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Show NAUTICALNOVELTIES Except at the instant the sun is on the Greenwich meridian," there are always two dates in effect throughout through-out the world. If a ship crosses the 180th meridian (the international '.ate line) travelling westward, the late is increased by one; if sailing eastward, you subtract one from the :late. To avoid the inconvenience of changing the name of the day while Lhe day is in effect, the case is handled for ship's time by dropping .me day at midnight when the crossing cross-ing is made westward bound, and repeating re-peating one day when the crossing eastward bound. Last year a navy collier enroute from Honolulu to the Philippines had no Christmas because December 25 was dropped at the mi 1-night 1-night prior to the vessels crossing -.he 180th meridian bound westwaid. Navy recruiting stations' in Utah, Idaho, Montana and northern and western Wyoming have been authorized author-ized to accept for enlistment fifty-eight fifty-eight men in November and forty-two forty-two men in December. There hangs in the reception room of the battleship New York two coal -hovels that have a brass plate attached at-tached which announces that King George of England and King Albert of Belgium used these shovels to fire the boilers on this ship, on the occasion oc-casion of their visit to the New York when the vessel was attached to the -rand fleet during the World war. The phrase "Dutch Courage" comes to us from the time of Fromp and De Ruyter. The crews of the Dutch fighting ships were given a nip of Holland gin before going into action. 'l"his was derisively termed, by their English foes as "Dutch Courage." The Chinese claim to have invented t'-e magnetic compass and to have used a crude form of it as early as -000 B. C. The earliest trace of the v,e of the compass by western people peo-ple is in the 12th century. A magnetic compass only indicates an approximate heading because of t ie errors of variation and deviation. Variation is due to the non-homogeneous magnetic material in the eT.rth; it varies throughout the world and is always changing slightly. Deviation is due to the individual chip's magnetism and changes wich the ship's heading. Passengers aboard the stricken steamer Tahiti were taken off the day after she sank. The ship was disabled near the international date line. After the passengers were rescued she drifted across the line and sank, a day earlier. Approximately three years is required re-quired to build a capital ship of the navy. One year is necessary to prepare pre-pare the plans and assemble material preparatory to the laying of the keei; another year elapses between the laying of the keel and the launching of the vessel; the third year is necessary neces-sary to complete the ship before she is placed in commission. Decks of navy ships are named as follows: the "Main" deck is the highest high-est deck that runs the full length cf the ship. Decending from the "Main" deck the names of the other decks in order downward are: "Second" deck, "First platform" deck, and "second platform" deck. The "berth" deck is an additional name given to any deck where the sleeping quarters of the crew are located; in many ships the "berth" deck is the "second" deck. Up to 100 enlisted men of the United State navy and marine corps are selected each year for appointment appoint-ment as midshipmen at Annapolis a-the a-the result of competitive examinations. examina-tions. Such men must have been in the service at least one year and i lust not be more than 20 years of i:ge on April first of the year they enter the naval academy. The first steamship to cross the Atlantic was the American ship Sa- j vannah, which sailed from Savannah and arrived at Liverpool an June 20, 1810, after a voyage of 25 days.' Th e navy will soon have in service huge patrol planes which are expected ex-pected to have a non-stop range of 3,000 miles. The flying boats, which have been in process of design and construction for a number of months, will be considerably larger than any previous military planes procured by the naval service. |