The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1898-04-13
Our Navy in a Nutshell.

class, two armored cruisers, Is cruisers,
Is gunboats, six double turreted moni-
tors, one ram, one dynamite boat, one
dispatch boat, one transport and eight
torpedo boats.
The Iowa weighs nearly II, 900 tons,
and as 20 tons is the average load of
freight car and II cars is good load
for locomotive engine, it 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 breech by der
rick, the powder being sewed up in
burlap bags.
Armor plates are tested by firing
steel projcctiles weighing from 100 to
500 pounds at them from guns charg-
ed 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 19 to "a knots, while the moni-
tors can travel only five to seven knots.
The biggest guns in the navy are 49
feet long, big enough for man to
crawl into; feet in diameter at their
largest part and weigh 135, 800 pounds
or thereabouts.
There are six rear admirals in active
service. The Offices of vice admiral
and admiral are untitled, so there is no
head Of the navy excepting Secretary
Long.
Barnacles form on the hull of a ship,
impeding its speed. A six months
cruise will decrease the speed Of a
ship Is per cent, and 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 30 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, ,561, $40.
This is larger sum than has been ex-
pended in any year since 1866.
In a battle the woodwork and all ar
ticles 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 13,
1875, when Congress authorized the
equipment Of 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 s2,5OO,oOO to
So, 100000, and cruisers from $780, 900
to s3,OOO,OOO. A good torpedo boat
costs over 500, 900.
Battlchips are for the heavy work;
cruisers are commerce destroyers: mon
itors are useful only for coast defense.
The Indiana could lie outside Sandy
Hook and throw 1,20O-pound shots
into New York at the rate of four a
minute.
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 ofscities, and the battleships,
except the Kearsage, in honor Of
States.
The "grog' ration was abolished in
1893, 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 prevent mutiny among the sailors.
The guns of a battlcship can carry
from to II miles, hurling shot
weighing half ton.
| Only 80 per cent. of the enlisted
men are Americans, and a smaller per-
centage yet are native born.
Projectilcs thrown by naval guns
are shaped much as the bullets shot
by the ordinary rifle.
\ big battleship has on board an
electric plant capable of lighting a
town of 5000 Inhabitants.
The boilers of the Iowa have heat
ing surface of eight acres and hold 30
tons Of water.
Great Britain has 2294 torpedoes and
torpedo boat destroycrs. nclc Sam
has only eight.
L;vo burdrcd and twcnty-six mer