MISCELLANEOUS. 75 
are said to laugh to scorn the sling and the stone of our unprotected three-deck- 
ers and frigates. La Gloire, Pallas, and La Normandie are already “ great facts” 
on the other side of the Channel; the Magenta and the Solferino are on the 
stocks at Brest and L’Orient; the Jennapes is in process of conversion, and five 
others are far advanced. Za Gloire has, it is said, succeeded admirably. She 
made 13} knots upor her trial trip, is said to be very steady, and the experiment 
is pronounced in every respect satisfactory. She can carry seven days’ eval, 500 
rounds per gun, and her portholes are six feet clear of the water in an ordinary 
seaway. The Normandie will soon be ready for launching and steaming from 
Cherbourg, and the Pallas is being fitted out with great activity. The Jennapes, 
like the Gloire and her sister ships, is merely an old hull covered with iron plates, 
but instead of having the plates wali sided, like our floating batteries, and which 
can be pierced by the balls from the Armstrong or Paixhan heavy guns, she will 
have her sides built on a curve, and fluted at intervals, so thatthe shot will rarely 
strike on a flat surface. Of the Magenta and Solferino all that is permitted to be 
known of them is, that below water their hull is similar to that of ships on the old 
model, and their scantling is that of our 80-gun ships. The novelty consists in 
the form of the cutwater, which forms a straight line up to the surface of the 
water, forming an acute angle with the keel; it then recedes with a backward 
curve, and joins the bows, to which it is firmly attached by stout iron-cased tim- 
bers. The angular extremity of the cutwater, which is about fifteen feet from 
the bows, is of oak, and is to be fitted with a Jarge conical spur in wrought iron. 
Of these vessels a French journal states that “Two of them placed on the coast 
of Ceuta would completely paralyse the guns of Gibraltar, and would be masters 
of the pillars of Hercules.” This may be taken not merely as an opinion of the 
formidable qualities of these ships, but of the purposes to which they may 
probably be applied. 
To meet this new deseription of vessels we have, at the present moment, four 
iron clad ships in hand, and a fifth, which is about to be commenced at Chatham. 
We have six iron floating batteries, which were built during the Russian war, but 
the French have the same number, and some of these saw actual service at Kin- 
burn, while ours have not had the same good fortune. They are the ugliest and 
elumsiest looking craft afloat, they are barely floating, certainly not sailing, 
batteries ; their movements are of the slowest description, and in a rough sea 
they would founder, but they are practically invulnerable. They present but a 
small surface to the enemy, and are fitted with ordnance of the largest calibre. 
They would, no doubt, be serviceable in the Medway, where they are at present 
stationed, in the event of any hostile fleet attempting to steam up the Thames, 
The French have, it is true, got a little start of us, inasmuch as they have three 
iron-cased ships afloat, one of which has been equipped for sea. This advantage, 
however, is only a temporary one; for fortunately for this country, ships of this 
class, to be really efficient and permanent, required to be built entirely of iron, 
while the French vessels are really nothing more than old wooden hulls, with 
iron plates attached to them. La Gloire is but the old Napoleon, with her upper 
decks taken off, and her sides plated. The four ships which we have on hand 
are new throughout, iron built, and the frigates will be the fastest ships in the 
