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ON THE MAXIMUM DIMENSIONS OF SHIPS. 3 
respect of speed, carrying power, or other features of ship design. Successive 
vessels belonging to each and every class have been made larger than their 
predecessors. 
Excellent illustrations of this general law may be found in the develop- 
ment of the smaller classes of war vessels during the last twenty years. In 
1892, as Director of Naval Construction, I prepared the first design for 
so-called “torpedo boat destroyers”’ of which so much has since been heard. 
For the services then contemplated the dimensions thought most suitable 
were: length, 180 feet; breadth, 18 to 19 feet; displacement about 250 tons. 
The speed on trial was fixed at 26 to 27 knots, and this was sufficient for the 
purpose the vessels were designed to serve, viz., the destruction of then exist- 
ing torpedo boats, which were of smaller size and less speed. At that date 
locomotive boilers were in general use for torpedo vessels, although water- 
tube boilers were coming into prominence. Marine steam turbines were not 
known, and quick-running reciprocating engines were necessarily employed. 
Our knowledge of screw propellers driven at rapid rates of revolution was 
much less than at present. Oil fuel was not a practical proposition. Mild 
steel was the best material available. During the last nineteen years the 
destroyer type has been developed in size and speed and although the name 
has been retained, the services for which later vessels have been designed, 
have not been limited to or even principally concerned with torpedo boat 
destruction. In fact the latest vessels in size and armament have grown into 
practical identity with the seagoing torpedo gunboats (Sharpshooters) which 
I designed in 1887-8 for the Royal Navy as the smallest self-supporting 
ocean going type. In speed the later vessels are much superior to torpedo 
gunboats of earlier date, and this has been made possible by the use of steam 
turbines, water-tube boilers, oil fuel, stronger steel and other improvements. 
‘There is even now a considerable diversity of opinion as to the value of 
exceptionally high speed in the type; but in all cases the law of increase in 
dimensions has prevailed, and vessels classed as destroyers—really seagoing 
torpedo gunboats—range in speed from 26 to 35 knots, the largest having 
displacements of about 1,000 tons. 
Submarines also furnish illustrations of the working of that law. Boats 
of the Holland type adopted at the beginning of the century by the United 
States Navy, and soon after adopted for the British Navy, were of small 
dimensions—63 feet in length and of 120 tons displacement when submerged, 
the surface speed being 10 knots. By successive steps British submarines 
have been increased in size and speed, the latest examples, according to 
published reports, being nearly 180 feet long, 800 to 850 tons displacement, 
and 15 to 16 knots speed. In the United States similar growth in size and 
