OCR Text |
Show NAUT1CALN0VETIES The signal flags used by naval vei-sels vei-sels are the result of developments over several hundreds of years. The shapes, designs and colors are restricted re-stricted to those easily distinguishable. distinguish-able. At iirst the national flags of the ships were used, and later the flags of foreign countries also. This use of foreign flags, particularly in emergency codes adopted at sea, persisted per-sisted long after official code flags had been adopted by the British navy, and was in vogue both in the British navy and in the American navy during the American revolution. At first, the "codes" were very simple and contained only a few easily remembered signals. The red flag, as a signal for battle, was not of English origin, but was one of the unwritten customs of the sea. The first class protected cruiser Olympia, which was Dewey's flagship at the battle of Manila Bay, has for many years been out of commission at the Philadelphia navy yard. This ship, which is of 5870 tons displacement, displace-ment, is the scene of an annual gathering gath-ering of Spanish-American war veterans vet-erans who assemble on board the old warship to commemorate the victor. There is now building at Newport News, Virginia, an aircraft carrier of 13,000 tons displacement, the Ranger, which will be completed in 1934. This vesisel will be the eighth one named Ranger. The first Ranger was built in 1777 and carried 18 guns. She was comimanded by John Paul Jones and was the first ship to fly the stars and stripes. This first Ranger, flying the first American Ameri-can flag, was the first American vessel ves-sel to receive a gun salute from a foreign nation; the salute was fired by France at Quiberon bay on February Feb-ruary 14, 1778, and by it France recognized rec-ognized the United States. The beautiful silver service, which the state of Utah originally presented present-ed to the battleship Utah, is now on exhibition in a glass case in the Utah state capitol building. The silver service, ser-vice, which the citizens of Salt Lake City presented to the heavy cruiser named after that city, is proudly exhibited ex-hibited in the wardroom of that splendid 10,000 ton treaty cruiser. One of the first submarines built in the United States is on exhibition in the Brooklyn navy yard on a grass plot outside the paymaster's office. This ship, named the .Intelligent Whale, is 29 feet long, 9 feet deep, carried 10 men, and was designed to be propelled by . hand at 4 knots speed. The Intelligent Whale, which was not successful, was tried and condemned in 1872. The tide of the Atlantic side of the Panama canal rises and falls about one foot on the average, whereas at the Pacific end of the canal the rise and fall" averages twelve and one half feet. |