Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-02-11

a2GH&zW a majority OF the
| "a - perIls which former
- iy made their practi-
E-S cal lives anything but
romantic in fact.
| - Most of the mod m
| ships heavy work is
done by machinery, and the orders for its
| doing are conveyed, not by the hoarse
note of the speaking trumpet" but by pre-
| else electrical impulses communicated
| through the agency of the mechanical
magnetic telegraph.
Only old-fashioned wooden vessels or
! coasters of inconsiderable tonnage depend
| today upon the beef and Drawn of the
| men in their forecastles for the perform
| ance of those tasks of drudgery which in
the days of yore occupied much of sail
| or's time and made of his existence anoat
and alongside the dock of arrival or de-
parture a burden to be borne only in the
hope of easier times in the future.
The modern ocean-going vessel, be her
means of propulsion steam or sails. and be
| her business the carrying of freight, pas
| sengers or mails, is equipped with a great
| variety of mechanical devices which relieve
| the men OF her company of most OF the
work demanding nothing but physical eX-
eftion. Incidentally, these devices, of
| course, reduce the numbers of men en-
ployed in the ships, on the man-per-ton
fatlo, and make necessary the presence in
the torecastleS and engine rooms OF a
higher quality of intelligence than was nee
esSary under the simple old system.
But the reduction OF men is compensated
by the multiplicity of the ships, and the
circumstance OF constantly increasing ton
mage.
The Blow TO Romance.
Doubtless romance. or picturesque effect
suffers in the substitution of a putting rat
ting steam windlaSs for the old-fashioned
capstan al Ound which thirty men crept in
slow, circular procession timing their steps
to the cadeLce Of a sailors "chantey," as
they laboricJsly broke OUT an anchor or
warped their craft to mid-stream prepara-
tory to sailing.
The "chanteys" characteristic words and
music would be drowned in the clatter of
pistons and cogs aboard modern ship but
the anchor comes aboard in half the time
1t used to take to hoist it, and the thirty
men may be bending Intelligent effort to
performing tasks more important and in
finitely less straining than that of raising
it.
So. too. with the work of hosting the
heavy sails aboard a modern freighter
which depends upon canvas for its mo-
| bility. In the old days a ship of 800 tons
would perforce carry crew of sixty men.
When sail was to be made or shortened
quickly the yards of her thin spars would
swarm with agile figures. long lines of men
would tail on to her braces, hallards and
stays, and the canvases would laboriously
rise in regular impulses to the lugubrious
measures OF a song.
The sailing ship of today carries donkey
engines, steam windlasses at every hatch
| for hosting cargo, and another on her
forecastle for use in handling the anchors.
She has steam "gypsies'' fed from her
donkey boilers, at every mast-foot, and the
work of getting her anchor or hosting her
canvas involves only the expert effort Of
an engineer and a dozen or so men aIoft,
VINO. as they perform the light labor of
ioosing recipients and overhauiing clew-
garnets, do not think of Paddy Jones' OF.
his traditional boots unless it be to offer UP
a thanksgiving that the system associated
With their memory has passed.
The Ship of Today.
But the profitable ship Of today, freghter
or liner, is the steam-driven, twin-screwed
carrier of tremendous tonnage and high
| speed. She earns dividends where the best
Of the sailing ships eat up their profits
in delays due to wind and weather-even
after the important item of coal consump-
ton has been taken into account. And the
profitable ship is profitable because applied
science has substituted the machine which
draws no wage for the man, who must be
paid, and because the coal she burns gives
her practical independence of the moods of
wind, wave and current.
The modern freight carrier and the mod
ern ocean greyhound differ only in their
interior arrangements and exterior lines
One is a floating hotel, built for high speed
| the other a floating warehouse built for
cargo capacity and steady going. Their
machinery, with a few individual peculiari-
ties IS the same. and of that machinery
there is no end-at least to the eye of a
layman.
Most of the new ships of the merchant
| marine are propelled by twin-screws driven
each by triple expansion engine of high
est efficiency. dozen douhle-ended Scotch
boilers supply their main and auxiliary en-
gfnes with steam at pressure of $50 to
POO pounds to the square inch.
Besides the main engines, modern YES
sci will contain in the depths below her
| thirty smaller engines, each adapted for
its special purpose. The pumps, feed
| pumps, bilge pumps, fire pumps, circulat-
ing pumps for the condensers and air
pumps for the vacuum chambers, usually
in duplicate in case of accident, Will num-
Der fifteen or twenty separate engines. The
dynamos. which supply the ships every
compartment with light and give her the
| wonderful might eyes called search lights,
purr in airs in the shaft tunnel.
Steam at the wheel.
In a special compartment double-cylin-
dered engine always busy while the ship
is at sea, answering the impulses of a toy
| wheel in the pilot house or on the bridge,
pushes the massive rudder this way or
that, making it possible for a single helms
man TO control the ieviathan's every move
ment by a finger touch. With the old hand
gear four men, reinforced by block and
tackle, had their hands full with the steer
ing of a big vessel in heavy weather
On deck, under the forecastle head, a
steam windlass with the latent power of
200 horses, hoists the anchors that a hun
dred men could not break OUT of a muddy
bottom, as If they were toys. At every
hatchway there is another windlass or
winch, driven by double engines, for hoist
ing and lowering cargo In loading or I'M
loading, and for handling boats or sails in
case of necessity.
Men must still stow the cargo and man
the boats-the machine does the rest.
Special engines hoist the ashes from the
boiler room of the modern ship to the
deck-a daily task which made the fire
room force grumble sorely in the early days
of steam navigation, and yet other engines
driving immense fans ventilate the cabins
and stokeholds and supply a forced pres
sure of air to assist the perfect combustion
of the furnaces.
~. IL.