20th Sept. Tim first number in August of Transport, a weekly paper of great value to all who are interested in shipping, has three articles which are well worth summarising. Choy deal respectively with the Steam Navy of England, the Longitudinal Bulkhead, and the New Type of Cargo Steamer. Ihe first: is a notice of a book lately published by Mr. Harry Williams, retired Inspector of Machinery, R.N., which demonstrates, we are told, the force of Admiral Commerell's epigram, " England's best Foreign Minister is a strong navy." Mr. Williams, "who is an authority of considerable weight, and who certainly possesses an intimate knowledge of what he writes upon," dwells on the existence in our navy of several thousands of non-combatants, forming from 27 to over 40 per cent. of the crews of our ships of war.
OF these 70. per cent. belong to the stoker class, and Mr. Williams proposes that these men should "serve one month in every four on deck, performing deck duties, including training in gunnery, and three months in four in the engine-roo This is especially desirable in modern war-ships, where the stoker's work is exceptionally trying to the health, so that. a month's service out of every four on deck would be of very decided Denefit. Mr, Williams goes farther than this. The duties of the seamen of the past were on deck and aloft, but with the substitution of steam for sails, the duties of the seamen have come to be on deck and below; and he therefore proposes that all boys admitted into the navy in future should be trained alike in general deck duties, gunnery, engine-room duties, and stoking. Thus in time the whole crew of a man-of-war would do duty in the engine-room for one month out of every four, and on deck for the other three months. He proposes, too, that all the executive officers of the ship should have a thorough knowledge of the principles upon which the design and construction of modern steam machinery are based; though he does not propose that all the officers should be trained alike, and should take their turn in driving the engines. "The present navy.requires, for its efficient service, an entirely new seamanship unlike the old as the present navy is unlike that of the past." This quite true, but at the same time it is certain that the practice of the old-fashioned seamanship gives something to the character of both officers and men, some addition of self-reliance, resourcefulness, readiness in difficulties, and willingness to incur responsibility promptly and successfully, which we can hardly believe all the possible training in the gymnasium and ithe engine-room can give. The way in which large fleets were handled the other day in the manceuvres proves that our officers and men, trained to be sailors as well as engine-drivers, still possess the qualities the old seamanship gave, and which will always be in demand. It will still take a sailor to handle a torpedo boat at sea, "lashed to the conning tower, holding himself to his post, Phrashing her through a westerly gale, around the Irish coast."
Phe question of the Longitudinal Bulkhead is taken up in reference to the capsizing of the Victoria. When the news of her capsizing arrived in Shanghai by wire, it was the opinion of many nautical men that to the longitndinal bulkhead, which prevented the water spreading itself evenly over the vessel, this capsizing was due. The question, according to Transport, has not met at home with the attention jit deserves, though this cause was suggested in a letter which appeared in the Times. To the ordinary mind it does not seem to require argument, or the semi-scientific demonstration that Transport gives, to prove that a vessel (which takes in a lot of water on one side of ber, the other side being still full of air, "is in the same position as if she were on the side of a wave. She must capsize, and if she is top-weighted with heavy guns and turrets the effect is increased." Transport goes on to recommend that experiments should be made with models to ascertain the Jeffect of the longitudinal bulkhead, with which, it must be remembered, the large twin-screw greyhounds of the Atlantic are also now fitted. It draws from the story of the explosion on the Great Kastern the moral that it must not be thought that scientific men cannot make fatal blunders, and the longitudinal bulkhead may be such a blunder. Scott Russell, Brunel, and George Stephenson pooled their scientific knowledge in the construction of the Great Eastern, and they sent her to sea with water jackets round her funnels, without any provision for the escape the steam generated by the heat of the fannels. A terrible explosion, which practically mined the fortunes of the big ship, was the result.
The New Type of Cargo Ship, referred the third article, is the Turret steamer, which was launched last year. She is a modification of the whalebacks, carrying on her rounded back a contin-nous turret running from stem to stern, the width of it being one-third the beam of the ship. The Turret has been trading to and fro across the Atlantic for over six months. "She weathered the storm in which the Naronic was lost, she behaved well in a heavy sea under trying conditions, and she has paid her owners at the rate of 23 per cent. on her first half-year's working and that, too, when freights were at their worst. Both from the nautical and the commercial point of view the turret-deck steamer appears to have justified her design, and the best proof of the fact is that her owners have ventured on another ship of the same type." This vessel, the Turret Age, is Inger than her predecessor, is of a finer iodol, and has improvements in details. She is-811 feet long, 38ft. Qin, in breadth, 24ft. lin. in depth, and on the light draught of 19 feet she has a carrying capacity of 3,650 tons, with net register of only 1,380 tons, She will steam 10 to 11 knots, and the owners are now convinced by practical tests that the principles on which these ships are built are as correct as theory and foresight could make them, Considering that the Viking ship, which lately made such a successful voyage across the Atlantic to the World's Fair at Chicago, is built very much on the sane lines as the fast ocean steamers of today, we might assume that the proper form of hull has been now definitely settled; but the success of these turret ships and the whalebacks shows that after all there is no finality in shipbuilding, and we may yet see the numerous coasters that run in and out of Shanghai superseded by steamers of an entirely different type.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.