The San Francisco call., 1896-05-07

tween Red Rock in the Narrows to off
Hunters Point, ana Captain Goodall Kept
the deepest water, but often when down
at the southern end of the course, big
clouds of mud would come to the surface,
and stretch behind the ship in turbulent
red brown wake. The bottom is too near
the surface in San Francisco Bay to give
boat like the Oregon a fair trial. She
wan is green water with miles upon miles
in every direction, and the mud fathoms
deep under her keel.
She is quick to her helm, once the rud-
der takes hold, but she needs careful
hand at the wheel. Down by the drydock
at Hunters Point she turned in less than
200 yards. A line drawn from her course
down the bay to her new course, back
again, would be less than 200 yards long,
and beyond il would be semi-circle of
foam. This was with only 20 deg. of
helm, and the Oregon's wheel is "hard
over" at 40. Once swinging to her helm
she turns rapidly, and it seems, almost
upon her keel, but it takes a strong hand
to meet her when her heavy body comes
around, and the hydraulic gear creaks
with the strain as. she is brought to her
course. Her steering-gear is the heaviest
ever made, but a glance at the vessel
shows that she needs it.
As the battleship is now she needs but
her secondary battery and her stores and
ammunition to make her ready for sea.
1t is almost impossible to describe her ap-
pearance, except to say she is the personi-
fication OF force and power. She passed
The Comanche. the little old monitor lying
off Folsom-street wharf, every time she
came to the southern end of her ran, and
her pest description lies in q comparison
between the original turret ship of 63 and
the latest addition to the United States
navy. The Comauche is not over 200 feet
long. She has one soft iron turret, two
~ nd ny OF
she is like tank-all open and every Sec
ton connected with the other. She has q
single screw and single engine, and she
| looks like board upon the water. The
Oregon has six turrets, all of the hardest
steel. She has sixteen big guns and over
thirty small ones. She has two
screws and two engines, and each engine
is compounded to thrice its old time
power. She looks like destroying angel.
Frowning high over her superstructure Is
her single mast and her two yellow smoke
stacks. Then comes her bridge, then her
superstructure deck, then her main or gun
deck. Below that is her berth deck, then
her orlop or protective deck, then the
upper platform" then the lower plat.
form, and then below the double bottom is
the keel. She slopes from her smoke
| stacks down to stem and stern, her thir-
teen-inch turrets easing the line down to
her low decks fore and aft. She has twelve
feet OF free board, but the waves
may beat over her if they will,
for she moves forward as if nothing
on earth could stop her. At her beak is a
ram, in her nose is the mouth of a tor
pedo-tube; peering from all sides are her
guns, and walled around her are plates OF
steel so hard and thick that no shot made
by man or propelled by powder can reach
her vitals. She is divided into over zoe
water-tight mpartments, and it needs
but the closing of door to rob the deadly
torpedo of much of its terror. She cost
Sc, 600 900 for hull alone; as she floats she
is worth $4,000, 600. Her builders expect
her to drive the foam and spray ahead oi
her at over sixteen knots an hour, and
| when she shows her teeth in the name oi
the tricolor at her stern there is nothing
afioat she need be afraid Of