The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1903-01-18
BOSTON Ian II

at the new Fore River shipyard, down in
The like is not being done in any other
American shipyard so that the visitor
who takes pleasure in watching his white
navy in actual process of construction
may find here a suggestion of the
formidable power of this new class OF
fighting ships that he can hardly look for
elsewhere.
The size and general outline of these
two heavyweights are only just beginning
to be apparent, however AS you come
within hearing distance of that dull, con-
tinuous roar of hammers, without which
no battleship can proceed. and stand
opposite the huge skeleton ship house, -
with its electric cranes travelling back and
forth overhead like so many trolley cars
on an inverted four-tracked street, two
belligerent looking cast steel prows stick
out at you from a confused mass of
wooden staging-their, lower corners pro-
jected forward like the under jaw of a
bulldog. These are the business ends of
the two great steel hulls which are
reckoned among the largest, and are, in
been built for vessels of war, in this
country or any other. Each is exactly
alike to the last rivet; but neither details
nor shape nor size can be more than
guessed at on account of the mass of
props and platforms that surround and
hide them and the gangs of busy me-
chanics everywhere at work.
But by way of the inclined runway one
is soon up on deck-or what appears to
be the deck at this stage of construction.
Here the whole ship, as far as she has
proceeded, lies in view beneath one. The
deck on which you stand as it APP
proaches the vessels sides and ends,
slopes downward giving the two ships
the appearance of Noah's ark, or of
numerous twin turtles with their legs
drawn safely in under their shells. This
is as little as possible what the vessels
will finally resemble, for although it looks
like long way down into the cavernous
hold, much more hull remains to be added
above and we are still only a few feet
above what will ultimately be the water
line.
The advantage Of being on hand so
early however, is that certain very es-
sential features of modern battleship
building are plainly evident which will
later on be built over and hidden from
view. The heavily armed battIeship, like
these two monster turtles, is in a class
by herself and fights by her own par
ticular methods. She makes no boast of
fleetness Of foot, like the slender de
stroyer." or of combined pugnacity and
long-distance. endurance, like the pro-
tected cruiser, or even Of sheer defensive
strength like the monitors. She expects,
howeYer-unlike the proverbial policeman
always. tic be at the right place at the
right time, always to take, up the most
dangerous position she can find in the
line Of battle, and everlastingly to stick
there to the despite and destruction Of
her enemies.
The battleship, therefore, is built to
take many hard blows, as well as to give
them, though knowing all the time that
these hard blows, coming from modern
twelve-inch rifles, will probably ,shatter
the heaviest armor she can float under.
But there are certain vital organs with
in her-aboVe all her engines and boilers
that must be made absolutely = safe
against shots, and the only way to make
them so, since impenetrable armor, has
not yet been invented, is to add one safe
guard to another until chance of injury Is
Chamber down the slope OF the protective
deck" on which you have been standing,
and look over the side, you will see be-
low you jog orpshelf running along the
vessels side, above which she is narrower
than she is below. Upon this is to go the
eleven-ineh nickel steel armor plating,
extending few feet above and below the
water line and going nearly all around
the vessel from end to end like a stout
= l1Ix +11-1
care of all small shots from the enemy's
guns. For the larger, more penetrating
shots, the V-shaped space in which we
now stand, between the upright side Of
the vessel and the slant of the protective
deck will be filled with coal, as a part
of the ships bunker capacity, to hori-
zontal thickness of nearly ten feet. This
is a much more efficient shield than the
steel arnor itself, on the same principle
that rifle bullet can be shot through a
chilled steel ploughshare, but not through
a feather pillow. Furthermore, in order
that water shall not follow in where the
shot has entered, there is to be a three
foot space between the arnor and the
coal bunkers which will be filed with
compressed cornstalk pith, called cellu-
lose. which swells up as soon as it is wet
and closes the shot hole in the plates
And, even suppose the enemy succeeds in
both, then when it's steel head finally
reaches the slanting turtle back be-
meath our feet it is DETECTED up through
the vessels upper works and if it still
has the force to carry it, out into the air,
precisely as a skipping stone will glance
upward from the surface of a pond.
AS for any destruction which may take
place above the arnnor belt and the pro-
tective deck, there are here but two
afy7+r A1o 1oc%
really indispensable-the two turrets, that
is,which carry the Pinch rifles. And these.
from their combination of rounded shape
and extra heavy armor, are supposed to
be invulnerable. After all, then, we have
in the modern battleship little more, so
far as principle goes, than an old-fash-
toned monitor-or impenetrable whale
back" if you like-with a few stories of
superstructure added aboYS it; and if our
vessel really lived up to the naval con-
structor's ideal, we might find her at the
end of hard engagement totally dis
mantled above the protective deck, with
all her smaller guns disabled and their
gallant crews killed, with her deck house
knocked into junk and her funnel, masts,
boat derricks, and all the rest of it over
board. but with four Pinch rifles still
swinging toward the enemy and below
decks a perfect set of boilers and en-
gines and still workable emergency
steering gear.
In the two Fore river battleships prog
ress has been made to the point where one
may begin to trace out the general plan
within the hold. We can follow the out
lines of the six boiler-roonls-all separate
from one another TO insure greater safe
ty; then, aft of these the narrow space
which is. to be filed with coal to- guard
against explosion; and beyond this the
two larger spaces for the twin engines.