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MARINE REVIEW LAUNCH OF GREAT NORTHERN LINER DAKOTA, DAKOTA'S LAUNCHING'PARTY, kota selected the person who was to name her -- Miss Mary B. Fleming- ion. Miss Flem- ington is a verv beautiful and vig- orous girl, and when it came to smashing the pro- verbial bottle of wine, which so many young wom- en fail to smash at all, she smashed it so thoroughly as to drench the bystanders with its effervescent con- tents. The = Da- kota is intended for service be- tween the Pacific terminus of the Great Northern railway and_ the orient, She is the largest vessel ever constructed in the United States. She is 630 ft. long; 73 ft, 6 in. wide; 56 ft. high to upper deck; 88 ft. high to captain's bridge and 177 ft. high to top of mast, She has five continu- ous decks which cover a space of several acres in extent, named or- lop, lower, 'tween, main and_ upper. In addition she has four decks One of the most courageous of men is Mr. James J. Hill, president of: the Great Northern rail- way, who has stead- ily pushed to com- pletion the two great liners building at the yard of the Eastern Ship Building Co. for the foreign trade of the United States. The Dakota, the sec- On sister. was launched at the yard Feb, 6 -and "a. gala event was made of the occasion. A spe- cial train carried guests to New Lon- don from New York; the Univetsity of Da- VIEW OF PROPELLER AND RUDDER OF THE DAKOTA. 47 which are not continuous, being the forecastle, promenade, bridge and boat decks, making nine decks in all. She is rigged as a four-masted schooner with pole masts. The chief characteristic of the Dakota is her great strength. She is designed primarily for comfort and carrying capacity with a fair speed at low power. Her framing is built on what is called the longitudinal system. The great center girder, which is usually in the form of an I girder, is in the Dakota in the form of a II or box. In other words, she has two vertical keels instead of one. The girder is of the same depth as the double bot- tom, 6 ft. On each side of the girder there are several other vertical longitudinal members, having the plating on top, forming the tank top, and the shell plating below, forming the bottom of the tank. This tank or double bottom is 6 ft. deep for the greater part of its length, and is increased at the extreme ends where it merges into the fore-and-aft peaks at the collision bulkheads. The whole of this space can be filled with water when desired, to sink the ship to a suitable draught when making a voyage without a cargo; or a very light one at the same time allows the ship to keep afloat when ever the outer shell or "skin" has been punctured by rocks or by colliding with other vessels. This bottom girder or double bottom forms the "backbone" of the ship from which the great frames spring or extend up to the weather deck, averaging about 1 in. in thickness. These enormous plates are arranged to. give a maxi- mum strength, and the riveting of them to the frames and to each other is receiving the ut- most care. These ships have a continuous lon- gitudinal bulkhead on the center ex- tending from the inner bottom to the main deck. The side plating of the shell with this lon- gitudinal bulkhead form the three vertical members about 60 ft. above the 2 keel. « The frames are made of channel steel, spaced 30 in. apart, but as they near the extreme ends they are spaced closer and are com- posed of angle bars riveted _ together. At certain parts of the structure, where the heave of the sea will tend to strain the ship, the frames are double and made very strong. The outer surface of these frames is covered with a shell of steel plates 4A