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ig by taking immediate steps to prevent the present waste of expensive and ef- ficient power in stormy weather by the adoption of the inexpensive and practical method herein suggested. Although the proposed alterations are principally for the purpose of counteracting the defects exhibited by steamers in stormy weather, it may be as well to point out that the pres- ent good qualities in smooth water are not only preserved, but are im- proved upon; the screws and rudder being situated in a less exposed po- sition than \at present, could therefore be made more use of to govern the movements of vessels when in port without risk at sea of entanglement with derelict fishing nets, damage from floating wreckage, ice, and other ob- structions. The shafting being short- ened by the transference of the screw to about one-half its usual length, would cost substantially less than now, be considerably less liable to fracture from fluctuating strains or any other cause; likewise the friction would be reduced which would give an increase of effective I. H. P. to the engines without additional consumption in fuel, if working under the same conditions. I beg to state that, in publishing this, my first consideration has been to in- crease the safety of life and property at sea. Further, at no other period has British shipping had so serious a. competition to contend with from for- eign bounty-protected steamers. Con- sidering, therefore, that so many mil- lions of pounds are expended yearly on new tonnage, it is recommended and sincerely hoped this great capital will without delay be invested in the most efficient and economical steamers that can be built. Rear-Admiral Capps, chief con-. Sttucter. of the navy; and Rear-Ad- miral Cowles, chief of the equip- ment bureau, are visiting the Pacific coast under special orders from the navy department to make a thorough inspection of the yards and stations there and to report upon the future needs of the navy in that field. Rear- Adméral - Holliday, chief of 'the bureau of yards and docks is to fol- low. them to San Francisco on a like mission. The resources of the Mare Island and Bremerton navy . yards, the only ones on the Pacific coast, are not enough to care for the battleship fleet, even if it only makes a short visit to that coast, and suit- able harbors will be examined with a view to the establishment of a naval Biatiou. oan Diego, Cal., is said to possess many advantages for improv- ments of this kind. THE Marine. REVIEW GREAT EASTERN VS. CUNARD- ERS. ; In the course of a paper on "Structural Development in British Merchant Ships," which was read at the Bordeaux Inter- national Congress, Mr. J. Foster-King said: The Great Eastern, built in 1859, was 680 ft. by 83 ft. by 58 ft., is stated to have had no sheer, and no close-spaced transverse frames; the transverse mem- bers consisted of webs and bulkheads which averaged 16 ft. apart, only a few of them being extended to the outer shell. The tiers of beams below the upper deck were but little better than rafters for flooring, the shell plating was only 34-inch iron (for which modern practice would call 12-20th steel the equivalent) stiffened by longitudinals 2 ft. 6 in. apart on the bottom, 5 ft. on the bilges and sides, and 7 ft. 6 in. apart on the top sides; there was an inner skin of %%4-in. iron (equal to 8-20ths steel) extending up to the fourth deck, two longitudinal bulkheads of the same thickness which extended to the full deptth of the ship, stiffened by plate webs 5 ft. apart. The upper deck was in two layers of two thicknesses of %4-in. plating in combina- tion with longitudinals 5 ft. apart, so that longitudinally she was a single-deck ship, having relatively narrow, but very strong, top members connected to the lower part of the structure by four films of thin plating, two of which are not stiffened inside the squares of about 16 Ho by (ft 6G: in, formed by . the deck stringers and webs. The ship was ,riveted throughout with %-in. sivets, all the plate seams were single riveted, and none of the butts had more than double riveting. There is no gainsaying the remarkable nature of these facts, and, after discounting the inevitable reduction in their import- ance by the influence of form, absence of sheer, great depth of hull, and_ re- latively low speed at sea, there seems to be no escape from the conclusion that the lessons to 'be derived from this monu- ment of sucessful structural design have not been applied in subsequent practice. It is the custom to speak of the Great Eastern as being framed longitudinally, but this, of course, is not true in the literal sense of being framed _long- itudinally and no other way; and, as it is impossible to conceive a metal ship of any size 'without effective transverse members at sufficiently close intervals to permit of the stresses being trans- mitted thereto through longitudinal mate- tial of reasonable dimensions, it might be well to adopt some other nomenclature to show that such departures from or- dinary framing systems merely indicate a widening of the distance between the transverse members. The Cunard . steamers are 760 ft. by 87 ft. 6in. by 60 ft., have sheer, the transverse frames are 32 in. apart, reinforced by web frames 10 ft. 8 in. apart; there are four com- plete steel decks, having beams 32 in. apart; the shell plating is 21-20ths to 20-20ths; there is an inner skin 15-20ths thick, extending 8 ft. above the keel, stiffened by 10-20ths longitudinals about 6 ft. apart, in addition to the transverse floors 32 in. apart; there are two longitudinal bulkheads 10-9-20ths thick, extending up the fourth deck, while the top member of the structure consists of two layers of thick plating connected to double topside plating over 2 in, total thickness. The riveting of the seams of shell plating is treble, and of the butts quadruple, with special double straps on the top sides. The Lusitania and Mauretania represent the latest and greatest development of a modern type, which, owing probably to the commercial failure of the older ves- sel, has not at any time been appreciably influenced by the example of the Great Eastern's structure, a type which prob- ably shows less variation, less origin- ality in conception, and greater excel- lence in execution than any other, prob- ably because cost is not usually a par- amount consideration, and it is a ne- cessity of design that it be provided with as many decks as_ possible, con- sequently the modern tradition that the decks which are fitted under the upper deck are structural necessities has re- mained undisturbed in practice. It cannot be said that the introduc- tion of steel revolutionized shipbuild- ing, although it pushed progress. faster, nor that the manufacturer has been ahead of the consumer, although there have been great developments since the days of the Buenos Ayrean, the first -steel Atlantic steamer, in the number of sections and sizes of material avail- able. In fact it was not until the Stand- ards Committee took up the work two years ago that any attempt was made in Britain to systematize the form of steel sections, or to obtain reasonable propor- tions of web, flange, &c., to depth of section, It is to be hoped that stand- ardization will not spell delay .in further improvement in section design and development of sizes. The cargo steamer seems to me to be the most important species of the genus ship not only because it is numerically the largest, but because it shows the greatest number of variations, and the greatest activity in developing these in- to distinct species. The ordinary large cargo steamer of 30 years ago was but a modification in dimensions of the tem- porary passenger and cargo type, rang- ing in length from 260 ft. to 280 ft., hav- ing two tiers of beams, a tier of wide-