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10 MARINE REVIELHW. Ore Trimming Machine. For a long time past Mr. W. P. Thew of Cleveland has been engaged in trying to perfect a machine for trimming ore. He now has on exhibi- tion at the Variety Iron Works, Cleveland, a machine that is entirely dif- ferent to one which he built some time ago. It has been examined by a large number of vessel owners, and such practical men as Capt. Geo. es McKay, Capt. Wm. Mack and Walter Miller, late constructing engineer for the Globe Iron Works Co., say that they look for success with it. Mr. Thew has had the machine at work ona pile of thirty tons or more of Chandler ore at the Variety works, and everybody in the vessel business -who has seen it has been greatly impressed with its operations. Unlike the first machine which he built, this one is intended for trimming only and not for loading ore into buckets at the receiving dock. The machine consists mainly of a revolving truck with shovel or scraper attachment that can be worked at any point within a circle that THEW'S PORTABLE SHOVEL.--DESIGNED FOR LOADING ORE INTO CARS. will have a radius equal to half the width of a ship. Two of these trucks are to be attached to railways on the under side of decks, above the ore, and at both sides of the hatches, and in addition to their rotary motion, they will run back and forth for the entire length of the ship. It is figured that the two machines with electric motors and other attachments will not weigh, at an outside, more than twenty tons, and that they can be constructed and placed aboard vessels, complete, at a price that will ad- mit of their paying for themselves inside of two seasons. Probably the entire cost ofa plant for a 4,000-ton ship will not be more than $5,000. The machine can be operated by an intelligent oiler, wheelsman or other employe aboard a vessel. Theshovel or scraper that is forced into the ore and then drawn in different directions, mainly from the center of hatches toward the bilges, is 4 feet long and 30 inches high and can be made to draw from a pile under a hatch a big load of ore in one pall ke is expected that one machine will level a hatch pile in 15 to 20 minutes. One of the great advantages of an ore trimming machine of any kind is the time saved in departing immediately after cargo has been taken on, leaving the trimming to be done in open lake when weather will per- mit. It is more than probable that the owners of this apparatus will be etiabled to apply it very soon to a ship in which it will be given an actual working trial, The success thus far attained warrants this assertion. If a trial of the machine is deferred during the present season, on ac- count of the delay that would be incurred by a vessel putting it in, pro- vision will certainly be made during the winter for atrial of it next spring. The engraving presented herewith has no reference to the trimmin g machine. It is a shovel of Mr. Thew's design which has been at work for some time past loading ore into cars at Randall, O., where the Nypano railway has ore storage docks. The cost of loading ore from dock to cars with this shovel is said to be only 2 cents a ton. , There is little fear now of the river and harbor bill becoming a law. As it passed the senate on Wednesday, this bill makes direct appropria- tions of $12,200,000 and authorizes continuing contracts of $64,000,000, an aggregate of about $76,000,000. Including continuous contract items, this is the largest river and harbor bill in the history of the government. I New Goodrich Line Steamer. The new wooden screw steamer lowa, built for the Goodrich Trans. portation Co. of Chicago by Burger & Burger of Manitowoc, was launched on Monday. She was designed by the Goodrich company at their office in Chicago for winter as well as summer service on Lake Michigan, ang is 203 feet length on keel and 218 feet over all; beam over guards, 36. feet, and over hull, 31.2 feet; 14 feet molded depth. She is built of the best Wisconsin oak and has a truss built on the sides of the hull extend. ing to the under side of the cabin deck. This truss is formed by a top chord of two steel channel bars, filled in with 9-inch oak strongly scarphed, Steel diagonal plate strapping, 6 inches by % inch and spaced about 5 feet apart in the square, extends over three-fourths of the vessel's length, being riveted at the top to steel channels and bolted to the framing at the under side of the bilges. The truss posts, 9 inches square and sup- porting the top chord, extend from below the beam knees, and are mor- tised into the top chord. Each truss post is connected at the top to heavy beams by strong deep knees. This form of truss is much stronger and neater than the old style of arch construction for vessels of this type, The stem and apron piece is over 3 feet thick, molded and covered with heavy steel plate for breaking ice, and the hullis sheathed with No, 12 sheet steel from below light water line to the underside of guards, for protection from ice. On the cabin deck are fifty-two staterooms for 108 passengers and on the hurricane deck there are twenty-four staterooms for forty-eight passengers. The rooms on the hurricane deck will be reached from a spacious stairway from the main saloon. A large vestibule at the top of this stairway is finished in hardwood and luxuriously upholstered for the comfort of ladies. The after staterooms on this deck are reached through a stairway at the after end of the saloon, and con- veniently located to these rooms is a large, well-ventilated and commodi- ous smoking room. The vessel will be lighted by electricity, 365 lamps being used. A light is furnished in every stateroom. Sleeping accom- modations are ample and no pull-out berths will be used, as they hamper the seating accommodation of deck passengers. The painting and in- terior decorating is being done by Messrs. Crossman & Sturdy, Chicago. The vessel is furnished with frame side-lights, or air ports, made by the Detroit Sheet Metal & Brass Works. Engines are compound, of about 950 indicated horse power, and were built by Chas. F. Elmes, Chicago. Two boilers of the Scotch type are 10 feet diameter by 10 feet 6 inches long and are allowed 150 pounds pressure. The tubes are 23 inches diameter. Boilers were made by John Mohr & Sons, Chicago. The cabin work is by the Manitowoc Building Supply Co. Officers of the new vessel are Capt. John Raleigh, Engineer Julius Bushmen, Purser C. B, Hamilton and Steward John A. Williams. Changes in Lights, Fog Signals, Etc. About May 15 a light of the fourth order, showing fixed white, varied by a white flash every twenty seconds, will be established on the extreme northwesterly end of Round island, Straits of Mackinac. The light will illuminate 315 degrees of the horizon lying between N.N. W. % W. through westward and northward to W. N. W. %4 W.; bearings froma vessel. Cedar point range has been changed so as to cover the deepest water in the part of the entrance to Sandusky that is marked by the range. The heavy interest of the Carnegie company in the Shenango railway and the port of Conneaut will be an important factor in building up that port. The Carnegie influence there will not be felt, however, until next year, when the railway will be completed to Pittsburg. 'This month the new Carnegie furnace at Duquesne, the largest in the world, will be started. Its cost is nearly half a million dollars and the production will reach 1,000 tons daily. Another furnace of the same size for the same company will be completed about Oct. 1. The removal of shoal spots at Ballard's reef and below the Lime- Kilns cut, Detroit river, is progressing rapidly, and it is quite certain that before Sept. 1 there will be narrow channels at these points affording nearly 18 feet of water. All other points from Lakes Huron and Michi- gan to Lake Erie are already clear. This means that before the present season is at an end the steamer Coralia, whose owners have been hurrying work on deep channels at Ashtabula, will carry full 6,000 net tons from Escanaba. The bill authorizing the establishment of a life saving station on the light-house reservation belonging to the United States at Port Huron has passed the house of representatives and will very probably become 4 law at this session of congress, but as with light-houses and other aids to navigation, an appropriation for the life-saving station must be secured after it is authorized. A year or two may elapse before the money is at tained and the station built. Capt. Davidson's schooner Armenia took 92,000 bushels of wheat as her first cargo from Duluth. She drew only 13 feet 10 inches.