The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1919-10-23

The New Mexico is most impress
sive fighting machine. She built at the Brook
Ign navy yard and launched in the summer of 1917.
She is 624 feet ALL She weighs (1iSplaces)
$4,000 tons. She draws 80 feet of water. She has
81 feet AZ inches beam at the waterline. AT full
speed she make slightly in of p knots
an hour. She generates $4,000 horsepower for
propulsion. Her numbers nearly 1,2O0 men.
She burns oil instead of coal fuel and has a
total fuel capacity of about 100000 gallons
It's not an easy thing nowadays TO get permits
sion to examine battleship from stem to stern
and to take photographs of her interior. But rep
reSentativeS of of the big concerns which
had hand in making the New Mexico what she
is was recently allowed the privilege-which has
been exceedingly rare since the beginning of the
great war. The following account of inspec-
ton of the superdreadnaught at drydock in the
Brooklyn navy yard is the result.
Lieut.. Com. p L. Carroll, chief engineer, turns
to of the Junior engineers. We start
with the navigating bridge and examine the vari-
Gus pieces of apparatus for transmitting signals
to the engine for the control of the
Sel' ana TO half dozen other parts OF the Ship
each of which has a particular and important
function to perform. Next begin a systematic
survey of the ship, and to begin as far down into
the vitas of the vessel as possible we are led
through clrcultOuS routes, down steep hatchWayS,
through narrow alleys, and down ladders
through deck after deck until have lost all
knowledge of time and space.
We find ourselves at last the very bottom of
the ship, directly behind the rudder. A compli-
Gated mass of machinery, pistOns, rods, valves,
dia.s and electric motors, combine make up
the steering gear engine. This machinery is oper
ate0 and controlled directly from the navigating
bridge by a control device. This is only of
five different. methods of steering the ship. In
water-tight compartment directly aft is what is
known the auxiliary steering gear. And here
four large wheels connected to shaft
which when occasion demands, be used to
the rudder by hand-which takes eight men.
But this shaft is also connected to electric
motor and by the simple turn of a switch can be
situated in this compartment for rudder con-
troll and if all steering methods fail, Jury" rud
der may be rugged off the stern.
Going forward along the bottom of the ship we
come presently to the propeller shafts-fOur in
number-each operating an immense propeller.
These shafts extend from the motors which Oper-
ate them back through the ship and out at the
stern, through what known respectively as the
starboard cupboard shaft alley. starbOard inboard
port inboard and port cupboard alleys. Following
forward along the inboard shaft we go through
several water-tight compartments, drop
down a hatchway and find ourselves in the pro-
polling motor This is the section of the
ship which actually drives the prOpellers
The tremendous motor which meets our gaze
gives linking of the power necessary to make
the big shafts revOve.
This motor stands II feet high from the floor
and is II wide. 1t generates 1000 horsepower
Like the rest, it nclOsed in a water-tight COM
partment, protected by bulkheads, and if anything
should happen to it. the current may be cut of
at once and directed TO the operation OF the OIner
three prOpellers.
To see how the motor is controlled reversed.
started stopped, etc, we follow the wire cables
further forward still almost on the bottom of the
ship until we come to what the engineers call the
center engine room. Here spread out before US
lies switchboard containing levers, dials tele-
phones, indicators and instruments for measur-
ing electrical currents. 1t is the main control
station of the ship containing the arteries
through which courses the life blood Of the YES
sci the electrical current. In fact, it is often
called the heart of the vessel.
Here in this compartment the electrical current
is received measured and passed on to the motors
which we have just left. From this station the
propeIlers may be made to reverse, or to go at
full speed ahead two propellers may be reversed
while the other two are driven ahead. Here also
any combination of control may be made up The
fexibility of control made possible by this CEN
traI control station constitutes one Of the advan-
tages of the system of electric drive The captain
of the ship communicates directly to this station
and gives instructions concerning the control OF
the vessel.
Having seen how the ship Is propelled, and con-
troled we are naturally curious to see the source
from which the tremendous energy comes. The
cables from the switchboard lead US forward into