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1901.) MARINE REVIEW. 25 auxiliaries by the appropriation of moneys directly voted from navy es- timates, we have been sparing in our grants for postal services. The amounts paid have been computed by Mr. Henniker-Heaton, member of parliament, as follows: Total value of the Countries. : Money. foreign trade. BOG a cheek ks £1,143,000 £300,000,000 PEEAO Sob. se ahi ee 1,000,000 313,000,000 We ee a i 251,000 111,000,000 ANALY. acest b a5 as Ghee Mace 400,000 182,000,000 OedG, Ietitai ee 637,000 750,000,000 Now let us ask ourselves what steps it is practicable to take in further- ance of the policy which it has been the object of the present paper to recommend: First, what is the proper sphere of action of the mercantile auxiliary? It was described by Lord George Hamilton in moving the navy estimates for 1889. They would be employed in dogging the foot- steps of a foreign rover and embarrassing a foe; they would act as the scouts of the fleet. "The difficulty of keeping touch with a squadron has been strongly impressed in recent maneuvers. As scouts and_ patrol vessels, their long coal endurance would give to the mercantile auxiliaries an advantage over regularly-built vessels of war of even tonnage. Such being the role of the mercantile auxiliary, the qualities required are speed, coal endurance, internal subdivision up to admiralty requirements, strength of hull. Guns must be carried at such a height above water as to be of service in a seaway. Lastly, there is the absolute requirement of protection from the shot and highly-explosive shell of quick-firing guns. The power of modern armaments to reduce unarmored superstructures to wreckage, 'to disable guns, and annihilate guns' crews has been signally shown in the battles of Manila and Santiago. AN EXCELLENT SUBSIDY ARGUMENT. If the requirements: were carefully considered in the original design, it would be possible to give as much, or nearly as much, protection to the mercantile auxiliary as to the regularly-built cruiser. .Mr. Peskett of the Cunard Co. has recently offered some practical suggestions on this subject in a lecture delivered at Liverpool. Mr. Peskett is a strong advocate for subsidies to mercantile auxiliaries, conditional. upon the adaptation oi the ships to the requirement of naval warfare.. I may quote from a précis of his lecture: "Merchant ships of the Campania or Saxonia class could actually be built lighter than they are under the present' system if they were built 'with one very .strong deck, such as a protective deck with sloping sides, or with a deck of cellular form. The disposition of material in some of our large steamers is not, perhaps, in strict accordance with the best designs our naval architects could produce, but entirely due to the requirements of owners and the various registration societies. I should. say that a cruiser's hull with protective deck is lighter in propor- tion to her displacement than that of many of our first-class passenger steamers. Taking into consideration the fact that our supremacy depends on the efficiency of our naval and mercantile marine, a committee of admiralty officials, ship owners, and ship builders should be formed to discuss the best method of constructing a combined naval and mercantile marine, and to consider whether ships could be built as merchant cruisers, with protective decks, ram stems, machinery, and steering gear below the water-line, and still be able to carry enough passengers and mails, which, with a reasonable subsidy, would make the ships remunerative to owners. These ships would have to be permanently mounted with light guns; racer plates for heavier armaments being built in the ships during con- struction, the heavier guns and mountings being kept at ports of call; and made to suit the various ships of any particular fleet." 'It. has always been recognized that mercantile auxiliaries cannot be effective unless specially designed for conversion into cruisers. In the discussion at the Institute of Naval Architects on Mr. Barnaby's paper al- ready referred to, Sir Edward Reed proposed-that ship owners. about to build large and swift merchant vessels should be invited to submit their plans to the admiralty. The cost of any alterations which they might be willing to make in order to adapt these vessels for the emergency of war service should be met by a grant from the government. PROTECTION TO COMMERCE IS VITAL. It is the main object of the present paper to urge the adoption of valuable and practical recommendations, which have been too. long neglected. It is the fixed resolve of the people, and, perhaps, the first duty of British statesmen, to keep the empire secure from attack, and to give protection to the commerce on which our existence depends. In pursuance of this policy we have more .than doubled the expenditure under naval estimates, and still we seem to fall short of the full require- ments for the naval defense of the empire. It would be impossible to fix a limit to the number. of cruisers required for the protection of a commerce which extends over every sea. The construction of cruisers has absorbed in recent years a large proportion of the ship building votes... But when the cost of the first-class types falls little short of that of the battle- ship the numbers we can build are all too few for the work they might be required to do. We cannot cut down the expenditure on battleships. it, therefore, our regular-built cruisers are fewer than we could wish we must look to our mercantile marine and out of the abundant materials we there find ready to our hands we may organize a supplemental fleet of armed cruisers such as no other state can furnish. "The admiralty should utilize these resources by liberal subsidies. The standard of requirements should be high. The speed should not-be less than that of.the Deutschland--let us say 22 knots at sea. Mercantile auxiliaries should be protected by a deck or belt of Harveyized armor--the necessary armaments should be in readiness. Calculations of cost can hardly be attempted in a paper in which nothing more is attempted beyond suggesting a policy. It is at least-certain that the cost of the adaptations and protective arrangements necessary in a mercantile auxiliary will be small in comparison with the first cost of a regularly-built vessel of war. For a first-class cruiser we may take the cost at three quarters of a million. Allowing 34% per cent. on the money invested, adding 6 per cent. for depreciation and 1 per cent. for insurance we have in round figures for the first cost an annual writing down of £70,000 per year. In addition there is the cost of maintenance, which. whether in commission or in reserve will certainly be considerable. Allowing forthe protective arrangements of the mercantile auxiliary the liberal sum of £50,000 and a writing down charge on this amount of 10 per of cent., and taking 10s. per ton displacement for the annual retainer, we have for a mercantile cruiser of 10,000 tons an annual charge of £10,000. We must further take into view the economy resulting from the main- tenance of the mercantile auxiliary by the ship owners as against the maintenance of the man-of-war in our royal yards. : In conclusion I claim it has been clearly shown that we can have many auxiliaries for the cost of one cruiser; and these auxiliaries may have effective protection.. If not equal to the ship of war as combatants they will be superior in coal endurance and probably speed for long dis- tances, They would be the scouts of our fighting squadrons. They would protect our commerce from interruptién by the auxiliary vessels of a hostile power. While the building of cruisers for the navy should be continued the resources we possess in the marine, which our maritime enterprise has created in extent practically without limit, should not be neglected. If the expenditure on auxiliary cruisers were raised from £60,000 to £600,000 a year, in a few years we should be enabled to provide no ineffective protection for our vast trade. : = CLYDE LINE STEAMER APACHE. The Apache, one of the new steamers of the Clyde line, which is now operating some fifteen or sixteen large steamers between principal ports on the Atlantic seaboard, is illustrated herewith. This vessel is the latest addition to the Clyde fleet. She is in service between New York, Charles- ton and Jacksonville. A sister ship, the Arapahoe, is nearing completion and will be in service shortly. The Apache was built by the Cramps of Philadelphia. She is 310 ft. long, 46 ft. wide, and 31 ft. deep, and has a speed of 15 knots, with a capacity for 3,000 tons of cargo. The vessel is admirably arranged and handsomely decorated. Her accommodations for over 200 passengers are located entirely above the upper deck, thus insur- ing the best of light and ventilation at all times. She is lighted throughout by electricity, and her fittings and equipment are up to the highest standard. ee The Clyde Steamship Co. serves with regular lines the ports of Boston, Providence, New York, Philadelphia, Norfolk, Richmond, Wil- mington, N. C., Georgetown, S. C., Brunswick, Ga., and Jacksonville, Fla.; operating also a regular line of mail steamers between. New York, Turks island and Santo Domingo. RECOVERY OF BY-PRODUCTS IN CHARCOAL BURNING. The manufacture of charcoal iron long ago lost the importance which it had in the early days of the iron industry, but that class of pig iron being still desirable for certain purposes its production is continued on axcomparatively Small scale in some districts where. cheap charcoal is yet dvailable. The charcoal that-is'required has been made hitherto chiefly by the charring of wood in heaps, pits and beehive ovens, although the Cleve- land-Cliffs ~ Iron~ Co.- of Gteleraes Mich.,;~-has--been- for some. time employing successfully the modern and more scientific method of distill- ing the wood in externally heated retorts. It has been reported recently that some other charcoal.iron manufacturers of Michigan have. decided upon adopting the same method, which is contemplated also for the manufacture of charcoal at Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., in connection with the gigantic industrial scheme which is now being carried out at that place. . The 'manufacture of charcoal by. the distillation of wood in retorts is analogous to the coking of coal in by-product ovens, the volatile matter in each case being distilled off and collected instead of being wasted, as it is from the ordinary beehive ovens. The distillation of wood yields a tarry product and an aqueous, acid vapor containing various valuable substances, which can be condensed, and a noncondensible, combustible gas, which can be burned around the retorts, affording a part of the heat which. is required to effect the distillation. . The -tar-is valuable as a source of creosote and other compounds which are analogous to those obtainable from coal tar. The. pyroligneous acid, so-called, yields by fractional distillation crude methyl alcohol and acetic acid. The latter is commonly neutralized with lime, forming impure calcium acetate, which is more convenient for storage and shipment than the acid itself. The commercial standard for "gray acetate of lime' is a tenor of 86 per cent. calcium acetate. Besides these by-products, wood distilled in re- torts yields. generally a higher percentage of charcoal, which is likely moreover to be of a better quality than that which is obtained from the old beehive ovens, wherein the temperature and other conditions are less perfectly under control. The yield of the various products varies greatly according to the kind of wood distilled and the temperature and other conditions of the distillation; but even under unfavorable circumstances the value of the alcohol and acetate of lime is likely to be greater than that of the charcoal; wherefore there is ample incentive to discard the antiquated method which wastes.the constituents of the wood from which those substances are obtainable. -At the present time prices. for both crude wood alcohol -and gray "acetate .of lime are low, and estimates which are based on the present market ought to be reasonably safe.-- Engineering & Mining Journal. a A British admiralty chart, Midland section of Georgian bay, will be sent, postpaid, to any address for $1.25; regular price $1.75. Size of sheet 3x4 ft. The Marine Review Pub. Co., Perry-Payne building, Cleveland. Chart of the whole bay on one sheet at the same price. sii