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10 THE MARINE RECORD. MAy 23, Igol. 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, - - $2.00 One Copy, one year, to foreign countries, - - $3.00 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. Entered at Cleveland Postoffice as second-class mail matter. No attention is paid to anonymous communications, but the wishes of contributors as to the use of their names will be scrupulously regarded. CLEVELAND, O., MAY 23, 1901. eee OO00€—€80C O0O0 OO wow Go it Morgan! Go it Hill!!!" OO OD Ir takes a Morgan to teach us how to appropriate tonnage and secure the earnings ofa foreign mercantile marine. : WE once more rise to remark that railroad cars are some- times freighted with freight, vessels carry cargoes to earn ‘freight. DT OOD Ir 1s somewhat gratifying to the RECORD to note that the marine columns of the large daily newspapers are now beginning to recognize the distinction between the words ‘freight’ and ‘‘cargo.’? We thank the Marine News Asso- ciation, Chicago, for its able assistance to the RECORD in making clear these purely marine terms. OO OS It now looks as if the lake level campaign instituted so vigorously by the MARINE RECORD two years ago, would require to be started all over again. The levels can’t be backed up from anywhere below Niagara, but it seems that a few lock gates will soon be necessary to the westward of that locality. Much depends on the rainfall and evaporation as regards transporting a million or two tons of cargo, more or less, during the season of navigation. or or oo THERE seems to be no limit to the increase of the size of battleships. It is now reported that our American naval board of experts will give serious attention to designs for the largest and most powerful warships ever attempted in this country and over 1,000 tons heavier than the greatest vessel ever constructed abroad. It has been believed that the limit of size in the battleship line was reached when Great Britain began the building of 15,000-ton vessels, which are practically duplicated in displacement by the Georgia and Virginia type, now under way, but Admiral Bowles and other officers of the construction board have the opinion that battleships can be built larger, with greater speed and carrying far more formidable batteries. - —————_—————“€@} eo ____—_——_—- We have little or no patience with ‘‘the pride that apes humility,’’ nor on the other hand, are our suceptibilities the least bit mollified on noting an overweening pride of ignor- ance flying off at a tangent to the other extreme. In treat- ing of matters technical, the RECORD invariably strikes straight out from the shoulder in putting the plainest con- struction possible on the subject matter under temporary consideration. The foregoing evaporation is simply a pre- Inde to the following anent an editorial in our issue of the 16th inst., from one of the best authorities on the subject in the United States. ‘‘I wish to express my appreciation and approval of your excellent and business-like editorial on River and Harbor Im )rovements in your issue of yesterday.”’ Such expressions as the foregoing help along the pen-pusher in his aspirations to strike the keynote as regularly as it is possible. SHIPPING AND SHIPYARD COMBINES. There is every argument possible in favor of some of the most recent and extensive combinations of capital in the commercial world. Notably in the line of strictly marine affairs, is the purchase of an active working fleet of high classed steel steamers by the Morgan syndicate, and the for- mation of a huge company of shipbuilders, by the amalza- mation of several Eastern yards under one general director- ship. In the matter of the purchase of the Leyland Line, includ- ing the several interests formerly working conjointly with that concern, and the addition of the several other lines, of which we have heard so much of late, the United States, and by this we mean American owners, become possessed of the nucleus of a fleet of cargo steamers in active service with an established trade and prestige second to none in the world’s carrying trade. Even with the proviso that the Oporto and Mediterranean connection is to be still maintained by the former owners, and, up until a few years ago, that was the route that the Leyland Line catered to chiefly, our citizens have now secured such a volume of tonnage fit for Atlantic service that the balance of exports and imports carried in American owned tonnage, will soon be found to shoot up to quite a respectable per centage, as compared with the past recent years. Relative to the combination of shipyards, nothing but good has eventuated from this feature on the lakes, and an immense amount of high classed steel tonnage has been constructed at a minimum cost, while paying the best possi- ble rate of wages to the numerous industries concerned in the output, as well asthe more actual and direct labor em- ployed in vessel construction. Such being the experience in so far as lake shipyards are a factor in the upbuilding of the country’s mercantile ma- rine, and we point with some degree of pride to the fleet of Chicago-built steamers put afloat for Atlantic and oversea service, there is no good reason why the same prosperous condition of affairs should not be carried out in a combina- tion of shipyards on the coasts, both east and west, or At- lantic and Pacific, thus working the greatest benefit toa majority by cheapening the cost of production. In this connection the recent interview published by Louis Nixon, of the extensive Crescent shipyards at Elizabeth- port, N. J., with regard to the objects and prospects of the great shipbuilding combine recently formed, tends to show that, without any aid from the government, we are at the beginning of an era of expansion in American shipping. Mr. Nixon says in part: “Great Britain earns $800,000,0co annually by her mer- chant fleet, while we only carry 8 per cent. of our own freight in the foreign trade. It has been found that shipbuilding and shipowning to be successful must go hand in hand. ‘With our coal and steel better and cheaner than the rest of the world, we shall soon build vessels for all the world, as we did when wooden ships were used and forests grew near to the shore. We who build ships know that events are so shaping them- selves that eventually we shal] build vessels, not only better, but cheaper than our foreign competitors, but we are not content to wait, and as there is a vast amount of work done elsewhere throughout the world, that without a community of interest we cannot. now compete for, we have made up our minds that what we can do for ourselves we will do, and this co-operative consolidation is the result. “Tf this enables us to build vessels cheaper, quicker and of a better quality than other builders, we shall not, of course, refuse to take orders, but even on current work this consoli- dation is pronounced by financial experts to be the best in- dustrial yet started in this age of consolidations. Briefly, our policy is to take such work as we can get in the United States (and we already have the enormous sum of $63,000,- ooo of contracts on our books), and by making specialities of various classes of work at each establishment to be prepared to go into the foreign markets, fora share of the tonnage, both commercial and naval, now built in other countries.” In view of the foregoing, it may be said that the time is not far distant when the oversea commerce of the country will be carried'in American bottoms, and the industry again placed in the flourishing condition it maintained half a cen- tury ago. The material is at. hand, the active foreign shipbuilders, chiefly British, brought here by various firms and coming of their own accord, are now Americanized, and after be- coming accustomed to a'superior grade of workmanship, tools, facilities and surroundings are almost ready to be superseded by native talent of exceedingly greater energy and resources, so that, with the advent of a concentration of capital and re-awakened interests in the shipping industry, there is nothing to stop this country from competing with the foreign yards, as outlined by Mr. Nixon, and to which, the finger of advance is clearly pointed as the natural outcome of the present condition of revivifying interest in the pro- duction of high classed, steel tonnage, designed and con- structed especially with a view to carrying on, not only our own, but the world’s oversea commerce, and, also, as a con- sequence, providing warships for nations desiring the super- lative in construction at a minumum cost, within a limited time after placing their orders. ro oo A SECOND PROPOSED COFIPASS CARD. Criticism is invited by the Hydrographic Office regarding a second proposed compass card devised, presumably, for adoption in the Navy as well as for the mercantile marine. Weare not informed as to whether this second attempt should also be credited to Lieut.-Commander S. W. B. Diehl, U.S. N., Superintendent of Compasses, or otherwise, but assume such to be the case. The card now in general use is marked to points and so as to be visible in fine weather at a distance of several feet, a very necessary proviso for the helmsman, there is also a minute graduated circle beginning at north and marked around both ways to 180°, or to zero at south, which for all practical purposes might just as well be omitted from the card entirely. ; The first change proposed by the Superintendent of Com- passes, U. S. N., divided the circumference of the card into 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, and, so that the new ‘‘sea clock’’ would show nothing but the degrees. It is believed by officers of the Navy interested in the new card that the proposed markings would result in far greater accuracy in navigation in relation tothe compass, . The second proposed form of card is an adaptation of the old and new combined, with an inner graduated circle marked zero at the polar points, in lieu of the degrees de- creasing both ways from the south point and increasing from the north. : This attempted revision in marking the compass card is said to lessen the chances of error in the application of deviation to compass courses. Conversion of points into degrees and the reverse, also that boxing the compass would be a matter of a few minutes’ instruction to the layman of average intelligence. Sailing directions would be simplified and all work in relation to the compass would be facilitated. Now ! With all due regard for Commander Diehl’s evident desire to facilitate the work of his colleagues in the naviga- tional art, naval or mercantile, we can not but pronounce his views regarding the proposed changes in the compass. card as a work of supererogation, utterly, entirely and com- pletely uncalled for, and all to no purpose. Furthermore, we strongly advise the Hydrographic Office, through its Superintendent of Compasses, to permit the ordinary com- pass card to continue in its present form, and to still allow it to be considered simply as an indicator, to the helmsman as well as the layman of average intelligence, especially as they are never called upon to apply deviation, convert point§ into degrees or the reverse, or deteriorate their mental ability by poring over sailing directions. It is away and beyond our most sane comprehension why this apparently irrepressible twaddle regarding the markings of a compass card should have traveled even in Europe, except it was for the common, ordinary taste of producing an illustration aquatic, accompanied by the stereotyped wording sent out by the department. Ina word, we would have had more patience in touching upon the gainless subject, if the Commander had even proposed the ‘splitting of degrees in shaping or giving a course to steer, such as substituting the arc of a sextant on the compass card and pro- viding the wheelsman with a powerful magnifying glass to steer by ; however, as reasons for shunting the puerile suggestions are but too plentiful, we consign the illustrated diagramed bosh to the waste paper basket with a feeling that the time looking at it has been irreparably lost. at ae Capt. Bernier has received letters from Dr. Nansen, of Christiania, and Professor Nordenskioldt, of Sweden, the - renowned Arctic explorers, approving of his plan for drift- ing from Behring Strait with the ice flow.