The Press., 1911-05-03
DRESSING 4 SHIP.
A Man-of- War Wears More Than
 One Suit of Clothes.
INNER AND OUTER GARMENTS.

Besides It's Coat of Armor Plate 1t Has
 Special Set of UndercIothes to Pro.
 tect the Vital Parts of It's Anatomy.
 Mineral Wool Muff1ers.
 Battleships wear coats of stout ar Hor 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 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. ly 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 it's special macintosh, or. rather. waterproof, which acts as protection from fire as we'll as water.
 In the ordinary way if 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 fbrous 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- peciaIly treated in order to render 1t fireproof. .-.s.-s
 A man-of war has it's vitality enor- mously diminished if certain portions of it become too cold, in much the same way as its human tenants. Ac- cordingly it's boiler and steam pipes are clothed with jackets" In some cases the jackets are made of ordinary blanketing. others of a 6brous clay y-like composition or even of close grained wood. In general the material used for a ships undercIothing 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 1t consists of mass of snowy threads of a kind of glass. It 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 heads and the more delicate portions of the ships body. This invaluable substance acts equally well as pro tector from heat and from cold It 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 wool 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 are kept cool by refrigerating plant in addition to being clothed in mineral wool. the same applying to the ammu- milton passages The wool is also packed between the double bulkheads which separate the boiler spaces from the other portions of the vessel. Alto gether the uses of the mineral wool on board are extremely numerous. Even reindeer hair is to be met with on board in the capacity of a particular sort of underclothing. This material is very ight-considerab ply lighter than cork, for instance-and it is not so sub- ject to decay For this reason among it's many uses it is of great value as filling for the life buoys. = Boston Transcript. -.@