Seen in Germany . will still remain a firm, dryinner bottom to keep out the water. This widespace — it might be called the sub-basement of thevessel — has also its own separate compartments intowhich water can be let at will to balance the ship, ifshe does not ride evenly. After the ships engines and boilers, perhaps themost impressive pieces of mechanism are the shafts,which reach from the engine out through the stern ofthe vessel, where they drive the propellers. Inmany respects, also, these shafts are the most difficultof any part of the ship to produce. They are madeof a special, high-pric
Seen in Germany . will still remain a firm, dryinner bottom to keep out the water. This widespace — it might be called the sub-basement of thevessel — has also its own separate compartments intowhich water can be let at will to balance the ship, ifshe does not ride evenly. After the ships engines and boilers, perhaps themost impressive pieces of mechanism are the shafts,which reach from the engine out through the stern ofthe vessel, where they drive the propellers. Inmany respects, also, these shafts are the most difficultof any part of the ship to produce. They are madeof a special, high-priced nickel steel. Each of themis 215 feet long, longer than many good-sized ships,and twice as large around as a mans body. Theymust needs have strength to drive such a weight of How the Germans build Ships 267 steel through the water at such a speed. Each bearson its tip end outside the ship a screw-propeller ofmanganese bronze, each blade of which weighs fourand one-half tons. They are the work of that great. One of the Piston Heads of the Deutschland^ German, Herr Krupp, of Essen, and they representthe acme of the art of steel-making. Upon its ar-rival from the mills, each shaft is in five parts, and itlooks rough and coarse. But the workmen at theVulcan fit the pieces one by one into an enormouslathe, and plane them down as a cabinet-maker would 268 Seen in Germany turn the leg of a chair. We saw such a lathe atwork, and picked up fine shavings of nickel steel,curled and strong as a spring. Such a vessel as the Deutschland would have beenan impossibility a few years ago, not only for mechan-ical reasons, but because she could not have been madeto pay. The Deutschland will carry no freight andalmost no express. She is wholly a passenger andmail steamer — and she is now a possibility becausepeople are richer and every year more of them travelback and forth between Europe and America. Andto make such a speed as that of the Deutschland means that so much room is required b
Size: 1673px × 1493px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectgermany, bookyear1902
