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

~~ 8 A RR i OE 'ITEMS OF GENERAL INTEREST. Thomas H. McManus, naval architect of Boston, has de- signed a 130-ton vessel for Cunningham & Thompson, which is to be built by James & Tarr of Essex, Mass. T. M. Cook has been appointed collector of the Panama canal zone. He has.already sailed to the zone and will proceed direct to Panama to organize the customs service in the zone. The trial trip of the battleship Ohio, built by the Union Iron Works, San Francisco, will occur during the present month. The Ohio's battery is on board and it is expected that she will go into commission next month. . Orders for Babcock & Wilcox boilers have been laced by . the Wm. Cramp & Sons Ship & Engine Building Co., Phil- adelphia, Pa., for the battleship Idaho and Mississippi. Each vessel is to have 10,000 H. P. in eight units, The three-masted schooner Flora A. Kimball was launched from Sawyer Bros.' yard, Millbridge, Me., July 12. Her di- mensions are: Length, 140 7-10; beam, 32 3-10; depth, 11 4-10; gross tonnage, 401.70, and net tonnage, 321.35. The contract for repairing the revenue cutter Galveston has been awarded to the William Cramp Ship & Engine Build- ing Co. The work contemplates the installation of new en- gines and boilers and the remodeling of the vessel's stern. The four-masted schooner Wm. J. Quillan, building for Capt. Rowland F. Quillan of Bethel, Del., was launched last week from the yard of the New England Ship Building Co., Bath, Me. The Quillan is 176 it. long, 37 ft. beam and 13 it. deep. M. B. Macdonald of Mystic, Conn., launched the schooner George E. Klinck on July 5. Capt...George Thomas 'of Gloucester, Mass., will command her. The general dimensions of the vessel are 147 by 121% ft., and her carrying capacity is 650 tons. The torpedo boat Blakely built by ae Lawley & Sons, East Boston, Mass., was given a builders' trial last week over a measured course and exceeded her contract speed of 25 knots, covering the course with an average speed of 25.6 knots per hour. : It is reported by cable that the White Star Line has given a contract to Harland & Wolff, Belfast, Ireland, for a new steamer to exceed the Baltic by 4,000 tons to come out next year. The Baltic is row the largest vessel in the world, hav- ing a tonnage of 24,000. Mr. F. Herriman, 79-85 Wall street, New York, has been 'appointed manager of the Atlantic marine department of the Firemen's Fund Insurance Co. of San Francisco and manager and attorney of the United States branch of the Union Marine Insurance Co., Ltd., of Liverpool. H. M. & R. L. Bean, Camden, N. J., have two five-masted schooners on the stocks for the Coastwise Transportation Co. of Boston. One of them is 240 ft. keel, 48 ft. beam and 24 ft. deep and will carry 4,500 tons of coal. The other is 207 ft. keel, 48 ft. beam and 27 ft. deep and will carry 4,500 tons of coal. The French ironclad Furious of 5,000 H. P. underwent her preliminary trial at Cherbourg lately, which was declared to be entirely satisfactory. A horse power of 3,500 was generated with a consumption of 89 kilos of coal per meter per hour. The work of the generators of the Belleville type was eco- nomical and excellent. The steamship San Jacinto of the Mallory Line was damaged to the extent of $40,000 by fire while lying at Roach's Ship Yard, Chester, Pa., where she was undergoing repairs. The San Jacinto was built at Roach's about a year ago at a cost of $750,000. She is 404 ft. over all, 379 ft. between per- pendiculars, 52 ft. beam and 31 ft. deep. The Cunard liner Coronia was launched last week from the yard of John Brown & Co., Clydebank, Scotland, and was christened by Mrs. Joseph H. Choate, wife of the American ambassador, the only Cunard steamer to be so distinguished. The Coronia is the largest vessel ever built in Great Britain, - will soon be ready. for: service: Re Nes EW 'though of course Harland & Wolff of Belfast, Ireland, have built larger ones. She is »f 21,000 tons displacement. It is reported that the Toyo-Kisen-Kaisha is in the market for two steamers to take the place of the Hong Kong Maru _and the Nippon Maru, lately withdrawn from service as gov- -- ernment transports. The company would rather charter the steamers if it is possible to obtain them, but if not, will place orders for the construction of two 12,000-ton vessels, Wm. Arms and William Fetterly of Traverse City, Mich, are building one of the largest cruising launches operated by a gasoline engine ever made in Michigan. it is 53 ft.-long, 51 ft. on water line, and is equipped with a Fairbanks-Morse gas- oline engine of three cylinders, four-cycle type, driving a 34- in three-blade propeller. The launch will go to New Orleans via Chicago canal and the Mississippi river in the fall. M. N. McLellan of New York has had built for him by the White Craft & Power Co., Port Richmond, S. I., a speed boat 32 ft. over all by 5 ft. 10 in. beam. She was constructed from the builders' own design and is equipped with a 16-24 H. P. Truscott 4-cycle high speed gasoline motor. A speed of 12% miles per hour was developed on the day of launching without any preliminary "tuning up" of the motor, which ran 'at a speed of 1,140 revolutions per minute. The new steel steamship Ontario, building for the Mer- chants' & Miners' service between Baltimore and New York This steamer is being built by the New York Ship Building Co. at Camden, N. J. The Ontario cost about $400,000. She has four freight and two passenger decks. Her length is 315 ft., beam 42 ft. and depth of hold 34 ft. She is finished in mahogany and antique oak. 'She is a single screw propeller with triple-expansion engine. Raiph J. Venning, formerly advertising manager of the Cleveland Punch & Shear Works Co., has accepted the position of secretary of the Citizens Transit Co. of Cleveland. This company has been formed to operate a line of electric pas- senger tonneau cars on the streets and boulevards of Cleve~ land, using the Berg-Ledwinka type of motors and the Edison storage battery. Mr. Charles Berg who controls the patent rights on this equipment is president and general manager of the company. There has lately been placed on the San Francisco market the Cushman two-cycle engine, for which Sykes & Corson are the agents. The engine appears remarkably light, simple and effective. It is intended to equip a light draught boat for racing purposes with a Cushman motor, made by the Cushman Motor Co. of Lincoln, Neb. The Rudder of New York built the speed launch Dolphin and equipped' her with this motor, When going at 1214 miles an hour the Dolphin shows "a clear, unbroken entrance; a flat, smooth wake; an almost total absence of wave; no lifting forward and no squat aft, any one of which is an enemy to speed." The dimensions of the. engine are 5-in. diameter piston, 5-in. stroke, 200 Ibs. weight ; an 18-in. propeller of two blades with a ro-in. pitch makes 720 revolutions per minute. The engine has a jump spark ignition and runs in either direction: it develops about 7% H. P., but if the pitch of the propeller is made about 17%4- in. it will permit the engine to make 800 revolutions per minute, at which it will develop 8 H. P.. The Dolphin has not a curved timber in her; everything except the keel and coaming is straight and easy work. The cost. of material for the whole hull, complete with grass fasten- ings, screws, etc. was $85. The hull was built for The Rud- der by L. D. Huntington, Jr., of New Rochelle, N. Y. The Dolphin would be a fast boat even with less power. It is won- derful to see her fly past ordinary power boats and even run alongside large steam yachts. Yet the engine is under won- derful control, and can be run slowly enough to keep along- side the ordinary launch. Though she is a racing machine, intended simply for speed and not for rough waters, she will go into the swell of a big steamer without wetting her decks or diminishing to any apparent extent her speed,