MODERN WAR VESSELS OF THE UNITED STATES. 177 



Great care has been given the water-tight subdivision, both 

 above and below the armor belt, in order to prevent a catas- 

 trophe such as that which befell the Victoria ; especially above 

 the armor belt, where the subdivision of that unfortunate vessel 

 was very weak, has the Iowa received most careful attention. 

 The machinery is capable of developing 11,000 horse power, and 

 will propel the vessel at a speed of seventeen knots per hour ; the 

 engines are of the triple-expansion type, being inverted, direct 

 acting, and surface-condeilsing, driving twin screws. The coal 

 supply is sufficient when steaming at ten knots to admit of cross- 

 ing the Atlantic and back without recoaling. The United States 

 steamship New York (Fig. 5), which lately created so much 

 enthusiasm on account of her remarkable development of speed, 

 is of the armored-cruiser type; but the Brooklyn, now being 

 built under contract, is a very distinct advance upon the general 

 design of the New York, and will here be taken as the exponent 

 of her type. We find her to be provided with sufficient power to 

 drive her at the rate of twenty-one knots or twenty-four miles 

 per hour, and to have a coal supply of 1,800 tons, which will give 

 her a very large radius of action. The main battery carried is 

 eight 8-inch and twelve 5-inch breech-loading rifles ; the 8-inch 

 guns are mounted in pairs in turrets, protected by steel armor 

 seven and a half and five inches in thickness; the 5-inch guns 

 and the battery of machine guns, eighteen in number, are pro- 

 tected by steel armor varying in thickness from four to two 

 inches. The protection to the hull, machinery, and magazines is 

 afforded by a steel deck of a maximum thickness of six inches, 

 being five feet below the load line at its outboard edges, and 

 sloping upward and inward to the height of the load line on the 

 flat portions, as shown in Fig. 6. 



Beneath this deck are placed engines, boilers, magazines, steer- 

 ing gear, and electrical generating plant, in fact all such parts as 

 would be injured by and disable the vessel if exposed to the 

 enemy's fire. To protect the stability an armored belt four inches 

 in thickness is worked from the sloping armor to four feet above 

 the load line for the space occupied by the engines and boilers, 

 the object being to provide resistance sufficient to cause high- 

 explosive shells to explode before entering the sides of the vessel. 

 Inside of this and extending the whole length of the vessel is a 

 coffer dam of obturating material, as shown in the outline mid- 

 ship section, Fig. 6, and the spaces both above and below the 

 armor deck are closely subdivided by longitudinal and athwart- 

 ship bulkheads into many compartments in which coal and stores 

 are stowed, thus as far as possible, with the means now at the 

 command of the naval architect, precluding the sinking of the 

 vessel when injured. 



VOL. XLIV. 15 



