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February 1885 RESIDENT ARTHUR issued a proclamation suspending the ton- nage tax on all vessels arriving in the United States from any port in the province of Ontario, of San Juan, and other places, the governments of said provinces having notified the President that they do not collect taxes from American vessels. This measure went into effect on Feb. 3, 1885. Tonnage taxes are still a moot question. * * Ox Representative Nichols introduced a bill appropriating $50,000,000 for the establishment of a navy yard and de- pot of supplies at Brunswick, Ga. Where is it? x ok Ok James E. Simpson of Simpson & Sons, contractors for the drydock at St. John’s, N. B., said that St. John’s had the largest drydock m the world. This dock, which is still in operation, is 600 feet long on top, and 558 feet upon the line of keel blocking. Its breadth is 132 feet at the widest part, and 85 feet at the abutment er entrance.- It is built of wood and its cost was $550,000. Messrs. Simpson rent- ed it from the government for 10 years at $5000 per annum. The work commenced in June, 1883, and occording to the terms of the contract, was to have been finished cn June 1, 1885, but mstead was com- pleted ahead of time in December, 1884. Kk ok OX Times have changed since the writ- ing of the following editorial on the “Lake Michigan and Detroit River Ship Canal.” “As long as the Dominion of Canada is an appendage of Great Britain, the necessity of the canal is apparent, as a military route. Its inland character and the saving of time and distance in the transportation of gunboats, men- of-war, and heavy ordnance, would seem to make it a military necessity, in case of war with Great Britain.” February 1895 N EARLY marine disaster is re- corded in the sinking of the North German Lloyd Atlantic liner Exse with the loss of 355 persons. The ELBE was: From the Old Log Book Stray Items About the Great Lakes, Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf Coasts and Inland Rivers from MARINE REVIEW Files of 10, 20, 30 and 40 Years Ago bound for New York by way of South- ampton and was sunk by collision in ‘the North Sea off the coast of England. * * George Uhler, now inspector general of the Umted States steamboat imspec- tion service, then national president of the Marine Engineers’ Beneficial associa- tion, formally requested the Lake Car- riers’ association to give the marine en- gineers of the lakes a hearing on mat- ters pertaining to wages before a schedule of wages was fixed for another season. We don’t know what was done about this, but the Lake Carriers are still paying the highest American wages without the aid of any union. * Ok Ok Under the heading of “Better Than. Thirty-three Miles an Hour,” particu- lars of the trial of the torpedo boat chaser Boxer, were given. The Boxer the article continued, was the fourth of the vessels of this type built by J. T. Thornycroft & Co. of Southampton, Eng. Each in turn beat the record and were in their day the four fastest ships in the world. This speed at- tained 30 years ago, has since been ex- ceeded, to be sure, but up to the pres- ent time is still considered very fast. * * Ok Harvey Goulder, admiralty lawyer, we learn sailed before the mast and gained a practical knowledge of navi- gation that has proved of great value to him in his profession. Rao ae Thirty years ago American steamship owners were complaining just as they do today at the high cost of shipbuild- ing in their own country as compared with abroad. The difference then was said to be 30 per cent. February 1905 N EFFECTIVE cartoon showed a ship marked AMERICAN MARINE ice bound in huge floes, called “lack of gov- ernment aid,” surrounded by icebergs called “British subsidy,’ “German com- petition,” “French subsidy’ and “Nor- wegian competition.’ The plight then of the American merchant marine was much 67 we have government aid of a kind which we might be better off without. * * Mr. Robert Haig, then Lloyd’s sur- veyor at Philadelphia, and now vice presi- dent of the Sun Shipbuilding & Drydock Co., Chester, Pa., in a paper read at the annual meeting of the Engineers’ club vf Philadelphia, discussed the use of fuel oil and several other interesting features of marine engineering. In view of the present almost universal use of fuel oil the comments in the paper proved to be quite accurate. Mr. Haig came to the conclusion that the drawbacks at that time to its wide use for ships seemed 10 be more commercial than mechanical. * kx Homer L. Ferguson, then an officer of the construction corps of the navy, was appointed superintendent of hull construction at the Newport News Shipbuilding -& Drydock Co. Mr. Fer- guson is now. president and general manager of this company, a position he bas held with notable success since the loss of Mr. Hopkins on the Lusitania in 1915. February 1915 ! HE twenty-second annual meeting of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers was characterized as a brilliant gathering, and Homer L. Ferguson’s address at the banquet as “thoughtful.” In an address, Stevenson Taylor pointed out that the idea of. electrical propulsion of ships originated in America and that an mstallation of this type of drive was contemplated for a battleship. Now all of the newer first line ships are electrically driven. This proves that there has been a tremendous engineering development in a remarkably short period of time, a de- velopment for which the engineering skill and initiative of our navy and of the great electrical companies are directly re sponsible. ie. ae During the year 1914, twenty-eight vessels were lost upon the Great Lakes. Of this number 15 were lost by fire. _ Undoubtedly, of. the losses occurring now, no such proportion is due to fire, as the protection against fire both in _ methods of detecting and oes the same as it is now, except that now has shown a great advance.