Los Angeles herald., 1891-12-31
COAST DEFENSE SHIPS.
Progress of the Work on the Miantono-
nah and Monterey.

Progress of the Work on the Miantono-
nah and Monterey.
New YORK, Dec. 30.-rhe repairs and
alterations on the harbor defense vessel,
Miantonomah, are finished, and on New
Years day the ship starts out on a
brief cruise to test her newly mounted
guns. The test of her new boilers and
engines began last night and will be
continued forty-eight hours. The test
is perfectly satisfactory, so far. The
guns are viewed with the liveliest inter-
est by naval experts and scientific men.
Besides four 10-inch breech-load-
ing rifles, two 3pounder Hotch-
kiss rapid-iring guns and two
37-millimeter Hotchkiss revolving can
non, the vessel has the very newest
thing in ordinance, two 6pounder
Drings- Schroeder rapid-fring cannon.
These guns have never been tried on a
United States cruiser before. They
throw a pound highly explosive shell
every fifteen or twenty seconds from
distance OF $500 yards with the greatest
accuracy. They can be used 1000 or
5000 yards. When the tests are ovel it
is expected that the Miantonamah, as a
harbor defense vessel, withImodern guns
and low-water submerged hull, will be
match for any but the largest Euro
pean battle ships.
The crew of the Miantonomah yester-
day filled her bunkers with coal prep
.atory to testing the 10-inch guns and hy-
draulic machinery of the turrets this
week. Ammunition for the big guns
was put in the magazines today. 1t
consists of fifty charges of powder and
fifty rounds OF shells.
THE MONTERREY.
SAN Francisco, Dec. 30.-The coast
defense vessel Monterey is at the wharf
Of the Union iron works, in very much
the same condition as she was in three
weeks ago. Yesterday few men were
at work upon her steampipes, and COW
ering everything that needs it, with nom
conducting material. They worked
in the superstructure protected from
the storm by the upper deck. Now
and again the sound of hammer would
break the stiffness about the vessel, but
for hours all was in gloom and all The
matches were down SO that the rain
might not injure the work already done.
The vessel is nearly finished. All the
joiner work is done. The cabin furnish
ings have been ready for some time.
They have been put in place and found
perfectly satisfactory, and are now
stored in the shops for safe keeping.
The placing of armor on the vessel
would do considerable damage to cabin
work, which will not be put back until
the plating is in position. To fix it
again in place, however, will not take
much time.
While there are only, 9 few men work.
ing on the vessel itself, about 100 work
men are busy on parts of it in the
machine shops, upon the fittings and
other details of the vessel. They are at
present working to get the vessel in
readiness for her dock trials, which will
take place before the ocean trials, if the
government sees fit under the present
circumstances to ask for the latter The
electric plant is one of the most impor-
tant elements in the preparation for
the dock trials. In few days it will
be finished. Steam has already been
up. and 1t is expected that in about two
weeks the dock trials will be held.
Those at the works apparently have
reason to believe that not hammer has
yet been struck upon the turret armor
Of the Monterey in the works of Car
neige, Phipps & Co. II any orders 70