The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, July 10, 1898, Page 20

> = 0 THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, JULY 10, 1898. % LATEST AND GREATEST WONDERS OF SEA-GOING CRAFT % The Turbinia---A ples---She Cuts Through the Water at the Rate of Sixty Miles new Vessel Built on New Prinei- an Hour and Will Revolutionize Ocean Travel the World Over. HIPBUILDERS the world over are at present more inte the trial trip of a little steamer lately finis weastle-on- Tyne, F than they are even in the marvelous performances of our big bz } n wt And there is every should be, for the is the Turbinia— at, regardless of »mises to revo- ittleships. they red to > ocean trav Marvelous as ** may seem the Tur- binia has covered 35 knots in sixty minutes, nearly forty-three miles. She AN \\\\\\«\\ sted in | | beside it, 1 | can be easi | must be conceded to be the most mar- | pressure of at deal of improvement in more |be used. Her hull is 100 feet long, 9 s than one. Briefly it is the en- |feet across the beam and as sharp as f the Turbinia that makes it a knife at the prow. If the greatest to use the hull. The two to-| gether make th marine wonder. The inventor and builder of this mar- velous craft is Mr. ns, an old res | dent of Newcastle-on-Tyne. He makes ret of anything he d weight were not at the keel such a hull would be dangerous, even in a moderate breeze. As it is, it is prac- tically non-upsetable. An ordinary gale would have little effect at dis- no s , but glad- | tyurhing her balance, because the great- shows people through his works and | eq¢ wejght is nearly twenty feet below xpla‘ns the mechanical principle of | pe \vater line. , The decks keep al- | his engine. In fac* he has nnehnr these running a dynamo and another just 18 open so that the inside | tFOUSD Of the sea. v seen. | Notwithstanding the smallness of her Although one part of the Turbinia | hull, the Turbinia’s engines register | depends upon the other, the engine |2100 horsepower and run at a steam 225 pounds to the square most level, TRMINNNYA N AN DYNAMITE GUN- LAUNCHING A 200 PoUND SHELLAT SANTIAGC'S FORTS te in thirty minutes 1 through miles an has cov 1 more th water at @ 1S Sp! a mat ctified where 1 purpos the p is little craft seem when d that she the first e ever As she practically a perfect ve of skim over the water at 1 than any other But a number of im- ater built. spes D o %y us because it Her bollers are of the tubular is built on an en- |inch. 1 the Purbinia engine. She has three propeller wheels. even when she rides in the | princip This is what is such as are in use in most ves- » rotary principle. That is, Such modifications as may be | of the engine run in one are only to gain space. Her coal bunk- engines there is | ers hold seven tons, only enough to back and forth motion that absent | | a couple of hours at full speed. nybody who h ever ridden on an This whole ssel is all controlled | eamer the jar and | from one place. that cc goes through | mpo gimplicity of the mechanism the vessel iThis d by the back | payeq gignaling to the engine-room en- and forth motion of the engines. With : tirely unnecessary. {to do but handle valves, and these are ny mechanical standpoint the | a1l Worked directly from a little steel ne is the simplest engine | JOUSe on the deck. \hum. ; it is nothing more nor | Started, stopped or reversed by a turn the Turbinia rotary engine this is en- absent. less than a windmill in a cylinder. | Oof the wrist. In detail the whole engine consists of | To ride on the Turbinia at full speed in rough weather is not exactly a ant experience. At such a time pumped in under the fires and | flames shoot out of the thick smoke- | stack. The vessel does not take time to go over a wave, but plunges through it and her deck is always awash. The salt water splashes up against the al- most red hot smoke stack and sizzles The Wonderful New Turb Section of the shaft showing blades against which the steam is forced as it passes from-right to left. By this method the shaft is turned by the steam in the same way that a windmill is turned by wind—it i down or back and forth motion as in all other steam engines. The action is entirely new in motors and deve: provements have already been sug gested so that when' another vessel of the same kind is built there is no say- ing what speed it may reach. Nearly ev day for the past six weeks the Turbinia has been out on a trial trip with a delegation from some of the big shi_building yards of the world. Eng rs have come from America, Australia and Russia as well as from ev y country in Southern Eu- rope and in each instance they have been surprised and delighted with what th aw. ‘“She’s the most marvelous piece of complished,” has been the general ver- dict. It is not entirely to the co.struction of her hull that the Turbinia’'s mar- velous speed i due. Nor is it entirely to her engines, although they are of an entirely new type. But it is to the combination of both. An ordinary type of engine would tear the hull of the Turbinia to pieces long before a speed of 35 knots was reached, even granting the engines were capable of producing it. Nor by putting the engines of the Turbinia into an ordinary hull could the high speed be obtained although there i{s no denying there would be a marine engineering ever ac- | loudly. The rush of air is awful and roars like distant breakers. Behind the vessel there is a mountain wave of seething foam. But even in all this tumult there is no jar at all. The Turbinia rides as easily as a skiff on a quiet lake, and it is possible to write in the tiny cabin without the least inconvenience. In fact, when one goes below the sensa- tion is more like riding on a sailing vessel than a steamer. What the future of this vessel will be is not hard to conjecture. For long distances at high speed she is not to be considered on account of the great ine Motor—the Fastest Yet. collars and the hundreds of little s a single motion instead of up and lops tremendous speed. | a shaft with rows of blades along its | entire length. These blades are so | turned as to catch the steam at the | most advantgeous angle. This shaft is inclosed in a box with grooves cor- | responding to the blades along its en- | tire length. These grooves do not cover the blades entrely, but only serve to hold the tip znd keep it from being bent by the steam. To run thi engine the steam is turned in at one end of | the -cylinder and let out at the other | and in its progress it acts the same as ‘\he wind on the blades of a windmill. | As the engine runs entirely in one di- rection and has practically no working | parts it will be seen that there is prac- | tically no limit to the speed at which | it can be driven. And the best of it is | the engine runs without jar. | . The cubic space occupied by the Tur- ’blma engine is much less than that of |an ordinary engine, and it lies close | to the bottom of the vessel, where it | does the most good as ballast. This | In reality is one of its principal fea- | tures, for if the vessel were capsized | it would instantly right itself. Prac- | tically the center of gravity is on the | keel. 1 It is only by having this advantage that a hull of the Turbinia’s shape can | There is nothing | The vessel can be | EMPIRE EXPRESS, SIXTY MILES AN HOUR amount .of coal needed.. But in such places as she could get coal every day a vessel could be built to run at over fifty miles an hour. It is all a question of fuel, and if there were coaling stations out on the Pacific a few hundred miles apart a vessel could be built that would carry us down to Honolulu in about thirty hours. However, this may be realized in the near future, for English engi- neers are working hard on the problem of coaling at sea. In the event of their being successful in devising ap- paratus that can be handled in all sorts of weather there is little doubt that vessels of the Turtinia’s type will become general. But one thing must be remembered: If we want speed we have got to pay for the coal it takes to produce it. MILITARY EUCHRE THE LATEST. UCHRE, progressive or plain and unadorned, has become so thread- bare as an evening's entertainment that players will welcome with joy its brand-new form, military euchre, al- ready played a score of times, and halled with exceeding delight because of its nov- elty and its snap. Those who have said that nothing could be wound around or made out of pro- gressive cuchre, says the New York Her- ald, will now find themselves in_the wrong, for military euchre is already a variation of progressive euchre—that is, the players move from table to table, though irregularly and not in the old one, three f: fon. ch table bears a cardboard sign, on is printed in gay letters its name, ort Sumter,” ‘Fort Hancock, ‘‘Fort iamilton rt Schuyler,” for example, any namés being used that the host and hostess may prefer, each table being a fort for the evening, having players to de- fend it and other players to attack and try to board it by force of superior “hands” aying cards. A drum in the corner of the parlor an- nounces that the games are to begin. The women h: been given pretty, tiny, red white and e rosettes for their hair as they have entered the room, the men knots of ribbon of the same combination of colors for their coats. Two girls and two men a gned to each fort, part- T are arranged and the games are ady to commence. Now each quartet is responsible for its own sort. It is attached to this fort the entire evening, to defend its own and to sally forth and attack other forts. Part- ners never change. The leader, who is known as_the ‘“general,” distributes the sending a couple from Fort Sumter Fort Hancock, a couple from Fort Pildow to storm Fort Schuyler, a couple from Schuyler to Sumter and so on, round after round, until every couple, as nearly as possible, has met every other couple. If the attacking party wins it carries back to its own fort a pennant; i the defenders triumph they run up a pennant on their own staff. ventor to examine her. ing. Through Water at the Rate of Sixty Miles an Hour. The Turbinia is the last and greatest wonder in steam vessels. Sheisby far the fastest vessel afloat and bids fair to open up a new era in steamship travel. Engineers far and mear have visited the in- sixty miles an hour on the stint of coal she is able to carry. The chief secret of her amazing speed is her turbines, something entirely new in steam engineer- The Vesuvius---She Throws Great Shells of Dyna- mite. When the Spaniards Saw the Havoe Wrought They Declared the Americans Were Hurling Earthquakes at the Fortifications. XPERTS in naval material and the great number of naval tacti- cians the world over have been disappointed thus far in the de- velopments of this war of ours with Spain. A meeting between fleets, at least between ships of modern con- struction, protected by steel armor, armed with high powered, large cali- ber guns and many rapid fire pieces, carrying torpedoes and skillfully com- manded, was hoped for, and, to put the facts plainly, was desired. i Indeed naval sclence, broadly speak- ing, has not been in any way affected by the war, despite the paradox that it is distinctly a naval war. Of what use is speed, or the ram, or where | should torpedo tubes be placed, and how should vessels maneuver in .a fight? Even what our 13-inch and 8- inch guns can accomplish against the 12-inch armor of the Spanish ships is | as far from practical solution as ever. One, decidedly novel type of vessel has been prominently exploited in this war—the dynamite crniser. The Vesu- vius is in every way unique, nothing like her in any respect existing in any other navy. She is long, narrow, and sits low in the water. She is construct- | ed of unusually light scantling and plating, has powerful engines and at- tains a high speed, though nothing like as high as a destroyer. She was de- signed especially for torpedo work, like the destrover, but was to fire her tor- pedo in tlLe :ir, and not, like the de- stroyer, under the water. The Vesuvius was built by the Cramps of Philadelphia, and was launched in 1888, ten years ago. Like the monitor of Ericsson she was prac- tically the invention and production of private individuals, though her con- struction was authorized by the Gov- ernment at a contract price of $350,000. Her principal dimensions are: Length 246 feet, beam 265 feet, depth 14 feet, mean draught of water 9 feet and dis- placement 805 tons. There was much speculation as to the utility of such a craft as the Vesu- viug. Many able men opposc 1 her con- struction and style of battery, but quite as many took an opposite view, extolling to the utmost the ship, her speed and esneclally her battery of She travels at the rate of pneumatic dynamite guns. Stripped of | all exaggeration the Vesuvius repre- | sents a new auad formidable element in | warfare and one which can no longer be disposed of by airy critics. The main armament carried by the Vesuvius consists of three pneumatic dynamite guns placed side by side, | close together, in the forward part of the ship. These three parallel .tubes are built into the ship, about fifteen | feet of the muzzles protruding above | the forecastle deck inclined at an angle | of about twenty degrees, the ends uf‘ the muzzles of the tubes rising about five feet above the deck planking. The | remainder of the tubes run down to the | The great benefit derived from the slow, steady, gradually increasing pres- sure of compressed air is that it allows the use of thin gun barrels or tubes and the employment of immense quan- tities of the highest explosives. There is an absence of all shock and a conse- quent avoidance of the danger ordi- narily connected with the firing of dynamite or guncotton. Tha charge of explosive first tried in the pneumatic dynamite gun was 500 pounds of explosive gelatine. This has been changed to about 300 pounds of guncotton, the latter being safer to handle. This charge is held in the front end of a cigar-shaped shell seven feet NN AN GUNS OF DYNAMITE CRUISER VESUVIUS PROTRUDING THROUGH THE DECK 'OF THE VESSEL. hold of the ship, where the compressed air machinery is, and where the ammu- nition and the breech and loading mechanism are situated. The tubes are made of light cast-iron, are fifty-five feet in total length and have an interior diameter of fifteen inches. to compress the air that is used as the propellant to discharge the aerial tor- pedoes from the long tubes. The sub- aqueous torpedo with which ordinary torpedo craft are supplied is discharged usually by a charge of gunpowder, which is quick in acting; hence the or- dinary torpedo gun is short, not above eighteen or twenty feet long; but the slow, steady action of the compressed air cannot reach its maximum intensity for some time after impinging on the base of the projectile. It begins to move the torpedo gradually, and rapidly.in- creasing in propulsive force drives the shot out of the long barrel at a high velocity. STORMY PETREL, SIXTY MILES AN HOUR. There are two air compressors | | long and not quite fifteen diameter. The rear end of the shell is fitted Wwith wings or fans, to insure the tor- pedo’s preserving its horizontality dur- ing its time of flight. This torpedo is | loaded to the gun at the breech, near which there is a revolving chamber holding five other torpedoes, quite after the manner in which the cartridges of a Colt’s revolver are carried; hydraulic power is used to manipulate this car- rier. Once in place and the breech closed, the air valve is opened, the com- pressed air rushes into the firing cham- bers and away speeds the most deadly projectile man’s ingenuity has thus far devised. The one respect in which the dyna- mite cruiser, speed excepted, is inferior to the torpedo-boat destroyer is in the important matter of aiming the guns. These being immovably fixed in the Vvessel cannot be trained and handled like other guns, they cannot be laid to hit the target by moving them to the right or left or up or down; instead the Vesuvius must be maneuvered so as to get within the range. She thus becomes the gun carriage, her helm and her screws being the means employed by her for the accurate laying of her guns. Herein lies an objection to the dyna- mite gun as it is emplaced on board the Vesuvius, and for a long time it was thought to be insuperable. The ship being laid for the target, the range of the dynamite projectile is controlled by means of the amount of compressed air admitted to the gun. No torpedo of the Whitehead or Howell type can approach this, a thousand yards being an extreme range for them, and for effective work not over eight hundred shculd be attempted. For getting in her fine work the best distance at which the Vesuvius should operate is about a mile off, and to land her projectiles on shore or at a target at this remote distance would require an air pressure of about eight hundred pounds. . The Vesuvius was not des;; attack fortifications, yet ng"fv%uffi seem as though for such a role she s admirably adapted; better than for the rolz of ship ttack, where the time needed to get herself in position for fir- ing would expose her to a hot rapid gre that would certainly annihilate er. Silently can she take her stang, by means of range finders accur’a:el}g determine her position; then, Wwithout more noise than a big popgun would make, she can send her projectiles gracefully curving through the air into the enemy’s camp. In short, the Vesu- vius has a distinctive part to play in this war we are now \waging against Spain. It is purely an offensive part, for she is so pitiably weak derensively‘ being entirely without any protection, that a well directed ri oo thtdy ifle bullet could The Vesuvius should never combat unsupported, but slwaysnttxsxl;iet cover of some large vessel able to draw an enemy'’s fire and receive tl » punish- ment that woula be otherwise directed toward her. When thus safezuarded the Vesuvius serves a most valuable purpose, and the ywork cut out for her will greatly conduce to shortening the bombardment of Yo the fortifications of . inches in