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10 THE MARINE RECORD. oF ea ESTABLISHED 1878. Published Every Thursday by THE MARINE RECORD PUBLISHING CO., Incorporated. Cc. 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, - - — $3.00 Invariably in advance. ADVERTISING. Rates given on application. All communications should be addressed to the Cleveland office, THE MARINE RECORD PUBLISHING co., Western Reserve Building, Cleveland, O. Entered at Cleveland Postoffice as second-class mail matter. No attention is paid to anonymous communications, but the wishes of contributors as to the use of their names will be scrupulously regarded. CLEVELAND, O., AUGUST 29, 1901. LL Tux talent of the United States Weather Bureau Service held an annual convention in Milwaukee this week. Ifa cog has slipped relative to daily predictions the reason is obvious. ——$—< —$—————r Ir is now in order to petition Congress to increase the inner harbor facilities, etc., of the larger lake ports, by ex- tending their limits to the breakwaters. ‘‘We need it in our business.’’ ——— oor or Wuar a delightful chimera it is to imagine and talk about Cleveland’s ‘‘harbor of refuge.’’ The fleets of weather- bound vessels that don’t ride to an anchor in safety behind its magnificent piers would furrow the bottom like a ploughed field. — a er Even if in a generation hence we are to find by natural increase an influx of Deweys it is not too early at the present time to lay the ropes fortheirtraining. Future naval heroes will no doubt be ‘‘to the manor born’’ but they must also be to the profession bred. oo or Ir we take the case of the steamer Assyrian, lost on Cape Race, Newfoundland, we should have recorded in the addenda to a wreck and casualty chart the fact that this Atlantic line steamer was totally lost on account of the fog signal at that point being mistaken for another steamer’s _whistle. How many previous casualties were due to this inefficient aid to navigation may be learned by consulting the wreck chart now in course of preparation by ‘the New- foundland Minister of Marine. ; se: RELATIVE to the departure of floating specially made casks in an effort to obtain some information regarding the set and drift of Arctic surface currents, it now appears that the original suggestion came from the President of the Geographic Society of Philadelphia and that Capt. Shoe- maker, Chief of the Revenue Cutter Service is wholly re- _ sponsible for the attempted distribution of the casks for two years past. None of these acquatic messengers have been heard from. Dovesand cats.come back, casks never return. OO oO oo ‘ In making the entrance to lake ports only 200 to 300 feet _wide a flagrant error is being perpetrated. These widths should be at least the length of a vessel of the modern type. Of course it is no place to turn a vessel, but, in the event of _ one going or getting partly athwart the entrance at piers or breakwater openings the entire trade would be blocked, and _ this too for no possible reason. What would be thought of _ opening new streets and highways where an ordinary vehicle would be unable to turn around? Let adequate openings be left in all the lake front boulevards. ‘made still handier in his modernized sphere. THE CHANGE OF TIME. Premising that someone has said ‘the change of time worketh wonders,’? we now come upon the astounding proposition to do away with the old-fashioned naval training ships under canvas. Time was, and is still easily to be recalled, when even man-o-war’s men could hand, reef and steer, and, if fairly seasoned, could cross a yard, strike a top-gallant mast or house a topmast with some degree of alacrity; they also wit- nessed an anchor catted and fished at times and various other experiences without which it was thought impossible ever to obtain the guts of a sailor. We now note the change of time where the erstwhile flat- foot is about to become seven-tenths soldier and mechanic and three-tenths lubber. Jack was generally handy about most anything, horse-riding for instance, now he is to be Gradually, and by easy stages, slowly but never so surely, has the age of knotted ropeyarns passed away. The ropehauling, mar- linspike marynal is still to be found, the species is not en- tirely extinct; but, like a vara avis, his habitat is becoming more seldom. There is quite as widea gap evidenced in the higher branches of sailorizing, brought about through the change of time, as is noticeable in the lower and lesser branches of the occupation nautical. The officer of to-day has not the slighest need of loading himself down to the scuppers with the rules and practice of theoretical and practical naviga- tion. Canvas is no longer considered or available in the fight to conquer an opponent or win the elusive lucre, and time would be worse than lost if a second thought were per- mitted to cross the memory regarding the method of ‘‘tending ship at single anchor.’” We have tried hard to lose the art, it is fast being lost, and the loss is our gain, as well does it count for the inconceivable glorification of future genera- tions. Time changeth all things. ———___@r»oo___ PECULIARLY WORDED NOTICES. If there is any occasion for using correct wording in for- mulating notices and instructions, and there is, we consider that the ‘‘Notices to Mariners,’’ sent out from the depart- mental offices should be as near exact as itis possible to construe them. It is but recently since we were burning all colors of gas in the gas buoys on the lakes, as the worded instructions gave us red gas buoys, black gas buoys, etc.; also do we color sticks of timber by issuing notices of striped spars, black spars, red spars, etc., all of which might be more properly expressed in official notices. Perhaps the crowning attempt at inaccuracy comes to us this week through the Dominion Department of Marine and Fisheries when we are told that, “Information dated 2d August, 1901, has been received from the Branch Hydrographic Office at Sault Sainte Marie that the whaleback barge Sagamore was sunk on 28th July, in the upper St. Mary river between Iroquois Point and Gros Cap. The wreck lies in’ 72 feet of water between 34 and 3 mile N.W. of Gros Cap reef gas buoy. Its exact location is marked by a spar buoy. The Sagamore measured 35 feet from keel to truck. This notice affects Admiralty chart No. 320.’’ The first paragraph is beyond cavil and known to all men, the second avoids coloring either the gas or the spar, but leaves a question as to the exact veracity of the 72 feet depth at all times, as alsoa guess of % of a mile relative to the distance and a perfect misleader regarding the N. W. bearing by not positively stating whether it is magnetic or true in this particular instance. The third paragraph is the conse- quential daisy which we make the rap atin this case, as follows: ‘‘The Sagamore measured 35 feet from keel: to truck.’? Well! she didn’t, and therein lies the perpetration of an official untruth, a misconception of terms, an unpar- donable ignorance of the use of nautical phraseology or ma- rine wording. No one ashore would name the cellar an attic, and yet thisis what the naval sharp at Sault Ste. Marie has made the Canadian Marine Department accentu- ate: It is either right or wrong; will the Hydrographic Of- fice, Navy Department, please explain, or deign to state what is meant? We can all guide ourselves wrong easy enough, but the better way is to be armed with the truth. There is little danger in sweeping off any number of trucks, but if we are to encounter whaleback turrets, paint on the shell plates of cargo tanks might possibly experience slight abrasions, discernable, if you please, only to the practiced eye. AUGUST 29, I90I. Another peculiarly worded notice, which comes to us from the same source, is that a steamer passed over an unknown obstruction with force enough to list her, but that her con- sort, drawing ten inches more water, and steering presum- ably in her wake, did not find the boulder or felt no impact, no exact bearings or distances given! Such notices are best left out of type or; at least, not quoted with the authority of the United States'Government to publish. *’ i atted VESSELS are driven ashore, boilers go on exploding’and loss of life is regularly taking place, yet the public seldom or never learns thé reason for these deplorable casualties. It must be surmised that the government inspectors should be able to throw some light on these occurrences, yet they never give evidence, their inspections are never questioned, they seldom resign from office and die less often than other men, or it would appear so, only, that they don’t have to die to prove their value? to the country. A vessel and her equipment is safe and seaworthy, or itis not. The Treas- ury Department pays a host of men enormous salaries, office and traveling expenses, etc. to assure the public of a vessel’s condition, but, do they do anything in a proper manner? These men are now under civil service rules, their acts or notions are above and beyond publiccriticism. besides, their wily chief can wriggle out of any departmental dilemma. oir or THE port boiler of the passenger steamer City of Trenton, owned by the Wilmington Steamboat Co., exploded on Wednesday, killing eleven persons and injuring over a score of others. Now will the local inspectors of steamboats hold an inquiry and condemn their own inspections? The find- ings of coroners’ juries, the judgment of the people and all court proceedings are treated with an apparent contempt by these employes of the Treasury Department, that should no longer be permitted to prevail. They inspect boilers and certificate people to work them, they also license others to watch the workers, placing all on their oaths to tell of any ~ weaknesses which may develop in hull or equipment, and, yet, their inspections, certificates and licenses result in a continued regularity of loss of life. Moral—The United States Steamboat Inspection Service is not what it ought to be, not by a mill site. ee Oo CLEVELAND made a record a few days ago in loading a coal cargo of 6,720 tons in ten hours. This calls to account a recent cargo loaded at Penarth dock, Cardiff, South Wales, where 2,155 long tons was loaded in two hours and ten min- utes, or, say at the rate of 1,000 tons per hour, compared with the Cleveland record of 672 tons. By the way, that Cardiff is an historical old spot, deriving its name from a Roman general, whose legions once camped there. Need- less to say the Roman noble would be slightly amazed if he could float around and see the black diamonds handled on his old camping ground in the fashion the Taff Vale Rail- way Co. doit now. But there, p’raps he is waltzing around atmospheric like and taking due cognizance of the 15,000,0c0 tons shunted around by this railroad company each year. or or or THE marine hospital service is investigating the relation of rats to bubonic plague, and Past Assistant Surgeon Rose-- nau has made an interesting reporton the subject. He says it has been definitely ascertained that the rat is susceptible to the disease. An epidemic may be foretold by an increased mortality of the rats, for it seems that they first contract the disease and then transmit it to man. The only reason the plague did not spread in San Francisco was because it did not become prevalent among the rats. The problem then is howto getrid ofthe rats. Various kinds of virus have been tried with a view to introducing an epidemic among rats that would not harm humanity, but with indif- ferent success thus far, _—_— OO eo THERE is the everlasting question whenever a casualty happens, regarding a vessel’s equipment, did she have, or did she not have, proper life- boats, rafts, buoys, etc. ‘There is of course, and as all connected with shipping are aware, a United States Steamboat Inspection Service, composed of men sworn to inspect, license and certificate almost all sorts of craft, and still the casualties involving loss of life and property are of daily occurrence. The recent wreck of a lake craft with loss of life, just happened to show that she had no metallic life-boat, not that it would have been of any more use than a wooden boat, only that we are credibly in- formed all lake steamers are compelled to carry such, Sabah r a ba a Sat ETS SE ae ne ae eee