The morning call., 1893-10-22
PRICE FIVE CENTS.

| energies for generation or so to come.
| But when we get out of our town bOuDda-
rles. when we become great seagolng
people our navy will increase as our IN
| terests demand protection. and we may
eventually become the greatest naval
power of the world.
"As TO our natural ability in this re-
spect," Secretary Herbert went on. "look
at our history. At the beginning of the
Revolution England was mistress of the
seas. During the first two years of that
war our navy, made up of what we could
buy. build or borrow, captured more than
267 English ships, and acquired for itself
| a reputation as one of the naval powers Of
| the time. In the War of 1872 we started
out with about dozen and a half ships OF
war TO fight England. who then had more
than 800 ships, of which large number
were effective cruisers. There were all
/ told fourteen duels between single ships in
that war, and in ten of these the Amer-
cans were victorious. In two of the re.
maiDder the honors were nearly even, and
in only two out of the fourteen were the
| British the victors. At the beginning OF
the late Civil War the Government had
only ninety vessels af1oat At its close its
navy contained no ships, and it stood out
as one of the greatest naval powers Of the
world. It's battles changed the naves Of
the world, and some of the greatest OF
naval inventions have sprung from Ameri-
can brains"
That was so with the fight of the moni-
tor aud the Merrimac, was it notP'
YES" replied Secretary Herbert. "That
battle struck the death blow to the ships
of that day. With it the age of wooden
war vessels passed away, and that of iron
and steel began. Every civilized nation at
once put its shipyards 10 work to build
new fleets, aud human ingenuity busisd
! itself to construct better guns. Guns then
/ haUap fo ha odo of nd
in order that they might carry still heavier
charges they were made longer and longer,
and sow-burDing powder was inven ted.
| The powder we now use is nothing like
that used at the time of the last war. 1t
is the color of chocolate, and it is nodded
| into grains as big as baby's fist. 1t burns
from the time it is ignited until the charge
leaves the gun, and it steadily pushes, as it
were, on the charge from powder-bed to
muZzle."
''Is it much more effective than the pow-
! der of the past?" | asked.
Yes" replied the Secretary; 81 can
hardly describe its power. Some of the
proJectiles we now use weigh as high as
| HOO pounds. or half ton, and the guns
which shoot these great masses of steel
and balls are 40 feet long and weigh more
than 60 tons each. 1t takes $50 pounds of
this powder for single charge Of one of
| these guns, and through 1t this half ton o
| chilled steel flies from the muZzle of the
gun at the rate of 2100 feet per second and
goes thirteen miles before it stops. Take
your pencil and estimate what those
| figures mean. A ton is good load
for a team OF horses: Four charges
of powder for one of those guns would
be all that the horses would want
to pull. Two OF those projectiles would
be wagon load, and to carry off the gun
itself, were it loaded upon wheels, 100
horses would have to be hitched to it.
| Twenty-one hundred feet per second is at
the rate of almost mile in two and half
| seconds If that velocity could continue
the prolectile could get on at the rate of
about twenty-three miles a minute. It
W ould cross the Atlantic in less than two
hours and half. and it could go around
the world In less than day. These guns
are called the 13-ihch guns. Four of them
are to be placed on each Of the battle-ships.
and thus will form part of the armament
of the Indiana, the Oregon and the Massa-
chusetts."
"Can we make as good guns as the Euro
peans?" | asked.
There is no doubt Of It," was the re-
ply. experiments show that we are do
ing so. The gun mandatory at the
navy-yard here Is one of the finest in the
| world, and man from one of the big es-
Establishments of Europe when he visited 1t
the other day said he had never seen any,
thing equal to ii. We can turn out guns
have completed large number of fine
guns. ranging from four to thirteen inches
| in SIZE, and weighing from 34O0 pounds to
$4,000 pounds each. We have now 1O8
guns afloat, 29S completed and II in hand.
We will soon be making armor-p piercing
shells for our six and eight inch guns,
and will eventually make shells for our
| largest guns. weighing HOO pounds These
| big shells will go forth from the gun at
velocity. OF from 1000 to 2600 feet per
| second"
Are our naval factories such that we
are now practically independent of any
other country in the making and equip
ment OF our naval vessels?"
YES" replied the Secretary. 1--WE can
make any kind of gun that may be
needed, and with the great forging works
which we now have at Bethlehem and at
| the Carnegie works near Pittsburg we are
in the position to create as great a navy as
the future may demand. What we now
need is more battle ships. We need plenty
of good torpedo-boats to defend our har-
| b0rs, and my idea of the navy is that it
should be large enough to command peace
and protect American citizens in their
rights the world over. We have lately
est blished factory in this country for
the making of torpedoes. and we are max
| ing some Of the best armor in the world.
| The armor which binds the naval vessels
to-day is of rolled or hammered steel, to
! which we have added about per cent of
nickel, with such success that our plate is
superior to any other armor plate of the
world"
''Is the torpedo of much value In the
naval warfare of to-day ?" asked.
II think there is no doubt of that" re-
piled the Secretary. "All of the great ma
tions are adding torpedo-boats to their
naval forces. England has 200 and is
building 25 more. France has $50 and is
building 40. Russia has $50 and is build
ing more. Germany has 109, and the
other powers are we'll equipped. At q
test of torpedo-boats last summer In Eng
land twenty-four torpedo-boats attacked
squad of cruisers and gunboats. The
result was that after seven days trial
these had destroyed ono battle-ship and
six cruisers. and eighteen out of the
twenty-four torpedO-boats were destroyed.
Of course there was no actual destruction
of these vessels, and the torpedoes were
so fixed with collapsible heads that no real
damage was done. 1t was. in fact, like the
firing OF blank cartridge. but the effect
could be scientifically estimated from the
torpedoes having struck the ships. The
result of the trial was as l have
stated, and the estimated value of the
battle-ship and six .cruisers destroyed
amounted to about SO. 100000, including
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