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a JANUARY 18, Ig00, CLEVELAND. | Special Correspondence to the Marine Record : Although the price was not given out, it is said that J. C. Gilchrist paid $100,000 for the steamer C. B. Lockwood. Other parties offered $95,000. Capt. Charles A. Galton, last season in the MitchelMine steel steamer Hendrick S. Holden, will next season take charge of the new steamer W. E. Rees owned in the same line. R. L. Newman, who was in charge of the Globe Iron Works shipyard, at Cleveland, has entered upon his duties as general manager of the New York Ship Building Co., which is erecting at Camden, a very large shipbuilding plant. The employes of the Great Lakes Towing Co. gave their first annual ball on Wednesday evening at Lang’s Hall, 618 Lorain Street. Music was by the Great Western band. The participants enjoyed a very pleasant evening and the first annual was voted a complete success. Plans for the addition to the marine hospital, ‘corner of Erie and Lake streets, soon to be made in the shape of anew wardspecially for patients suffering with contagious diseases, are now being prepared in Washington and they will be forwarded to Cleveland as soon as completed. The American Steamship Company has issued invitations to attend the launch of the steamer John W. Gates, at the Lorain yards of the American Ship Building Co., at three o’clock Saturday, Jan. 20th. The invitations are signed by John W. Gates, president of the company, in whose honor the large steel steamer is to be named. Lieut. George P. Blow, U. S. N., who was executive officer on the ill fated Maine when that vessel was blown up in Ha- vana harbor,visited Cleveland this week. Lieut. Blow es- tablished, and for a:‘few months had charge of, the branch hydrographic office in Chicago also in Cleveland, during which time he made a host of friends in this city. Vesselmen say that coal shippers to Manitowoc and She- boygan will not be able to get any season tonnage for 60 cents. They claim that 65 cents has been offered on the quiet and that the offer was turned down. Some of the owners do not appear to be anxious to tie up for the season on coal, but some Lake Michighn coal could be covered by season contracts at 70 cents to Manitowoc and Sheboygan, and 75 cents to Milwaukee. Mid-winter launches are rather the exception than the custom and an Eastern yard recently experienced great difficulty in launching a vessel on account of the tallow hardening and freezing on the ways. Lake shipyards launch sideways and are always successful in getting the hulls waterborne at the appointed time, hence no uneasiness is felt regarding the operation of launching this 6,000 ton modern built steel cargo steamer. Captain C. EH. Benham, custodian of the government building, thinks Secretary of the Navy J. D. Long’s reasons for not wanting to establish a naval training school at Cleveland are not wellfounded. The Secretary said a training ship could not be placed here because it would be contrary to the international agreement not to maintain more than one warship apiece on the Great Lakes. Capt. Benham saysa training ship need not necessarily be a warship. The rey- enue cutters are armed and are not considered warships. The local shipmasters are arranging for their annual ball that is to be given on the night of January 25 at the Cham- ber of Commerce Hall. The captains, when they do a thing of this sort, usually do it in the right way, and this year is to be no exception to the rule. The arrangements are that they are to have the best music that the city can afford for the night, and the dance will be followed by the best dinner that the captains know how to arrange for. The prospects are that the attendance will be very large this year as usual. Capt. E. Day, superintendent of the Pittsburg & Conneaut Dock Co., has been promoted to manager of the Pittsburg Steam Ship Company’s fleet of boats (Carnegie’s) with head- quarters at Cleveland. Capt. Day has been superintendent of the docks at Conneaut harbor since their opening several years ago, and no superintendant on the chain of lakes was more highly honored and respected by employes. lhe vacancy caused by Capt. Day’s promotion has not as yet been filled, but will remain in charge of the docks at Conneaut until the opening of navigation. The rate for unloading grain at Cleveland for 1900 will be $2.50 per 1,000 bushels, the same as it has been for the past few seasons. Martin Connors, who has had the contract for a number of year, has already signed contracts with most local vessel owners to do the work during the coming season. The officials of the longshoremen’s union some time ago decided to put ina bid for the work at the annual meeting of the Lake Carriers’ Association. Martin Connors has always dealt direct with the vesselmen and he is satisfied that the contracts he has made with the local managers and brokers will stand and that he will continue to do the work at this port. That excellent institution, the Floating Bethel, J. D. Jones, chaplain, held its annual meeting this week, and the work of the society was even better this year than ever before. There are institutions of all sorts, but none can do the efficient and effectual work of the Floating Bethel, and the chaplain’s hands, or rather the only fin that he has left, the right one, or if it is the left, it is the right one, anyway, should be and is being nobly upheld. In this society, con- tributions fetch up where they are intended for, and there is ~ no percentage or rake-off for grasping or impecunious col- THE MARINE RECORD. lectors clothed in the garb of sauve or sweet-scented religious mendicants. The hardest and most depraved outcasts that from time to time hang out on the river front, while not en- couraged, can but speak good of the Floating Bethel and its earnest, energetic, bluff, God-fearing, one-armed chaplain, who is at all times on deck to assert his personality and mission oh this earth. “Nothing has been done about ore unloading charges for the coming season, and it will probably be several weeks before the matteris taken up. The longshoremen sent a delegation to the Lake Carriers’ meeting at Detroit this week, Vice President Walsh said a few days ago that a con- ference of the leaders of the union would be held shortly after the meeting of the LakeCarriers and that a general meet- ing of the men would be held before a rate was decided upon or any demand was made. Mr. Walsh said he could not state what rate would be asked, but that an advance over last season’s rate would surely be demanded. ‘The rate for winter work on the docks was settled some time ago and the business is going along very smoothly. Ore is going for- ward from the Lake Erie docks to the furnaces pretty freely, but if cars were more plentiful the movement would be much heavier. All the dock managers are complaining about the shortage of cars. BUFFALO. Special Correspondence to The Marine Record. At a meeting of the Marine Engineers’ Beneficial Associa- tion, No. 1, of Buffalo, Saturday evening, the following officers were elected and installed for the ensuing year. President, Albert Edgar; vice-president, Edgar Hull; cor- responding secretary, Robert Noone; recording secretary, Charles Fox; financial secretary and treasurer, Peter Burns; chaplain, Edward Carter; doorkeeper, Henry Morgan; con- ductor, James Murray; delegates to national convention, George Towne, William Garrity, Sam Moore. There is a probability that the Union Dry Dock Company will not sign a contract with the Fire Commissioners to build a new fire boat for the city at the company’s low bid of $91,000 made in the recent competition for the work. ‘The company and the Commissioners do not agree over certain clauses in the contract. It is said the Dry Dock Company officials claim the contract differs considerably from the specifications upon which they bid, and they fear that cer- tain clauses, if lived up to, would hinder the construction of the boat in six montis. The completion of the enlarged Canada canals, which threatens to divert from the port of Buffalo a large portion of the grain-carrying trade, was discussed by representative citizens at a largely attended meeting of the Merchants’ Exchange on Friday. Resolutions were adopted, urging upon the governor and legislature of the state the adoption without delay of a plan of improvement for the Erie canal, which will meet the exigencies of the situation. A com- mittee will proceed to Albany at once to press upca the members of the legislature the urgent necessity for prompt action in the matter. : The Canada Steamship Co. is looking for boats with which to replace the vessels chartered last year from M. A. Hanna & Co., and since sold to the Republic Iron and Steel Co. President Chamberlain of the Canada Atlantic Company, and General Manager Harris were in conference with several vessel owners, but the understanding is that so far they have met with no success. The vesselmen say that boats which the Canadian people are after are not easy to find just now. They are looking for large boats, and the owners of such property find it more profitable just now to “run their own vessels than to lease them to some company for a year. It is said that the Canadian company may yet be com- pelled to buy its boats. Councilman John J. Smith, the representative from South Buffalo in the Common Council, is of the belief that the United States Government should take up the improvement of Buffalo river and make an appropriation for the widening and deepening of its channel. At his request representatives Alexander and Ryan will urge the appropriation at Wash- ington. This week a formal resolution will be offered and adopted in the Common Council endorsing the proposition. Public Works Commissioners Healy and Boeckel, Mayor Diehl, President Haines of the Merchants’ Exchange and leading vessel men areinfavor of the proposition. Coun- cilman Smith thinks $50,000 or $100,000 ought to be secured for work this year. The government makes appropriations for the care and improvement of the Chicago river and the Buffalo officials feel Buffalo river is entitled to the same con- sideration. The efforts of the local correspondent of the Black Dia- mond, Chicago, extended from season to season, has at last been rewarded with a full report of the anthracite shipments by lake during the season of 1899, which is as follows in net tons and is actual and not based on custom-house estimates, as former figures have been. The shipment from Buffalo was 2,811,294 tons; from Erie, 606,594 tons; from Oswego, 426,728 tons; from Charlotte, 84,227 tons; from Fair Haven, 52,676 tons and from Sodus Point, 15,848 tons, a total of 3,- 997,367 tons. There was shipped through the Welland canal 71,872 tons of coal from Oswego. Add this amount to the total from Buffalo and Erie and it gives 3,489,760 tons shipped to points above Erie. Take the amount out of the Lake Ontario total of 579,879 and it leaves 507,607, the amount distributed to Lake Ontario and St. Lawrence river ports. It will be seen that another moderate cargo would have brought the grand total of all the anthracite shipped on the lakes in 1899 to a round 4,000,000 tons. 27 At the meeting of the Fire Board, held on Monday, the commissioners addressed a communication to the common council notifying them that the Union Dry Dock Company had refused to sign the contract for the construction of the new fire boat, and requesting that new bids be advertised for. The fire commissioners were anxious, for many rea- sons, to have the contract made and spared no efforts to that end. The form of contract presented to the Union Dry Dock Company for signature was that usually required in city contracts and was such as the fire commissioners deemed proper in this case. It was, however, rejected by the contractor, and the fire commissioners have taken steps to advertise anew for the construction of a fire boat and have deposited the forfeited check of the former bidder for $1,000 with the treasurer in order that the amount thereof may be collected and deposited to the fund provided for the construction of a fire boat. It is not often that a shipbuild- ing company permits itself to be penalized in the forfeiture of its hard cash bond after making a competitive bid and in this case the Union Dry Dock Company must have good reasons for throwing up the contract. Capt. John Baxter, of the light-house tender Haze, is now beginning to find out what has been palpable to scores of people long ago, and that is, that the tender has outgrown her usefulness, or rather that the district aids to navigation have become so numerous that the little craft is entirely in- adequate for the service and should be replaced with a vessel at least double her size. Only a year or two ago there were no gas buoys to look after, but there are now twenty-five between Detroit and Ogdensburg, ten being in the St. Lawrence and two in Canadian waters at Pointau Pelee. At one time all the gas had to be taken on at Detroit, but now a supply for the St. Lawrence is shipped by rail from Syracuse to Cape Vincent, where it is piped to the steamer direct. Her capacity is too small to admit of tanks of desired size being carried. The Light-House Service, is to the practical seamen one of the most important, beneficial and useful branches of the government, and one on which the water-borne traffic of the country eminently and actually reliesupon. There is a vast stretch of coast line to take care of and properly conduct, yet, the Light-House Service is above reproach, even in details, strict discipline, punctu- ality in all goings and comings and a worthy service spirit rules the department from top to bottom. Congress, recog- nizing these facts, should be unanimous in voting liberal supplies for the maintenance of this very excellent depart- ment, and where tenders are found to be obsolete for an particular district, large modern bottoms should take their place. rr oor DULUTH—SUPERIOR. : Special Corresbondence to The Marine Record.. Capt. Alex. McDougall and Mr. A.B. Wolvin are in Detroit this week attending the annual meeting of the Lake Carriers’ Association. The Booth Packing Co. are willing to dispose of the steamers Dixon and Hunter with probably a view of replac- ing them by larger boats in the shore trade out of here. The steamer Bon Ami went into winter quarters January 11. This isthelatest date in the history of navigation on these shores of ake Superior and her trips would have been continued still later but traffic fell off too much. The new dry dock at West Superior has been completed and a force of about a dozen men are cleaning up the grounds. Another force of men is at work on the engine house and it is expected that it will be finished in a few weeks. The tug Gladiator, owned by B. B. Moiles, of Saginaw, Mich., is said to have been sold to Whitney Bros., the West Superior contractors. The Gladiator is a large, powerful tug and Whitney Bros. have a very heavy scow, the Inter- state, which requires a strong tug to handle to the best advantage. : There will be 300,000,000 feet of logs cut in Douglas county, Wis., this year for delivery at Superior, Ashland and Duluth. The Northern Pacific road will deliver over half of this amount to the Duluth and Superior mills. The St. Paul and Duluth has engaged a large consignment to be shipped to North Carolina, also for shipbuilding purposes to Lake Erie ports. The campaign of the timber men for pine in this northern country continues as strong as ever. Every piece of land with two sticks of pine on it is being picked up, and timber lands considered remote and inaccessible are being sought after and ‘‘cinched.’’? All of which will undoubtedly increase the prosperity of northern Wisconsin and northern Minne- sota very materially during the year to come. Capt. James Prior, of the lighthouse station at Duluth reports that the lights were burned 2,783 hours and 6 min- utes during the season of navigation. This is about an aver- age season for the lighthouse, he says. The fog signal was blown a total of 653 hours and 15 minutes, which is above the average and the biggest record since the year of the Hinckley fire, when there was a great deal of smoke all over the Lake Superior region and particularly at the head of the lake. The comparative table of the registered tonnage for the port of Duluth, compiled at the customs office, shows a very heavy increase last year over 1898. The total number of vessels registered last year were 220, as compared with 156 the year previous. The gross tonnage for the year was 198,890, an increase of 64,655 tons over 1898. Net tonnage isshow at 164,936 tons, while in 1898 the net tonnage totaled 109,237 tons. The average net tonnage for the year was 749.70 tons and 700.23 the year previous.