Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1898-04-14
Our Navy In o Nutshell.
[Chioago Times.H Herald

Oiiu oiass, TWO afmOreu cruisers, IL
cruisers, Ii %gunboats, six double
turreted monitors, one ram, one dy-
Mantle boat, one dispatch boat, one
transport and eight torpedo boats.
The Iowa weighs nearly 10000
toms, and rs 70 tons Ia tho average
load of a freight car and IL cars is a
good load for q locomotive engine, it
would take so locomotives to haul
the great steel structure.
The powder used is brown and in
chunks the size of a caramel. A
charge for the biggest guns Weighs
800 pounds and is hoisted to the
breech by a derrick, the powder being
sewed up in burlap bags.
Armor plates are tested by firing
steel %projeotiles weighing from 100
to 1900 pounds at them from guns
charged with 500 pounds of powder
and at a distance Of about q CITY
block.
Our battleships have a speed of
from 5to1 II knots an hour. Cruisers
make 10 to "a knots, while the mont
tors can travel only five to eve
knots.
The biggest guns in the navy ale
40 feet long, big enough for q man
to crawl into ; 4 feet in diameter OF
their largest part and weigh 135,50O
pound OF Whereabouts.
There are six rear admirals in &C.
tive service. The offices of vice adj
miral and admiral are untitled, so
there is no head Of the navy except
ing Secretary Long.
Barnaoles form on the hull of q
ship, impeding its speed. A six
months cruise will decrease the
speed Of a ship Is, per cent, and it
must 60 into dry dock.
Sixty-one merchant vessels belong
to the auxiliary navy. These ships
are subsidized and by contract must
be given to tho United States on
demand.
Some of the guns IN the navy can
fire a shot 20 miles, farther rSan q
man Gan see, for tho gums arc aimed
and sighted by machinery.
The amount expended by the navy
department in 1897 was $34, 561, $40.
This is a larger sum than has been
expended in any year since 1886.
In a battle the woodwork and oil
articles of wood are either slowed
below or thrown overheard lest the
men be injured by splinters.
The origin of the navy depart.
mont may be said to date from Octo.
Der 13, Its, when Congress author,
lied tho equipment of two cruisers
The fastest vessels in the navy are
the torpedo boats Porter and Du.
pont, each Of which can travel 27.G
knots an hour.
Battleships cost from $4,000, 900 tt
&3,750,000, and cruisers from 5000,
600 to $3.000,000. A good torpedo
boat costs over 100000.
Battleships arc for the heavy work
cruisers + commerce destroyers
monitors are useful only for coast de-
Tense.
The Indiana could lie outsi de Sand,
Hook and throw 1,200-pound shots
into New York at the rate of four q
minute.
Those artists who show smoke II
their pictures of naval battles arr
wholly wong. Smokeless powder ii
used.
All the cruisers are named il
honor of cities, and the battleships
except the Kearsage, in honor O
States.
The "grog" ration was abolished
in 1868, and since then the rev ha,
been forbidden to drink while O,
duty.
Marines are the police on boart
ship. Originally they were employed
to prevent mutiny among the sailors
The guns of a battleship can carr,
from 6 to IL miles, hurting q sho
weighing half a ton.
Only 60 per cent of the enlisted
men We Americans, and q smalle
percentage yet are native born.
Projectiles thrown by naval gun
are shaped much as tho bullets sho
by the ordinary rifle.
a big battloship has on board a,
electric plant capable of lighting
town of 5000 inhabitants.
The boilers of the Iowa have
heating surface of eight acres aa'
hold 80 tons Of water.
Great Britain has 294 .torpedoe
and torpedo-boat destroyers. Uncl
Sam has only eight.