The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

ARINE REVIEW. Vou. IV. CLEVELAND; OHIO; THURSDAY, AUGUST 20, 1891. No. 8. Ore Shipments for the First Half of the Season. The total shipments of ore from Lake Superior mines to August 1 was 2,885,000 gross tons. ‘These figures are official, and the MARINE REVIEW gives assurance of their accuracy, although not permitted to state the source of inférmation. On August I a year ago the mines had shipped 4,033,000 gross tons, so that the decrease to August 1 this season is 1,148,000 gross tons. When it is considered that the season of ore shipments was not fairly begun until June 1 and that about 2,000,000 tons had been shipped at that time a year ago, the movement during June and July is remarkable. The great gain is from Escanaba and Gladstone, as the Sault canal to August 1 shows shipments from Lake Superior of but 1,330,619 gross tons, notwithstanding the heavy movement from Two Harbors. Figures prepared by the Iron Trade Review last week, and also received from official sources, show that of this total output of 2,885,000 tons to August 1, 1,998,131 tons were received at Ohio ports. The balance going mainly to South Chicago and Detroit was, accordingly, 886,869 tons. This summary of receipts so far this season would indicate that the total output of the mines can hardly be brought up to 6,000,000 tons, although it will undoubtedly be close to that figure. The great bulk of the wild tonnage has been engaged in the ore trade up to this time but the movement of grain during the latter part of the season will demand a large portion of the available floating property, and little, if any, unsold ore will be brought down even at the existing rates of freight. g The Minnesota Iron Company had shipped on August 12, 267,454 gross tons of ore and the Chandler 186,650 tons, a total of 454,104 tons from Two Harbors. On the corresponding date in 1890 the Minnesota Company had shipped 310,956 tons and the Chandler 200,706 tons, a total of 511,652 tons. A decrease of 57,558 tons is thus shown, although shipments from the Min- nesota mines are more active than any of the other Lake Supe- rior districts. Projects Connected with the McDougall Barges. John D. Rockefeller is the heaviest stockholder in the American Steel Barge Company, as well as the other corporations that are now being linked with the business of constructing the whalebacks. Capt. Thomson Wilson, of Cleveland, is said to own one-eigth of the stock of the company, in addition to the advantage derived from management of the boats, and, although it is not generally known, Mr. Samuel Mather, one of the members of the firm of Pickands, Mather & Co., of Cleveland, who also holds close relations with the management of the Minnesota Iron Company and the Illinois Steel Company, was one of the first to subscribe for stock in the new type of boats. Colgate Hoyt of New York is president of the company and Charles L. Colby of Cleveland vice-president, and the directors are Colgate Hoyt, C. W. Wetmore and E. B. Bartlett of New York, Capt. Alex. McDougall and A. D. Thomson of Duluth, ° Charles L. Colby, Capt. Thomas Wilson and Samuel Mather of Cleveland. In speaking of the affairs of the company when in Cleveland a short time ago Capt. McDougall said they would experience no trouble in getting material forthe construction of ships on Puget sound, as the cost of ship plate from England, duty in- cluded, is but little above the price paid for the same article on the lakes. But the plan is not to depend on the foreign material. Officials of the Northern Pacific Railway Company, who are interested in the barge company and also in the Everett Land Company, which has begun the work of building up a town at the point on Puget sound where the ship yard will be located, ' are the moving spirits in the West Superior Steel and Iron Com- pany at the head of Lake Superior, where material will be turned out within a few months for ships to be constructed at the Puget sound plant, as well as at the West Superior yard. The freight on iron to the sound from West Superior over the Northern Pacific will, of course, be very low in comparision with that on iron from other districts. It is proposed to have the barges in the Pacific coast trade engage mainly in carrying coal from Puget sound districts to San Francisco. This trade is now hampered by a state control of docks. and a system that keeps vessels weeks in unloading, as against days according to the lake system of great handling facilities and ample dock room, but the barge company has a plan of overcoming this difficulty, which Capt. McDougall explains but which it would not be well to give out at this time. The Everett Land Company referred to here, and which, although a concern entirely separate in its management from the barge company, is backed up by the same capitalists, John D. Rockefeller, Henry Villard, C. B. Wright, Charles L. Colby, T. F. Oakes and others, contemplate an enterprise of much greater importance than the barges. This company has purchased 8,000 to 10,000 acres of land at the mouth of the Snohomish river, 30 miles north of Seattle on’ Puget sound, and it is at this point that the new town with a shipyard, rolling mills, sugar refinery ,nail and lumber mills and other manufacturing industries will soon be in operation. For the present the mills will make iron trom scrap, but there is no doubt of mineral wealth in the surrounding country. It is for this point that the barge Wet- more, just returned with water ballast from a trip to Liverpool with grain,is now loading ship-building machinery atWilmington. But these are not the only big projects now in hand by the same capitalists who are backing Capt. McDougall in the barge business. ‘They are also leaders in the Cuban mining properties which Mr. S. P. Ely of the firm of George H. & S. P. Ely of Cleveland is now engaged in developing, and the work on which has advanced so that it is expected 5co,000 tons of ore will be brought to this country next year, with shipments beginning in March. ‘The barges will be engaged in this trade and it is also expected to have them continue in the general coasting business. In turning out whalebacks to the extent of 35,500 gross tons capacity in three years, the West Superior shipyard has done far more than was expected even by the most earnest support- ers of the new type of vessels, and the outcome of the several big schemes that have sprung from the enterprise will be watched with a great deal of interest. Lake Steamers that Could be Sent to the Coast. Several of the big metal steamers now engaged in general freighting business on the lakes might be sent to the coast by the way of the Welland canal and the St. Lawrence river, if their owners found profit in sucha move and were willing to have them shoot the rapids, as was done in the case of the McDougall barges. ‘This could not be done with any of the big wooden steamers, however, as their draft of water running light isgreater than will be admitted in the shallow portions of the St. Lawrence. The McDougall steamers that went to the coast in this way were 265 feet over all, 36 feet beam and 22 feet depth of hold, and the maximum draft, that of the Colby, when trimmed for the trip through the rapids was 7 feet aft and 5 feet 10 inches forward. | The steel steamships J. H. Devereux and William Chisholm of, the Cleveland Rolling Mill Company’s fleet and the Spokane, owned by the Wilson Transit Company, are boats that fall with, in the dimensions just noted and that could in all probabilty be’ trimmed so.as not to exceed the maximum draft.