Britain at Work
A Pictorial Description of Our National Industries

8 BRITAIN AT WORK. number of other matters, are forwarded to certain selected firms who are known to be capable of executing the work in a trust- worthy manner; they in turn specify the price at which they are willing to undertake it, and if their prices are satisfactory orders follow. A time limit is laid down within which the ship must be delivered. This is usually thirty or forty-two months, though it will depend much upon the emergency and upon the willingness of the Treasury to spend money on the Navy. 1 he best record yet accomplished for the actual completion of a battleship from the date of “laying down” was accomplished by Portsmouth and Chatham in the case of the Magnificent and the Majestic, both of which were ready for sea in two years. When the order to build has been given a great deal of preliminary work has to be accomplished before the ship actually appears on the stocks. Material must be ordered ; perhaps such immense forgings as those required for the ram have to be obtained outside the yard which is building the ship. The engines are not, as a rule, made in our Dockyards, and must be ordered elsewhere, with certain limits of weight which are rarely exceeded. Everything used in the building of the ship, if it is constructed in a private yard, has to undergo rigorous inspection by officers whom the Admiralty deputes to guard its interests. Angle bars, steel plates, and the raw material generally are obtained from the great iron and steel works of the country, or, it may be, imported from America. Contracts are made for the minor engines of all kinds with which the battleship is crammed, for pumping engines, dynamos, capstans, hoisting engines, and so forth. The guns are also ordered by the Admiralty when the ship is laid dow n, as the construction of the larger pieces will often require two years, or almost as long as the building of the ship. The armour is ordered from the makers of that commodity. Meantime, while these various orders are being placed, the ship’s lines are being “ laid off” from the drawings on a gigantic plank floor, known as the mould loft. It is so large that the measurements can be marked on it full size for breadth and depth, though for convenience the length measurements are generally contracted. In this process of en- largement from the small scale drawings errors will be detected and corrected. From the lines thus depicted particulars are transferred to what is known as the “ scrive board.” On this scrive board, which is also made of planking, the exact curves of the frames and. beams, indeed of all the important structural