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THE MARINE RECORD. ESTABLISHED 1878. Published Every Thursday by THE MARINE RECORD PUBLISHING CO., Incorporated. C, E. RUSKIN, - - - - Manager. CAPT. JOHN SWAINSON,~— - - - Editor. CLEVELAND, CHICAGO, Western Reserve Building. Royal Insurance Building. SUBSCRIPTION. _ One Copy, one year, postage paid, - - One Copy, one year, to foreign countries, - z 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, O. $2.00 $3.00 Entered at Cleveland Postoffice as second-class mail matter. CLEVELAND, O., NOVEMBER Q, 1899. CONGRESS will meet in less than a month from to-day, or more strictly speaking, on the last Monday in November. _ The marine interests see enough legislation ahead to feel a deep interest in the proceedings of both houses, Senate and Representative. oOo ol THE abrogation or temporary suspension of the Canadian coasting laws, whereby United States vessels can enter the lake trade between Canadian ports, is all right for our tonnage, but it must undoubtedly bea bitter pill for the “Canuck’’ vessel owner to swallow. SE a ge THE thanks of the RECORD are due the Hon. E. T. Chamberlain, Commissioner of Navigation, for a copy of the 31st annual list of merchant vessels of the United States with which is included a list of the vessels of the navy and the several departments of the government. Oo ee _ It was questioned in the earlier part of the season if 14,- 000,000 tons of ore could possibly be carried in lake bot- toms? The indications are now that about 17,000,000 tons -will be the record of the season’s transportation with a pos- sible 20,000,000 tons for next year. Iron ore is king. / : or oo ONLY a few years ago there was only one shipyard capable of constructing high-classed large naval tonnage. The bids opened by the Navy Department last week for ten new cruisers showed fourteen competitors and there are as _ many more shipyards that could, if they would, put the _ vessels together. Sse Z _ THE sum of $260,000 was appropriated by the last Con- _ gressto defray the cost of a gunboat, to take the place of _ the Michigan, on the lakes. It now appears that this vessel will be built ‘‘as soon as permitted under treaty,’ which we _ suppose means, that, as the specifications for the new boat _ calls for a larger craft than that stipulated for in the interna- tional agreement, it is necessary to have the consent of Great Britain before beginning her construction. oe or _ COUNT VON ZEPPELIN is the inventor of an airship which is about to be tried at Friedrichshafer, near Lake Con- stance, Switzerland. The flight will be overthe lake, and _ fast steamers will follow the airship to receive its occupants in case of accident. Maj. Baden-Powell, brother of the col- onel now in South Africa describes the big machine. An aluminum frame work, like the skeleton of a battleship. is filled with balloons of the same metal. Its lifting power is estimated at rotons. It has cost about $350,000, The motive power will consist of four propellers driven by Daimler gasoline motors, and the expected rate of speed is _22miles an hour. The body of the ship cylindrical, about 200 feet long, 40 feet in diameter, and there is a steering _ apparatus at each end. THE LINK TO THE SEABOARD. There is now no question but that the Dominion of Canada is in possession of the waterway which forms the best link to the seaboard. The Erie canal with its fathom of water and continual breaks, thus stopping commerce, has become antiquated, and, as an outlet must be had, traffic will follow the most convenient and best facilitated paths, which, as we have said, is through Canadian territory. The Dominion government has perfected, at great expense, a fourteen foot waterway to the coast, and while no extra traffic has as yet developed, it is a fact that the organization of a syndicate of Buffalo capitalists, to build and equip a fleet of vessels for the St. Lawrence trade, has created considerable alarm among those interested in maintaining traffic by the Erie canal. Buffalo newspapers express considerable appre- hension regarding the loss of the grain traffic now reaching the seaboard by the Erie, and they freely admit that the men connected with the St. Lawrence enterprise are in a position to handle the business and side-track their own city. The enormous elevator business of Buffalo is threatened, and those most nearly interested are freely discussing the possi- bility of a large portion of the grain trade being diverted to Port Colborne and Montreal. The Buffalo syndicate is al- ready in negotiation with the Dominion government, in fact they have been for some time past, and they are prepared to invest $3,000,000 in the erection of elevators, and to build and equip a fleet of vessels for the transportation of grain and other freight. The recent unfortunate attempt to improve the Erie canal is no reason why a more successful effort should not be made and the outlet formed so as to equal the facilities offered by the Dominion of Canada, otherwise it is more than probable that Buffalo, and consequently New York city, will lose considerable traffic next season, and keep on losing until it will be too late to recover any portion of it. ——— or owl AN INTERNATIONAL QUESTION. The opening of the Chicago drainage canal is to take place next month, unless the plans of the engineers miscarry. As soon as it is opened the waters of Lake Michigan will find their way to the sea by two widely divergent routes, one by the natural outlet through the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River to the North Atlantic, and the other through an artifi- cial channel connecting the lake by way of the Illinois River with the Mississippi and the waters of the Gulf. The canal is 22 feet in depth, and varies from 162 to 202 feet in width. It is 35 miles in length. Sucha canal will require an im- mense volume of water to feed it, and its opening will un- doubtedly cause an appreciable diminution of the waters of the Great Lake system. While it will not affect Lake Onta- rio, it is generally believed that the diversion of so largea volume of water will lower the level of Lakes Erie and Huron, and thereby interfere with shipping. The matter is of no little importance to this country. We trust that the govern- ment ‘will look after the interests of Canada in the matter, Canada is jointly interested with the United States in the Great Lake system. We take it that the latter has no legel or international right to interfere with the system in any way that will work to the detriment of this country.—The Toronto World. OO oe onl A CANADIAN SHIP BUILDING INDUSTRY. A communication sent from Collingwood, Ont., to the RECORD says that J. J. Long, President of the Collingwood Dry Dock Co, has about completed arrangements for estab- lishing at Collingwood a modern shipbuilding plant of very large proportions, at first capable of building four full canal- sized ships at once, or, if neccessary, to build a 500-foot steamer. The machine tools and entire equipment will be capable of turning out any steel ship that will be required in lake or canal trade. Arrangements for all this have been quietly going on for several months, and lately, Capt. Alex. McDougall, of Duluth, formerly general manager of the American Steel Barge Co., has decided to becomea large stock- holder and director in the company, and isat present helping the other directors to select machinery, machine tools, super- intendents, foremen and men to properly start the enterprise. It is expected to have the works in full Operation in four or five months,and so that the first steel ship can be launched by the middle of next summer. Some special arrangements have been made in regard to the ship plateand material which cannot be explained at present. The Collingwood dry dock and grounds will be turned over to the new com- pany, who will enlarge and rebuild the present dry dock up to the full requirements of trade. LAKE FREIGHTS. The freight market has fairly slumped this week, and yet — there was no apparent reason for it. Ore rates which have stood at $1.85 from the head of Lake Superior, dropped to $1.25. This brought the other figures down. Marquette, which has been $1.60, dropped to $1.15, and the Escanaba rate, which has held at $1.35, went back to $1 flat. It seems strange that ore freights from the head of the lakes should, at this time of the season, drop from $2 to the above figure, but, it is partly accounted for, by the release of a good deal of tonnage chartered only to November, also a lack of railroad cars to handle either ore, grain or coal. Grain cargoes are away off to 2% cents from Chicago, and 3% cents from Duluth with very slow chartering and ves- sels detained in discharging on account of a lack of cars. Coal charters are fairly brisk at the lower figures from Ohio ports of 50 cents to the head of the lakes; 70 cents, Fort William or Escanaba; and 80 cents, Chicago or Mil- waukee. It is now expected that ashortage of 300,000 tons will be the condition at the head of the lakes when naviga- tion closes. oo oo ovnh A SCARCITY OF SEAMEN. It is learned that the battleship Texas, now at the Norfolk Navy Yard, and also the Indiana may be placed out of com- mission. The reason is stated to be that their crews are needed to replace men aboard those vessels at Manila whose time has expired. The department finds it impossible to secure men to man the ships because of the decline in enlist- ment. ‘That so few enlist is attributed to the disinclination of seamen to enlist for the four years’ term required by the regulations at present in effect, and also to the dislike of the men for the commissary mess system recently introduced. Under this latter system the men claim that they are not well fed and that the allowance of $9 a month each received as mess money does not now suffice to provide them with suitable food cooked to their liking, as it did formerly when messes of about 20 men each was the rule. The seamen object, they say, to the long term and short ration arrange- ment, and not to service in Manila or anywhere else where fighting is going on. The recently announced suspension of work upon certain vessels is believed to be due notso much to lack of money as to the lack of men to man them : when their repairs shall have been completed. DO Oo THE COLWELL LOST. The lake built steamer George L,. Colwell, Captain Gaskill, from Fernandina, Fla., for New York, foundered on the pas- sage and the captain was the only one saved. The Colwell was built at Bay City, Mich. in 1880. She registered 371 tons net and was 154.2 feet long, 30.7 beam and 10.9 feet deep. She was owned by the Yellow Pine Company of Philadelphia and carried lumber from Southern ports to New York. Itis believed that twelve hands were lost. The Colwell left the Great Lakes in 1897 with a number of other lake boats which were chartered for the Atlantic coasting trade. or or oe THE conversion of old steamers into sailing ships, tow barges, store ships or lighters has been common enough during the past few decades, but it isa rather unusual oc- currence to gonvert tow barges into steamers and the experi- ment may prove anything but a satisfactory one in the long run, A Cleveland owner put machinery into a large steel tow barge last winter and now the Bessemer Steamship Co. (Rockefeller’s fleet) is to have two steel tow barges fitted with machinery by the American Ship Building Co. It is only a question of financial outlay in making any possible change, but, as we have said, it seems to be reversing the — order of things to make steamers out of the ordinary scow- like built steel tow barges. In the most recent instance, the tow barges are only under construction as yet, so that it will simply mean a revision of the plans, new stern posts, : extra strengthening, etc., but as we have said, the conver- sion of tow barges into steamers is, on general principles, a good deal like taking a step backward, a forward retrogres- sion, as it were. ro or or THE longest steamer route given on the hydrographic office map is that connecting New York and Esquimault by way of Cape Horn—16,290 miles. his is exceeded by the — track used by sailing vessels connecting New York and Yokohama, via the Cape of Good Hope. This is 16,900 miles in length, rae