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58 stopped. To the float shown in pipe, Q, is attached a chain which runs over sprocket wheels, E, in the pilot house. To the end of this chain is attached a counterweight encased in a 34-in. iron pipe. Connecting the log with the sprocket wheels, E, are the 1%4-in. brass shafts, M. The recording ship log is applicable to any style of vessel, and is usually in- stalled in the pilot house, chart room 1] AP PEE ed | | | | I , | i 1 | | | ! | THe Marine REVIEW JOHN HARVARD BILES, LL.D. A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH, (From Cassier's Magazine.) Amongst the prominent men in naval - architecture, probably no name is better known than that of Prof, J. H. Biles, vice president of the Institute of Naval Architects. His association with ship building dates back to the time when wooden ships were still being built for the Royal navy, when wooden ships were Ay Fig. 2: or bridge, where it can be readily seen at all times. Beyond the daily winding of the clock and changing of the record chart the apparatus requires very little attention, and is entirely automatic in its action. Provision has been made for any obstruction which might arise through the choking or other injury of the exposed pipe. There is nothing in the construction of the log to interfere with the action of the compass. The offices of the Nicholson Ship Log Co. are in Cleveland, O., the eastern agents being Barrett & Lawrence, 662 Bullitt building, Philadelphia, Pa. being protected with armor, and when iron armorclads were experiments. He began practical work on a wooden ship in Portsmouth dock yard, but spent the greater part of his apprenticeship on the building of H. M. S. Devastation, the first battleship deliberately constructed without sails, a vessel designed by Sir E, J. Reed, into whose shoes he has since stepped as consulting naval architect to the India office. Passing on to the Royal School of Naval Architecture, at South Kensington, and the Royal Naval Col- lege, at Greenwich, he was graduated first of his year, and was appointed a junior on the construction of the cryjs_ ers Iris and Mercury at Pembroke. These vessels were the first to be made of the present-day mild steel, and it is not too much to say that their successful con- struction was the beginning of a com. plete reconstruction of vessels for the mercantile marine. While they were building they were alone in haying that steel. Within 10 years the se of iron as the main structural ma- terial of ships had been completely abandoned. From the construction of these steel ships in Pembroke dock yard to the manufacture of the material in the Landore Steel Works was an interesting and useful change in his experience, bring- ing him into contact with the most ad- vanced steel metallurgists and manufac- turers. From there he passed to the Admiralty office, assisting in warship de- sign and special scientific inquiry, includ- ing the series of turning trials of H. M. S. Thunderer made for the Inflexible committee under the direction of Sir Philip Watts. In 1880 Mr. Biles accept- ed an invitation to become naval archi- tect to the Clydebank ship building firm now known as John Brown & Co. His studies in the resistance of ships while at the Admiralty led him to change very considerably the practice as to forms and dimensions of merchant ships which had made the Clydebank firm famous. The Servia was then building for the Cunard company, having dimensions 515 ft. by 51 ft, and 10 beams in length. A duplicate was being inquired for by the owners, but they were persuaded to adopt Pro- fessor Biles' proposal of a vessel 470 ft. long by 57 ft. beam, of eight beams, but of finer form. Such extravagance in beam was generally condemned, but the result showed that a higher efficiency fol- lowed. The same innovation was applied in many other types of vessets, one of the most notable being the America, built for the National company, to compete with the existing Atlantic ships of that time. This vessel averaged the same speed as the fastest existing ships for 20 per cent less power and coal consumption. She was the forerunner of the New York and Paris, the first fast passenger twin- screw Atlantic vessels. The contract for these vessels was placed in 1887, and they are running successfully today. Their under-water form is_ practically identically the same as that adopted for the Lusitania and Mauretania, which was selected for them after a most extensive series of experiments had been made in the Admiralty and other testing tanks. The New York and Paris embodied the. first attempt at complete sub-division, i. e., complete watertight bulkheads with no doors, as Professor Biles believed that doors in a bulkhead were a danger. The value of this sub-division has been