Popular Science Monthly 



557 



the use of artificial stone opens up a new 

 avenue to the increased production of 

 ships. Even with plans drawn, however, the 

 actual building of such 

 a large concrete vessel 

 and its practicability- 

 after it is built, are 

 entirely different 

 matters. ■ While 

 every one knows of 

 concrete's adapt- 

 ability to almost 

 any .form because 

 it is handled in a 

 plastic or semi-fluid 

 state; of its fire- 

 proofness; of its 

 general use in large 

 office buildings, in 

 private residences, 

 in bridges, docks, 

 sidewalks and in 

 practically all 

 branches of con- 

 struction, there is 

 yet much to be 

 done by naval arch- 

 itects and marine 

 engineers before the 

 five-thousand-ton concrete sea-going vessel 

 is a practical, commercial certainty. This 

 does not mean that such a ship is an im- 

 possibility but that American ingenuity 



orn for wat 

 ballast or fuel oil 



A Typical Concrete Cargo Boat 



It has two decks, a double bottom for ballast or fuel, 

 and a double hull between the lower deck and the 

 double bottom. This gives greater strength. The 

 well known principles of concrete building construction 

 are indicated in the form of the hull members and 

 the method of distribution of the steel re-enforcing 



How the Concrete Hull Will Be Made 



Imagine this man standing on the scaffolding alongside a ship, and 

 you will get an idea of how the three layers, of the hull are shot into 

 place by compressed air. The man shown here is building up a some- 

 what similar concrete slab on metal lathing to form the outer wall 

 of a sewerage disposal plant. The cement is shot through a hose 



and enterprise must be brought to bear 

 and problems peculiar to concrete con- 

 struction solved. 



The Concrete Vessel Is Not New 

 in Shipbuilding 



Concrete vessels have been 

 built in the past. But 

 they have been small 

 barges or the like 

 for inland Water 

 work, with but one 

 or two exceptions. 

 One of these is a 

 three-thousand-ton 

 concrete vessel now 

 under course of con- 

 struction in Moss, 

 Norway. She is ex- 

 pected to be deliv- 

 ered to her owners 

 by the time this arti- 

 .cle appears in print. 

 The first concrete 

 boat really . . dates 

 back to 1849, when 

 M. Lambot, of 

 Carces, ' France, 

 built a small ten- 

 foot rowboat of re-enforced concrete. 



While the boat and its: "method of 

 construction were investigated by the 

 French Government, the vessel was evi^ 

 dently far in advance of its 

 time, and its further develop- 

 ment was left in private hands. 

 Almost fifty years later, or in 

 1899, Carlo Gabellini, of Rome, 

 Italy, built "several < concrete 

 scows and barges, : one of* the 

 latter a one-hundred -fifty-ton 

 vessel for the city of Civita 

 Vecchia. Meantime, small 

 eleven-ton concrete barges had 

 been built in Holland in 1887, 

 and later, a two - hundred -> 

 twenty-ton freight barge in 1909 

 by German shipbuilders at 

 Frankfort - on - the - Main. In 

 1910 a similar concrete barge 

 was built for use on the Welland 

 Canal, Canada, while in 191 1\ 

 barges or pontoons made of 

 concrete were successfully built 

 and employed in work at the 

 Panama Canal. In 191 2, Oscar 

 F. Lackey, then harbor engineer 

 of Baltimore, Md., built several 

 five-hundred-ton barges, one of 



