The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-10-14

er-the latter first cousin of the battle ship and pretty nearly as capable of taking care of herself in a prolonged, close range contest of arms. To pursue the subject further 1t may be added that of the 2S warships uncompleted at this writing 1T are battleshps or armored cruisers, whereas 1t is proposed to submit at the next session of Congress the plans for a new battleship intended to be the most powrfu fighting machine eyer de- vised and that will outdo John Bulls lately completed master of the seas, the Dreadnought.
 Building battleships to keep the peace is, however, rather an expensive luxury. The general public appears to have an Impression, probably dating from the days before the Spanish War, that first class battleship costs, complete and ready for service, about $5,0O00o0 However the price of battleships, like almost every other commodity, has advanced during recent years. To be sure, the hull of such ship-the framework, without armor or armament costs less ip proportion than formerly, being available in most instances at less than S4,00O,o ,o00, but more guns are carried on the up-todate battleship than were provided in days gone by, and this in- crease, together with the other added frills that are considered essential. runs the cost up to Ss,O00, 900 or thereabouts.
 The life of usefulness of the average battleship is much more brief than was formerly the case, and this furnishes another interesting factor in the recent development of the United States Navy. Thus a large proportion of the public was surprised the other day by the an nouncement that the battleship Texas, which played a rather prominent part in the Spanish war had been retired from the fighting line as obsolete and would henceforth be used only as a station ship at one of the navy yards. The three sister ships, the Indiana, Massachusetts and Oregon, are pretty near as old as the Texas, but by liberal expenditures for overhauling and reconstruction these bat tleships have been kept up-to-date. and the same is true of the Iowa. the last battleship to be added to the Navy prior to the outbreak of the war with Spain. :
 Whereas Uncle sams experience in building battleships covers only about | IHaite pl h thc htNNHt 'N'~-Nt ment of the Navy, which has aroused such enthusiasm on the part of President Roosevelt and thousands of other patri- otic citizens. dates only from the year 1900, when those magnificent twin fight CTS, the Kearsarge and Kentucky. went Into commission. These vessels were novelties among the lighting ships of the world. in that they inaugurated the idea of the superimposed turrets or two-story armor-elad shelters for the heaviest guns. four eight-inch guns being stationed In Pi1ii-1 on t0p of the regular tur- rcts containing the four 13.ineh weapons.
 The Kearsarge and Kentucky were fol- lowed by the battleships Illinois. Ala bama and Wisconsin. a trio of floating fortresses that are virtual duplicates. Then came another group of three sister ships. the batteships Maine. Missouri and Ohio, which brings the. record of battleship progress almost down to the present day. It has only been within the past year or- so that the first mem bers of another battleship class joined