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20 MARINE REVIEW. [May 24, MARINE REVIEW: Devoted to the Merchant Marine, the Navy, Ship Building, and Kindred Interests. Published every Thursday at No. 418-19 Perry-Payne building, Cleveland, Ohio, by THe MARINE REVIEW PUBLISHING Co. SupscripTION--$2.00 per year in advance; foreign, including postage, $3.50, or 15 shillings. Single copies 10 cents each. Convenient binders sent, post paid, $1.00. Advertising rates on application. Entered at Cleveland Post Office as Second-class Mail Matter. Great men and great things have small beginnings. Napoleon before he went into the army endeavored to rent houses in Paris in order that by sub-letting them he might make a living and he made a miserable failure of it. Napoleon made a poor real estate agent, but a good soldier. The humble beginning of the great institution known as Lloyds, often re- ferred to, makes an interesting story. Lloyds had its birth in a little coffee house in Tower street, London, where seafaring men were wont to congregate and to relate the happenings of the sea. Gradually sailors be- gan to look upon Lloyds as a place where news was more likely to be obtained than at any place else. 'Lloyd recognized the attraction of this intelligence to his coffee house and gradually began to post little bulle- tins of such scraps of information as floated into the place. Some of it was frequently four or five or six months old. Later he took to publish- ing it upon a single sheet of paper and called it Lloyd's News. That was the forerunner of the present Lloyd's List, the oldest newspaper in the United Kingdom. Ideas were exchanged there as to ship construction and gradually defined principles of what ought to be and what ought not to be were laid down. Out of this came the present register and classi- fication which is the standard in maritime circles. The rating and insur- ance features followed naturally and people completely forgot that Lloyds was ever a coffee house. Lloyds was incorporated by act of parliament in 1871 to carry on the business of marine insurance and to collect and diffuse shipping intelligence. Its annual business in insurance has reached a total of over £650,000,000. What is to be taken as an index of a man's character? Where is to be found the key to the innermost chamber of a man's thought? The out- ward semblance is not always the true reflection; and a man rarely speaks of those things which lie closest to his heart. Those who live and move and have their being with us are frequently those whom we know the least. They possess thoughts and sentiments of which their words and actions give no feather. The inner life, which is the true life, is rarely revealed; and when it is it is like reading by lightning--the illumination is so startling. Of the thousands who knew Thomas Wilson it is doubt- ful if more than one or two knew of his plans to found a home for old couples, and it is doubtful if ever: they knew how much a part of him it was. But Thomas Wilson had the plan in mind for years. He. was fond of old people. He knew that the race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong, but that time and chance happeneth to all men as much today as it did in the days of Solomon. He knew that many worthy couples through no fault of their own come to grievous misfortune in their old age, and it was to prevent the inevitable separation which this misery entails that he conceived the idea of establishing an institution where they might end their days together in comfort. Years ago he spoke of it to some intimate friends, but gave no indication that it had become a settled purpose with him. The thought was worthy of the man and the man worthy of it. The senate has passed the naval appropriation bill and the only thing that now remains to be done is to eliminate a few differences in confer- ence. In the senate measure the navy department is permitted to spend $545 per ton for armor for the Maine, Missouri and Ohio but is restricted to $445 a ton for all other vessels authorized. Should the department be unable to obtain armor at the latter figure, $4,000,000 is appropriated for the construction of an armor plate factory, of which sum $2,000,000 is to be immediately available. The purchase of five Holland submarine boats is authorized, and altogether this sort of craft is looked upon with great favor. The gist of this legislation is to insure the completion of the Maine, Missouri and Ohio, but it prevents work upon the three battleships and three armored cruisers authorized in the act of March, 1899. As to the program of new ships contemplated in the present bill its realization is remote unless a future congress shall remove the restrictions. The establishment of the armor plate factory is not likely to proceed any fur- ther than the paper upon which the act is written. Whatever the inten- tion of its framers may be the whole effect is to delay. The first ton of armor from a government factory would cost $4,000,000 and it would take four years to produce it; and the chances are bv that time new processes and new conditions would have made the plant obsolete. The govern- ment had better let the business of manufacturing alone. What a pity it is that so many vessels, especially on the great lakes, are known by the same name! The confusion is often very annoying. In naming its new freighters on the lakes for the principal colleges oi the country the Pittsburg Steamship Co. (Carnegie interest) laid the name Columbia aside--reluctantly, probably, and the action is therefore all the more commendable. To be sure the name with which the boat 1s to be christened, Rensselaer, is trying on one's orthography, but it possesses the prime virtue of unmistakable identity. If it comes in over the wire Rensler, Rennsaller, Rensaler or any other combination of letters, as it doubtless will when the lake chroniclers begin to struggle with it, there will be no doubt whatever as to which boat is meant. Were the boat named Columbia, however, there would be constant confusion. It would make the present puzzle a little more complex. There are at present six Columbias and one Columbian on the lake list. It would be well for all the vessel builders to emulate the example of the Pittsburg Steamship Co., and see that hereafter no duplication of names occurs, Sir William White of the British Admiralty has calculated that in an Atlantic liner of 20 knots a weight of about 1,000 tons could be saved by using nickel steel instead of mild steel. The greater becomes the size of ships, the more important must this saving be. It is only within the last forty years that we have seen the evolution of steamers making over 11 knots, and at a much more recent period the fastest Cunarder did not exceed that speed. It was not the question of model, but of machinery and material--perhaps more of material than has been generally allowed. What mild steel has done in the past in the lightening of ships and the heightening of speed, we may expect to see nickel steel do--perhaps to an even more striking degree--in the future. But it must be much cheapened first. Who shall say what developments in structural matters we may see within the next ten years, when we remember that twenty years or so ago there was not a single vessel being built of steel? The Lake Carriers' Association is now considering the lake trip of the rivers and harbors committee to be taken shortly a ter congress adjourns. It is quite likely that the North Land, the beautiful twin-screw steamer of the Northern Steamship Co.'s fleet, will be placed at the disposal of the congressional committee. The cruise upon this steamship from Duluth to Buffalo and return could be made in about ten days and still permit of stops in Cleveland and Detroit, as well.as in all the important channels of the Detroit, St. Clair and'St. Mary's rivers. In this way the members of the committee could obtain a comprehensive understanding of the enormous character of lake traffic and the immensity of lake interests. The association is now in correspondence with Representative Burton, chairman of the committee of rivers and harbors, upon the subject. According to the present program the battleship) Ohio will be launched at the yards of the Union Iron Works, San Francisco, in No- vember and the Ohio society of California is already alive to the occasion. It is estimated that there are 25,000 Ohioans in California and every mother's son of them has received a circular urging him to attend the launching. Committees on transportation, badges, reception and organ- ization have been appointed. It has been gravely announced that the Ohio is bigger and better and more formidable than any other battleship in the United States navy--and altogether the Ohio spirit is visible in every line. It is pointed out that the Ohio is 40 feet longer than the Oregon, has 2,000 tons greater displacement and a speed greater by three knots. More than one-third of the marine engine power produced in the United Kingdom in 1899 was credited to the Clyde. Yet the Clyde did not show the largest individual total last year. First place among British marine engine builders was occupied by Messrs. A. Laing & Co., Walls-~ end-on-Tyne, with 67,600 indicated horse power; the second by Messrs. Harland & Wolff, Belfast, with 66,150, and third place by Messrs. John Brown & Co., Limited (late Clydebank Ship Building & Engineering Co.) Glasgow. The world's record, however--88,300 indicated horse power--is held by the Vulcan Co. of Stettin, Germany, who were also third on the list of ship builders, In the matter of materials, if we exclude the United States and Canada, there were probably not 10,000 tons of wood or "composite" vessels built in all the maritime countries during 1899. The proportion of such is not more than 0.1 per cent of the new tonnage. On the other hand, 98.8 per cent. of the new tonnage last year was of steel and 1.1 per cent. of iron. The new iron vessels were all of small tonnage, and con- sisted of steam trawlers and such like craft. We are, in fact, in the steel age of ship building. Never before in the world's history was so much steel required as in 1899, Oelrichs & Co., New York agents for the North German Lloyd Steamship Co., inform the Review that the statement to the effect that a vessel of 756 feet length, larger than anything now afloat, was con- templated for the North German Lloyd fleet is an exaggeration. The company has given orders for the construction of two new fast twin- screw passenger steamships, the one heing 665 feet and the other ap- proximately 706 feet in length, but further particulars in regard to these vessels are not obtainable at present.