The San Francisco call., 1899-10-02

Contracts for twelve torpedo-boat
destroyers have been given out by the
British admiralty to half dozen private
shipyards in England and Scotland.
report comes from Shoeburyness of
some marvellous good target shooting. 1t
is alleged that a 6-inch quick-hring gun,
which fired 1000 shots against target
moving at the rate of thirty-seven miles
an hour, made $40 hits. Further particu-
lars are needed, such as distance of gun
from target and other conditions, in order
to have others besides Tommy Atkins be-
lieve it as an example of accurate hrlng.
The British battleship Canogsus, whose
trials were Cancelled by the admiralty
owing to defects in the machinery, has
had her leaky points repaired and passed
through one-fifth and two-fifth power
trials in the first days of September. The
ship was on an even keel of 26 feet
draught and developed 10,454 horsepower
with 255 pounds of steam consuming coal
at the low rate of 1.6S pounds per horse
power per hour, and the speed was 1L2
knots.
IT is reported that the British admiralty
is about to adopt pneumatic riveters and
other tools driven by compressed air for
use in the dockyards. AS American tools
of this description are the best, the manu-
facturers in this country are likely to
receive large orders, not alone from
foreign Government yards but also from
private ship-building establishments. The
introduction of these tools is also apt to
make trouble with the trades unions, es-
pecially in England.
France will place in commission during
the present year one battleship, one third
class cruiser, four torpedo-hoat de-
stroyers and twenty-five torpedo-boats
Great Britain will have placed in COM
mission for the same period five battle
ships, four first-class, four second class
and six third-class cruisers, besides about
twenty torpedo-boat detroyers. Not
withstanding the apparent great activity
| in Franch dockyards, only a few ships
are annually put in commission.
A training-ship for the Chilean navy
named General Bacquedamo has lust
been completed at the Armstrong yard,
ElsWick. The vessel is built of steel,
sheathed with wood and is 2300 tons dis
placement, with a length of 277 feet, As
feet inches beam and Is feet draught.
She is bark rugged with uXiliary steam
of 1860 horsepower, and carries $50 tons of
! coal. Her speed under steam is 13$4 knots,
and the battery consists of four 4.7-inch
two l2-pounders, two 6-pounders and one
1o-lncn DOW torpedo.
An armor plate trial took place at
Whale Island last month in the Nettle
easement. The plate was one of a lot to
go on the Japanese battleship Shiki-
shlma, building at the Thames Iron
| WORKS, and was of niclxle steel SA inches
thick and eight feet square. Two shots
| were fired at the plate from 9.2-inch
gun carrying a Hotter shell of 30S pounds
with velocity of 100 feet per second.
Neither shot penetrated nor did the plate
show any cracks. A third shot fired with
a velocity of 1900 feet penetrated the plate
10 depth of 334 inches, but there were
no cracks and the plate lot was accepted.
Italy contemplates building four S000-ton
armored cruisers of the Brice type. but
carrying smaller guns, namely, eight s.
inch and eight 6-inch. Although the
money has not been voted the ships have
already been named the Genoa, Piza,
Venezia and Amalfi. They are to have
$4,000 horsepower and a speed of %
knots. Italian builders and the Arm