The Bossier banner., 1896-08-13
But take look into the compressor

But take look into the compressor
room, where the air is compressed by
steam for the torpedoes. Like all
these vital elements, this room is down
below the protective deck. The tor
pedo charge is confined at pressure
of 1850 pounds to the square inch, and
when desired a pressure OF 1000
pounds can be Iobtained. The first
will send a torpedo four hundred
yards at speed of thirty-two knots
an hour. Eight hundred yards range
may be reached, but without accuracy
of aim. Through the submarine tor
pedo room proper into which the
three prisons open, the submarine
mine room is reached. Here also the
trap doors over the gun cotton and
torpedo head compartments, each
reached by shaft, are to be seen.
Just forward is the fore hold, where
the wet stores, lumber, spare gear and
beef are stored.
Down in the shell room, twenty
feet below the sea level, eight men
would work in time of action. It is
six feet wide, &C feet high, and some
twenty feet long, steel tunnel, shut
IN by the wooden partition of the
various ammunition compartments;
here at least wood may not be dis
placed by steel, owing to the danger of
conclusion. A great square shaft runs
far up between steel walls to the re-
doubts, from which the twelve-inch
guns are fired. Down this shaft comes
a cor, on which shell, with its firing
charge of 425 pounds of powder, must
be loaded. The steel itself would be
no mean burden, with its bursting
charge of twenty-five pounds of ex-
plosive, for it is thirty-four inches
long, 11.96 inches in diameter, and
weighs $50 pounds.
A glance at the thermometer, with
the 1ire-rooms on each side of us 60
ing full tilt, shows 122 degrees, but
the eight men at work here don't seem
to mind it. They can hear deafen-
ing din around, above, and below them,
yet they can gee nothing but the hoist
and the loading tray and the chain
trolley along which they propel, by
hand, the cradle that carries the shell
from the magazine to the open door
of the hoist. There is nothing for
them to do but work; if the ship were
sinking they wouldn't know it-with-
out that warning whisper through the
tube. -~+-ss-
The ammunition hoist room proper
or handling room, on the after plat
form deck, is immediately over the
magazines, for which it is cover. It
is cut off from the berth deck above
by the battle plates, weighing about
1000 pounds each, and handled .by
steam gear. The water line is ten feet
above. Every hatchway on this pro.
tectlve deck, which covers the ships
vitals as cuirass covered warrior of
old, is supplied with these steel plates,
water tight, which isolate every room
and compartment below from the gun
! deck and crew space above. It is the
machinery, not the men, that must be
first considered. From abreast the
| upper end of the vertical armor, which
does not cover the ends of the ship.
this protective deck begins to drop
down over the precious storehouse of
mechanism amidships. Where it was
only two inches thick, horizontally, it
is now three inches thick, inclining
at an angle of seven to ten degrees.
All the work of the battle ship is
down in her midst. The forward end
Of the ship is used for slowing only.
But this concentration amidships is
curiously contrasted with the still
more crucial rule in battle ship that
she can conquer only by division. Di-
vided by innumerable water tight
walls and bulkheads she stands united
in one whole she would fall.- New
York Herald.