MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 95 



suits with their iron frigates under canvass. The speed, which it is 

 to be hoped will be attained in this vessel is an average of 15 knots, 

 or nearly 18 miles per hour. 



" The ribs and framing of the BellcropJion will be much the same 

 as those of other iron frigates, with the exception that the stringer 

 plates and diagonal bracings will all bo of steel, that is to say, of 

 less than half the weight, and more than four times the strength, of 

 the present system of wrought-iron fastenings. Wherever steel can 



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be used with advantage, in point of strength and lightness, it will be 

 adopted in the frame of this new frigate, and Mr. Reed estimated that 

 by this method, and while making the hull infinitely stronger, he will 

 save in weight two or three hundred tons, which can be infinitely 

 better bestowed in increasing the thickness of the armor plating. 

 The armor of the Bellerophon is to be no less than 1(5 inches 

 thick, and this is to rest on 10 inches of solid teak beams. This outer 

 protection is quite formidable enough, but what it protects is of its 

 kind quite as strong in proportion. The inner skin consists of two 

 plates, each of f-inch thickness, with a stout layer of painted canvas 

 between to deaden concussion. Outside the skin come angle-iron 

 stringers of the tough steel. These angle-iron stringers in any metal 

 would be of immense strength, and project from the inner skin ( J^ 

 inches and 10 inches alternately Thus they form so many longitu- 

 dinal shelves, of the depth mentioned, which run from stem to stern 

 of the ship, two under each row of plates, and in these the teak beams 

 are laid, the longitudinal layers of the angle-irons keeping the beams 

 up to their work and preventing the lateral splintering, while they 

 also support the plates with their edges and prevent their bending in 

 unfairly on the teak. The Belleroplion is not thus coated from end 

 to end and over all with this tremendous armor. In the center and for 

 90 feet of her broadside she is thus protected, from five feet below the 

 water line to the level of the upper deck. In this space are her guns, 

 five 300-pounders, with one 600-pounder at each side. For the rest 

 of her length there is only a belt of this massive armor, which goes to 

 the same depth beneath the sea to six feet above it, so tjiat she cannot 

 be hit in any part where the water could enter." 



Torpedo Warfare. The earliest mention of torpedo warfare in 

 this country is made in the published work of Robert Fulton. In 

 October, 1805, in presence of Admiral Holloway, Sir Sidney Smith, 

 and other British officers, near Walmer Castle, Fulton blew up a brig 

 of 200 tons burthen, by means of torpedoes. The vessel was anchored 

 and the torpedoes were floated under it ; the clockwork attached to 

 them having been so arranged as to explode at a given time. In 

 August, 1807, Fulton made similar experiments in New York harbor, 

 and blew up by torpedoes a vessel of about the same size. In 1810 

 he had an opportunity of explaining his system to Mr. Madison, Mr. 

 Jefferson, and others, at the residence of his friend, Joel Barlow. 

 During the same year Fulton published his small work entitled "Tor- 

 pedo War and Submarine Explosions, &c." This little work was 

 illustrated, and represented the several modes of using this new and 

 novel machine. One method was to anchor the torpedoes, which were 

 to explode Avhen struck by a passing vessel. Another was to attach 

 clockwork to them and to carry them in boats near the vessel to be 



