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3 MARINE REVIEW. Water Commerce Congress. In the Art Palace, Chicago, the same building in which the International Engineering Congress was assembled last week, there was held also the Water Commerce Congress, which was another gathering of engineers brought about by the officers of the World's Congress Auxiliary. 'The attendance at the several meetings, which began on Tuesday and closed on Saturday, was quite large, and the discussion at one of the sessions, that of Thursday, had special reference to lake commerce. 'The repre- sentation from the lakes was small, however, and it was unfor- tunate that such was the case, as the meeting presented an op- portunity to give widespread publicity to the importance of lake shipping. Messrs. George Clinton, M. M. Drake and Wm. Thurstone of the Buffalo Merchant's Exchange represented that body in the congress, and Secretary S. A. Thompson of the Duluth Chamber of Commerce, W. Y. Wisner of Detroit and Chauncy N. Dutton of Chicago were among other delegates from lake cities. 'The Buffalo committee was at the meeting for the purpose, undoubtedly, of taking note of anything that might be said regarding a canal outlet for commerce from the lakes to the seaboard, as Buffalo is not friendly to any scheme that will deprive it of its terminal business, and Mr.Dutton's object in at- tending was to boom the North American Canal Company, which proposes to provide deep water navigation from Lake Erie to the seaboard, having outlets by way of the lower St. Lawrence and of New York. Mr. Thompson took for his theme "The Economic Value of a Ship canal from the Great Lakes to the Seas,' and his position, as is well known, was in favor of the route which proposes a ship canal around Niagara falls on the American side, opening up Lake Ontario; then the deepening ot Oswego river for some distance above its mouth, the use of Oneida lake, furnishing about 20 miles of deep water navigation, and finally a canal down the Mohawk valley to tide water in the Hudson. 'The speaker prefaced his remarks on the canal scheme with the great fund of information which he has collected within the past few years on the immense volume of lake commerce, and the cost of freight charges by water as compared with rail charges. "The time will come," he said, "when the towing will be operated asa railroad is now operated. Steambarges will be notified by wire that a loaded barge is waiting at this port and an empty is wanted at that one. A 20-foot canal to the seaboard will bring about the construction of steamers of 5,000 and 6,000 tons and will cut the present cost of moving freight in two parts." Mr. Thompson evidently had the plans of the American Steel Barge Company in mind when he gave utterance to this sentence, which, by the way, is not in accordance with the views of most practical vessel owners as to the boats of the future, but he is nevertheless entitled to a great deal of thanks for the labor of presenting infornation of a general character to this and other meetings ofits kind, at which heis always found actively at work in the interest of the lakes. Chauncey N. Dutton of the North American Canal Company, recently incorporated in Canada, followed Mr. Thompson with at explanation of the routes to New York and Montreal, by way of the Welland and St. Lawrence, proposed by his company. Mr. Dutton's main argument was that the United States would furnish commierce sufficient to meet the immense expenditure of _ money involved in the scheme proposed by the North American company, and that Canada's five millions of people would add enough business to bring a return in profit on the investment. Wooden Freight Steamer George Stone. Two sets of indicator cards printed herewith were taken te cetitly from the engines of the steamer George Stone on her maiden trip actoss Lake Hrie. The boat was built by F. W. Wheeler & Co. of West Bay City for M. A. Bradley and others of Cleveland, and on the trip referred to the engines worked per- fectly, averaging about ninety revolutions per minute and con suming about 1,300 pounds of coal per hour with an average speed of about 12 miles an hour. The steamer has two masts, schooner rigged, and her principal dimensions are: Length over all, 285 feet 6 inches; length of keel, 270 feet ; breadth, moulded, 40 feet: depth, moulded, 22 feet; depth of hold, 19 feet 3 inches; depth between decks, 7 feet 10 inches. She is propelled by a triple-expansion engine with cylinders 17, 28 and 47 inches by 42 inches stroke, driving a wheel 12 feet in diameter and 14 feet pitch, of the builder's own design. The high and intermediate pressure cylinders are fitted with piston valves and the low pressure cylinder has a double-ported slide valve. All valves are worked by Stevenson's adjustable link motion con- trolled by steam reverse gear, and all steam ports and passages are designed for a piston speed of 700 feet per minute. The bed plate is of the box type, cast in one piece, and the frame work consists of three straight cast iron columns on the starboard side and three "Y" shaped columns on the port side, with large bear- ing surfaces for the slides, all strongly bolted together with through-bolts. The piston rods are of the best machinery steel. and the crossheads and connecting rods are of the best wrought S.5.George Stone. ]S.George Stone, Soketrie, 4 pam. July 2121999 Sodkefvie.5 pan.july 2121993. Cylinders. (7% e28 247" Cylinders. IVF 220*4T" SRyokwossk os We iat. Sivoke.-----42in Boiler press.-110 Us Boiley )press.- 170 Ws [83 Reeeiver___53 Us |= Reeeivev_-- 63 Us 2-2 Receiver____ 5 lbs 22 Receiver__-_- 9 lbs Verena Seon i: Vacuum. ----24 in Cutoff, H.Poyl.---O. 4 Cit off ARGL.- --0.65 Revolutions_...90 Revolutions.--98 + IHP, Total_...936.2 LHP total_-1238.% B 100 Spring , Sle MEP: $2.2 1H.P. = 400.3 pe 40 Spring MEPRa 32.8 LH.P = 420.1 T : ee B 23.6 29 40 Sprin = é MEPs 22.9 3 TH.P 2338.6 10 Spring MER: 9.1 LHP 3301.4 z 10 Spritd NEP a fle LWP = 418.4 Ss iron. 'The crank shaft is of the built-up type, and the crank pin brasses, as well as the main journals, are made of brass inserted with best anti-friction metal strips. All pumps are independent and the exhaust steam from the pumps passes through a large feed water heater with brass tubes, where most of its latent heat is thus given to the feed water. Steam is furnished by two cyl- indrical return-tubular boilers, 11 feet diameter by 12 feet long, working ata pressure of 170 pounds per square inch. Each boiler has two furnaces of 42 inches diameter, and 184 3-inch tubes, with a grate surface of 44 square feet and a heating sur- face of 1,550 square feet. The ratio of heating surface to grate surface is 35.3to 1. 'The coal bunker capacity is 200 tons. 'The outfit and general arrangement of cabins, etc., are complete in every respect, and the interior finish is about as fine as that of any boat on the lakes. Capt. George Stone, in whose honor the boat is named, was aboard on the maiden trip. She is com- manded by Capt. M. Mulholland, and Mr. F. Williams is the chief engineer. The owners of the Stone are of the opinion that they have one of the finest and strongest wooden boats on the lakes and the officers are highly pleased with her behavior.