500 



NATURE 



[September i8, 1890 



on a quoin bed, and handspikes were used either for elevating 

 or for training. 



It is obvious that, to work smartly so rude a machine, a very 

 strong gun's crew was required. Indeed, the gun and its carriage 

 were literally surrounded by its crew, and I may refer those who 

 desire to acquaint themselves with the general arrangements of 

 what was once the most perfect fighting-machine of the first 

 navy in the world, to the frontispiece of a book now nearly 

 forgotten — I mean Sir Howard Douglas's "Naval Gunnery." 



The mechanical appliances on board these famed war-vessels 

 of the past were of the simplest possible form, and such as 

 admitted of rapid renewal or repair. There was no source of 

 power except manual labour ; but, when handled with the un- 

 rivalled skill of British seamen, the handiness of these vessels, 

 and the precision with which they were manoeuvred, was a 

 source of never-ending admiration. 



Those who have seen, as I have done, a fleet like the Medi- 

 terranean squadron enter a harbour, such as Malta, under full 

 sail, and have noted the precision with which each floating 

 castle moved to her appointed place, the rapidity with which 

 her canvas was stowed, have seen a sight which I consider as 

 the most striking I have witnessed, and infinitely more imposing 

 than that presented under like circumstances by modern vessels, 

 any one of which could in a few minutes blow out of the water 

 half a dozen such men-of-war as I have been just describing. 



I must not, however, omit to mention two advantages pos- 

 sessed by the old type of war-vessels, which, if we could repro- 

 duce them, would greatly please modern economists. I mean, 

 their comparatively small cost, and the length of time the vessels 

 remained fit for service. 



When the Victory fought the battle of Trafalgar she had been 

 afloat for forty years, and her total cost, complete with her 

 armament and all stores, was probably considerably under 

 ^i(X),ooo. The cost of a first-rate of the present day, similarly 

 complete, would be nearly ten times as great. 



The most improved battle-ships of the period just anterior to 

 the Crimean war differed from the type I have just described, 

 mainly by the addition of steam power, and for the construction of 

 these engines the country was indebted to the great pioneers of 

 marine engineering, such as J. Penn and Sons, Maudsiay Sons 

 and Field, Ravenhill, Miller, and Co., Rennie Bros., &c., not 

 forgetting Messrs. Humphreys and Tennant, whose reputation 

 and achievements now are even more brilliant than in these 

 earlier days. 



Taking the Duhe of Wellington, completed in 1853, as the 

 type of a first-rate just before the Crimean war, her length was 

 240 feet, her breadth 60 feet, her displacement 5830 tons, her 

 indicated horse-power 1999, and her speed on the measured 

 mile 9*89 knots. Her armament consisted of 131 guns, of which 

 thirty-six 8-inch and 32-pounders were mounted on the lower 

 deck, a similar number on the middle deck, thirty-eight 32- 

 pounders on the main deck, and twenty short 32-pounders and 

 one 68-pounder pivot gun on the upper deck. 



Taking the Ccesar and the Hogue as types of second- and 

 third-rate line-of-battle ships, the former, which had nearly the 

 displacement of the Victory, had a length of 207 feet, a breadth 

 of 56 feet, and a mean draught of 21. She had 1420 indicated 

 horse-power, and her speed on the measured mile was 10 "3 

 knots. Her armament consisted of twenty-eight 8-inch guns 

 and sixty-two 32-pounders, carried on her lower, main, and 

 upper decks. The Hogue had a length of 184 feet, a breadth 

 of 48 feet 4 inches, a mean draught of 22 feet 6 inches : she 

 had 797 indicated horse-power, and a speed of 8^ knots. Her 

 armament consisted of two 68-pounders of 95 cwt., four 10- 

 inch guns, twenty-six 8-inch guns, and twenty-eight 32-pounders 

 of 56 cwt. — sixty guns in all. 



Vessels of lower rates (I refer to the screw steam frigates of 

 the period just anterior to the Crimean war) were, both in con- 

 struction and armament, so closely analogous to the line-of- 

 battle-ships that I will not fatigue you by describing them, and 

 will only allude to one other class, that of the paddle-wheel 

 steam frigate, of which I may take the Terrible as a type. This 

 vessel had a length of 226 feet, a breadth of 43 feet, a displace- 

 ment of about 3000 tons, and an indicated horse-power of 1950. 

 Her armament consisted of seven 68-pounders of 95 cwt., four 

 lo-inch guns, ten 8-inch guns, and four light 32-pounders. 



It will be observed that in these armaments there has been 

 a very considerable increase in the weight of the guns carried. 

 As I have said, the heaviest guns carried by the Victory were 

 the 42-pounders of 75 cwt., but in these later armaments the 



NO. TO9O, VOL, 42] 



6S-pounder of 95 cwt. is in common use, and you will have 

 noted that the carronades have altogether disappeared. But as 

 regards improvements in guns or mounting, if we except the 

 pivot-guns, with respect to which there was some faint approach 

 to mechanical contrivance to facilitate working, the guns and 

 carriages were of the rude description to which I have alluded. 



In one respect, indeed, a great change had been made. Shell- 

 fire had been brought to a considerable state of perfection, and 

 the importance ascribed to it may be traced in the number of 

 lo-inch and 8-inch shell-guns which entered into the armament 

 of the Duke of Wellington and the other ships I have men:ioned. 

 Moorsom's concussion fuse and other similar contrivances lent 

 great assistance to this mode of warfare, and its power was soon 

 terribly emphasized by the total destruction of the Turkish 

 squadron at Sinope by the Russian fleet. In that action, shell- 

 fire appears to have been almost exclusively used, the Russians 

 firing their shell with rather long-time fuses in preference to 

 concussion, with the avowed object of there being time before 

 bursting to set fire to the ship in which they lodged. 



It is curious to note in the bygone discussions relative lo shell- 

 fire the arguments which were used against it ; among others it 

 was said that the shell would be more dangerous to those who 

 used them than to their enemies. There was some ground for 

 this contention, as several serious catastrophes resulted from the 

 first attempts to use fused shells. Perhaps the most serious was 

 that which occurred on board H.MS. Theseus, when seventy 

 36- and 24-pounder shells captured from a French storeship and 

 placed on the quarter-deck for examination exploded in cuick 

 succession, one of the fuses having by some accident been igiiited. 

 The ship was instantly in flames ; the whole of the poop and 

 after-part of the quarter-deck were blown to pieces. The vessel 

 herself was saved from destruction with the greatest difficulty, 

 and forty-four men were killed and forty-two wounded. 



This accident was due to a neglect of obvious precautions, 

 which would hardly occur nowadays, but I have alluded to the 

 circumstance because the same arguments, or arguments tending 

 in the same direction, are in the present day reproduced against 

 the use of high explosives as bursting charges for shells. To this 

 subject I myself and my friend and fellow labourer, Mr. Vavas- 

 seur, have given a good deal of attention, and the question of 

 the use of these shells and the best form of explosive to be em- 

 ployed with them is, I believe, receiving attention from the 

 Government. The importance of the problem is not likely to 

 be overrated by those who have witnessed the destruction caused 

 by the bursting of a high explosive shell, and who appreciate 

 the changes that by their use may be rendered necessary, not 

 only in the armaments, but even in important constructional 

 points of our men-of-war. 



Shortly before the termination of the long period of peace 

 which commenced in 18 15, the attention of engineers and those 

 conversant with mechanical and metallurgical science, seems 

 to have been strongly directed towards improvements in war 

 material. It may easily be that the introduction of steam into 

 the navy may have had something to do with the beginning of 

 this movement, but its further progress was undoubtedly greatly 

 accelerated by the interest in the subject awakened by the dis- 

 turbance of European peace which commenced in 1854. 



Since that date — whether we have regard to our vessels of 

 war, the guns with which they and our fortresses are armed, the 

 carriages upon which those guns are mounted, or the ammuni- 

 tion they employ — we shall find that changes so great and so 

 important have been made that they amount to a complete 

 revolution. I believe it would be more correct to say several 

 complete revolutions. It is at least certain that the changes 

 which were made within the period often years following 1854, 

 were far more important and wide-spreading in their character 

 than were all the improvements made during the whole of the 

 great wars of the last and the commencement of the present 

 century. 



Indeed, it has always struck me as most remarkable that 

 during the long period of the Napoleonic and earlier wars, 

 when the mind of this country must have been to so large an 

 extent fixed on everything connected with our naval and military 

 services, so little real progress was made. 



Our ships, no doubt, were the best of their class, although, I 

 believe, we were indebted for many of our most renowned 

 models to vessels captured from our neighbours. They were 

 fitted for sea with all the resources and skill of the first seamen 

 of the world, and when at sea were handled in a manner to 

 command universal admiration. But their armaments were of 



