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26 MARINE REVIEW AND MARINE RECORD. AROUND THE GREAT LAKES. Myron is the name under which the steamer formerly known as the Mark Hopkins now sails. Inland Lloyd's Register (October supplement) gives Pere Marquette car ferry No. 18, just completed at Cleveland, a value of $400,000 and AI rating. * Construction has begun upon the ore dock at the steel plant, Sault Ste. Marie. The dock is to be built of steel and concrete. The bins will be of steel. Talbott & Co. are the contractors. Capt. Geo. P. McKay of Cleveland, has been informed that the lighthouse board has authorized the establishment of gas buoys for Waverly shoal, Lake Erie, and for the middle Neebish channel in Hay lake. Car ferry No. 18, building at Cleveland for the Pere Mar- quette railway, will go into service on Nov. 1. A schedule of three regular trips per day will then be established between Mil- waukee and Ludington. Capt.. Martin, whose last command was the steamer R.:S. Warner, and who has for several years past sailed vessels con- trolled in the office of M. A. Hanna & Co., Cleveland, died in Ashtabula on Sunday last of pneumonia. Bids will be opened in Washington Oct. 6 for the construc- tion of a life saving station at Buffalo. Capt. Edwin E. Chap- man, superintendent of the tenth district, in which Buffalo is located, says the station will be a very fine one. The main build- ing will be 80 by 50 ft. - William Henry Mack is the name selected for the steel freight steamer which the American company is building for the Mack estate of Cleveland. The selection is in memory of W. H. Mack, who was manager of vessels of the estate and who lost his life while looking after a wrecking expedition on the Massa- chusetts coast several months ago. Capt. H. A. Stewart has been placed in command of the new Mitchell steamer Frank H. Goodyear. The Pullman car type of deckhouse located amidships on this steamer has been lettered "Buffalo and Susquehanna." Mr. Goodyear, for whom the vessel is named, owns the Buffalo & Susquehanna railway, and the odd deckhouse is a duplicate of his private car. A dispatch from Negaunee says that there are now about 400 men steadily employed at the Negaunee mine. It is the intention to add to this force as rapidly as the men can be profitably em- ployed. It is assumed that more ore will be taken from the workings during the coming twelve months than was raised dur- ing any similar period in the history of the mine. The mine passes to the Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Co. next September, so that the Steel Corporation has about eleven months left in which to operate it. Maj. W. H. Bixby, United States engineer at Detroit, an- nounces that within the next two weeks dredges will be placed at work digging out the shoal spots which have several times been reported on the east bank of the cut just below St. Clair Flats canal. This spot has caused considerable trouble during the season, the last vessels to strike being the barges Martha and Magna of the steel corporation fleet. 'The shoal spot directly in the channel of the St. Clair river abreast of the Sarnia ferry docks is giving considerable trouble to vessels at present. _ City officials of Chicago have again tackled the tunnel ques-. tion. River improvement must stop at 16 ft. draught until the street tunnels are lowered or done away with altogether. The city engineer calculates that to lower the tunnels would. cost $520,000 at Washington street, $200,000 at Van Buren street and $300,000 at La Salle street. Mayor Harrison, after going over the extreme urgency of the case, said the tunnels, to his mind, can be lowered in only two ways--by the sanitary district or by money obtained from the water fund. He is opposed to the proposition - costioying the tunnels which is advocated by the drainage oard. The Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Co. has made another step in its onward policy. - It has acquired what is known as Pendill's sub- division:in the city of Negaunee, including the Lucy mine. The consideration is $85,000. The Lucy mine was opened in 1870 but has not been operated since 1898. It is credited with total ship- or oe eee of one Under Cleveland-Cliffs manage- ent it 1s expected to develop into an important property. 'The South -Arm Lumber Co. has also transferred to the Cleveleed. Cliffs company the railroad right of way known as the upper line of the dead River railroad, upon which a road of standard gauge has been constructed. 'The consideration in this case is $20,000. . _ In dredging the channel near the sotith end of Bois Blanc island, Detroit river, a white sand stone has been found which has excited much interest among engineers. The material re- quires to be drilled and blasted before being removed, but when it is dredged Jt comes up in the shape of fine white sand. ' The area covered by this. material is about 500 ft. by 250 ft., but the limit has not yet been reached. 'The formation appears to ex- tend under Bois Blanc island. Several samples have been as- sayed and were found to he Sita Waa pe ania soa > be about 99 per cent. silica with small Stone without any perceptible break, carbonate of lime and magnesia. 'he character of the ator ate OF dime and mi es r of the Surrounding material is limestone which merges into the sand-~ [Oct. 2, SCOTTISH SHIPBUILDING LETTER. 'Glasgow, Sept. 20.--The outstanding feature in the trade sit- uation is the continued, ever-increasing demand from the United States' for pig iton and steel material. Several steamers have been chartered. within the last week or two to load iron in the Tees, and also on the west coast, for your side. The orders re- cently received are mostly for steel-making iron, and contracts have been concluded for something like 30,000 tons Cleveland and Cumberland hematite for shipment up to November next. Ton- nage has already been secured for a considerable portion of this at very low freights. The effect of the American demand and of the decline in the stocks in the warrant yards has been to raise the price of pig iron on our home consumers, even though coal is tending downwards. In return this advance in crude mate- rial would have been reflected in the prices of finished material, such as ship plates, but for the fact that German iron and steelare now being offered freely in our markets at low rates. It is said that German steel ship plates have been actually sold delivered in the north of England at 5s per ton under the price of local makers, but I cannot learn that any such sales have been effected here. The knowledge that Germany is an eager seller is enough to keep down quotations anyhow. Still, prices for material are so high that ship builders cannot quote low enough to tempt ship owners to place their specifications, except in the case of es- tablished lines, and particular services. in which the supply of tonnage must be kept up at any cost. Practically the cost of serviceable cargo boats of moderate speed is about I5 per cent. more than it was six years ago, yet owners who want to part with quite new and ready boats cannot find buyers at 20 or 25 per cent. reduction on cost. This is not surprising when the enormous volume of tonnage seeking employment is consid- ered. For every boat he asks for, a charterer will have a dozen or a score thrust upon him. 'The steamers going out with pig iron from the Tees to Philadelphia are getting only 6s. per ton and to Baltimore 5s. 1014d. per ton freight. A new employment has sprung up of a remarkable character--for the conveyance of coal (anthracite) from Swansea to New York Several boats have been chartered for this phenomenal trade, and it is said that more are wanted. But at 5s. 6d. per ton freight, which is the rate paid for the Glencoe chartered last week, there can be no margin, The subject of coaling at sea has been occupying the atten- tion of the admiralty for some time past. They have now called for tenders for a type of ship which is new to the navy, described as "coal depots," with a capacity of no less than 12,000 tons. Their design is original. The hull is to be divded into two immense holds by an opening extending fore and aft from the double bottom to the deck. These holds are divided by a lower deck, which leaves a space of about 7 feet in height below it. All over this deck are shoots, and through these shoots the coal in the mzinholds forces itself into bags fixed below them. When the bags are full they are carried bv an ingenious arrangement towards hoists in the central passage, and from the deck are loaded into the vessels alongside. 'Two ships can be coaled simultaneously by this method. The intention is to equip all the naval coaling-stations with ships of this type. Orders for three of the nine torpedo-boat destroyers in the navy estimates for the current year, have now been placed, but none on the Clyde, as the builders here who might otherwise have undertaken this work are better occupied on cruisers and battleships. 'Iwo each are to be built by Laird of Birkenhead, Palmer of Jarrow-on-Tyne, Hawthorn, Leslie & Co. of Newcas- tle-on-T'yne, and Yarrow of London. The ninth will be built by Thornycroft of London. One of Hawthorn-Leslie's pair will be fitted with Parson's steam turbine machinery, similar to that in the Velox, which the admiralty recently purchased. The new torpedo boat destroyers will he much bigger than those now in the. service, and will have a large forecastle to improve their seaworthiness. 'They will be of heavier scantlings, and will be less uncomfortable. The guaranteed speed is to be 25% knots as compared with 30 knots in boats now in service, but this re- duction of speed is nominal, for 25 knots will always be attaina- ble by the new vessels, while even in moderate seas the exist- ing vessels cannot do more than 24 knots or so. if MORGAN SHIPPING COMBINATION DISCUSSED. When the British Association met in Glasgow last year Dr. Ginsberg addressed it on the subject of "Shipping Subsidies." This year he took for theme the "Shipping Combine." He main- tains that the Morgan combine is an application of the American trust system to the exploitation of the sea-carrying trade. It involves of necessity a considerable dilution of the capital of the business it absorbs. Its success from a shareholder's point of view must, therefore involve either a raising of freights to make a due return on the larger capitalization, or a considerable econ- omy in operation to make the net profit sufficient to give the proposed return. The first of these two alternatives would seem to involve: the getting up of a monopoly, since the protectionist | policy of the United States will not assist the promotion of the enterprise: The "through bill-of-lading" of which so much has been said in 'this connection, is not a new institution, and cannot . for several reasons be pressed indefinitely. In the first place, its success would depend on' practical control of the railways to the | a Tn the second place American pride in the restoration