Smyrna times., 1911-03-29
DRESSING A ship.
A Man-of-War Wears More Than
One Suit of Clothes.
INNER AND OUTER GARMENTS.

0CSiuCS It's OOdk OF fNFfnOT EidIc u fIdo
Special Set of Underclothes to Pro.
teet the Vital Parts of It's Anatomy
Mineral Wool Mufflers
Battleships wear coats of stout ar
NOR plate. as everybody knows, bur
everybody does not know that they
wear undergarments which are pro
duced chiefly from cocoanuts Your
most powerful man-of-war is really a
very delicate object and requires
special underclothing so 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 is another
way of saying from head to toe. your
enormous super Dreadnought is 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 a
protection from fire as well as water.
In the ordinary way if a shot pierced
the side of a battleship water would
pour in at the hole and possibly the
ship might sink. but this is obviated
by providing 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
| dbrous 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 hole at the
ships side the cellulose almost in
stantly expands and so closes the aper.
ture. OF course the cellulose is es
pecially treated in order to render II
dreproof.
A man-of-war has its vitality enor-
mously diminished If certain portions
Of it become too cold. in much the
same way as its 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 a fibrous clay-like
composition or even of close grained
wood. In general the material used
for ships underclothing of this de
scription consists of mineral wool
However, the great ship is more like
ly 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-of-war the stores
are surrounded by a thick coating of
mineral wool. Mineral wool, by the
way, has nothing whatever to do with
wool, as it consists of a mass of snowy
threads of kind of glass. 1t is made
by blowing jets of high pressure steam
through the furnaces in the manufac
ture of iron and steel.
Enormous quantities of this strange
variety of wool are used on board for
the purposes of underclothing the bulk
beads and the more delicate portions
of the ships body. This invaluable
substance acts equally well as a pro
tector from heat and from cold. 1t is
such a remarkable nonconductor of
heat that it is used for covering the
refrigerators and the cold storage
chambers and therefore the explosive
stores
In the dockyards all men who are
employed in packing the mineral WOO
in the spaces on the ships are Obliged
to wear masks. This is to prevent the
sharp needlelike particles from being
inhaled and so causing chest troubles
of fatal character.
The ammunition rooms themselves
ere kept cool by a refrigerating PLAN
in addition to being clothed in minera
wool, the same applying to the ammu
milton passages. The wool is alsC
packed between the double bulkhead
which separate the boiler spaces from
the other portions of the vessel Alto
gether the uses of the mineral wool OF
board are extremely numerous. Ever
reindeer hair is to be met with OF
board in the capacity of a particula
sort of underclothing. This materia
is very iight-considerably lighter thai
cork, for instance-and 1t is not so sub
ject to decay. For this reason amonI
its many uses it is of great value as
filling for the life buoys. - Bostol
Transcript.