Evening Star Newspaper, November 30, 1930, Page 109

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, NOVEMBER 30, 1930. 21 Marvels in Construction of United States Navy’s Newest Titanic Airship. Continued from Thirteenth Page large are these parts that two balan-ing sur- faces aze to be built on each rudder and elevator in order to make steering and el-vation easler for the men in the control room. Within the airship alongside ths gangways will be over 100 aluminum fuel tanks, some 25 of them large enough to carry 2,400 pounds, or 400 gallons, of aviation fuel, and others carry- ing 735 pounds of fuel each. Alisgether the fu<l capecity of the Akron will tctal 60 tons. In addition to this weight the ship will carry about six tons of emergency bailast in three- ply rubberized bags with capacities of 1,000 pounds each.. Other bags holding up to 4.400 pounds each will be distributed with the fuel tanks along both sides of the ship. Both fuel tanks and water ballast bags will be controlled from the main control room by means of overhead toggles so that their contents may be released immediately at the will of the captain. From the smaller bags the water ballast will be dropped in one mass, usually for taking off or landing, while out of the larger bags the ballast will be valved at the rate of about 25 pounds a second. In case of emergency, when no more water s 1eft, the fuel, too, can be “dumped” by merely pulling the appropriate toggles. ‘T would be comparatively easy to build the Akron type of vessel as a passenger and eargo-carrying airship. Passenger accommoda~ tions would be built into another bay of the ship, while dining saloon, lounge and other facilities would be provided. The number of passengers the ship could carry would depend on the comforts arranged. The greater and more luxurious the comforts the fewer passen= gers could be accommodated. The maximum, however, with any degree of comfort would be 100 passengers. Construction of the Akron and its sister ship, the ZRS-5, will cost the Navy Department $8,000.000. Compared with the cost of building & modern surface cruiser this is considered & low figure. The airship’s annual cost of main- tenance should be only a fraction that of the cruiser. Comparatively low in cost, however, the Akron lends itself to widespread and varied naval possibilities, its safety above that of other existing types, its control, manzuverability and range easier and more far-reaching. Consider, furthermore, such a passenger ship's usefulness to the modern, hurried business man, the man who today must be satisfied with the telephone or nearly a week's journcy across the ocean to transact his business between New York and, say, Paris. With a speed of 72 knots, or nearly 84 land miles an hour, the new airship could take this business man as one of its 100 passengers, leave New York on Saturday morning and arrive in Paris the next Monday morning—merely pass- ing the week end in flight. After four days of business in Paris, he could UNDER THE Continued from Tenth Page The ax might just as well have been laid at my own heart. I threw on my clothes and rushed out. “What are you doing to my oleander?” I gasped. Gilbert grasped me by the shoulder—I could fecl that he was in one of his fits of anger. “I'm getting rid of it,” he snapped. “It does nothing but shade the house and it's a nuisance.” “Gilbert!” I cried. “Please—mother planted it—it's——" and I can’t remember what foolish, wild words I said. I suppose, not being able to see, I got into the way of the ax. All I re- member is the heavy blow on the side of my head and then falling on a splintered bough that cut my hand. When I came to I was in bed again. It was very quiet and it must have been night. I lay for hours thinking. I was able to be up in a few days. Anne was still away. I could not bear to go to the gaping spot where my oleander had been. I found Gilbert and I was very calm. I did not go to him until I was sure I could be. “All right again?” he asked. “Scrry abou$ that glancing blow. Goed it wasn't serious.” “Never mind,” I mumbled. “I guess I was half asleep. I shouldn't have interfered.” He grunted. “Would you mind,” I went on, and somehow I kept my voice from trembling, “telling me what you've done with—with it?” “The oleander? It's back by the wood pile. I'm going to chop it up for fuel.” “1 wonder——" I felt pretty dizzy, but I had to finish. “I wonder if you'd mind letting me have a branch? I'd like to whittle something out of it to remember it by.” Gilbert laughed. “Why, sure,” he said. SO I went with him while he chopped a branch off and gave it to me. It is rather a tough wood, and of course it was green, but I made myself a tray and fitted the sides to it. I had the queerest feeling all the time; it seemed as i1 while I was cutting it, it was still waving its green leaves over my head, cooling the sun. I.found some of the scattered blossoms on the grass, and I kept those, too, and pressed them. Then I had a little wood left, so I whittled out four meat skewers, and polished them. When the new cook came to give me my lunch, I asked her what we were having for dinner. “Something too hot for a hot day,” she A stateroom on a ship the size of the Akron would have all the conveniences of similar quarters on an ocean steamship. board the ship on Friday morning and arrive in New York the following Sunday afternoon or Monday morning, allowing the extra time for slower return trip against prevailing westerly winds. Commercially as a long-distance mail and freight carrier the Akron type will far surpass any vessel of any type now in use on sea or in air. First, because it can go almost anywhere and over a distance of nearly 11,000 miles at an average cruising speed of nearly 60 miles an hour—which is faster than the average speed of the crack New York to Chicago trains, twice as fast as the Bremen or Europa and much farther than either of these vessels can go under OLEANDER was always surly, such a con- old Maggie. “Mr. Gilbert's ordered & temperature like this. Well, have it; none of us want any- something cold.” feel the same way,” I said. “Nothing for salad and iced tea. But here’s can use,” and I brought out “Just try them, will you, in the roast tonight? I've tried making everything world of wood, but these are the ers I've thought of. I'm curious to how they'll work, with this green wood.” them away, and that night I had doctor maid it was that heavy dinner, with a roast on a hot night, that caused it. had just finished the meal, the doctor afterward, when he became violently half an hour afterward. never cared about the ole- y I did, and he never read about it as I did in my boyhood, or knmew concerning it. instance, he nev:r knew that the wood the oleander is a deadly poison. (Copyright, '1830.) Here is a design for such a cabin. similar conditions without refueling. Second, because it can transport its load from an inland city to Europe and beyond without necessitating the transfer from one form of transportation to another. Third, because it can assure de- livery by avoiding or riding out a storm that might delay or wreck a railroad train, an air- plane or a surface ship. [ AIRSHIPS," says Lieut. Settle, “belong the long-haul field over water, while the airplane must confine itself to short hauls over land or along coast lines. Commercially the Akron would be just as unsuitable for a New York to Chicago or a Key West to Havana run as a plane is impossible for a Tokio to Cali- fornia run. Airplanes will take the ‘high speed- high fare’ passenger and cargo traffic from rai'roads and coastwise steamers, while airships will take over similar traffic from ocean-going surface ships.” Airships will constitute commercially an ad- ditional channzl of transportation over the oceans, complementing the older channels, Out of its gross lift of a little over 260 tons, the Akron as a commercial ship could carry a useful load of about 100 tons, which is as much as two average freight cars will hold, and a small fraction of the pay-load carried by a modern ocean freighter. But of course the ailrship cargoes will be relatively “lightweight-valuable” ones—the “cream” of present-day surface trafic. Being a rigid airship and being built accord- ing to the latest standards, the Akron will be a model for safety. The fact that helium is its. lifting gas and not hydrogen makes the ship completely safe from fire. Helium, although slightly less buoyant than hydrogen, is mon- inflammable and therefore much safer. It should, however, be pointed out that this airship, with its 6,500,000 cubic feet of helium gas, will carry about the same useful load as a hydrogen-inflated ship some 15 per cent smaller in volume. The difference in size makes a dif- ference in cost, but this difference is worth the safety received in return. Were helium as readily available in England and Europe as it is in America, the Graf Zeppelin, the R-100 and other airships there undoubiediy would be filled with it in return for the safety this gas affords. It was the lack of helium that forced England to substitute the highly dangerous hydrogen in the R-101, which caused such a disaster when the ship fell and was burned in France. NOTHER outstanding safety feature of tha Akron, as well as the Los Angeles ‘and other rigid airships, is what is called its “triple layer principle of hull”—one, the gas cell, or series of cells, for the retention of the lifting gas; two, the metal framework surrounding these cells, taking up all stresses, securing maximum strength with minimum weight, and three, the whole inclosed by a taut doped and wire-braced fabric “outer cover” for protection against the elements, reflecting heat and eff ing a smooth surface for the air to fiow over. The designation ZRS-4 or 5, by the way, ia a combination of significant symbols. Z is a letter used by the Navy to denote lighter than aircraft. R stands for “rigid” and S for “scout.” The number indicates the place of the ship in this series. The ZR-1 was the ill-fated Shenandoah, built in this country by the U. 8. Navy, commissioned in September, 1923, and wrecked in Ohio in September, 1925. The ZR-2 was the R-38, built for the U. 8. Navy by the British and destroyed in a test flight over Hull, England. The ZR-3 is the present Los Angeles, flown to the United States by Dr. Hugo Eckener and delivered in 1924 to the U. S. Navy. (Copyright, 1930.) Saved From Hungry Crocodiles Continued from Twentieth Page exactly like tree bark. It is easy to mistake them for the dead trunks of mangrove giants. But watch carefully, come up a little closer, and you will see the glassy green eyes craftily wide awake. The beast cunningly bides its time until its victim gets near enough, when it will whip its wicked tail around and may flip an unwary human being head over heels into the water. As rapidly as a small lizard, it then flashes its enormous bulk around, grasps the struggling human by an arm or a leg and sinks to the bottom of the river to bury its prey in the mud. “The lone old crocodiles are usually the worst rogues. No one knows at what age they nat- urally die—possibly a hundred and fifty or two hundred years. But the older they are, the more you have to watch out for them, as age seems to make them more cunning and to fill them with a keener longing for human food. “There was one old reptile down on the Ugalla River that the natives and their ances- tors had known for nearly a century. It was a venerable old cuss and although it did not have a bad record as a man-eater, many attempts | Quakef Church for W ashington. " Continued from Third Page take part in the business session. However, de- cisions are reached by the “weight of the meet- ing” and not by the casting of voctes. There are no ayes and noes and no counting of votes. According to custom, the consensus of opinion is determined by weight and not by ballot. There might be 50 members on one side of a question and only 30 on the other, and yet the opinion of the 30 would prevail because their opinion carried the most weight; that group included the most substantial thinkers and the ones whose judgment was But to return to the Quaker meeting in Washington. Mr. Price has built several Priends’ meeting houses in America. He and his associates design school buildings, hotels and other pretentious structures, but he has an especial interest in the simple houses of wor- ship of the Priends. He has stu@lied them in the United States, observing the different charac- teristics in various sections, for there are meet- ings in New England, where Quakers first came; throughout the East, gnd especially in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, where Quakers played a prominent part in colonization; in North and South Carolina, where they migrated, and in Indiand and Ohio. Mr. Price has studied the oldest meeting houses in England, where the religion of the Society of Friends originated. There is the Et- tington meeting house, where George Fox, the leader who founded the Society of Friends, preached. Built in the late Gothic style with mullioned windows, it is quite different from the ones Mr. Price designed to catch the spirit of the early Quakers in America. THE vice president of the Washington con- cern which is translating Mr. Price’s plans to stone and wood, John G. Scharf, says that the building is costing about $70,000. It will be completed before Christmas in order that it can be dedicated by the new year. The Quaker meeting house by contrast is diminutive and will accommodate only a hand- ful of people. It will be wholly inadequate to house the crowds that will beseige it out of the curiosity that pursues a President evem to his place of worship, had been made to slaughter it. wily ways had it escaped that the begun to believe it sacred. Eventually it alone, and. for years and years it seen almost every day basking lazily in noon sun on the same out middle of the river. cache where its supp onto this sand bank, it sconce itself and open 1 Soon dozens of crocodile birds would settle on its monstrous head, hop inside the gaping jaws and commence picking the luscious remnants f1®m its teeth. “This crocodile was so lazy that it would He still for hours, half-submerged, while were swimming around inside the jaws, it would suddenly close its mouth, lift its head and turn from side to side, its eyes laughing and winking as if to say, ‘What do you think of that mow? Food floats free right into the old veteran’s stomach.” Then, satisfled it had captured your attention, it would slowly open its jaws and out would pop the imprisoned fish. The old crocodile used to wag and flap its tail every ;l‘;ne it turned the trick, greatly enjoying the e, “The natives down there say it mct its end because of an accident. One day, while the zic- sac birds were busily engaged in picking its teeth, possibly in a dream, it unexpectedly closed its mouth and ground several of the birds to death. The zic-zac flocks thereafter mever forgave the old boy and left him strictly alone. None of them would venture near to pick its teeth after that, or to eat up the army of leeches and other parasites that infested its mouth. As a result, the old veteran died of toothache.” g (Copyright, 1930.) Keeping a Good Face. WHILE there may have been some recession in many lines of business in this country during the past year or more, the country kept a good face about it; that is, the wives and daughters did, for the annual production of cosmetics, perfumes and other toilet prepara- tions showed a decided increase over the 1927 production. Creams led, with the productsg. valued at $35,000,000, and dentifrices came & close second, at $31,000,000. Face powders were third, with $23,000,000, and perfumes right below, with $22,000,000.