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JANUARY 18, 1900. THE DETROIT SHIP BUILDING Co. The company which is at present organized under the name of the Detroit Ship Building Co. has always kept ex- act records of its work on each vessel built, and it can today give as detailed an account of the day’s work done and the cost of material on the first schooner built in 1872, as of the last large steel cargo steamer that left the ways in 1899. Its records would furnish a very complete history of the evolu- tion of the lake passenger and freight carriers of the pres- ent day. The history of shipbuilding on the lakes is given, in epitome, by the history of the work commenced at the foot of Orleans street in Detroit and carried on oak: and at Wyandotte. In 1852 Campbell & Co. launched from the yard at the foot of Orleans street the first large vessel built in Detroit. They continued the business in a moderate way till 1862, when John Owen came into the partnership, and the firm became Campbell & Owen. The Campbell interest was sold in 1870 to 5. R. Kirby, and in 1872 the Detroit Dry Dock Co. was organized, with a capital of $300,000. The firm re- tained its old name until 1899, when it was reincorporated as the Detroit Ship Building Co., with a capital of $1,450,- ooo. It is now part of the consolidation known as the American Ship Building Co., but has not lost its identity in name nor in fact. It makes contracts and conducts the business according to the best judgment of its officers, who are at present as follows: Alexander McVittie, president and manager; William C. McMillan, vice-president; Mu. E. Farr, secretary and treasurer; Frank E. Kirby, consulting engineer; C. B. Calder, general superintendent; John D. Langell, superintendent of dry docks. In 1877, five years after its organization, the Detroit Dry Dock Co. absorbed a small shipbuilding plant at Wyandotte, and subsequently took in the Clark drydock near the foot of Clarx avenue, etroit. By absorption and expansion it has not only included all the large shipbuilding interests of De- troit, but has brought them up to a magnitude not rivaled by any yard on the lakes. Its plant now includes engine and boiler shops on Orleans and Atwater streets, the old De- troit sheet metal and brass works, the yard and drydock at the foot of Orleans street, the drydock and yard at Clark avenue, and the yard and shops at Wyandotte. PACIFIC COAST LUMBER. Washington Fir THE MARINE RECORD. The Orleans street yard and its drydock, 385 feet long, are devoted to fitting out vessels, docking, repairing and installing the boilers, engines and machinery plants. Clark’s dzydock and yard are devoted to docking and repairing, and the Wyandotte yards and shops to the building of steel vessels. The capacity of the latter has been more than doubled within the past two years, and great improvements have been made in the machinery and appliances used. Among the latter is the installation of a system of pneu- matic tools worked by compressed air, and a huge traveling crane, 500 feet long and with a lifting capacity of 12 tons. The company last year turned out work to a value ap- proximating $2,500,000. It opens 1900 with vessels under contract to occupy all four of the building berths at Wyan- dotte, with a large amount of work engaged ahead at both the other yards, with 1,500 hands employed, a very large proportion of them skilled workmen, and with every pros- pect of an output exceeding $3,000,000 for the year. The last ‘two vessels launched at Wyandotte were sister ships, the Angeline and the Admiral, each 435 feet long, and with carrying capacity of 6,300 tons of iron ore. When the first iron tug was launched at Wyandotte, more than a quarter of a century ago, the conclusion was reached “to buy the mest material and build the best con- struction,’ a method which has been faithfully followed ever since. Pursuing this method, the company is not in the field for cheap contracts. Its requirements exact more in many respects than Lloyd’s rules, and embody what long experience has determined necessary for a staunch steel vessel. The nearly century and a half of vessels that have al- ready gone into service from the hands of these builders have included nearly every type that has been standard in the lake marine within the past quarter of a century— tugs, two, three and four masted schooners, wooden cargo steamers. nassenger ferry boats, the largeset* car ferries, ice crushers, iron, steel and composite freight carriers of varying tonnage, and the finest side-wheel passenger steam- ers that float the lakes. The first successful ice crusher was the St. Ignace, designed by Frank E. Kirby and built by the Dry Dock Company for service in the Straits of Mackinac. There Lewis & Crane, WHOLESALE LUMBER. SEATTLE, WASH. 29 were two features which gave this craft great efficiency. ‘he vessel has great weight as well as power, and is so. modeled that her oaken bow presses the ice downward by iis weight, while a bow propeller crushes it and throws it yackward under the vessel. This was so successful for the purposes required that it was followed by another, the Sainte Marie, which has proven even more effective. The iatter has gone through 24-inch blu: ice, in which she has been started and stopped without reversing the engine. The fame of these ice crushers became widespread, and the Russian government sent agents to Detroit for the purpose of studing their workings. That country has since adopt- ed the idea and copied their model for vessels to be used in its own frozen waters. The Detroit Ship Building Co. is about the only one on the lakes that builds first-class side-wheel steamers. The Frank E. Kirby, the fastest passenger steamer in these waters, was of their construction; so were all the steam- ers of the Detroit & Cleveland line, and many others. The fame of the company’s designer and consulting en- gineer, Frank E. Kirby, extends to all shipbuilding ports — in the country, and his services were sought by the gov- ernment during the progress of the Spanish war. It was he who planned the devices for ventilation in the trans- ports Grant, Sherman and others which were used for con- veying troops to Manila. These plans were so complete and well arranged as to call for the admiration of both army and navy officers, and it is safe to say that no army was ever before conveyed such a distance through tropical waters with as little discomfort and as little illness. ee EVERYBODY has a pencil in his pocket—take yours out and look at the stamp. If it reads Dixon’s ‘‘American Graphite’’ S M, whether round or hexagon shape, all right; if not, send outand get such a one. The leads in these pencils—we mean the ‘‘American Graphite’? S. M.—are simply superb, strong, tough, black, yet smoother than silk, smoother than finest velvet. They write superbly; they make writing a pleasure. Itis pleasant to mark with them, they are so agreeable to the touch. Take your pencil out and look at the stamp, if not a Dixon S M, send out and buy one; you won’t regret it. SPECIAL ATTENTION GIVEN TO SHIPBUILDING MATERIAL. For Ship-Decking, Planking and Spars, cannot be excelled in point of "_~__ Durability, Strength and Cheapness. ot ot ot te ot ot Write for Prices and Special Information. J. F. CORLETT, PERRY-PAYNE BUILDING. PLATES STEEL AND IRON BoiLeR TusBes, Stack SHEETS, DIAMOND CHECKERED FLOOR . PLATES, AND RIBBED PATTERNS FOR ENGINE AND BOILER ROOM FLOORS, ENGINE STEPS AND PLATFORMS, SHAFT ALLEYS, ETC. CHEAPER PER SQUARE FOOT THAN CAST IRON. ROLLED STEEL SHEARED OR UNIVERSAL ROLLED. ‘‘PENCOYD’’ O. H. STEEL FORGED STEEL SHAPES Steet Bars, O.H. Rivet Robo. PIPE FLANGES FOR JOINING SECTIONS OF STEAM PIPE. SAFER, BETTER AND CHEAPER PER UNIT OF STRENGTH THAN CAST FLANGES DIAMETERS, SIX INCHES TO SIX FEET. CLEVELAND, O. FOR SHIP FRAMES AND BUILDING PURPOSES. WELDLESS ROLLED