The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

G7 7 MARINE REVIEW. Favorable Reports on Lake Measures in Washington. Special Correspondence to the MARINE REVIEW. Burrato, N. Y., Feb. 2.--I don't believe that Secretary Keep of the Lake Carriers' Association has ever had better reasons fer congratulating himself since he took the position he holds than since his return from Washington. His report to President Wilson will be a very pleasant one. He went down to take part in the fight against the Harter bill of lading, and he found plenty of help on hand. _,Result more or less direct of his trips : The Harter bill shelved and in its place a substitute giving both shippers and vessel men what they have long demanded; the passage of the raft bill; the accaptance of the Lake Carriers' Association's narrow-channel passage rules by the supervising inspectors; the contract for three new lights in Detroit river and the assurance that they and also the Bar point light will be ready by the opening of nayviga- tion, and the adoption of the clause giving $3,500,000 to the lakes in the sundry civil appropriatien bill. This is glory enough for one week. It is understood that Chairman Blanchard of the river and harbor com- mittee will take $25,000 from the $1,000,000 for 20-foot channel work and use it to widen "Collision Bend" in Lake George cut, St. Mary's river. By the way, Congressman Outhwaite of Ohio very unwittingly clinched the lake appropriations in the sundry civil bill last week very tight. He is chairman of the committee on military affairs, and when he found that Objector Holman had cut outa lot of appropriations relating to that department, "in the interest of economy," of course, he got up and howled furiously. Turn- ing to the sundry civil bill he referred in a very savage way to the economy of giving Galveston, Mobile and a lot of other gulf ports $1,000,000 apiece for harbor improvements. This brought to their feet the members from those cities and they proceeded to give reasons for wanting that amount. that exactly apply to the lake appropriations, and they will be obliged to vote for the whole lot now, even if they are not so very friendly to the lakes. It turns out that H. M. Loud of Oscoda was the purchaser of the steamer John B. Ketchan last week. The Craigs ran her up till their mortgage was covered and then let her go. The Louds will put her inthe Huron Transit Company that they organized two or three years ago, but will probably not use her for towing, as she has not enough power. . Capt. J. J. Rardon came down from Chicago last week to look after the claim of the owners of the Northerner, it issaid. So far there has been noth- ing done about this rather mixed-up matter. The Union dry dock is still waiting for iron to begin the new Lake Erie liner. The contract was let last fall, but the keel is not laid for her yet. Some iron has arrived, but it happens to be frames or something else that couldn't be used to begin with. The Homestead strike and the moving of the Union shipyard had to do with the delay. The report of the traffic through the International bridge gives a very satisfactory growth of Niagara river tonnage. The whole number of vessels passing through the bridge in 1892 was 14,044, which is in round numbers an increase of 1,000 vessels a year since 1587. A scrutiny of the proportion of sailing vessels, however, indicates that the increase is mainly steam, which shows that Buffalo excursion boats have had much to do with thegrowth. But Tonawanda business is satisfactory for all that and.there is prospect of putting up grain elevators there next summer. Nothing to be Gained by Abuse of Canada. Special Correspondence to the MARINE REVIEW. WasHInGTon, D. C., Feb. 2--Mr. 8. A. Thompson of Duluth, who was here recently attending the National Board of Trade convention, said in an interview: 'There is no sentiment in trade, and if Canadians will provide a means by which wheat may be transported from the great shipping centers on the lakes to the seaboard for 5 cents less than it can be transported by Ameri- can vessels, they will control the trade. The question, consequently, of the proposed canal from the lakes through American territory affects the west and the east alike. In three years (*) the Welland canal will be deepened, and the Sault Ste. Marie canal, connecting Lake Michigan with Lake Superior, com- pleted. This will complete their through connections with the-St. Law- rence ports, and Canada will transport not only all the wheat from the terri- tory lying north and northwest of the American boundary line in Manitoba, but from our own west. Now we want to do this enormous amount of trans- porting ourselves. We want our own canals to the seaboard, and we hope, eventually, to see one of the proposed routes selected by congress, and the eanals built." At a meeting of the house committee on naval affairs a few days ago, Mr. Bushnell spoke in favor of a proposition to make an appropriation for the fur- ther test of the Ericeson sub-marine gun and projectile. The ordnance de- partment made tests of this gun during the past year in the Erie Basin and Simpson dry dock, Brooklyoa, N. Y. The results of these experiments were such that in the opinion of the board which conducted the tests further trials should be made with projectiles having greater strength in their after- bodies to withstand the shock of explosion. Mr. Bushnell advocated an ap- propriation for this purpose. The ordnance people are anxious to develop this matter, as they think that as an auxiliary to the ram this system of under- -- water discharge when perfected will greatly increase the effective power of that weapon. The committee took the proposal under consideration. [* If Mr. Thompson made any such statement as that credited to him re. garding the Welland canal he is certainly misinformed. - Everybody having. an interest in lake commerce understands fully the struggle in which Canada is now engaged in its efforts to provide a waterway 14 feet in depth between Lake Erie and the Atlantic seaboard. There is no intention of enlarging the Welland before the completion of the canals in the St. Lawrence to the pro- posed depth of 14 feet. Waterways of such dimensions are not of sufficient size to detract largely from United States commerce on the lakes. It ig the general opinion that Mr. Thompson and a few other delegates to' the recent waterways convention are wasting a great deal of energy and valuable time in talking so much of Canada in this matter: Some very harsh language regard. ing the Dominion government was also used in the Washington convention,and it was not only uncalled for but was entirely out of place.--Ep. } Horse Power of a Boiler. When the horse power of a boiler is referred to, a very vague idéa of the real meaning of the term is given. Most peo- ple get the impression that when we say a boiler has a certain horse power it means that the engine which it is constructed to supply steam to will exert that power when all the prescribed conditions exist. What the horse power of a boiler really means is a question that is difficult to answer. It is neither logical nor appropriate to express the steam-generating power of a boiler in units of horse power, but it seems to have become a habit which has grown upon mechanics that is hard to break off and discon- tinue. 'he unit of horse power for boilers is not, says a contem- porary, fixed except by arbitrary agreement among the parties concerned, the basis differing according to the nature of the work done by the steam. Many boilermakers rate the horse power of the boilers by the number of square feet of heating surface con- tained in the boiler. Although this rule is followed by many, it is no criterion as between different styles of boilers--a square foot under some circumstances being many times as efficient as in others. But when the average rate of evaporation has been fixed upon by experiments in one boiler, there is no more conve- nient way of rating others of the same style. By an outsider, however, no exact rating of a boiler can be made from a knowl- edge of only its heating surface. The following rules are observed ina good many boiler shops, and may be useful: For cylinder boilers 9 square feet of heating surface per horse power are allowed; for flue boilers 12 _ square feet, and for tubular boilers 15 square feet. Hence, if the total heating surface be known, divide it by 9, 12, or 15, accord: ing to the type of boiler, and the quotient will be the horse pow- er of the boiler. Ifa boiler is tested and a statement of its horse _ power desired, without regard to whether it is to supply its steam to drive an engine or for other purposes, then it is agreed upon by the majority of experts to consider 30 pounds of water per hour, evaporated at 70 pounds pressure from 100 degrees, as a horse power. A standard was fixed by Watt at one cubic foot of water evaporated per hour from 212 degrees for each horse power. This was at that time the requirement of the best engine in use. Most nations havea standard similar to and generally derived 'from Watt's "horse power," but owing to different standards of weights and measures these are not identical, though the great est differences amount to less than 14 per cent.--Electrical Age Sinking Piles with Water Jets. _ A foreign technical journal thus describes the sinking of iron piles in Chili with a water jet. Some of the piles were 14.76 inches in diameter, with a flat bottom flange or pedestal 41.92 inches in diameter, and were sunk to a depth of 28 feet be low the bottom of the river through very coarse, compact sand, in which screw piles penetrated with great difficulty, and sharp piles could only be driven from 11.8 to 14.1 feet. A pump de: livering about 12,000 gallons per hour through a 4.92 inch pipe would sink two piles, each having a 2.05 inch pipe projecting about 7-87 inches below its base with a 5.9 inch opening. he pile being put in position and the water jet started, it sank neat ly three feet by its own weight, after which it was worked dow! by means of an endless cable leading from the drum of a hoisting engine around a horizontal pulley bolted on to the pile so a5! revolve the latter about its vertical axis. An average of eight teen hours was required to sink each pile. On one side of the river a double-action Worthington pump was used, and the other a Tangye pump.