The sun., 1917-08-28
SoNsoNArE, Salvador. c. A

July 20. lslt.
GENTLEMEN; Your cable dated yester-
day regarding the reinforced concrete
boat reached me last midnight and l
proceed TO explain.
The rowboat myself and my prospect
ing "pard" built years since, II still
float is thousands Of miles from this
place, and consequently l am unable to
furnish photographs, hut l will endeavor
to furnish you with a pen picture of its
construction, hoping thereby. as age pre-
vents my presence on the firing line In
France. thus indirectly to get crack
at the Kaiser and his cattle in the name
| Of democracy. and incidentally to aid
, our beloved Uncle by boosting his ce-
last and all the time and personally
have no axe to grind
Employed with my aforesaid 'pard'
! to hold down the scattered supplies and
loose property of a busted mining COM
| pany back in the 90's. We found our
| selves with any number of barrels OF
cement and several tons OF woven wire
| screen sheets. plus other mining plunder,
| and all the unoccupied time (the Lord
! was then my King) on our hands, and
when We became so thoroughly tired OF
| too much rest that We were becoming
quarrelsome We proceeded to do things.
Experiments with cement and woven
wire in the building Of a bathtub. horse
troughs and an American cooking stove.
convinced us that what we didn't know
about portland cement would make a
much larger book than Webster's Die
! 81 IN fr,S ~ Al
convictions profanely expressed when
ever anything hitched in the proceed
ings-lr knew the thing would go to the
bottom like kedge anchor. and was
continually kicking about our wasting
so much valuable t!me-we proceeded 10
build Of stone the first boat OF that ma
terial. possibly, that ever tioated OIL
water.
We decided to build the boat keel up
and ] made my drawings on such basis
We prepared cemented building fooi
curved to the lines of the crafts gun.
wales. marked on this floor the centre
and interior lines OF the boat and te
such lines built up. with a suitable mix
ture Of clay and sand, solid core Of
the exact interior. size and shape of the
boat to be.
To fit the core as exactly as possible
we then built skeleton boat OF tn,
heavy woven screen wire. joining tn,
sheets solidly with copper rvets ane
wire. and fitted 1t over the core. which
we had previously plastered with a one
half inch coat OF wood ashes to preven
adhesion. Our wire was quite stfr anC
heavy, but easily workable to shap,
by hand and mallet and OF about one
half inch mesh. outside OF this mesh
as We trowelled in the concrete. a / to
: mixture OF cement and clean river sand
we built as We went along a retaining
dam or shell Of damp clay to hold ou'
concrete in place. calculating as nearl.
as possible uniform thickness of al
inch. except on the bottom, where W,
gave the job a thickness of nearer tw,
inches.
Our concrete was sloppy but not to-
much so to trowel or too little SO I,
pour. but the craft was not poured.
We put her In the lake after abou
months wait and to Joe's chagrin sh
hoated o. X. Lopslded and down a
the stern. twas true. but she fioated.
Joe became at once an enthusiast
marine architect, hewing that old tu
with a hatchet until the wire showed Il
. spots and she rode an even keel. muc
too high out of the water. ! d!scovere
that owing to the continual guying wit
She'll sink like an anchor" i had bee
frightened into building her half a foo
too deep. She was, strange to say. a
springy under foot as wooden boa
and once under way, as speedy as tn
Indian canoes
We built n second and much bette
boat--an eighteen footer-that we cor
. tinually used with oar and sail until W
we're forced to leave that bowling Wi
derness owing to dearth OF came
goods-our only legal tender with tn
9 natives-our company having forgotte
) its mine, us and our $40 per day as car,
1 takers. This second boat was a jaime
l Dandy. You will note our boat wa
I built without frames. system whicl
r Of course, would not work out with lare
craft.
= / believe 10000 ton steamers Of uniforl
dimensions can be turned out at ont
quarter the cost OF wooden ships by tt
Y system OF reinforced concrete construt
q ton. and much faster than Uncle Sal
= can put the engines In them.
9 Tell your engineers to get their thin
y boxes tuned up on this proposition
Q they wish to cut swath in future hi
Q tory. 7. T. BRANNoN.
n Classical Musical Entertainment Z,