Evening star., 1898-12-10

where 1t win be difficult for an enemy $
shot to reach them. This is a distinct ad-
vance upon our part, and very decided
lessening of the danger of being hoist with
our own petard
The ships will be driven by triple-expan-
sion engines, actuating twin screws. Each
arate wa ater-tight compartments, and when
making quite 126 revolutions minute will
induce speed of eighteen knots hour.
To stand in the path of one of these yes
sells then will mean to take blow Of 49,,
600 foot-tons from her ponderous ram. a
death stroke even worse than the point
blank massing Of all four of the twelve
inch guns. The toughest fabrication of
steel would bend before that thrust like
meadow grass in a gale, and the whole
ship would either be cut in two or bodily
carried under the surging waters.
Water-Tube Boilers.
To meet the greed of the throbbing en-
gines each ship will carry as many as
twenty-four water-tube boilers, each boiler
with three large hungry mouths to be fed
constantly with coal, that these great
caldrons may be kept up to their working
pressure Of $50 pounds. Aside from their
capacity to generate steam constantly at
the proper pressure, these boilers are able
to raise their steam quickly and this facil
ity may mean not only economy in between
times. but victory, perhaps. in the sudden
coming of battle. The full coal supply Of
2,tDo tons Will give us a raGluS OF dCllpn
equal to the l5090-ton battle ships of the
British while the difference in boilers will
give these later vessels quite double the
endurance of the Illinois and class having
a coal supply of 200 tons.
The contract price of hull and machinery
only for the Maine and the Missouri build
ing, respectively. at Cramps and al New
port News is s2,SS5000. and that for the
Ohio, awarded to the Union Iron Works,
81 S.9UU0.
The First Ohio.
This modern Ohio of fifty-one guns. in
name, recalls that doughty Old seventy
four-gun ship of the line, Ohio. built in
1920. With a battery of twelve eight-inch
and seventy-two thirty-two-pounder guns
a total of eighty-four-she represented the
typically fine fighting craft of her day. and
with her water line sides thirty-two inches
through of seasoned oak, she WAS really
proof against her own guns at mile. The
modern 0hio'S battery Of SiN-pOundIrS. a
thousand yards away, would tear right
through both sides of such craft as that
of yore, while a thickness of mild steel of
tve-eighths of an inch would have quite
the defensive virtue of those oaken sides.
Her original cost, complete. was $34l .Sl3
The contrast is an object lesson in the
cost of modern warfare, as well, 100. as AN
instructive picture in the national advance
ment of eight decades.
The old Missouri, built in IL and burned
at Gibraltar in 'i3, the fifth of our earliest
steamships. had the Steaming speed of
seven knots an hour She carried battery
of two ten-inch and eight eight-mch muZ-
zle-loaGing sno Jth-Lore guns. and cost COM
plete about $,I09C0. As a stepping stone
to the modern fighting craft she deserves
an honorable position in memory, even if
her short life cut her out of history and
participation with her sister snip. the Mis-
sissippi, in the Mexican war.
ROBERT G. SkERRETT