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THE MARINE RECORD. FROM ’FRISCO. ‘Captain Pattman, of the Loch Torridon, woke up ship- _ ping circles by his smart passage of 46 days from New- castle, N. S. W., to San Francisco, coal laden. He also Stirred up memories, which, backed by scrap-book clip- ping and old records, give new light on the subject of fast passages. Captain H. H. Watson, now surveyor for the American Record at this port, back in 1861, made the run in the Flying Dragon, from Sydney to Hampton Roads, in 62 days, beating the English mail boats, via the Se ese ment in the Court below. Lords Trayner and Moncrieff held that where there was a well established rule of law in England and no existing law in Scotland with which the English law conflicted, it was desirable that the same rule should be followed in Scotland, so that conflicting rules might not prevail in different parts of the same coun- try. The English practice has long been to base judgment on the state of circumstances existing at the time legal action is commenced. If the owners of the Blairmore had issued writs against their underwriters when their ship sone Aer gy egteecaetin, AO PASSENGER STEAMER CITY OF BUFFALO, On the Cleveland-Buffalo route, timed to have made the best speed ever run on Lake Erie, viz., 22.58 miles per hour, between Cleveland and Put-in-Bay, on June 26. Red Sea, by three days. Coming to this port he was char- tered by the late Isaac Friedlander to load wheat to Mel- bourne, where he arrived in 43 days, carrying with him the news of the Battle of Bull Run. Shifting to Sydney, he loaded coal for this port, arriving here in February, 1862, just 42 days to port. Under charge of a pilot the ship was run on Arch Rock and wrecked. The late Captain J. N. Knowles, in the Glory of the Seas, made a record of 35 days from here to Sydney, loaded. Captain J. F. Chapman, in the St. John, made the round from this port to Sydney and back, in four months and two days with a full cargo each way. The above shows the old Yankee clippers still bear the palm of speed. Good passages from Australia have been talked about ever since the arrival of the Loch Torridon, which reached here in May, breaking the record to Eastward from New- castle, N.S. W. That incident brought to Captain Julian Brock, now in the service of the Harbor Commissioners, the fact that in 1873 the brig Firefly, 260 tons, was sold by her owner, a Captain Chapman, then well known here, to a firm in Melbourne. Captain Brock was appointed com- mander, and thirty-eight days after he left the tug off the Golden Gate, the Firefly was off Port Phillip Heads. The consignees could scarcely believe that Captain Brock was master of the Firefly and was actually in Melbourne. She was not expected for a fortnight—Weekly Commercial News. i SHIPOWNERS TOO SLOW. The Blairmore case has again come up in the Scotch Courts on appeal, says Fairplay. The vessel, when lying at San Francisco on the gth of April, 1896, was capsized by a squall and sank. She was insured for £15,coo on a time policy, and the owners tendered notice of abandon- ment and claimed a constructive total loss. As usual, the notice was declined by the underwriters, and the owners omitted there and then to commence legal action against them. At the time the vessel was an absolute loss, and a fortiori a constructive total loss, and an action com- menced under those circumstances would have piaced the owners in a commanding position. As it was, the under- writers got the ship raised at an expense of £7,600, were prepared to pay that sum and the cost of what repairs might be necessary, and contended that there was not a constructive loss. n Subsequently the owners took action, which was dis- missed by Lord Kinlochy, in the Outer House, on the ground that it was irrelevant, as founding a claim under the policy for a total loss. The owners then appealed to the Second Division, which has just confirmed the judg- * was under water and their notice of abandonment had been declined, they would have been in an entirely differ- ent position when pressing their claim in court. ———_ SS THE CANAL OF JOSEPH. How many of the engineering works of the nineteenth century will there be in existence in the year 6000? Very few, we fear, and still less those that will continue in that far off age to serve a useful purpose. Yet there is, at least, one great undertaking conceived and executed by an engineer which during the space of four thousand years has never ceased its office, on which the life of a fertile province absolutely depends today. We refer to the Bahr Joussufthe canal of Joseph—built, according to tradi- tion, by the son of Jacob, and which constitutes not the which all vegetation in Egypt depends. The northern end stood seventeen feet above low Nile, while at the southern end it was at an equal elevation with the river. Through this cut ran a perennial stream, which watered a province named the Fayoum, endowing it with fertility and support- ing a large population. In the time of the annual flood a great part of the canal was under water, and then the river’s current would rush in a more direct course into the pass, carrying with it the rich silt which takes the place of manure and keeps the soil in a constant state of productiveness. All this, with the exception of the tradi- tion that Joseph built it, can be verified today, and it is not mere supposition or rumor. Until eight years ago it was firmly believed that the design has always been lim- ited to an irrigation scheme, larger, no doubt, than that now in operation, as shown by the traces of abandoned canals, and by the slow aggregation of waste water which had accumulated in the Birket el Querum, but still essen- tially the same in character. Many accounts have been written by Greek and Roman historians, such as Herodo- tus, Strabo, Mutianus, and Pliny, and repeated in monkish legends, or portrayed in the maps of the middle ages. which agreed with the folk lore of the district. These tales explained that the canal dug by the ancient Israelite served to carry the surplus waters of the Nile into an extensive lake lying south of the Fayoum, and so large that it not only modified the climate, tempering the arid winds of the desert and converting them into the balmy airs. which nourished the vines and the olives into a fullness and fragrance unknown in any part of the country, but also added to the food supply of the land such immense quan- tities of fish that the royal prerogative of the right of pis- cary at the great weir was valued at £250,000 annually. This lake was said to be 450 miles round, and to be navigated by a fleet of vessels, and the whole circumference was the scene of industry and prosperity.—Engineering. os INVENTOR OF THE MULTITUBULAR BOILER. In an address made at the twenty-fifth anniversary. of the Stevens Institute of Technology, the Hon. Abram S. Hewitt made the statement that John Sfevens, of Ho- boken, was the first engineer to build a Watt condensing engine on the American continent. The engine was built at Belleville, N. J., a small village on the Passaic River. It was put into a boat, to which a stern wheel was applied, and the boat was run from Belleville down the Passaic by Newark, out into Newark Bay, and thence to New York. This was several years before Fulton began his experi- ments in applying steam to the propulsiom of vessels. It is not generally known that this same John Stevens THE WHALEBACK STEAMER passengers between Chicago and Milwaukee in three days. feet depth of hold. Engines, triple expansion. least of the many blessings he conferred on Egypt during the years of his prosperous rule. This canal took its rise from the Nile at Asiut, and ran almost parallel with it for nearly two hundred and fifty miles, creeping along under the western cliffs of the Nile valley, with many a bend and winding, until at length it gained an eminence, as compared with the river bed, which enabled it to turn westward through a narrow pass and enter a district which was otherwise shut off from the fertilizing floods on CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. Built by the American Steel Barge Co., West Superior, Wis. Carried over 5,700 passengers on one trip, and this week carried about 10,000 Her dimensions are 362 feet in length, 42 feet beam, and 24 Boilers, 6 of the Scotch type and corrugated furnaces. patented the multitubular boiler in 1803. That form of boiler was what was wanting in the earliest form of Brit- ish locomotives, and its introduction by the Stephensons was the most important means of making the “Rocket” beat its competitors. In Europe the invention of the tubu- lar boiler is generally credited to a French engineer and sometimes to an official of the Liverpool & Manchester Railroad, named Booth, who suggested to George Stephenson that he use that form of boiler.