pressure; speed, 14 knots.
A GIGANTIC STEAMER.
The largest vessel now on the ways is the Oregon, of 7,400 tons gross,
and 13,000 horse power; estimated speed, 18 knots. The superficial
area of the largest plates in the former was 221/2 square feet; that of
the largest plate in the latter is 206 square feet. The Oregon is an
iron vessel, but some of the largest vessels now being built by Mr.
Pearce's firm are of steel.
The information which I have obtained from Messrs. Thomson, of
Glasgow, is especially emphatic as to the supersession of iron by
steel in the construction of ships. They say that large steel plates
are as cheap as iron ones, and that they have never had one bad plate
or angle in steel. This is confirmed by Mr. Denny, who says: "Whenever
our shipwrights or smiths have to turn out anything particularly
difficult in shape, and on which much 'work' has to be put, they will
get hold of a piece of steel if they can."
REMARKABLE MACHINERY AND TOOLS.
It will be readily understood that the rolls, the hammers, the
machinery for punching, drilling, planing, etc., used in the
manufacture and preparation of plates and angles for shipbuilding and
armor plates are on a scale far different at the present date from
what they were in 1869. Perhaps the most striking examples of powerful
machinery for these purposes are the great Creuzot hammer, the falling
mass of which has recently been increased to 100 tons, and the new
planing machines at the Cyclops Works, which weigh upward of 140 tons
each, for planing compound armor plates 19 in.
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