The Lexington dispatch. [volume] (Lexington, South Carolina) 1870-1917, 1898-04-13
Our Navy in a Nutshell.
From the Chicago Times-H raid.


load of freight car and II cars is a
good load for q locomotive engine, ii
would take so locomotives to haul
the great steel structure.
The powder used is brown and in
chunks the size of caramel. A
charge for the biggest guns weighs
500 pounds and is hoisted to the
breach by derrick, the powder be-
ing sewed up in burlap bags.
Arnor plates are tested by firing
steel prcjectiles weighing from 100
to 1900 pounds at them from guns
charged with 500 pounds of powder
and at distance of about city
block.
Our battleships have a speed OF
from Is to II knots an hour.
Cruisers make 10 10 "a knots, while
the monitors can travel only FIVE to
seven knots.
The biggest guns in the navy are
40 feet long, big enough for man
to crawl into; 4 feet in diameter at
their largest part and weigh
1876, 500 pounds or thereabouts.
There are six rear admirals in &C.
tive service. The off ;es Of vice ad-
miral and admiral are untitled, so
there is no head of the navy except
ing Secretary Lorg.
Bsrnacles from on the hull Of q
ship, impeding its speed. A six
months cruise will decrease the
speed of ship Is 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 shot 20 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 s34, ,561 $40.
This is larger sum than has been
expended in any year since 1866
In a battle the woodwork and ell
articles of wood are either slowed be-
low or thrown overheard lest the
men be ipiared by spliuters.
The origin of the navy department
NAV be said to date from October 13,
IT'S, when congress authorized the
equipment ef 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 S2,500,000
to S3,75O,COO and cruisers from s60h,
900 to S3,OO0,O00. A good torpedo
boat costs over 100000.
Ba;tleships are for the heavy work;
cruisers are commerce destroy yers;
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 minute.
Those artists whow smoke in tLeil
pictures of navel battles are wholly
wrong. Smokeless powder is used.
All of the cruisers are named il
honor of cities, and the battleshlps
except the Kearsarge, in honor o1
states.
The "grog" ration was abolished
in 1863, and since then the crew ha:
been forbidden to drink while OF
duty.
Maripes are the police on board
ship. Originally they were EN-
ployed to prevent mutipy among th'
sailors. The guns Of battleshl!
can carry from 6 to II miles, hurl!nE
a shot weighing half ton.
Only 60 per cont. of the enlisted
men are Americans, and smalle
percentage yet are native born.
Proiectiles thrown by naval gun
are shaped much as the bullets sho
by the ordinary rife.
A big battleship has on board al
electric plant capable of lighting
| town OF 5000 Inhabitants.
The boilers of the Iowa have
heating surface of eight acres an
| bold 80 tons Of water.
Great Britain has 294 torpedoe
and torpedo boat destroyers. UncI
Sam has only eight.