The first class battleships carried one hundred and two more men than the second class, consisting of six gunners, six assistant gunners, eighteen corporals and seventy privates. No additional force was required for the Engineer department of the ship. I inquired of the Chief Engineer what make of engine they used and he replied that it was the Hammond & Co. Rotary Engine and added: "We are indebted for this engine to a countryman of yours named Leonard Hammond, who perfected it so that at present it is in universal use and has revolutionized the industries of the world by its saving of fuel and the low price at which it call be manufactured, so that it has consigned every other make of engine, reciprocal and turbine, to the scrap pile, and of the most notable benefits derived from it has been in the shipping not only in economy of fuel, but also in the small space they occupy so as to give more room for cargo and in the almost total absence of vibration, and in the battleship from their being on the propeller shaft at the stern far below the water line." The battleships remain for ten months of the year in the rivers and harbors, where the officers and men are kept busy dredging, building levees, wharves and breakwaters, and they take a cruise to different parts of the earth during the months of December and January, and during that time engage in gunnery practice. A battery of three-inch caliber guns is taken on board each battleship for that as the big guns will not stand continual firing and are only used on special occasions to see if the gunners have improved. The men are highly pleased with the service and the majority of them re-enlist. On inquiry I was told that they had thirty first-class and thirty second-class battleships and that they kept them always together so that they could strike an enemy with force, but as they held no people in subjection and had no colonies or outlying possessions there was at the present time very little danger of war-but if it should come they were ready to fight and to strike hard. As I left the navy yard I thought what a pity it was that the people inhabiting the other countries of the earth were not governed as these people are, for then there would be no need of battleships and the kindly earth would slumber lapped in Universal Laws. CHAPTER IX. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE.