"8 MISCELLANEOUS. 
in the completion of the ship has been the experiments which have been made in 
order to decide upon the best form and material for the outer covering. The tests 
which were applied to the plates furnished by the builders of the Warrior were 
of the most trying character, as shown by the effects of the Sirius, already 
referred to. Some plates were fired at with 68-pounders, at 200 yards’ range, 
and were literally cut in half by balls fired one after another, on a line drawn on 
the surface, each ball striking immediately below its predecessor. Upon some 
other plates the ball made a circular indentation upon the surface, nearly as deep 
as the plates, exactly of the form of the projectile, and as though a mould had 
been taken of it in some soft and yielding substance. It was only after repeated 
trials that it was decided that the plates should be of annealed scrap iron. The 
labour involved in building up these plates is enormous. In the first instance 
small seraps of iron are thrown into the fires, and when ina state of red heat, 
are subjected to severe hammering, noder the steam hammer, until the whole is 
beaten and amalgamated into a solid mass of about half a ton weight. This lump 
is then placed on the top of a similar mass, the whole made red hot, and ham- 
mered and welded together. Repeated additions of this kind are made, until 
about five tons of metal are thus welded together in one huge shapeless body. 
This is then brought to a glowing white heat, placed under the huge hammer, the 
thundering blows of which gradually reduce it into shape. Again and again the 
enormous slab is put into the furnace and hammered into one piece of fifteen feet 
long, three wide, and 44 inches thick. From ten toa dozen men are engaged in 
the work of moving these ponderous masses of iron, which are moved about 
apparently with the most perfect ease. Powerful cranes swing the molten mass 
from the furnaces to the hammer, a nicely adjusted balance is provided by a 
massive iron lever, one end of which is welded into and forms part of the metal, 
and this is provided with a dozen or more of horns or handles, by which the iron 
can be turned in any direction; for the plates are not only hammered on the broad 
surface, but at the sides, and at the top and bottom. The plates, after having 
been roughly formed into shape, are completely planed and squared. Planing 
machines of enormous size hug these plates in their resistless arm, and bear them 
slowly and silently under the sharp cutting edges of the tools, and thin shavings 
of the metal, which, as they are cut, coil up in long bright ringlets of iron, attest 
the tremendous power of these noiseless and all but omnipotent machines. When 
the edges and surfaces are made perfectly smooth as the finest work of the 
cabinet maker, the plates are placed on an end, gripped firmly by a mortising 
machine, and as they travel slowly backwards and forwards in the framework, 
against a small tongue of steel, a groove of about an inch in width and depth is 
formed, into which the corresponding projections formed on the side of another 
plate will fit with the most perfect accuracy, the plates being all made to dove- 
tail on each of the feur sides. 
The cost at which this armour-clad ship will be built is not much more than 
would be the cost of an oak timber-built ship of the same tonnage. The price 
at whieh the contract was taken was £40 per ton, the cost of an ordinary 80-gun 
timber ship is £37 17s. 6d. per ton. Not only is the Warrior an iron-built ship 
from stem to stern, but she is covered with 18 inches of teak timber over nearly 
