ine to a countryman of yours named Leonard Hammond, who perfected it
so that at present it is in universal use and has revolutionized the
industries of the world by its saving of fuel and the low price at
which it call be manufactured, so that it has consigned every other
make of engine, reciprocal and turbine, to the scrap pile, and of the
most notable benefits derived from it has been in the shipping not only
in economy of fuel, but also in the small space they occupy so as to
give more room for cargo and in the almost total absence of vibration,
and in the battleship from their being on the propeller shaft at the
stern far below the water line."

The battleships remain for ten months of the year in the rivers and
harbors, where the officers and men are kept busy dredging, building
levees, wharves and breakwaters, and they take a cruise to different
parts of the earth during the months of December and January, and
during that time engage in gunnery practice. A battery of three-inch
caliber guns is taken on board each battleship for that as the big guns
will not stand continual firing and are only used on special occasions
to see if the gunners have improved. The men are highly pleased with
the service and the majority of them re-enlist. On inquiry I was told
that they had thirty first-class and thirty second-class battleships
and that they kept them always together so that they could strike an
enemy with force, but as they held no people in subjection and had no
colonies or outlying possessions there was at the present time very
little danger of war-but if it should come they were ready to fight and
to strike hard. As I left the navy yard I thought what a pity it was
that the people inhabiting the other countries of the earth were not
governed as these people are, for then there would be no need of
battleships and the kindly earth would slumber lapped in Universal Laws.

CHAPTER IX.

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE.

On inquiring at the Department of Commerce I was informed that it had
charge of all vessels engaged in internal traffic as well as in foreign
trade, and operated lines of steamers running to all ports of the
globe, carrying freight at a rate between home and foreign ports that
defied competition, but they did not carry freight between foreign
countries. The men for the Mercantile Marine were furnished by the Army
and had the same pay. They were required to load and unload cargo in
every port where they too