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6 MARINE REVIEW. Chief Naval Constructor, U. S. N. Herewith is presented the portrait of Phillip Hichborn, suc- cessor to Commodore 'T'. D. Wilson, who retires from the position of chief naval constructor on account of failing health. Mr. Hichborn is very generally known through his report on European dock yards. He was born in Charlestown, Mass., in 1839, and at the age of seventeen entered the Bos- ton navy yard, from which place the secretary of the navy ordered him to take a course of theoretical training. Going to California he became master shipwright of the Mare island yard. In 1875 he passed examinations that gave hima commission of naval con- structor." In 1881 he was made a member of the naval advisory board, where he had much to do with matters affecting the designing and construction of the new navy. His advocacy of sheathing ships is receiving much consideration in the navy. The portrait was furnished | -by the Army and Navy Journal, New York. Kites for Life Saving Purposes. Professor J. Woodbridge Davis of the Woodbridge School, No. 645 Madison avenue, New York city, is the inventor of a system which proposes the use ot kitesas a means of connecting a stranded vessel with the shore for life saving purposes. He has been furnishing the Marine Journal of New York with re- ports of experiments. The philosopny of the idea is very clear and ready of com- prehension. A vessel that is wrecked is almost always carried ashore, or upon reefs or shoals, by the force of the wind. 'The 'wind being steadily upon the shore, it isa very difficult matter to get a line in the teeth of a gale from the shore to the vessel by any means at the command of the life savers, the vessel itself being such a small mark and often very far out from the beach. But the gale itself, by means of kites, affords the ready opportu- nity of getting communication from the vessel to the shore, and it is very gratifying to find that experiments which have been conducted from time to time with the idea of perfecting a system in this line, as noted occasionally in the past, have at length proved successful in the greatest degree. 'he fact has been es- tabliseed that, with the wind blowing at the rate of twenty-five miles an hour or more, one or two kites will prove amply sufii- cient to convey a heavy hawser from a vessel to the shoré over any space likely to intervene. The same plan may also be used to send a line from one ship to another at sea, and the whole thing can be accomplished in a very short time. In the latest experiments, which took place a few days ago, the test attempted was the practicability of taking a serviceable life line from a vessel a mile and a half off shore, and how well it was attained is shown in the following extract from a letter writ- ten by Edward Fogarty, keeper of the Brenton reef light-ship, off Newport, R. I., who made the tests. Keeper Fogarty writes: "I sent out a 5-inch hawser, 200 fathoms long, with one kite, at 9 a. m., the wind blowing about twenty-five miles an hour toward shore. I had marked the hawser at every fifty fathoms. 'The kite took the hawsar from the deck itself, and this is the time: First fifty fathoms, two and one-half minutes; second fifty fathoms three minutes; third fifty fathoms, three minutes; fourth fifty fathoms, four minutes. With a little stronger breeze the kite will lift the hawser out of the water and, instead of taking out two hundred fathoms, there would be no trouble in sending out one thousand fathoms." The method of flying the kite from shipboard is to raise it by toplines to a yardarm or flagstaff until it fills and then cut the toplines. The inventor has designed for a vessel's equipment a kite chest containing a dozen kites of four different sets of dimen- sions, for winds ranging from fifteen miles per hour upward, Each kite is plainly marked with the number of miles of wind it can stand and simple directions for its use. The end of the hawser to be sent ashore is made fast toa light buoy, and the kite, with sufficient towing line to give it good altitude, is at- tached to the buoy. It has been found that in a strong breeze, without brakes on the hawser being paid out, a seven-foot kite will lift the buoy fiity or sixty feet out of the water, and when- ever the buoy strikes wreckage or other obstruction, the kite will carry it clear over. A kite with a float conveying a message has been sent ashore a distance of four hundred miles in a single day. Fora long fly with a heavy line, a second kite has been attached successfully half the distance out. Prof. Davis will supply full information regarding experiments upon application - to him at the above address. Will the Campania Fulfill Expectations ? Major Walter Webb, Mr. Depew's associate in the manage- ment ofthe Central system, has just returned from Europe,and he | confirms the stories that have prevailed lately, which assert that considerable doubt exists whether the Campania is, after all, going to fulfill the very high expectations which her early per- formances upon the sea and the calculations of her builders | created. 'That she is a wonderfully fast steamship is beyond all question, and that she is likely, under favorable conditions, very greatly to reduce the record is also the belief of her officers and builders. But that which has excited comment about her is the experience she has recently had, which leads to the suggestion that possibly the limit has been reached, if not passed, in the construction of ocean steamships on the model employed in building the Campania. If the ocean were always as still as a river, there is no doubt that the Campania would justify the expectations of her builders, but the question which has been suggested is whether a steam- ship of her model, having great length and carrying amidships immense weight in the shape of boilers and engines, and which is subjected to the enormous strain entailed by the development of very high speed, will not develop structural weakness in time of severe weather at sea. Ix-Senator Pierce, lately minister to Portugal, who returned by the Campania, when she experienced some comparatively rough weather, reports that she strained in a manner perceptible to the passengers, and most unpleasantly suggestive of serious consequence in case she should encounter a hurricane. Major Webb says that there is much comment of this kind upon the other side, all of it tending to the belief that perhaps the finest development of ocean steamships and the limit of such develop= ment along these models was reached when the Paris and New York and the Majestic and Teutonic were built. There is a great interest upon the other side in the steam- ships which are to be built by the Cramps for the American Line, and Major Webb says that the belief prevails over there that these vessels will not follow the English model in all respects, but will reveal certain improvements in construction designed to overcome those very weaknesses which have been suggested but have not yet been proven to exist in the Campania.--"Holland" in Philadelphia Press. The Sherift's Manufacturing Company of Milwaukee sends out a unique advertisement in the form of a minature propeller wheel that makes a neat watch charm, 'They are generous about them. We sent for oneand got halfa dozen,