NATURE 



THURSDAY, JULY 19, 1877 



THE "INFLEXIBLE" 



IN our last number we sketched in outline the scientific 

 principles and considerations which lie at the founda- 

 tion of the important question now at issue regarding the 

 Injlexible. 



We now proceed to consider the case as set forth in 

 the papers which have since been presented. The fact of 

 a Committee having been appointed to investigate it is no 

 reason for our passing over in silence these papers, which 

 have been already laid upon the table of Parliament 

 expressly to disseminate the information contained in 

 them. We shall not, however, seek to trench in any 

 degree upon the duties undertaken by the Committee. 



The first question to be asked is the vital one — What 

 stability is claimed by the Admiralty for the Liflcxible in 

 the condition contemplated by the Times and Mr. Rted, 

 and, as is now made perfectly clear by the papers, by the 

 Admiralty office itself when the ship was designed, a 

 condition namely in which the unprotected ends were so 

 far injured as to cease to contribute stability to the ship ? 



Has the ship that range of 50 deg. which, as we 

 saw last week, the Committee on Designs, as a result 

 of scientific consideration laid down as necessary for 

 a mastless ship exposed to the action of the sea.' Has 

 she even that 39 deg. which is the very lowest amount 

 ever mentioned as compatible with safety ? And, it must 

 be further asked (since " range '' alone is a most insuf- 

 ficient guide to safety), is the amount as well as the raiii^e 

 such as the settled science of the subject would demand ? 

 None of these answers lie on the surface of the Par- 

 liamentary papers, and some of them are not to be found 

 there at all ; but by what Dr. Schliemann would call 

 " the pickaxe method " of investigation, we can get at 

 part of them, and infer the remainder with all necessary 

 certainty. The most difficult and unfortunate part of the 

 inquiry is due to the fact that the apparent answers that 

 do lie on the surface are not the true ones, although they 

 bear every outward semblance of being so. The scientific 

 world is turning to these papers for one piece of informa- 

 tion before and beyond all others, namely, this very 

 s'.ability of the Inflexible with " unarmoured ends giving 

 no stability ;" and when they get to p. 10 there they find 

 it plainly set forth, in tabular form, and in full detail : 

 " Maximum stability 6,532 foot-tons ; angle of maximum 

 stability 13^ deg. ; range 30 deg. ;" and reading this they 

 begin to say to themselves that although the ship is, on 

 the showing of her constructor, belo.v the standard of 

 safety which everybody has either laid down or accepted, 

 yet that she is not so alarmingly deficient as they had 

 supposed from the pronounced tone of her critics. Give 

 her, say they, the benefit of the cork (in which the whole 

 Admiralty has so suddenly acquired extraordinary faith), 

 and although she would then be somewhere near the 

 recognised limits of safety, and would be liable to the cork 

 being more or less rapidly got rid of under shell fire, 

 still the case is not so very bad after all. But unfor- 

 tunately on reading further they come on the following 

 page upon an ugly foot-note by Mr. Barnaby, bearing date 

 Jime 25 — one week after the occurrence of the Inflexible 

 Vol. XVI. — No. 403 



debate in Parliament — and in this foot-note is disclosed 

 the fact that the figures which we have quoted, and which 

 are given at p. 10 as expressive of the case when the 

 unannoured ends give no stability, turn out to be the 

 figures applicable to the case when the cork is in place 

 and when the unarmoured ends are contributing the 

 stabihty which arises from the cork ! This is not clearly 

 shown on the surface of the foot-note, but it has to be 

 discovered in a roundabout manner. It can, however, be 

 reached in this way. The foot- note implies that the cork 

 was allowed for in the calculations of a certain curve 

 given on the sheet of curves appended (Curve e in our 

 present diagram), and by comparing this curve with the 

 figures given on p. lo, we find that they express the same 

 state of things, and thus we arrive at the fact that these 

 figures likewise include the stability due to the cork. We 

 do not propose to offer any comments upon this, except 

 to say that we cannot help thinking that ninety-nine 

 persons out of every hundred who read these papers will 

 be completely mystified and misled by such an arrange- 

 ment of the information, and more than all by the distinct 

 employment of words which indicate that the cork is 

 unaccounted for, when, in point of fact, the cork is 

 accounted for. 



By the means thus indicated we arrive at the fact 

 that the amount of stability previously referred to and 

 quoted is the amount which alone the ship was be- 

 lieved to possess when the First Lord of the Admiralty 

 made his statement in Parliament, and declared that the 

 Board were in every way satisfied with the vessel. It 

 follows that the First Lord of the Admiralty was satisfied 

 that the Inflexible should have a righting lever (G z) less 

 than six-tenths of a foot long with the cork in place, and 

 of course with very much less in the event of the cork 

 being blown out. We are not able to state — for the 

 Admiralty does not give the information — how much 

 stability the constructors and the Admiralty actually 

 believed the ship to possess in the case under notice 

 (viz., the case of the unarmoured ends really contributing 

 no stability), but it is impossible to peruse these papers 

 and to come to any other conclusion than that unless this 

 information was advisedly kept back it ought to have been 

 given. We cannot ourselves, of course, profess to say how 

 much of the measure of stability which we have quoted was 

 due to the cork, but we are able to approximate pretty 

 closely to it by aid of the diagram which Mr. Reed pre- 

 pared, and which is printed with the papers. That diagram 

 Mr. Barnaby has marked " wrong," and no doubt it does 

 differ a little from Mr. Barnaby's own diagram in its 

 estimate of the amount of stability with the cork in. 

 Indeed Mr. Reed only put his curve of stability forward 

 as approximate, and as being in his opinion '• pretty near 

 the truth j " but this diagram may be taken as a sufficient 

 approximate indication of the amount of stability actually 

 due to the cork itself, and by taking that away from the 

 Admiralty diagram we get what the Admiralty themselves 

 would probably allow to be the state of the ship with the 

 cork out. We have performed this operation, and we 

 find that the Inflexible is, with the cork out, left almost 

 absolutely without any stability whatever, even when she 

 is judged by the diagram which the Admiralty themselves 

 supply, and upon which they rested when the first Par- 

 liamentary debate took place. 



