76 MISCELLANEOUS. 
navy. The Warrior and the Black Prince are now fast approaching completion ; 
the former is being built at the works of the Thames Ship Building Company, the 
other at the Clyde, by Messrs. Napier and Company. The Warrior was com- 
menced in the month of June, 1859. and it is expected that she will be ready for 
launching on the 15th of December, though it is not improbable it may be a few 
weeks latter.* The ship, as well as the sister one in course of construction by 
Messrs. Napier on the Clyde, is not intended, as many persons suppose, like the 
ancient galleys, with power increased a thousand-fold, to run down anything which 
floats on the water, and is rash enough to be an opponent. It was originally 
intended to have built these two vessels of such a form and strength as to have 
made them available as “rams.” As originally designed the bows of the ship 
were drawn after the outline of the lower part of the neck and breast of a swan 
when swimming, so that the point which would strike an enemy’s vessel would — 
be the breast which was under the water-line. The bows in this case would have 
formed an obtuse angle, the point of which would have been almost level with the 
water, and receding back at a rather sharp slope. This arrangement was to have 
been concealed with the usual figure-head and forward gear, as it was thought the 
enemy might be deceived by its appearance, and imagine it was nothing more 
than an ordinary ship. This notion, however, was soon abandoned; a trick of 
this sort was considered hardly worthy of being resorted to, even if it could have 
been for a moment successful. It would not have been easy to have deceived any 
naval man, who had any amount of experience or common sense, by the mere 
ornament of a figure head, as to the real character of a ship of more than 6,000 
tons, nearly 400 feet long, and carrying only a broadside of 18 guns on her main 
deck. This idea was therefore soon abandoned, and the Warrior will appear 
honestly and fearlessly as an iron clad frigate, or corvette, carrying 36 main deck 
and twe pivot guns. She is throughout an iron steamship, of most unusual 
strength, however, formed of plates 2 of an inch in thickness. She has an even 
keel, and the plates at the bottom are 14 inch in thickness, Her length overall . 
is 420 feet, about two thirds the length of the Great Eastern ; her length between 
perpendiculars is 380 feet, extreme breadth 58 feet, extrenfe depth 42 feet. Her 
tonnage js 6,117 tons, and she will have screw engines of 1,250 horse-power, and 
these, with the boilers and armaments, will give a total weight of considerably 
more than 10,000 tons. The lines upon which this frigate have been built are 
exceedingly fine, both fore and aft, and there is no reason whatever for supposing 
that she will not make fourteen knots an hour. Assuming that the performance 
of the Gloire has been correctly reported, and that she really made 134 knots 
and not miles, the Warrior would still be a faster ship. One point of superiority 
of the Warrior over the French ship is that the portholes are nine feet above the 
water, those of the Gloire being only six feet, and in a rough sea could not be 
worked, This is a very important feature in favor of our frigates ; added to 
this fact that the Warrior and Black Prince, and the two steam rams, are built 
entirely of iron. There will be no trouble in these ships with respect to un- 
seasoned or unsound timber, and the effects of the shot will not tell upon them 
* Recent English papers convey information of the actual launch of the Warrior on the 
29th of that month, 
