The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

sts MARINE REVIEW. 17 SKETCH OF THE PROPOSED BATTLESHIPS. On this page will be found a sketch of the proposed battleships au- thorized in the last naval act and upon which the naval board of con- struction is now engaged. The plan represented in the sketch is the plan of the majority. The principal difference between this plan and that of the minority is that the minority plan provides for superposed turrets. The majority plan provides for single turrets. Regarding the general fea- tures, only the outline can now be given as they are yet in a formulative state. Later the Review will devote considerable space to a discussion of this type. The plan provides for a battleship 450 ft. in length, 76 ft. in beam and 24 ft. 6 in. mean draught. The displacement will be 15,600 tons. This displacement will give a ship considerably larger than any- thing in the present navy. The hull alone will weigh about 7,000 tons, while the armor will weigh about 3,700 tons. The total coal capacity will be about 2,000 tons; total load displacement, 16,900 tons; deep load draught, 26 ft. 4 in.; speed, 19 knots, with an indicated H.P. of 20,000. The battery recommended by the majority is to consist of four 12-in. guns in two 10-in. armored turrets, twenty 7-in. guns in casemates, and twenty 3-in, guns. Eight of the 7-in. guns are enclosed in individual armor, four on the upper deck and four on the gun deck, firing ahead and astern. D be fully loaded on a draught of 16 ft. Several exceeded 2,000 tons and a few 2,500 tons. These ships were designed to catry about twice the regis- ter but up to the end of 1894 the maximum cargo was less than 3,800 tons, showing that the depth of water in the channels did not permit full load- ing. During the next two years about thirty ships were built which slightly exceeded 3,000 tons net register, and with the improved condi- tion of locks, and channels, the maximum cargo rose to 6,244 tons. In 1898 three ships of more than 4,000 tons register were in service with a maximum cargo of 7,840 tons; in 1899 the maximum cargo was 8,339 tons; one ship carried close on 10,000 tons in 1900, "The economy of transportation in these large ships has been so marked that the building of ships of less registered tonnage than 2,000 for through freight business from western lake ports to Lake Erie ports has practically ceased. The largest ships now in use on the lakes have a length of 500 ft. over all, and a beam of about 52 ft. Considering how rapidly the cost of a ship increases with its length and how difficult it is to secure structural strength without increase of draught, it seems reason- able to conclude that no very marked further increase will take place. This ratio between length and draught has been lately very carefully con- sidered by the British Institute of Naval Architects, and the cost of various lengths of ships estimated in proportion to the depth. This conclusively proves the greater cost of transportation in large ships per ton of cargo on a limited draught, and the economy of transportation in large ships with draught increasing with length. It has been shown that the most =F oe re coy a 7 a= ==" a) [ rT) C Ta | TT) 2 { z lee ee ed e I no Cre | a OEE , = eet \ SKETCH OF PROPOSED BATTLESHIPS. The remaining twelve guns are located on the gun deck in a central casemate battery. The machinery is protected by a 10-in. armor belt, tapering to 4 in. fore-and-aft beyond the machinery space, and the other protection consists of armor 7 and 6 in. thick, except the 12-in. turrets where it is 10 in. thick. Two battleships are to be constructed upon this plan. THE GEORGIAN BAY ROUTE TO THE SEA. Taking the two interviews in the Review of last week with Mr. Charles Counselman and Mr. W. F. Purdy of the Northwestern Steamship Co. the Ottawa Herald thus discusses the Canadian waterway to the sea: "It is more evident every day that the Georgian bay canal is the only scheme which will solve the problem of cheap lake-ocean route. Every- one interested in lake marine enterprises has been watching with curiosity the experiment inaugurated this year by the Northwestern Steamship Co. of Chicago in through traffic from that city to Europe. The three vessels of the line have made their first round trip and the president of the com- _ pany says: 'It is most too early to determine what the outcome of this venture will be. We have had many things not to our liking to contend with in our early experience, but it has been clearly demonstrated that a line of ships can be operated between Chicago and Europe with perfect safety and dispatch.' : "There has been trouble, however, with the high rates of insurance charged, equal to $1.25 per $100 of cargo. This is based on the supposed extra risk of the canal and river trip and the rates will have to be lived down. Mr, W. F. Purdy, manager of the company, also has this to say: "*The company is well satisfied with the Canadian waterway as it exists, for vessels of the size of our ships. However, before this waterway can be much used it must be deepened to: allow. the passage of boats drawing 18 feet or more. This company is well satisfied that such a project is feasible, and hopes at an early date to see the commencement of the building of the Georgian bay canal, which, in our opinion, will be the route for the deep water canal which is bound to come.' "As has already been pointed out the deepening of Canadian canals has always been behind the development in the size of freighters in the upper lakes and it is only by the construction of the deep waterway by the Georgian Bay-Ottawa route that Canada can reach the position of accommodating the large vessels which now find their way to Buffalo and can only be utilized on that route until such time as Canada provides a waterway for them to the ocean. The lake freighter, it is generally admitted, has reached the maximum of development. "The Canadian Sault lock was opened in 1895 and the Poe lock in 1896 with a depth of 20 to 21 ft. on the sills. The increased draught had been to some extent anticipated by the building of ships which could not economical ships for a 20-ft. draught would have a length of 480 ft. and a breadth of 52 ft. This analysis, therefore, supports the idea that the limit of size of lake boats has been reached unless the channels and the harbors are made deeper. With all the money that has been spent on the Cana- dian canals it is apparent from the remarks of Mr. Purdy that they have just fallen short of the requirements and that it is to the éompletion of the Georgian bay canal that the big freighters are looking to obtain a profitable grain route to the sea." TESTING THE POLAR CURRENTS. Arrangements have been made by Capt. Shoemaker, chief of the revenue cutter service, to place a number of specially prepared casks, designed by Rear Admiral Melville, engineer-in-chief of the navy, on . ice floes in Behring sea, to test the direction of the currents that flow from the polar region. There are fifty of these casks, each 28 in. long and 16 in. in diameter, painted black so as to be seen easily and pointed at each end. Inside each are directions in half a dozen languages to be followed by anybody who finds a cask. He is asked to write to the nearest United States consul, giving the latitude and longitude, when the cask was found, the date and the number of the cask. He is also asked to plug up the cask again and turn it adrift. It is expected that in this way some information of value to mariners and Arctic explorers will be ob- tained. Admiral Melville said that the idea was to demonstrate the drift _ of the Behring Strait. The casks, he explained, were to be placed on the highest hummocks of flow ice. The revenue cutter Bear is going as far as possible to the northward and westward of Herald island and as close as possible to the American archipelago to deposit them. Admiral Mel- ville said that the casks were expected to demonstrate whether the pack drifts from the Arctic were to the westward or to the south and east, into the Atlantic. If they came out between Spitzenberg and Greenland they would go across the North Pole, he said, and if they came out between Nova Zembla and Franz Josef Land the current would. have a southern cant. According to the Hamburg Bérsenhalle a new source of ore supply will be opened at Narvik, Norway, after the completion of the new Ofoten railway in January, 1903. About 16,000,000 tons of the 862,000,000 tons said to be lying at Kirrunavaara-Luossavaara have already been sold to Ger- man consumers and the transport of the greater part of this large quan- tity has already been contracted for by the Hamburg-American line. The export from Narvik will amount to about 1,500,000 tons per annum for a start, but as soon as the mines in the Dunderlandsdalen are in working order the ore export from the northern part of Norway will probably ~ reach about 4,000,000 to 5,000,000 tons per year. Berit eth eee OR Reta ees CaN boys Daca