WHY NOT CONCRETE SHIPS?

Evening Post, Volume XCIII, Issue 101, 28 April 1917, Page 10

WHY NOT CONCRETE SHIPS?

"If we want to build ships faster than the Germans by any imaginable develop, ment of their barbarous methods can ever.sink them, there is, we are assured by a well-known inventor, a perfectly fimple way," says the Observer.

"Use, instead of ferro-concrete, ferrocement for greater strength and buoyancy, and you couldj, in the opinion of Mr. John Cameron Grant, an engineer and inventor, whose patents are in use all over the world, build with astonishing rapidity . ships of all sizes, from barges of a thousand tons, which could be towed right up to Rouen, to oceangoing liners, and even warships. "For all practical purposes ships built with ferro-cement would be at least as etrorig as those built entirely of steel. In fact, their shells become harder and stronger with age and immersion, and there is no comparison between the life of properly-constructed feiro-concrtte or ferro-cement and that of exposed steel. There are in use to-day, I believe, ferroconcrete boats that were constructed fifty or sixty years ago, and they are reported to be still as good as new." "'Now is the moment,' Mr. Grant added, 'when, quickened by necessity, we require imagination in construction to trump the German's ace. The use of ferro-cement, at least as an addition to present methods, would, I nm convinced, prove all, and more than all, that I have said.' "