Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1903-04-04

Seven Decks and PostOfHce.
Electric Plant VIII Light Cigars
In Smoking Saloon, Heat Curling
Irons or Flash u MarcOnigrnm.
Marvellous in construction, luxurious
in furnishings and appalling in size is
the Kaiser Wilhelm II. of the North
German Lloyd line. which was launch
ed last August and will arrive in New
York next month, says the New York
Commercial Advertiser. She is the
largest of the express steamships now
plying between the old world and the
new. She is about one-seventh of
mile long, 700 feet 6 inches, - feet
beam and her displacement is 26,500
tons of salt water. She has seven
decks and her height from the keelson
to roof of the smoking saloon is ~ feet
Z inches.
The steamship has two bottoms,
seven feet intervening between them.
If hidden rock should penetrate the
first bottom, the second would save
the ship. If by any mishap both bot
toms should be rent, seventeen power
full steam pumps, capable of discharg-
be put in action. Surprising that for
some reason all seventeen pumps re-
fused to work, safety would still be
secured by the seventeen water tight
transverse bulkheads and one long adj
ditional bulkhead in the engine room.
AS final precaution the Kaiser VIII
helm ii. carries Il hotilla of twenty-siX
boats that can be lowered into the wa
ter by four strong boat hoists.
1t is hoped that the new vessel will
attain a speed of twenty three and one
half knots an hour. Her two bronze
propelIers, 22 feet 10 Inches in diam
eter, are driven by four powerful en-
gines. Steam will be generated in nine
teen boilers. The driving shaft is go
feet long and weighs $4,000 pounds.
Despite the force of 10000 horsepower
which will be necessary to propeI this
floating city across the Atlantic in five
days vibration Will be reduced to n
minimum, for the main engines are bal
anced on the Schlick system.
In the passenger accommodations are
two imperial suits, with dining, draw
ing, bed and bath rooms, costing for
two passengers from New York to
in summer There are eight state cab
ms with bath. 300 first class cabins and
107 second class cabins. The first class
saloon is los feet long, 60 feet broad
and provides chairs for 534 passengers.
In the second class saloon 100 travel
erS can be seated. There are a chill
dren's saloon. smoking room, library,
typewriting room, drawing room and
two Vienna cafes. There is also
postoffice, the mails to be sorted and
landed ready for distribution Like
her sister ships, the Kaiser Wilhelm
ii. is equipped with the Marconi wire
less telegraph system.
An interesting feature is the cigar
shaped, submerged rudder apparatus,
with view to the vessel being re-
quired as an auxiliary cruiser.
She has nineteen boilers, with a total
heating surface of 107 900 squaVe feet,
the necessary steam power being pro-
duced at a pressure of 213 pounds.
There are double and single ended boil
ers, the former weighing when empty
264,000 pounds and the latter 161 200
pounds. The boiler rooms and coal
bunkers have Il total length of 295 feet,
and railroad track 500 feet in length
conveys the coal from bunkers to fur
naces. Combustion gases from the
nineteen boilers are discharged through
four tunnels. Cowls sixty-nine feet
long conduct the fresh air into the boil
er rooms.
The steering apparatus, worked by
steam power. consists of a main en-
CINE, built into the cigar shaped ex-
go ,INI f,,JI
the rudder at Il pressure of $4,000
pounds in few seconds from hard
a-starboard to hard a-port. A second
steering gear has been built, half pow
er, into house on the poop deck. Eli
ther apparatus can be worked from the |
foredeck and afterdeck bridges, as well |
as by hand wheel or tiller, worked by |
tackles.
The electric plant upon the ship will |
furnish $500 candle power, lighting |
2,700 incandescent lamps, will ring
electric bells, work electric signals, |
light cigars in the smoking saloon, turn
fans and even heat the ladies' curling
irons in the first and second cabins.
The Kaiser Wilhelm II. is capable of |
accommodating 7T5 first class, 343 Sec
ond class and 700 third class passen-
gers. Besides these. there is a crew of
GOO men, including the captain and Off
GERS, making nearly $500 persons
enough to populate a considerable town.
In the drawing room is a large por-
trait by Ludwig North of Emperor
Wilhelm H., whose name the ship
bears.
Bibles For New BattIeshfps.
Instead of fnIInr-i,cr custom nnd rrn- |