would have been an adequate navy some years ago is totally inadequate for the performance of the duties growing out of our new possessions in the Pacific and Atlantic and the determination of congress to construct a canal across the Isthmus.

If, then, the policy of strengthening our power upon the sea to the point where it can respond to the national needs be not abandoned, the navy has manifold needs. There must be additional naval and coaling stations; more ships, fighting and auxiliary; and an increase of officers and men. In all of these respects, congress in the past has dealt with the navy wisely and generously, and I doubt not that in the future it will as accurately register the will of the people.

TWENTIETH CENTURY IDEAS ABOARD OUR

FIGHTING SHIPS.

BY I. V. LEE.

I. V. Lee, naval expert, is a New York literary man who has devoted much of his time to the study of naval problems; at first a hobby with him, he has gained such a thorough knowledge of the naval equipments of the United States and other nations, that he has become a recognized expert, and articles on these subjects from his pen are in demand by the leading periodicals and newspapers; Mr. Lee has inspected personally most of the ships of the United States navy.]

Fighting ships, more ships, finer ships! Such is the supreme demand of the nations. Money beyond computation is being poured into the huge floating forts which the world powers are launching. Brains, blood, and all that inventive genius or patriotism can command are being spent to build and to improve these great fighting machines called warships.

Increasingly complicated in its machinery, ever growing in cost, calling constantly for more speed, greater destructiveness, and greater safety-the naval engineer is almost bewildered by the problems which confront him when he is called upon to design a new ship. The admiralty departments of the nations, despairing of keeping their old ships in the best fighting trim, are putting their best efforts into new ships, allowing the old ones to shift for themselves. Russia, in the face of the destruction of her Port Arthur fleet, announced that $800,000,000 would be spent in the next few years on her navy. Great Britain, although possessing the largest navy in the world, yet announced not long since that her admiralty was designing a battleship of 17,000 to 18,000 tons, with ten 12-inch guns in its main batteries, capable of firing a broadside of seven 850-pound shells able to perforate two feet of the best existing armor-in other words, a ship that would have no trouble in destroying anything now afloat or yet designed.

Into this strenuous race for naval supremacy the United States has entered with all her militant Americanism. It is said that her navy department is even planning a battleship of 20,000 tons displacement. The president calls for an American navy which shall be not necessarliy the largest, but as an or

ganized unit the most effective on all the seas. In American shipyards there are now in process of construction thirteen first class battleships, eight armored cruisers, and seven protected cruisers-the greatest aggregate fighting power now being added to the navy of any one of the great powers.

The United States has been building modern types of cruisers since 1883, battleships since 1890. Consequently her navy has not had much time to grow out of date, yet the new ships embody a great number of important improvements over their predecessors.

Among these developments none is more important than the means of insuring the safety of the ship in case of collision, grounding, explosion, or other disaster resulting in puncture of the hull. The system devised to render the new ships of the navy almost unsinkable consists, so far as a visitor to the bridge can see, of two dials with a hole in the center of each and borders of small disks around the edge. These are the central emergency stations, each controlling fifteen bulkhead doors and hatch gears below the protected deck. Each of the disks is numbered to correspond to a door or hatchway in some vital part of the ship.

But this is not, of course, the important part of the system It is merely the controller. On all the main bulkhead openings are electric motors connected with the station by conductor wires. Now suppose that the Colorado is rammed by a careless or hostile navigator. The man who is nearest this emergency station pulls a latch similar to a fire alarm box. Instantly the doors are set in motion in rapid succession, within less than two minutes every door is brought into its water tight groove, and immediate danger of sinking is averted.

If there is trouble at any door it will show in the corresponding disk of the station. If a sailor or seaman has been imprisoned in a compartment he has only to raise a lever, the door will move back and allow him time to pass through, and then close again automatically. This long arm control of the bulkhead doors, combining as it does, distant and local control, assures the safety of the ship and the safety of its crew, leaving nothing to chance or individual initative, bravery, or effi

ciency. A man in a place of safety above deck presses a button and machinery does the rest.

The use of electricity in providing all the necessities of the ship is developing to an astonishing degree. Thirty miles of copper wire are required to convey the current from dynamos to motors to the working devices. Electricity now hoists the great shells from ammunition rooms to gun turrets at the rate of 200 feet a minute. The same power moves the tremendous guns into place and an electric button discharges the deadly broadside.

Electricity competes with the steam and fire in the hold of the ship, serving as motive power for ventilating fans in great number. When it is realized that the temperature below deck often rises to 300 degrees Fahrenheit, it may be seen how important are the fans to the health of the men. Electricity likewise operates the ship's laundry machinery, it turns the deck winches, it illuminates the vessel throughout, and it will soon control the steering gear-one of the few important parts of the ship's equipment which has not yet surrendered to the twentieth century plan.

Men-of-war now have telegraph systems of their own aside from the wireless apparatus with which they are equipped. Repeating telegraphs are fitted for the propelling engines, with dials on the working platforms, and connected to transmitters located in the conning towers and on the flying bridges whereby the number of engine revolutions desired can be readily transmitted. Other devices make it possible for the engineers to operate the engines in unison and at the same time display the direction of rotation to the navigating officers. There are likewise complete fire extinguishing and automatic flooding apparatus.

At the present time most of the communication between different parts of the ship is by speaking tubes. This system has itself been developed to a remarkable degree. The captain, from his station, is now able to communicate with the engine and dynamo rooms, the torpedo directing stations, lookout platforms, wireless telegraph rooms, and central stations. There is an elaborate system of intercommunication between all the various parts of the ship. So large is the num

ber of these speaking tubes on a modern battleship that if placed side by side with one inch space between them they would occupy a width of sixty feet. It is planned, now, however, to establish a telephone central directly under the conning tower with a switchboard for connecting any one part of the ship with another. The wires for the entire system could be placed inside any one of the speaking tubes now used.

Another improvement of great value in reducing the complications in the ship's mechanism and construction is the proposed drainage system recommended by George W. Dickie, the San Francisco shipbuilder. Under the present system of drainage 4,000 feet of pipe, which make it necessary to keep water tight more than a thousand joints, will be done away with, and in its place will be only 200 feet of pipe and sixteen valves.

But

But it is not alone in the matter of minor machinery and devices that there is a rush for improvements, but the very propelling engines of the ship are being continually studied in the effort to make their material of less weight and their driving power of greater force. The human mind does not easily grasp the meaning of the power concentrated in a ship like the Colorado. Its engines generate an energy that equals the united power of 250,000 men. Installed in a locomotive engine, it could draw 1,200 railway cars at the rate of thirty miles an hour. Twelve hundred railway cars would stretch over six miles, and would carry an army of 36,000 men. still the call is ever for more power, and the turbine engine is now depended upon by many to meet this demand. When the bids for the cruisers Montana and North Carolina were opened at the navy department on Dec. 17, 1904, it was found that the Fore River Shipbuilding company had offered to build the two cruisers with turbine propulsion machinery for $4,244,000 each. This is the first time that it had ever been seriously proposed by a shipbuilder of great reputation like ex-chief constructor Francis T. Bowles, now president of the Fore River company, to place turbine machinery in a 14,000 ton cruiser. The price was a high one and the naval authorities were not disposed to make an experiment with turbines on such a large scale. But there is no doubt that this is the