The herald., 1898-08-07

not too much injured to be repaired and
made seaworthy again, and Hobson made It
clear that the Cristobal Colon and the In
fanta Maria Teresa could be saved from
the greedy NAV of the ocean and, with a
good deal of mending and new names, made
worthy additions to the United States navy.
But for the dastardly act of the crew of
the Cristobal Colon in opening every inlet
by which water could get into the ship,
after they had hauled down their flag and
the vessel was virtually our property, that
dne ship would have been afloat now In
stead Of breaking her back on the unsympa
thetic Cuban beach, But wrecking ma
chinery can undo the mischief done by the
6paniards, and it Is only question of time
when the Cristobal Colon will be weighed
UP and floated once more, this time with
flag to be proud Of waving aloft and SAIL
ors aboard her who will make her snort
with glee at the respect she inspires.
Although struck eight times by missiles
from American guns, there are only two
serious wounds in the hull of the Cristobal
Colon, and these can be repaired that
the ship will be in as good condition as when
she left the slips. The Maria Teresa was
hit thirtythree times, but none of the
wounds were mortal, and skllful repairing
can make of her a good sound ship once
more.
With the prospects of ever getting any in
demnity from Spain becoming smaller and
smaller the hopeless bankruptcy of that
pitiful nation of hobo grandees becomes
more and more apparent, it is some consoa-
tion to know that, besides the territorial
additions, the prizes Of the war will in
clude two fine warships
Just at this point ii may be excusabe to
make a slight depression in order to en-
phasze the novelty of another unique fea-
ture of this Unprecedented fight namely
that not only will our navy, according to
present indications, come out of war in
which the fighting has largely been done a
sea without the loss of a single ship, but
with its effectiveness increased by the addi-
tion of two fine craft If any war waged
since men fought battles can show such
result its record has been lost
To come back to the subject of the effect
iveness of the Cristobal Colon and Infanta
Teresa as American ships of war it is well
to know that the former is an exceedingly
nne vessel, and naval experts have been
amazed at the poor showing she made in
the fight outside Santiago harbor.
The Cristobal Colon is an armored cruiser
0Ao WoS vi iiS4HdtiN lIle 'IuiSOpDc tIdllDdltll
II. Her displacement is e3i0 tons and her
indicated horse power 1900. Her main
armament consists of two 10-inch guns and
ten 6-inch guns and six i.I-inch and four
<orpedo tubes. 50 that She is powerful in
this respect. She is protected by a six-inch
belt of Harveyed steel and her guns are
similarly provided. Her deck plating is
one and half inches thick. Her normal
coal supply is 1900 tons. She was launched
at Sestri P0nents in 1896.
The Infanta Maria Teresa is also an
armored cruiser of the Vizcaya class. She
was built in 1881 at Bilbao. Her displace-
ment is 1000 tons, her length $40 feet;
breadth, 65 feet, and maximum draught. 21
feet 6 inches. She is propelled by twin
screws, her engines developing 13 900 horse
power. Her normal coal supply is large,
namely. 1900 tons, sufficient to take her
hearty 10000 miles at ten knots
These vessels have armor belts twelve
inches thick extending from bow to stern,
but tapering Off at the extremities. Their