Readers will recall that, in the November issue, we reprinted some 1905 vessel passages and presented a short quiz regarding the names of some whalebacks that appeared in the report. We thought that we had fooled you all with a curve that we threw out, but we also fooled ourselves as regards one particular item which we apparently misinterpreted in the passages.

We took it that the steamer WASHBURN was reported as clearing Lorain, Ohio, with coal, along with ANDASTE. We should have checked our records more closely, for if we had, we would have recorded the entry as ANDASTE clearing Lorain with coal for Washburn, Wisconsin, a small harbour near Ashland.

The whaleback steamer WASHBURN, which was built in 1892 as a package freighter, was owned from June 21 to August 30, 1892, by the American Steel Barge Company, and from August 30, 1892, to April 18, 1896, by the Minneapolis, St. Paul and Buffalo Steamship Company (the Soo Line Railroad). She then passed to the Bessemer Steamship Company, Cleveland, and was renamed (b) JAMES B. NEILSON. She was owned by the Pittsburgh Steamship Company from 1901 until 1928, and by the Spokane Steamship Corp. from 1928 until 1936. She took her last name, (c) J. T. REID, in 1928 and was scrapped in 1936 at Cleveland.

It is, therefore, evident that there was no steamer by the name of WASHBURN on the lakes in 1905, and we regret any difficulties that this error on our part may have caused. We extend our sincere thanks to Capt. John Leonard for bringing this error to our attention.

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