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re GOVERNOR’S MESSAGE, STATE OF NEW YORK. AE CANALS. A recent investigation of the canal system of the State has convinced me that a definite policy as to future ex- penditures should be determined upon by the Legislature. ‘he removal of the restriction as to capitalization of cor- porations operating boats upon the canals seems to have been an important step in the direction of an improved system. One is impressed by the fact that the canals as at present conducted are sufficient for all local business, but if they are to be, as they have been in the past, a restraining power pon the freight rates of the railroads, then some policy to make them more serviceable to the community should be adopted. I do not believe the people of this State would sanction the expenditure of money for the sole purpose of making of our canal sys- tem a funnel for the traffic of the far west, and however desirable it may be to give the port of New York greater statistical results, not even this would warrant such ex- penditure. What we desire by the building up of our internal commerce is to attract capital by offering induce- ments to manufacturers, thereby giving employment to our: people. ‘The most serious obstacle to the consumma- tion to this purpose is that the canals are absolutely closed for at least five months of the year. ‘Therefore, for: nearly one-half of the year manufactories are depen- dent: upon. the railroads. So long as the railroads are content to make rates which vary. with the extent of trade, the shipper and the merchant are inclined. to for- sake'the canal in favor of the road, which gives the surest and most constant service. “In treating of the question of exports from the port of New. York and the discrimination by the railroads against that port, we must in all fairness consider the subject not entirely as the act of a railroad corporation which is desirous of returning dividends upon its stock, but we must look at our own shortcomings and seek a remedy for the condition of affairs at present existing. _ The railroads and the canals are at a parity at the beginning of the trip. Grain shipped from Duluth via the lakes to Buffalo is there elevated and loaded into cars and transported to New York or other ports, there again elevated or put alongside foreign vessels for shipment. All of this work is done by machinery, thé property of the railroads, without any middlemen’s profits. It is also possible when the shipment is made by railroad to issue a through bill of lading, which is negotiable. Not so, however, with the canal traffic. At Buffalo the canal boat owner must have his own boat. put in its berth; he must pay elevator charges and insurance, and he must also pay the broker a price for obtaining his cargo; he must be put upon the canal with his loaded boat and then jncur the expense of propulsion until he reaches. New York City, where the docing facilities are inadequate and the same exactions made as at Buffalo. So that the result:is that the cost to the canal boat owner is much greater than it should he, leaving him scarcely any profit. The <ailroads can go to. Boston, Baltimore, Newport News and-other ports and run their cars alongside of the wharves, obtain free storage and other facilities or discharge into the vessel without all of this intermediary work, which becomes very expensive. New York itself must act. It must :nake it possible for the railroads to have terminal facilities equal to those of other ports. It mtist make it possible for the canal boat owner to have equal consideration in the matter of dockage and other essentials. Were it not for the fact that imports follow to a great extent the line of exports, canal improvement would deserve but very little consideration. It is this phase of the problem which makes it important that New York City should take action for the protection of its foreion commerce. The substitution of steam for old methods of propul- sion is already an assuréd fact. Daily there may be seen upon the canal boats in convoys of six, and there is no reasonable doubt that the fleets could be increased to a still greater extent. So that the first step for moderniz- ing the canal has already been taken. ; Upon a railroad'the weakest points, when the question - of increased tonnage or traffic is under consideration, are the bridges. . So too upon the canal, the first points to be strengthened should be the locks, both in the elimina- tion of those that are unnecessary and lengthening those remaining for larger boats. In other words, in the con- sideration of this question due regard should be given to the possiblities of the future. From our present knowl- edge the ultimate and maximum enlargement could not exceed a twelve-foot canal, so that if all locks were re- built upon this line there would be no necessity for the consideration of-that part of the problem should the ex- pectation of those who favor a larger canal be fully met by the commerce of the future. If the locks of the present canal were enlarged it would expedite traffic and shorten the time between Buffalo and New York. ‘This lock enlargement, while aiming to provide for the future, would be of vast bene- fit at the present time. T am informed by the State engineer that the cost of eliminating the locks at Cohoes and Lockport, and one or two other points, and the lengthening of all others, with the substitution of a modern system, including a new channel between the Hudson river and Rexford flats would be $13,694,540. The project of completing the canal to a-nine-foot level might be pursued gradu- -ally,,and boats built for a larger canal, if lightly loaded, would prove as serviceable, and would necessitate no THE MARINE RECORD. great expenditure to take advantage of the increased load which micht be carried as a result of the deeper canal. This would encourage canal boat owners to 1m- mediately begin the construction of boats of greater ca- pacity, and make possible a more complete system than at present. The cost of increasing the depth to nine feet would be $15,076,936 in addition to the amount necessary for the improvement of locks. By the enlargment of locks and the elimination of un- necessary ones, the total number on the main line of the canal would be reduced from 72 to 44. Under present conditions. a steamer propelling five consorts would transport to New York and return from Buffalo about 1,430 tons in 430 hours, being at the rate of about three, one-third ton per hour. With the canal completed -in accordance with the nine million dollar act, one steamer propelling five consorts would transport 1,800 tons in 430 hours, being about four and one-eighth tons per hour, and with a steamer propelling five consorts, carrying 3,000 tons, with the locks enlarged the time would be reduced to 4oo hours for the round trip, or about nine tons per hour. So that if the plan to deepen the canals alone was adopted, the fleet capacity would be increased 370 tons, and by the additional improvement of enlarged locks, the increase would be 1,800 tons for the same fleet, making the total increase load by the entire improvement 2,170 tons. This practically would give an enlarged canal at about one-third the cost of the proposed twelve-foot canal, and would, in my opinion, answer all of the requirements of commerce for the present and immediate future. It is well to understand, however, in the consideration of this question, that indirect taxation, except through a constitutional amendment, could not be applied to the ex- tinguishment of the debt that would be created by such improvements. - Therefore if advantage is to be taken of the increased revenues of the State, provision must be made by constitutional amendment. I recommend, therefore, first, that the proposal to en- large the locks to one thousand ton barge capacity, and to provide a nine-foot channel from the Hudson river to Rexford flats be submitted to the people as a separate proposition. Second, that the canal be deepened to. nine feet on such portions as are now less than that depth, and that this proposition also be submitted to the people for their approval or disapproval. : The building of trolley lines along the highways has resulted in a great many of the canal bridges being used without any apparent attempt to hold responsible the companies using them, and. with little regard to- the strength of these structures. One of the results of such a policy was the serious accident in the city of Syracuse last year, for which a number of claims have been filed with the Court of Claims against the State. «Such a policy is not businesslike, and it should be the duty to correct this wrong at the present session of the Legis- lature. I recommend that authority to cross the canals by means of the canal bridges be revoked, and that new per- mits be issued only to such companies as will guarantee, first, the strengthening of the bridges, under the direction of the State Engineer and Surveyor, and secondly, that they shall assume responsibility for the safety of such bridges, as well as their future repairs. Numerous bills are introduced in the Legislature each year making appropriations for the construction of new bridges acros the canals, and instances are not rare where apparently sound structures have been taken down and more expensive bridges substituted for them. I am of the opinion that no appropriations should be made for canal bridges except upon the recommendation of the Superintendent’ of Public Works, and that he be given ° discretion to expend such appropriation wherever he may it necessary. oe NOTICE TO MARINERS. Untirep Starrs of AMEBRICA—NorTHERN LAKES AND Rivers—MIcHIGAN, ‘TREASURY DEPARTMENT’, Orricr or TH Licut-House Boarp, Wasuincton, D. C., January 8, 1902. GRAND HAVEN PIERHEAD LICHT-STATION. Notice is hereby given that, on or about January 15, 1902, a siren operated by compressed air will be estab- lished at this station, on the outer end of the south pier, entrance to the harbor of Grand Haven, easterly side of Lake Michigan, to sound, during thick or foggy weather, blasts of 3 seconds’ duration separated by silent intervals of 37 seconds, thus: Blast Silent Blast Silent Interval Interval 3 Sec. 87 Sec. 8 Sec. 47 Sec. This siren is to supersede the old steam siren and at- tention is invited to the difference between the character- istics of the new and old fog signal. By order of the Light-House Board. N. H. Farouwar, Rear-Admiral, U. S. Navy, Chairman. ———— > _ Capt. Donnelly has been gathering information toucn- ing the burning of boats on the Great Lakes, and finds that in the majority of cases fire was due to lamp explo-’ sion on account of the inferior grade of oil used. JANUARY 16, 1902. LINES OF EQUAL VARIATION. The following paragraphs are offered by the hydro- graphic office, U..S. N., for the benefit of careful naviga- tors who seek for the most accurate data pertaining to their daily problems, as well as to clear up any misconcep- tions that may be extant regarding the degree of reliability with which lines of equal variation in general are to be accepted, when projected for vast oceanic areas within which there are few fixed points at which regular and continuous observations are on record: } The distribution of the variation of the compass over the North Atlantic and North Pacific oceans is shown on- the pilot’ charts by curved lines passing through all spaces where there is the same difference between the direction of the true north and the direction of the compass needle when influenced by anv attraction excepting the earth’s magnetism. Since the variation of the compass at any given place is not a fixed quantity, but is undergoing continual though small changes, due to the operation of causes that extend throughout centuries, the lines of equal variation of the compass shift into new positions with the lapse of time. When traced on maps of large tails of accurately observed values resulting from a mag- netic survey of a certain region, these lines are always serpentine in their characterized by many loops and bends which often diverge to the extent of a degree or so from the mean positions of the lines; and it must be understood that the variation curves shown on the pilot charts are average curves, and. that occasional observations may not, therefore, check ex-_ actly with the values represented by them. When the average lines of equal variation of the com- pass are drawn over an expanse of ocean for a certain epoch, they may be taken to hold good for purposes of navigation during a the uncertainty introduced by their shifting under the operation of the annual secular change, which is rarely greater than 10 minutes, and generally much less, is swallowea up in the greater uncertainty due to the erratic departure of the actual line of equal variation from the average curves. The pilot chart variation curves are drawn for the epoch t9co, and in view of the small scale of these charts and the generality with which the curves are drawn, they may be considered as substantially: representing the distribution of the variation of the compass over these oceans for sev- eral years to come. The difficulty of making precise observations of the variation of the compass at sea, the sparseness of the ob- servations, and the remoteness of the period when many of the observations were taken, all conspire to render it — inadmissible to attenipt to ‘represent the variation of the: compass on the great oceans in any greater detail than can be shown by the average curves employed on the pilot. charts. As far as the open ocear is concerned, but few relia- ble observaticns for the variation have been taken since the epoch when aavigation in iron-built vessels became general. So that the variation charts of the present tirae show very nearly the same lines of equal variation of the compass as would have resulted if a chart maker in the days of wood-built ships had predicted the changes that would occur betweer that period and the year 1900 in the values of the variation of the compass in different parts of the oceans of the globe, and, applying them to the variation lines of that period, had brought out a chart for the present time. Such a chart of variation lines would have had involved in it uncertainties to the extent of a degree or two, due to predicting values beyond the limit of time during which predictions can be safely made in. the present state of our knowledge ; and this is pecisely the ° amount of uncertainty which exists in the variation charts’ of the present time. for they have been brought forward from the time when observations for the variation of the compass were made in wood-built ships, and with but few advantages over what a chart maker of that period could have employed in carrying the lines forward into their positions for the present time. The uncertainty of a degree or two in the values of the variation of the com- pass, as indicated by the variation lines on ocean charts, must not be forgotten in laying down magnetic courses, nor must the gradual change in the variation escape at- tention in laying down positions by bearings on charts.. The magnetic compass diagrams placed on charts for the purpose of making plotting easier, become, in time, slightly in error, and in some cases, An application will be made to the Parliament of Can-> ada at the coming session for an act to incorporate a com- pany to construct and Lake Erie. through low land, with the underlying rock more than 20 feet below the bottom of the deepest cut. on the bottom, with a uniform depth of 21 feet. would be a saving of 79 miles in distance for vessels bound up or down the lakes, and of six or sevéf hours in time, and the strong current and dangerous Lime Kilns Crossing of th Detroit river would be avoided. A speed — of 6 miles an hour through the canal could be maintained ~ The estimated cost is not stated. scale, representing the de-- courses from place to place and are. few years from that epoch, because’ oa a q d such as with small: scales, or when the lines are long, the error in the plotted: position from negect of this change may be of importance.:. a cut-off canal between Lake St. Clair The proposed canal is 13% miles long, se ae Ca a SANT A ak a hated Ca al alae The waterway. - a is to have a. width of 156 feet on the surface and 72 feet — There”