Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/313

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
*
*

N A W N A W 301 officers of all grades, and over 600 vessels ; at the navy yards 6880 artisans were employed; 208 steamers were built, and 313 out of a total of 481 were purchased, all at a cost of over 3,000,000 ; 340 were afterwards sold for 1,500,000. On the 1st of January 1865 there were 5278 volunteer officers in service, but in 1870 this number had been reduced to 111, excluding 64 out of 305 applicants who had been admitted to the regular service. The Confederate navy was modelled precisely upon that of the Federal States. In the autumn of 1864, when at a maximum, it consisted of 16 iron clads, 3 of which were rated as floating batteries, of 50 wooden vessels, and of the rover "Shenandoah." Abroad cruisers were of great assistance to the Confederacy, the most notable of these being the "Sumter," "Alabama," "Georgia," "Florida," " Rappahannock, " and "Shenandoah." Since the close of the war the United States navy has been doing excellent service in the peaceful pathways of science and humanity, the only warlike demonstrations having been that against Formosa in 1867 and that against Corea in 1870. Expeditions have been sent to the Arctic Ocean ; ships have been employed in the survey of every sea ; deep-sea soundings have been made both in the Atlantic and the Pacific ; and five expeditions have tried to solve the problem of the best route for a trans-isthmian and inter-oceanic canal ; scientific observers have occupied stations, and with important results, in the transit observations, and to-day the chain of telegraphic measurements of longitude around the whole world is the work of American naval officers. Administration and Condition. During the revolutionary war Congress through its committees and agents managed naval affairs. In 1789 these duties were entrusted to the secretary of war, and it was not until 1798 that the " department of the navy " was estab lished. In 1815 a " board of commissioners for the navy" was constituted, but the Act provided that nothing in it should be con strued to take from the secretary his control of marine affairs. In 1842 this law w r as repealed, and the bureau system, under which all the duties were divided specifically among five offices, was estab lished; in 1862 there was a new division of responsibilities, and the eight bureaus now existing were created. Each of these is under the control of a naval officer, nominated by the executive and con firmed by the senate, all chiefs of bureaus having assigned them the temporary rank of commodore, actual or relative, when their own grades are below this. The bureaus are (1) navigation, which controls all matters relating to pilotage and navigation, with a direct superintendence of the naval observatory and of the hydrographic, signal, naval intelligence, Nautical Almanac, war record, compass, and detail offices, this last having charge of the personnel of the service ; (2) ordnance, which administers all artillery, ordnance, and torpedo matters ; (3) equipment and recruiting, which is in charge of outfits, equipments, stores, recruiting, and apprenticeships ; (4) yards and docks, which super intends the construction of docks, naval grounds, buildings, and all civil-engineering work ; (5) medicine and surgery ; (6) provi sions and clothing, which is responsible for the supplies of food, water, and clothing, and manages the accounts, thus performing iinder one direction these duties relegated in the army to the quartermaster, commissary, and paymaster ; (7) steam engineering, which designs and has the care of engines and boilers ; and (8) con struction and repair, which performs the same duties for ships. The first four bureaus are under the direction of line-officers of the navy. There are no maritime districts in the United States, naval authority being limited strictly to the navy-yard government. At present there are seven navy yards and three naval stations, in which the general administration is entrusted to specific depart ments, all under the direct command of a line-officer of high rank, and each corresponding to a bureau of the central control. It is the intention of the Government to close all but three of the yards, maintaining those at New York, Norfolk, and San Francisco (Mare Island), together with a repair arsenal at Washington. The judge advocate s office and the Naval Academy are under the special supervision of the secretary. The Naval Academy ranks among the best institutions of the kind in the world. It is situated at Annapolis, Maryland, and is governed by a line-officer super intendent, assisted by an academic board made up of the heads of the departments of discipline and of studies, and with a corps of instructors drawn mainly from the line of the navy, with a few- engineer and civilian assistants. All appointments of naval cadets are made by the president upon the nominations of members of Congress ; each of the congressional districts, about three hundred in all, is entitled to one representative at the institution, admission after nomination being based upon a rigorous examination. The curriculum is for four years, supplemented by a two years cruise before final graduation. Corresponding to Greenwich Hospital in its days of old pensioners is the Naval Asylum, situated at Philadelphia ; and at Newport, Rhode Island, are the headquarters of the torpedo station and of the training system for apprentices. The naval experimental battery is at Annapolis, though not a part of the Naval Academy ; and in all the large seaboard towns are rendezvous for the shipping of men, and branches of the hydrographic office for the dissemina tion of maritime information. The personnel of the active list includes 1410 commissioned officers (602 of whom are at sea and 808 on shore), 7500 men, and 700 apprentices ; there is also a corps of marine infantry, with 1887 enlisted men and 75 officers. All enlistments of sailors are voluntary, and for a period of three years, with special inducements for re-enlistment within a fixed period, and with the certainty of a pension or of a billet at the Naval Asylum after twenty-one years service. There is no reserve, the active list representing the available force. For officers who have attained sixty-two years of age, or who have seen service for a term varying from forty to forty- five years, there is a retired list which entitles them without delay to 75 per cent, of their highest sea pay. Upon this list also there are officers, and in the Naval Asylum there are men, who are inca pacitated for active service by reason of physical or other causes. Apprentices are enlisted between the ages of fourteen and eighteen, with obligatory service until the age of twenty-one is attained. There are five foreign stations, divided geographically, the North Atlantic, South Atlantic, European, Pacific, and Asiatic. In January 1883 there were 140 vessels of all kinds on the register, 23 of which were in commission for general cruising, and 5 were employed on special service. Three modern steel steamers are being built at a private yard, and Congress has under consideration a new construction plan ; by an annual expenditure of $4,283,000- this will give in ten years a modern steel navy of 70 ships, in every way adequate to the demands of the country. The estimates for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1885, require for the ordinary purposes of the navy $16, 319, 307 62, and for the increase of the navy, including the completion of four double-turreted monitors of the armoured fleet, $7,449,58176, or a total of $23. 768, 889 38. The present effective cruising force is composed of 1 first rate, 14 second rates, and 21 third rates, or 36 in all ; the available armoured vessels are 13 monitors of the old single-turreted type and 6 double-turreted monitors, lately rebuilt. The coast survey and lighthouse establishment, both mainly in charge of naval officers, the revenue marine, life-saving, steamboat inspection, and marine hospital services, are all a part of the treasury department ; the transfer of their control to the navy department is asked of Congress by the secretary of the navy, who also recommends the establishment, under his administration, of a bureau of mercantile marine, the duties of which will be analogous to those of the mercantile marine department of the Board of Trade. (J D. J K.) NAWANAGAR, or NOWANUGGUR, a native state lying along the southern shore of the Gulf of Cutch, Bombay Presidency, India, between 21 44 and 22 54 N. lat. and 6 8 58 and 71 E. long., with an area of 3393 square miles and a population in 1881 of 316,147. The chief, who has the title of jam, is a Hindu of the Jareja Rajput caste, and has powers of life and death over his sub jects. The gross revenue is about 182,000; a tribute of 12,000 a year is payable jointly to the British Govern ment, the gaekwdr of Baroda, and the naw&b of Jundgarh. The principal products of the state are grain and cotton, and cloth and silk are the chief manufactures. Nawana- gar, the capital, is a flourishing seaport town, nearly 4 miles in circuit, with a large trade, and a population of 39,668. NAWAWf. Mohyi al-Din Abu Zakaryd Yahya b. Sharaf al-Nawawi, born at Nawa in Jauldn, October 1233, head of the Ashrafia academy at Damascus from 1267, died at Nawa 20th December 1277, where his grave is still visited as that of a saint. To this honour he has better claims than most Moslem sheikhs, for not only was his life one of the most intense and unselfish devotion to learning, but he had the rare courage to take open part for his oppressed countrymen against Sultan Bibars, and alone among the Syrian doctors refused to sanction the exactions of which the " Holy War " was the pretext. " Thou hast a thousand mamelukes," he said, " each of whom wears a golden girdle, and two hundred female slaves adorned with all manner of jewels. When thou hast spent all this, and