MECHANICAL AND USEFUL AKTS. 37 



yon might, while cruising round her, imagine that she was a huge 

 pleasure-boat, and not the most formidable of existing war-ships." 



Strangely opposed to the Scotsman correspondent's laudation is the 

 following professional evidence. In his "Postscript" to Naval 

 Gunnery, on "Iron Defences" Sir Howard Douglas says: — "I 

 assert, on information on which the reader may rely, that La Gloire 

 frigate llincUe is a failure as a sea-going ship — that she is really 

 nothing more than a batterie flottante upon a large scale, so burdened 

 •with the weight of armament, and loaded with 820 tons of armour 

 plates, that she is not capable of ocean-service." 



In a letter addressed to the Times, Mr. Scott Russell writes :* — 

 " Jn regard to the Gloire, I may take this opportunity of correcting 

 some of the information which has been given to the public respect- 

 ing that vessel. We have been told that the Gloire is steel-plated. 

 She is not. Her plating, like that used in this country, is merely 

 good hammered iron 4^ inches thick. The plates are of similar 

 dimensions to those of the Trtisty, and, like those of the Trusty, 

 have been penetrated by steel bolts. The experiments made in 

 France, as well as those made on the Trusty, the results of which I 

 have carefully examined, prove that the plates are penetrable, but 

 penetrable under rare and exceptional circumstances, so as to be 

 practically shot-proof, and I believe in all cases perfectly shell-proof, 

 which, after all, as your third naval correspondent says, is the im- 

 portant point. . . . Mr. Whitworth, after stating the ability of his 

 shot and gun to penetrate such plates — a fact which no one who 

 knows both can doubt — proceeds to say that ' ships hampered by 

 the weight of enormous plates must be unfit to carry a broadside of 

 guns heavy enough,' and also, ' cannot be driven at the high speed 



* The letter quoted was sent to the Times primarily in order to correct the 

 statement of a previous Correspondent to the effect that M. Dupuis de Lome, 

 the chief naval architect of the French Government, had been a pupil of Mr. 

 Scott Russell. Mr. Russell's correction is as follows : — "I should not have ven- 

 tured to join in a discussion on a subject in which I have been too long and 

 deeply interested to give the evidence of a neutral party, except for the accident 

 of finding my name mixed up with that of my distinguished friend M. Dupuis de 

 Lome." [This remark doubtles3 refers to the fact, which is now pretty generally 

 understood, that Mr. Scott Russell's designs for ships very much like the Warrior 

 have been in the hands of the Admiralty for several years past.] "Your very 

 able correspondent of yesterday, ' Is'. S. M.,' calls him my ' pupil.' Now, as M. 

 Dupuis de Lome and myself are nearly of the same age and standing in our pro- 

 fession as naval architects, it is unfair to him to call him my 'pupii,' our whole 

 professional intercourse having been one of perfect equality. Some 20 years ago, 

 when I was engaged in my experiments on the theory and practical construction 

 of vessels, which led to the establishment of the wave principle as a scientific 

 method of construction, and subsequently to its general adoption as the best 

 mode of obtaining high speedin union with great capacity and power, M. Dupuis 

 de Lome visited me at Greenock, and threw himself with all the enthusiasm of a 

 young man into this new region of science, and from that day to this we have 

 been on terms of free and open professional intercourse. But in this inter- 

 course I frankly confess that I have received at least as much benefit as I have 

 given, for M. Dupuis de Lome has also carried out original scientific researches 

 on a large scale with the ample means placed at his disposal by the wise liberality 

 of the French Admiralty. These researches have led him to important practical 

 results, which are by me reckoned quite as valuable as auything I may ever have 

 communicated to him. Thus much, justice requires me to state on a personal 

 question." 



