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MARINE REVIEW. We are all Farmers! An awful story of reckless sailors on the lakes--green farm hands and backwoods lumber men going out in old tubs--comes from the London Free Press. The tale sounds much like an effort to frighten foreign un- derwriters. It is especially ridiculous in view of the fact chat out of some 3,900 ships of all kinds on the lakes there have been only chree total losses of any account thus far this season, and these were wooden vessels that were well along in years and had been unfortunate enough to be caught under conditions that are likely to befall a ship in any part of the world. The London publication says: "A prominent forwarder of lake cargoes severely reprobates the reck- less way in which vesselmen fly in the face of almost certain disaster at this time of year. He says the annual loss of life and property on Lake Erie is proportionately larger than that on the Atlantic ocean. The skip- pers seem to brave every risk, being ready to start from port in the most threatening weather with vessels that are hardly fit for service in fair weather. It is stated, as a fact, too, that there are more unseaworthy craft braving the treacherous waters of the lakes during the :nost dangerous season of the year--October and November--than at any other time. There is reason for this, though, for grain shipments are livelier as the season draws to a close. Cargoes are consequently more plentiful and freights higher. Every vessel that will float can command a cargo. There is not a more reckless class of men on the face of the earth than these fresh- water sailors, although they have the terrible fact constantly before them ee Pi A Dream of British Gunboats on the Lakes. Some of the Canadian newspapers never tire of discussing ship-canals. Their enthusiasm over the proposed canal from Georgian bay to Montreal 1s wonderful, in view of the struggle that has attended the construction of 14-foot channels through the St. Lawrence. The promoters of the Geor- gian bay-Montreal project estimate its cost at $15,000,000. The company's charter authorizes it to borrow $30,000,000 at 4 per cent., of which interest it 1s expected that the Dominion government will assume 1 per cent.-- that is, one-fourth. The share capital is $10,000,000 and the initial traffic estimated at 8,000,000 tons per annum; so a satisfactory provision is figured out not only for the fixed charges, but for all the "water" in the scheme. Besides competing for traffic eastward, the canal will open up, it is claimed, a great timber-district to the Chicago and other lake markets. But it is the military aspect of the canal that is being urged from a British view- point. On this score a writer in the Saturday Review says: "It is proposed so to construct the canal that gunboats may be taken through it and used for patrolling the great lakes, thus giving the advan- tages of naval protection to about half of the international boundary line of British North America. It was with this in mind that the great Duke of Wellington sixty years ago urged the necessity for constructing some such waterway; and the same reason in more recent years prompted Lord Wolseley and Sir John Michel to advocate a canal scheme similar in most of its details to that now proposed; it is partly also for that reason that the Canadian government is manifesting an interest in the proposal. There Vi f Old and New Locks in United States Canal at Sault Ste Marie, Looking Towards Lake Superior from Top of New Power House. few Oo [PHOTOGRAPH BY BELL, SAULT STE MARIE.] that hundreds of their fellows are lost annually on the ae. nie eee of them going down with the rotten craft they begged ft us Ea ee wi sailing on. This fact is made the more startling Deralise tS Seared that the dangers of lake navigation--especially Lake rE ie ah nee Te that even the staunchest, vessels are fregenty Ong oats on Lake is truly said by the authority quote at 3 Erie are indeseribably frightful. The skippers depend eee ers marks for guides in navigation. The blinding rain oa Sue ree always accompanies these storms obliterates eee ee Be aren in days, and as the sea-room is limited, vessels caug ae Ree or on some constant danger of going to pieces, either on fhe Ae. being suddenly of the islands that stud so thickly these inland seas, or bate eeaiaee un swamped as the Idaho was. The singular Seis SSeS ais are farmers, these ships is accounted for by the fact that Se °. the vicinity of.the or, rather, farm owners. The individual land hol ey A ble. The moment lake ports of some of these dare-devil sailors is considerable. : : Bite eae a igati emain there until it re-op navigation closes they return to their farms, Tr i akes to tempt death on any old in the spring, and then hasten back to the lakes t treet ore peace ia craft where they can get the best wages, leaving t to look after the farms.' --------------------------___ hae i States navy, which are Torpedo boats Nos. 15 and 16 for the United Por the ie os th t i 20 knots, were launched at muse : . Pee cior at arctol R. L, on the loth Rea: BS Se hey are Length, 100 feet: beam, 12 feet, and draught, ee : radi er. to be fitted with two torpedo tubes 18 inches in diamet seems every prospect, too, that the war department in London will lilxe- wise look favorably upon it; at any rate, Mr. McLeod Stewart, who rep- resents the Montreal, Ottawa & Georgian Bay Canal Co., and who is now in England mainly for the purpose, is in communication with the war office, and is sanguine of the result. It is to be hoped that we shall never be at war with the United States, but the thing looked very possible less than a couple of years ago. The attempt at permanent arbitration has not been a success, and, anyway, the strengthening of one's defenses is the surest guarantee of continued peace." Frank S. Manton, agent of the American Ship Windlass Co., Provi- dence, R. I., has written a letter to the New York Maritime Register cor- recting statements made in a paragraph widely published, which asserted: that the 22-inch hawser used in towing the large floating dock from Eng- land to Havana was the largest and strongest in the world. Mr. Manton contradicts this statement and points to the fact that the Bessemer Steam- ship Co. of Cleveland has used seven of the Shaw & Spiegfe patent auto- matic steam towing machines, carrying a 134-inch diameter steel wire hawser, each towing a barge carrying 5,000 to 6,000 net tons of cargo. The weight sustaining capacity of these cables is believed to be fully 7,000 tons; they weigh about 6,000 pounds and are 1.200 feet long. The English hemp hawser weighed five tons; was about 700 feet long, and its breaking strain was 180 tons. An up-to-date lithograph map of the Alaskan gold fields, printed in six colors, complete and accurate. If interested, send five 2-cent stamps to advertising department, Nickel Plate Co., Cleveland. Dec. 31, 393,