BOOK DEPARTMENT
The Institute Book Department will supply any obtainable naval, professional, or scientific book at retail price, postage prepaid. The trouble saved the purchaser through having one source of supply of all books should be considered. The cost will not be greater and sometimes less than when obtained direct from dealers.
Address all communications to: Secretary-Treasurer, U. S. Naval Institute, Annapolis, Md.
ELEMENTARY STEAM ENGINEERING, 1926. By E. V. Lallier. D. Van Nostrand, New York. $2.50.
The present volume is a revision of a book originally published in 1913.
As indicated by the title the book is purely elementary. It is presumably designed to give a young technical student some degree of familiarity with the form and operation of power plant equipment and at the same time to supply the young operating engineer some insight into the principles upon which the operation of his equipment depends. In the mind of the reviewer it is not particularly successful in either object. Elementary text books are necessarily superficial in their treatments but by the same token they require skillful exposition and also accuracy, neither of which qualifications can be ascribed to this one.
The chapter on the “Work done by steam during formation” with that on “Engine calculations,” especially the latter, is illustrative of particularly atrocious presentation of even the most elementary thermodynamics of steam and the steam engine.
A few typical inaccuracies may be quoted. It is stated that in boiler installations using pulverized coal (“coal dust”) or blast furnace gas as a fuel, combustion of this fuel must be maintained by keeping a small quantity of coal burning on a grate. Also, to quote: “Occasionally the condensed steam in the form of water is reemployed,” reference being to the use of main engine condensate as boiler feed water. Again, a suitable allowance for a shrink fit is stated to be “about one one-hundredth of an inch per inch of diameter.” A steam turbine is classified as a rotary engine.
Thus it goes throughout the book. It seems particularly unfortunate that so poor a publication should be presented to the class of readers for which it is intended, a class which is necessarily incompetent to differentiate between the good and the bad.
P. J. K.
BROWN’S COMPLETED BURWOOD. New Edition Revised and Enlarged. James Brown and Son. (Glasglow)
Ltd. 10/6 net.
These tables are of restricted value owing to the fact that they are only good for the sun or stars of less than 230 declination north or south and for a latitude belt north or south from 30° to 60°.
Modern developments in the art of navigation are along the lines of simplicity and the use where possible of one method and one book to cover the problem of the determination of the altitude and azimuth at the same time with no limit (except the ultimate values) as to the data used.
In tables like Aquino’s for instance, practically the same solution can be used for all problems regardless of the values or the direction of measurement of the latitude, declination, and hour angle.
For vessels on the North Atlantic and North Pacific trade routes this book should be useful because the small time interval reduces the interpolation, but for general and naval use H.O. 71 for the sun and bodies of declination below 230, and H.O. 120 for bodies of higher declination are much more useful on account of their general application. The example given in the explanation is out of date on account of the recent change in time.
Appendices. Appendix (A) is interesting from an academic rather than a practical standpoint.
Appendix (B). The use of the azimuth tables for the detection of the G. C. course and distance is entirely practical and satisfactory and the description of the use of the gnomonic chart indicates a commendable desire to recognize and advocate modern methods. Other methods for the determination of the azimuth of a body of a declination greater than 230 are preferable to those indicated because they are shorter and therefore more likely to be accurate. The table for the conversion of radio bearings is useful and checks closely with other similar tables.
The other problems noted are interesting but not particularly useful.
Appendix (C). These problems and tables are of no practical value to the modern navigator who practically never has to use the amplitude of a body.
Appendix (D). This gives the approximate value within a few seconds of the declination and equation of time for a long series of years, but it should not be used if an almanac is available.
From the above it can be plainly seen that for the United States naval navigator this book contains nothing which he cannot get to better advantage from our own Hydrographic Office publications.
A. M. R. A.
GREAT CIRCLE SAILING by L. M. Berkeley. White Book and Supply Co., New York. $1.50.
Great Circle Sailing indicates that the author feels that the value of great circle sailing has not been appreciated by navigators when I am sure that a careful investigation of the charts and log books of vessels will show that the value of great circle sailing has been fully appreciated by them for a great many years, even before the end of the sailing era.
In determining the great circle courses and distances the trend of development has been towards simplification of the methods. In this matter Great Circle Sailing takes a step backward in the very beginning, as the value of this method is based on the correct signs of the trigonometrical functions. This dependence on signs is something that the navigation mathematicians have been trying to do away with for many years. While these signs may be used to advantage by the navigators who have had a thorough mathematical education, they are confusing even to them, due to the difference in the direction of the measurement of the trigonometrical angles and the compass angles. Consequently the seaman who has had only a limited education in this direction will always select that method in which there can be no ambiguity. The latest Naval Academy navigation textbook, Navigation and Nautical Astronomy avoids this difficulty by the selection of the haversine formulae in deducing the course and distance for the great circle track. By the use of the azimuth tables for the' derivation of these values still another method is available which is far more valuable than the one given in this book.
However, the only modern and thoroughly practical method of great circle sailing is the graphic method and with the gnomonic charts at present available for all large areas of the earth, there is no excuse for any other. Any desired course from one point to another may be laid down on a gnomonic chart, and the navigator can see clearly whether or not this course takes him too close to any land. The track may then be transferred by points of latitude and longitude to a mercator chart or plotting sheet, preferably the one the navigator intends to use for his other work. After these points have been laid down on the mercator chart a straight edge laid through them will indicate immediately how frequently and to what extent the course must.be changed in order to keep on the great circle track.
Practical considerations, even with the modern gyro compass as a guide, make it useless to alter the course less than about 30 at a time. If a more positive type of gyro compass is perfected with an integrating dial so that a ship may be steered closer than 1°, it may be possible in the future to lay down a great circle course which may be altered a degree at a time, but as the type of gyro compass at present in use is only guaranteed on original inspection to maintain itself within one degree on either side of the meridian, the desirability of operating on a one degree change of course is not apparent. In addition, consideration must be given to the effect of the wind, the sea, and the ocean currents, which are constantly driving the ship off the great circle track and which must be constantly allowed for, if the proper course is to be maintained.
The graphic method described above also does away with the necessity for the computation of the initial course. I cannot agree with Commander Dutton that the tangent method of sailing the great circle is the best but consider the chord method far superior. Theoretically the tangent touches the great circle at only one point so that the minute the initial tangent course is started the ship begins to go off the track. The chord method, however, particularly in an area where the tendency of the current is to set the ship further out onto the great circle is by far the best, and lends itself readily to the determination of the proper initial course by the graphic method noted above.
If the reader desires a mathematical consideration of this book he is referred to a recent article by Professor Capron of the Department of Mathematics at the U. S. Naval Academy, in the American Mathematical Monthly. Professor Capron has carefully analyzed the mathematical formula: developed in Great Circle Sailing and shows that many of the mistakes, so called, that the author finds in other books have been due to their practical consideration of the subject, and that they are essentially more accurate than the results given in this book.
While the book is of interest from an academic standpoint it is of no value to the practical navigator.
A. M. R. A.
RHODE ISLAND PRIVATEERS IN KING GEORGE’S WAR, 1739-1748. Howard M. Chapin. Rhode Island Historical Society, Providence.
Reviewed by Captain Thomas G. Frothingham, U.S.R.
In the study of the history of the American Revolution, not enough emphasis has been given to the indisputable fact that the most successful offensive of the American Colonies was on the sea. Even when the results of defeats on land seemed to bring the American situation into a deadlock, memorials were being presented to the British Parliament in which the argument used to bring about peace was the unprecedented destruction of British commerce. The reasons for these petitions become evident when we realize that American privateers, in the Revolution, actually destroyed about six hundred British ships of the value of eighteen million dollars. And these were great losses for the times.
From the very start American privateers had swarmed over the seas, and this implied the existence, at the outbreak of the Revolution, of an element of naval preparedness in the American Colonies which has not been appreciated. The fact was, there were no hardier and more intelligent seamen in the world than the Americans of 1775. Their ships had been on all the oceans navigated in those days, and American designers were already noted for the speed and stanchness of their ships. American sailors had also learned the lesson of experience in fighting on the seas, which made them especially well equipped for warfare against the commerce of a superior naval power. Just as, on land, the experience of the “French Wars” was of great value to American officers, from Washington down through all grades; so, on the sea, the experience of naval warfare in these same “French Wars” was for American seamen a preparation for their successful raids upon British commerce.
This publication of the Rhode Island Historical Society is a most interesting account of these earlier ventures in privateering which gave Americans their education for the naval warfare of the Revolution. In 1739 the assembly of Rhode Island had “authorized the governor to grant commissions to private men-of-war to act against Spain and the subjects thereof, pursuant to his Majesty’s warrant.” And later in the war, upon hostilities with France, Rhode Island privateers wrought such havoc upon French commerce that Richard Partridge wrote: “It is well known that the colony aforesaid is extremely obnoxious to the French and much an object of their resentment on account of the great mischief done to their trade during the last war by Rhode Island privateers of which they fitted out more than any other of the northern colonies.” The author states: “The increase in the interest in privateering was greatly fostered by France’s entry into the war, the lure of rich French prizes serving as an incentive to the cupidity of the New England merchants.”
When we realize that “Rhode Island had twenty-one privateers [not including the colony sloop Tartar] at sea during the year,” 1744, and when we also realize that “the crews of these privateers averaged more than 100 men per vessel,” it will be evident that the small New England colony had sent many pupils to this school of naval warfare.
Mr. Chapin’s book gives a vivid narrative of the cruises and adventures of these privateers after the day of September 1, 1739, which marked “an epoch in the history of Rhode Island privateering. On that day two sloops, the Virgin Queen and the Revenge, sailed from Newport, the first privateers out of Narragansett Bay in King George’s War.” These were followed by many more, and their stories are stirring pictures of the old sailing days. The careers of the various ships are traced, with the right amount of detail and quotations from documents to bring the realities of those times before the reader’s eyes—and yet the author has been successful in avoiding too long a book. There is much hard fighting, and every variety of peril from storm. One is made to realize what it meant to cruise in the enemy waters of the West Indies in the small craft of the times. Of the Revenge of Newport we learn that, after a succession of bouts with the weather, including a stroke from lightning which seriously damaged the ship, when the crew were at last able to take out reefs and get clear of the hurricane, the stern rebuke was recorded: “Very few godly enough to return God thanks for their deliverance.” But no disapproval was expressed of the following: “One of the prisoners captured by Captain Norton [of the Revenge], a negro slave about thirty years of age, who was a carpenter and caulker by trade, and who also understood boat building, was sold at public auction at 6 p.m. on May 6 at the Royal Exchange Tavern in Boston.”
An interesting episode in the book is the career of the “colony sloop” Tartar, which, although built, manned, and equipped by the colony of Rhode Island was given the status of a privateer by the British Admiralty. This armed vessel was used to protect the coast, for convoying, and saw service in the expedition against Louisburg. Others of the Rhode Island privateers had a hand in this undertaking of Governor Shirley’s, which was one of the most enterprising and successful operation of the American Colonists in the “French Wars.”
This is altogether a stirring book, and it is a valuable contribution to the literature of the sea, which is now teaching our people how largely our history was made upon the sea. This is much needed information for the American nation—and the present interest in books dealing with our past on the sea has been justified by our recent lessons from the World War. These showed that our present as well as our past must be influenced by the sea. It was proved that our innate inheritance from the sea was still strong in Americans, and this inheritance from the stormy days of our ancestors had fitted Americans on the sea for many and varied tasks that were not imagined before. We must never let this touch of the sea get out of our blood. And the more sea books we Americans read, the better it is for us.
THE SEALS OF MARITIME NEW ENGLAND. By Louis F. Middlebrook. Essex Institute, Salem, 1926.
Reviewed by Captain Thomas G. Feothingham, U.S.R.
This is another valuable contribution of the Essex Institute, to add to the many from the same source which have done so much to spread the knowledge of our early maritime history. In the first paragraph of this book the keynote is struck: “But the origins of the first settlements were of the maritime nature, and it is concerning these, where the foundation of our Government was primarily established, that this work is devoted.” And, in his preface, the author has defined his intention as follows: “One of the objects of this record is an endeavor to revive and resurrect local interest in the preservation and continuous survival of the original devices established as the seals of communities, unalterable and constant, as identifications of heridity to all concerned.”
This makes an appeal at once to Americans, and Mr. Middlebrook has compiled an interesting monograph. It is a plea for a return to the original and characteristic forms of seals, which in many cases have been abandoned. As he states the case:
The reasons for the adoption of an original seal belonged to the first settlers to interpret, and in examining some of the alterations that have been made in these historic standards, it almost seems blasphemous and bordering upon profanation that such pitiful substitute blemishes have been permitted.
Commerce and the fisheries were reflected in the seals by various communities on the New England seaboard, but now only a few remain as originally drafted. Of the original coast colonies themselves, Maine, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island still maintain the maritime designs in their great seals, although it is true that Massachusetts and Connecticut also possessed seals of this order at one time in their history as is hereafter shown.
The old seal of the colony of Massachusetts Bay, which developed into the seal of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, showed that “the presence of the Indian was probably more predominant in the minds of the settlers,” and the Indian has retained his place in the present seal. There was the stage of the “Sword-in-hand” seal of 1775, with the motto Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietam. The “Sword-in-hand” is retained in the present crest, with the motto, but the Indian has returned to the field of the shield with a star “for one of the United States of America.” Yet two Massachusetts seals are shown with nautical emblems, the “anchor and codfish” seal, and the “Pemaquid’ seal with a ship. Connecticut adhered to the familiar grapevines, but a “ship” seal of that colony is also shown in this book.
Of the sea ports, many seals are reproduced which had their origin from seafaring, and which bore nautical devices, although here also there were many departures into other forms of emblems. Most of the old seals are of good design, and are in themselves an argument for harking back to the originals of the early settlers. In describing the various New England ports, of which the seals are reproduced, this monograph also gives a terse account of the origin and early history of each community. This is an interesting feature' of the book and is well done.
There is also a short treatise on the making of seals, which includes this practical instruction from an old source:
In order to form a better judgment of your work you must, now and then, as you proceed on, make use of a stump, made with a piece of an old hat rolled up and blackened, with which you rub your metal on the place you are working, which fills the strokes with black and makes you see better the effect of your work as you go on.
With this, there is a list of old New England engravers of seals. Among them appears the versatile and omnipresent Paul Revere, to whom is credited the “Sword-in-hand” seal of Massachusetts.
SAILING SHIPS OF WAR (1800-1860). By Sir Alan Moore (Bart.). Minton, Balch & Co., New York. $25.00.
Reviewed by Rear Admiral (Ret.) Elliot Snow, (CC) U.S.N.
[Editor’s Note: The following review, an excellent one, appeared in the Army and Navy Register of October 9, 1926.]
Sir Alan Moore (Bart.), whose book Sailing Ships of War has just made its appearance, chose his subjects from the period of 1800-1860 and, for his illustrations, drew entirely upon the finest and nearest complete collection of maritime prints of the world— that of Mr. A. G. H. Macpherson. The preface of this book justly states: “Those who share his [Mr. Macpherson’s] tastes owe him a debt for enabling them thus far to share his treasures.”1 To this it may here well be added that the worlds of art and naval history, too, are in debt to Sir Alan Moore for choosing so happily and so well presenting his interesting subject.
“The purpose of this book,” say its author, “is to show what men-of-war were like when the sailing navy reached its zenith during wartime, and how its likeness was retained as far as possible for more than fifty years in spite of steam.” A few ships of a date earlier than 1800 are included to constitute a link between eighteenth and nineteenth century practices and one, a couple of years later than i860, “shows unmistakably the passing of the epoch of sailing ships of war.” The U. S. S. Kokuk (1862), when contrasted with the U. S. S. Lancaster (1858), discloses the rapidity of changes in our ideas of men-of-war wrought during four years, at the time of our Civil War.
For each of the sailing ships-of-war dealt with, the author has given a brief sketch of some interesting and stirring scene connected with her service as well as her principal characteristics. For the most part the vessels selected to accomplish the purpose of the author were at one time units of the British fleet. However, ten or twelve vessels of the United States, and here and there one of France and other countries, are included. Among those of the United States is the U. S. S. Constitution, an engraving by A. Bowen, after W. Lynn. The one text illustration is that of the sheer and half breadth plans of “Old Ironsides” made from a copy in the files of the Bureau of Construction and Repair (1794). Others are an American sloop, probably of the Hornet class: one of the U. S. S. Fulton, published in 1815; the U. S. frigate Cumberland, launched in 1842; the paddle frigate Missouri, which caught fire and burned to the water’s edge at Gibraltar on August 26, 1842, through the accidental breaking" of a jar of turpentine; our largest line-of-battle ship Pennsylvania (140), of which a model is today to be seen in the conference room of the Navy Department library.
In addition to the descriptions of individual ships, the author has given attention to sailing ship traditions; a description of the rates and classes of vessels which, then as now, reached a number quite bewildering to laymen; a table compiled chiefly from an Admiralty manuscript entitled “A List of His Majesty’s Royal Navy, 1798-1805”; a section on guns showing where many types were used and how worked, taken largely from a recent work by F. L. Robertson, engineer commander, Royal Navy.
From the sections devoted to seamanship and the working of guns, the reader will learn that even to this day “a recruit for the [British] Navy takes no oath of allegiance as a soldier does.” The rapidity with which vessels could be rigged and otherwise prepared for service in early days is somewhat astonishing. “About 1850 two line-of-battle ships, fitted out as quickly as possible by Admiralty order were masted, rigged, armed, and stored in ... about three and a half days.”
The section next following the one on seamanship is devoted to changes and developments in construction. These, however, were relatively small during the period dealt with, though many minor alterations were made. “Even so unimportant a matter as replacing the spritsail yard [by whisker booms] was long delayed and opposed.” The last eight pages of the introduction touch briefly on the struggle between sail and steam. “Till the early thirties the use of steamers as fighting units was hardly considered,” though the Hon. East India Company’s Diana had been found useful during the river campaign of the Burmah War of 1824.
The color reproductions add much to the attractions of the book. Of the twelve, one is Roux’s beautiful water color of l’lncorruptible of the French Navy. This vessel narrowly escaped destruction at the hands of the British fire ships in Dunkirk Roads (1800). Another shown is the Guadalupe, said to have been the first iron man-of-war launched at Birkenhead (Laird), 1842. She was built as a private enterprise, and not being wanted by the British Government was sold to Mexico. The Symondite corvette, H. M. S. Dido, which was famous for her smart and neat appearance, is illustrated. Some hold that her smartness gave rise to the expression “cutting a dido.”
A few of the eighty odd cuts in black and white, which show scenes like those “On the Deck of a Man-of-War, 1820,” and “The Midshipmen’s Berth,” introduce a variety of interest which will attract the attention of those who are seeking information as to' former seafaring customs and ways. In the first-named picture the author points out “a steady-going seaman reading a letter out loud…” On the far side of one of the ladders “a man is answering a tall-hatted officer’s inquiry about some infernal row” unnoticed by a sentry. “A group of gamblers limits the space available for the innocent amusement” of dancing. “Under cover of watching the dance a prearranged exchange of liquor is taking place.” There is a Jewish peddler; an arrival and a parting; two of the men have pigtails. This form of headdress came into fashion about 1786 and died out in the twenties.
The book is very well indexed. Because of the predominance of English vessels, its greatest appeal is to our English cousins across the Atlantic, yet the book contains interesting bits of the history of ships that with interest, as well, those on this side of the Atlantic.
1 Among the other works which have drawn upon this collection, several of which have already been reviewed in the Army and Navy Register, are: The Sea: Its History and Romance, by F. C. Bowen; Adventures by Sea, by Basil Lubbock; Yachts and Yachting, by B. Heckstall-Smith; The Golden Age of Sail, by F. C. Bowen, and Whaling and Whale Ships, by G. F. Dow.
AIRCRAFT AND COMMERCE IN WAR. By J. M. Spaight. Longman’s, Green and Company, New York. $2.25.
In this very interesting book Mr. Spaight develops the fact that sea power and air power can, in conjunction with trade agreements, exert irresistable economic pressure on an enemy which is weaker at sea. The book, however, by its title and general point of view rather emphasizes the part of air power in exerting this pressure at the expense of the real essential—sea power.
Aircraft must operate, from a base either afloat or ashore. If aircraft are used as an information service and adjunct to the surface vessels of the stronger sea power the nature of maritime warfare will be changed but little. If aircraft are operated from the shore bases of the weaker sea power against the sea communications of the stronger it seems inevitable that the air forces of both belligerents, as well as portions of their fleets and armies, will be employed in a struggle for the possession or destruction of such bases. Thus the air efforts of the weaker sea power will soon be diverted from attack on shipping to attack on enemy armed forces engaged in attacking its air bases. The war in the air would rapidly change from Mr. Spaight’s conception—war by economic pressure without battle—to the inevitable military encounter and decision by battle or the conception of war which he rather deprecates. It would develop into a struggle for aerial supremacy in the theater of war and aerial supremacy would be found to be largely dependent on the seizure or defense of operating bases for surface forces. A principle which cannot be discounted is that before one can exercise the command of an area either by land and sea or by air one must secure it. There is only one way to secure command against an enemy who wishes to dispute it and that is by battle.
It seems rather doubtful if any nation will attempt to secure victory over an opponent by economic pressure without a decision by battle unless the economic resources of its enemy are small particularly after the experiences of the past ten years. Victory by economic pressure has turned out to be a rather doubtful method of winning a war.
F. S.