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16 : . Tae Marine REVIEW Captain P. H.-Ray, of the United States army remained in the extreme north for two winters and three summers, and gathered strong evidence of the existence of undis- covered land in Beaufort sea. In the spring he saw eider ducks flying from the shore toward the northeast, presumably to their breeding-grounds. In autumn the birds returned in bad condition; the conclusion being that they must have been breeding on some unknown land. The schooner Duchess of Bedford is a sailing vessel -of 66 tons burden, having a length of 67!4 ft., a beam of 18% ft., and a depth of 7% ft. She is built of camphor- wood, the outside planking being of quaki-wood, sheeted ious points through the ice. When the season opens, they -are three heavy beams in the hold to prevent the vessel from being crushed in an ice-pack. She has accommoda- tions for seven men aft and four forward. Mr. Leffingwell will go down the McKenzie river and expects to reach the Arctic ocean about the middle of July. The Duchess of Bedford will sail from British Columbia to Kabiak island and thence to the east coast of Siberia, along which Captain Mikkelsen. will cruise, picking up dogs, of which he intends to secure sixty. , In August he will pass through Behring straits into the Arc- tic ocean, getting in close to the shore of Alaska, as the vessel is of light 'draught. At Point Barrow a station will be established and tidal observations made. Captain Mikkelsen's plan is to join Mr. Leffingwell on August 20 at the mouth of the McKenzie river. The whole party will proceed easterly to Cape Bathurst and will cross thence to Prince of Wales island. Winter quarters will be made in an Eskimo village at Minto inlet. In the spring of 1907 two men will go to Melville island and thence to Prince Patrick island, making soundings at var- with gum-wood. The bow is plated with iron and there' will cross to Nelson's head, along the coast of Bank's island to Barnett bay, where the provisions will be taken ashore and the schooner Duchess of Bedford will leave the explorers, returning herself to Victoria, B. C. In the spring of 1908, the party, provisioned for 140 days (the provisions being already packed in sealed cases), will start out with two dog teams in a northwesterly direction over the ice, keeping on their course until the soundings indicate that the edge of the continental shelf has been | passed. If land is encountered, the party will travel along it while the provisions last, killng some of the dogs as food for the others when the supplies to be hauled diminish. SOUTH CAROLINA AND MICHIGAN. The navy department has made public the chief charac- teristics of the battleships South Carolina and. Michigan, bids ' for the construction of wh'ch will be opened at Washington in about three weeks. It was the intention of the department to open bids for these vessels, which are to be, for their tonnage, the most powerful ever constructed for the United States navy, next Friday, but owing to the inability of the Union Iron Works of San Francisco to get in its bid by the spec:fied time, on account of the earthquake, the opening of the bids was deferred three weeks. The new battleships, which must displace on their' trial trips more than 16,000 tons, will be 450 ft. long, with an extreme breadth at the water line of 80 feet and 21% in., while the mean draught to. bottom of keel at the time of trial displacement must not ex- ceed 24.6 feet. The armament plans call for a main battery of eight 12-in. breech loading rifles, and two submerged tor- pedo tubes, while the secondary battery is to consist of twenty-two 3-in. rapid fire guns, two 3-pounder semi-auto- matic guns, eight 1-pounder semi-automatics, two 3-in, field pieces, and four machine guns of .30 calibre. The 12-in. guns, of which the new ships will carry twice as many as are on board any American vessel now in com- mission or building, are to be mounted in pairs, in four elec- trically controlled, elliptical turrets, each with an arc of fire of 270 degrees, two turrets being forward and two aft. The guns of the secondary battery will be placed in command-ng positions, and are to have large unobstructed arcs of fire. The torpedo tubes will be installed forward. The hulls of the South Carolina and Michigan will ke protected by a water- line belt of armor that will vary in thickness from 12 to 8 in. in some sections, from 10 to 12 in. in some and from II to 9 in other sections. The casemate armor is to be from 8 to 10 in. thick, while an armored bulkhead ten inches thick will extend entirely across the ship. Other armored bulk- heads will be in other parts of the ship. Four barbettes will be fitted, the thickness of the armor protecting them varying from 10 to § in. The conning towers will be protected by 12 in. armor, while the turrets will be armored with a 12 in. front plate, the rear and side plates to be 8 in. thick, and the top plates 2% in. thick. The ammunition will be carried in magazine and_ shell rooms, so placed that one-half of the total supply of ammuni- tion will be carried forward and the. other half aft. The handling rooms will be isolated from the turrets, the twelve and three inch ammunition and the torpedos and war heads to be transported on trolleys and tracks fitted in the maga- zines, handling rooms, passages and shell rooms. The engines of the new battleships are to have a combined indicated horsepower of 16,500, each engine to be in separate water-tight compartment. The twelve water-tube boilers, which are to be fitted with superheaters, will be in three water-tight compartments, and the coal bunkers are to have a maximum capacity of about 2,200 tons. All the main com- partments below the gun deck will be provided with forced ventilation, the combined capacity of the seventeen blowers being not less than 100,000 cubic feet per minute. The ac- commodations are to be sufficient to accommodate 51 officers and 878 men. TWO IMMENSE PIERS COMPLETED. The two new mammoth wharves built at San Francisco for the Pacific Mail Steamship Co., and officially known as piers No. 42 and 44, have just been formally accepted by the state harbor commissioners from the contractors, Nealy, Tibbitts & Co. These piers have, without any formalities, been turned over to the use of-the Pacific Mail Steamship Co. : These docks are the largest and best on the water front: and represent a cost to the state of California of nearly $400,000. They adjoin the present old mail docks on the south, at the foot of Second street, and the approaches lead out over a a wide stretch of filled. ground intervening be- tween terra firma and the new sea wall, where the wharves have their shore ends. Railroad tracks run on the outer edge of the wharves on rails laid several feet below the floor, thus enabling trains to be loaded or discharged with a minimum of labor. Every watchman, wheelman, mate and master on the lakes should read Clarence E. Long's article on "Scientific Lake Navigation" now running in the Marine Review. This series began in the issue of April 5. To anyone sending in his, subscription now all the back numbers will be sent to him free--that is to say his subscription will be entered for one full year from the date of receipt and all the back numbers allowed without charge. The passenger steamer Currie Ryerson was in col- lision with the steamer Georgia of the Goodrich line at Muskegon last week. The Ryerson was later beached in six feet of water.