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MARINE REVIEW. 9 Revenue Cutter Gresham. A picture of the new revenue cutter Gresham, made from draw- ings used in the construction of the ship, is presented on this page. The Gresham will be launched at the ship yard of the Globe Iron Works Co., Cleveland, at 2:30 p. m., Saturday, the 12th. A few of the treasury department officials will probably be in attendance. Two other vessels of this type are now being built on the coast for the rey- enue cutter service, and it is expected that within a short time the ser- vice will be enabled to call for bids on two more for the lakes, for which partial appropriations have been secured. These ships are of the first class in the cutter service and they are costing the goyern- ment about $175,000, including expense of preparing plans, supervis- ing construction, etc. The Gresham is 205 feet over all, 188 feet water line, 32 feet beam and 16 feet depth of hold. Her displacement at a mean draft of 10 feet 10 inches will be about 900 tons. She is expected to maintain an average speed of 16 knots an hour when the engine is developing about 2,000 horse power. She is built of the best open hearth steel, the requirements for which were that it should have a tensile strength of at least 55,000 pounds per square inch and an elongation of not less than 25 per cent. in a length of 8 inches. Samples cut from the plating were bent cold, flat over on themselves, without showing signs of fracture. The cabin and officers' quarters are located in the after part of:the vessel. The crew's quarters are forward, while the ship's gal- boiler has two corrugated furnaces, the total grate surface being 185 Square feet. The total heating surface is 5,300 square feet. The pro- peller is of bronze, 18 feet pitch and four-bladed. When the engine is making 160 revolutions the calculated speed will be about 20.52 knots, from which deducting the liberal allowance of 20 per cent. for slips, the actual speed of the vessel will be about 16.42 knots maxi- mum. The coal capacity is such as to give the new cutter a steaming radius of 2,500 knots at full speed and 4,000 knots when steaming at the more economical speed of 10 knots per hour with one boiler in use. Another Propeller. Alfred Fornander is an inventor known somewhat among eastern ship builders. He has of late submitted designs for a new propeller to competent judges, and the Maritime Register of New York intimates that his invention is of far more importance than the numerous efforts that have been made to improve upon present types of propellers. Mr. Fornander is not as yet prepared to submit his plans to the publie but he says: j "Fulton in his greatest dreams could not have imagined the won- derful development that would follow upon his invention. It is now less than a century ago (1807) since the famous inventor made his trial trip on the Hudson with the little crude steamboat, and to-day we have a myriad of steaming vessels, thousands of which are luxuriously NEW U.S. REVENUE CUTTER GRESHAM. ley, as well as the carpenter shop, engineer's work shop, armory, ex- ecutive officers, office, bath rooms, etc., are located in an iron house on the main deck, in the forward part of which is the pilot house and chart room, An electric light plant capable of producing a current of 100 amperes at a pressure of 80 volts will be located in the upper en- gine room. A search light of 25 amperes capacity will be carried on the pilot house. The armament will consist of a battery of rapid fir- ing guns, and provision will be made for carrying a torpedo outfit. The vessel will be supplied with steam steering gear, steam capstans and steam windlass and will be heated throughout by steam. Engines are of the triple expansion type, having cylinders 25,374, and 564 inches diameter and a common stroke of 30 inches. The high pressure cylinder is fitted with a piston valve and the intermedi- ate and low pressure cylinders each with a double ported slide valve, all operated by the Stephenson link motion with double bar links. The crank, intermediate and propeller shafts are of forged mild open-hearth steel, made by the Bethlehem Iron Co., as are also the front columns, piston and connecting rods. There is a surface condenser, containing about 3,000 square feet of cooling surface, which forms part of the en- gine housing. There is also a pair of vertical, independent, single- acting air pumps, operated by one steam cylinder; the pumps dis- charge with a feed tank. The circulating pumps are also indepen- dent and of the centrifugal type. The main and auxiliary feed pumps are of the vertical duplex type. Steam is supplied by four single ended boilers of the Scotch type, each 11 feet 6 inches long. Each \ fitted up and large enough to be called floating palaces. Still by all this one must not think that we have reached the climax of perfection in steam propulsion. On the contrary the improvements yet to be made may be of still higher order than the achievements up to date. When the great Swede Ericsson gave us the propeller, it was not at all like the one now in use. It was somewhat: similar to an ordinary sprocket wheel on a modern bicycle with a multitude of blades fas- tened to the rim. Step by step it has assumed its present shape, the number of blades reduced more and more, until it is now found that for a small-sized one, at least, a two-bladed propeller is the most ad- vantageous in practice. The loss of energy by friction against the water is enormous--some figure as high as 53 per cent. In my opin- ion this can be reducea considerably, say 5 and perhaps 10 per cent., a fact that I imagine myself able to accomplish, and which would mean to an ocean greyhound an addition of one or two knots per hour in speed. Too little attention has really been paid to the lines of this small but all important instrument that does the work one never sees. Not yet protected by patents, I hesitate to publish the exact details of my theory, but as a general view I will state that the improvement depends upon the exact proportions of the size of the screw to the di- mensions of the vessel, and to the power of the machinery and capa- bility of speed; also on the way the screw cuts and leaves the water, and furthermore, of course, on the construction of pitch." Order photographs of vessels, best quality, to be taken on Detroit river, from the Marine Review. AE RE ee . ~ --