Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1898-04-28
Interesting Facts Condensed to Nut
shell.

/ 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
cruisers, fifteen gun boats, six double
turreted monitors, one ram, one dyna-
mite boat, one dispatch boat, one
transport and eight torpedo boats
The Iowa weighs yearly $4,000 tons,
and as twenty tons is the average load
of a freight car and twelve cars is
good load for locomotive engine, it
would take fifty locomotives to haul
the great steel structure.
The powder used is brown and in
chunks the size of a carmel. A charge
for the biggest guns weighs $50 pounds
and is hoisted to the breach by der
rick, the powder being sewed up in
burlap bags.
Armor plates are tested by firing
steel projectiles weighing from 100 to
1,500 pounds at them from guns charg-
ed with 500 pounds of powder and at
distance of about a city block.
Our battleships have speed of from
fifteen to seventeen knots an hour.
Cruisers make nineteen to twenty-four
knots, while the monitors can only
travel from 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 1875, 500
pounds thereabouts.
There are six rear admirals in active
service. The Offices Of admiral and
vice admiral are untitled, so there is no
head Of the navy excepting Secretary
Long.
Barnacles form on the hull Of ship,
impeding its speed. A six months
cruise will decrease the speed of a
ship 10 per cent. and it must go 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 a shot twelve miles, further than
man can see, for the guns are aimed
and sighted by machinery.
The amount expended by the navy
department in 1897 was $34, SCI ,546.
This is larger sum than has been ex-
pended in any year since 1865.
In a battle the woodwork and all
articles Of wood are either slowed
below or thrown overheard lest the
men be injured by splinters.
The origin of the navy department
may be said to date from October 10,
1775, when congress authorized the
equipment of two cruisers.
The fastest vessels III the navy are
the torpedo boats Porter and Dupont,
each Of which can travel 81 knots an
hour.
Battleships cost from $1,000, 600 to
50, 7J0, 600, and cruisers from $500, OOO to
$4,000, 1000. A good torpedo boat costs
over 100000.
Battleships are for the navy work;
cruisers are commerce destroyers;
monitors are useful only for coast de-
fense.
The Indiana could lie outside Sandy
Hook and throw 200 pound shots into
New York at the rate of four minute.
Those artists who show smoke in
their pictures of naval battles are
wholly wrong. Smokeless powder is
used.
All the cruisers are named in honor
of cities, and the battleships, except
the Kearsarge, in honor of 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 pre-
vent mutiny among the sailors.
The guns of a battleship can carry
from six to twelve miles, hurting a shot
weighing half ton.
Only 60 per cent. OF the enlisted
men are Americans, and a smaller per-
centage yet are native born.
Projectiles thrown by naval guns are
shaped much as the bullets shot by
the ordinary rifle.
A big battleship has on board an
electric plant capable of lighting
town Of 1000 inhabitants.
The boilers of the Iowa have Il heat
ing surface of eight acres and hold
thirty tons of water.
Great Britain has 294 torpedo and
torpedo boat destroyers. Uncle Sam
has op1y aiUbt