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ee LN me E. ¥ r With Thurstay, at 144 isa r Street ae Building, ) CLEVELAND, O. nen a \ - : Froprietors. BRANCH OFFICE, - - 35 Franklin St. THOMAS WILDLAME, peeps Editor. SUBSCRI PTION. one copy, one year, postage paid, - = ‘One copy, one year, to foreign countries, Invariably in advance, Ue e ADVERTISING. Rates given on application. SPOUT ERR AR oe ee RN CLEVELAND, O., DECEMBER 8, 1892. eee Iv seems a temporizing, quibbling, not to say niggardly or short-sighted policy, that singles out aids to naviga- : tion that are imperative, or else not required at all, and classifies them as “indispensable, necessary and desir- able.” Any aid that is necessary to carry on the vast commerce of the Great Lakes is beyond doubt indispen- sable, and if desirable, the necessity is proved by the rec- ommendation that such an aid be established. All war- ranted aids are desirable, otherwise they may be wiped off the calendar, and the committee in. whose hands this important federal legislation is placed should dis- untehance such impecunious nibbling at the public reasury, and vote straight through for all requisite aids ~ to lake navigation. THERE was published in our issue of November 24th, under the caption of Locating Dangers to Navigation, the following paragraph: “Last spring Col. William Ludlow, Corps of Engineers, U.S. A., requested masters to mark or buoy any dangers, such as wrecks, reefs or shoals, that they might meet with or discover.” The credit of the valuable suggestion is due to Com- mander Nicoll Ludlow, U.8.N., inspector of the ninth light-house district, and not to Col. Ludlow of the Corps of Engineers. The similarity of the names is not alone responsible for the error, however, as there has never been a district engineer officer who has worked. more zealously for the lake marine interests at Jarge than the Colonel. : ro a + ce Tue United States Supreme Court has just affirmed the judgment of the United States Circuit Court in the Chicago Lake front case involving an untold amount of money and the riparian rights of the State to submerged territory bordering the Illinois shores of Lake Michigan for one mile. The action of the General Assembly or State Legislature in granting the railroads absolute priveliges twenty-three years ago has been ruthlessly and legally set aside and it is now determined that the terri- tory is held in trust by the State for the benefit of the people. This is a most important decision and will affect the principal lake ports.. Cleveland has had the screws put on by the railroad monopolies in the same manner as Chicago, but a halt may now be called on these water grabbing propensities with a positive degree of authority. Well done Chicago ! eg er Tue New York Zimes has the following to say anent the railroad transfer ferry boats : “There has just been launched from the yards of the Craig Shipbuilding Company, of Toledo, O., a vessel which in two hours’ time can be converted, in all re- spects, into a harbor defense ram, and with a rapid-fire battery, well-protected by steel shields, can justly be ex- pected to silence any craft the British are able to send through the Welland or St. Lawrence River canals. The new vessel is the Ann Arbor No. 1, built for the Toledo, Ann Arbor & North Michigan railroad and designed ex- piss for immediate conversion into a war ship on the reaking out of hostilities. The new vessel has been duly inspected by a representative of the Navy Depart- ment, and those in naval circles in a position to know declare that, had the new vessel been intended exclusive- ly for war purposes, she could not have been better de- signed. The Ann Arbor will soon be followed, by a sec- ond vessel, a duplicate throughout, and later by four more vessels of still greater efliciency.” The above is certainly news to the lake marine, as it has never been even surmised that the two transfer steamers were capable of entering upon any other but the special work or trade for which they were designed. If the Ann Arbor No. 1 and 2 would make harbor de- fense rams, the large powerful steamer of similar design now building at the yards of the Detroit Dry Dock Co., tor winter service in the Straits of Mackinac, should also be capable of being converted into a ram at short notice, as also would be the St. Ignace. It seems to us, however, that the 7’imes guesses wide of the mark in this allusion to harbor defense rams for lake ports. DISCIPLINARY. A great deal of interest has centered in the case of assistant etigineer G. W. Danforth, U.S. Navy, who was court martialed and sentenced to one “year suspension from rank for refusing to leave his watch and go on deck at the callof a young lieutenant. The Secretary of the Navy, B. F. Tracy, has not only approved the finding of the court-martial, but says that the offense was “clearly a violation of the express regulation requiring engineers on duty to conform to the orders of the officer of the deck, who is the representative of the command- ing officer of the vessel and is entitled to obedience from all officers of whatever rank, whether of the line or staff.” But tor the extreme youth and inexperience of the ac- cused, the Secretary says, he would have returned the record of his trial ‘td the court with a RECO MNS uaues for a more severe sentence, It was Hoped that the’ issue ‘made by Mr. Danforth would be the means of defining the relations between the staff upon a plane more in accordance with the impor- tance and responsibilities of the members of the two branches of the service. There. is a positive limit to se placed between the authority and, duty of the deck officers and those who control the motive power of the ship, but, where the line should be drawn, over which the engineer need not step, or the deck officer invade, we are not in nt eae to state at this time. Steam has now made engineering a science and elevated the competent artificer to a profession, and this too, both in the naval and merchant service. ~ ‘As things now go, steam controls everything on board ship, with~ out which she remains a helpless tank upon ‘the surface of the water, as long as she can stay there. Engineers, realizing that the absolute dependence of the ship and all that belongs thereto is placed under their hands, seek to obtain that standing to which they are so justly entitled, and from present indications we surmise that future developments will demand that not only the master, but also the officers, will need to be theoreticalif not practical engineers, orélse engineers on the acquirement of naviga- tional skill will be given entire charge of the ship both as commanding and executive officers. That the future of steam and electricity hus this fea ture of teahnic i superiority in store, has often been ad- vanced, and from different standpoints, at first only to be sneered at, later to be listened to as the suggestion of a warped imagination, and now as a matter of present import requiring serious consideration in many lines of trade and traffic. There is ample room for_officers of both degrees, -yef,which is to be subordinate in the near future will only be determined by the law of the “sur- vival of the fittest,” and it does look as if they who knew how to control the propelling or motive power were the fittest to conduct the venture in safety from port to port. ‘As an indication of the feeling now existing in this matter in naval circles, Chief Engineer Melville, U.S. N., says in connection with an increase in the aumbec ef engineers for the navy: “The only opposition to the bill no before Congress providing for such inerease thus far has come from some of the officers of the navy, who seem to view with jealous distrust the growing impor- tance of the engineering branch of the service and see in it an imaginary menace to the supremacy-of the posi- tions which they have inherited from naval conditions now obsolete.” Nothing further, we think, is required to prove that the lines are being drawn closer than formerly, and Commodore Melville’s observations are shared in by a large majority of technical men, 2 DEFLECTION OF THE COMPASS ON LAKE SUPERIOR. Navigating along the north shore of Lake Superior seems to be somewhat hazardous according to the well verified statements of observant shipmasters in that trade. The vast mineral deposits on the land are said to exercise an erratic influence on every well adjusted com- pass, thus rendering the courses. steered almost useless for determining the position of the vessel, in thick weather and at other times a cause of great anxiety to the careful shipmaster. Notwithstanding the general, and from present knowledge, we may add, irregular deflections of the com- pass experienced in the locality by both wood and iron steamers, there is yet no positive data of any kind at hand except the bare verbal assertion of those navigat- ing in the vicinity whereby computations might be entered into and the result brought .to bear in an intelli- gent jmanner in cases where a sudden or even a gradual deflection of the compass might be expected to exist, so that while we have well authenticated evidence of mag- netic influences being at work, the amount or direction of the power felt is still a mystery even to those whose paramount duty it is to be thoroughly conversant with the changes in terrestrial magnetism likely to be found in the navigation of Lake Superior. Judging from the many reports that we have heard thé ‘attraction draws the north end of ‘the Teattla, fore, bringing the vessel close in with the land on the north shore when steering on northerly courses, all « which we doubt not may be correct, but, there ma: the gravest doubts expressed regarding the influ being exerted from the land or coast, for, before a com- — pass would feel the influence of the mineral deposits no‘ known to exist, tha vessel would be too close in shore for safety, as witness the effects of lgeal attraction, and how short a distance the powerful agency of large stock. piles is rendered inoperative may be clearly demonstrated at all ore shipping and receiving ports. cone The question of land at any moderate distance affeet- ing the compass has been thrashed out during the past — two centuries, and in almost every ease it has been shown that no magnetic influence from the shore could effect the ship’s compasses in the ordinary course of nay- igation, nor do we believe, that after reliable data — has been obtained, such an influence will be found to exist along the shores of Lake Superior. There is a dis: turbing effect, but it is probably from the groand over which the vessel sails, and the submerged land near the — ship's bottom being possessed of mugnetic properties, as it undoubtedly is, the effect may vary by sometimes repelling and at other times attracting bee north point of the compass. ; A fair, illustration ‘of such an experience is found ra the log of a surveying ship, which, on running along steady three miles off shore, suddenly found her compass ii deflected nearly three points. In this case it was found that the center of disturbance was only fifty feet in diam- eter and at.a depth of nine fathoms. On drifting slowly over the magnetic ridge several times in a southeasterly, direction, the greatest disturbance experienced was from aforee repelling the north seeking, end, of..the, needle, = amounting to 23° when on the north-west side of the center, to 55° on the south-east side ang an increase inotherdip of & the needle of 33°, but these large values of nearly five points inthe declination and three in the dip or imclination were confined to avery small area and were not felt at all half a mile in avy direction from the center. So important # scientific and navigational result as the fovegoing was only obtained after due diligence being observed in tracing an eff-ci to the cause. Nor, can it be expected that withous as milar well directed interest being displayed, will the cause of the deflection of the needle on the north shore of Lake Superior become gen- erally known. ; Auother instance of a large wagnetie disturbance j within a very limited area is found from observations taken on shore some years ago at New Zealand, whieh, if found to exist on the northwestern lakes would yery likely have sent mining experts prospecting for ore. On the summit of a bluff the declination was found to be 6° 54 E., thirty feet north of that position the deflection _ was 9° 36’ W., thirty feet east it was 46° 44’ E., and . thirty feet west 5° 047 E, If such a reef as this was sub merged, and there may be many-such along the shores of Lake Superior, it would not requiré a vast amount of demonstrating to prove that its influence was felt in the deflection of the compass when a ship was passing over it-instead of as now ascribing the effect to influences at ; work several miles away. To INTERNATIONAL WRECKING COURTESIES. A The recent action of-the Lake Carriers’ Association in endeavoring to again bring before the legislative powers the mutual concessions necessary to promulgate interna- tional wrecking courtesies on the lakes and rivers, is timely and well advised. The matter is now in such shape that unless a direct effort is made at this time the subject will be permitted x to drop out of sight, and future action through another administration would probably involve the entire question being gone over again, with the consequent inaction and delays which inevitably follow the introduction of even such beneficent legislative departures. f The present status of this particular legislation has been widely dealt within these columns, and tue cause of the checkmate to legislative action clearly set forth. The point in dispute, or rather misconstrued, as be-— tween the two governments, is simply, that the United States act is made to apply to the Welland, St. Clair and St. Mary’s canals, and th Canadian act is not; the Cana- dian government holding, and rightly, too, that such a thing as a wreck in a canal is an impossibility; and that — their act as it now stands would cover wrecking in such waters as the St. Mary’s river. ‘ A wreck to mean anything, involves danger, if not a total sacrifice of life and property, and requiring the best available means of assistance and relief irrespective of — nationality or locality. These conditions are non istent in the ordinary modern methods of canal transpor tation, and therefore, a legislative act embodying sui would perforce be inoperative ; besides, the exigencii lake commerce does not require, or has not called for wrecking expeditions to enter canals to save life or