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_ MARINE REVIEW. | | oe OUR NAVAL FIGHTING STRENGTH IS LOW. Rear Admiral Charles O'Neil, chief of the bureau of ordnance, in a recent speech before the New York Yacht Club, describing the vessels of the United States navy, said: "The navy list of January 1, 1902, contains the names of 243 com- pleted vessels and of sixty in process of construction, a total of 303 vessels, and avery respectable showing, so far as numbers go, The question is, what are these 303 vessels and how many of them have any real military value? Of the completed vessels I find that eight are unserviceable wooden ships of ancient date, which will probably soon be sold to the highest bidder. One is an old iron, paddle-wheel steamer, the Monocacy, which has been in Chinese waters for over thirty years and ought to have been in the scrap heap years ago, One is the Spanish cruiser Reina Mercedes, which was sunk by the Spaniards at Santiago de Cuba, was afterwards raised, and of which it is proposed to make a sailing training ship; six are old wooden frigates, used for receiving ships; thirty-nine are tugboats; one is the so-called dynamite cruiser Vesuvius, having no military value; one is the ram Katahdin, a pronounced failure; five are purchased steam- ers, used as training ships for landsmen and having no military value; eight are old-fashioned wooden sailing sloops of war, used by the naval militia and for state marine schools; two are wooden training ships for apprentices; one is a small sailing practice vessel for the cadets at Anna- polis; six are old single-turreted monitors with cast iron, smooth-bore guns, relics of the civil war, and of no value; sixteen are colliers; ten are supply vessels, tank steamers, and refrigerating ships; forty-eight are little gunboats, varying from 400 to 500 tons, mostly captured or bought in the Philippines, and twenty-eight are torpedo boats, only useful for special purposes. That is to say, that 181 of the 242 completed vessels now on SHIP BUILDING IN PHILADELPHIA AND VICINITY. Philadelphia, May 28.--One of the most interesting launches from the lower Delaware river ship yards was that of the steamship Maryland by the Harlan & Hollingsworth Co, at Wilmington last Saturday. The vessel is a fine steel side-wheel craft, designed for the fast Chesapeake bay service of the Baltimore, Chesapeake & Atlantic Railroad, and will run between Baltimore and Claiborne, Md., in connection with the railway service. The Maryland is 160 ft. long and will average 16 knots an hour. Miss Dora Dennis, daughter of T. Upshur Dennis, one of the directors of the railroad, was- sponsor for the new ship, and the ceremony passed off in a manner highly creditable to the builders. A large number of prominent Baltimoreans attended the launch. The new steamship Kroonland, building by the Cramps for the Inter- national Navigation Co., will have her trial within ten days. She is scheduled to sail on her maiden voyage from New York on June 28 and is now practically complete. The Kroonland is the most elegant craft in her interior appointments ever turned out by a ship building concern on these waters and has already secured for the Cramp company unstinted praise from ship builders generally. It is the intention of the International Navigation Co. to duplicate the Kroonland and Finland within a reason- able period. It is the understood policy of this company that it will in the future adhere to transatlantic steamships of large cargo capacity and moderate speed, but at the same time having sufficient speed to warrant the most luxurious passenger accommodations. The strike in the anthracite coal region is beginning to have its effect upon local shipping. A very large amount of coal mined in the Pennsyl- vania districts is transferred to this city, loaded on schooners and barges and shipped to New England and southern ports. The mines being tied VIEW OF SOUTHERN END OF SHIP OWNERS' DRY DOCK CO. PLANT, CHICAGO, SHOWING TWO OF THEIR DOCKS AND SHEARS. the navy list have practically no fighting qualities; in fact, absolutely none, if we may extept the torpedo boats. Of the sixty-two remaining vessels, ten are battleships; two, the New York and Brooklyn, are armored cruisers; fourteen are second and third-class cruisers like the Chicago, Baltimore, Cincinnati and Detroit; thirty are small cruisers and gunboats like the Yorktown, Nashville and others, and six are double-turreted monitors, suitable only for harbor defence. Of these sixty-two vessels, at least thirty are so insignificant that they would cut but little figure in a war with any strong power. Thus it will be seen that our effective fight- ing power today is about thirty-two vessels; hence we can lay no claim to any great importance as yet as a naval power. | "Fortunately we have a very respectable building program now under way, as the ships now building will equal in fighting efficiency all the rest of the navy. Of the sixty vessels now under construction, eight are first- class battleships; three are large armored cruisers, much more powerfu than the New York; six are partially protected cruisers of 3,200 tons dis- placement; four are harbor-defence monitors; sixteen are torpedo boat destroyers; ten are torpedo boats, and seven submarine boats. We may safely add twenty-seven of the above vessels to our thirty-two of today, which will, in about three years' time, give us fifty-nine good fighting vessels, eighteen of which will be battleships, eight armored cruisers, ten monitors, and about twenty-three protected and partially protected aoe ers; and we shall also have about fifty-seven torpedo vessels and a lot o small gunboats.and miscellaneous auxiliary craft, useful in their proper sphere. From the foregoing it will be seen that we are deficient in power- ful fighting vessels, and it behooves us to push on with the construction of battleships and armored cruisers until we have a respectable number of each, not wasting our energies or money on a lot more miscellaneous small craft until we have accomplished the more important construction. up, no shipments are made to this city and the vessels are consequently lying idle at their docks. At Port Richmond there is an entire fleet of coal barges owned by the Philadelphia & Reading. They are all tied up and their crews have been laid off indefinitely. This situation applies also to many of the schooners engaged in the southern coastwise coal trade, their owners claiming that it does not pay to send them in ballast, south, to return with lumber. : Another change has been effected at the League Island navy yard, in which Rear-Admiral James H. Sands succeeds Rear-Admiral Wadleigh as commandant. For three years, until last September, Admiral Sands was governor of the Naval Home in this city, when he was transferred as president of the Naval Retiring Board at Washington. During his stay in Philadelphia, Admiral Sands made many friends among the shipping fraternity and by whom he will be cordially welcomed back. The navy department is anxious to have printed as a public docu- ment the history of the Boston navy yard prepared by the late Rear Admiral George Henry Preble. It covers the period from 1800 to 1875, and contains a valuable record of the principal operations of this yard, as well as a large amount of matter of historical value to the navy. Admiral Preble was devoted to naval history, and his manuscript is written with great fulness and accuracy of detail. The Preble manu- script is now in the possession of Rear Admiral M. T. Endicott, chief of the bureau of yards and docks. The new steel tow barge for 'Clergue interests, now on the stocks at the ship yard of the Collingwood Ship Building Co., Collingwood, Ont., will be named Agawa. This barge is 389 ft. over all, and it is expected will be launched about June 15.