320 



NA TURE 



[August 3, 1905 



method with Hindu Brahmans and gentlemen, and with 

 cultured Moslems, in India, than I find it possible to do 

 with clerics, the professional classes, and society magnates 

 in Britain. 



It is to be hoped that " more light " will evolve at 

 Oxford and Cambridge, and a higher and truer method 

 permeate their sons. Gunga-Gu.ng.\. 



A Solar Outburst (.'). 



Referring to the note on solar activity in your issue of 

 July 20, I shall be glad to know whether any correspondent 

 observed a luminous outburst in the tail end of the great 

 spot on the evening of July i6. I had been observing in 

 the afternoon with an S^-inch reflector, but remarked 

 nothing of the sort. At 5.30, however (the sun having 

 got beyond range of my reflector), I was observing him 

 with a small refractor, power 12, and sun-cap, when I 

 at once noted the limiinous appearance in question. 

 It was roundish and about the size of the small spot near 

 following limb, and it was brighter than the bright bridge 

 in the large group. I watched this bright spot until 7.30 ; 

 next morning it had practically disappeared. Father 

 Cortie courteously informs me that the Stonyhurst magnets 

 were perfectly quiet on July 16, but that next morning, at 

 8.15, there was a " very small but sudden and sharp 

 movement on both the declination and horizontal force 

 ■curves." By that time the locality where the luminous 

 appearance occurred would not be far from central 

 meridian. I also noticed a rosy hue pass over the bright 

 bridge of great spot, but this may have been a mistake. 

 I am, however, certain of the luminosity. 



Cardiff, July 24. ' Arthur Mee. 



A CENTURY'S PROGRESS IN WARSHIP 

 DESIGN. 

 'T*HE interesting paper read by the Director of 

 -*■ Naval Construction at the summer meeting of 

 the Institution of Naval Architects brings vividly 

 home to us the progress made in the design of war- 

 ships since Nelson fought, off Caoe Trafalgar, our 

 last great sea fight. In our account of the proceed- 

 ings at the meeting, printed last week, we referred to 

 :Sir Philip VVatts's paper, but it is worthy of more 

 attention than brief mention in a report of a society's 

 meeting. 



We reproduce from among the illustrations accom- 

 panying the paper the sheer draught of Nelson's last 

 ship, the Victory (Fig. 1). The original drawing of 

 this most famous of all vessels of the Royal Navy was 

 shown at the meeting when the paper was read. 

 We also reproduce the sheer draught of the 36-gun 

 frigate Syriiis (Fig. 2), as affording an interesting 

 comparison with a modern cruiser. .As is well known, 

 the Victory was forty years old at the date of Trafal- 

 gar, so that as she now floats in Portsmouth Harbour 

 she numbers 140 years. She was, however, recon- 

 structed in 179S, seven years before Trafalgar, and 

 again in 1820. The effect of her first reconstruction is 

 shown by the dotted lines of the engraving. The long 

 time that the I'ictory remained on the active list is in- 

 dicative of the slower progress of invention that char- 

 acterised former times. If we go somewhat further 

 back we have a still more striking example in the 

 Royal William^ a model of which roo-gun line-of- 

 battle ship was shown at the Naval Exhibition of 

 i8qi. .She was built at Chatham Yard in 1670, was 

 rebuilt at Chatham in J692 on the same lines as 

 those on which she was originallv designed by 

 Phineas Pett, and was again rebuilt at Portsmouth 

 in 1719. As she was not broken up until .August, 

 1813, she was in existence when the battle of Tra- 

 falgar was fought; but as Sir Philip Watts does 

 not include her in his table of ships of the Royal 

 Navy, October, 1805, ^^'^ may conclude that before 

 that date she had ceased to be considered efficient. 

 NO. 1866, VOL. 72] 



The long life of the warships of past times was 

 not due to their more durable construction as com- 

 pared to modern vessels, but to the lack of that in- 

 ventive enterprise now made possible, primarily, by 

 James Watt's labours. A steel vessel well built and 

 properly kept up would be practically indestructible 

 with fair treatment ; but the same cannot be said of 

 wooden ships. It is not because sound wood in it- 

 self is less strong than iron or steel, weight for 

 weight, so much as that it cannot be procured in suf- 

 ficiently long and conveniently sized pieces, a large 

 number of joints and overlappings thus being neces- 

 sary ; but the chief drawback to wood is that it is 

 not so suitable a material for making joints ; as Sir 

 Philip Watts says, " The fastenings cannot develop 

 the strength of the main body of the material." A 

 seam of rivetting in a properly designed steel vessel 

 will join plates to frames or beams, or plates to plates 

 in a way that no buffeting of the winds and waves 

 will affect. That is not the case with the fastenings 

 of wooden ships ; as a matter of fact, most of the 

 old men-of-war became " hogged " after some years 

 of service. The frequent reconstruction of wooden 

 vessels of which we read was the result of these 

 conditions. 



The causes which thus led to the decay of wooden 

 ships, as individual structures, contributed to the 

 permanence of their respective types, especially in 

 regard to ships of the line. .As Sir Philip Watts 

 points out, it was " owing to the limitations imposed 

 on shipbuilding, when wood was the only available 

 material, that length could not be largely increased 

 without reducing to a dangerous extent the longi- 

 tudinal strength of ships, and the onlv practicable 

 means of largelv increasing the number of guns was 

 to increase the number of decks for carrying them." 

 There were, however, limitations to the extension of 

 vertical dimensions as well as to the increase of 

 horizontal dimensions. A few four-deck ships were 

 built, but the advantages of the extra gun positions 

 thus secured were more than counterbalanced by the 

 defects of a high, unwieldy structure above water. 

 Even three-deckers were at a disadvantage owing to 

 their high sides; they were "worse sailors and less 

 handy in manoeuvring than two-deckers"; and, in- 

 deed, when one looks at the old ]'ictory towering 

 above water, riding to her moorings in Ports- 

 mouth Harbour, one wonders how these ships 

 were ever sailed in any direction excepting 

 broad off the wind. The high positions of the guns 

 also necessitated a greater amount of ballast to give 

 stability. .All these circumstances joined in confin- 

 ing the naval architect to short ships ; and once 

 Phineas Pett had developed construction to the full 

 extent allowed by the limitations of wood as a 

 material, and wind as a source of motion, there 

 was little more to be said. Charnock, speaking of 

 the Prince Royal, designed by Pett at the beginning 

 of the seventeenth centurv. has said, " This vessel 

 may be considered the parent of the identical class 

 of shipping which, excepting the removal of such 

 defects or trivial absurdities as long use and ex- 

 perience has pointed out, continues in practice even 

 to the present moment." That sentence bridges over 

 a period of more than 200 years of the history of 

 naval design. 



When it was recognised that iron could be used for 

 the construction of ships — that it was not, as some 

 averred at the time, "contrarv to the laws of Nature" 

 — then the horizon of the naval architect widened as 

 when fog lifts at sea. To design a ship of adequate 

 strength became a science, for the stresses that hull 

 structure of given scantling would stand could be 

 calculated with precision ; mathematics and a 

 knowledge of physics took the place of bolts and 



