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ESTABLISHED 1878. A g g z £ VOL. XXIV, No. 20. CLEVELAND -- MAY 16, 1901 -- CHICAGO. $2.00 Per Year. 5c. Single Copy LAKE CARRIERS’ ASSOCIATION. To consider and take action upon all general questions relating to the ‘navigation and carrying business of the Great Lakes, maintain necessary shipping offices and in general to protect the common interests of Lake Car- riers, and toim+ rove the character of the service rendered to the public. PRESIDENT. A. B. WOLVIN, Duluth. 1ST VICE-PRESIDENT. Capt. J. G, KEITH, Chicago. SECRETARY. CHARLES H. KEEP, ‘ Buffalo, TREASURER. GEORGE P. McKay, Cleveland. COUNSEL. HARVEY D. GOULDER, Cleveland. EXECUTIVE AND FINANCE COMMITTEE. JAMES CORRIGAN, Chairman, Cleveland COMMITTEE ON LEGISLATION. Gisson L. DouGras, Chairman, Buffalo. COMMITTEE ON AIDS TO NAVIGATION. GrEorGE P. McKay, Chairman, Cleveland. LAKE CARRIERS’ ASSOCIATION MEETING. At a meeting of the Lake Carriers’ Association held in the offices of Capt. J. C. Gilchrist, Cleveland, on Tuesday, Capt. George P. McKay, chairman of the committee on aids to navigation, was instructed to take charge of all matters re- ferring to private lights. Capt. John.Corrigan, of Cleveland, and Capt. J. W. Westcott, of Detroit, were appointed a com- mittee to keep the masters of Lake Carriers’ boats posted on the stage of water in the Detroit river. No action was taken in regard to a schedule of wages, and the card that was adopted last fall will stand. Shipping masters will be appointed for all the ports that had shipping officers last year, and it was decided to add Conneaut to the list. The advisability of opening a channel through the west draw of the Superior street viaduct, Cleveland, was discuss- ed, and all the local owners favored the plan. President Wolvin appointed a committee to look into the matter and if a favorable report is made, Director of Public Works, Sa- len will be urged to make the improvement. << Bees Se SHAMROCK | BARRED OUT. According to the deed of gift of the America’s cup to the New York Yacht Club, it would appear that the Shamrock I cannot be substituted for the Shamrock II, in this year’s contests for the America’scup. One clause of the deed of gift reads: ‘No vessel which has been defeated in a match for this cup can be again selected by any club as its representative until after a contest for it by some other vessel has intervened, or until after the expiration of two years from the time of such defeat.”’ The necessary two years have not elapsed. The Columbia and the Shamrock I met October 16, 17 and 20, 1899, and the next series of races were scheduled, in the acceptance of the challenge, for August 20, 22 and 24 of this year, ora week later, if anything should happen to delay the challenger. Consequently, it seems the two-year condition cannot strict- ly be made available until after the next series of races. an THE ISTHMIAN CANAL. In agreeing to insert in the proposed isthmian canal treaty a provision establishiog the neutrality of the projected waterway, Secretary Hay has taken action which meets with the full approval of Admiral Dewey and the majority of naval officers. When told that the President would pledge the United States to observe the principle of neutrality in the conven- tion under negotiation, the admiral ejaculated: “Splendid. More than a year agolI said that the canal should be neutral. Iam more convinced today of the ne- cessity of such action. Erection of fortifications would make the canal one of the prime objectives of our enemy’s operations in time of war. Besides, their construction would entail enormous expense and necessitate constant ex- penditure to keep them manned and in proper condition. I see no necessity for them. “The neutrality of the canal can be guaranteed by our fleet. The canal is to be a commercial waterway, and neu- tralization, therefore, will mean its preservation.” ee COST OF CANADIAN BUOYAGE The expenditure in connection with the buoy service for the year ended June 30, 1900, was: Province of Quebec, including port of Montreal. .$30,527 61 Above Montreal including Ontario............... 7,489 58 NOva SCObA satu nigtsist iepinie Waeiscen sean ner ans 11,067 28 New BCUnS WICK: soe cea hee ee 9,390 82 British COlMMBIAn = aver wass ese 6,111 60 Prince-Hd ward’ Island <0 2.3, 505.920.0 2 A ee: 2,393 59 SL OtAl Ect aticeecuaeh une suiearnck ee Dene sn een $66,980 -48 In addition to the buoys for marking dangers, there are II gas buoys below Quebec and one spare buoy, also gas works and supply tanks, etc. Two gas buoys are maintained in Pelee Passage, Lake Erie, and three in Parry Sound, Ont. All of these buoys assist vessels at night by their light. -_eoo TP Ooo CONSOLIDATEO COAL COMPANIES. The Milwaukee Western Coal Co. is the name selected by the coal companies of Milwaukee whose prospective con- solidation was reported some days ago. The capital stock of the company is $2,000,000. ‘I do not want the impression to go abroad,” said H. M. Benjamin, ‘‘that this is going to be a trust of any sort. It is simply a consolidation of forces for economy in manage- ment. The firms in the consolidation are the Benjamin Coal Co., the Uhrig Co., R. P. Elmore Co., the F. R. Buell Co., and the George Eastman Co., and there will be no offices in Milwaukee except the one on Grand Ave. and perhaps a few city retail offices. “The new company has a capital stock of $2,000,000, in shares of $100 apiece. The capital is all paid in, and there is not a cent of indebtedness, making this one of the larges, and most stable coal companies in the country. We shall start in business June 1 under the new arrangement. ‘Edward A. Uhrig, a live, wide awake young business man, will be president. I shall not retire, but shall hold the position of chairman of the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee. F. R. Buell will be secretary, a position his qualifications make him partjcularly fitted for. Eltinge Elmore will be first vice-president, with duties that are still to be outlined. Lawrence Demmer, second vice. president and superintendent, assisted by George Eastman, will have charge of the eleven docks of the company and the machinery, teams, unloading, laborers and delivery. C. W. Moody will be treasurer. We expect to retain all the present employes. “There will be 1,000,000 tons of coal on hand to start with, and we shall represent four of the largest coal com- panies of the country, the Delaware-Lackawanna, Deleware. Hudson, W. L. Scott Co. of Erie, Pa., and the Pocahontas Coal Co., besides others. “Tt would be nonsense to call this a trust, with the Philadelphia, Reading, Coxe Bros., Northwestern Fuel, Lehigh Valley, Ohio Coal and Whitnall & Rademaker com- panies not included in the consolidation. A NEW COMPASS DIAL. : The Bureau of Equipment of the United States Navy Depart- ment has recently sent to officers of the Navy, and to mar- iners of repute, a new compass card devised by Lieut. Com- mander S. W.B. Diehl, U. S. N., Superintendent of Com- passes. The changes in the compass card proposed by Lieu- tenant Commander Diehl, will, itis claimed, greatly simplify sailing directions, and by its adoption all work in connection with the compass will be facilitated. The card nowin use contains both degrees and points, but the new card will con- tain simply the degrees. The conversion of one into the other is of course, a natural result of the presence of both, but it is claimed that the presence of both is not by any means a necessity. Accuracy requires expression of courses, bearings, and compass errors in degrees, and not in points, the use of which, the officer says, is but a duplica- tion of the work. The circumference of the proposed card is divided into the usual 360 degrees marked continuously to the right, from zero at north to 90° at east, 180° at south, 270° at west, and 360° at north. It is believed by cfficers of the Navy interested in the new card that the proposed markings would result in far greater accuracy in navigation to its relation to the compass. They say that complaints of error in the ap- plication of deviaticn to compass courses would be lessened, and courses could be laid in degrees and hence more accur- ately noted, as the approximate course of south-west by west 4 west ‘‘a little westerly,’’ for example, would be re- placed by the exact course of 240°. Chances of error in the application of the deviation to compass courses would be lessened. Conversion of points into degrees and the reverse would be eliminated from the problem. Boxing the com- pass would bea matter of a few minutes’ instruction to the layman of average intelligence. Sailing directions would be simplified. All work in relation to the compass would be facilitated. Tr 2 METEOROLOGICAL. To make accurate local forecasts of the weather conditions for 48 hours in advance is a scientific study of no mean pro- portions, and even with all the possible data procurable, ap- proximate predictions may come within the realms of the wonderful, at the same time, a general prognostication may be issued to cover a certain period of time over parallels of latitude where weather conditions have been closely observ- ed for a cycle of years. In this connection the Liverpool Journal of Commerce, of the 4th inst., ventures a season’s forcast under the following general assumption of the correctness of the theory owing to experiences in the past. The Journal says: ‘For the benefit or otherwise of trade in general, and for the interests of agriculture, our weather expert, whose prog- nostications continue amazingly accurate, is of the opinion that the summer of 1901 will be rather too dry. Of course, he says, we may expect the usual summer thunderstorms will appear from time to time, and as we are certain to pass through periods of great heat, some of these phenomena will, at least, approach the severity of tropical storms. No dates are given. The forecast is based altogether on the movements of the cyclonic disturbances and the positions taken up by the anti- cyclonic systems during the past few months, which in years gone by have led on to such a summer as that depicted above.”’ Even a generalization such ss the foregoing, when based on the study of actual and closely recorded past conditions, is of considerable value to the majority of interests affected by a predominating temperature in brisk industrial and commercial latitudes and is of marked importance to the student of meteorology.