘pe E. H. Hall, of Detroit, underbid his competitors so f on the dredging contracts let recently by Col. G. J. Lye decker for improvements at Belle River, Clinton Riv and Black River, that his competitors hint he canno out whole on them. The price per yard, scow measur bid by the different firms were as follows: On Black River, Hall, 8 cents; Carkin & Cram, Detroit, 25 cents; McCul- lom & Lee, Port Huron, 24 cents, and Jas. Rooney, T ledo, 14 cents. On the mouth of the Black River, 1o, 293 and 21 cents, respectively. On the Belle River, 11, 2¢ 24 and 14 cents, respectively; and on Clinton River, 15, 24 -and 18 cents. McCullom & Lee not bidding on the latter work. f Ales OOS CAUTIONARY NOTICE--MASTERS AND OWNERS. axe United States Engineer Office Telephone Building, Detroit, Mich., May 14, 1897. — To the Editor of the Marine Record: Considerable complaint has been made regarding the movements of vesséls through the improved 20-foot chan- nel in Lake St. Clair, especially as respects speed. This dredged cut has a uniform width of but 800 feet, with soft — bottom and sides, and the practice of running through it at high speed threatens, the durability of the improvement as well as the safety of navigation. The question of pro- mulgating restrictive regulations has recently been under serious consideration, but the Secretary of War has no" ae advised me that he hopes a cautionary notice to vessel _ owners and masters against high speed in this cut may be all that is necessary to secure their co-operation in this matter, and thereby protect the interests of a navigation in which they are so deeply concerned. G. J. LYDECKER, Lt. Colonel of Engineers, U. S. A. IS ¢ FREIGHT RATES FOR WATER TRANSPORTATION TO AND FROM LAKE SUPERIOR. ITEMS. Depigna- 1887. 1888. 1889. 1890. 1891. 1892. 1893. 1894. 1895. 1896. Net Tons. $ .90 70 ¢ me 43 $ .41 $ .40 $ .40 $ .37 $ .32 Barrels. .29 $ ety $ uy $ ae , 15 16% 17 +13 +14 Rose Bushels. .07 03% 04 03 .04 6-10} .03 6-I0} .02 8-10 .02% .04 4-10 025 ce 07 .04% 03% .02 03% 03% 0234 0234, .04 5-10 .024 sf 07 04% 03% .03 .03% 0394 025% 0234 .04 5-10! .02% Net Tons. 2.35 1.80 2.10 1.34 2.50 2.15 2.00 -90 I.50 1.40 = 2.35 1.30 I.45 1.35 I.17 23 I.30 I.15, I.05 1.05 Barrels. .18 16 .18 VES 18 15 .I2 wI2 -13 15 Coppericiti. asia Oe Aes Net Tons. 2.60 2.35 2.25 2.38 2.00 I.40 1.75 1.95 1.66 1.95 TronjOre se epee eee aS tf 1.75 1.28 1.14 1.10 98 I.00 .80 -70 .82 8 UWI DeL jie ect dene went nie M.Ft., B.M. 4.00 2,80 2.70 2.38 2 70 2.95 2.35 1.90 2 00 1.80 SilvercOrel vane cies cence Net Tons, 3.00 1.90 1.90 2.25 2.25 2.25 2.25 2.25 2.33 2.33 Building Stones; ....../0..000. Mt TS 2.05 2.02 2.00 2.00 1.67 1.36 1,28 1.20 1.50 Unclassified Freight............ ts 4.00 3.00 3.00 2.75 3.58 3.60 3.00 2.75 2.50 2.30 had a pressure of 50 Ibs., this being reduced to about at- mospheric pressure at the L. P. turbine, with a vacuum of 13 1-2 lbs. We add that the exhaust is 36 in. in diameter, that each of the three steel shafts is 2 1-2 in. diameter, and carries three propellers, each of 18 in. diameter, or a total of nine propellers, the twenty-seven blades being of man- ganese bronze.” eee OBITUARY. Capt. Peter Cronley, for many years a well-known ves- sel and yacht master, passed quietly away last week at his home in Oswego, N. Y. He suffered a stroke of paralysis, from which he never rallied. Capt. Cronley was born in Oswego about 67 years ago. When a young man he began life as a sailor and rapidly rose until he became master of a vessel. He was successively captain of the schooners O. V. Brainerd, Maj. Anderson, Admiral, Mediator and John T. Mott. The Admiral was lost on Lake Ontario. Capt. Cronley also sailed in the steam yachts Nautilus and Fei- seen, Several years ago he retired from the lakes and has since done little active work. Twenty years ago, when canal vessels were to be met in every port, Capt. Cronley was known from Ogdensburg to Duluth. He commanded some of the smartest vessels afloat at that time, and because of his jovial disposition, had hosts of friends, who will learn of his death with sor- row. a a WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE? The Evening Wisconsin takes advantage of a palpable error that occurred in conéction with an item concern- ing the old craft Clement. It was the intention of The News Tribune to describe her as having been the first and only side wheel steam barge ever built on the lakes. The word steamboat appeared instead of “steam barge.” CLYDE SHIPBUILDING INTERESTS. It is safe to say that even.among those otherwise spe- cially conversant with marine affairs generally, credence would hardly be given to figures from a recent .article in Cassier’s Magazine by Robert McIntyre, and yet there is no reason to doubt their authenticity. Referring more par- ticularly to-the Clyde, the following statement is made: “The capital sunk I should not like to estimate in black and white, but if I said that it took a million and a quarter pounds a year to pay the wages of the shipbuilding and marine engineering operations in the upper reach—one- half, that is—of the Clyde, will anybody believe me? And yet anybody can satisfy himself on the point. Of marine engineers alone there are over 9,000 employed on the Clyde, and in the boiler shops slightly over 3,000 more men; in the shipyards a full muster of fitters, platers, rivet- ers, caulkers, carpenters, joiners, and laborers would add more than 30,000; and over and above would have to be included an army of draughtsmen, clerks, timekeepers, and counters in proportion. These are official figures. Belfast, where no official figures are available, may safely be set down as employing 6,000 men, and about half that total is the measure of the industrial activity in one commercial capital of Ireland. Taking the extensive repair work into consideration, 5,000 men represent about the total on the Mersey; in the Royal Dockyards at Pembroke, Daven- port, Portsmouth, Chatham, and Sheerness, 23,049 men are employed, of whom about a third are in the engine shops; and on the Thames, which is, despite its decadence in ship- building, an engineering center, the total number of men employed in the industry is approximately 8,000—3,000 shipworkers and 5,000 engineers. Of the northeast coast of England I am unable to speak with authority, because the official figures of the men employed are not at hand as I write; but I should say that the total, including the Hum- _ ber, is not far short of 70,000, of whom about two-thirds — are shipyard hands. The figures I have given refer purely to the shipbuilding and engineering departments.” Ca