The Washington herald., 1908-01-12

many Indians on a jaunt Each ship
stood for sovereignty. Each stood for
brute strength. Each stood for the de-
velopment of science and skill. Each
stood for an impressive expression OF
patriotism
In that fleet OF sixteen ships there seem
ed TO be concentrated, according TO some
Of those who looked AT them. the entire
power Of the United States for good or
evil When il came to estimating the
brute strength Of the feet it grew be
wildering.
The mathematicians got busy. They
figured out that there were nearly 1000
guns Of various kinds on the entire fleet,
and they talked about the weight Of pro-
| jectiles and charges and then got down
10 muzz!e velocity in foot seconds and
muzzle energy in foot tons, and lot OF
other terms that would make "a landlub-
bers head dizzy.
They told how the average mUZZle We
locity Of these guns was .. 100 feet sec
Ond. and that a 13-inCh guns energy was
equal 10 raising 3L57z tons a foot. WlHie
that Of a Pinch gun. with which these
ships are all armed could lift, by the
power OF one discharge, 44,025 tons foot
Then they got To figuring OUT how much
all the guns could lift and how swift the
things they shoot could go. This ran
the figures up into the millions of foot
/ tons just for one discharge.
When some one tried to figure out how
many millions upon millions Of foot tons
could be raised If all the pr0jectiles in
/ .f-- ha
/ of the thousands upon thousands of these
projectiIes it would not be prudent even
/ 90 indicate-Why, an amateur AT hg-
ures. the simple addition, subtraction,
multiplication, and division maxwell, he
/ got "a headache
Work for the Statistician.
| Then the figure sharps got after the
engine power, and they tried TO show if
one snip had something like l5,00o horse
power. more OF less what the combined
ships must have and what could be done
with it on land-that is. how many rail-
road trains, each q mile long. could be
IpulIed so many thousands Of miles; how
many bridges like those across the East
| River they could pull down with just
/ one tug at them; how many cities such
/ power could light; how many great fac
| tories and mills could be run with that
power. and even how much goods could
| be made out of it-well, after that. the
Iamateur began to wonder If he could add
| up two and two.
After that il was figured out that the
! dispIacement in tons for the entire feet
was more than a quarter Of a million.
and the weight OF a lot Of other heavy
| things in the world was estimated. BY
/ this time the amateur was clear fiabber-
gasted. and all he could say. landlub-
/ Der that he is and will be until Neptune
/ has him ducked, was that If the fleet did
! displace $4,000 tons Of water the ocean
didn't show any signs of il. and Uncle
! Sam would have TO try many many
! thousands Of times if he expected TO get
the better of old Neptune by displacing
water.
Word Painting Next.
After the mathematical sharps had fin
ished what are known as the word paint
! ers and grainers became busy. As was
said before, it was all according to the
way you looked at it.
Some of the word painters compared
the long file of ships to a line of gray
geese in long follow your leader fight
to the South for warmer cline The
ships did look gray at times, according to
( the atmospheric conditions but the gray
! geese analogy was voted not a success,
| because geese haven't things sticking up
/ in the middle OF their backs resembling