The New York herald., 1868-01-28


Tho Now Steam Navy.
There is widespread dissatisfaction through
out the navy on account Of the ineficiency OF
the steam machinery with which the vessels are
supplied, and which WAS planned by the Bu-
reau Of Steam Engineering at Washington. On
looking into the matter we find these COM
plants to rest on very firm foundation. In
general terms the whole matter may be thus
summed up For the past five or six years
the Chief OF the Steam Bureau has been carry
ing on experiments which consisted in lashing
naval vessels to docks, grinding away with
their engines and stirring up the mud in the
Navy Yard slips for weeks on = stretch.
This sort Of experiments may be counted by
The hundred, and tho money that has been
squandered on them is, in round numbers,
more than sufficient to found first class ma
sional polytechnic school, equip it with the
most extravagant set of apparatus and endow
it with fund fully ample 70 furnish the sala-
ries of . full corps of professors. The coal
alone that has been wasted would keep first
class steam squadron going for couple Of
years at least.
This Is certainly bad enough. but ii is by no
means the worst On the basis of these manila
hemp races the Bureau Chief claims to have
made important discoveries in steam engineer
ing, and he has been as busy as bee in put
ting these "discoyeries" into practice in the
construction of the machinery of our national
vessels We do not care to go into the theory
Of these new-fangled doctrines, for the appli-
cation ofwhich we arc being heartily ridiculed
by foreign Powers but we can give facts, 80
that any ono can SOC into what mess the En-
gineer-in-Chief has put our would-be "Aiaba-
mas" There are four or FIVE ships Of the
Wampanoag class the finest and sharpest
models ever built for this or any other navy.
These ships are three hundred and forty-ive
feet long, forty-six feet beam and are of about
four thousand tons displacement. The duty put
upon the steam machinery was to propel these
yacht-lIke models at "maximum speed
OF fifteen knots per hour" Aud in order to
achieve this extremely easily attained result we
find that some two hundred feet Of the hold OF
these ships are jammed full of machinery con-
struc.cd in accordance with the new doctrines;
they are, in fact, so full Of engines and boilers
that there ia no room in the hold for coal, and
consequently great part of their ecansy
allowance has to be carried on the berth deck,
the space usually allotted to the officers and
crew. Again, there IL 50 little room Tor provi-
sions that only about forty days supply can
be carried ana this, too, in vessels intended
for cruisers Further, this new-iangled ma
cbinery weighs in round numbers The enormous
amount of upwards Of twelve hundred tons,
which is more by great deal than Is carried
by any screw steamer in the world.
Take, for instance, the screw steamships
here anu uavre. Their machinery takes up
about one-haif the space in the vessel which
is occupied by that of this new fleet Of ours,
and il only weighs about ak hundred tons, or
about hall that of our vessels; yet it drives
these ships (Which are thousand tons
larger than the Wsmpanoag class). as every
body knows, iftecn knots per hour Their
machinery. too, it is almost needless 20 state,
is constructed on the old fogy principles, which
our engineering Mabomet pretends to have
overthrown by his experimental hocus pocus.
Wc might give many other similar examples,
but this we think Is sufficient 10 give the nation
some idea Of what sort OF work Is going On in
the navy.
Si,t worse, tie Wampanoag. the first OF this
batch has made short trial "trip, and bad as are
the principles embodied in these engines the
mechanical mistakes ia their construction are
without precedent. After this short prelimi-
nary trip, during wbco the vessel encountered
no bad weather, the engines were seriously
fractured, and experts do not hesitate 10 say
that in heavy gale they would stand = good
chance OF being rendered wholly useless.
This is indeed pretty state Of affairs to
exist in the navy Of \ nation making such row
about tho Alabama claims and were it not for
The fact that our foreign correspondents inform
as that these radical defects in our new vessels
the ones built to prey on British commerce
are fully understood by naval authorities
abroad, we should certainly not allude 10 this
matter. As it is, we have merely touched on
tho surface, and we can safely inform the
country that the deeper the blunders Of our
naval steam department are proved the more
serious do IA mistakes appear TO he.