The story of the complicated character of the interior of a modern battleship is one that has grown somewhat stale in the telling, and it is not the fault of the magazine writer and the occasional correspondent of Sunday supplements, if the general public is not satisfied that a great battleship or cruiser is complicated beyond the power of words to express.

In saying that the battleship is complicated we must be careful to remember that complication does not imply confusion; and that in all the practicable achievements of engineering, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to find a structure which, in spite of the many parts of which it is made up and the enormous elaboration of detail that it manifests, is really so harmoniously proportioned, or is better fitted to the ends for which it was designed. There are some subjects of which an illustration will tell more in five minutes than tongue or pen can explain in an hour; and in presenting the accompanying view of the interior of one of the latest battleships of the United States Navy, we shall not attempt to give any elaborate description of the vessel, but will leave it to the diagram to tell its own story.

Section Of A

1. Crew's showers.

2. Paints and oils.

3. Cofferdam.

4. Trimming tank.

5. Trimming tank.

6. Seamen's lavatory.

7. Bread and dry provisions.

8. Construction stores.

9. Torpedoes and submarine mines.

10. Stores.

11. Hold and cable. Tier each side.

12. Blower room.

13. Military mast.

14. Conning tower.

15. Pilot house.

16. Chart room.

17. Officers' room.

18. Crew's galley.

19. Trunk to dynamos.

20. Wash rooms.

21. Officers' galley.

22. Firemen's room.

23. Boiler room.

24. Firemen's wash room.

25. Trunk to evaporating room.

26. Armory.

27. Evaporator room.

The drawing is what is known as an inboard profile; that is to say, it is a vertical, central, longitudinal section through the whole length of the ship. The huge structure of which we thus obtain an interior view, is a little under 450 feet in length from the extreme tip of the ram to the end of the rudder. The foundation of the whole is the keel, which is nothing more nor less than a deep plate girder. 3 feet 6 inches in depth, extending from the inboard end of the ram structure to the rudder post. Bisecting it at every 3 feet of its length occurs one of the plate girder frames or ribs, which extend athwartship, and run up to the under edge of the armor shelf, where they are reduced to a depth of say from 18 to 12 inches, the frames extending up the sides of the ship to the level of the upper deck. On the outside of these frames is riveted the outer plating of the ship, and upon the inside of the frames, extending as high up as the under side of the water-line belt, say 4 or 5 feet below the water-line, is riveted an inner shell of plating. The space between the outer and inner plating is divided up by the frames into transverse water-tight chambers 3 feet in width, and every one of these spaces is subdivided by seven or eight longitudinal plate girders which are built into the double bottom, as it is called, parallel with the keel and extending, most of them, the entire length from stem to stern. Consequently it will be seen that the space between the outer and inner shells of the ship's bottom is divided into an innumerable number of separate compartments, measuring 3 feet in depth by 4 feet in length by about 6 feet in width. The plates are securely riveted together.

Ern Battleship.

28. General workshop.

29. Warrant officers' pantry.

30. Warrant officers' dining room.

31. Signal tower.

32. Military mast.

33. Crane.

34. Junior officers' stateroom.

35. Blower room.

36. 12-inch handling room.

37. Shaft alley and 6-inch magazines.

38. Admiral's office.

39. Junior officers' pantry.

40. Wardroom pantry.

41. Skylight trunk to wardroom.

42. Dining room.

43. Stores.

44. Bread and dry provisions.

45. Ward room.

46. Steering machinery room.

47. Fresh water.

48. Trimming tank.

49. Admiral's cabin.

50. Admiral's stateroom.

51. Admiral's lavatory.

52. Admiral's after-cabin.

53. Cofferdam.

Above the inner floor or platform the central portion of the vessel is taken up by the magazines, boiler rooms and engine rooms. These because of their vast importance, are known as the ship's vitals, and great care is taken to provide them against the entrance of heavy projectiles of the enemy, and, as far as may be, against the attack of the still more deadly torpedo. The engines and boilers are so proportioned as to height that they do not extend above the water-line; and to protect them from plunging shot, or from the entrance of the fragments of heavy, high-explosive shells, bursting within the ship above the water-line, a steel deck, 2 to 3 inches in thickness, known as the protective deck, extends at about the level of the water-line over the whole of the vitals, and is continued in a gently curving slope to the ram forward and to the stem aft. In the vessel here shown this steel deck is 1 1/2 inches thick on the flat and 3 inches thick on the slopes.

Now, the space below the protective deck is divided up by a large number of transverse, water-tight bulkheads of steel plating, there being nineteen of these bulkheads altogether. They extend from the inner shell of the vessel to the under side of the protective deck. They are riveted perfectly water-tight, communication from compartment to compartment being by water-tight doors. Forward in the bow are the trimming tanks, used to assist in bringing the vessel to an even keel. Then abaft of the collision bulkhead are bread and dry provision stores, and the construction stores. In the next compartment, which is divided into three decks, we have on the floor of the ship a storeroom for torpedo gear, submarine mines, etc. Above this is the under-water torpedo room, and immediately below the protective deck are kept the paymaster's stores and life preservers. In the next compartment, below on the platform, are the anchor gear and chain lockers, and above this the navigator's stores. Passing through the next bulkhead we come to the vitals of the ship proper, with the 6-inch gun magazines on the floor, the 12-inch magazines and handling rooms on the deck above, and above this the 14-pounder ammunition and blower rooms. Above the magazines, and resting on the protective deck, is the barbette of the forward pair of 12-inch guns, the armor and its relative thickness being shown by heavy, black lines; while in front of the barbette the heavy sloping black line indicates the athwartship sloping bulkhead, placed there to prevent raking projectiles from passing through the entire structure of the ship. Immediately to the rear of the forward barbette is seen the coning tower, with the heavily armored tube which protects the telephones, electric wires, fuse tubes, etc., that pass from the tower down below the protective deck. In the next com partment, aft of the magazines, are the dynamo rooms; and then between the next two bulkheads is placed an athwartship coal bunker. A similar athwartship coal bunker extends athwartship on the other side of the boiler rooms; and it must be understood that at the side of the boiler rooms are the wing bunkers which run aft for the whole length of the boiler rooms and engine rooms. The boiler installation on this particular ship is entirely of the water-tube type, and it consists of twenty-four units arranged in six separate water-tight compartments, three on each side of the center line of the vessel. Aft of the boiler rooms comes the athwartship coal bunker above referred to, and then in two separate water-tight compartments are the twin-screw engines. Aft of the engines in another compartment is contained a complete set of magazines similar to that beneath the forward barbette, and above them, resting on the protective deck is the after barbette and turret, with its pair of 12-inch guns. Aft of the magazines come more compartments, devoted to stores. In the next compartment, down on the platform, are the fresh-water tanks and two trimming tanks, and on the deck above, below the protective deck are, first, the steering-machinery room, and then the steering-gear room, each being in a separate water-tight compartment. This completes the description of the space below the protective deck.