Eureka weekly sentinel. [volume] (Eureka, Nev.) 1887-1902, 1898-04-16
FACTS ABOUT OUR NAVY.

Ureat britain, france, hueela anu
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 gunboats, six double
turreted monitors, one ram. one dyna-
mite gunboat, one dispatch boat, one
transport and eight torpedo boats.
The Iowa weighs nearly II, 900 tons,
and as twenty tons is the average load
of a freight car, and twelve cars is
good load for locomotive engine, il
would take fifty 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 80 pounds
and is hoisted to the breech by der
rick, the powder being sewed up in
burlap bags.
Our battleships have a speed Of
from fifteen to seventeen knots an
hour. Cruisers make nineteen to
twenty-four knots, while the monitors
can only travel 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 diam
eter at their largest part and weigh
135, 800 pounds, or thereabouts.
There are six Rear Admirals in act
i've service. The offices OF Vice Ad-
miral and Admiral are untitled, so
there is no head OF the navy excepting
Secretary Long.
Some OF the guns in the navy can fire
q shot twelve miles, farther than
man can see, for the guns are aimed
and sighted by machinery.
The amount expended by the navy
department in 1897 was s34, ,56l $40.
This is a larger sum than has been ex-
pended in any year since 1866.
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
$3.50, 900 and cruirers from 5000, ,ooo
to s3.0oo,ooo. A good torpedo boat
costs over 500, 900.
Battleships are for the navy work
cruisers are commerce destroyers;
monitors are useful only for coast de-
tense.
The Indiana could lie outside Sandy
Hook and throw 200 pound shots in
to New York at the rate of four q min.
ute.
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 battleships.
except the Kearsarge. in honor OF
States.
Marines are the police on board
ship. Originally they were employed
to prevent rnutiny among the sailors.
A big battleship has on board an
electric plant capable Of lighting a
town Of 5000 inhabitants.
Great Britain has 294 torpedoes and
torpedo boat destroyers; Uncle Sam
has only eight.
Five hundred and twenty-six men
and forty officers are required to man
the cruiser New York.
Battleships are covered with armor
OF nickel steel from 5 to inches thick.
We have four armored battleships-
the Indiana, Iowa, Massachusetts and
Texas.
submarine boat TO be kno wn as the
Plunger is now under construction.
AT present the total enlisted force OF
the naval militia is $3.50 officers and
men.
Behind the heavy armor there is a
pauuing OF either corn pith or cocoa
husks.
IL costs $500 every time one OF the
big guns on board ship is fired.
The Brooklyn and New York are our
armored cruisers.
Sailors are paid from $3.50 to $3.50
per month and board.
An act of Congress in 1873 abolished
fogging in the navy.
A captain of the navy ranks with a
colonel in the army.
We have the only ram-the Katah.
din.
The Truckss river 10 lower than at any
amsisf maay ssAss as shis season.