The Bossier banner., 1911-03-30
DRESSING A SHIP.
A Man-of-War Wears More Than
One Suit of Clothes.
INNER AND OUTER GARMENTS.

INNER AND OUTER GARMENTS.
Besides lie Coat Of Armor Plats Il Has
Special Set Of Undsreiothss to Pro.
tset the Vital Parts Of It, Anatomy.
Mineral Wool Muffiers.
Battleships wear coats OF stout ar.
NOR plate. as everybody knows. but
everybody does not know that they
wear undergarments which are pro-
duced chiefly from cocoanuts. Your
most powerful man-of-war Is really q
very delicate object and requires
special underclothing 50 that some
vital parts Of its anatomy may not be-
come too cold and so that other equal
~ vital portions may not become too
hot
From stem to stern, which II another
way of saying from head to toe. your
enormous super -Dreadnought 10 envel-
oped in an undergarment placed i'm
mediately behind its topcoat or armor
plate. This Is its special macintosh.
or. rather. waterproof. which acts as
protection from fire as well as water.
In the ordinary way II a shot pierced
the side of battleship water would
pour in at the hole and possibly the
ship might sink. but this Is obviated
by providing a backing to the armor
Great secrecy is kept in the various
navies regarding the material used and
its arrangement.
In many of the latest battleships,
however, the coating Is made OF cellu
lose. which again is obtained from the
fibrous cocoanut rind Cellulose pos
sesses the peculiar property Of swell
Ing Immediately If it comes In contact
with salt water. Therefore the moment
that water pours In at q hole at the
ships side the cellulose almost In
staptly expands and so closes the aper-
ture. OF course the cellulose Is es-
pecially treated In order to render It
fireproof.
A man-of-war has its vitality enor-
mously diminished If certain portions
Of 1t become too cold. In much the
same way as it's human tenants. Ac.
cordingly its boiler and steam pipes
are clothed with Jackets" In some
cases the jackets are made of ordinary
blanketing. others of fibrous ella ay-iike
composition or even of close grained
wood. In general the material used
for q ships underclothing of this de
| scription consists Of mineral wool.
However. the great ship Is more like
" to suffer from the effects of heat
than from those of cold. There Is al
ways the danger owing to the newer
type of machinery employed that the
powder magazines may get too hot.
In the latest men-ofwar the stores
are surrounded by thick coating Of
mineral wool. Mineral wool. by the
way, has nothing whatever to do witt
wool. as 1t consists of a mass Of snowy
threads of kind of glass. II is made
by blowing jets of high pressure steam
through the furnaces in the manufac
ture of iron and steel.
Enormous quantities Of this strang'
variety of wool are used on board fo
the purposes OF underclothing the bulk
heads and the more delicate portions
of the ships body This invaluable
substance acts equally well us pro
tector from heat and from cold 1t l
such remarkable n0ncondnctor 0
heat that 1t Is used for covering tn
refrigerators and the cold stOrag
chambers and therefore the expiosiv
stores
In the dockyards all men who ar
employed In packing the mineral voc
In the spaces on the ships are obiige
to wear masks This is to prevent th
sharp needlelike particles from bein
inhaled and so causing chest trouble
Of fatal character.
: The ammunition rooms themselve
are Kept cool by a refrigerating plar
In addition to being clothed In miner:
wool. the same applying to the amm'
? nition passages The wool ts als
packed between the double bulkheat
which separate the boiler spaces fro
the other portions of the vessel Alt
! Rether the uses Of the mineral wool 9
I board are extremely numerous. Eve
r reindeer hair is to be met with 9
board in the capacity Of q particul'
sor, of underclothing. This matert
. IL very ENTHUSIASTICALLY lighter tbs
!. cork, for instance-and 1t il not go su
/. 1ect to decay. For this reason amor
: its many uses it Is OF great value az
:, filing for the life buoys. = Bostt
/, Transcript.