Show COLU3IUIAS PERFORMANCE Causes Gen raL Rejoicing nt the Navy Department WASHINGTON Aug 2There was general rejoicIng in the navy department depart-ment today when the Associated Press bulletin was read announcing the arrival ar-rival of the Columbia off Sandy Hook Assistant Secretary McAdoo expressed the greatest pleasure over the fast time made by the cruiser He went to the West Indies aboard the Columbia and was confident from the start that she would acquit herself handsomely on this trial across the Atlantic The Columbia beat the time of the New York by two days and previous to this trip the New York had the best record of any warship crossing the Atlantic Mr McAdoo srfid today that here was no longer any doubt about the speed > j ga of the Columbia and that she could I no doubt overtake any vessel afloat on a spurt that is if a vessel was sighted in the morning the Columbia could come up with her before night The Minneapolis is her equal if not superior and the record of the Columbia shows that the United States has the two fastest ships afloat A Gratifying Point A prominent naval officer pointed out what he called the most gratifying j point concerning this speed trial He said that when all the conditions under which the Columbia made her run are decided the results must be regarded as remarkable In the first place he said the coal while good and probably much better than the cheap variety usually supplied our vessels at home was not the very best quality of Welsh coal Then again the engine departments depart-ments of our cruisers are not as fullY manned as either ships of the merchant mer-chant service or as those of foreign I governments and consequently the I endurance of the men in the engine and fire rooms is more severely taxed As an illustration of this fact it is I only necessary to give the following comparison between the Columbia and I the English cruiser Terrible I Columbia horse power 20000 number num-ber of engineers 4 men in engine department de-partment 196 Terrible horse power 20000 number num-ber of engineers 8 men in engine department 334 In other words the work on the engineer officers is just 60 per cent harder on the Columbia ship while the men in our ship have fo do onethird more work than do the I men in tie other service Among menofwar there is absolutely abso-lutely nothing to compare with the I Columbia as none of them ever made such a run and none could not only because they do not carry the coal but because they have not the power The navy department however has the report of a 24hour trial of the English cruiser Royal Arthur made in the Pacific some months ago and her maximum speed for four hours was only 18 knots This vessel is officially rated at the same displacement as the Columbia Of the other fast Brit ish cruiser none of them has done anything any-thing at all comparable with this performance per-formance of the Columbia In fact the cruiser Blenheim on which the British plume themselves made only a maximum of 1 knots when returning return-ing from Halifax after having carried the body of Sir John Thompson there for interment Tbe Ollicinl Notice The official notice of the Columbias remarkable performance reached the navy department in the following telegram tele-gram from the captain New York Aug 2The secretary of the navy Washington Columbia Needles 2 p m ulto Sandy Hook lightship 859 today Average hourly speed for whole run 1841 knots Whole run under natural draught Twenty six hours of fog but no delay there from 3UEMINER In reply Mr McAdoo sent Captain Sumner the following message Washington Aug 2 Sumner U S S Columbia care of commandant navy yard Brooklyn The department depart-ment tenders to you officers and men of the Columbia its congratulations ont on-t e result of the run from the Needles to Sandy Hook lightship thus making an unexampled record for a warship McADOO Acting Secretary The department was surprised to I find that Captain Sumner did not make an effort to run the ship under forced draught for the last twenty four hours of the trip He was especially es-pecially instructed to do this When the Columbia was ready to leave Southampton she had on her bunkers and stowed elsewhere on board 1917 tons and 641 pounds of Welsh bituminous bitumi-nous coal the same as is used by the American line steamships on their westward voyages This was more coal than any vessel of the United States navy ever had carried I is possible Captain Sumner will be called on to explain why he failed to obey instructions to that effect although i is assumed that lack of coal will account ac-count for the omission |