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AUGUST 29, I90I. BUFFALO. Special Correspondence to The Marine Record. Coal freights remain unchanged at 50 cents to Lake Michi- gan and 35 cents to the head of the lakes, The damage to the bottom of the new Lehigh Valley'steel steamer: ‘Wilkesbarte, through ‘striking at'the Limekilns, has been repaired. Seven plates had to be taken off. ‘Coal shipments have beén ‘slightly delayed on account of a strike atthe Erie dock, on account of the discharge of four men.."'The trouble appears to _— been smoothed over, Tast week the Tonawandas received 37 shotioae ‘cargoes aggregating 24,000,000 feet. ‘The total for the month up to August 24th was 67,000,000 feet, and the rush is likely to be kept up. The Western liner building at the Union yard, now a branch of the American Ship Building Co., will be launched about September 1, when one of the Brown syndicate steamers will be laid on the ways. The increased facilities at the West Shore dock of the Minnesota Co. for discharging iron ore has made Buffalo a port for good despatch and cargoes will no doubt be more frequently consigned here in the future. , Twenty million feet of lumber for one week’s receipts is about what the Tonawandas got last week though the week before only ten million feet were discharged. The last record to date is eight million feet in two days. Coal shipments for last week showed a decided increase over the previous seven days, the total being 95,580 tons. Of this amount Chicago got 21,106 tons and Milwaukee 23,000 tons. Duluth shipments amounted to 9,250 tons. When the new English-built steel steamer Donnacona was dry-docked here last week it was found that fourteen plates had to be taken off owing to her striking in the St. Lawrence river. She is a sister ship to the Strathcona, Canadian owned and insured abroad for lake service. The steamer Terry, recently purchased by the Barry line at New York is expected to arrive at Montreal to-day. She will proceed via the canals to Chicago.. Capt. Joseph Gor- man isin Montreal, and will take charge of the Terry from there. Capt. Gorman may be made permanent master of the new Barry line boat. The following meterological observations are furnished by the office of the United States Weather Bureau, Buffalo, for the week ending August 27: Prevailing wind directions for the week, south; highest velocity, 34 miles, west, on the 23rd... Mean temperature for the week, 76°; highest tem- perature 88 on 21st; lowest, 64 on 24th. The world’s record for handling lumber is now held at Tonawanda. The steamer Viking, Capt. Richardson, dis- charged 1,150,000 feet in twelve hours and her consort the -Vinland, Capt. Stevens, 1,251,000 feet in eleven hours, both vessels consigned:to the Hastern Lumber Co., cargoes dis- charged into lighters. An old salt water sailor says that he once took’ three months to discharge about the same cargo in Montevideo. - Great care should be exercised on passenger boats to guard against swindlers and other pickpockets. Every or- dinary precaution is taken by the managers of the boats, ~but there is always the too easy victim at hand. An- other mark is valuable baggage, some of the dishonest Clique have been transferring checks from their own to more pretentious looking parcels and then presenting the changed check in calling promptly for the duplicate. Captain A. B. Wolvin’s lake fleet and elevator proposal for Montreal has not been accepted by Hon. Joseph I. Tarte, Dominion Minister of Public Works. Mr. Tarte has not made public his reasons for an adverse decision in the mat- ter, but his stand has created surprise among the harbor commissioners, the majority of whom heartily favored ac- “ceptance of the plans. The Wolvin plan, in modified form “was as follows: It contemplated terminal facilities, freight warehouses, and elevators at Port Colborne, which were to be supplemented by ten steel lake vessels of full canal size, and terminals at Montreal, with elevator facilities, built by - harbor commissioners and leased to Mr. Wolvin, who was to guarantee 5 per cent. on the outlay. The harbor com- “missioners may now construct and operate public elevators without an assured business for them, such as Mr. Wolvin _and his associates were in a position to guarantee. It is stated that the rejection of Mr. Wolvin’s plan will preclude W. J. Conners, of this city, from receiving any part of his $50,000 guarantee which he posted when the erection of his elevators commenced. It was generally understood that Capt. Wolvin’s plan, if accepted, would have been on Conner’s guarantee, THE MARINE RECORD. 9 ee eee CLEVELAND. Special Correspondence to The'Marine Record. The Lumber Carriers’ Association decided not to advance freight rates to $3 per M. feet until Sept. 15. ‘The largest cargo carried into Conneaut this season is credited to the Edenborn, 7,380 tons. The Elwood record for Ashtabula was 7,328 tons. The steamer D, M. Whitney, of the Gilchrist fleet, loaded 6,720 tons of coal on Saturday at J. W. Ellsworth & Co.’s dock in ten hours, which is a record. . The city ought to place gas buoys in the vicinity of the three cribs now blocking the approach to this port. 1t is almost a miracle that they have not been run into during hezy weather, Next Monday being Labor Day, work at the docks will cease from Saturday night until Tuesday morning. There is just time to figure closely on the handling of boats for the spell off at dock work. The committee on aids to navigation of the Lake Carriers’ Association will purchase a small steamer and convert her into a light-ship to be stationed on the south-east shoal, Pelee Passage, Lake Erie. The Mary C. Elphicke will be dry docked and repaired after discharging her ore cargo. She collided with the O. M. Poe near Sarnia. The Poe is undergoing temporary re- pairs at the yards of the Jenks Ship Building Co., Port Huron. Now that the yards of the American Ship Building Co. are so well supplied with orders it is known that new con- tracts will be placed with other builders. The Craig Ship Building Co., Toledo, will likely fill the next order for new tonnage. It was quite a revelation to learn a year or two ago that lake vessels could reach the coast and trade there, though the trading didn’t amount to much. Now we have Scotch and English built tonnage sent out for lake service. This month the Midland Queen and Donnacona are added to the Canadian fleet. : The twin-screw, steel passenger steamer North Land dis- charged her crew of firemen and was consequently detained here several hours on Wednesday. The passengers were very impatient over the unlooked for delay. The Belleville boilers are said to be responsible for the dissatisfaction among . the fire-hold crew, but it has always been so. The Detroit & Cleveland and the Cleveland & Toledo lines announce that they will make special excursion. rates on Saturday night for Labor Day, The cheap rates will be good for return until Monday night. Thisis the annual concession which is made by the lines to labor’s carnival, and it is expected, from the inquiries that are now being made, that the travel will be heavy. On the 20th inst. fiye men were killed by an explosion of gas at Crib No. 3 of the water works, two miles beyond Crib No. 2, where the previous week eleven lives were lost. The men are supposed to have struck a vein of gas, which was ignited by a spark froma pick. The explosion wrecked the shaft, blew the machinery up into the air and let in the waters of the lake, which drowned the five men working at the bottom of the excavation. The following meteorlogical observations are furnished by the U.S. Weather Bureau for the week ending August 28 : Prevailing wind direction during week, north; highest velocity, 27 miles, north, on the 24th; mean temperature for the week, 71; highest temperature, 83, on the 28th; lowest, 59, on the 25th; sunrise and sunset data computed for local time at Cleveland, August 29, sun rises at 5:22,. sets at. 6:46; Sept. 1st, sun rises at 5:25, sets at 6:35; Sept. 4th, sun rises at 5:28, sets at 6:29. The launch which is being built at Detroit for Major Dan C. Kingman, in charge of the engineering ,work, in this , district, has. been named The Inspector, .Sheis tobe used for the purpose of allowing the engineers to inspect the work on the cribs, .piers and various channels, and also for such surveys as are necessary to locate the dumping, grounds. The larger engineers’ steamer is.called The Visitor, because she goes from port to port in the district. The smaller one, therefore, is called The Inspector because she. will do.the detail work. She will be delivered, here next. week. Ocean and coast engineers can sail on,the lakes and rivers but our men are considered ineligible there and can only ship as firemen or oilers. The M.H.B. A. embraces all, though each are on a different, footing in their own trade and calling. Geo. Uhler, president of the association, will hardly join the Labor Federation, so the whole question, says a lake engineer, will have to be gone over this winter, ‘to the survey with the steamer Visitor. and I would not be surprised to see a split up in the ranks of the association and the president still holding the reins of the coast branches and likely the Mississippi, as new lodges are being formed down there quite regularly. It is certain that the salt water engineers wont affiliate with the long- shoremen’s union. Mr. H. A. Hawgood recently contracted with the Agiediaa Ship Building Co. for the construction of a large steel cargo steamer, after considerable delay in going over plans, specifi- cations, etc., directly, or within a day or two after his brother, Mr. W. A. Hawgood, placed an order for another steamer and now we have the three Hawgood brothers, Arthur included, closing for a third steamer, all to be sister ships of 6,200 tons capacity for next season’s delivery at a given cost of $275,000 each. The new boat will be 434 feet over ‘all, 414 feet keel, 50 feet beam and 28 feet deep. She will have triple expansion engines with cylinders 22, 35 and 58 inches, with 4o inch stroke. Steam will be furnished by two Scotch boilers 13 feet 2 inches in diameter and 12% feet long. She will be fitted with the Ellis & Eaves induced draft system. According to the contract she will be completed and ready for business next May. A short time ago the steamer Helena, when bound from Toledo to Detroit, ran foul of some obstruction in the chan- nel that has never been charted. The master of the steamer notified the engineers that at the time his boat brought up she was abreast of Monroe, Mich., and about seven miles from shore. It is thought that this is the same obstruction which the Ravenscraig found last year, but at that time the bearings were impossible to obtain so as to locate the shoal accurately. The Helena was able to take better bearings, and upon these the engineers bélieve they can locate the ob- “struction. An appropriation was asked of the department for prosecuting the survey, and the same has just been granted: ‘Major Kingman, Corps of Engineers, U. S. A., has notified Mr. Blunt, his assistant at Toledo, to proceed It is hoped to find the obstruction and place a buoy upon it. The Helena’s re- port says it lies a little to the eastward of the course from the outward end of the straight channel out of Toledo, to the De- troit river, so that masters would do well to dot the locality on their charts until it is properly marked or removed. ru OO TO OOOO LAKE ERIE LEVELS. Speaking of the investigations and talk that has been current for several years to the effect that Lake Erie levels ‘are falling and that before long something would have to be done to maintain the level, Major Fisk, Corps of Engineers, U.S. A., stationed at Detroit, said that conditions were not at all alarming, but that if the worst should come, it would not be a very difficult task, in his opinion, to build a dam across’ Niagara river to raise the Lake Erie level several feet, if necessary. He furthersaid that there is no danger that the power plants at Niagara would consume enough water to materially affect the lake level. An interesting work upon which Major Fisk and his staff of engineers are now at work is the system adopted for gauging the flow of the Detroit river to ascertain the amount of water which passes through the river. Similar work is now progressing at the ‘‘Soo,’’ while that in St. Clair river has been completed. Gauging the St. Lawrence river and Niagara river has been finished, and that at Detroit will probably be completed in about a year. This work is part ‘of the important undertaking by the government to’ gather data regarding the lake water levels and measurements of the various points named will be used in the work of find- ing out the supply from the various sources and trace down the extent and volume of outlet or overflow waters through- ‘out the season. rr NEW CHARTS. UNITED STATES LAKE SURVEY OFFICE, \ CaMPaU BUILDING, DETROIT, MICH., Aug. 27, 1901, ~ New charts, in colors, of Maumee Bay and river including Toledo, also Sturgeon Bay canal and Harbor of Refuge, Lake Michigan, have just been issued and are now on sale at the U. S. Lake Survey Office, Campau Building, Detroit, Mich., at 15 cents per copy. A similar chart for the harbors at Duluth and biloba costs 30 cents per copy. W. L. FIsK, Matos Corps of Engineers, U. S. Army. Two steamers on the stocks at the yards of the Craig Ship Building Co.,, Toledo, building tothe order of the United Fruit Co., New York, are to be launched between Oct. 15 and Noy. I.