The Lafayette gazette. [volume] (Lafayette, La.) 1893-1921, 1896-01-25
SOME STRANGE BOATS.
Tho oldest Sort of Craft That Float tn
wRtefDs

The oldest Sort OF Craft That Float the
Waters.
OF all the uncommon forms that boats
take the newest, instead of beng strange
and complicated, like most 10th century
inventions, are almost as simple as any
thing that floats. Only RATS of logs are
more simple than what we call our
"car floats" They are the newest typ
of boats we know and have come into
Icing because New York city is on an
island, with only a few railroads cross
ing to it from the mainland. The other
great and little railways, which bring
and take goods and people to and from
New York, all stop OH the opposite
shores of our harbor in New Jersey,
Staten Island and Long Island. Since
the cars of one railroad often have to
go past the city upon the other roads.
these "Roats" IRE used to transport
them around our island, SO that goods
from Boston or Sag harbor, for in
stance, can be sent around New York
to the tracks of the roads that Will
carry them to San Francisco without
unloading or reloading. The floats
that carry these cars are merely boxes,
the shape of great dominoes, with rail-
road tracks laid upon them. Some
carry six freight cars, some carry eight,
and some carry ten cars. Tiny little
propellers that we call tug boats" are
warped or hitched alongside of these
clumsy floating boxes, where they look
as little kitten would appear beside
IA big ST. Bernard dog or as a locomotive
would look beside a house. But our
queer, snorting, fussy little tugboats
march away with every floating thing
to which they are hitched-even drag
ging huge Atlantic steamships at their
sides-because they reach down deep
into the water, where their big screws,
~ III.
tain a mighty hold. Because our tug
boats are so small and yet SO strong
they are able to move swiftly when
they have no burdens to carry.
The floats that carry passengers
around New York so that they can go
to Boston from Philadelphia or Chicago
without changing cars (and even with
out getting out of bed on the sleeping
cars) are not floats at all. They are
very powerful and large steamboats,,
with decks covered with iron plates,
with car tracks on these decks, and
with arrangements for locking the car
wheels fast to the tracks, SO that no
matter how boisterous the water may
be on stormy days, the cars cannot
break loose and roll overheard. We
have several queer sorts of boats
and other floating objects that look
like floating houses. Among them are
what we call our floating baths, and
our floating docks. and our cattle and
ice barges. But there is one kind of
floating building that looks like q
tower or a steeple riding the waters
and steering itself around. The
strange thing-and we employ many
such-is a floating grain elevator. It
is a tall, four-sided tower, built upon a
squat, snub-nosed boat. 1t has n great
l,roboscis that it sticks down into canal
boats full of grain, which it sucks or
dips out so that it can lead the grain
into the holds of ships that are to carry
it to Europe.-Harper's Round Table.
Chara cterissics of Queen of Corea.
The late queen of Corea does not
seem to have had a very happy life, nnd
if all reports be true she did not quite
deserve one. She ruled the king with
a rod of iron, and sold every Office in the
realm to the highest bidder. She OPP
pressed the people SO that she was in
constant fear of assassination. 1t was
her custom to sit up all night, and
she never went to bed until five or six
1,e 1,o u