.v/A* //'//./././. I/ S/KMENS, F.R.S. 401 



Whitworth's could be trusted to carry into effect ; because screw- 

 in ir large plates, after being tempered, one into the other, required 

 an amount of accurate and careful workmanship which he was 

 afraid could not be depended upon under all circumstances, and 

 would probably be exceedingly costly. It appeared to him on 

 general principles to be right that the projectile should be very 

 tenacious against suffering any alteration in form, in order to 

 penetrate any resisting surfaces it might encounter ; on the other 

 hand the resisting surface of the armour plate should be of a 

 yielding character. No doubt if armour were made very hard 

 and very thick, and were then fired against with a shell of inferior 

 tenacity (e.g. a Palliser chilled-iron shell), that shell would fly into 

 a thousand pieces. But it would always be possible to make the 

 shell of a superior material to the plate -which had to resist it ; the 

 shell was a smaller piece, a piece that could be dealt with by oil- 

 hardening and tempering much more effectually than the plate, 

 and could be put through all the preparatory processes much more 

 systematically and uniformly ; therefore he believed the projectile 

 would always have the superior metal, and if that was the case, 

 then the resistance should be of such a character as to involve the 

 greatest amount of work in overcoming it. The plate should not 

 be designed to resist absolutely, by destroying the projectile ; but 

 to yield to the greatest possible extent to the penetration. Hence, 

 of the different constructions represented in the drawings, the 

 sandwich target recommended itself exceedingly well to his favour. 

 It must involve a great amount of work for the shot to penetrate 

 to the extent there shown. He believed the French had tried to 

 make armour plates of steel that should resist in a similar way, by 

 using a very ductile and uniform quality of steel ; and it would 

 be interesting to see which system would ultimately carry the day. 

 At the Creusot works plant had been laid down at great expense 

 to produce large masses of mild steel ; and if they succeeded in 

 giving those large masses such uniformity and ductility as to yield 

 without cracking, they would no doubt produce a very formidable 

 kind of armour. But the " sandwich " system presented another 

 way out of the difficulty, which probably possessed at least one 

 advantage, that of cheapness. 



VOL. n. D D 



