The San Francisco call., 1898-05-20
so THE WAR VESSEL GOES
 BACK TO THE YARD.
Work of Repairs Will Be Carried On Day and Night in Order That No Time Will Be Lost in
 Departing for Manila,

to Mare Island early this morning for repairs which Captain Glass thinks it may take a day or possibly forty-eight hours to complete.
 The cruiser left the nayy-yard, bound for Manila, promptly at 10 o'clock on Wednesday morning. She steamed down the bay under a good head to Red Rock, opposite the upper end of Raccoon Straits, when the ship was swung and her compaSSes adjusted to get the angle of deviation caused by the steel of the hull. It was a most interesting process and lasted, as the navigating officer had figured it would, during the greater part of the after noon.
 It had been the intention to figure up the results of the compass adjust ment during the night-and this was what was done-and run out to sea early this morning. but during the pro- cess of swinging ship it was discovered that the tubes in the condenser of the boiler were leaking, and to so great an extent as to render repairs advisa- ble at the earliest possible moment. There was not, of course, any danger to the ship in this condition of affairs, excepting the remote danger that the salt water overflowing into the boilers rom the condenser, would make scale of salt and eventually wear out the boiler through disintegration. There was likewise the condition that salt water in the boilers would retard the vessels progress and cause a greater coal consumption for the voyage-a most serious consideration in view of the supply possible to carry in the bunkers and the length of the prospec- tive trip. Of course Captain Glass could have taken his ship to Honolulu, where the repairs needed could be made, but they could be made there neither so effectually nor so expedi- tiously as at Mare Island, which was close by and where all the tools needed for the work were right at hand. More over, with full steam on it was im- possible to take the caps off the con- denSers and ascertain whether one OF a dozen tubes were leaking. If only one were faulty, the one could be plugged and the cruiser go on her way with only a few hours delay. If moro than one was at fault then the defec- tive tubes could be taken out and new and sound ones substituted. But So long as the exact extent of the damage was unknown the captain and the chief engineer would be working in the dark. The boilers of the Charleston had been given a short trial in the yard before the vessel started for sea. Everything had been found to work satisfac-
 
 sound and the machinery perfect in ali its parts The longer test and higheF speed of the trip down the bay had developed defects heretofore latent. The condenSerS were leaking with salt water, and while all that might come from one brass tube, worn by age or defective in the original casting, on the other hand there might be a sufficient number of tubes defective in addition to those plugged at the yard in making repairs, to seriously cripple the cruiser at sea, or even to cause a breakdown perhaps at a moment when to break down would be fatal. In a vessel go- ing to tempt the fortunes of war whoss first mission out of port was believed to be to act as escort to the fleet of ships carrying the California troops to Manila, 1t was decided, and wisely, not to take even remote chance of a breakdown.
 The Charleston lay all night at the head of Raccoon Straits, within sight and almost within hearing of the land. but 1t was long after midnight when the concluSion was finally reached to go back to Mare Island for repairs.
 At half past this morning the ves- sel got under way, and at half past she was once more in the yard and the work of inspecting her boilers to as- certain the exact nature of the defect begun. The work will go on every hour, night and day, so that the delay in reaching Admiral Dewey will be as brief as possible.
 The examination of the condenser of the Charleston made to-day shows that the vessel will not be delayed more than forty-eight hours in getting away to Manila. It was demonstrated in one of the condenSers examined that only one tube was leaking and this was the condenser that gave the most trou- ble. This tube will be replaced and the other condenser opened tomorrow.
 The examination has shown that the blame for the delay in getting the ship away was with the contractor who fur nished the tubes from the East, and not with the nayyyard officials. The tubes all of them new were furnished on contract by Norfolk Va) concern and being made at cheap rates were also probably made by cheap process. There was no way to determine their quality, of course, until they had been tested, and made as they were, they were apt to split even while in transit to the coast before they had been used at all, and as soon as the ship reached the yard this morning new tubes were ordered from the Union Iron Works, $500 of them, and as the ships conden- sers only require 2S95 altogether, she Will De OuIllIleQ dil ItSHI MueIl Siie puts to sea again. The spare tubes will be taken down on the ship.
 The story telegraphed to the New York Evening Journal to the effect that one of the crew of the Charleston had tempered with her machinery is ab surd on it's face. The condenser tubes are five-eighths of one inch in diame- ter and are placed in a vacuum cylin- der To reach the tubes to tamper with them it would be necessary for the alleged tamperer to take out the low pressure valves of the engine Ca manifest impossibility) remove the con- denser head, a work which required large force from the navy-yard nearly all day, crawl into the vacuum and cut the tubes; orthe alleged tampererwould have to jump overheard and get him. self pumped up with the salt water into one of the fve-eighth inch tubes, when he would have to cut the brass tube from the inside. The yellow journal, it Is clear, can get no sensa. tion out of the sensible precaution ta. ken by Captain Glass to secure the most perfect safety of his ship.
 Captain Glass himself told me to- night that the Evening Journal state