United States or Saint Kitts and Nevis ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Orders were shouted to the engineers below; hoarse answers came back. The engines were stopped and started again. But still the yacht did not move. A grimy engineer came up and stood beside her. "Propeller's fouled," he said to Jeff. "We'll have to send a man overboard to clear it." "How long will that take?" roared Jeff. "Maybe an hour if we're lucky."
Orders were shouted to the engineers below; hoarse answers came back. The engines were stopped and started again. But still the yacht did not move. A grimy engineer came up and stood beside her. "Propeller's fouled," he said to Jeff. "We'll have to send a man overboard to clear it." "How long will that take?" roared Jeff. "Maybe an hour if we're lucky."
I gasped, when sufficient breath had returned. "It looks as if we were safe, doesn't it?" "N-n-never mind how it looks, Griggs. We are. The propeller's working now." "What good does that do us?" I demanded. "Good!" cried the inventor, pulling himself together. "Why, we shall simply steer for the roof of a house and alight."
The changes were made even as he spoke; the propeller's hum grew into a mild roar through the cabin walls, and the Sky-Bird leaped away over the ground, gaining momentum at every yard.
One uses fewer Bunsen cells, but they're big and strong, and experience has proven their superiority. The electricity generated here makes its way to the stern, where electromagnets of huge size activate a special system of levers and gears that transmit movement to the propeller's shaft. The latter has a diameter of 6 meters, a pitch of 7.5 meters, and can do up to 120 revolutions per minute."
The propeller's diameter depends on the column of water behind necessary to overcome the resistance in front of it due to the properties of the vessel. This fixed, the speed will then fix the number of revolutions, which will be found much greater than is usual in practice, and from this the size of the engines and boilers will be determined.
If they slant, the Nautilus follows the angle of that slant and, under its propeller's thrust, either sinks on a diagonal as steep as it suits me, or rises on that diagonal.
Another boat has her side torn out by a blow from one of the propeller's fans, and goes down carrying the men deep with her; one is saved after having almost crossed the border, and I shall long remember my interview with that man just after he was brought ashore, appalled with the sense of the nearness of the spirit land, and just as if he had had a revelation his gratitude, his convulsive sobs, his penitence.
"Stump," "Dye," of Number Eight's gun crew, a witty chap and a good singer, "Hay," and I were leaning over the taffrail, looking into the swirling water made by the propeller's thrust, when "Dye" remarked: "This is the queerest water I ever saw in all my days; it looks like the bluing water our laundress used to make, with the suds mixed in."
She did not want the propeller's wash to disturb them. They waved gratefully to her. The sun was declining in the west, amid a bank of golden, olive and purple clouds, and a little breeze ruffled the water of the river. The stream was widening out now, and Betty remarked: "We'll soon be in the lake now." "The boat not us, I hope," murmured Grace.
Word Of The Day