you can as soon as you can. The first shots are usually fired at the longer ranges. The facility with which the range can be accurately determined depends largely upon the man in the mast. If he does his work well at the very beginning of the combat he becomes an important factor. If the mast, which is expected to be shot away, is fortunate enough to continue standing, so much the better.

The initial advantage went a long way with the Japanese at the battle of Tsushima. They concentrated their fire upon the Souvaroff, Admiral Rojestvensky's flagship, in the very beginning; and, according to Semenoff, who was a Russian naval observer on board the flagship, both the fighting mast and the steering gear of the Souvaroff were shot away at once. This interfered both with the navigation of the ship and the display of signals. In an attack like that upon the Hero, allowance must be made for the fact that, in the nature of things, she could not reply to the fire of the Channel Fleet ships. But aside from this, the test resembled warfare as nearly as any experiment can without the actual killing of man.

ment:

FIRST SIX SHOTS WERE all misseS

One witness says in description of the Hero experi"The first six shots were all misses, and although sparks began to fly from the Hero as soon as the range was found, the shooting was by no means up to the level of battle practice, notwithstanding that the weather conditions were absolutely perfect-a calm, clear day, with the sun behind the firing ships. Very soon the Hero was in the middle of a dense cloud of smoke, through which, now and again, flashed great tongues of fire, as shell after shell struck the helpless old warrior. It was soon over, however, and save for a slight list to port there was nothing to show, at a distance, the ordeal through which she had passed. The funnel and mast both stood, and very little smoke issued from the interior, but a closer inspection revealed the full extent of the damage. The upper deck had been blown up by the explosion of a heavy shell underneath it, the after conning tower had been penetrated and one of the lay-figures had day-light through his chest. Altogether twenty-eight hits had been scored out of one hundred and thirty rounds."

A REMINDER OF THE "Belle Isle”

The experiment on the Hero served as a reminder that seven years had passed since the last occasion when an old British ship was fired at with modern guns. That

was in 1900, when the Belle Isle was made the target of the twelve-inch and six-inch guns of the battleship Majestic and shelled for about eight minutes. The object then was to ascertain the general effect of modern gunfire on up-to-date armor and personnel. Valuable results were obtained, and the facts secured were placed at the disposal of the Admiralty for use in connection with the designs of ships built since the Belle Isle bombardment. While the "targeting" of the Hero was for an entirely different purpose, the results are understood to be just as interesting, and it is probable that a new policy will be inaugurated of sending other old ships from the retired list to the target grounds. There are a number of obsolete ships loafing around the coast-line of England with no mission except to occupy needed space at the Admiralty dockyards. Beginning with the battleship Colossus, which is to be the next to go, a series of these ships will be designated for gunnery tests. The French battleship Jena which was recently blown up by an internal explosion at Toulon-is understood to be undergoing patching up for a fate somewhat similar to that of the Hero, the decision of the French Admiralty being that she is not worth the immense cost of rebuilding.

EXPLOSIONS TO PREVENT EXPLOSIONS

The experiments to be had with the battleship Colossus are ordered for the purpose of studying the effect of the kind of explosions which wrecked the Jena in the French navy and Mikasa in the Japanese. It will mean the loss of the Colossus; but the results obtained may cause innovations that will prevent the destruction of many Dreadnoughts each one of which is worth a fleet of the Colossus class. The Colossus is to be destroyed by internal explosions. For this reason the old battleship will be fitted with magazine appliances of the most modern type and then stored with ammunition as well as high explosives. During the tests the magazines of the Colossus will be raised to certain temperatures, in order to test the reliability of the explosives. Then there will be an intentional explosion of magazines under certain designated conditions, to discover the effect. The Colossus was built at Portsmouth, where she now lies, in 1886, at a cost of over 600,000 pounds sterling, and is now twentyone years old the generally recognized limit of effective use for modern warships. A committee which has been investigating the best methods of storing ammunition in warships for safety will have general supervision of the Colossus experiments.

At almost the moment that the American battleship fleet sailed out from Hampton Roads on its voyage to the Pacific, the keel of the first of the so-called American Dreadnoughts was laid down officially at the yards of the Fore River Shipbuilding Company at Quincy, Massachusetts. This battleship is to be known as the North Dakota and is a sister ship of the Delaware, the contract for which was awarded to the Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company. Preparations for the keel-laying of the Delaware are in progress as this issue of THE NAVY goes to press.

ANOTHER MEMORABLE CONTEST BEGUN

The memorable contest in battleship construction between the Government constructors of the Connecticut at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and the builders of the Louisiana at the Newport News Company's yard, which attracted such widespread attention several years ago, promises to be eclipsed by the race already under way between the builders of the Delaware and North Dakota. The contract for the Delaware was placed on August 6, 1907, at a price of $3,987,000, to have the Department's design of reciprocating engines installed and to be completed in thirty-six months from date, which means that the Delaware must be ready for delivery by August 6, 1910. The contract for the North Dakota, also signed on August 6, 1907, to have the bidder's design of Curtis. turbine engines installed and to be completed within thirty-four and a half months, at a cost of $4,377,000, requires the delivery of that battleship to the Government not later than June 21, 1910.

PROGRESS ON THE TWO SISTER SHIPS

Advices received at the Navy Department show that competition is already keen between the two shipbuilding companies, with the North Dakota about a month in the lead. The official progress report of December 10, 1907, issued by the Navy Department, together with the progress report of January 10, 1908, states that the per cent of completion of the two vessels at stated dates during the past three months has been as follows:

WHAT THE KEEL-LAYING MEANS

The keel of the North Dakota, which is now farthest advanced, was officially laid at the Fore River Yards at 10.10 A. M., December 16, 1907. The first vertical plate was erected at 10.30 o'clock, and the first frame at 11.20. The laying of the keel represents the beginning of the actual assembling of the various parts of the vessel into ship form. The keel plates had been stretched out in the shipyards for several weeks prior to that date, while the concrete blocking was being made ready for the framework of the giant ship.

The keel and what is known as the laying of the keel, consists of putting into place on the keel blocks the first plate of the bottom part, or what might be called the backbone of the ship. It is the skeletonizing of the vessel. It does not indicate, however, that the building of the battleship has only begun; for, before the keel is laid, it is necessary to have on hand large quantities of material,! much of which has already been laid off, punched, and in other ways prepared for putting into place. It also means that the ship has been completely laid down in the mold loft and that probably 50 per cent of all the plans in the construction of the vessel have been developed and approved. Perhaps this is better indicated by the fact that the official progress reports of the Navy Department credit the North Dakota with having been 7.84 per cent completed on December 1-fifteen days prior to the actual laying of her keel.

THE MANY PRELIMINARY STEPS

The preparation of the concrete foundation for the North Dakota to rest upon during her construction was no small task. The ways are so much longer than the ways where the Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Vermont were built that railroad tracks had to be torn up and the yard cleared for a considerable distance around the head of the ways, where the bow of the new ship will rest, so as to afford plenty of room and access: The North Dakota, like her sister vessel, will be 510 feet long-only 45 feet shorter than the height of the Washington Monument. While work was going on at the yard end of the ship, pile drivers were busy at the water front, driving solid foundations for the stern keel to rest upon.

While this preliminary preparation was going on, work was advancing on the steel work necessary for the keel plates. All of this material had to be tested and passed by government experts, and then punched in the proper places for the rivet holes. While work on the steel structures was being rushed, there were busy scenes in the slip where the ship is now being built, huge blocks of concrete being laid with mathematical nicety; and, when these blocks were firm as steel, the wooden keel blocks were laid down, so that there might not be the slightest divergence from the exact position to be occupied by the keel of the great 20,000 battleship.

DROPPING TONS OF STEEL INTO POSITION

Following these preliminaries, officials of the Fore River Company and naval officers attached to the yard. assembled around the big electric crane, on the morning of December 16, to witness the birth of the new battleship. These included President Francis T. Bowles, president of the Fore River Company, who was chief constructor of the United States Navy from 1901 to 1903; his manager, Mr. H. Gerrish Smith, formerly a naval lieutenant and also a naval constructor; and the four naval officers assigned to duty by the Department as inspectors of the work. These latter were Commander John L. Gow, inspector of machinery; Lieutenant C. L. Arnold, inspector of ordnance; Naval Constructor H. G. Gillmor, superintendent of construction, and Commander Roger Welles, inspector of equipment.

At 10.10 o'clock the morning of the keel-laying, the big electric crane was brought about amidship of the keel, a long chain was lowered and the hook at the end was made fast to keel plate No. 10. The crane hoisted the keel plate and swung it over to the keel blocks where it was laid. With the same mechanical precision the other plates followed in quick succession. The plates of the outer keel were twenty in number, every plate being twenty-four feet long and four feet wide, each weighing three thousand pounds. When the first keel plates were in position, workmen began to get the frames of the vessel ready. Within an hour from the laying of the first keel plate, the first frame was in position.

The ways on which the North Dakota is being built have a pitch of 13-16th of an inch to the foot, and it is calculated that this incline will enable the 20,000 tons of steel to slide gracefully into the water at the launching. It is figured that the launching will take place next October, or within ten months from the laying of the

TEN BIG GUNS IN BROADSIDE

While both the North Dakota and Delaware have been commonly called "Dreadnoughts," that appellation is a misnomer. These two American ships not only have a greater displacement each than the Dreadnought, but their design is thoroughly distinctive from the chief feature of the big British battleship. The distinctive feature of these two 20,000-ton American battleships is found in the arrangement of the five turrets which each will carry. In both the North Dakota and the Delaware these turrets will be arranged in a straight axial line from stern to bow, so that a broadside of ten 12-inch guns may be fired from either side.

The British Dreadnought also has five turrets, but they are arranged entirely different from the improvement designed for the North Dakota class. The Dreadnought is capable of firing only eight 12-inch guns on each broadside, or two guns less on a broadside than the new American type of ship will be able to fire. The original Dreadnought has a 12-inch turret in a raised bow deck, two lower 12-inch turrets on the stern deck and one 12-inch turret on each side, further forward; but both of the stern turrets and the two side turrets are all on a deck that is lower than the bow turret. Each of the Dreadnought's turrets has two guns; but the floor plan of the turret arrangement is such that when a broadside is fired on the Dreadnought, one of the side turrets cannot be included in a broadside fire toward the opposite side of