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March, 1914 Gas Producer Boat The Clooney Construction & Tow- ing Co., Westlake, La:, built for them- selves for inland towing, the gas boat Dart, 50 ft. long, 10 ft. beam and 5 ft. deep, equipped with a 50 H. P: Wol- verine engine and 50 H. P. Galusha producer gas plant. The company re- ports that the fuel cost of this pro- ducer gas plant is approximately one pound of coal per horsepower per hour, which represents an enormous saving over either gasoline or kero- sene. In the company's. estimation the only thing that can be said against the producer gas plant is that. it does not develop quite the horse- power that the engine would on gaso- line, but this difference is not over 5 per cent in the company's experience. During the past year the company built the quarantine boat Alice for use at Galveston, 80 ft. long, 16 ft. beam ~ and 7 ft. deep, equipped with 100 H. P, Standard Motor Construction Co.'s engine and an auxiliary lighting plant. - The company also built a gas tow boat named Aransas for the Aransas Pass. Channel: &<Dock-Co.. Aransas: Pass, Texas. "Fhis: boat: 18 50: ft. long, 12 ft. beam and 4% ft. deep, and is equipped with two 27 H. P. Wolver- ine engines driving twin screws. tow boat is used in towing cotton barges. bs They also built the gas boat Freda for the North American Land & Tim- ber. Co.' Lake:: Chaties, ica, 246. if, long, 10 ft. beam' and 4% ft. deep, equipped with a 36 H. P. Buffalo en- gine. This gas boat is used in towing rice on the Calcasieu river and tribu- taries. They also built the two-masted schooner Cobos, 108 ft. long, which has an auxiliary equipment of a 65 H. P. Wolverine engine. The schoon- et was especially built -for the oil trade with Mexico. They also built the steam tug Ar- letta, 80 ft. long, 18 ft. 6 in. beam and 6 ft. 10 in. deep, equipped with a Morris Machine Works 150 H. P. steam engine and _ boiler. Orders for McNab Specialties . During his recent visit to the lakes, Alexander McNab, vice president of the McNab Co., Bridgeport, Conn.. secured orders from M. A. Hanna & Co., of Cleveland, for six sets of Cas- cade boiler circulators; from the Wis- consin Steel Co., of Chicago, for six sets; from Capt. W. C. Richardson, of Cleveland, for ten sets, and from Boland & Cornelius, of Buffalo, for 26 sets. The Vance & Joys Co., Mil- waukee, also ordered two sets of di- The. THE MARINE REVIEW rection pilot house indicators, M. A. Hanna & Co. two sets of indicators and pneumatic counters, and W. C. Richardson & Co. one set of. direc- tion indicators, <The new steamer building for the Calcite Transporta- tion Co. at the yard of the Great Lakes Engineering Works, will be equipped with McNab pneumatic counter, McNab steamship draft gage and McNab direction indicator. Radio Stations Engineer-in-Chief Robert S. Griffin, U. S. N., in a statement submitted to the house committee on naval affairs, announces that the navy department has changed its proposals for estab- lishing a chain of radio stations to complete wireless communication be- tween Washington and the Philippines. Wireless stations at Guam and Samoa .- are to be eliminated if possible and high power stations will be located at Panama, San Diego, Cal., Honolulu. and Manila. The station at the Isth- mus, which will be situated at Darien, will be completed, according to present prospects, in January, 1915. It is ex- pected that the Arlington station will be able to communicate directly with Darien. Recent experiments at the Arlington radio station showed that it was able to .pick up messages sent from.a Poulsen arc set of radio in- struments at Honolulu, and tests re- cently conducted at San Francisco, with a Poulsen set demonstrated that messages could be sent «direct from San Francisco to Washington. Bids for Dredges 'Bids were opened by the United States Engineer at Galveston, Jan. 14, to construct two hydraulic dredges to be used in the Houston ship channel. The dredges are to be named Sam Houston and San Jacinto. Each will be 165 ft.: long and both are to be delivered within ten months of the awarding of the contract. They are to be equipped for hydraulic dredging and fitted with all necessary pumping machinery, quarters for officers and crew, and other appurtenances. The proposals were submitted for one or both dredges, for delivery at the ship yards and for delivery at Galveston. The bids were: Bowers Southern Dredging Co., Galveston, for both dredges at yards, $316,000; delivered, $321,000. Atlantic, Gulf & Pacific Co., New York, dredge A, $267,000; dredge B, $260,000; both dredges, $527,000; de- livered, $534,000. The Norbom Engi- neering Co., Philadelphia, dredge A, $164,000; dredge B, $161,500; both dredges, $320,000; delivered $323,500. Theodore Smith & Sons Co., Jersey subject is 123 City, N. J., dredge A, $183,000; dredge B, $178,000. Bucyrus Co., South .Mil- waukee, dredge A, $185,000; dredge B, $177,500; both dredges, $348,500; deliv- ered, $354,000. Ellicott Machine Cor- poration, Baltimore, dredge A, $169,400; dredge B, $165,900; both dredges, $325,- 300; delivered, $237,800. An appropria- tion of $400,000 is available for the building of the two dredges. Of this sum $200,000 was appropriated by the United States conditional upon Harris. county contributing a like amount. -- Transport and Sigh Ship Contracts have been awarded to the Boston navy yard for the construction ef a supply ship at $1,171,713, and the -- Philadelphia navy yard for a trans- port at $1,458,305. While these bids were somewhat below those sent in by private contractors there is no_ doubt whatever that the govérnment will pay more for the vessels than if they had been built by private con- tract. To begin with a: great deal of yard equipment will have to be pur- chased in order to enable the navy yards to build the vessels at all. -- More than 20 concrete piers- built several years ago by the Aberthaw Construction Co. and submerged in the United States navy yard at Bos- ton, are again being examined to note the action, both mechanical, due to frost, and chemical, due to in- gredients in the sea water. As this one which has a large bearing on the permanence of piers, abutments, sea walls, etc., when built of concrete, these. experimental tests are expected to yield some very val- uable results. : Secretary Daniels, of the Navy De- partment, has awarded contracts for the construction of three submarines at the cost of $535,000 each. Two will be built by the Electric Boat Co. at the yard of the Fore River Ship Build- ing Corporation, Quincy, Mass., and the third will be built at one of the navy yards under the supervision of the Lake Submarine Boat Co. The New Jersey Lake Ship Canal Association has been organized to arouse interest in the movement for a sea level ship canal across the state of New Jersey connecting New York . harbor with the Delaware river. The incorporators are: Raymond G. Potter, Passaic, N. J.; Charles R. Clark, Lit- tle Falls, N. J., and Edward L. Behn, New York City.