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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Warships
and their story
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.
Author: R. A. Fletcher
Language: English
STEAMSHIPS
AND
THEIR STORY
By E. Keble Chatterton
When or where the first warship was built is unknown, so also is the
campaign in which it was employed. A war with naval usages of any sort
cannot have been fought until the aggressor had some means of
transporting the spoil across the water. From the raft to the fire-hollowed
canoe was but a step, and having accomplished so much, the ingenuity of
the naval architects of the period found scope in making improvements,
gropingly, slowly, but none the less surely. The development of ships used
for warlike purposes, as well as of ships designed as implements for
fighting, forms a most attractive branch of study in its relation to the
evolution of empires, no less than that of civilisation. Nor is the interest
any the less if the attention be confined simply to the consideration of the
development of the ships as ships of war.
In this book I am endeavouring to describe, clearly and briefly, the main
features of the progress in warship building among the different peoples
of the world, from the earliest recorded times onward. The greater
attention is paid to modern warships, and the story of their development is
narrated with an avoidance of abstruse technicalities, so that any reader
of average intelligence and education may be able to obtain a clear
understanding of the steps by which that wonderful creation, the modern
navy, and especially the British Navy, has come into being.
Whether my readers belong to the bluest of the “blue water” school;
whether they advocate two British keels to one possessed by any
possible combination of foreign powers as the irreducible minimum below
which the British fleet shall not go; whether they take a more moderate
view, founded, as they believe, on the power of the nation to pay for its
fleet, and the ability of other nations to pay for their fleets, in which case
the ability of some other nations to borrow money to have their best
vessels built in British yards must not be lost sight of; or whether my
readers belong to the other extreme and believe that any and every
British fleet is too powerful and that the time is coming when the Imperial
cheek shall be turned to the envious smiter: whatever be their political
and social faiths, the fact remains that the fleet in being is the sole
guarantee of this nation’s safety, and that the payments for the several
warships and the personnel of the Navy are but so many premiums for
insuring the defence of the country and the maintenance of the inviolate
integrity of these islands. Whether the money has always been spent to
the best advantage is a point upon which experts differ, and is outside my
intention to consider. But I hope to show something of the types of
vessels provided, and, incidentally, to indicate how engineering skill and
profound science have been devoted to the evolution of the modern ship
of war.
* * * * * *
The earliest known employment of a warship dates back, according to the
present computations of Egyptologists, some six thousand years b.c.; but
discoveries yet to be made may cause that estimate to be revised, for the
more the scientific investigation of ancient Egypt is pursued, the greater is
the tendency to date events more remotely still. All that is known of this
ship is that it existed, and that it saw service as escort to a trading
expedition on the Nile.
The first naval engagement of which we have any definite knowledge was
fought near the mouth of the Nile about 1000 b.c. The ships held only a
few men each and were propelled by rowers, and so little dependence
was placed on their sails that the latter were furled to be out of the way
during the actual fighting.
For hundreds of years oars were the chief means of propulsion, the sails
only being availed of when the wind was very favourable. To increase the
speed of the vessels, bank after bank of oars was added until ships
carrying as many as eighteen banks are averred to have been
constructed—though the evidence of the correctness of the statement is a
long way from being conclusive—and one historian even goes to the
length of asserting that a ship having forty banks of oars was built, but this
may be disbelieved. For the most part, ships having two, three, or four
banks were preferred for war purposes, because of their handiness.
Greater ships were afterwards built and improvements made in the shape
and size of the sails and spars used, and the number of masts was
increased.
* * * * * *
Meanwhile in the Far North a seafaring nation was proving its worth. The
wild men of the wilder North, the Danes, the Scandinavian Vikings—
turbulent, adventurous and fierce, to whom fear was a word unknown—
animated by the virile yet mystic mythology of the North, and inspired by
the love of conquest and travel, now began to play their part in the world’s
naval history. The Vikings produced the “long ship,” the “serpent,” daring
in conception, marvellous in construction, possessing wonderful qualities
as a sea-boat, fast under sail or oar, and of a beauty of outline and shape
hardly to be excelled even now. Such were the vessels in which the
Danes invaded England, and by building vessels as good as those of the
Danes, and some rather better, King Alfred repulsed the invaders and
implanted in the English that “habit of the sea” they have never lost. But
the lesson of the Norsemen was destined to lie dormant for many a long
year. Although the Romans had introduced the “long ship” for war
purposes—so-called because it was longer in proportion to its beam than
the merchant ships—the Mediterranean shipbuilders preferred as a whole
to retain the heavy hull, and the form they believed best suited to their
needs upon the tideless sea. Slave power was cheap, and was to be had
for the trouble of capturing, and for many centuries oar-driven galleys
were preferred over any vessel dependent upon sails only, and were to be
found in the Mediterranean as late as the beginning of the nineteenth
century.
As ships of greater size were provided in the Middle Ages, huge erections
in the shape of castles were added at the bow and stern: great, unwieldy
craft which contemporary historians likened to floating islands. The
Venetian and Genoese republics elevated the art of constructing oared
galleasses to its highest, and ere long Spain took the lead in producing
warships with dimensions and power of armament which made her the
chief maritime power of the world.
* * * * * *
In England, owing to alternate periods of stimulation and neglect by the
authorities, the progress of shipbuilding was spasmodic. The roughness
of the waters round our coasts, and along the Atlantic coasts of France,
the Low Countries and North Western Europe, caused greater
dependence to be placed in small vessels having good sea-going
qualities and using sail whenever possible. The Great Harry was begun in
the reign of Henry VII. and finished in the reign of his uxorious successor,
and is interesting as indicating that shipbuilders in England were even
then able to turn out a sea-going vessel superior to anything afloat. Henry
VIII. established royal shipbuilding yards at Woolwich and Deptford, and
thus founded the modern navy, but few warships for the King’s service