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8 MARINE REVIEW. MARINE REVIEW. DEVOTED TO THE LAKE MARINE AND KINDRED INTERESTS. JoHN M. MULROONEY, F. M. BARTON, HOMER J. CARR, PROPRIETORS. - - - Associate Editor and Manager Chicago Office, 210 South Water Street. Published every Thursday at No. 516 Perry-Payne Building, Cleveland, O. SUBSCRIPTION--$2.00 per year in advance. Convenient binders sent, post paid, 75 cents. Advertising rates on application. The books of the United States treasury department contain the names of 3,600 vessels, measuring 1,154,870.38 tons in the lake trade. In classification of this fleet the lakes have more steamboats of 1,000 to 2,500 tons than the combined ownership of this class of vessels in all other sections of the country. The number of vessels of 1,000 to 2,500 tous on the lakes on June 30, 1891, was 310 and their aggregate gross tonnage 512,- 787.58; in all other parts of the country the number of this class of ves- sels was, on the same date, 213 and their gross tonnage 319,750.84. The classification of the entire lake fleet is as follows: . Class. Number. Tonnage. SCAM "VESSEL Gis scasiceves pea vet ete ees pearebamy ee 1,592 756,751.53 Sailing vessels.............0.00+ Sais Gab get s,s oan 1,243 325,131.06 Wanlale bo atsereiecce nic ccsser cue ssseseuse seco seuss 703 72,515.42 BAGS ES cesces.0ts bao Vi SUE Aree Shine veo oh bates ake 62 20,472.37 AN OLAUS or ency tens tence tes peancenaigrees 3,600 1,154,870.38 Tonnage built on the lakes during the past five years, according to the report of the United States commissioner of navigation, is as follows: No. of boats. Net Tonnage. . TSG His doecsiotielss Secs sou aeenutins's cadena aneesece os 152 56,488.32 TOOOr Lecce tinstns cost each coset wee ECE MEER 222 IOI, 102.87 TSSO. Sears. es dvisp las. evisdash«sgctaay made 225 107,080.30 TE OOS soccer teks einesivascuaie catevescuconmuinetle ss 218 108,515.00 TOOUsictesecc oan tar ecueestecsceeen tee 204 T11,856.45 MO GAL: am. steaatoaecatememases vareuees 1,021 485,042.94 St. Mary's Falls and Suez canal traffic: Number of boats through St. Mary's Falls canal in 1890, 234 days of navigation, 10,557; tonnage, net registered, 8,454,435. Number of boats through Suez canal during 1890, full year, 3,389; tonnage, net registered, 6,890,014. Entered at Cleveland Post Office as Second-class Mail Matter. WITH the opening of navigation this. spring, owners and masters of steam vessels on the lakes were met with general un- certainty among themselves regarding two matters of great im- portance in the work of fitting out their boats. The first was the question as to whether they were required, under a law passed by the last Congress, to cause names to be placed on the bows of steam vessels, which already have names on their pilot houses, placed there by law, and the second was in regard to the probable enforcement of an old law, which has always been in- operative, requiring range lights on steamers. Inthe matter of names on bows of steamers, the inspection service had sent out to local boards a circular declaring that they were not required, under the law, while the collectors of customs in different lake districts had a positive opinion from the solicitor of the treasury in direct contradiction to the order of the supervising inspector, and they instructed all steam vessels as well as sail vessels to comply with the law. ~Here were two branches of the treasury department sending out contradictory orders, and the only an- swers vessel owners could get im seeking information from Washington was a copy of the law with the intimation that they were to fathom its meaning themselves. 'They of course placed names on the bows of their steamers to be on the safe side in the matter, as the expense was not such as to cause great inconveni- ence, but the question will serve to show the poor method of a department made up of officers who, while seeking to regulate the merchant marine of the whole country, are so far removed from one another in systems and responsibility that they are a source of constant annoyance to the commerce which they seek to govern. But the spectacle of some local inspectors, who of course can not be blamed for failure to understand their duty, ordering range lights on steamers is even worse than the matter of names on bows. For probably ten years or more past this rule calling for a rear light 15 feet above the mast-head light has been printed among the rules of the board but compliance with it had been unthought of, on account of its impracticability on the lakes, until the supervising inspector, following the last meeting of the board, sent out a letter to subordinates on the lakes asking if it was being enforced. There was, as far as can be learned, no order to enforce it, and it is probable that the board would never have known that such a rule existed without enforcement, had not a lake vessel master, Capt. C. H. Westcott of Detroit, been recently appointed a supervising inspector. Capt. Westcott is said to have called attention to the absurdity of this rule being printed year after year in the code of rules ap- proved by the board. The steamboat inspection service, as well as other branches of the treasury department, presents in its ope- rations a strong example of good principles poorly applied, and the sooner the whole matter of shipping regulations is taken from the already over-burdened treasury branch of the govern- ment and placed under the supervision of a separate department with practical officers in charge, the better it will be for all con- cerned. . THERE are many features in the work of the river and har- bor committee of the present Congress that are highly com- mendable and not least among them is the fact that in a bill con- taining 400 items, which carry appropriations aggregating $21,- 290,975, based on estimates of engineers amounting to $69,814,- 945, only twenty-eight of these items are for new projects in the sense that this is the first time appropriations are recommended for them. In this same direction the committee proposes a great saving in authorizing the secretary of war in many instances to make contracts for completion of the more important works. An effort is already being made in the Senate to attach to the bill an appropriation of $500,000 to begin the construction of a canal (which is ultimately to cost $2,500,000) to connect the waters of Lake Union and Lake Washington with Puget Sound. In the probability of a number of such items being tacked onto the bill in the Senate lies the danger of its final passage and only the most urgent of them shonld be given consideration. PRACTICALLY all of the aids to lake navigation recommended -by the light-house board as a result of the bill introduced early in the present session of congress by Mr. V. A. Taylor of Ohio are included in the omnibus substitute, covering aids in all parts of the coontry, reported from the committee on commerce a few days ago by Mr. Brickner of Wisconsin. Vessel owners in all parts of the lakes should write their Congressmen to render all possible assistance to Messrs. Taylor» Brickner and Houk, who are all working very diligently for this measure. Coast Steamship Interests. As a result of the introduction in Congress of the measure known as the Frye bill for the regulation of vessels in the mer- chant marine of the country, the builders of vessels and machine- ry on the coast, who adopted'strong resolutions against the bill, are engaged in an effort to form an organization for the purpose of securing representation for steamship interests in preparation _in the future of all laws by which they are to be governed. It is intended also to secure representation on the proposed marine board for the regulation of the merchant marine, if the bill for the establishment of this board should become a law. With these ends in view a meeting will be held at No. 50 Wall street, New York City, on the 26th: inst. Lake vessel owners have been invited to send representatives to the meeting, but it is not probable that this will be done, as the lakes have, of course, their own associations at present to take action on such matters, and they will be even better fortified in this direction when the general organization of owners is perfected. 'The demand of the shipping interests for representation in the preparation of legislation pertaining to the regulation of vessels will, however, meet with approval from the lakes. | | Send 75 cents to the MARINE REVIEW for a binder that will hold 25 numbers.