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THE MARINE RECORD. ESTABLISHED 1878. Published Every Thursday by THE MARINE RECORD PUBLISHING ‘CO., Lees Incorporated. oc, - | se 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, - - $3.00 Invariably in advance. ADVERTISING. Rates given on application. All communications should be addressed to the Cleveland office, THE MARINE RECORD PUBLISHING CO., Western Reserve Building, Cleveland, O. Entered at Cleveland Postoffice as second-class mail matter. No attention is paid to anonymous communications, but the wishes of contributors as to the use of their names will be scrupulously regarded. CLEVELAND, O.,.AUGUST 22, 1901. MUNICIPALITIES authorize the expenditure of enormous sums to build miniature islands miles lakewards from their county or state shore line, but summer garden surroundings are not permitted thereon. OO OO OS MEAFORD is a new grain receiving port situated between Owen Sound and Collingwood on Georgian Bay. The traffic will be tributary to the Grand Trunk Railway. The port is considered a good, safe one and easy of access. Oe Appropos of the war craze notions which occasionally seize hold of writers on lake matters, would it not be a para- mount, necessity to have the waterworks cribs fortified in the event of an invasion? It is gratifying to imagine that there is no immediate need of prompt, energetic and ade- quate action. OO OD OO Iv is very inexact to say that the British steamer Monks- haven carried a cargo of “stéél from Conneaut to England in October last. It would be more in accordance with the truth if it was stated that she was ballasted with steel down to her 13-foot marks, at which draft she may be just about reaching her bearings. ——$ i oa oe THE Nova Scotia government offers a bonus or subsidy of $100,000 for the establishment of a steel shipbuilding plant. This modest sum is, of course, an inducement and would as- sist in the purchase of modern tools, but the assurance of continued work would have much more weight with prac- tical shipbuilding firms. oO oo THE thanks of the RECoRD are due the Hydrographic Office, Bureau of Equipment, Department of the Navy, Washington, D. C., for copies of the North Atlantic and Pa- cific Ocean pilot charts for August. We have to say that, among the several brilliant and talented naval officers de- tailed as hydrographers in the past, the present officer in charge, Capt. C. C. Todd, U. S. N., fully equals the work of any of his predecessors and is evidently ‘‘to the manor born,’’ as-hydrographers should be. i oe oan WE ARE in receipt of quite an elegant book of plans and drawings of the long bridge across the Potomac river, Washington, D. C., as designed by the Scherzer Rolling Lift Bridge Co., Monadnock block, Chicago, Ill. We note that a large number of railroad and swing bridges have been and are being replaced by Scherzer rolling lift bridges, because of their superior advantages in every respect. All of the prominent lake ports are now spanning their rivers with the Scherzer construction and plans are in hand for duplicating the work at other points. : MUNICIPALITIES USURPING LAKE RIGHTS. WE have from time to time pointed out the danger to shipping which is likely to result from dotting the entrance to lake ports with large, permanent, artificial obstructions, poorly lighted and badly placed; the latest previous allusion to this subject being in our issue of June 13. The deplora- ble loss of life at Cleveland in constructing the large water supply tunnels, running out five miles under the lake, again calls attention to the unwatrantable action of municipal bodies and the enormous risks they accept and force others to take in their monopolizing the approaches to a port. Several months ago we suggested that the attention of the Secretary of War be directed towards this subject, and that all plans of constructive and permanent works be first sub- mitted to him through the Chief of Engineers, Corps of Engineers, U.S. A. There is still a half mile of excavation and construction work to be done at Cleveland, the attempt to secure a greater supply of fresh water costing at the rate of twelve lives to the mile, with an untold ratio of temporary and total physical disability cases, such as should not be per- mitted in waters under the control of the federal govern- ment, especially, when an expression from skillful engi- neers might have prevented such. Five miles from the base of operations, lakewards, another miniature island is to be built in the lake and the initial project seems to have been nursed in parsimony and matured to the tune of peculiar theories irregardless of human life in the efforts at completion. Submarine tunneling usually involves great risks to health, life and property, and the history of such work proves to be the case, but no features of careless- ness or ignorance should be allowed to make the risky work still more dangerous. The editorial contained in our issue of June 13 is of equal moment at the present, and even at the» risk of repetition we again state the condition as follows: ‘‘Fvery city along the chain of lakes desires and requires the clearest and purest of water for drinking and domestic purposes. Every city, town, village or hamlet also drain their sewerage toward the lakefront. The larger cities keep building cribs, forming permanent obstructions like small unlighted and frequently uncharted islands miles out from the approach to the ports, so as to insure the intake being in clear water and outside the drift of purely local sewerage. These distant cribs are already beginning to en- croach on the general navigable waterway, outside of the State jurisdiction and the outer harbor limits which is in charge of the Federal government, and enclosing the piers, breakwaters and all else. ‘here is no present or immediate danger of cribs from either side overlapping each other in midlake, but the subject in general would stand the direct attention of the Secretary of War, under whose charge is placed the improvement and conservancy of navigable water- ways. The question naturally arises whether the Secretary of War has exacted that degree of supervision and authority vested in his office, and has, aftera duly professional in- quiry, acting under the advice of his subordinates in office, granted permits for these permanent obstructions and the laws under which they shall be allowed to claim territorial rights over the general commerce frequenting the waters adjacent to the largest lake ports. May we not with equal suggestiveness remark that the district officers of the Corps of Engineers, U. S. Army, might do well in exercising the functions reposed in them in relation to river and harbor work, when apparently danger- ous and unauthorized works of a permanent nature are being planned, so that due official attention may be given to the methods in use, form of construction, durability of such etc. a Ooo oo BANTRY BAY, situated in the south-west corner of Ireland, is a well sheltered cove, and Berehaven isa little town that would stand developing, so also is Queenstown in the Cove of Cork. Bantry Bay is all right for a naval rendezvous during summer maneuvers, but it is out of the question for an Atlantic passenger terminal. The views of the Atlantic liner shipmasters would no doubt send Berehaven’s aspira- tions higher than Gilderhoy’s kite, and that dusted the clouds, in hard, westerly weather, POS THE interests, now considering the development of the lake, canal and St. Lawrence river traffic, appear to be work- ing along on sensible lines. It is not their object to enter the trans-Atlantic trade, but to carry their exports in special bottoms to as near the ocean going craft as possible. In a word, Montreal is considered the junction where interlake and canal carriage can meet that of the Atlantic and vice versa. Thus may the province of special tonnage be utilized to the best advantage. AUGUST 22, I9OI. SWING BRIDGES VERSUS ROLLING LIFT DRAW BRIDGES. It is probable that there is nowhere in the world where the subject of bridging rivers has been given so much atten- tion as on the lakes, that is, at the principal lake ports. If we take for instance, the western metropolis, known to geographers and others, under the euphonious name of Chi- cago, we find the study and scientific plans for practical bridge building in river spans worked to a standstill, to the highest point of convenience, safety, durability and stabil- ity—and all of this evolved by, or from, the imperative — requirements of modern commerce. ies It is rémarkable and worthy of note that the best bridges take somewhat after the form of the ancient drawbridges, with the addition of the highest type of mechanism known to the engineering art and science for the construction and manipulation thereof. The old-fashioned swinging draw, with their center piers and protective works are fast falling into disuse, no new ones are being built, nor should they be allowed in any navigable waterway, and where large repairs are required the center piers are being condemned and lift bridges, con- trolled from the natural banks of the stream, river, channel or watercourse take their place. The conditions are entirely different in spanning a gulch or ravine, or anywhere where waterborne traffic is not in question. ‘The foregoing views seem amply borne out by the protest of twenty-nine shipmasters against a center-pier bridge in the Calumet river at South Chicago, contained elsewhere in this issue of the RECORD, and, ‘‘reasons are as plenty as blackberries’’ in favor of their judgment. oO eel ST. LAWRENCE; NAVIGATION—WRECK CHARTS. The recent losses in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and around the coasts of the Dominion, and the numerous complaints that have been made as to the insufficiency and inefficiency of the navigational aids in Canadian waters, have resulted in the Government taking preliminary steps with the object of ascertaining the exact conditions obtaining in those waters. We look for the most commendable results from the compilation of a wreck chart which has been undertaken by the Newfoundland Minister of Marine, and so as to show the number and location of wrecks which have taken place during the past forty years within his present jurisdiction, A wreck chart is a graphic delineation of the points to avoid, it also shows where the most powerful lights and fog signals should be placed, the proper location for life-saving stations and all other aids to navigation, as well as the dangers inci. dental: to coastal navigation and piloting in the vicinity where it is shown that the majority of wrecks occur. New-. foundland has cast a greater stigma on St. Lawrence navi- gation than any other cause, and if Minister Murphy’s wreck chart is, as it ought to be, the best and greatest step towards eliminating the dangers attending the approach to the St. Lawrence Gulf and adjacent coast line will have been taken. The wreck chart of the Great Lakes, published by the Weather Bureau several years ago, was of inestimable bene- fit, as was also the surface current charts; the Navy Depart- ment then issued a wreck chart of the New England coasts, and it behooves the Dominion Minister of Marine to grant similar assistance, by authorizing the compilation of a wreck chart for at least the eastern portion of the Canadian coast line. Such a delineation offers irrefutable evidence of the needs demanded. It either strengthens the advocacy, or makes the mooted points of expert technical evidence vanish. The chart, with its addenda; and this should be as complete as possible, is a silent witness of unimpeachable testimony and points out to the average intelligence the most important needs of the locality and whether they are increasing or di- minishing, according to the frequency or otherwise of strand- ings under the special if varying conditions relating to the occurrences. The RECORD published just such suggestions as are con- tained in the foregoing in every issue, fifty-two times a year; many of these advocated innovations are successfully adopt- ed, and, with the issuance of a Dominion and Newfoundland wreck and current chart we believe that the pathway to lake commerce and greater development will undoubtedly be ac- complished. Geo. Chambers, of Toronto, is having built at Chicago a steel pleasure steamer, 180 ft. long, and 25 ft. beam. She will have four tenders equipped with gasoline motors.