Show NAUTICAL NOVELTIES furnished by the U S navy recruiting station salt lake city ot of rapturous interest to every young is his first trip through the panama canal or big ditch as it sometimes la Is called situated in the midst ot of the tropics amid luxuriant tropical jungles haze filled valleys and high moun tain peaks together with the lazy indolent air of 0 the natives makes tills this monstrous engineering feat one lie of the super attractions for any world tourist but thousands of 0 U S travel through tills this canal nal each year with stopover at the scenic cities or of colon and balboa where traces are still visible recalling the conquest by the spaniards in the fifteenth century and the later ransacking ot of old panama by morgan the pirate the distance by airline from the atlantic to the pacific side sale ot of the isthmus is 34 miles by railroad 47 miles milea and through the canal 51 miles the canal runs northwest by southeast the pacific entrance to the canal Is 27 miles east cast of the atlantic entrance which calls causes the sun to rise on the pacific and to set in the atlantic there are three sets ot or locks in tile the canal which are flooded and emptied by gravitation from water furnished by the gatun galun lake which prior to the construction of boulder dam at boulder city nevada wa the largest artificial lake in the world the overflow from tills this lake also furnished the power by the locks and the electric mules which tow the ships through the locks are operated it was recently announced in washington by the navy department that plans are being considered tor for the building of a fleet of small fast raiders and scouting craft speed and ability to maneuver quickly will be the sole defenses ot of these light fast boats it is stated that the swiftest of these small craft will enable them to dash within a few hundred feet of an enemy vessel discharge their tor beddes and dart quickly out of range of hostile guns other foreign nations have a similar fleet of these small fast craft and they have reported them as very successful in recent maneuvers A century ago in england friday was considered such an unlucky day that the admiralty decided to break the superstition with the building of a friday ship friday was wag the name of the ship and ot of her captain friday was the day she started on her maiden voyage and many fridays have long passed but the ship was never heard from again even today this strange superstition still holds sway in the minds of many of our canadian cousins who will neither begin nor finish a long trip of any mild kind on oil friday they believe that to do so would surely result in bad luck for them relves last week many of the sailors in uncle sams fleet got their first glimpse of the new type destroyer leaders that are being added to our navy these days especially impressive was the small but formidable appearance of these vest pocket cruisers the necessity tor for this type ot of ship has been keenly felt by the fleet for many years but the new building program for the kavy aravy promises to till fill this gap gal very effectively mrs sidney is spending a few days this week in salt lake city with members of her family |