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516 sure, both are accomplished in exist- ing designs, but these do not recom- mend themselves for everyday com- mercial use. They are enough for yachts and torpedo boats, where first cost and fewness of parts and 'consequent maintenance do not loom so large and manoeuvering ship is satisfactory a relatively unimportant feature as com- pared with the merchant service. The 'weight per horsepower of the larger, slower running gas engine is greater than that of the smaller and higher speed machine, though not greater than of a steam engine under like conditions; and hence the desirability of a higher rotative speed. So here the ideal condition then appears to be a non-reversing engine with relatively high rotative speed; but this does not provide for reversing the propeller, and it is freely admitted by all engineers that the intervention of reversing gears or clutches, or indeed clutches of any form, between the engine and the pro- peller is not admissible. The obvious solution is electric transmission, and ifte driving of propellers of fair size by reversible motors at wide speed ranges is already in successful opera- tion, but the large powers and slow rotative speeds employed in the aver- age cargo ship means an enormous in- crease in size, weight. and cost of motors, unless some _ satisfactory re- duction gear may 'be -interposed, An ideal combination would appear to be, then, the double-acting combustion en- gine, direct connected to an_ electric generator and running at constant speed, with comparatively small medium speed reversible motors driving the propellers at the most efficient speed With this combination, the non-reversible en- through a speed reducing gear. gine becomes available,, and its size and weight enormously reduced and the difficulty hitherto direct connected motors for such pro- peller encountered in speeds as are admissible in merchant ships is surmounted. The engines, moreover, would realize ideal full load economy and thus take full- est possible advantage of the thermal superiority of the gas combustion engine. producer and Objection has been raised to the TAeE Marine REVIEW speed reducing gear referred to on ac- count of the alleged risk of break- down from shocks to gear teeth in a This we do not think to be well founded. Aside from the fact that there is not a three-high rolling mill which is not gear driven,--and if there is any service subject to great- er shocks it does not occur to us,--the damage caused to propellers or shafts by the shocks of heavy weather is very slight indeed. shafts fail, it is true, and sometimes fail when weather conditions are unfavor- able, and will probably continue to do so, but chiefly from other causes. More shafts fail from continually changing seaway. Propellers and bending. strains, from unequal turn- ing effort, and from deterioration due to galvanic action, than from shock, and the use or non-use of a speed re- ducing gear will not affect these con- ditions a particle. As a matter of fact there is little or no shock to the pro+ peller or shaft in heavy weather. The Strain . 1s \.vatiable,. it .is- true: but. <it can in no case be greater than thar due to transmitting the full power ot the engine to a fully immersed pro- peller. It is not comparable even with that sustained by almost any engine working in steel mills, power plants or other situations where the momentary change in load may be almost anything within the maximum capacity of the machine. We recall, not one but sev- eral, instances of large, coarse pitched gears, without any pretense to close fitting, which have stood up to their work continuously for 20 years or more, and every winter during that period have sustained months of pounding in such ice navigation as is not found anywhere else within our knowledge. There are numerous more probable risks of breakdown and more imminent dangers aboard any ship than the gear drive proposed by Melville & Macalpine, but no one ever gives them a thought. LORD, HOW LONG? As the days go by the proofs accu- mulate that the navy department is not only working for the utter extinction of the American Merchant Marine but has neither respect for the promises December, 1909 and statements of its own acting sec- retary nor the slightest regard for the opinions of the press or the public. In 'the November number of the REVIEW we dealt with statements given out by Beekman Winthrop at San Francisco regarding the shipments of coal to the Pacific coast in foreign ships in which he promised there would be no more. He further said that the new colliers which just had built would be used before other ships would be chartered. As we go to press information that the de- the government has comes the partment has broken out again and has Chartered' a Strath Line (foreign) steamer for coal from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast. : We have repeatedly called attention to this naval collier business; pointed out the sheer useless waste of money in their construction ; that the department would not use them when they had them and we have questioned not only the good faith but ° also the actual knowledge behind every -- statement that Winthrop has made on the whole subject, and in no. single instance have we been at fault. If ever there was a question that needed the most searching investigation it is this collier and eastern coal business. There is something wrong and a probe might find it out. TREATMENT OF LABOR ON THE LAKES. repeatedly stated in in the It | has: beén these columns that nowhere world is labor so well treated as on the great lakes. Nowhere are they better housed, 'better. fed, or ibetter paid. One has only to compare wages and conditions obtaining elsewhere to realize how true this is. During the past year the Lake Carriers' Associa- tion has evolved a plan known as the Welfare Plan interest of employer and em- for promoting the joint ployed and to cement and consolidate the various elements aboard ship' into one harmonious family. During the year this plan has grown steadily in favor until it embraces al- together over 9,500 members and has Such a stage of per- now reached manency as to warrant the projec- tion of a Sailors' Institute at an ap- we have stated