Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1898-04-22
THE AMERICAN NAVY.
SOME NOTES OF INTEREST AT
THE PRESENT TIME.

pllanSSS Employed anu OthSi
Matters of Some Imrortanc.
Just Now.
The United States is the fifth naval
power in the world. The navies OF
Great Britain, France, Russia and
| Italy rank ahead in the order named
Germany and the United States are
about tied.
Our present effective fighting force
consists of four battleships of the first
class, one battleship of the second-class
two armored cruisers, eighteen cruis
ers, fifteen gun boats, six double tur'
reted monitors, one ram, one dyna'
mite gunboat, one dispatch, one trans
port and eight torpedo boats.
The Iowa weighs nearly 1900 tons,
and rs twenty tons is the average load
of a freight car and twelve cars is Il
good load for locomotive engine, 1t
would take fifty locomotives to haul
the great steel structure.
The powder used is brown and in
chunks the size of q caramel. A
charge for the biggest guns weighs
500 pounds and is hoisted to the
breech by derrick, the powder being
sewed up in burlap bags.
Armor plates are tested by firing
steel projectiles weighing from 100 to
1900 pounds at them from guns
charged with 500 pounds of gowder
and at a distance of about city
block.
Our battleships have a speed of
from fifteen to seventeen knots an
hour. Cruisers make nineteen to
twenty-four knots, while the moni.
tors can travel only five to seven
knots.
The biggest guns in the navy are
forty-nine feet long, big enough for a
man to crawl into; four feet in
diameter at their largest part, and
weigh 135, 500 pounds, or thereabouts.
There are six rear .admirals in &c.
tive service. The offices Of vice-ad-
miral and admiral are untitled, so
there is no head of the navy except
ing Secretary Long.
Barnacles form on the hull of a
ship, impeding its speed. A six
months cruise will decrease the speed
of ship Is per cent. and it must SO
into dry dock.
Sixty-one merchant vessels belong
to the auxiliary navy. These ships
are subsidized and by contract must
be given to the United States On de-
mand.
Some of the guns in the navy can
fire shot twelve miles, farther than a
man can see, for the guns are aimed
and sighted by machinery.
The amount expended by the navy
department in 1897 was $34, ,561 SAG.
This is a larger sum than has been
expended in any year since 1866.
In n battle, the woodwork and all ar.
ticles of wood are either slowed be-
low or thrown overheard, lest the men
be injured by splinters.
The origin of the navy department
may be said to date from Oct. 13,
ITS, when Congress authorized the
|. equipment of two cruisers.
The fastest vessels in the navy are
the torpedo boats Porter and Dupont
each of which can travel 27.5 knots an
hour.
Battleships cost from $2,5OO,OOO to
50, $50, 600, and cruisers from 5000 600
to 100000. A good torpedo boat
costs over 100000.
Battle-ships are for the heavy work
cruisers are the commerce destroyers
| monitors are useful only for coast de.
fense.
The Indiana could lie outside Sandy
Hook and throw 1,2OO-pound shots
into New York at the rate of four a
minute.
Those artists who show smoke in
their pictures of naval battles are
wholly wrong. Smokeless powder is
used.
All of the cruisers are named in
honor Of cities, and the battle-ships
except the Kearsarge, in honor ol
States.
The "grog" ration was abolished in
1868, and since then the crew has
been forbidden to drink while on duty
Marines are the police on board
ship. Originally they were employed
to prevent mutiDy among the sailors.
The guns OF battle ship can carry
from six to twelve miles, carrying &
shot weighing half ton.
Only 60 per cent. of the enlisted
men are Americans, and a smallel
percentage yet are native born.
Projectiles thrown by naval guns
are shaped much as the bullets thrown
by the ordinary rifle.
A big battle-ship has on board al
electric plant capable of lighting I
town of 5000 inhabitants.
The boilers Of the Iowa have :
heating surface of eight acres ant
hold thirty tons of water.
Great Britain has 264 torpedoes ant