OCTODER 1, 1912.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



13 



India Rubber in the Navy. 



THE manufacturers of rubber wares may take both a patriotic 

 and a business interest in the battle line of our navy. 

 While none of our war craft are arrayed in india-rubber 

 armor, as has been seriously proposed in years past and, in a 

 way tested, still there are plenty of ways in which this material 

 fits into the workings of our fighting ships and makes them the 

 better able to give and to take the blows of modern ordnance. 



Our dreadnoughts and our super-dreadnoughts are virtually 

 compact towns of substantially a thousand busy artisans and 

 supervising officials. Apart from this, these vessels are mobile 

 forts of liigh speed and exacting requirements, calling for con- 

 tinual expert care to keep them in the state of high efliciency now 

 demanded by the present-day standards. Below and back of 

 their rigid walls of gray-painted steel lie hundreds of mechanisms 

 and auxiliaries of varying power, and this busy community of a 

 thousand persons has plenty to do daily in making repairs and 

 in keeping each of these fighters in trim to defend at brief notice 



rubber seatings which eflectually prevent the water in one flooded 

 comi)artment gaining admission to the flanking neighboring one. 

 In addition to this, there are hatchways and manholes in some of 

 these sub-divisions which tinist likewise be made secure against 

 either the admission or the egress of water, and, again, india- 

 rubber gaskets or collars make this end certain. Under some 

 conditions, both the air and the sunshine are free to enter through 

 skylights and airports, but there are days when either the weather 

 or the state of the sea make it necessary to close these openings 

 securely, and once more rubber seatings make this possibe. Water 

 is not welcome inside of a fighting ship when it comes aboard 

 through accidental openings, because while it may do no present 

 damage, it may be the means of working insidious harm. Sturdy 

 as steel is, still rust is its ever threatening foe, and moisture has 

 a way of eating into the vitals of a plate and sapping its strength. 

 A man-of-war is subject to sudden and tremendous strains 

 when her guns are fired, and no part of the supporting structure 



One of Our L.^test Dre.vdnoughts, the "North D.\kot.\.' 



the dignity of the Stars and Stripes. A modern battleship typi- 

 fies the national state of pretty nearly every science and every 

 contributive art. She is not only a fighting machine, with her 

 burden of powder and shot and shell to make her fearful to the 

 foe in the hour of strife, but she is the comfortable and the 

 healthful home of her caretakers — the men who stand ready to 

 make her guns do more than roar defiance and who are willing 

 to lay down their lives in that service if the occasion requires. 

 The keynote of all discipline and every act is EFFICIENCY, 

 and in no community of a similar size ashore, or even in any fac- 

 tory, are the requirements of the personnel so exacting or gen- 

 erally so high. 



Let us see something of the part that india-rubber contributes 

 toward the attainment of these splendid results. To begin with, 

 the internal spacing below the armor belt is sub-divided into 

 numerous water-tight compartments — some of them isolated and 

 many of them intercommunicating. To make a passageway pos- 

 sible through the water-tight bulkheads, sliding and swinging 

 doors are provided which, when closed, are also water-tight, and 

 to make this certain the steel panels are jammed tight against 



must be weakened by oxidation. Hence rubber plays an all- 

 important part in keeping out water where it may otherwise find 

 access to hidden places and do harm. There are many hundreds 

 of pounds of sheet rubber employed for this purpose alone 

 aboard each modern battleship, and the exigencies of this service 

 call for fairly frequent renewals. 



This, however, is not the only strictly structural direction in 

 which rubber has a mission aboard our battle fleet. In the bath- 

 rooms and the toilets of the officers, rubber tiling is laid ; at the 

 top and at the bottom of ladders and gangways there are non- 

 slipping treads to give added steadiness to oflicers and men 

 hurrying up and down between decks and over exposed places 

 in bad weather and when the sea is running high. Rubber treads 

 are also placed in the working places and on the floors of the 

 turrets, so that the gun crews may have a firm footing in their 

 exacting tasks. 



But rubber has a still more refined and, we may say, im- 

 portant use in connection with the expert handling of the fight- 

 ing ship's guns. The modern battle practice requires the gun 

 pointers to keep the muzzle of the weapon continually bearing 



