The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

While no actual record has been kept, a large number of strandings and collisions have been due to derangement of steering gears. The regular steering gear with its almost clock-like me- chanism is necessarily more or. less com- plicated. A small pinion may bind or stick for only a brief period, a nut or key become loose, even the most trifling thing can happen to render the whole system temporarily inoperative. Under such conditions in a crowded channel, a complete and separate steering gear im- mediately available is absolutely neces- sary to prevent collision or stranding. Moreover, it is in these narrow channels with their sharp turns that the regular steering gear gets the hardest and most severe strain. It is natural that the man at the wheel should become nervous and turn the wheel much faster than the builder ever intended that the trans- mission and engine should be run. If any weakness exists, it is at this crucial time that it will make itself known. The most of these breakdowns are re- paired in a few minutes by the engineer, but meanwhile the ship is drifting. If the ship is damaged, the underwriters of course pay the bills, but the vessel owner is not compensated for time lost--and time is a considerable item in the neces- sarily brief season of lake navigation. Every 24 hours' delay to a 10,000-ton steamer means a heavy loss to the owner. If the ship is equipped with TAE Marine. REVIEW f THE STAFF AT THE LORAIN YARD--NO. I ISMR. LA MARCHE, NO. 2 MR. PATON, AND NO. 3 IS MR. BROWN. the Akers emergency gear, there "is no danger of it passing from the con- trol of the officer in charge at any crisis, The change from the regular steering gear to the emergency is "quite simple, and is made in from ten to fifteen seconds from the bridge. The marine underwriters have had the Akers emergency gear carefully in- spected and tested, and they have strongly endorsed and recommended same in a resolution passed at the last annual meeting of Inland Lloyds, and now give boats equipped with it a special note-in the register. The new steamers Wm. A. Rogers, B. F. Jones, James Laughlin and Charles Weston are equipped with the emer- gency steam gear. It will also be in- stalled in the steamers W. M. Mills, iS. DeGrati7W.D. Kerr and" the great passenger steamer now building for the Detroit & Cleveland line. The company has also recently received an order for the equipment of the new 10,000-ton steamer Wilton, building for the Shenango Steamship Co. The Mianus Motor Co., Mianus, Conn., has just put out a catalog de- scriptive of their marine gasoline en- gines. Every part of the engine is intimately described and illustrated. The catalog will be sent to anyone upon request. 45 ~ CARMANIA'S YEAR. When the Cunard liner Carmania returns home from New York she will have completed a year's sailing, with results in excess of expectations, says the London correspondent of the Glasgow Herald, and comparable with the best first year's performance of any Atlantic liner. It has been decided that she will, on arrival a week hence, be taken off the station in order that a thorough examination may be made to ascertain the effect on the turbines of a year's working. During the year the turbines have not been touched, and have worked voyage after voyage almost without attention. As regards economy, there has been from the be- ginning a steady improvement. It was thought best to run the ship when new at a moderate speed. The conse- quence was that the economy was not so.good as if the turbines had been driven at their maximum speed--a re- sult which is inherent in the system. In recent voyages there has been a speeding-up, and now the coal con- sumption is practically the same as for the best quadruple-expansion engine --the -difference is less than six per cent. When, next year, the tur- bines are worked at their maximum the Carmania will excel in economy even the Caronia.