The daily morning Astorian. [volume] (Astoria, Oregon) 1883-1899, 1895-07-03
ALONG THE WATER FRONT.

The pilot schooner San Jose will go out
early next week.
The American ship Alameda leaves for
Puget Sound tomorrow.
The Harrison came in from Tillamook
yesterday afternoon with ten tons of
dairy produce aboard.
The scow Maud is anchored inside the
| o. r. and N dock with load of pulp
from the Youngs River mills.
The Gatzert made her first trip down
the river yesterday morning. leaving Port
land at midnight and reaching here at 8
a. m.
The British ship Rathdown completes
her salmon cargo this morning, and her
captain expects to get away by the end
of the week.
Gill net boats continued to do very
poorly yesterday though there was a
decided improvement in the catch Of traps
and seines Spencer's seine turned in two
tons of fish, and several other outfits in
the vicinity averaged that quantity of
fish.
Word received from the steamer Lin
coin yesterday states that she is making
excellent progress sounding the shoal
places on the river between Tongue Point
and Portland. She will probably be down
here on Monday, and as soon as she
arrives will make a complete survey of
the channels in front of Astoria and along
| from the Tongue to Harrington's Point.
The tendency to great interior water
ways Is becoming more marked among
| all the great maritime nations. The Man
chester canal Is and for some time has
been, fact, and ships with wheat from
this coast have discharged at Manchester
| docks. The deepening of the Seine is
| another great proposition on foot, while
in the east and in fact all parts of the
world, canals are being perfected or are
being actually constructed The scheme
which the Russians are bringing forward
| is that of connecting the Crimean ports
| of the Black sea with the Baltic by
| means of canal about 1000 miles in
| length, and at an estimated cost of about
| f20,00O,000, though In such colossal under
| takings the estimates have q knack Of
| getting very far out of it. However, 1t
| is stated that there don't seem to be
amy technical difficulties In the way of
this projected canal from the Crimea to
| the Baltic. The starting place would be
| the port of Riga, and the waterway would
follow the Dwina, and further on the
| Beresira and the Dnieper, at last enter
| ing the Black sea at Cherson. The depth
| of waterway is to be thirty feet and
the width 23O feet, whilst 1t is proposed to
connect the towns in the neighborhood
hV Tnaano Of emalIar faedinp canals
With speed of six knots the vessel
would pass through the canal in the
course Of six days, which is pointed out
as an enormous saving on the sea jour-
ney between the Baltic and Black sea
and other Mediterranean ports not to
mention the probable great saving in
the cost of transport as compared with
the overland route. The great waterway
is to be electrically lighted.
Several old water front hands in this
city were busy yesterday discussing the
history of the old cannon that will be
fired by the people of Olney tomorrow
in a national salute. The gun was brought
off the wreck of the old Sylvia de Grace
in 18i9, and with it's old-fashioned wooden
carriage, was put ashore at the dock
fronting Van Dusen & Browns store in
Uppertown. There 1t lay, an object of
curiosity to everybody until one memora-
BILE day in 1856 James Ferrell, an old
pioneer, was about to marry a lady known
as "the Widow Jewett," and outside of
the two families and the Van Dusens,
nobody knew anything about it. Ferrel,
however, strolled round all day inviting
everybody In the settlement to come up
to Van Dusen's house, a few hundred
yards from the store, in the evening,
and "have a good time" explaining in ad-
dition that pie and cake would flow like
water" Everybody imagined 1t was just
to be a little social affair, but on reaching
the Van Dusen house the visitors found
Rev. Mr.. Thompson, of Clatsop, in his
"regimentals," waiting to perform a mar
riage ceremony. The boys, however, were
not to be caught mapping. Half a dozen
of them stretched a long cord from the
house to the dock where the gun lay,
and then crept off and loaded the cannon
with powder stuffiDg 1t up to the top with
elderberry leaves. Leaving one of their
number there with lighted cigar, they
got back to the house and awaited devel-
opments. AS soon as the minister pro-
nounced the words making Ferrell and
the widow man and wife, the string was
pulled as a signal, and the gun doomed
out a report that nearly raised the whole
never heard a cannon before, and whit
with discussing the wonderful event, and
making merry over the marriage, every
body had a royal time.
Australia Is doing the liberal thing for
California" says the Bulletin. "She is
loading coals ship for San Francisco
every five days. At least this is the
record for the past two months. She
problbly could do better than that,
though there are other markets to be sup
piled as well as ours. There is an un-
usually long list OF vessels expected from
Australia. In addition to the twelve
actually on the way to this port there
are forty-one more entered out to follow.
Many of these have not yet arrived at
the loading port. 1t takes from sixty
to ninety days to make the trip. Should
the entil e list be loaded by the end of the
of the year, the fag end of the feet would
not get here much before the end of
March, 1896. The fifty-three vessels now
forming the Australian fleet represent
92,454 tons OF tonnage. Adding 60 per cent
TO this total to show carrying capacity,
and we have 147, 800 tons Australian coal
in sight for this port for the next eight
months, equal to a monthly average of
1920 tons. Swansea is another large
source of supply That port is doing quite
as well as Australia in the matter Of
loading ships for san Francisco. There
are twenty-six ships now on the way
here from Swansea, showing that one
has been loaded on an average every four
days. There are twelve more engaged
to follow, every one Of which will be
loaded and on the way here inside Of