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eae UES DECEMBER 13, Ig00. THE MARINE RECORD SHIPPING OF THE WORLD. _ Under the above heading, in an article published in the MARINE RECORD of date of Dec. 6th, itisays, ‘‘The merchant marine of the world, according to Lloyd’s Register, is re- presented by 28,422 vessels, having a tonnagé:of 29,063,738. Of this aggregate, Great Britain has: 10,838 vessels, and a tonnage of 14,261,254. Next to the British Empire ranks the United States, with 3,135 vessels and ‘a total tonnage of 2,750,271.’ The Scientific American in its issue of May 5th, 1900, stated that the tonnage of Great Britain (steam 6,759,- - 000, sail 2,426,) was 9,421,000, And that of the United States « was, Steam 673,000, and sail, 1,292,000; or a total of 1,956,- 000, (leaving off the few odd hundreds) American tonnage _on the high seas. Supposing those statements to be correct, and, certainly, ;. they are considered to be standard authorities, it shows that a. _ the tonnage of Great Britain has, during the past eight months, or possibly a year, incresed over 840,000 tons. And during the same time the new ships built in the United States show a net increased tonnage of 786,000. This estimate, of course, covers the new steam and sail of both countries. And that the increase of tonnage of Great Britain during that period was but 54,000 greater than it was in the United States. Comparing that with the fact, that for the last forty years, up to quite recently, the out-put of new tonnage in Great Britain, for deep sea commerce, has been on the average per annum, three or four times of thatin this country. That being the case, considering the great proportionate increase of new tonnage in this country for the year past, how long. will it be before we outstrip Great Britain in the construction of great merchant marine ships to traverse the world’s great highways? and that, too, without the aid of any subsidy, from the National Government, at the éxpense of the Amer- » ican people, who will not be benefited thereby directly, at SS en eee 3 bi we Des . least. SENATE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE. The report of the Senate Committee on Commerce, re- _ cently made public, though submitted to the Senate of Feb- ruary. last, shows that the value of American exports and imports, and the percentage carried in American and foreign ships from 1869 to 1899, to have been as follows, P Year. Total. American. Foreign. beat, 1869 $ 876,448,784 $289,956,772 $ 586,492,784 33.1 1879 ~—s-: 1, 183,384,924 272,015,692 QII,269,232 23. 1889 =—-1, 420,868,649 203,865,541 I,217,063,541 14.3 1899 =1,806,876,073 160,644,006 646,232,067. 8.1 which shows that the percentage of American commerce car- ried on American ships was not one-fourth, in 1899, that it was in 1869, yet there was a great increase of American tonnage, if not possibly in proportion to the increase of our commerce, yet they could have carried in 1899, more than twice what ‘they could have carried 40 years ago, for that though the gross foreign commerce had considerably more than doubled, so had the tonnage of American bottoms. Anditis also true ’ that while there have been, especially of late, a wonderful in- crease of exports, there have been nearly a proportional de- "crease of imports, showing a very handsome balance of trade in our favor. Infact that balance, for the last three years, was greater than it had been for the previous 100 years. And yet when we take into consideration the late rapid in- crease of American tonnage on the high seas that are in the foreign trade, being so much more sothan in any other - period since the war of 1861-5, that drove the American merchant marine from the face of the seas, and left the American ship owners bankrupt, and so discouraged that they who did have money turned their attention to other branches of trade and business, that for the time being seemed safer, and in fact more lucrative. And it was many _ years before much attention was paid to the project of build- ing up a new merchant marine, and during that period there was a great revolution in ship structure. England had en- _ tered largely in the construction of large steel ships, many bs having a high rate of speed, new ship plants were put down in.many places around the Island. The Government paid large bonuses for carrying the mails, while we were doing _ little or nothing to encourage shipbuilding in this country. 2 - {Our people were forced to go it alone. ab doing as best they could, until Congress began to see the Jae necessity of having a navy, and provided that it should be But they went ahead built in this country, of American material, and paid liber- hi ally therefor, whereby our people put in large plants at . reat cost, and built the best kind of war ships. - Couraged our shipbuilders that now we have nearly as great This so en- a tonnage as that we had before the war, and being at the same time far more. expensive, and having a better class of ships, able to do a far greater amount of business than could the old, averaging much larger, and much faster going, be- ing now mostly built of steel and iron, thus displacing the’ old’ Wooden ships, anda very much larger percentage is navi- gated by steam, especially those made for short voyages. Unless there isa mistake in the figures given us by the Scientific American in May, and Lloyd’s Register in Decem- ber 1900, wé ‘now have ample tonnage to carry all our export and import commerce with foreign countries. And if they did carry less thai 9 per cent. in 1899, they must have been in a entirely foreigh trade, where it was more lucurative than it would have been to have entered into competition with foreign ships for our trade direct with England and Western Europe, for these reports shows that the increase of Ameri- can tonnage during the current year was more than two-fifths of what we had last year, while that of Great Britain was less than one-eleventh, and it further shows that the actual ton- nage turned out by the British yards was but 54,000 tons more than was turned out by the American shipbuilders, during the same time. These being the facts, we would ask, how long will it be necessary to keep up this ratio, before the Ameri- can deep sea tonnage will be equal to that of Great Britain. When we take into consideration the fact that the raw ma- terial, as a general thing, is much cheaper here than it was in the past, and in fact is now much cheaper, especially coal, than it is in England or elsewhere in Europe, thus with the great improvements in labor-saving machinery, more than counter-balances the higher grade of wages paid in this country, we can build ships here for less money than they can be built elsewhere. Increased cost'of shipbuilding in Great Britain, we are in- formed through H. E. Moss & Co., of Liverpool, in a report recently made by them, that appeared in the MARINE RE- CORD of Nov. 29th, under the heading of ‘‘British Shipping,” which says, ‘‘The cost of shipbuilding has continued to ad- vance by leaps and bounds, until now we may say it is at least 49 per cent. above the price four years ago. Within the last twelve months the advance has been quite ro per cent. In that connection we may state that the president of the Great Northern R. R., Mr. Hill, in an address delivered by him in Chicago, said that he received bids from shipbuilders on the Clyde, and frora the most reliable buildersin this country, and for a single ship our builders had offered to do it for many thousand dollars less than the Clyde builders. From this we must conclude that we can build as good ships as those of any other country, and for less money per ton. nage measurement. Then we are confronted with the quarterly report of the Lloyds’ Register, ending June 30th; 1900, which says that there were at the time being built in that country, two steamships for the United States, having a tonnage of 3,350 gross tons. Of course Americans can have ships built in England or in any other foreign country, but under the act of-1792, which is in full force, and may it never be repealed, no foreign built bottom, unless by special act of Congress, can be documented in this country, or registered in an Amer- ican cuctom house, float the American flag, or receive Amer- ican protiction. Of course American citizens are at liberty to purchase for- eign ships, and own them, but they cannot receive the pro- tection from this Government that is afforded to American built bottoms. The act of 1792 was varied in the case of the City of Paris, and the City of New York, which was a mistake, but it was done partly on the grounds that they were largly owned by our people, and they carried the American mails, and were well paid for it. Sandusky, O. S. C. WHEELER. Oe BESSEMER ORES IN DEMAND. While the iron ore deposits of the Lake’Superior region are generally described as ‘‘practically inexhaustible,” the fact is well known to the keenest gentleman’ in the ore pro- ducing business, that the annual tonnage being sent out for the past few years, has developed a few thing that must not be under estimated. We are now sending out sometuing like twenty million tons, as against a single million not so many years ago. It is the divulging of no secret to say that the fancy Bessemer ores of the older ranges are fast disap- pearing, having been shipped in seasons gone by, and it is apparent to those who keep well informed upon the condi- tions of the mines that-the consumers of iron ores will have soon to be satisfied with ores containing more of phosphorus and less of iron than. they have. been i in the Fait of using and. insisting upon, In the city of Ishpeming the! Take Auipalinie once the pride of our town, and enjoying a national reputation for the quality of its product, is fast rounding up its fine Besse- mers, there being only a few years more of shipments from this class of material in sight, or as a matter of fact, upon the company’s landsin this place. The end of these once famous deposits can be seen, and the time of their exhaustion is not far distant. The old mine Hematite of the Lake Superior has been worked out, and the lake deposit of much less size is the only one thus far found to replace it, The ores be- neath the old Lake Angeline basin are not yielding the per centage of Bessemers as was hoped for and expected, the Cleveland company mining a large quantity of non-Besse- mer from this deposit. They have now in stock somewhere about sixty thousand tons, wae will be carried over until another season. ; ethers Alfred Kidder, agent, and Thomas Walters, sineHalere dent, of the Lake Angeline mine, are now in Canada ex- amining a property which is reported to carry a large amount of ore of Bessemer grade. The company has also purchased the Jackpot mine on the Gogebic range, hoping to develop a profitable mine at that point, and to make up | for the shortening lenses at its older property. The Menominee range has little Bessemer ore, this com- ing from the Aragon, Loretta and Pewabic principslly. The Gogebic is not as prolific as was hoped for, and much of its product is injured by a wrong percentage of manganese. The giant Mesaba is not showing as much ore of Bessemer grade as was figured upon afew years ago. One mine, noted for its immense shipments, and where 100 millions of Bessemer grade ore were said to have been measured, now is reported to contain only a ninth of that quantity, while the non-Bessemer grades are of extremely poor quality. Added to this the peculiar fineness of ore structure, and it makes the property far less valuable than was formerly figured. The Chandler and Pioneer, of the Vermilion range, are exceptions, their product holding well up and being of the finest. The Chandler, however, is fast exhausting its ore stores, and reduced outputs will be noted in a few years un- less new lenses are discovered. On the other hand the Pio- neer gives evidence of increasing in size for some years to come. With the mining men fearing the Mesaba would swamp them, they are now seeking rew ore deposits in ‘Canadian soil, and already ore shipments from Michipicoten, on the Canadian side, have been commenced to the United States. There are said to be fine ores in Canada, although many of them are worthless, due to the titanium they hold. Some plan for the elimination of this will probably be found, but thus far it renders the ore unsalable. The Michigan ranges have immense amounts of ores run- ning better than 30 per cent. and comparing favorably with the ores of the southern fields, but at the present there is lit- tle market for it. A few mines where the ores run high i in silicon have developed a market in mixture with the finer grained ores on the Mesaba range, but the great bulk of these ores will remain untouched until the better grades have been disposed of. Furnacemen will wait until every pound of the better qualities is used up before buying the poorer unless the miners insist upon their accepting a cer- tain portion of the lean with the fat. In some instances this is being attempted, and a few miners with exceptionally high grade ores have been enabled to sell some of their lower grades by refusing to sell the faney without some of the or- - dinary. In a few years, despite the great gains which have been made to the former mining territory, there will be a ery for the fancy Bessemers which the consumers have been so per- sistently fed with of late, and to secure which more than one good mine was spoiled.—Iron Ore. i Oe NOTICE TO MARINERS. LIGHT-HOUSE ESTABLISHMENT, OFFICE OF THE LIGHT-HOUSE INSPECTOR, 9TH Disv., CuIcacGo, ILL., December 11, 1900. ) LIGHT. VESSELS NOS..55, 56 AND 57. r Notice is hereby given that Lansing Shoal Light Vessel No. 55, White Shoal Light Vessel No, 56 and Gray’s Reef Light Vessel No. 57, have left their stations and gone into winter quarters. By order of the Light-House Board. F. M. SyMonps, Commander, U.S. Navy, Inspector 9th 1. H. District.