83 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



destroying, sinking, burning, yet affording no tangible object of at' 

 tack to an enemy, whose ships they can pursue, overtake, fly from, 

 elude, with an ease and certainty which finds no parallel, save in the 

 career of the great destroyer of all things Death. 



Their mode of attack will be very simple, each ship will run along- 

 side a foe as quickly as possible ; while in pursuit, short as that pur- 

 suit will be, her guns may be used above water with effect, perhaps ; 

 at all events, they may be used. It will be no easy matter to prevent 

 our ship of the future running alongside any ordinary iron-clad frig- 

 ate. It may be equally impossible for 'her, being alongside, to re- 

 main there ten seconds ; but these ten seconds are sufficient to dis- 

 charge two 20-ton guns below the water level, below that six or 

 seven feet of submerged plating which we find on the sides of the 

 Warrior or the Black Prince. We have but to turn to the last Ord- 

 nance Report to learn what ensues. The largest ship afloat will go 

 down, or become water-logged and helpless, in. five minutes after a 

 hole four feet square, is knocked in her bottom; and at a range of o!) . 

 feet a 10-ton gun would smash in this hole in thin skin plates, with 

 ease, in much less than -ten seconds. In her turn, our ship will set 

 submarine ordnance at naught, because she can carry plating where 

 no frigate or liner can, far under water. Above it, from her insig- 

 nificant height, she won! I afford a very small mirk, not easily hit, 

 while the peculiar conditions under which she would be used, and the 

 exceptional nature of the service on which she would be employed ; 

 the absence of heavy store-!, rigging and masts ; the small number of 

 her guns ; the trifling weight of coals to be carried, &c. would leave 

 a margin of buoyancy great enough to permit enormously heavy plates 

 being carried above water, plates thick enough, at least, to render 

 their pounding a very thankless task. 



It is needless to say that such a ship as wa have sketched, more 

 dimly and slightly thin we could wish, will be utterly unsuitable for 

 long voyages ; she must perforce remain at home. It is absurd to 

 sacrifice speed and armor in order that frigates may carry coal for ten 

 days and provisions for three months, that they may be fitted for for- 

 eign service, in fact, and then to compel them to remain at home to 

 perform duties for which they are to a certain extent incapacitated by 

 the presence of things which, however useful and necessary on a voy- 

 age to China or India, are at once unnecessary and out of place .on 

 board a ship intended specially for coast defence. 



On t/is Structure of /S'/u'/>s of War. In a discussion at the last meet- 

 ing of the British Association on the construction of iron-clads, &c. 

 Admiral Belcher, B, N., submitted the following remarks: He thought 

 t'vil our shins of- war needed no more protection than would keep their 

 hulls sifely floating, with such protection for those fighting the guns as 

 might be deemed sufficient to keep off shells and musketry, suffering heavy 

 shot to pass freely through instead of causing spiral showers of splinters 

 fi'io'i as resulted from the destruction of the late targets at Shoeburyness. 



fj 



The prase-it paper, therefore, dealt with a mode of construction adequate 

 for contending with ordinary batteries, and also permitting external plank- 

 ing, and consequently the old copper sheating below water. It had been 

 so generally assumed that no thickness of armor-plate could be employed 

 which could resist our new monster ordnance that his attention had been 



