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M oA Roo NO R EF No ft fh he 4I depth of 16.7 ft. and has a capacity for 1,000,000 ft. of lum- ber. The gunboat Dubuque was launched from the yard of the Gas Engine & Power Co, and Charles L. Seabury & Co, (consolidated), Morris Height, N. Y., this week. She was named by Miss Margaret Treadway. The Dubuque is 200 ft. over all, 174 ft. on the load water line, 35 ft. beam and 22 ft. Q im. odeep. The Puget Sound Navigation Co., owners of the steamer Clallam, which sank during a storm in the straits of Juan de Fuca on Feb. 9, with forty-two passengers and ten of her crew, has been relieved of liability for damages on account of the accident by United States District Judge C. B. Bel- linger at Portland, Ore. Capt. Pugsley, assistant United States inspector of hulls at Philadelphia, has been transferred to New York for duty. No one has yet been assigned to fill the vacancy caused by the transfer. Charles E. Nichols has been appointed clerk to the inspectors to succeed John McKernan, resigned. Mr. Nichols is from New London, Conn. Announcement has been made at Montreal, Que., that the Allan Steamship Co. will have a fleet operating on the Pacific ocean when the Grand Trunk Pacific Line is in opera- tion. The plan is to operate the Pacific fleet in conjunction with the Grand Trunk Pacific, and to run service from the Pacific terminal of the railway to different ports in Japan and China and possibly to Australia. The new steamship Ontario, the latest addition to the Mer- chants' & Miners' Transportation Co., Baltimore, Md., under- went an inspection trip last week. She is a single screw steel _ freight and passenger steamship, 315 ft. long, 42 ft. beam and 34 ft. deep. She has triple expansion engines of 4,000 H. P. and double ended boilers. Her speed is 16 knots. Her equipment is modern throughout. The Vineyard Ship Building Co. of Milford, Del., has con- tracted with the Milford & Philadelphia Steamboat Co. to build a wooden freight and passenger steamboat to ply be- tween Philadelphia and Melford. She will be 112 ft. long, 24 ft. beam and 7 ft. depth of hold. The same firm has also contracted to build a 300-ton lighter for the Repauno Chemi- cal Co. to be used in river and harbor work. Contractor James MacMahon has a contract on the pre- liminary work to the erection of a lighthouse on Mile Rock, in San Francisco bay. The preliminary work will cost about $30,000, The lighthouse, when completed, will cost at least $200,000 more. It is to be a steel structure, the light being 84 ft. above the water and a steam whistle for use in thick weather is also to be a part of the equipment. The Hampton Roads Boat Building Co., Newport News, has now under construction a gasoline launch for the Vir- ginia Pilots' association and also a yawl boat. The company has under construction a gasoline launch for a resident of Newport News. The Hopkins Boat Building Co. is com- paratively a new firm and is located at the foot of Thirty- first street, Newport News, just south of Finch's pier. The need of better docking facilities at the New York navy yard has been taken up by Secertary Morton who has prac- tically decided to ask congress to authorize a radical increase in the capacity of the yard. It is the secretary's purpose to provide twelve new slips adequate to the use of the large battleships and cruisers in the navy. The improvement will call for an outlay of about $1,200,000. The bureau of navigation has granted American registry to the foreign built steamship Parkgate on the application of Mr. Ernest M. Bull. The steamer's American name will be Carolyn. Evidence was furnished that the vessel was wrecked in the United States in 1903 and was salved and repaired at a cost aggregating $48,306.69. Registry is granted under the law which provides that when the repairs made in the United States equal three-fourths of the cost of the vessel she may be admitted to American register. At a meeting of the Anchor Steamship Co. July 26, in Lon- don, the chairman informed the shareholders that the year had been one of the worst on record and that he could see no signs of improvement. Referring to the Atlantic rate war, he declared that the recent conferences had proved unsuccessful because all the interests involved had not been represented at them. The conferences will be resumed at Hamburg about the middle of September. A committee of the State Barge Canal Association of New York held a conference at Albany, Aug. 23, with the mem- bers of the barge canal board of advisory engineers, relative to the date when the work on the proposed waterway will be inaugurated. Plans have been submitted to the canal board for work which will cost in the neighborhood of $4,000,000 and plans for additional work to cost $5,000,000 will be sub- mitted within a few weeks. The Eastern Steamship Co.'s steamer City of Rockland, bound from Boston for Penobs¢ot river ports, struck on Gang- way Ledge in Penobscot bay on July 26 and was badly dam- aged. She is one of the largest and finest steamers owned by the Eastern Steamship Co. She was built in East Boston, Mass., in 1901. She is valued at $300,000. Her length is 274-3 ft., beam 38.5 ft. and depth 14.4 ft. Her net tonnage is 1,025 and her gross tonnage is 1,696. In the year ending June 1, 1904, there were launched from Maine yards twenty-seven schooners, ranging in size from 275 to 3,065 gross tons, a total of 29,713 tons. The fleet now in process of construction, under contract or launched since June 1, this year, exclusive of the battleship Georgia, at Bath, and a lot of small craft at various places, comprises twenty- seven schooners and barges, ranging from 300 to 3,000 tons gross, with an aggregate of 35,160 tons. The accounts of the Manchester Ship Canal Co. for the half-year ended June 30, show that the total profit was £092,- 877. Imports of cotton fell off to the extent of 110,650 bales in comparison with the first half of last year, owing to spin- ners ceasing to import when prices became prohibitory. In the circumstances, the directors consider it encouraging to be able to report an increase of 54,206 tons in the weight of sea- bourne merchandise, and of £9,126 in ship canal receipts. Rear Admiral John Crittenden Watson, who retired for age this week, is one of the civil war veterans. He is a native of Kentucky and graduated from the naval academy in 1860. He served on the Hartford from 1862 to 1864, taking part in all the famous operations of that vessel. He was wounded in Mobile bay in 1864. He became lieutenant-commander in 1866, commander in 1874, captain in 1887, commodore in 1897, and rear-admiral in 1899. During the war with Spain he com- manded a division of the North Atlantic squadron, and later took command of the Asiatic squadron. He is, next to Admi- ral Dewey, the senior officer of the navy. The completion of the Galveston sea wall, the greatest structure of its kind in the world, was celebrated this week at Galveston. Governor Lanhan of Texas made the principal address. The completion of this wall makes Galveston the nearest port to the new Panama canal zone and a natural out- let for a considerable part of commerce of the southern states. The wall represents one of the finest pieces of engineering work of its kind in America. It is 17,593 ft. long, 16 ft. wide at the base, 5 ft. wide at the top and stands 17 ft. above mean low tide, with a granite rip rap apron extending 27 ft. out in the gulf. The contract price of the wall was $1,198,318. The steamer Minnesota, which has gust been completed at the yard of the Eastern Ship Building Co. for the Great Northern Steamship Co. and which is the largest steamer ever constructed in the United States, was on exhibition this week at Pier 38, North River, New York. The Minnesota is one