DISCUSSION ON CONSOLIDATED MESS OF THE INDIANA. (See No. 83.)
Commander C. H. STOCKTON, U. S. Navy.—I am very glad to know that a movement is again under way to reform the present system of messing on -board ship. It would be a good thing for the service if matters of this kind would attract more attention, even if it went so far as to deaden the efforts of those man-milliners in the service who devote so much time to the endeavor to change the uniforms of the personnel to the exclusion of more vital matters.
The present system of messes, with incompetent and often brokendown landsmen as cooks, with at times dishonest caterers and with general waste and mismanagement, is a failure, and upon most stations abroad causes our vessels to leave behind a trail of unpaid bills from the men, which is a discredit to the service and a reflection upon our internal organization.
The failure on the part of the men as individuals and messes to meet their bills promptly causes advanced prices on the part of the bumboat men or compradores, and in order to secure the custom of the men it is not unusual on the Asiatic station for a system of advances in cash from the compradores to arise, which causes many individual debts, leads to illicit trading and affects the disciplinary methods of the class system of the ships.
I recognize the consolidated mess as an improvement if it does not rest upon the foundation-stone of the canteen, and provided further if the canteen does not rest upon the foundation-stone of beer. Would the system as presented in the paper under discussion work in small ships and without the canteen?
Apparently every facility has been afforded the consolidated mess of the Indiana for a fair trial, and I have little doubt that if the efforts continue, and if the system of Lieut.-Comr. Delehanty, which I understand does not depend upon the canteen, is also developed and experimented upon, it is most probable that from the two some proper system may be evolved.
There are considerations that must not be ignored, considerations that exist more particularly upon stations other than those of our home waters. One is the necessity for keeping ships in readiness for sudden calls, either for military or other duties. This involves a constant supply on board of certain staple provisions not readily obtained. One of these is hard bread, which is not an article obtainable in foreign markets at a moment's notice. On the Asiatic station bread is not kept on hand as a commercial article, and the least time taken upon that station to have baked good hard bread is one week. A detention of a ship with empty bread rooms, suddenly wanted for distant service, would be a very awkward matter.
I hope any change in mess arrangements will not create any additional yeomen. There are apt to be in most small vessels too many petty officers for the enlisted personnel, and in no instance is there greater extravagance in this respect than in that of yeomen. The number of yeomen could be reduced one-half without detriment to the service in these vessels.
USE OF ALUMINUM IN NAVAL CONSTRUCTION. (Nos. 82 and 83.)
Professor A. H. SABIN.-My own (unpublished) experiments have shown that rolled aluminum plates have a foliated structure, and while the corroding action of sea water is rather slow on the sides of a plate, it is rapid and penetrating where it acts on the edges. A plate an eighth of an inch thick was not rusted through by immersion in sea water (in a cask) in eight months, but was entirely destroyed to a distance of an inch from the edge, and the edge was swelled up to a thickness of three eighths of an inch, looking like a bundle of paper. The plate experimented on was pure aluminum and was not exposed to galvanic action. It seems to me that this throws light on the corrosion around bolt holes and the like; the water gets in, and then it destroys the metal around the edge of the hole. This agrees with the statement on page 330 that the joints swelled and strained the rivets. No doubt the presence of some other metal aggravates the trouble by inducing galvanic action.
It is quite practicable to coat aluminum so as to effectually protect it from sea water. The "pipe coating" described in my paper gives practical protection. The trouble with any coating is that it is liable to be scraped or worn off, and I do not see how this difficulty can ever be avoided. For example, it is of very little use to depend on a coating for protecting the sides of a hatch, because_ it will be rapidly worn off, while an air pipe or a cowl may probably be kept in good condition for a long time. Even if it gets scratched off in places, these may be retouched by some suitable air-drying varnish; but no coating can ever be depended on for resistance against constant wear. No coating has ever been applied which is of considerable thickness, and in the nature of things it is liable to be worn off and scraped off. I have no confidence in protecting the outside of the bottom of a vessel by any coating if the metal is aluminum; on steel, which is so much less liable to corrosion, it may possibly be of some substantial use. All our experiments show, and I think have fairly proved, that by far the best protection is given by a properly made baked coating; and this is reasonable, for if the material used will stand the heat it is hardened and made more impermeable, while its adhesiveness is not lessened. It is entirely practicable to apply this process to articles of considerable size; it has already been used on pipe sections twenty-five feet long and five feet in diameter, and it can be quite as well applied to even larger objects. It would, of course, be advantageous to get the same results with a coating not needing baking, but it has not yet been done. Some of the varnishes have, however, given very excellent results. If a varnish is used it should be of special quality, and a considerable number of coats should be applied—not less than three, and probably eight or ten would be better. I have no doubt that in this way aluminum may be efficiently protected; but if the coating is scraped off the protection ceases at once.