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AUGUST Ic, 1899. THE MARINE RECORD. J) LS SSS SSS SES SSS SSS SSS SSCS a eS re LAKE FREIGHTS. Our freight report this week must again announce iron ore as king, and fifteen million tons expected to be carried for the season. Last week we stated that $1 was the rate from the head of the lakes, since which time it has advanced nickel by nickel up to $1.15, and even for an advance char- ter up to $1.30 November delivery; Marquette free'at $1, and Escanaba 80 cents, with prospects of a still further raise of 5 cents within the next few days, but brokers are short of tonnage even at fancy figures, and it may be, that the 1895 splurge, when ore went to $2, may repeat itself before this season is ended. Coal rates are just as owners wish to make them, but the going rate is 55 cents to Lake Superior and 60 cents wanted. Take Michigan 70 cents with a raise of 5 cents indicated and no chartering ahead, asfree tonnage, that is, bottoms that are open to charter are very scarce. These are the best figures paid on coal for several years past. The grain rate, corn, Chicago to Buffalo, has been fluctu- ating all week between 21% and 2% cents and even up to 24% cents, with fairly lively chartering, 334 cents is expected from Duluth this month, although 34% cents is now called the going rate and 3% cents for next month. It is reported that a Chicago agent offered M. A. Bradley $11,500 for the steamer Sarah EH. Sheldon for the balance of the season, the shipper to pay all expenses of handling cargoes. Mr. Bradley held for $2,000 more, this, however, is only a rumor and not likely to be correct. The major portion of lake tonnage being placed on season charters leaves a little better picking, for, say, the 20 per cent. that is free to fix from trip to trip, hence, the increase in general rates on bulk cargoes such as coal, ore, grain and lumber. When the season charters expire, which will be towards the end of this month, there may be a lively time experienced in the freight market and all present indications point to the vessel owner coming out on the right side of the ledger before the close of navigation. oo or CANAL TO THE COAST. Plans for the great project of building a ship canal con- necting the Great Lakes and the Atlantic by way of the Hudson and Mohawk rivers and including a waterway con- necting Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, are now nearly con- cluded. The subject will come up for consideration at the next session of Congress. The ship canal will be one of the greatest in cost and in the magnitude of its engineering problems that ever has been undertaken by this country. The project is to cut a canal 30 feet deep and 340 feet wide from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario around Niagara Falls, leay- ing Lake Ontario at Oswego, through the Oswego river to Oneida lake, thence through the Mohawk to the Hudson river. A single lock will be 1,000 feet long, with walls over fifty feet high. It will be three and a half times the depth and five times the width of the Erie canal. To supply the necessary water to the summit level, which is at the city of Rome, it is estimated that it will require ten times as much as flows in the Genesee river ina dry season. To secure such a volume of water from the New York streams, the plans show a great dam at Carthage, on the Black river, making a lake covering eighty square miles. It will be great enough to control the whole flow of the Black river and secure a tremendous increase to the water power of the manufacturing interests in that part of, New York State. It will also supply to the ship canal more water than the Genesee could yield by any system of storage. From this reservoir, a canal ninety miles long, as large as the Erie, wily be built to the proposed ship canal just west of Rome, and on the way down a second reservoir will be constructed in the Salmon river. This feeder canal will require the ex- cavating of more than 20,000,000 cubic yards of earth and rock, i oO oe INTSRESTING tests are being made in New York harbor in wireless telegraphy at the United States Light-house Depot at Tompkinsville, Staten Island, under the direction of Col. David P. Heap, the engineer officer in charge of the third light-house district. It is intended to further experiment by the sending of messages from Tompkinsville to Coney Island, and if this experiment succeeds experiments will follow with the Scotland, Sandy Hook and Fire Island light-ships, and the Navesink lights, Romer shoal beacon and other lights about that harbor. Mr. W. F. Clarke, the electrician in charge of the experiments, expects to send messages across the forty miles between the Tompkinsville station and the Fire Island light-ship. TRANSPORTING THE WHEAT PRODUCT. The Great Northern and Northern Pacific railroads are preparing to handle a heavy wheat business this fall. Both roads have placed orders fora number of new grain cars, and an increased capacity in anticipation of a heavy movement of grain to the head of the lakes, with the beginning of har- vest. Last year’s wheat business taxed the operating depart- ments of both roads, and additional{preparations were found necessary this year. The Great Northern has placed an order for 900 grain doors for freight cars, with one firm, and has manufactured durin, the spring and summer, a large number of grain cars of the largest capacity of any in use in the west. The larger number of these were built in the St. Cloud shops and are almost twice as long as the ordinary freight cars and have two doors on a side. Freight officials of the western roads expect that the move- ment of wheat will begin about the middle of August. Har- vesting in southern Minnesota will commence the latter part of this week, and will be a week later in South Dakota. In North Dakota it is expected that threshing will begin about Aug. 20. In North Dakota grain will begin to come into the elevators about Ang. 30, and from that time until snow flies both the Great Northern and Northern Pacific will have all the business they can handle. oo oo LAKE SUPERIOR—MISSISSIPPI CANAL. A report made by Major Clinton B. Sears, Corps of Engi? neers, U. S. Army, stationed at Duluth, on the feasibility and cost of a canal to connect Lake Superior with the Mis- sissippi river at its junction with the St. Croix river, has been forwarded to the War Department. The examination and survey was made by Assistant Engineer Krey and the substance of the report is that a canal over the route pro- posed is feasible, but is not an urgent public necessity. It would cost about $6,000,000 and require 24 locks, the prob- able annual cost of operating and maintaining of which would be $350,000. Canal boats drawing four feet of water only could be used. Major Sears, in summing up the report, which is made in pursuance of an act of the last Congress, says that it isa work that should not be undertaken by the government. One of the reasons given is that there are four lines of com- peting railroad through the territory to be traversed, and the shortness of the navigation season makes it unlikely that the canal would hold down freight rates for the greater part of the year. OO Ol Ooll TRANSATLANTIC LAKE TRADE. William W. Bates, ex-commissioner of navigation, writes the following regarding the first direct shipment of wheat to Europe: “Having read the statement of Capt. Andrews that Capt. I. T. Morris, of Chicago, in the schooner Correspondence, carried the first direct shipment of wheat to Europe in 1858, I desire to say that the schooner Dean Richmond sailed direct, either in 1854 or 1855, to Liverpool and opened this trade. I got from Mr. Richmond, at his office in Chicago, full particulars of the voyage at the time, and afterwards got from the builders at Cleveland the lines of the vessel, and published the whole in the National Magazine and Naval Journal, of New York, of which I was co-editor and proprietor. Mr. Richmond was not long in finding out that such vessels as could then make the trip were too small to be successful carriers.’’ a eg VESSELS CLASSED. Vessels classed and rated by the American Burean of Ship- ping, New York, in the ‘‘Record of American and Foreign Shipping:’’ Screw steamer, Eugene Grasselli, owned by Gras- selli Chemical Co.; screw, Lykens, owned by Philadelphia & Reading R. R. Co.; screw El Sud, owned by Southern Pacific Co.; screw, New York, owned by Wm. P. Clyde & Co.; ship, Isaac Reed; ship, R. D. Rice; barge, C. R. R. of N. J., No. 8; Mexican screw, Juno, owned by N. Y. & Cuba Mail S. S. Co.; Mexican screw, Hebe, owned by N. Y. & Cuba Mail S. S. Co. OO eo MESABA ores, it is said, are growing in favor with furnace- men, The American Steel & Wire Co., it is understood, will use 70 per cent. of Mesaba ores in their furnace next year. Thetroubles that the furnacemenhad.at first with ores taken from the Mesaba were many, but by careful ex- periments the difficulties have largely been overcome and to- day but few objections are made to the ore, HEROIC RESCUE. Capt. Read, master of the Canadian schooner Wawanosh, in tow of steamer Ontario, while loading last trip at Nipigon river, Lake Superior, performed an act which is worthy of public recognition. A man who was helping to load the vessel accidentally fell overboard, being hit by a stick of timber in his fall. He sank instantly and rose once nearly to the surface of the water. The captain saw that the man would drown if he did not get help. The captain plunged in after him, saw and caught him by the top of the head. The drowning man had a tight cap on and in being raised to the surface the cap slipped from his head; he went down again like a stone. The captain followed, and this time caught him by the hair and brought him to the surface. They were then thrown a line and the two men pulled on board. The man came to and in a few hours was not much the worse for his close call. —eee TT Te Seer LETTERS AT DETROIT MARINE POST OFFICE AUGUST 9, 1899. To get any of these letters, addressees or their authorized agents will apply at the general delivery window or write to the postmaster at Detroit, calling for ‘‘advertised’’ matter, giving the date of this list and paying one cent. Advertised matter is previously held one week awaiting delivery. It is held two weeks before it goes to the Dead Letter Office at Washington, D. C. Barnes, Vernon S., Gogebic Ladue, Guss, Birckhead Bertrand, Harry LaForge, Miss Lillian, Com- Babbitt, H. L., Raleigh merce Baker, James F. Lince, Frederick Bryant, Mrs. W. Loughway, O. Crothers, Mrs. Jas. Canfield, Chas. H., Cumber- land Cannon, T. J. DeMill, Albert Douglas, Louis Evans, John, Birckhead Eaton, H. C., Marquette Fitzgerald, W. J. Fink, Guy, A. P. Wright Fairback, Oliver P., Polynesia Goodwin, Frank Goulet, Joe, Fedora Holtz, Fred, Cumberland Larmie, L., Extinguisher Lafountaine Thos. Mickleham, Thos. Moore, James, Sailor Boy Mitchell, John, North Land Manthi, Fred, City of Glasgow Monroe, Chas. MacDonald,Hugh, Whitworth McElroy, Ed., Shenandoah Payne, J. A. Parks, Geo. L. Pate, James, Pontiac Sauve, Jos. Bene, Australia Slavin, John, Centurion Holtz, Geo., Bangor Snyder, G. A. Halfman, Wm. G. Stevenson, Mrs. Alice Harden, George Secord, J. M. Joseph, Wm. Tenison, Mrs. Nellie, Wand King, Frank W., Pringle Tobin, Dick Keeler, C. B. Wills, Geo. H. Kelly, Mrs. Thos. ee MADAME Gustave Paraf, Madame Richelot, and Madame Ostheimer, three Parisians who lost near relations in La Bourgogne disaster, have sent $30,000 to the United States Government, $20,000 of which is to be given as a prize to the inventor of the best life-saving appliance, and the other $10,000 is'to be spent in bringing the competition to the no- tice of inventors in various parts of the world. oD OlOVOXhlh WHEN it is said that the mud and sand to be removed from the New York harbor to make the new channel to the sea, if deposited in the East river, would be sufficient to make the river dry land from shore to shore and from the Bat- . tery to Hell Gate, some idea of the size of the colossal un- dertaking may be obtained. It is estimated that nearly 50,000,000 tons of mud and sand must be removed in order to make the East Channel 4o feet deep and 2,000 feet wide. Congress has appropriated the money, the engineers have drawn the plans, and contracts are being awarded. In order to make the channel it is considered necessary to build new dredges, which will draw up the sand by means of suction pumps. These dredges will be 320 feet long and nearly 48 feet wide, and will have a capacity of 8,000 | tons an hour. It will take a year to build the dredges and probably two years more to do the work. The engi- neer of the Mersey Dock Board recently described the progress of work at the Mersey bar by means of the two huge pump dredges built at Barrow-in-Furness. Whereas at the commencement, in 1890, the shallowest water across the bar was I1 ft. at low water of spring tides, there is now a channel of 1500 ft. in width, having practically no less than 27 ft. of water in any part on the same condition, of tide. The amount of sand which had to be removed from the bar itself in order to effect this has been 22% million tons, and from the bar and main channel 41% million tons,