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MARINE REVIEW. [July 10 war power at the present rate we will certainly before long require £50,- 000,000 to provide for the prosperity of British shipping. With regard to the shipping combine in relation to merchant cruisers, the navy league says that if it is open to the British government to secure by friendly agreement with the North Atlantic trust that there shall be no transfer of British ships, either those now entering the combine or those to be built for it in British yards to any foreign register, and likewise to contract that they shall continue to be officered and manned by the Royal Naval Reserve, our national interests would be safeguarded, and the navy league's objects--the preservation of valuable mercantile cruisers and fast transports--attained. If the government have reasonable proposals of this character before them they should be accepted, as such an arrange- ment could not fail to strengthen our maritime position in the event of war with any country other than the United States. In any event, the league appeals to the government to make the present occasion for a new departure in our mercantile policy, recognizing the necessity of link- ing up the different parts of the empire by a subsidized line of steamers suitable for admiralty purposes. po According to Lord Brassey, there are no indications of decline in the general prosperity of the country. On the whole the external com- merce of the country has been more active and remunerative than might have been expected under the adverse circumstances caused by the war in South Africa, and, taking a broad view, there is full justification for the confidence that in any competition on even terms we are well able to hold our own as an industrial people. Adverting to the Atlantic combine Lord Brassey pointed out that some movement similar to that which Mr. Morgan had initiated was inevitable. The British government would take care that any engagements with the admiralty would be executed, but let us not, he said, lose our national dignity in unavailing and groundless alarm. Rather let us calmly and confidently face the new conditions with which we had to deal. We had gained our position as a maritime nation, and we should hold it against all comers, because we built ships and sailed them more cheaply than any rivals. If in consequence of Mr. Mor- gan's combination we had to surrender any considerable proportion of the trade hitherto carried under the British flag some action must be taken. GERMAN NAVAL PROGRAM. By the German naval program three new high-speed cruisers are to be laid down. As those resemble our Amethyst class recently ordered, the chief points in design may be mentioned. They will be of less dis- placement but of slightly greater speed. The dimensions of the German ships will be 360 ft. long, 40 ft. 4 in. beam and 15 ft. 9 in. draught, while the displacement will be 2,715 tons. Our new ships are to displace 3,000 tons and the relative speeds will be 22 knots and 2134 knots. The German vessels will have engines of 8,000 I.H.P. against 9,800 I.H.P. in the case of our vessels, which will thus have a greater margin for speed. The German cruisers will have ten guns of 4-in. caliber and ten 1.46-in. weapons. Three new battleships of 13,000 tons are to be ordered from the Wilhelmshaven, Kiel and Dantzig yards, respectively, while six bat- tleships are to be finished before the end of the financial year. These new battleships are estimated to cost £1,243,000 each. Their speed is to be 19 knots, as compared with the 18% knots of the King Edward VII. class. They will have four 1l-in. guns each to fire two rounds every three minutes, eighteen 7.12-in. guns, twenty-four small pieces, and six torpedo tubes. Three armored cruisers of 9,000 tons are to be pushed forward, and three protective deck cruisers are also to be advanced, in addition to the commencing of three new vessels. Two river gunboats are to be laid down. Six torpedo boat destroyers are to be completed, and six more of 350 tons laid down. The German program of new con-' struction includes nine battleships, three armored cruisers, six protective- deck cruisers, two gunboats, and twelve torpedo-boat destroyers; and of . these there are now to be commenced three battleships, three cruisers, two gunboats and six destroyers. The new construction vote is £5,638,428, of which £3,758,300 is for hull and engines, £1,511,800 for artillery and tor- pedoes, and £368,328 for miscellaneous expenses. JAPANESE DOCK EXPERIMENTS. The Japanese have been making some interesting tests with the bat- tleship Asahi which was built at Clydebank, with the view of determining the best method of supporting such enormous vessels when they are in dry dock, The principal difference in battleships as compared with mer- chant ships is a concentration of weight within a limited area in the former. The hull and fittings make up only 38.1 per cent. of the total dis- placement, leaving 61.9 of load which is more or less carried in one or two confined areas in the structure. Machinery represents 9.9 per cent. of the total, coal 4.8 per cent., guns 11.1 per cent., armor protection 31.5 per cent. and the remaining 4.6 per cent. represents equipment. The point where weight is most localized is immediately near the barbettes with their large guns and gun mountings, forward and aft, where the load was found to be 80 tons per foot of the length of the ship, whereas at other points in the center of the vessel it varied from 60 to about 50 tons, due to the broadside belt, to the coal bunkers, and to the boilers and ma- chinery. The weight immediately forward of the barbettes was 30 tons per foot and gradually dropped towards the ends. The contention is that the ship should be fitted not only with sufficient keel blocks and bilge blocks, but also with internal shores. This is now to be applied in all the Japanese ships, when docking. It is found, further, that when the ship settles on the keel block, there is a tendency for the sides to sag, owing to the great beam of the vessels. The Japanese have, therefore, decided that in addition to keel and bilge blocks heavy shores must be used to support the ship against the sides and the bottom of the deck. From the water-line to the keel blocks there are seven rows of shores, and these are wedged in position at different periods of the docking operations by gangs of divers engaged for the purpose. The bilge blocks are fitted by divers, and the result is said to be a very great reduction in the strain on the ship's structure. SERIES OF PROPELLER TRIALS. 3 |. © ba Dr. Froude's system of testing the resistance. of shj ae , : -of ships by model ex- periments prepared the way for a great improvement in naval ae ieee and enabled the designer to lay down the lines of his ship so as to develop a form which would give a most economical speed result from a prede- termined horse power, with almost a certainty of ini ; att result. One difficulty' remained athing 'the' desired as to the form of propeller, Experi- | mental trials with models of propellers, in a manner analogous to that for ship hulls, have been made but the results have proved approximate rather than precise. The admiralty has determined to make comparative trials with the-four ships of the Drake class, all fitted with propellers of varying proportions. In all the ships of the Drake class the propeller is the same, and is the result of tank experiments; but the blades being - bolted to the boss can have their pitch varied so as to increase or decrease the coarseness. With such an increase one revolution represents a greater forward movement; and on the trials of the Drake, where the pitch was 24 ft. 6 in. the speed of 23.05 knots was got with 116 revolutions; whereas in the case of the Good Hope the same speed necessitated the engines running at slightly over 126 revolutions, because the propellers had a pitch of only 22 ft. 914 in. The Leviathan represented the medium course; her propellers having a pitch of 23 ft. 91%4 in. gave the ship a speed of 23.25 knots for 122 revolutions; and it is now proposed to see what results will be got from the King Alfred by still further increasing the pitch of her propeller. A reduction in the revolutions is desirable as the piston speed of the Good Hope exceeded 1,000 ft. per minute, which is a very severe trial of the machinery; but it is thought that in addition there is increased efficiency at higher speed. The slip of the propeller was least in the case of the Drake; when the speed was 22 knots, the Drake on her full- power trial developed 30,557 H.P. when running at 116 revolutions, and then the coal consumption was 1.83 tons per horse power per hour, On her 30 hours' trial at 75 per cent. of the power 106 revolutions gave 23,103 I.H.P., the speed working out at 22.08, which is practically the same as in the case of the Good Hope. The coal consumption was 1.8 lb. On the low-power trial at one-fifth, the maximum speed proved to be practically 1514 knots for 6,937 H.P., the revolutions being then 72 and the coal con- sumption 1.72 lb. per HP. per hour. : The admiralty has adopted a new regulation in reference to steam _ trials of ships in commission. When the water-tube boiler was adopted it was decided that the full-power contract trial should last for eight in- stead of four hours, and the continuous steaming-power trial (75 per cent. of the total power) for thirty instead of eight hours. A _correspond- ing change has been made in connection with service runs. Once a quar- ter every ship in commission will steam for eight instead of four hours at full speed, and for the remainder of the twenty-four hours at continu- ous steaming power. Cruising will be done at about one-fifth power, "ordinary" service will be at two-fifths power, proceeding with "despatch" at three-fifths, with the 'utmost despatch" at four-fiths, and on "emer- gency duty" at full speed. The Encounter, launched at Devonport dock yard, is the first vessel of the royal navy in which it was decided to fit Diirr water-tube boilers. The boiler parts were made in Germany and put together at the engineer- ing works at the Devonport dock yard, where. the machinery is being constructed. The power to be developed is 12,500 indicated, and, with the exception of one German battleship with engines of 15,000 I.H.P., this is the largest installation of Durr boilers yet fitted. There are only eight or nine warships of all nations launched with this system, which has been ordered for one of our third-class cruisers of 22,000 I.H.P. in combination with cylindrical boilers. It is practically decided that the armor for all the three battleships recently ordered by the admiralty is to be made at Sheffield. The Vickers company will supply the plates for the ships which they themselves are building at their Barrow works; John Brown & Co. will get the order for the ship being built at the Devonport dock yard, King Edward VII; the Commonwealth at Fairfield will be supplied with armor by Cammel & Co. The armor for these ships includes plating of almost all thick- nesses, 11 in. or 12 in. for the barbettes, 9 in., 8 in, and 7 in. for the re- spective belts, which are to extend in three strakes from under the water line right up to the level of the upper deck. There will be 5-in. armor for the four barbettes, one for each 9.2-in. gun, while similar armor will be used for traverses of partitions across the ship to isolate the 6-in. guns, which are to be placed behind the 8-in. and 7-in. side plating. The 6-in. armor for the six new cruisers of the Devonshire class, however, will be largely supplied by William Beardmore & Co. of Glasgow, who are in a first rate position for carrying out extensive orders for almost any thick- ness of armor. The Fairfield Ship Building & Engineering Co., Ltd., has scored in the marked success of the official trials of the Bedford, just completed. This vessel is a first-class armored cruiser of the County class and was launched in August of 1901. On Tuesday last she left Devonport dock yard for the purpose of undergoing her official steaming trials. After the usual preliminary trials she was put on what is technically known as the thirty-hours four-fifths power trial, which was finished on Friday after- noon. On Saturday the vessel underwent the final trial of eight hours' steaming at the full power of 22,000 I.H.P., the mean power developed being 22,457 and the speed attained over 23 knots. These results are highly satisfactory, and the fact that the whole of the trials were com- pleted between Tuesday and Saturday constitutes a record in the carrying out of the severe tests required by the admiralty. AGaird & Co., Greenock, launched a few days ago the large twin-screw steel steamer California, which they have built to the order of the Pacific Steam Navigation Co. This vessel's dimensions are: Length, 418 ft.; breadth, 52 ft.; depth, 36 ft. 9 in. She is of 6,000 tons gross. Her ma- chinery, supplied by the builders, will consist of two sets of triple-expan- sion engines giving 5,000 I.H.P. The California is intended both for passenger and cargo traffic. She has accommodation for 130 first-saloon and 200 third-class passengers. Electricity is fitted throughout. The windlasses and winches are of the most approved type for the rapid load- ing and discharging of cargo. Mars he Clergue is contemplating, in connection with his numerous other larger industries, the establishment of a dry dock at Sault Ste. Marie, though it is not definitely settled on which side of the river it will be built. It will be a gravity dock built on the Lake Superior level so that no pumps will be necessary to empty it, the water being permitted to run into the power canal. An agreement has been signed by the Grand Trunk railway and the harbor commissioners at Montreal where the railway is granted a valu- able site on what is known as Windmill point upon which to erect an ele- vator for the transshipment of grain. It is expected that the sum to be expended in improvements will reach $1,000,000,