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Show NAUTICAL NOVELTIES When the pirate, Sir Henry Morgan, raided the city of Panama in January, lfi71, the fathers of San Jose dismantled dis-mantled their famous altar of gold and escaped to sea. The marvelous treasure made of plates of virgin gold, ornamented and a work of art, besides being of fabulous value for the gold alone, was never seen again, for after the departure of the pirates, the holy fathers returned and built their present church of San Jose on Avenida A, a very plain little church of white plaster in which they installed in-stalled a very plain altar of plaster. As the years passed, the Golden Altar of San Jose became a legend and another lost treasure. In 1903, after Panama had gained her. independence inde-pendence and the peace of the country was assured by the United States, the priests of San Jose commenced to i chip and clean, and behold, like a butterfly 'from its cocoon, appeared the Golden Altar after 230 years of disguise as a very plain plaster altar. The old U. S. S. Mercy, ex-navy hospital ship, has been tuined into a : refuge for the homeless by the state of Pennsylvania. The ship will accomodate ac-comodate 500 men who may, if they choose, receive instruction in carpentry carpen-try and machinists work. The navy is about to purchase 4000 submarine escape and respirator respira-tor appliances. The apparatus is intended in-tended for use in making escape from submerged submarines and also as a rebreathing apparatus1 for protection pro-tection against toxic gases, including chlorine and carbon monoxide. With the aid of this appliance, men in submerged sub-merged submarines are enabled to escape from, the vessel at great j depths, and to protect themelves from fire hazards, or chlorine gas generated from contact of salt water with the acid of the electrical storage batteries. When a new navy ship ;is built not a state but furnishes some of the raw material, the minerals, woods, fibres, oils, and clays or manufactured manufac-tured articles that go to make a completed com-pleted ship. Eighty-five percent of the total cost of a ship goes to labor, direct or indirect. Only forty percent per-cent of the total cost of a ship is spent in a shipyard where the ship is built; the other sixty percent is spent throughout the entire country for labor and for raw materials. Life jackets and ring life-buoys frequently are made of kapok. Some are made from cork which comes from Spain. Kapok comes from the Philippines, Mexico and the West Indies. It is a fibrous substance from a woody capsule of a tall evergreen ever-green tree. The entrained air in the fibers provides the . flotation property. pro-perty. ' Each navy recruit receives free $92.80 worth of clothing and bedding, which includes) uniforms, underwear, shoes, socks, towels, blankets and a mattress. |