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ee ee ee ; MARINE REVIEW. if We are indebted to the department of railways and canals, Canada, for a copy of the tariff of tolls on government canals for 1892. Port Huron wreckers with the steamer Henry Johnson have gone to Green bay and will make an effort to raise the steamer Ogemaw, which foundered in that locality last fall. _ The new steel steamer Cadillac, built by the Chicago Ship Building Company for the Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Company, brought down from Marquette on her maiden trip 2,126 gross tons of ore. The Cadillac is 250 feet over all. The schooner Owosco, owned by J. M. Jones & Co. of De- troit, which went to a Massachusetts port in the spring of last year, was wrecked off Halifax, N. S., last week while on her way from Philadelphia to Montreal with coal. She was not in- sured. Capt. A. A. Cox, commodore of the Davidson fleet and late- ly in the steamer City of Berlin, will command the City of Venice, the first of the new wooden steamers to leave Davidson's West Bay City yard this spring. Joseph R. Mason is the chief engineer. United States District Judge Deady of Portland, Ore., has rendered a decision in the salvage suit of the steamer Zambesi against the whaleback steamer Charles W. Whetmore. 'The decision awards $20,000 to the Zambesi. 'The amount sued for . was $250,000. The steamer Progress, sunk recently in the Detroit river and purchased from the insurance companies by the Detroit Dry Dock Company for $11,500, will be raised by the Murphy Wrecking Company. The price agreed upon for the work is reported at $13,000. A breaking of Lake Superior cargo records, even on the present draft of water in the St. Mary's Falls canal, may be ex- pected when the big steel boats of the Minnesota Steamship Company as well as the steamer W. H. Gilbert, built by F. W. Wheeler & Co. of West Bay City, get to making regular trips. It is announced by the management of the Empire Portable Forge Company of Lansingburg, N. Y., that hereafter Mr. 5. C. Gault will be associated with them asa representative "on the road." 'The REviEw wishes Mr. Gault every kindness at the hands of purchasers on the lakes of the goods of this com- pany. A rear paddle wheel steamer, the Valley City, built by the Craig Ship Building Company of Toledo, will begin service next week on Grand river, between Grand Rapids and Grand Haven. The steel hull is 170 feet extreme length and 29 feet beam, and the boat loaded will draw 5 feet of water. Capt. John M. Mit- chell of Toledo, who owns a half interest in the boat, will be the commander, and John F. Craig of Toledo general manager. The Woodland Beach Company, a Buffalo. corporation en- gaged in excursion business, has purchased the steamer Corona from the Goodrich Transportation Company of Chicago. The Corona is a sidewheel steamer 172 feet long, 45 feet beam and 11 feet depth of hold. She was built at Manitowoc 1n 1869 and registers 874 tons net. The boat received extensive repairs re- cently and is valued at about $20,000. Dunbar & Sullivan, dredging contractors of Sault Ste. Ma- rie, Mich., have secured contracts for excavation on two more sections of the St. Mary's Falls canal work. The sections com- prise 138,700 and 138,800 cubic yards, for which the contractors will receive $212,211 and $204,036 respectively. The excavat- ing is chiefly through what is known as Potsdam sandstone rock, in stratified layers of varying thickness. _ The specifica- tions require that the work shall be completed within two years. Capt. William McKay of the steamer Greyhound, who is charged by Custodian Mott of the St. Clair Flats canal, with running past the barge F. D. Ewen in the canal, has been or- dered by United States Commissioner Graves ob Detroit to ap- pear before United States District Judge Swan when called upon. 'This probably means that Capt. McKay will be given a hearing in court after the close of navigation If it is shown, as Capt. McKay claims, that no violation of the canal rules was intended and that the Greyhound avoided damage by passing the Ewen, it is probable that the case will demand little atten- tion. Mr. Samuel Holmes of New York, vice:president of the Saginaw Steel Steamship Company, owning the steamers Mack- inaw and Keweenaw, built by F. W. Wheeler & Co. of West Bay City, was in Buffalo last week. The boats are now en- gaged in the coal trade between Puget sound and San Fran- cisco, and Mr. Holmes is greatly pleased with their work. Al- though they are of only ordinary length and breadth as compared with modern steel steamers on the lakes, they carry 3,600 tons of cargo and 300 tons fuel on 23 feet draught. Their average speed is about 11 knots. The Milwaukee Evening Wisconsin says of the Goodrich Line twin screw steamer Virginia: 'Although the average time of her arrival here daily from Chicago may have led many to a contrary belief, it is nevertheless a fact that the Virginia is making a better record for speed than last season. Her ma- chinery is in perfect working order, and the forced draft appa- ratus enables her to keep up a good head of steam without dis- comfort to the firemen. 'The three-bucket solid wheels can also be turned up much faster than the discarded sectional wheels. On her first run from Manitowoc to Chicago she covered the distance to her destination from a point abreast of Milwaukee at a speed of 18% miles an hour without being crowded. Her average daily speed is now placed at about 18 miles an hour. The forced draft apparatus not alone effects a marked reduction in the quantity of coal consumed, but a grade of fuel costing $1.75 per ton less than the best can be utilized to good advant- BIE How to Fire a Boiler. Mr. Richard Hammond, of the Lake Erie Boiler Works, Buffalo, read a paper at a recent meeting of the National Elec- tric Light Association, on "How to Fire a Boiler." Mr. Ham- mond held that in a great many cases waste of fuel can not be entirely charged to improper firing. Other causes produce a waste of the evaporating power of the fuel. Principal among these are the improper construction of the boiler in relation to grate surface, tube area, heating surface, and combustion cham- bers. Unless these proportions are properly worked out (it mat- ters little whether the firing be done by mechanical means or by the more intelligent fireman), waste of fuel must necessarily follow. Just as good results can be obtained from hand-firing as have been obtained by the best mechanical means. "Hxperiment has proved," said Mr. Hammond, " that bitu- minous coal requires 150 cubic feet of air per pound of coal for good combustion. An excess of air results in a waste of heat which it carries into the flues and chimney, and often a greater loss in an insufficient supply to produce good combustion. In my experience, for steam plant boilers carrying 80 to 160 pounds of steam, I find that at least 20 pounds of bituminous coal should be burned per square foot of grate per hour, and the air spaces of the grate should not be less than 50 per cent. of the grate area and the draught-pressure not less than 2% inches of water. If the grate surface is so large that only 10 pounds. of coal are consumed, it would be more economical to reduce the grate surface and burn not less than 20 pounds with good draught, thus securing a good combustion. The same weight of coal burned on a large grate would not be as economical on account of low temperatures. The temperature of the furnaces should not be less than 3500° and the ratio of the draught area through the tubes or flues should not be less than one-sixth nor more than one-fourth of the grate surface, and the proportion of heat surface to grate surface shoud be at least as 35 to 1. "Under the conditions just stated boilers should be fired very economically, whether done by mechanical means or by hand. JI have noticed in firing marine boilers on the great lakes that the firemen spread their coal evenly over the entire grate at each firing and they produce steam very economically, while firemen on coastwise steamers will pile up the coal just inside the furnace door and as it becomes coked will rake it back over the incandescent fire and grate with equally as good but no bet- ter results in the way of economy than obtained by the lake fire- men. Both of these ways of firing are equally good, but in all cases the grate bars should be entirely covered and the amount of air required above the grate should be admitted from above instead of below the grate."'