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VOL. XXII, No. 14. — = Zs ee CLEVELAND---APRIL 6, 1899---CHICAGO. $2.00 Per Year. 5c. Single Copy LAKE CARRIERS’ ASSOCIATION. 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 interests of Lake Car- riers, and improve the character of the service rendered to the public. PRESIDENT. FRANK J. FIRTH, Philadelphia. 1ST VICE-PRESIDENT. Capt, THos. WILSON, Cleveland. SECRETARY. CHARLES H, KEEP, Buffalo. TREASURER. GEORGE P. McKay, Cleveland. COUNSEL. HARVEY D. GOULDER, Cleveland. TUG BOATS AND TOWING. A good tug boat can go anywhere or do anything and the next best thing to the craft herself is the man that handles her. Tug boats may easily be classed as the sinews of com- merce and transportation where water borne traffic frequents. Scarcely any men have amore active and dangerous life than the tugboatmen. If there is a channel to.be forced through the ice a tug boat is sent out to be the catapult; if there is a stranding, breakdown, abandonment, wreck or a ship on fire, a tug boat speeds to the rescue. Many of them are equipped with apparatus for salving cargo and risks are taken which would make most people tremble at the bare thought of the pos- sible consequences. ; Not even the excitement of laying a vessel fourteen times bigger than his own against her wharf, with a strong tide running, fills the measure of the tug man’s joy, in fact, he’ll tackle anything that there is money in, and he can push his little puffer at, ahead, alongside, on the quarter, astern or anyway to accomplish desired results. There are all sorts of grades, or rather classes of tugs. The United States furnishes a greater variety than any other country; that is, if we take in the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, the Lakes, Rivers and Gulf ports. There are all sorts and condition of tow boats and tugboatmen. As a class the men are as skillful and proficient in their calling, and perhaps a little more so, than the majority of those engaged in any other occupation, and let it ‘never be forgotten that they invariably carry their nerve with them, and, as we have said, they are always prepared to tackle anything that there is money in, nor are they ever at a loss to name their price, according to the exigencies of the work involved, in fact, they rather court danger and distress, that is, to others. A tugboatman desires nothing better than to have his services made absolutely and imperatively necessary. He then becomes the rescuer, saviour, doctor, or what you will, but he is all there when wanted, and in making a virtue of necessity he is never lost for an alternative when in the way of making money, for he does not always earn it, unless it may be considered earned by accepting an imminent risk and thereby gathering in a windfall of doubloons. To the best of our knowledge at this writing, Liverpool, England, produces the most powerful tug boats afloat, two of these which we have now in mind are the large powerful twin screw tug boats, Stormcock and Gamecock. These craft,walk away with the slack of an island (a floating one) and never let go anything that they can get a line aboard of. The majority of tug boats out of that port, however, are side-wheelers and they are usually handled in gales of wind, a sea-way or in strong currents, like a top, made to do any- thing, so to say, except talk, and even this they might at- tempt if the men that handled them couldn’t do enough of that at the proper time themselves. Some extraordinary ocean towing is to the credit of the Liverpool fleet and a log of the several most important voyages made by these tugs would no doubt prove very interesting reading to a large number of people. Returning to the tug boats of the United States. The longest trip on record was made from New York to Central America when the Haviland and Hyperhausen took the scows and dredges of the Nicaragua outfit to their destina- tion, yet, as a specialty and a feature whieh eclipses all tow- ing records, and essentially an American innovation, is the successful towing of immense rafts of timber along the At- lantic and Pacific coasts. Each year sees vast improve- ment in the construction, dimensions and equipment of tow boats, nor are the lakes a whit behind the age in recog- nition of the advancement made necessary for this class of tonnage through the increased volume of commerce and size of modern cargo carriers. There are millions of dollars invested in the United States tug boat industry, nor can a port be a port without a fleet, or two or three of them, to attend to the shipping frequenting its purlieus, if the port is of any pretentions. oo or or A SIX-MASTED SCHOONER-LARGEST IN THE WORLD. Capt. Arthur L,. Crowley, of Taunton, Mass., master and managing owner of the five-masted schooner John B. Pres- cott, the largest schooner in the world, has decided to beat his record. He has contracted for a six-masted schooner for the coal trade between Baltimore and other coal ports to New England ports. The six-sticker is to carry 5,500 tots of coal and to cost $100,000. When completed she will be the only vessel of her type in the world. The John B. Pres- cott, which Captain Crowley now commands, will carry over 4,500 tons of coal. Her greatest cargo during the late severe winter was 4,215 tons, loaded at Philadelphia. rr THE ALGIERS FLOATING STEEL DRY DOCK. Rear Admiral Endicott, U.S. N., of the Bureau of Yards and Docks, when asked this week relative tothe commence- ment of the work upon the steel dry dock at Algiers, La., for the construction of which the contract has been awarded to the Maryland Steel Co., replied that the contract, al- though awarded, had not been signed, as the department is awaiting some supplementary plans which are being pro- cured from England. The contract requires that work upon the dock shall commence twenty days after it is signed. Much of the work will be done at Algiers, as the Maryland Steel Co. has already requested the use of the entire govern- ment reservation there, but it has not yet decided whether the hull of the dock will be put together in the Chesapeake and floated to Algiers, or whether the plates will be shipped to Algiers and put together there. This new steel floating dock will be the largest of its kind ever built in this or any other country and will be capable of receiving a 15,000- ton battleship. oo or AN hydraulic press, said to be the largest yet constructed, was recently completed at Parkhead Forge, England, after having been three years in construction and erection. This press, which is to be used in the manufacture of armor- plate, is capable of exerting 12,000 tons pressure. The weight of the machine is 42 tons. The clearances are 15 feet in width and 13 feet working height. Power is supplied by four sets of coupled compound condensing engines with cylinders 21 inches and 43 inches in diameter. There are 68 pumping rams I II-I6 inches diameter for delivering water to the main cylinder of the press. A bed of concrete weighing 330 tons and 1,125 tons of brickwork are in the foundation for the press. ‘ers are loaded down with foreign orders. AN ERA OF SHIPBULLDING AND INDUSTRIAL PROSPERITY. That the United States has entered upon a great shipbuild- ing era is the firm conviction of every builder in the coun- try, and that there is nearly $60,000,000 worth of ships now building in shipyards of the United States is borne out by statistics. With new markets opening in the West Indies, Hawaii and the far Kast, our steel production leading the world, and millions of capital awaiting investment, it is no wonder the shipowner, shipbuilders and steel makers predic a prosperous new era in shipbuilding, and express the be lief that we will one of these days lead the world in ship- building as we once did and as we now'do in almost every- thing else. It is stated, though we are not prepared to youch for the entire accuracy of the assertion, that our domestic water commerce, coastwise, Great, Lakes, rivers and canals, is by far the largest in the world, and is two and a half times greater than that of the United Kingdom, second on the list. Once England’s peer asa builder of wooden ships, this country is now on the way to become her peer as a steel steamship builder. Early in the twentieth century the United States will probably regain her old position in the ocean carrying trade,and as the decline of our shipping dates from the civil war, so will the rise of our shipping ., date from the Spanish war. ® British shipbuilders are now ordering hundreds of thou- sands of tons of steel plates from American markets. land & Wolff, the great Belfast builders, gave the Illinois;’), Steel Company an order for 100,000 tons in the fall. The Carnegie Company is making heavy shipments to the Clyde, while the exports from the Birmingham district are increas- ing rapidly. Nothing has done so much to call popular at- tention to the American shipbuilding question as these ship- ments of American plates to British builders. Along with the ship plates we are sending machinery and tools to the foreign shipbuilders, for they have found that, we make better and cheaper machinery and tools for use in» shipyards than do their own manufacturers. What with Amer- | ican machinery and tools shaping American steel into British ships, itis not strange that there is fear in England ofa boom and a final supremacy in shipbuilding in the United States over that of every other nation. or A LARGE SHIPBUILDING PLANT. Judging trom a dispatch received March 31, the New York Ship Building Company, which is the name of the cor- poration which proposes to establish a shipbuilding plant and dry docks on the Atlantic Coast, will locate at Cooper’s Point, adjacent to Camden, N. J. The properties which have been secured by the company have a river frontage of 2,575 feet and cover 70 acres of land. The company, it is said, has secured these properties and will erect a plant which will give employment to 5,000 hands. ‘The site of the proposed shipyard is nearly opposite Cramps’ yards in Phil- adelphia. Henry G. Morse, formerly president of the Har- lan and Hollingsworth Company, of Wilmington, is at the head of the new company. The capital is said to be $3,000, - 000. Sr or or NICKLE steel is being tried with much success as a mater- ial for marine engines and boilers. Owing to its ability to resist the action of salt water it is found to be superior to other kinds of steel for marine construction. Hollow shafts in the ocean ‘‘greyhounds’’ are found to be much stronger when made of this alloy than when made of any other kinds of steel. Har-. - Our tool mak-.: