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To Entertain Members of Congress. In accordance with an invitation extended ‘to members of _the senate and house committees on commerce and rivers and harbors about the time of the close of the last congress, a num- ber of leading members of both branches of congress will make a trip to Lake Superior in a few days, for the purpose of ac- quainting themselves with the extent of commerce on the lakes. Mr. Charles Moore, Senator McMillan’s secretary has evidently had the matter in mind since the invitation last fall was an- nounced, as the vessel owners of Detroit are the first to begin preparations for the entertainment of the visitors. Among the distinguished gentlemen expected are: Senator Frye, chairman of the committee on commerce; Hon. ‘I. J. Henderson, chairman of the house committee on rivers and harbors; Senators Vest and Sawyer and Congressmen Clark of Wisconsin, Townsend of Pennsylvania, Blanchard of Louisiana, Lind of Minnesota, Catchings of Mississippi and Gibson of Maryland. Congressman Johnson and ‘Taylor of Cleveland, will in all probability join the party here. Detroit vessel owners have selected a committee on enter- tainment consisting of Captains Eber Ward, James Millen, E. M. Peck and Joseph Nicholson and Messrs. J. H. Farwell, W. Livingstone, Jr. and David Carter, and the Cleveland Vessel Owners’ Association and Lake Carriers’ Association will meet this week to co-operate with the Detroit association. The guests will be met at Cleveland by the revenue cutter Fessenden and will arrive in Detroit July 11. On the following day they will be taken to the St. Clair flats and dined at the St. Clair club, leaving for Mackinaw the same evening. After a day spent at Mackinaw as the guests of the Detroit, Cleveland and Buffalo vessel owners, the distinguished party will be given up to the care of Representative Stevenson of the upper Michigan penin- sula, who will look after their enjoyment in a visit to Sault Ste. Marie and the head of Lake Superior. Whether they will go down the Mississippi river or return down the lakes has not yet been decided. In General. On or about July 1 an order will be issued by the secretary of the treasury directing all officers of the revenue marine to provide themselves with the regular navy uniform. The United States lighthouse steamer Armeria, which supplies every lighthouse on the Atlantic coast from Maine to Texas, takes just a year to go around the 784 light stations and fog signals. -This week two small boats, the Sea Serpent and Mermaid, respectively 14 and 15 feet long, left Boston for Great Britain, being navigated by Captains Lawler and Andrews,two men who have made such voyages before, the former in the Norton life boat Never Sink, the latter in the Dark Secret. Their action is foolishly bold as there is little if anything to be gained from it. A battery of seven submerged flue boilers that are beiug built by a Pittsburgh firm for a large steel works in West Super- ior, Wis. are said to be the heaviest in the country. Each ofthe boilers is 10 feet in diameter and 30 feet long, made of 1-inch steel, and containing 236 4-inch flues, 20 feet long. They weigh 40 tons each, and will have to be transported upon cars built es- pecially for the purpose. The value of the mineral products of Great Britian during 1890 amounted to $463,000, 000 an increase of $100,000,000 over the previous year, the coal output being responsible for most of that. The increase in the value of iron was $10,000,000 although the quantity was less, indicating a marked increase in price. Hstim- ating the colonies in addition to this the total valuation of pro- ductions in British possessions hardly equal that of the United States which was for 1890 over $670,000,000. A few days ago The Lackawana Iron and Steel Company sold 40,000 tons of steel rails to C. P. Huntington of the Southern Pacific Railway Company at $30 a ton. ‘This price has ruled since Feb. 1, but it is the opinion of Mr. James M. Swank of the American Iron and Steel Association, and others well posted in affairs pertaining to the doings of the American Iron and Steel MARINE REVIEW. ; — Association that by the time Mr. Huntington will be ready to use all his purchase the price will be higher than it is at present. From data recently gathered by the interstate commission while in session at Spokane Falls, it was shown in evidence that only two vessels arrived at Puget Sound with merchandise from Atlantic ports during the six months ending Jan. 1, 1891, and that during the year ending last April only eight vessels came into Portland with merchandise from Atlantic ports. Accord- ing to this the railroads stretching across our continent have not much fear as regards ocean tonnage going around Cape Horn. How will it be when the Nicaragua canal is completed ?—Marine Journal. On July 1, next Wednesday, the signal service will be turned over to the control of the agricultural department. Gen. Greely, Major Dunwoody and Lieut. Glassford will continue to perform duty in connection with the weather service until the civilian head and assistants of that branch have been appointed and broken in. , Of the fifty sergeants of the new signal corps to be appointed, only sixteen have received their warrants, but forty in all have been selected and the remaining ten will be by July 1. About twenty-five per cent. of the men will be taken from the line of the army. The steam steel yacht Wild Duck, launched from the Atlan- tic works, East Boston, is owned by John M. Forbes, and was designed by Burgess. She cost about $110,000, and she is differ- ent from all other steam yachts in that she is a complete sailing vessel with center-board as well as a steamer with a feathering propeller. The Wild Duck is 125 feet long on the water line, 154% feet over all, has 23% feet extreme breadth of beam,and is 12 feet 6 inches deep. She has a triple cylinder expansion en- © gine of 400 horse-power; 10, 14% and 28%x18 inch stroke. Her boiler is of the French Belleville patent, with its tubes so arranged that an explosion is next to impossible. A steamship to cross the Atlantic in three days is coming within the sphere of practical engineering and naval architecture, if we are to place any reliance on the opinions of Mr. Carl Schurz, of New York, the President of the Hamburg-American-Packet Company. In connection with the foregoing we may state that some of the most prominent shipbuilders on the Clyde have been credited with the intention of building a steamer which will be able to cross the Atlantic in five days. In the meantime, however, the builders of the City of Paris and the City of New York have so far taken the matter out of the sphere of speculation as to produce a model of a steamer which is designed to cross the Atlantic in five days.—Engineering Cleveland Matters. Thomas Manning, Jr., secured the contract for the boilers and machinery of the steam fog signals in the Ninth light-house district. The big steel ore carrier E. C. Pope is down from Lake Su- perior with another load of ore, this time 2,647 gross tons. She logged a little over 14 miles an hour, loaded, on Lake Superior without being greatly pushed. The Cleveland Wheelbarrow and Manufacturing Company has purchased the business, etc. of the Cleveland Wheelbarrow and ‘ruck Company, the only change being the retirement of E. F. Wright, succeeded by J. W. Hornsey, who becomes sec- retary and treasurer of the new company. It is not probable that any effort will be made for the pres- ent at least to raise the sunken schooner Fayette Brown. Her stern is all knocked out. The cargo was insured for $10,000. The owners of the vessel will, of course, look to the Northern Steamship Company for a settlement of loss on the boat as well as a season contract. Mr. J. C. Gilchrist says there is no truth whatever in the story that the steamer John Craig was 10,000 bushels short on a Chicago grain cargo. She was trimmed by colored men, and left Chicago with a light load, but there was no shortage in the cargo. The schooner H.C. Richards was 386 bushelover on a cargo delivered at Sarnia. The dock property at the foot of Superior street, which the Detroit and Cleveland Steam Navigation Company has now se- cured beyond doubt, is certainly the most desirable in the city. The dock front is 498 feet long and there is an average depth of 112 feet. The excursion business of the company will undoubt- edly increase wonderfully when the docks are equipped for ser- vice and the increase in freight business from additional railway facilities can hardly be estimated. : Lee sen SS ae