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40 tures, are in advance of those of the larger ports of Europe, over whose wharves, prior to the war, millions of pounds of copra and millions of cases of vegetable oils passed annually. The warehouses, which have a capacity of 1,000,000 cases of oil, have concrete floors and sumps for the storage of oil in any form of container. In addition to these warehouses, space is provided for the storage of an unlimited quantity of oil in the yards and on the open wharves, to which the cases and barrels can be unloaded direct from the ship. San Francisco vegetable oil and copra importers have been granted first priv- ileges on the long term leasing of a Jarge area adjoining the terminal, and they have erected tanks for their own use of a total capacity of about 5000 tons, with more being erected. Oil from these tanks may be unloaded direct into tank cars for immediate transfer to any railroad, while from the terminal wharves it can be handled direct to inland, coastal, intercoastal, or ocean-going ves- sels. The system of distribution has been worked out with a comprehensive view to co-ordination of rail and water transportation facilities in a manner not before attempted in any publicly owned storage and distribution plant on the Pacific coast. Among importers of copra in San Francisco are the Burns-Philip Co., Bal- four, Guthrie & Co., Wolff, Kirchmann & Co.; Atkins, Kroll & Co., and Wight- man & Crane, according to the San Francisco chamber of commerce, which, realizing the importance of this storage and distribution industry, has _ recently completed a survey of the vegetable oil and copra situation. The San _ Fran- cisco companies having copra crushing plants in the San Francisco bay dis- trict are the Eldorado Oil Works, the Pacific Oil & Lead Works, and _ the Vegetable Oil Corp., each plant having a capacity of 4000 tons of copra every ‘month. In the report of its survey on this han- dling of these valuable imports, the San Francisco chamber says: “San. Prancisco: now: has what —is generally conceded to be the most completely equipped vegetable oil ter- minal, storage and warehouse plant on this continent, and importers of both vegetable oils and copra look forward to a_ steadily increasing demand for this class of raw products, a demand which will be the more easily filled because of the excellent storage and distribution facilities offered by the new terminal. For years Europe had controlled the sources of supply of for- eign vegetable and animal oils, ports like Marseilles, Hamburg, Liverpool and Rotterdam having a movement of millions of pounds yearly. “These oils not only enter in a basic MARINE REVIEW way into the making of glycerine for explosives, but many advances made in the hydrogenation and other processes applied to vegetable oils make them valuable for their use as food sub- stitutes. In addition to this, they are used in the manufacture of laundry soap, paints, varnishes, printers’ ink, imitation rubber fabrics, linoleum, leath- er tanning, tin plate cooling, core oil in castings, and other industrial and manufacturing. purposes. “Customs figures show that the prin- cipal vegetable oils of the $40,000,000 worth imported through San Francisco last year were cocoanut, China wood, peanut, linseed, soya bean and_ rape seed. There were smaller imports and distributions of perilla oil, from Man- churia, and kindred types of oils. Copra, the dried flesh of ripe cocoanuts, is cured either by sun exposure, mechan- ical process of hot air, or by exposure to smoke in sealed rooms. The relative value of copra varies little because of the methods used in the drying. The original flesh of the cocoanut contains about 45 per cent water, 40 per cent of which is lost in the drying process and the remaining 5 per cent in the crushing, which latter is done largely in the Unit- ed States. The main sources of supply are the Philippines, the South Pacific islands, Java, India and Ceylon. Copra also is crushed in Central America, but the comparative amount is small. “Since 1915, the great bulk of the copra entering the United States has been through San Francisco and _ the other Pacific coast ports, especially San Francisco, and this is particularly true of the copra originating in the islands of the Pacific. Numerous sailing ves- sels loading lumber on the Pacific coast of the United States for delivery to the ports of New Zealand, Australia and other countries in the South seas, load back with copra, and more than 90 per cent of the copra coming from the South Sea islands is transported in these ves- sels to the United States. From other countries, the bulk of the copra is im- ported in steamers.” Exports of American coal overseas increased about 100 per cent in 1921 over 1913, says the fuel division of the department of commerce in a special re- view of last year’s trade. Much of this increase was due to the British coal strike. Total exports of anthracite coal for 1921 were probably very slight- ly in excess of those for 1913, practically all of which went to Canada in both years. Exports of bituminous coal, in- cluding shipments to Canada and Mexi- co, were 7 per cent greater in 1921 than in 1913, the figures beimg approximately 20,690,000 tons for 1921, against 17,987,- 000 tons for 1913. February, 1922 American Liner Sets New Record Establishing a new speed record, a ship- - ment of Japanese silk recently arrived at New York 14 days, 4 hours and 30 minutes from Yokohama. This sur- passed all previous records by many hours. The shipment came across the Pacific in the shipping board express passenger liner WENATCHEE arriving at Seattle in 10 days, 8 hours and 18 minutes. It was immediately transferred to express cars and the balance of the long journey across the continent was done in 3 days, 20 hours and 12 minutes. Previously the record has been held by Japanese lines. Because of the great investment in silk shipments and the high rate of insurance, shippers demand ‘the fastest transportation obtainable. Con- sequently keen competition exists among the various services for this business which runs into large freight charges each year. Silk imports landed at Seattle during December totaled $12,000,000 in value. Gets Big Crane Order The contract for furnishing, installing and placing in operation 34 cargo handling cranes at piers 12 and 13 at Stapleton, Staten Island, New York, has been let by the city of New York to the Wellman- Seaver-Morgan Co., Cleveland. The suc- cessful bid was $324,500. This is the most important crane contract which has been let in the eastern district in a long time. The contract for the installation of these cranes is a big step toward car- rying out plans for New York harbor developments. The letting to the Well- man-Seaver-Morgan Co. followed the sec- ond opening of bids, on Dec. 1. The original bids were opened in October but these bids were protested. The low bid- der in the first opening was the Heyl & Patterson Co., which named a figure of $370,288. Business conditions are quite favorable according to a report made by the Globe Engineering Co., 723-5 North Twenty- fourth street, Philadelphia. This com- pany was organized early in 1921 by Anderson MacPhee, T. H. Johnston and G. R. Johnston to manufacture a line of marine specialties covering oil coolers, feed water heaters, evaporators, distillers and heat exchange apparatus. Edwin Nichols, who has been associated with the Water Front Employers’ bureau, at San Francisco, since its organization nearly a year ago, and was formerly with the sea-service bureau of the shipping board, has been named manager of the San Pedro office of the Employers’ bureau. ite succeeds Capt. Joseph Meaney, resigned.