The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-10-02

I
 than most men, -of-war, and most o them are able to carry about twice a
 much coal In their bunkers as the,
 need for their voyages Finally, mer
 chant steamship lines don't experimen , with coal with anything like the sam
 persistence as navies
 Ever since men-of-war were frs
 driven by steam the worlds navie
 have been experimenting with coal
 The results of their experiments up tC
 the present time, as most of the chic } engineers confess, may be represented
 by 0. The steaming radius of a ton 'o1
 coal, the weight of a ton of coaTs
 smoke, the proportionate amount ol
 clinker in each and all the worlds
 brands of steaming coal-these anc
 about 40 others of similar character are
 the minor problems that come in fol
 solution after the chief problem of get
 ting enough coal aboard to drive the
 ship specified distance is solved
 These are the pencil and pad puzzles
 that conduce so to the conversion of
 naval engineers into neurasthenic
 wrecks.
 Of course, the big problem is the ~
 enough coal aboard a war ship to drive
 her through certain number of ma
 rine leagues. Chief engineers of war
 ships starting out on long reaches
 have sometimes to nurse coal like
 Klondike miners nursing provisions. Coal is deceiving and treacherous It
 has an utterly inexplicable fashion of
 working it's way into the furnaces, of
 sneaking out of bunkers and of smash
 ing the calculation slates of shippers
 and engineers to smithereens. Many
 an innocent coal heaver on board
 mano-war has got himself dragged
 to the mast to explain to his skipper
 and chief engineer the absence of
 certain amount of coal that ought to
 be" still remaining in the bunkers the
 coal beaver has been working in, but | that isn't there all the same. Coal passers have been badgered into say | ing, ''I don't eat the coal" under these circumstances.
 When coal consumption calculations are spoiled in this way, the recrimina- tion that follows all along the line is something fierce. The skipper says the chief engineer hasn't a properly developed bumb of economy. The chief says the men have sneaked the coal into the furnaces, The men say the coal is no good and burns like punk or dry hemp. And the coal goes right on using itself up as if bewitched.
 Of course, chief engineers know just how much coal the bunkers of their ships will hold to a pound--in cubic measurement. But figures lie with reference to coal. When a chief mid way on a cruise, wants to know how much coal he has used and how much he has on hand, he never simply sub tracts the amount used, according to his log, from the amount taken aboard at the outset of the cruise. He knows that if he does this he'll probably get hits ship in the trough of the sea 400 or 800 miles from land without pound of coal left to move her into port. He first sends his yeoman or clerk, chief petty officer, into the bunkers to do some figuring. He discounts the yeo- mans report through his knowledge l that all yeomen are optimists, and | therefore likely to tack on good many more tons than the bunkers really con- [ tain.
 After the yeoman has washed up and i made his pen and pencil sketch of the bunkers, with the figured amount of coal remaining in each of them, the chief sends one of his cadet en- gineers through the bunkers for a re- port on the amount of coal remaining on hand. The cadet engineer does some fancy figuring, making his calcu lations as abstruse and rounda bout as possible for the greater effect of them, and then the chief has one of the asss- tant engineers make the murky, smutty trip through the bunkers. The assis tant engineers figures occasionally get within a hundred tons or so of the figures presented by the yeoman and -he cadet engineer. Finally, the chief assumes the blue jumpers and blouse himself, and makes the cruise through he bunkers. He always emerges from he bunkers with gloomy eye and with his confidence in the three officers le has sent through the bunkers quite hattered and he generally makes straight for the cabin and announces o the captain that if the speed of the hip is not immediately slackened he : won't be responsible for the ships run ! ling out of coal In mid-ocean. | The ships of the navy almost always 1, oal from lighters. The blue-jackets in ! he lighter shovel the coal into bags hat hold about quarter of ton : ach The bags are then whipped over he side and the coal dumped into the eck bunker holes. In the British and ther navies they coal ship differently :. \ circular chain of men is planted all '. he way from the lighters anchored long side to the bunker holes, and the ' oal Is passed up from the lighters and yer the side into the bunker holes in V mall baskets that hold about peck ach. This looks like toy work, but, as .
 matter of fact, it is a better and V uicker way of coaling ship than our a wn, and there is talk of adopting the Il ystem in our navy. The men who andle the baskets acquire the pro l ciency of brick throWers in the work, s nd the chain is always on the move, n ) that a lighter containing 100 tons of a pal or so is emptied by this system in l' n almost incredibly short space of " me. While a war ship is being coaled a, Il hands fore and aft, are compelled l., eat, breathe and slep coal. There is n 3 such thing as warding off the dust. l.,
 Dern1p1 res the whole shin and tha ! 'f