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1901.] MARINE REVIEW. | 15 CELTIC, LARGEST VESSEL EVER BUILT. The White Star liner Celtic, which was launched at the yards of Har- land & Wolff, Belfast, Ireland, last week-is incontestibly the largest vessel in the world. She is the perfect evolution of a new type of carrier of which the Great Eastern was the first example. The Great Eastern was a failure for many reasons. The Oceanic, greater than the Great Eastern, was a success, but the Celtic is greater even than the Oceanic. The Celtic is not as fast as the Oceanic, but she is, nevertheless, moderately swift. As she carries an immense cargo her passenger rates are quite low and she will doubtless become speedily a great profit maker. The Celtic, as stated, is absolutely the largest vessel that ever was built. Her handsome elder sister, the Oceanic--the queen of the White Star fleet--is still the longest; but the new boat has more beam and her gross tonnage is 20,880 as compared with 17,274. Her displacement at a load draught of 36 ft. 6 in. will be 36,700 tons, as compared with the modern battleship's 14,000 tons and the Great Eastern's 32,160 tons. How she stands compared with other notable Atlantic steamers is shown in the following table: Length over all, Breadth, Depth, Tons, Vessel. feet. feet. feet. gross, Great: Pastérn i... oe . 691 82.8 48.2 18,915 Campania crc hoe, Bee es 620 65 43 12,950 Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse. 2.05°.. 626.7 66 39 14,349 Ocennic se ie eT. 705.6 68 49 17,274 Dettscniand ..0 Re S 660.9 67.3 40.3 16,502 Getic ee. Ses ee 100: 75 49 20,880 costly appliances had to be provided. The immense gantry at the Harland & Wolff works was put to its fullest use, and from it the hydraulic riveters and electric drilling machines were worked. Even as a mere traveling crane it was, with the exceptionally heavy lifts, absolutely necessary. The launching displacement of the vessel was 13,500 tons. The engines, which are already practically completed in the machinery department of the Belfast concern, are of the Harland & Wolff quadruple expansion type; the cylinders are 33, 47%, 68% and 98 in. in diameter by 5 ft, 83 in. stroke. Steam at a pressure of 210 lbs. will be- supplied by eight double-ended boilers, each 15 ft. 6 in. by 19 ft. 6 in. Great speed is not aimed at. Everything in the way of auxiliary machinery that expe- rience has taught the owners and the builders is necessary to a ship of the class has been provided, and much of it is exactly the same as that on the Oceanic. As has been pointed out, the Celtic will not have the speed of the Oceanic. She will also differ from this ship in respect of accommodation, for she is built to fill the gap left by the tendency of the greyhounds to develop beyond the purse of the average traveler. She is the logical result of a close study of the economical facts of the situation, and with more than moderate speed, comfortable quarters at cheaper rates, and a certain mobility of her internal arrangement, she is likely to be successful. In her first-class accommodation there are single berthed rooms for gentle- men, and the open berths in the third class may be removed in favor of cargo should it offer.. But, although the passenger rates will be lower, the standard of the accommodation will still be very high. About 347 saloon passengers will be accommodated, their staterooms being on the Maryland Steel Co., Marine Department. View showing the three torpedo boats Truxton, Whipple and Worden, the steamer for the Boston Towboat Co., car float and dredge mills on the stocks, The Celtic, it is almost unnecessary to say, is built on the cellular double-bottom principle. A flat bar keel is riveted on to the skin plating and through riveted on to the inner vertical keel, which is necessarily deeper below the engine spaces to insure rigidity. The greatest care has been taken that the hull shall be proof against all ordinary stresses, and time may safely be left to prove its stiffness. The bilge strakes have been doubled, and so have the sheer strake and the strake next but one below it, while the upper deck stringers have also been doubled in the matter of plates, except at the extreme ends. All the riveting here was done by hydraulic machinery, operated from the immense gantry used first in the building of the Oceanic, and in all the circumstances one is justified in doubting if the work could have been accomplished by other means. Whenever possible machine riveting was followed, and altogether 167,095 rivets of 11%4-in. size were so driven in the keel, double bottom, hull and stringers. Six longitudinals worked intercostally, three on each side of the vertical keel, increase the fore-and-aft strength of the structure, and with the thwartship vertical divisions make the cellular double bottom, which is bounded in the usual fashion with margin plates. The frame brackets aré attached to the margin plates by double angles, and the floor plates have been similarly treated. Two intercostal keelsons add further to the longitudinal stiffness. Altogether there are nine decks, and at their levels there is a beam to every frame instead of one to every other frame: The decks are described as lower orlop, orlop, lower, middle, upper, bridge, upper bridge, boat, and sun decks. These details indicate pretty fairly the care that has been: taken to produce a vessel of exceptional stiffness. One can hardly imagine any construction more generally per- fect, and its success in the conditions it has to meet is assured. The Jabor of building a-ship of so great proportions was necesarily. heavy; its nature, may be inferred from the fact that the shell plates numbered 1,392, were. 1% in. thick, averaged 30 ft. by 5 ft.; and.in some cases weighed four tons. For a task of this magnitude ordinary tools were useless; and new and upper, the bridge, the upper bridge, and the boat decks. The dining saloon, which is on the upper deck forward, is the full width of the ship, and with the library and the smoke-room makes an exceptionally hand- some suite. Provision is made on the upper and bridge decks for 160 second-class passengers. The dining saloon for this class is aft on the upper deck; it is finished in white and gold, and, while not so wide as the other saloon on the same deck, is roomy and well lighted. A very large number of passengers will be accommodated in the third class, partly in cabins and partly in open berths, In addition to this complement of pas- sengers, there will be a crew of 335; sixty-four on deck, ninety-two in the engine room and stoke holds, and 179 in the commissariat. The arrange- ments for feeding and generally caring for so many people are, it need scarcely be added, very complete. No bids were received for the United States transport Terry, which a board of survey recently condemned and ordered to be sold. The upset price was fixed at $40,000. The Terry was formerly the twin screw _excur- sion steamer Hartford, built at Philadelphia at a cost of $110,000. During the Spanish-American war the Terry was purchased by the government for $150,000. She was used as a hospital ship, but lately has been carry- ing government material from one port to another in Cuba and Porto ico. : The sixth annual convention of the National Association of Manu- facturers will be held at Detroit June 4, 5 and 6. While this date is some- what later than the customary one, it has been selected with a view to insuring favorable weather and in order that advantage might be taken of the numerous lake trips offered. The work of the association during the past year has been full of interest and importance to the manufacturers of the country and the business' of the convention will have direct bearing upon their affairs.