Page:A history of Chile.djvu/460

 414 A HISTORY OF CHILE cruiser, "Esmeralda," was launched in June, 1883, at the Armstrong works; displacement 2,810 tons, armor one inch, horsepower 6,500, eight heavy guns, beside machine guns. The "Arturo Prat," recently built in France, is the finest ironclad in the Chilean fleet; it is of 6,902 tons and steams seventeen knots an hour; two cruisers of 2,080 tons each have recently been added to the navy, as well as two torpedo-boats. In 1890, there were two hundred and fifty-one offi- cers connected with the navy, five rear admirals, fifty- nine captains, twenty-seven lieutenants, and one hun- dred and sixty inferior officers. There were one thou- sand six hundred and nine sailors, and ninety cadets in the naval college at Valparaiso. Beside this very efficient college at Valparaiso, there is a naval club and periodical in Santiago, and a hydrographic office. There is no navy yard ; in the event of a ship needing docking and repairs, the want of a dry dock is a great inconvenience, as the ship must be sent to Europe. Chile's commercial fleet on the first of January, 1890, consisted of one hundred and fifty-two vessels of one hundred tons and more each ; beside there were other vessels with a total tonnage of 152,391 tons, of which twenty-nine were steamers. English, French and Ger- man lines of steamers ply between Valparaiso and Europe by way of the Straits of Magellan. The . Pacific Steam Navigation Company runs a line of fine steamers between Chilean ports and Peru and Panama. Mr. Wheelwright, an American citizen, was the first to introduce steam navigation into Chilean waters. In 1835, he entered into an arrangement with the govern- ment to put on two small steamers, but it was not until 1840, that he started the "Chile" and "Peru" on regular trips between Panama and South American Pacific ports. That was the nucleus of the Pacific Steam Nav-