Ordnance Stores: Guns, small arms, and accoutrements, all kinds of ammunition and means for handling same; all tools, appliances, oils, etc., for the working of the ship's battery.

All equipments for the magazines and ammunition rooms; spare parts and material for repairs to the armament of the vessel; torpedoes and their appurtenances. The gunner is the warrant officer in immediate charge of the ordnance stores. The navigator is the ordnance officer of the ship and is responsible for all ordnance stores.

Steam Engineering: Boilers, engines and all their appurtenances. All firing tools, implements and appliances in fire and boiler-rooms, and about the engines. All material for the cleaning, repairing and running of all machinery. Stores in this department are furnished on requisitions made by the Chief Engineer, and are expended under his direction.

Paymaster's Stores: Include clothing and small stores; such as buttons, thread, needles, knives. scissors, tobacco, soap, etc., for the crew; provisions, wet and dry, and the tools, stationary, etc., that are necessary for use in the Pay Department.

The Paymaster is the purchasing officer of the ship, the stores purchased by him being invoiced to the head of the department under whom they come. Thus requisitions for water are made by the pay officer, and when received the water is invoiced to the equipment officer.

Medical Stores: Include medicines, surgical instruments, and other appliances for the use of the surgeon. as well as provisions for the sick and wounded. The medical outfit is in charge of the senior medical officer of the vessel.

CHAPTER XIII.

BOATS.

There are three different methods of building boats, namely:

1st. The Carvel-built, which have fore-and-aft planks, the edges meeting but not overlapping.

2d. The Clinker-built, also fore-and-aft planks, with the edges overlapping each other, like shingling.

3d. The Diagonal-built, having, as the name implies, their planking running diagonally, the inside planks running in a contrary direction to the outside ones, and their edges meeting.

Boats are single or double banked, as they have one or two rowers to a thwart.

The seats for the crew of a boat are called the thwarts; the strips running fore-and-aft, on which the thwarts rest, the rising; the space abaft the afterthwart, the sternsheets, and forward of the foremost thwart, the fore-sheets; the spaces in the wash-streak for the oars, the row-locks.

The frames, knees, hooks, stem and stern posts of boats are generally of oak, and the planking of cedar.

Oars are made of ash. The flat part of an oar which is dipped in the water is called the blade, and that which is inboard is termed the loom, the extremity of which, being small enough to be grasped by the hand, is called the handle.

The oars are said to be double-banked when there are two men rowing at each oar.

Oars should be neatly marked by the carpenter, and the men not allowed to deface the looms.

In the navy, boats are classed as follows:

Steam launches and steam cutters, frequently built of iron or steel.

Sailing launches, barges, cutters, whale-boats, gigs, and dingies, built of wood.

To Find the Weight of Boats, multiply the square of the breadth by the length, and that product for a launch, by 2.5; first cutter, by 1.9; quarter boats, by 1.0; second cutter, by 1.4; stern boat, by 1.0. Answer will be in pounds.

Boat Equipments. Before entering upon the detail of a boat's outfit, the following articles may be mentioned as indispensable at all times to every boat, viz. : 1st. The plug.

2d. A breaker of water, and breaker stand.

3d. A rudder which cannot be lost if unshipped, without cutting the rope by which it is secured.

4th. The boat-hooks and the oars, or the sails and spars or both.

5th. A bailer.

The plug should be secured to the keelson by a good laniard. The water breaker should have the bung fitted with a spigot, or faucet, and laniard and the bunghole with a leather lip. If a steering oar is used instead of a rudder, it should ship in a patent crutch, narrowing at the top, from which the oar cannot be disengaged without hauling it through, loom first, until the blade is even with the crutch opening.

Rudders are usually supplied with the pintles of equal length. It will save a great deal of trouble if a small piece of the upper pintle is cut off. Otherwise, if there should be occasion to unship the rudder, it will be very difficult to ship it again in muddy water, or with any motion on the boat, since both pintles have to be pointed at once if of the same length.

A good substitute for the old fashioned pintle is found in a metal rod of sufficient length secured to the stern of the boat. The gudgeons are slotted on one side in order to allow the rudder to slip over and to slide up and down the rod. To ship the rudder put it hard over, ship the gudgeons over the rod, slide the rudder down until in position, when a recess between the rod and the stern of the boat permits. the gudgeons to turn freely around the rod, and at the same time prevents vertical motion of the rudder.

In addition to the complete set of oars, there should be two spare oars, triced up under the thwarts. A painted canvas sail cover is usually provided for the sails.

Next to the above-mentioned articles may be enumerated the following as important in the ordinary outfit of a boat, namely: a full set of stretchers, a set of boat-hooks, a good arrangement for hooking on, set of fenders, awning stanchions, tiller, yoke and lines, tarpaulins, awnings with bag. boat cover with lashings, curtains for carrying arms, backboard, gratings, rowlocks, flag-staff. Life-boats, in addition, should be fitted with an approved detaching outfit, copper air tanks in each end, a steering swivel, and sea painters.

Boom irons, windlass, windlass bars, well pipe or funnel, and rowlocks or thole-pins and grommets should be fitted to sailing launches. A short and a long (stout) painter for towing or mooring are also required.