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TAE MarINE REVIEW ; December, 1909 THE NAVAL WASTE 502 Vv" HERE is one navy yard to I have heretofore made but slight reference--Mare Island, though not for lack of abun- _ dant material, Natural conditions are somewhat 'against this yard, as it is built upon a tide marsh with soft, treacherous bottom. Why the location was ever selected can possibly not be explained now, but real estate deals were probably no rarer 40 years ago than now. The maintenance of a channel is a never-ending fight against the Sacramento river, which deposits silt about as fast as it can be dredged out. Three hundred and fifty thousand dollars was asked for this alone inthe last naval appropriation. The money thrown into this channel and spent on roads and foundations in this yard would buy a good location and move every fragment of the existing equip- ment from the present site. And once more the plea is made for a dredging - plant on behalf of this yard and the old lie repeated that it will result in cheaper work. | The saw mill in this yard is housed in an expensive enclosed brick building which cost $75,000, according to the schedule of the Bureau of Yards and Docks, or $6.40 per sq. ft. of floor area. Any number of the best shop and fac- tory buildings in this country, buildings which are working, not loafing, of steel and brick curtain wall construction, cost not over $3.50 per sq. ft, many not over $3. Besides, who in the name of common sense ever saw a Pacific coast saw mill enclosed? The biggest and finest mills on the coast, some with the largest output in the world, are open sided to cheapen construction and facilitate handling stock. These mills cost but a fraction, per unit of floor area, of that of the Mare Island mill. There are two foundries in the yard, but one' is closed temporarily. The one now operating employs 30 molders and 20 helpers and has an average weekly output of about 30 tons @f ion and btass, or about 200. lb. per day per man. This is almost equal to the product of the two big foundries at the Washington yard which, the chief of ordnance announces with pride together turned out during the year 2,900 tons of castings of every descrip- tion, a fraction over eight tons per day, or about 80 lb. per day per man, though it is only fair to say the work is of a "See introductory note in August issue. somewhat different character. These figures will bring a smile to the face of every' foundry operator. Flask Storage Beggars Description. The flask storage at Mare Island is beyond description; there is no attempt made to care for flasks; they are simply a miscellaneous heap. There are no aisles or "floors" in the foundry, and the utmost disorder predominates. A foundry can never in the nature of things be a very tidy or orderly place, but never was any like Mare Island. The wasting of money is again ex- emplified in the building of small boats, which is, however, not peculiar to this yard by any means. Take a small 25-ft. boat, for instance, which will be, and may be expected to be, knocked about and worn out in two years. These boats are copper fastened when galvan- ized fastenings would answer just as well. A naval officer told me that these boats could be bought for one-half what they cost in the yard "but they would not be so good." It cost the yard $1,200 to cut out the tubes of torpedo-boat boiler, a job that would be well paid for at $250. For drums for these boilers the material re- quires four months to obtain to navy specifications, while drums made of ma- terial which passes United States steam- boat inspection can be bought on the open market for half the money and de- livered in as many weeks. Expensive Power Plant. The yard is building an expensive power plant, although: it can buy all the power it wants for 1% cents a kilowatt hour, and is buying it at that price now. It will not get a unit out of its own power plant for five times that money. The department seems to have gone mad on the subject of yard power plants, as examination of the reports will show. The new ship-fitters shop is partially erected .aiter the. material lay on ithe ground for five years. The caisson for the "new dry dock" was built under contract and has been delivered long since, while the dock, authorized in 1898, has only got well started. Compare this with Charleston, previously referred to. Some figures on what this navy of ours has cost us since we set out to re- habilitate our fleet may not be unin- teresting: In 1885 the first ship of the new navy was commissioned. Her displacement was about 3,000 tons. Since that time the displacement tonnage of the United States navy has increased to 'more than 1,000,000 tons; almost all built or acquired since that year, and not including any of the old wooden sailing ships, hospital or prison ships, receiving ships, tugs, vessels assigned to the naval militias of the various states, nor miscellaneous craft such as launches, 'barges, lighters, etc., nor submarines. Cost of the First Ship. The first ship of the new navy re- ferred to cost about $1,000,000. The latest authorized additions with a dis- placement of about 24,000 tons each are estimated to cost between $12,000,000 and $15,000,000 each. The cost per ton of displacement has increased from about $350 for an unarmored ship in 1885 to more than $500 in the latest type of battleship, and $1,000 or more in de- stroyers, If we average the cost of the fleet at $500, a ton, we have an expenditure of not less than $500,000,000 for new con- struction only and entirely apart from operation maintenance and repairs, I have not at hand the operation total for those 24 years, but for many years it has averaged $100,000,000 a year, and we cannot go far wrong in averaging the entire period at $75,000,000 a year; we certainly will be rather under than over the mark. This fig- ure, of course, includes the cost of maintenance and additions to shore equipment and makes for the 24 years the tidy sum of $1,800,000,000, or, add- ing new construction, say more than $2,250,000,000 for our naval establish- ment. Two Fleets of Battleships. Now to the foregoing it is proposed by Admiral Evans to add two complete fleets of 24 firstclass battleships 'each. He says that is what we need. Since the firstclass battleship has advanced in tonnage from that of the oldest on the naval list, the Massachusetts, In- diana, Iowa and Oregon, of 11,000 tons, to the Florida and Utah of about 24,000 tons, in about 15 years, and the oceans of money spent for the purpose have produced less than 30 firstclass battle- ships in about 20 years, we can, from these figures, readily approximate the cost and tonnage of our 48 ships, even allowing three battleships per rate of construction which is double our year, a