NAVY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



2,400 miles. This is, more |.r..|..-rly speaking, 

 a discovery, n..t mi invention. The inu-ntion 

 merely consists in adapting certain appliance* 

 to the discovery for the purposes of its prac- 

 tical illustration. MUM.- played on a snmll 

 nieloile.,n, or piano key-board, transmitted 

 through an unbroken circuit of _'. l"'i miles, is 

 reproduced i. a a violin attached to the receiv- 

 ing und of the wire. Mr. Gray played " Hull 

 r..luml.ia," "The Star-spangled Manner," 

 find save the Queen," "Yankee Doodle," 

 und other well-known airs, and they were un- 

 mistakably n peated, note for note, on the vio- 

 lin which lay on a table near at hand. The 

 apparatus by means of which this extraordi- 

 nary feat in telegraphy is accomplished, hus 

 hecn named by Mr. Gray the telephone, or an 

 instrument designed for the purpose of trans- 

 mitting sound to a distance. It consists of 

 three general parts : first, the transmitting in- 

 strument; second, the conducting wire, run- 

 ning to a distant point ; and third, the appara- 

 tus for receiving the sound at that distant 

 point. The transmitting apparatus consists of 

 a key-board having a number of electro-mag- 

 nets corresponding with the number of keys 

 on the board, to which are attached vibrating 

 tongues or reeds, timed to a musical scale. 

 Any one of these tongues can be separately set 

 in motion by depressing the key corresponding 

 to it. Thus a tune may be played by manipu- 

 lating the keys in the same way as those of an 

 ordinary piano or melodeon. The music, pro- 

 duced entirely by electricity, of these notes is 

 so distinctly audible in the next room that, in 

 spite of much talking, there is no difficulty in 

 determining what tune the manipulator is play- 

 ing. To this transmitting instrument the con- 

 ducting wire is attached, the other end being 

 attached to the receiving apparatus, which 



may be any thing that is sonorous so long as it 

 IN in some degree a conductor <!' electricity. A 

 violin with a thin strip of metal stretched be- 

 tween the strings at a point where the I 

 of the iiistnimci't is ordinarily placed, will, on 

 in:/ tin? hou:id transmitted through the 

 conducting wire from the piano, give out a 

 tone very similar in quality to that of a violin. 

 If, then, the metallic strip is electrically con- 

 nected with a wire say 500 or l,00j miles long, 

 which has ita distant end properly connected 

 with the transmitting instrument, any one at 

 the receiving end can distinctly hear, without 

 the aid of electro-magnetism, the tune or air 

 which is being played 600 or 1,000 miles away 

 from him, if he properly manipulate the re- 

 ceiving apparatus. The length of the wire 

 connecting the transmitting with the receiv- 

 ing apparatus may be one mile or 10,000 miles, 

 provided that the isolation is sufficiently good 

 to prevent the escape of the electric current 

 before it reaches its destination. In fact, there 

 seems no limit to the distance to which sonnd, 

 of any desired pitch, may be thus conveyed with 

 from two to five cells of battery, all the condi- 

 tions being proper. The quality or timbre of the 

 tones depends upon the character of the re- 

 ceiving apparatus, which may be a violin pre- 

 pared as described above, a tin hoop, with foil- 

 paper heads stretched over it. after the fashion 

 of a baby's rattle, a nickel five-cent piece, an 

 old oyster-can, and a thousand other things. 

 A sound, sufficiently loud to read Morse tele- 

 graphic characters, made by interrupting, with 

 the common telegraphic key, one sustained 

 note, has been obtained, under favorable cir- 

 cumstances, at the receiving end of the wire 

 without any more scientific sounding appara- 

 tus than that of a piece of common tissue- 

 paper. 



N 



NAVY OF THE UNITED STATES. At 

 the end of 1874 the Navy consisted of 163 

 vessels, with 1,254 guns. Of this number 

 twenty-six have sail-power only, of which only 

 five can be put to practical use at sea as store- 

 ships, transports, or surveying-vessels. 



The steam-navy consists of 137 vessels, of 

 which twenty-five are tugs, used with one or 

 two exceptions for yard purposes ; thirty-seven 

 are armored vessels, and two are torpedo-boats, 

 leaving seventy-three steam-vessels originally 

 of a class adapted for cruising, of 94,830 tons, 

 and carrying 902 guns, including howitzers. 



Of the iron-clad or armored vessels, sixteen 

 are of a class and in condition for actual and 

 efficient service ; four others, of the class of 

 powerful double-turreted monitors, are under- 

 going repair, and the fifth is well worth the same 

 attention ; but the remainder may be counted as 

 really useless for any active and efficient pur- 

 pose. Four of the largest of them, designed 



and commenced during the war, have never 

 been launched, and consist, in fact, only of 

 their wooden frames, still on the stocks, and 

 their incomplete plating and machinery stored 

 at the navy-yards, though their names and de- 

 signed dimensions appear on the Navy list; 

 and the remaining twelve, of the class known 

 as light-draught monitors, not able to carry 

 their turrets, guns, and munitions of war, are 

 valuable only as old material. Of the seventy- 

 three steam cruising-vessels, five, of over 2,000 

 tons each, have remained on the stocks since 

 the war, never having been launched, and are 

 not estimated to be worth the cost of comple- 

 tion; seven are condemned and laid up in 

 ordinary as unfit for further use ; three others 

 with condemned machinery ; and forty-one are 

 in commission for various duty. Of the re* 

 maining seventeen, two are laid up ready for 

 service, seven are repairing at the various 

 navy-yards, and eight are building under spe- 



