Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1892-12-30
BUILDING NARSHIPS.
PIECE BY PIECE THE SMALL PARTS
ARE PUT TOGETHER.

snip Are Manufactured at IA Distance
from the Scene of Construction-Ex-
amples of Mathematical Exactness.
10 say that the science of naval archi-
lecture and construction in its relation to
ships of war has had unprecedented deyel-
opment IN late years would not be in any
respect an exaggeration. The fruits of
the new era are already very apparent
In TACT, some have already come to take
the place of old methods and old machines,
and IN their turn have been discarded for
others that are now in a fair way to be
superseded by the results of further scien-
THO experiments. All this has taken place
without any practical test of the merits of
the innovations in actual fighting.
The introduction Of heavily armored bat
tleships might be said to date from the
civil war, although there were a number
of isolated examples before that time
With the monitor came revolution in the
logic of naval science, and the end is not
yet, SO the prophets declare.
The evolution of the modern floating for
tresses, as exemplified in the recently
hoated vessels in our navy, as well as those
that fly the flags of England, Italy, France
and Germany, might be described as a
long race between armOr plate and arma-
ment.
In other words, the makers of guns have
been progressing rs well as the makers of
! iron or steel plates that guard snip from
| the heavy missiles of various kinds that
! are shot from the modern gun.
At times it has seemed us though the de
| fence had triumphed in placing heavy steel
| plates at the most vulnerable points, but
almost before the thought was spoken a
| new gun would be brought forth on some
| new boat of another nation that would
| render the steel plates no more serviceabie
in an actual engagement than so much
pulp.
! On these lines the game has gone on I'M
til the steel ship has developed into what
seems to be perfection, and guns are made
! which will pierce wrought iron to the
| depth of several feet, according to the
| varying size and weight OF the proiecties.
While the effort to produce guns that
| will make any kind OF armOr useless has
| engaged the attention of workers in naval
science, and while the effort to build ships
that are almost Il mass of solid steel has en-
gagged the attention Of others, still another
complication thrust itself forth in The shape
of the modern torpedo boat.
An English authority on the subject has
| openly declared his opinion that the present
form of fighting with few powerful and
fleet battleships must eventually be ahan-
doned and that fleet Ok such vessels at
tackled ut night by torpedo boats is a fleet
lost.
1t has been asserted by another man high
in the ranks of naval science that heavy
armor plate will be done away with On
nearly all vessels, and that distinct styles
of craft Will be used for distinct purposes
in sea warfare hereafter.
| According TO his idea there will be the
floating forts for harbor defense, with the
heaviest steel plates and heaviest guns
made, that will be capable of the hardest
fighting, but of little use on the high seas
on account of the impossibility of combin-
/ ing these powers with that of speed
| For the commerce destroyers there will
be the lightly built and lightly armored
cruisers of the highest speed that will be
able to attack the merchant marine or I'M
| protected coasts, and run away from the
heavily armed battlesIips whose guns
would finish them in short order The tor
pedo boats and such craft also rank high
in this prophets estimation.
In accordance with this theory, in part
| the navy of this nation is gradually taking
shape. The navy battleship and the swift
cruiser are combined, however, in the re-
cent ships. and neither one nor the other
has found its fullest development.
The new ship Cincinnati will very nearly
realize the idea of the heavy battleship,
also combining the speed and seagoing
qualities of the cruiser.
These ships not only carry heavy steel
plates as protection from the shot of an
enemy, but the entire vessel is of iron
This causes, as may be readily understood
some important changes in the construct
i've methods from those used in the build
ing of wooden ship, and yet, on the whole
the two are put together on very much the
same principle.
As many have thought, it is true that a
large part of the work done on these iron
ships is done in steel mills and factories
and the yard is the place of putting to-
gether. In all the important parts of such
a ship as the Cincinnati the iron forms are
made and shaped in the mills, far from the
place where the boat is being put together
In such work the greatest accuracy is alb
solutely Indispensable In wooden ships
the different parts are shaped and put to-
gether in the yards from which the ship is
launched, but iron cannot be sawed and
planed and cut to fit when it is to serve
such purpose as the backbone or ribs of
a ship like the Atlanta.
| Every piece is measured from the draw
ings with the most scrupulous care and
mathematical eXactness, and measured
with special apparatus in order that there
shall be perfect accuracy.
In building wooden vessels the drawings
are not nearly so exact as the plans for
iron vessels, on account of the necessity in
the latter for the elimination of anything
resembling allowance in any direction.
| Everything is calculated down to the hun
dreth part of an inch and as the plans call
for the parts so are they turned out from
the factory.
After the iron and steel parts leave the
mills in which they are made the making
Of the ship is comparatively the same as if
il were of wood. The blocks are laid in a
line to support the keel, which is the first
piece put in.
This keel is made of many parts, but to
the eye it appears to be one gracefully
shaped piece of iron that reaches from the
stem to the stern OF the ship that is to be.
When the keel is laid the stem and stern
l Ill i