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1901.) MARINE REVIEW. 'és CANADIAN MARITIME NOTES. There are persistent rumors that the Niagara Navigation Co. is to be absorbed by the Richelieu & Ontario Navigation Co. The company is capitalized at $1,000,000, of which $605,000 is paid up. The company enjoys a large business between Toronto, Niagara-on-the-lake, Queens- town and Lewiston, and owns the steamers Chicora, Cibola, Chippewa, Corona and Ongiara. The company's operations have been very satis- factory and it has paid regular 6 per cent dividends. The Northern Navigation Co. of Ontario recently offered for sub- scription $238,000 of stock at 105, which was immediately subscribed. The issue is for the purpose of paying for new steamers and for securing a controlling interest in the Northwest Transportation Co. The steamers owned by the company are the Atlantic, Germanic, City of Collingwood, City of Midland, City of Toronto, Majestic and Brittanic. The company does a general passenger and freight business on Georgian bay. The coal trade between Cape Breton and Montreal is carried on almost exclusively 'by Norwegian steamers to the exclusion of Canadian and English vessels. This is due, it is claimed, to the low rates of insur- ance charged by Norwegian companies who discount the reported dangers of the route. The Imperial Dry Dock Co., St. John, N. B., is understood to have received assurances from the minister of railways and other ministers of SOUTHERN ARGUMENT IN FAVOR OF SUBSIDY. In a recent address in Charlotte, N. C., Ellison A. Smyth of Pelzer, S. C., discussed the necessity of a shipping bill to stimulate the carrying of cotton to China from southern ports. He said: "We should heartily favor any measure that would tend to the up- building and strengthening of our merchant marine, and I would like to see the day when the United States flag will be as often seen on the high seas as it was fifty years ago. The Hanna subsidy bill, so-called, is en- dorsed by the National Association of Manufacturers, and its enactment into law would be one step towards the re-establishing of our merchant marine. The Pelzer company is a large shipper of export cottons, and today we are shipping five carloads of sheetings and drills to China, and, as usual with our transcontinental shipments, these goods are routed by the buyers by the most direct line to Canada, then by the Canadian Pacific Railroad to Vancouver and by the British Mail steamship line to China. 'It is perhaps not altogether strange, under all the circumstances, that while there are three railroad lines in the United States across the conti- nent, and with steamship lines from San Francisco, the Canadian Pacific _ Railroad and British mail steamship lines bag all the business. It is a fact, however, that from mills in 'South Carolina goods for China go first to Canada, and thence across the continent. If our steamship lines were Steamer Mataafa, a modern ore carrier of the great lakes. the Dominion government that sufficient aid will be forthcoming from the government to insure the construction of a dry dock at St. John. It is also stated that the company has obtained another important concession and that the existing ship building plant will proceed hand-in-hand with the dry dock. It is understood that the government has consented to aid the dry dock to the extent of 2 per cent yearly for twenty years on the total cost, which will be $750,000. The car ferry steamer for the Intercolonial Railway, to run between Mulgrave and Point Tupper on the Strait of Canso, has been launched in England on the Tyne. The dimensions are: Length, 282 ft.; breadth, 48 ft.; depth, 17 ft. There are three tracks on the deck of the vessel, and they are so arranged that the trains can enter at one end and leave it at the other. The swinging of the vessel at each end is obviated by this arrange- ment, and she is ready to receive the second train as soon as she has discharged the first. A dredge being built for the Dominion government for use on the Fraser river was launched: recently at Westminster, B. C. The frame work was built by the Polson Iron Works, Toronto, Ont., and shipped across the continent. The main deck will be wholly occupied by boilers, engines and pumping machinery. The pumping machinery is powerful, triple expansion with cylinders 1314, 22 and 36 in. by 22 in. The suction pump, which will excavate the mud from the river bottom, will be 20 in. in diameter. The cruiser Newark, which has just returned from the Asiatic station, will be rebuilt at the Brooklyn navy yard. She will be completely stripped, will receive new machinery and internal fittings, and altogether about $500,000 will be spent upon her. The Adder, the first of the new submarine boats, was launched at Lewis Nixon's ship yard, Elizabethport, N. J., on Monday. also subsidized between San Francisco and China this would not be the case. If it were not for the advantages offered by the Canadian Pacific Railroad--advantages that are being offered by reason of the subsidizing of this line by the British government--the southern cotton manufacturers could not compete in freight rates with the English manufacturers, who * can ship from Manchester, England, to Shanghai by the Suez canal at the _ rate of 50 cents per 100 Ibs. In our effort to develop trade with South America we are confronted with the double freights we have to pay in ship- ping goods, first to Liverpool and then back across the Atlantic to South American ports. There are no steamship lines of any moment, or that have regular sailings, in existence between our ports and those of South - America, whereas in Rio de Janeiro alone there are twenty-eight lines of steamships running regularly from Great Britain and the continent. All | of these lines are subsidized by foreign governments, and, of course, trade follows the flag. It has been suggested by one of our local papers that this could be overcome 'by the southern manufacturers chartering a steamer and sending a shipload of goods to South America. This idea 'lacks practicability, simply because goods are not consigned to export dealers, but are shipped on orders, and from samples previously furnished _and in smaller quantities. It would be a costly experiment to consign a ' shipload of manufactured goods to any foreign port. The day of bartering with the natives is past." A test of the first specimen of Krupp armor for the new battleships, submitted by the Carnegie Steel Co., was made last week at the Indian Head proving grounds, Maryland. The plate represented a group of 412 tons of armor for the Missouri. It was 6 in. thick, and a 6-inch gun was fired. Three shots were fired at velocities, respectively, of 1,865, 1,890 and 1,900 ft. a second. These secured penetrations respectively of 24%, 2% and 234 in. No cracks were developed and the flaking and condition of the plate were normal. The test was regarded as highly successful and . the group of armor will be accepted.