Show OUR BATTLESHIPS More Information About the Mael I Otis Aggregation of Complexity American Now what sort of a I structure is this battleship A huge steel honeycombfrmes and rIbs and plates and brace In ever direction Look at the InextrIcable tangle of them In the shattered Maine No more great expanse of decks with the tiers of guns in diminishing perspective such a one sees in the old wooden frIgates and threedeckers But compartments everywhere2i2 of them in the Indiana Little steel boxes and big steel boxes boxes enclosing guns and boxes enclosing enclos-ing engines and a box for the helm engnes and labyrinthine passages in and out of and around hem where daylight never gets and endless door and hatches on the IndIana everyone of which somebody must look after and see closed when the ship goes into action ton Else why compartments if you cannot leeep them separate so that if water comes In from a ram thrust or torpedo or shot you can confine It to one or two cells and so prevent the ship from filling There are more compartments com-partments In sOle of the small cris ersthe Cincinnati has 4i8 but cris ers run and battleships do not says the Independent In this assembhige of cells Is placed jammed is a better wordone of the most complicated aggregations of mechanism that have ever ben brought together There are from 10 to 150 steam cylinders in the multfa Ious engInes not so many as in the I cruiser perhaps The Columbia has 184 but the Columbia keeps out of the way of 13inch shot The battleship Iowa has 152 The New Ironsides the I most powerful fighting vessel in our navy at the close of the lat war had I just three What steam does not do electricity does ihere are wIres everywhere The dynamos are running constantly for the closed steel boxes get no daylight and must be lighted while with equal constancy the lowers draw out the I foul and force in the fresh air But on all sides there is machinery MachInes I wore the guns machines propel and pump the ship and feed the boiers and drive the fires machInes hoIst ammu I niton boats and anchors machInes find the position of the enemy machines I ma-chines transmIt orders from the captain cap-tain to every part of the structure mat ma-t chines make the light machines condense con-dense the drInking water and cool It machInes themselves propelled by other machines on boar go out under water to blow up the adversary That Is the thlnglOOO tons maInly of steel cells crammed vith median ism of extreme complexity and which stays afloat only as long as a certain number of the larger amidshlp cells remain water tight that Is the thing which is called a battleship and that Is the thing which Is the subject of the coming experiment upon the result of which may depend national victory or defeat The more complex any mechanical structure the greater the liability to derangement Like any chain Its strength or efficiency is that of its weakest link just as In the animal I organizations the higher the development I develop-ment the more varied and numerous its diseases I follows inevitably therefore that whether in a battleship I or a bridge or a building or any other engineering linkage of many cooperating cooper-ating parts high specialization carrIes car-rIes with It Increased liability to injury In-jury until the latter overbalances The battleship experiment will determine whether or not the limit in the war vessel has been passed Battleships are not designed as are buildings and brIdges The sizes ot the members of a viaduct properly to resIst all foreseen fore-seen strains and stresses can be prefigured pre-figured and abundant margin left t cover all accidents by multiplying the result by say ten the socaled factor fac-tor of safety But battleships have no factor of safety nor would bridge t anyone expected that a blow of several thousand foot tons concentrated in the space of a s9 arc foqt would come crashing agaInst any part of them atc at-c 4 t Y t > I > > random Who can predict where that shock will expend Itself as it travels over the structure searching for the weak places Drop your watch on the floor and it loses five minutes In the next 24 hours Why The wheels seem to you to be movIng as usual Nor ca the jeweler explain the cause until he has dIssected he mechanIsm When 1150 pounds of steel traveling at the rate of 2OO feet per second hIt some hundred complicated mechanIsms packed Into 272 compartments In what represents a steel shell 85 feet cube set afloat Is there anything short of omniscience omnI-science which can tel what Is goIng to happen and for how long the thing Is going to be a useful fighting machine before It becomes a helpless target or I takes its plunge to the bottom |