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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



© Committee on Public Information 



scotch marine; boilers ready for installation on a new merchant liner 



Sixty per cent of the labor of building a ship is represented in the hull. The rest is 

 expended in installing the machinery and equipment. American shipyards have set many 

 new speed records during the last twelve months, but a few weeks ago a shipbuilding plant in 

 Belfast, Ireland, wrested a laurel from the Yankees when the Irish workmen completed 

 the installation of machinery in five working days from the time of a vessel's launching. 



esque products of our national life, once 

 conspicuous in numbers, long ago became 

 conspicuous only because of his rarity, 

 as our merchant marine practically disap- 

 peared from the seas. When, therefore, 

 in the face of war's calamity we found 

 ourselves a people without ships, we like- 

 wise found ourselves without men to 

 operate the merchant vessels which we 

 began with such frenzied haste to build. 



It was not that the sons of the skippers 

 and seamen, who in an earlier era of our 

 history won world-wide fame manning 

 our peerless barks and clippers, had 

 grown soft and sybaritic. There was still 

 in the youth of the land the brawn, the 

 initiative, and the love of adventure 

 which those must have who answer the 

 call of the sea. But there had been no 

 incentive to awaken the latent longing for 

 strange places and for the romance of 

 trackless waters and of combat with Na- 



ture's storms and lightnings, her spuming 

 waves, and the ceaseless urge of her un- 

 seen currents. 



To the Merchant Marine Recruiting 

 Service, another of the coordinate 

 branches of the United States Shipping 

 Board, inaugurated by Henry Howard, of 

 Boston, was entrusted the task of re-cre- 

 ating a noble race of mariners for the 

 needs of the hour and for the merchant 

 fleets which shall not disappear from the 

 waters when peace comes again to the 

 world. 



While the recruiting service was tenta- 

 tively organized in June, 191 7, and at that 

 time began training officers, it was not 

 until February of this year that an active 

 campaign began for training crews. Once 

 under full headway, the work has been 

 pursued with commendable success. 

 More than 11,000 experienced men have 

 been admitted to the schools for officers 



