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12 THE MARINE RECORD. OCTOBER 10, IgoI. A TRUSCOTT BOAT SIMPLE, SAFE, RELIABLE, SPEEDY. It may be possible to build better and safer boats, but it hasn’t been done yet. We send a completely illustrated catalogue and price list free, which tells you all about boats and WHY TRUSCOTT BOATS EXCEL. Truscott Boat Mfg. Co., ST. JOSEPH, MICH. lighting. Pintsch Ga Lighted Buoys. Adopted by the English, German, French, Russian, Italian and . : United States Light-House Departments for channel and harbor. Over 1,000 gas buoys and gas beacons in ‘service. 9 - Burn Continuously from 80 to 365 days and nights without attention, and can be seen a distance of six miles. ...... Controlled by THE SAFETY CAR HEATING AND LIGHTING CO. 160 Broadway, New York City. ae SUPERPOSED TURRETS. In a letter addressed to Admiral Bowles Mr, Charles H. Cramp records his opinion that open barbettes are preferable to closed turrets, in whose confined and closed space itis impossible to sight or work the guns satisfactorily. He quotes officers who served in turrets during the Spanish War as saying that they would rather have the entire top removed, leaving the turret completely open above. One officer stated that he abandoned the sighting hood in an 8-inch turret at the battle of Santiago and lifted the man- hole cover on the top so that he could stand with his body above the waist outside of the turret. Topless turrets are of course impossible in the superposed system. Mr. Cramp .calls attention to the letter he wrote to Secretary Herbert in 1895 condemning the 13-inch gun, and urging the adoption of the 12-inch. He presents a long and well-reasoned argu- ment to show that there is no adequate advantage in the in- creased caliber to justify the necessary increase of 200 tons in the weight of the machinery for moving the 13-inch gun andits mounts over those of the 12-inch and a corresponding increase in the difficulty of manipulation. The tendency in foreign navies is to decrease movable weights in every possible direction. The 12-inch gun, as Mr. Cramp thinks, strikes the happy medium between the desideratum of gun- powder on the one hand and practicable moving weights on the other. Neither the 12-inch nor the 13-inch gun is of much account, in Mr. Cramp’s opinion. There is no evidence ‘that in the battle of Santiago either of them hit anything. “Undoubtedly,” says Mr. Cramp, ‘‘some of the large pro- jectiles hit the island of Cuba, but there is nothing to show that they struck any other object or injured anything.” The results at the trial ground, where the gun is mounted on a stable platform,.and fired at right angles, is no criterion as to its value when fired at sea from an unstable platform and at an angle of impact which may be anything buta right angle. ‘‘Now’’, concludes Mr. Cramp, ‘‘with all these admitted difficulties in the use of large guns in turrets as we construct them, reducing the power of the gun as an offen- sive factor to an extent that makes practically nothing, I do not see how such a system will be improved by putting the additional weight and height of another turret on top of one already overloaded and cumbersome if not impracticable.’’ DOO SOO OS OO i CANAL TO THE COAST. “The great need of our lake commerce is a deep waterway to the sea,’’ is the title of an article in the October issue of Success. It deals with the need of a canal to connect the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean, and contains signed statements of the situation from the mayors of Cleveland, Chicago, Duluth and Toledo. Mayor Tom L. Johnson, of Cleveland, says: ; “Tt would seem that the United States, with its extensive coast lines on the Atlantic and Pacific, could find locations for a suffiaient number of seaports to accommodate its in- creasing trade. But thisis notso. The principal cities of the Great Lakes are looking forward to a salt water service that will carry their vessels to all parts of the world. Cleve- land does not intend to be backward in this matter. She stands ready to grasp fortune and time by the forelock, and to promote such projects as will point to a successful water- way tothe Atlantic. Sucha routeis becoming more and more.a necessity every day. The vastness of the?commerce of the middle western states proclaims that they must have their own routes to the sea. The increase in trade with other countries will make this necessary; trade cannot be allowed to choke the channel of one or two particular ports. If even a comparatively small amount of this traffic can be moved by the employment of steam vessels to prevent a threatened congestion of moving freight, something will have been done to solve a difficult problem. “The matter of opening a route to the Atlantic is one of the great questions of the day and affords a vast field for the engineer who claims that there is nothing new to be built in this country. It isa virgin field for those who can devise a short and practicable route to the sea. Canada has spent millions of dollars solving this problem, and America should stand ready to spend millions more. It was only last year that the Canadian government announced that vessels not over 260 feet in length, and drawing less than fourteen feet, could pass unobstructed through the canals from the lakes to the ocean. This was the first stepin a new undertaking, typical of American progress, that prom- ises to revolutionize the shipping interests of the Great Lakes and add enormously to our commercial wealth.’’ OO OD oe GRAIN INSPECTION. At the organization of the Chief Grain Inspectors’ Asso- ciation, completed at Des Moines, -Ia., last week, John O. Foering, of Philadelphia, was elected president of the asso- ciation and John Shanahan, of Buffalo, secretary and treas- urer. The great object of the association, however, is the adop- tion of uniform standards of samples for the contract grades of grain in the principal markets of the United States. In other words, it is hoped to arrive at a national standard for each grade. Chief Inspector Shanahan delivered the principal address of the meeting and spoke strongly favoring uniform inspec- tion, which, it is claimed, meets with the hearty approval of the Buffalo Merchants’ Exchange. Chief Inspector Shana- han said: “In the absence of any uniform recognized standards, who can say which is right and which is wrong? The present methods, however, present a condition that is not healthy or desirable to the trade. It is my belief that this can be over- come, in a measure, by the co-operation of the different ex- changes and inspection departments in getting together and agreeing on a uniform set of rules and standards. It would seem an authority could be constituted by representatives of these different bodies to set the standards of the different grades, and it should be the duty of each inspector to see that these standards are kept inviolate. Yet in the face of experience, there can be but little hope that such a scheme could be brought into successful operation, for, during the movement of last year’s crop, we find in one of our largest wheat producing states, two large markets in controversy over the standards of their respective grades. ‘We find in the greatest grain markets of the world an in- spection under authority of the state government which is supposed to be and should be the model inspection of the world. And yet the trade find ,it necessary to support a small army of private inspectors to check the work of this department. I mention these matters to show what a diffi- cult proposition we have on hand ina movement for a uni- versally uniform grading of grain,”’ A STUDY OF WAVES, ” At a meeting of the Royal Geographical Society, with Sir Clements Markham in the chaif, Dr. Vaughan Cornish read a paper on ‘‘Travels in Search of Waves in 1900.’’ He first showed a number of photographs, taken at various places round the British coast, i. e., Barmouth, the mouth of the Findhorn, Montrose, Mundesley, and the Goodwins, illus- trating sand waves, usually about 20 feet from crest to crest, and from 1 foot to 20 inches high. These were found upon estuarine sand banks exposed to strong tidal currents. By photographing the ridges at low water a map might be ob- tained showing the strength and direction of the tide in any ~ estuary in which circumstances favored their preservation ; where, however, the first of the flood tide or the last of the ebb tide ran strongly these ridges were washed flat ‘and the sand-banks dried smooth and featureless. Such sand ridges, which were not to be confounded with the ordinary ripple of the ‘‘current mark’’ on the. surface of sand-banks in streams, required for their production a swift current with sufficient depth of water and they originated from the con- dition of unstable equilibrium which existed when the lower layers of water were fully charged with sand in eddying suspension. ; Other photographs illustratéd the geometrical patterns of ripple marking produced by the waves, comprising parallel stripes, parallelograms and hexagons, but not triangles of pentagons. There were also pictures of ripples in the clouds, the similarity of which to.the sand ripples was well brought out when the negative of the photograph was view- ed upside down, and of waves and ripples in snow, taken by the lecturer in Canada. Iu the North Atlantic he measured some waves 4o feet high during a storm. These were excep- tional, but waves of over 30 feet high were common, though the average height was probably not more than 18 feet.’ He pointed out that itwas more important from the practical points of view to know the height of what might be called the ‘‘ordinary maximum’? wave than merely the average height of big and little waves alike. The discrepancy be- tween these two ways of reckoning might amount to 100 pet cent. The principal published records gave merely the ay- erage height, which rarely exceeded 28 feet in the heaviest gales. This average, however, was consistent with the oc. currence every few minutes of waves of 45 to 50 feet high, which were often reported by sailors and usually discredited by landsmen. é ob DuRING the International yacht race at New York on Sept. 28 the revenue cutter Gresham ran into Sir Thomas Lipton’s yacht Erin, and buckled a deck beam and caused something of a commotion aboard the yacht. The collision was unayoidable. The vessels were about three hundred yards apart, which, under ordinary circumstances, , was ample distance. Before the Erin could get the direction in which the Gresham was heading the Gresham drifted down upon the Hrin., The engines of the Erin had been stopped. Capt. Walker says that» some confusion arose from the fact that the racing yachts, soon after turning the stakeboat, headed directly toward the Gresham, the Erin and the neighboring fleet of excursion vessels. The racers headed due north instead of west by north, and the Gresham: turned quickly to. drive the excursion craft back from the. course. Capt. Walker said that Sir Thomas Lipton absolved the revenue cutter captain of all blame. Capt. Walker asked that the bill for repairs to the Erin be sent to him, but Sir Thomas would jnot consent to do so. Ore Ane