number to 33,000. Doubtless within ten years 50,000 seamen will be required to man the fleet in time of peace. With the enlisted force there are: one admiral, 26 rear admirals, 386 captains, 122 commanders, 199 lieutenant commanders, 343 lieutenants, 173 ensigns, 104 midshipmen, 16 medical directors, 15 medical inspectors, 86 surgeons, 280 assistant surgeons, 135 pay directors, inspectors and paymasters, 23 chaplains, 12 professors of mathematics, 57 naval constructors and assistants, 32 civil engineers, 140 boatswains, 116 gunners 84 carpenters, 6 chief sailmakers, 180 machinists, and 52 pharmacists.

Added to this force is the marine corps of 241 officers and 5,367 men. The marine force is regarded, properly too, as being the finest force of fighting men ever sent to the firing line in any field in any land. There is scarcely a corner of the globe where American marines have not fought to protect American interests and save American lives. American marines have served, fought, and died in almost every republic on the South American continent, along the isthmus, in the islands of the West Indies, in the islands of the Pacific, in the Philippines, along the coasts of Japan and China, and along the coasts of the Mediterranean. The marine corps opened Japan to civilization. They fought side by side with British soldiers against the mobs in Alexandria, Egypt, at Taku, in China; and in Samoa, in the Pacific. They were the first American soldiers to land in Cuba during the Spanish-American war. They have put down native insurrections in Santo Domingo and Hayti, and to-day they guard American possessions in a score of ports in as many quarters of the globe.

In the Philippines are being constructed great naval and shipbuilding yards, docks, repair shops and supply depots, the government's intention being to make a naval base there, strictly independent of the United States so that the greatest ships of the navy may be outfitted, supplied, coaled, docked and repaired without the necessity of a visit to the United States. A similar naval base has been established near Honolulu.

The American navy is rich in tradition. Its sea fighters hold high place in the history of the naval warfare of the world. The roster of the navy's battles in the century and a quarter

of its existence fills many pages in the world's record of glory. And as long as ships float and there are men to fight them the story of the combats of America's warships will be retold by the pens of historians.

RECENT ADVANCE IN BATTLESHIPS.

BY J. D. JERROLD KELLEY.

[James Douglas Jerrold Kelley, commander U. S. N. and author; born New York, December 25, 1847; educated in public and private schools and Seton Hall college, N. J.; appointed to navy by President Lincoln; entered October 5, 1864; graduated from U. S. Naval academy, 1868; ensign, 1869; master, 1870; lieutenant, 1872; lieutenant commander, 1893; commander, 1899; prize essayist and gold medalist United States naval institute, 1881; member and chairman, board auxiliary vessels, 1898; inspector of merchant vessels at New York; command of Resolute, West Indies, and again inspector of merchant vessels. Author, The Ship's Company, The Story of Coast Defense, American Men o' War, American Yachts, Typical Yachts, A Desperate Chance, Our Navy, The Question of Ships, The Navy of the United States, etc.] Copyright 1904 by New York Herald Company

The development of offense and defense in war constructions finds its highest expression in the battleships of the Connecticut type. This is attributable mainly to the large displacement in which the various elements have found room for proper expansion and to the improvements made in structural material. In the earliest battleships most of the essential qualities had to be denied their greatest value owing to the compromises that were forced by the necessary association of such antagonistic factors as speed, battery, armoured protection, coal capacity, ammunition supply, habitability and seagoing and sea keeping powers. What had to be produced was not the best obtainable, but the best all round efficiency.

The principles of all constructive design are controlled by considerations of weight, and by its scientific distribution. If one of the qualities, speed for example, were to be unduly favored, through the assignment of extra weights to motive power, this would be at the expense of some other quality, such as protection, battery or coal capacity. In special types, of course, such a highly favored distribution is often adopted, in order to satisfy the particular employment for which a type is intended. But in a battleship it is impossible; there must be room and margin for many qualities, as it is a rounded production, wherein the total available weight must be distributed to produce not the very best but the best possible results.

Lieutenant Commander Niblack, U. S. N., put this cogent

ly in a paper read before the society of naval architects and marine engineers. "The battleship is," he said, "the epitome of sea power. Reduced to its simplest terms, it is a floating gun platform. As a unit of defense it contains on the gun displacement the maximum of concentrated destructive power-for battle on high seas, for which it is primarily designed; Second, for coast attack, for which it is secondary and seldom used purpose. The difference between the tactical value of battleships and of cruisers, torpedo boats, submarine and rams, are those of degree rather than of kind, for each merely chooses some weapon or some quality of the battleship and sacrifices everything else to it. The special tactics suited to each are taken from the battleships." Hence it may be profitable to inquire into the considerations that have governed our designers in their treatment of the battleship question, especially as the question of displacement-whether large or moderate-is still in dispute.

The first class battleships may be separated into six groups, according to the period in which they were authorized, or into four groups if displacements and speed be taken. If, however, this latter standard be accepted the grouping would be inaccurate, as the gun energy and battery disposition thus assembled vary so greatly. To the first group belong the Indiana, Massachusetts and Oregon, of ten thousand three hundred tons, authorized in 1890; to the same class may be assigned the Iowa, of eleven thousand three hundred and forty tons, authorized in 1892. Antedating these was the well known ship, the Texas, now rated as a second class battleship. In the second group (1895) are the Kentucky and Kearsarge, of 11,540 tons; in the third (1896) the Alabama, Wisconsin and Illinois, of 11,565 tons, and in the fourth (1898), the Missouri, Maine, and Ohio, of 12,230 tons. The fifth group (1899) consists of the Georgia and Nebraska, and (1900) of the Virginia, Rhode Island and New Jersey, each of about 14,950 tons. Finally, we have the Connecticut and Louisiana and the new ones yet unnamed, provided for by congress.

The growth of displacement between the Oregon and the Connecticut period amounts to 5,700 tons, and the increase of the mean speed amounts to nearly two knots. Should the

1899 and 1900 constructions be taken as a standard for speed, the difference is nearly three knots.

A very radical difference of opinion exists among naval officers on the question of battleship displacement. A majority seem to favor displacement just as large as may, without diminishing any other essential element, be handled without difficulty and be able with safety to enter, the year around, the principal ports of our seaboards. An influential minority believe that ships should not be allowed to exceed 11,000 tons. It bases this conservatism on several grounds, the principal of which is that, other things being equal or nearly equal, a great number of units must be more effective than a more limited number, even if the latter be a large size. It is the control of numbers that, in its opinion, enables the work to be done. Formerly we heard a great deal of dismal prophecy from this minority. It is feared and proclaimed that, with large displacement, we are putting all our eggs in one basket, and that the loss of a ship means the destruction of an army corps. Fairly considered, the objections cited by the minority are more fanciful than real. Indeed, when the two types are submitted to the test of comparative battle efficiency what opposition could the imperfectly protected four 6-inch guns of the Oregon offer to the heavily protected armour, single casemated twelve 7-inch guns of the Connecticut class the big guns being equal? And at the end of the fight, which should prove to be the cheaper group?

It is usually claimed that the 16,000 ton ship must be less handy than the 11,000 ton craft, that its maneuvering qualities must be inferior; but then, all battleships can be unhandy on occasion, and if the model tank experiments can be relied upon, the Connecticut promises, through its proportions and adjustments, to be at least equal in handiness to the earlier ships. Its draught will certainly be greater, but this will not forbid its entering an American harbor on the same stage of the tide that the Oregon or any other of our battleships so far designed, will have to use.

This increase in size of warships has been common to all navies in recent years and is coincident with the increase in merchant vessels. Such increase in size may involve decrease