The San Francisco call., 1897-12-21
NEWS OF FOREIGN nAvIEs.

NEWS OF FOREIGN hAVIES.
A battle-ship of IA 800 tons, to be named
the Irresistible, and another of the same
class. called the Formidable, are to be
built at Chatham and Portsmouth. Each
ship will cost nearly So 900 600, and they
will be of the Majestic type, of which
five have been built during the last three
years.
The Russian warship Svetlana, build
ing at HaVre, and approaching compile
ton, is of decidedly novel type, being
partly cruiser and yacht. She is of 3S2S
tons displacement, 81 feet IN length' ~
feet s inches beam and has a maximum
draught of IS feet inches. The hull is
sheathed and coppered, and her engines,
estimated to develop $500, have already
been worked up to $500, and speed or
twenty knots is confidently anticipated.
With her bunkers full-1000 tons-the ship
has a cruising radius of 1900 miles at
ten knots speed. The official designation
of the vessel is "a cruiser at the disposal
of the Grand Duke High Admiral, and
she is fitted with deck cabins and COM
modious quarters below decks. She car
ries four 6-inch Canet guns in sponsons
and one forward and another aft. Inc
secondary armament consists OF eighteen
47-millimeter 6-pOunderS and two 37-m1ll1-
meter 3-pounders The portfolios are YER
liable windows, giving plenty OF light and
air to the quarters. She has an armoreo
deck over the engines and polerS, one
inch thick on the fiat and two inches on
the slope. Above the armor deck runs
coffer-dam around the entire length of
the ship, which is fitted with an auto
matte device, of Russian invention, for
stopping shell perforatiOns. The tele-
phone system introduced is also Rus-
sian idea, and is of the loud-speak1ng
variety, and the officer on the bridge as
well as the captain in the coming tower
can communicate with the engine-room
and with every gun position.
A mysterious explosion took place at
the Bull Point naval ordnance depot,
near Devonport, some time during Satur-
day night and Monday morning, Novem-
Der 2S and 80. Everything was apparent
ly all right when the shellroom was
locked up, but when opened on the fol-
lowing Monday it was discovered that a
shell had exploded, the base and head of
which had disappeared and the box in
which it was kept was scattered to
atoms The affair is being investigated
as to the cause, while the escape from
a terrible catastrophe-the room being
stored with hundreds of live shells-is
looked upon as miraculous.
Emperor Williams naval estimates,
submitted to the Reichstag November q,
is very ambitious and costly pro-
gramme. 1t provides for seven battle
ships two large and seven small cruisers,
all of which are to be completed at the
end of the fiscal year 1904. The navy OF
Germany, with this proposed addition,
will then consist of IL battleShipS,
armored coast defenders, large and 26
small cruisers and, in addition, as re-
serve, 2 battle-ships, 8 large and small
cruisers. The cost of new ships, includ-
ing guns and torpedoes, will be $40, $50 600,
and. besides, during the next seven years
$50, $50, 900 additional will be required to
replace obsolete ships. The expenditure
on harbor works, dockyards, barracks,
etc., is to be increased % per cent, which
will bring the total annual increase to
81, $50 900. and the total expenditures from
1897 to 1904 will be in millions of marks
about III, 121, 1&. IA, 148, $50, 150 149, or
ranging from S27, $50 900 to $97 100000. The
personnel, which now numbers Is ,138, is to
be increased by S499, of which S44 are
officers and Is marine engineers.
The floating dock for Havana, which
was built in England at a cost of 81 ,000,-
900 and successfully towed $500 miles
across the ocean, lies sunk in the harbor
of Havana. She arrived November 6,
and on December the dock began to
sink, slowly and majestically settling to
the bottom in about fifty feet of water.
No one seemed to realize what allied the
structure. The Spanish engineers cried
that fraud had been perpetrated upon
the Spanish Government by the English
contractors, others, again, charging the
accident to the Cuban insurgents. If, as
is quite probable, some of the valves
were left open or designedly opened the
work of raising the dock should not
prove a difficult undertaking, but at last
accounts it still repoSed on the bottom,
Notwithstanding the labor of 200 men to
raise it.