The San Francisco call., 1898-05-16
NEWS OF FOREIGN NAMES.

At the beginning of May there were under construction for the British navy sixteen vessels in the dockyards and seventy-nine at private yards distributed in England and Scotland.
 Three torpedo-boat destroyers recently added to the British navy have made good speed records. The Violet developed a means of 663O horsepower and 3O 16 knots during three hours, the Flying Fish 6454 horsepower and 3037 knots and the Wolf 30.30 knots, all the boats steaming continuously for three hours.
 The armored cruiser Amiral de Gel lydoa building at Torrent is to be of 9515 tons displacement AS feet in length and 63 feet beam. With three screws and 10000 horsepower a speed of 21 knots is calculated upon. The armor protection is water-line belt of six-inch Harvey ized steel and the armament will include two 7.6-fnch guns, carried in turrets and eight 6.3-inch quick-firers in broadside.
 The German Admiralty, in providing for keeping up the standard of the navy, has established the years of efficiency of battle-ships and coast defense vessels at twenty-five years, of large cruisers at twenty years and of small cruisers at fifteen years. This means that ships in the order named having reached the ages of 25, 20 and 15 years will have to be discarded and new ones built to re- place the losses.
 Steam trials of the French battle-ship Brennus have been completed. They were carried out in four series namely: With eight boilers, 1143 horsepower, a speed of SIS knots was obtained: under twelve boilers, 2630 horsepower, 11.26 knots; un- der twenty-four boilers 6229 horsepower 14 Al wit, oil t1,;x boilers at work, 13,s50 horsepower. an average speed of HI knots was made during four hours.
 The German cruiser Hansa, recently launched at Stettin, is 344 feet s inches in length, 57 feet breadth and displaces 5650 tons on draught of 21 feet s inches. She is driven by triple screws, engines of 10000 horsepower, to give a speed of 20 knots. Her normal coal supply is 800 tons, but the bunlsers will stow $50 tons. The armament is two S.2-inch quick firers, one placed forward and another aft In turrets; four 5.S-inch uuick-firers in casemates and four 5s-inch o,lick-firers in small turrets. She also carries ten 3.4- inch quick-firers protected by shields and a secondary battery of eighteen small quick-irers.
 The Spanish battle-ship Pelayo was in
 
 CTS when the declaration of war necessi- tated her immediate departure. Only four Of the sixteen Niclause boilers had been placed and pipe connections made with the engines, but nevertheless the ship went to sea and the other boilers were put up and connected. In less than forty eight hours the Pelayo had steam up in all her boilers and proceeded with the contractors trial trip of four hours un- der full power, which turned out success full The horsepower developed was 5000, under which a speed of Is knots was made, and the ship proceeded to Cadiz for final outfit at the home dockyard.
 Investigation of the manner in which the Russian battle-ship Gangoot was built has excited the wonder of the Ad- miralty officials that the vessel was not lost long before she did The ship sank in the Bay of Bothnia about six months ago while at target-firing practice and has since been raised. 1t is in the rivet- ing of the hull plates that the work was most deficient and great ingenuity dis played to cover up bad workmanship. In some places wooden plugs were found