Show THE GREAT TRIP the dispatches of yesterday gave an account of the arrival of the battleship oregon at the waters fronting santiago harbor on may 31 at which time jime and place she joined the fleet which is blockading that po position phaltion altion she left san francisco on the of last march under orders to join sampsons Samp sons squadron and proceeded steadily almost uninterruptedly on her long voy age to the waters of the north al lactic lantic a distance of nearly miles made up fully to that figure by the trip from key west occupying from start to finish two months and nine days during that time the vessel traversed through every variation and almost every degree of climate from equatorial heat to almost polar coldness and ana from temperate to severe the weather grew gradually warmer as the vessel plunged along through pacific waters until arriving at the earths meridian just off the northern coast of ecuador after which the situation was reversed the temperature becoming gradually but steadily cooler until cape horn was waa rounded where it must have I 1 touched if it did not go below zero then north along the south american coast emerging from the frigid climate 4 into cinto slowly developing geniality again crossing the equator and running through a zone of heat hea fr back to the recurring temperate prep ppe daaling off the caribbean sea and then the gulf stream the ships of the line might well give the oregon a warm and boisterous greeting when she aft bore bord proudly yet de flay fley atly down upon tiie the ne of her deadly activity to come no other ship had ever accomplished so much in the presence of such real and threatened dangers without having one accident losing one man or in any way damaging its ponderous mechanism mech aniam other craft have at various times in the worlds history made longer voyages both as to time and the distance covered but no other has ever made a continuous sail for more than half the distance around the globe in the brief period of seventy days and none other ever accomplished half as much without having repairs to make or replacements to provide at the end vt of the journey the Or egons machinery was in as perfect order when arriving at jupiter inlet as when leaving san francisco and she had no repairs to make en route if this had not all actually occurred if it were not generally known and some one skilled in depicting events had written and presented it to the world the story would be ridiculed and wholly disbelieved which goes strongly to confirm the adage that truth is stranger than fiction among the wonders of modern I 1 achievement the battleship of today stands well to the fore As a great fighting machine one would without being otherwise shown think it a clumsy unwieldy contrivance but how different is the case it is not perhaps as graceful in its outlines as one of the first class ships devoted to commercial pursuits nor in tact fact as almost any other style of water craft but it possesses a certain majesty as it plows through the water lashing it into seething foam and filling the air with dazzling silvery spray that no other vessel ever eve r equaled and that makes up abundantly for any apparent lack of mere greyhound gray hound symmetry indeed some of the lighter and even larger craft would be left astern by the battleship tle ship and in the matter of endurance as partly shown none of them can equal it |