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Ship of the Month - cont'd. 14. Ed. N o t e : Our thanks to T. M. H . S. Secretary, John H. Bascom, for putting to gether preparatory notes for this feature while Ye Ed. was fighting an in credible variety of molds and mildews, as well as plagues of grasshoppers, leafrollers and fleas, in the garden onthe Island after we returned from our annual July pilgrimage to the Soo. We think the SOUTHERN BELLE feature was more of a success than the garden! Amongst our sources of information concerning SOUTHERN BELLE were R o b e r t s o n 's Landmarks of T o r o n t o ; the unpublished manuscript of T. M. H . S. member Ivan S. Brookes, Hamilton Harbour 1 8 26-1901; and Lifeline of the Confederacy Blockade Running During the Civil War by Stephen R. Wise, 1988, University of South Carolina Press. * * * * * THE FLEET HISTORIES SERIES - VOLUME TWO T. M. H . S. member John 0. Greenwood has published the second volume in his "Fleet Histories" series. In upright 81 / 2 " x 11", softcover format, it features the histories of the United Steamship Company, Thompson Transit Company, Forest City Steamship Company, Nicholson-Universal Steamship Compa ny, North West Transportation Company, Johnson Transportation Company, T. H. Browning Steamship Company, and the T. J. McCarthy Steamship Company, as well as their various subsidiary and affiliated concerns. With a separate chapter on each of the operating groups, the book features details of corporate history, incidents involving each of the ships of the various fleets, and unfortunately too-brief individual vessel histories. Basic details are given, but no tonnages or engine data. There also are no details of career ownership changes; although this would add considerable bulk to the listings at the end of each chapter, such records would be much appreciated by historians and would help in tracing the movements of many vessels which served in more than one of the fleets featured in the volume. While the detailed corporate histories (some made public in this volume for the very first time) are of considerable interest, the book's main value may lie in the large number of very interesting, and in some cases extremely rare, photographs of the ships in various stages of their careers. The photographic reproduction is excellent but, unfortunately, the printers have made the same egregious error as in the first volume, inexplicably placing opposing full-page illustrations so they are set 180° apart, thus forcing the reader continually to twist the volume from side to side, placing a strain on the binding that is guaranteed to ensure a short life for any copy that is used frequently by its owner. The printer could easily refer to any other major publication with full-page photos to see how such material should be presented in a reader-friendly format. Nevertheless, this book should be a part of any serious lake marine library, and may be obtained by addressing Freshwater Press Inc., 1700 East 13th S t r e e t , Suite 3 - R - E , Cle v e l a n d , Ohio 44114-3213, U . S. A. The price is $24.75 U . S. Funds, plus delivery charges of $2. 51 to U . S. destinations or $3. 81 to Canadian addresses. * * * * * MID-SUMMER MADNESS Our Mid-Summer issue always is a difficult one to put together, not only because summer holidays interfere with its preparation and mailing, but be cause a large amount of marine news must be condensed into a space too small to accommodate it. We have done our best to summarize herein the various lake marine developments of the summer of '92, but we apologize sincerely for any omissions, and we hope that our readers will let us know if they spot any inaccuracies or if they have anything additional to add to any of our reports. * * * * *