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DEVOTED TO EVERYTHING AND EVERY INTEREST CONNECTED OR _ ASSO- -CIATED WITH MARINE MATTERS ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH. Published every Thursday by The Penton Publishing Co. - CLEVELAND. BOSTON NEW YORK DULUTH PHILADELPHIA CHICAGO PITTSBURG CINCINNATI Correspondence on Marine Engineering, Ship Building and Shipping Subjects Solicited. Subscription, $3.00 per annum. To Foreign Countries, $4.50. Subscribers can have adéresses changed at will. Change of advertising copy must reach this office on Thursday preceding date of publication. ' The Cleveland News Co. will supply the trade with the Marine Review through the regular channels' of the American .. News Co. European Agents, .The International News Company, Breams Building, Chancery Lane, London, E. C, England, Entered at the Post Office a Cleveland, Ohio, as Second Class Matter. February '14, 1907. ANTHRACITE: FOR THE NAVY.' Rear Admiral -Robley D. Evans, U. 2G. 5N., the North American pro- in the current isue of Review has pounded a rather startling scheme. In stating his contention, he says: I believe that the government of the United States should at once possess itself of the en- tire anthracite field. of Pennsylvania and re- tain it for purposes of national defense. And if, through accidental discovery, other deposits of this precious mineral are developed, they should be instantly appropriated by the national government and reserved for its own uses. Be- ing a sailor, of course I mean naval uses, first of all, 4 ; , The proposition is, I know, startling, but I believe its soundness can be demonstrated, The desirability of anthracite as a fuel for the navy is clearly demon- strated by Admiral Evans, for aside from the fact that it Is smokeless, the strategic value of. which is at once apparent, it is also true that America is alone among the nations possessing anthracite in worfable quantities. Other lands have bituminous coals in / THE Marine REVIEW abundance even as we have, but if our war vessels used only anthracite, such alone would be stored at our various coaling stations which the naval forces of hostile nations would not be able to use in their bituminous furnaces, whereas the change from anthracite to bituminous for our vessels would be but a simple matter should it become necessary. é The ability to maneuver without the dense smoke in view is equaled also by the fact that anthracite produces no tell-tale torch of flame trom, the funnels as was. the case when the cutter McCullough brought fire. from the guns at Corregidor island on the occasion of Admiral Dewey's night entrance into Manila bay, thereby nearly precipitating disaster upon the enterprise. a 2 _ Admiral stress upon the inability of the signal Evans lays considerable men on the various vessels of.a fleet to see the signals from the flagship, owing to the dense black smoke sur- rounding them. Of course this might lead. to serious complications in event of war, Admiral Evans also says: It is a fact not generally known at present that anthracite was the naval fuel of the civil war, on the northern side at least, and every American should be proud of that page of history. Only by the use of that fuel -was the federal fleet enabled to maintain the great- est blockade the world has ever known, on thousands of miles of coast-line, from the Vir- ginia capes to the Mexican boundary on the Gult-of Mexico; % 4 The question natu- rally arises. Why was 'the use of anthracite abandoned by the American navy? The answer is to be found in two words, "economy'"? and "sneed."' American naval vessels continued to use hard coal, Those were the days of combined sailing and steaming ships, and coal was twsed_ spar- ingly and only in cases where great haste was required, With the advent of the new naval policy in the early eighties, British Like all for- eign designed ships they were planned models were followed. for the use of soft coal. contend that for a given grate surface more power and speed may be obtained from soft coal than from hard, there- fore we followed this policy. The use of oil fuel for the nay is not favored by Admiral Evans for several reasons. First, it does not ad- mit of forcing--the dashes of speed so necessary in naval practice; sec- ond, it would be dangerous to store oil alongside of tons of explosives, "the ship's company would be living over a volcano, so to speak. And in battle a single shell might fire the For many years after the civil war," Engineers whole ship." Lastly, Admiral Evans 'asks the pertinent question as to -where it would be possible to obtain oil in foreign ports. .At only a very few he declares it could be obtained at reasonable rates. Admiral, Evans concludes by saying: About eighteen billion dollars would repre- sent, at present values, the available anthra- cite deposits which the United States govern- ment should acquire to possess the entire store of this fuel. 'The figures are startling; but "remember that this vast sum is not necessarily to be disbursed at once. In_ fact, it may be spent in the course of centuries--only, indeed, as the fuel. is mined and consumed, It will be for the actuary to calculate the compensa- tion which the government shall make to the individual owners of the coal fields; to capi- talize their holdings, and provide for a syste- matic reimbursement. Tees Against our will; by the practice of the arts of peace; indeed, through our industrial com- petition with foreign nations and our insistence upon our rights to equal privileges and fair treatment; we may at any moment be plunged into hostilities. That is where that celebrated utterance of Pinckney's would find its bear- ing--"Millions. for defence, but not one cent for tribute.' The millions would lie in our anthracite beds, and our navy would do the rest. . Picture the fate of a vast hostile fleet assembled off our Atlantic seaboard, with its colliers and tenders laden with soft coal, belching great clouds of smoke of inky black- ness by day and columns of fire by night, while around them circled) our 'swift scouts and cruisers and torpedo-boats and, within con- venient signal range, our great battleships, each representative of a sovereign state--all well-nigh invisible, but ready to dash in at an opportune moment and deal a _ vital stroke. And 'all because of anthracite. Would it not pay! ADMIRALTY TRIALS OF SUBMARINE SIGNALS. In October last an extensive series of experiments was carried out at Ports- mouth by order of the admiralty to test the suitability of submarine bells for use in the fleet and as a means of locating light-vessels and other craft in time of H. M. SS. Antrim and Spanker were detailed for this special service, fog. and the trials. were made under the di- rection of Capt. H. F, Oliver, M. Vv. QO: of H. M.S, Dreyads Cast AP. Ever ett, of the Portsmouth Signal School; and. Capt. W. € Pakenham, C. B.of H. M. S. Antrim. Certain extracts from the official report of the trials have been made public by the admiralty. We un- derstand that the report coritains a good deal of of a confidential nature as to the suitability of the sys- tem for fleet signaling, information and there is every prospect of subaqueous sound sig- naling forming an important factor in future fleet maneuvers. | After detailing certain experiments, the Teport says: "This shows that at a dis- tance of five miles the submarine bell could be heard and its distance deter- mined with certainty, and this isa dis- tance beyond the certain range of any of the aerial sound signals in use by light-vessels in fog. When at five miles