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10 MARINE REVIEW. nn a ST PONS Rn cn eae aaa iS SPEDE EIST Around the Lakes. Damage to the steamer Susan E. Peck from sinking in the Sault river is estimated at $26,000. Capt James Davidson of West Bay City is building only two wooden steamers. The report that he would build three consorts is denied. The Howard Towing Association will keep a tug stationed at Port Huron, with full and complete wrecking outfit, steam pump and diver, the balance of the season. The Anchor Line, owning the propeller Conemaugh, caused the propeller New Vork to be libeled at Detroit last week in the. sum of $70,000 for the sinking of the Conemaugh in Detroit river. Oct. 21. Fire last week on the docks of all three of the coal companies. at Duluth and Superior—Pioneer, Lehigh and Northwestern— resulted ina loss of about 30,000 tons of coal valued approxi- mately at $100,000. About 300,000 bushels of Manitoba wheat has been shipped in bond from Duluth to the seaboard by way of Buffalo, and it is estimated that this amount will be increased to something more than 500,000 bushels before the season closes. A recent rul- ing of the treasury department sanctions shipments in this way. Wheeler & Co. of West Bay City are putting new com- | pound engines into the Lora and Ossifrage and both.are receiv- ing additional boiler capacity. The Ossifrage will be lengthened thirty feet during the winter, and it is said that next season both boats will be put.on the route between Benton Harbor and Chi- cago in competition with the City of Chicago. ' Wages of some of the employers engaged in the iron plant of F. W. Wheeler & Co., West Bay City, were reduced last week, a cut of 12% to 25 cents being made all around. About twenty-five of the men refused to return to work at reduced pay and they were discharged, the intention being to fill their places with new men. Competition from shipbuilders at other ports is given as a cause for the reduction. o The New York Commercial Bulletin tells of a clever piece of submarine wrecking performed by the Baxter Wrecking Com- 3 ny of New York. A little more than a month ago the tug ; McCaldin Brothers was sunk in the Hudson, settling down 0 a hole in the river which was over 150 feet in depth, and en- ‘tering into the side of a vast mud deposit, almost burying herself. _ The wrecking company brought the boat to the surface a few days ago, nothwithstanding the great depth of water. Six O’Connell & Cahill lubricators were fitted on the engines of the steam yacht Wadena before she left Cleveland for the Atlantic. One was put on subject to approval, with provisions that others should be shipped to the coast, but it worked so satisfactorily that the others were ordered at once. ‘Three Minnesota boats, the C. B. Lockwood, Pontiac and several other steamers have been supplied. The Continental Machine Com- pany is local agent for the lubricator. | The Polson Iron Works of Owen Sound, Ont., a few days ago launched a cruiser for the Canadian government. ‘The boat is named Constance and is 125 feet long, 19 feet 8 inches beam, and 11 feet 3 inches depth of hold.’ Her draught is 9 feet 6 in- ches. The compound vertical engines have cylinders 18 and 36 inches in diameter, with a 24 inch stroke. The boilers are 10 feet 9 inches in diameter and 10 feet 6 inches long. ‘They will carry 115 pounds pressure. ‘There are two masts, carrying a schooner rig, ane she will mount three guns. ‘The stern is modeled after the style of the British man-of-war. In General The death of Edward Y. ‘Townsend, late president of the Cambria Iron Company of Johnstown, Pa., is announced from Philadelphia. From Muskegon, Mich., large quantities of lumber are moved to Chicago by lake, rail shipments being very light. Lake shipments from this port to Nov. 1, which is virtually the close of the season, were as follows: Lumber 199,606,000 feet, shingles 9,110,000, slabs 14,778, lath 13,583,000. Homor J.Carr, whose contributions to the REVIEW from Chicago each week are appreciated in different parts of the’lakes, has a very interesting article in last Sunday’s issue of the Chicago Inter Ocean on :‘Kinks in Marine Law.” ‘The articleexplainsina simple way such features in admiralty as general average, limi- tation of liability and insurance against collision liability. hard usage. The effect of the auxiliary pring on h “Hydraulic hoists for taking ashes from the stokeholds are a late improvement in the outfit of modern British built vessels. It is claimed that they can be worked more economically than steam hoists and with less trouble. “T do not think” says a prominent lake engineer “there is a steamboat on the entire chain of lakes that can make niore steam than she can use. That being the case it is, of course, easy enotigh to understand why some of the steel boats Having large boilers run away from their rivals, although the difference in engines is insignificant. The size of boilers will be increased in most new steamers.” A steamer that can be propelled on land by means of its own engine has just been constructed in Sweden. _It is intended for traffic on two lakes separated by a strip of land, on which rails have been laid, so that the steamer can run itself across from one lake to the other. At a trial trip the vessel is stated to have ful- filled the tests very well. The engines are 10 horse power, and the boat can accommodate sixty passengers. The new yacht storage basin which has just been dredged out on the Harlem river for the Gas Engine & Power Company, Morris Heights Station, New York, has acoommodations for thirty or forty yachts, with 12 feet of water at low tide. The company has facilities for handling all repair work on steam yachts and launches, keeping a large force of skilled workmen employed for all the different branches of this work. There is probably .no other place in the United States where a man can get. his yacht stored and have every detail attended to under the supervision of one con- cern, the repairing upholstering, painting, revarnishing and all that sort of work. Preparations have been made to build steam yachts from 50 feet upward, as well as any style of craft in this line. The Straight-Line Indicator. The use and appreciation of the indicator are nowadays reckoned among the important accomplishments of the successful engineer. The new straight-line indicator, an illustration of which is given herewith, has recently been perfected and put upon the market by Messrs. aang & Robertson, of No, 45 Cortlandt street, New York city. The peculiarity of this instrument lies in the simplictty of its parallel motion and inthe auxiliary spring by which it is held up to one working surface, thus preventing the appearance of any back-lash. The guiding mechanism for the parallel motion is placed as. near the fulcrum as possible, in order to obviate unnecessary movement and to be where the momentum will be the least. For a card of average height a sidewise movement of not more than one-eight of an inch is necessary to oblige the pencil to move in a straight line, and for so light a movement very little mechanism should be sufficient. In this in- dicator this is accomp- lised by two rocking sur- faces—one attached to an upright and the other permanently fixed on the pencil arm. The one on the upright is made cir- cular, and the other of such form that when the lever rises and falls these two grinding ‘surfaces roll together for a very slight distance, and cause the pencil to move in a perfectly straight line throughout its full range. All that is required of the auxiliary spring is to give it sufficient tension to keep these grinding surfaces in contact while the instrument is running. This may be deter- mined by turning on steam while the drum is stationary and noting whether or not the pencil traverses the same vertical line. This spring is intended also to take up all the play that may appear in the ahitig and oblige the pencil always to follow in the same path. & The first indicator made was subjected. to the test of being run con- tinuously nine hours aday on a high speed engine for over a month, and showed no appreciable wear ; what there may have been was t iken out by _ the auxiliary spring, and the instrument improved, NEW STRAIGHT-LINE INDICATOR, weaken it. This allowance is made in numbe: scale of spring therefore is the net resistance of moving parts of the in. trument ec any straight-line indicator, and | that weigh that its little movement makes the moment adapts it wes the highest speeds.