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MARINE REVIEW. | 9 Capt. Wesley C. Brown. A very good likeness of Capt. Wesley C. Brown, who was recently ap- pointed superintendent of transportation for the Northern Steamship Co., with headquarters at Buffalo, to succeed Capt, Killeran, is presented herewith. Illness has delayed Capt. Brown in taking up his new duties, CAPT. WESLEY C. BROWN. but it is expected he will be in full charge of the vessels of the Northern line next season. Capt. Brown was born in St. Clair, Mich., and his home is still at that place. He has followed the lakes from boyhood and has been in charge of vessels for a great number of years past. His last command was the steamer Centurion, one of the best steel vessels on the lakes. He was in the steamer Mark Hopkins previous to the Centurion, and in earlier years commanded the John F. Eddy, Siberia, Oswegatchie © and other vessels. Dreary North Shore of Lake Superior. The recent accident to the steamer Missoula tends to show more clearly than anything that has occurred of late the vast area of Lake Superior and the possibility of a vessel's crew reaching land after ship- wreck and yet being unheard of for a couple of weeks after starting on a voyage. The shores of Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota on the big lake are traversed by railways and telegraph lines, and the towns and small settlements on the American side of the lake, even to the islands, furnish ready means of communication with the larger lake cities, but not so on that part of the Canadian shore north of the lakes, where a wilderness inhabited by a few fisherman and Indians exist. This is es- pecially true of the Canadian shore just above Sault Ste. Marie and fora long stretch of country to the south and east of the point where the Canadian Pacific Railway turns into the shore of the lake and traverses it on towards Port Arthur and Fort William. When the Missoula broke her shaft and was rendered helpless she was less than twenty-five miles from Caribou island on the course down towards Sault Ste. Marie. She was somewhat off the regular course of vessels bound down from the head of Lake Superior, but if she had been able to make any headway towards the Sault, or care for herself at allon the course she was following, she would have been picked up very soon after the accident by some passing vessel. But a southerly wind drifted her out of the course of even the few vessels trading to Canadian ports at the head of the lakes, and she was working over towards the wildest part of the Canadian north shore territory when her crew was compelled to abandon her. A glance at the chart will show that Brule point, where the crew of the Missoula first made land, is scarcely more than seventy-five miles from Sault Ste. Marie, where 15,000,000 tons of freight passes througha canal in a single season, and yet the men in one of the Missoula's yawl boats spent nearly two days working along the shore of the lake before they found any more sign of life than a deserted fisherman's shanty, in which they built a fire and dried their wet clothing. The fishing season had closed, but even fishermen are scarce in this territory during] the most active periods. It is notstrange, therefore, that the men from the Missoula were nearly a full week in finding means of communicating with the owners of the vessel after they had landed on the dreary north shore of Lake Superior. Plans for Rebuilding the Menominee. Details regarding plans for rebuilding the Goodrich line steamer Menominee at the Manitowoc dry dock during the winter would indicate that when the work is completed she will be practically a new vessel. Her stern will be cut off for about 50 feet and a new after body built with 15 feet added to the original length, making the vessel 201 feet keel, 215 feet over all, 30 feet beam and 35 feet in main deck inside of sponson wales. The depth of hold will be 11 feet 6 inches. She will be given a new main deck and a better sheer, increasing her depth at stern head 6 inches and at some places 18 inches. The guards and outside planking will be stripped off her cabin length to the under side of bilges and heavy steel diagonal straps laid on frames, spaced abont 5% feet in the Square and connected at the top to a longitudinal chord of double chan- nels of steel over au oak chord which will be strongly scarphed. The top chord will be supported by truss posts about 9 inches thick, spaced about 11 feet apart and extending well forward and aft. The foot of posts extend lower than beam knees, and will be notched onto the shelf and bolted through frame and ceiling. A heavy steel plate will be worked under beams and at frameheads a sheer strake. The whole structure makes a neat, strong truss and it is all out of the way, within the cabin deck, and much superior to the old style of wood arch now being aban- doned. The vessel will be sheathed with iron for winter service on Lake Michigan and will be rigged with two pole spars of about 90 feet, on which will be light gaffs for sail when necessary. Cabins will be thoroughly!overhauled and renewed, and additional state rooms built on the hurricane deck, which will be reached through a spacious stairway from the main saloon. The vestibule at the top of the stairway is to be finished in hardwood and handsomely upholstered for the comfort of ladies. The after state rooms on this deck can be reached from a stairway at the after end of the saloon, and conveniently located to these rooms is a well-ventilated and commodious smoking room with all its accessory comforts. There will be no patent pull-out berths in the saloon, as it has been found that berths of this kind when in use limit the seating capacity of the saloon for passengers who may be traveling without state rooms. Accommodations include fifty-two state rooms for 108 passengers on the cabin deck and twenty-four state rooms for forty-eight passengers on the hurricane deck. The main saloon and other apartments throughout will be well supplied with elec- tric light. The gally, pantry and culinary facilities generally will be enlarged. Painting and decorating will probably be done by Messrs. Crossman & Sturdy, artists and decorators of Chicago. The engine will be of the compound type, of 900 indicated horse power, and will be built by Chas. F. Elmes of Chicago. Steam will be furnished by two new boilers of Scotch type, 10 feet in diameter by 10 feet 6 inches long. They will have 23/-inch tubes and will be allowed 145 pounds steam pressure. Builders of the boiler are Messrs. John Mohr & Son, Illinois street, Chicago. All the plans for the work have been gotten out by the Goodrich Trans. Co. at their office in Chicago. The contract for cabin work will be let next week. An effort will be made to have the steamer's name changed before going into commission next June, as she will be practi- cally a new boat and as good as any in the line, except perhaps the steel steamer Virginia. W.J. Wood, naval architect of Clevelrnd, will probably spend the winter at Manitowoc seeing that this work is carried out in accordance with the plans and also looking after extensive altera- tions in the steamer Atlanta. "Through battleships alone can an enemy be met and vanquished, even before he sights our coast," says Chief Naval Constructor Hichborn in a paper read recently before the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers in New York city. "It is also true," he adds, "that through battleships alone can any successful demonstration be made - against an enemy's seaports. In a word, battleships are the real bone aud sinew of any naval force, and no maritime country can be great in offense or defense without fully accepting this almost axiomatic state- ment." Mr. Hichborn thinks we are fairly well supplied with cruisers and gunboats, but in torpedo boats we are sadly deficient, as itis upon this class, he says, in conjunction with our land batteries and low free- board iron-clads that we must mainly depend in defending our harbors from the attack of a powerful naval adversary and lack of foresight in providing adequately for this branch of our scheme of naval defense might be fraught with serious consequences in the advent of war."