62 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
houses 10 feet long and 30 feet wide (Fig. 1, PI. CXXXI.). The 
deck-houses being prolonged to the bow and stern, will give a poop 
and a forecastle for working the anchors twenty feet above the 
water. A broad bridge passing over the turret- deck will connect 
them, and thus give an even upper deck 30 feet wide and more 
than 300 feet long, extending from stem to stern. The position 
of the turrets in the Inflexible has been made the subject of a 
novel arrangement. They are placed at each end of the central 
deck — not in an even line with each other, but diagonally at 
opposite corners of it, so that one turret is on the starboard and 
the other on the port side. The effect of this arrangement is 
that all the four guns have an uninterrupted range of fire all 
round the horizon. In firing ahead or astern the guns are 
trained so as to send their shot over the level portions of the 
deck on either side of the deck-houses (Fig. 1). In firing to 
starboard the port turret unites its fire with that of the star- 
board turret by aiming under the bridge, and vice versa. Thus 
while in all our other double-turreted ships there is a fire of 
four guns on either beam, but of only two guns ahead or astern, 
the Inflexible will be able to direct her four guns at an object 
in any direction with respect to herself. The ship will have two 
or three masts, jury-rigged; none of the stays or running rigging 
will be brought down to the lower deck so as to interrupt the 
fire of the guns, all the working of the ship being carried on on 
the upper platform. Thus, by a simple and novel arrangement, 
the turret-system has been brought to what we may call per- 
fection. 
The Inflexible will have four sets of engines, with an aggre- 
gate of 7,000 horse power. Her full speed, with both screws 
going, will be 14 knots an hour; but on ordinary occasions 
she will be able to economise fuel by working only one screw 
and its engines. At the speed of 10 knots an hour she will be 
able to carry coals for a cruise of 3,000 knots, or twelve and a half 
days, which is about the average coal-carrying power of the best 
ships of our ironclad fleet. She will also be able to use some 
auxiliary sail-power ; and, independent of this, her try-sails will 
be valuable in steadying her, and keeping her head to the 
wind in heavy weather. 
Only the central portion of the ship and the two turrets 
will be armoured, the former with two feet, the latter with a 
foot and a half of armour, for even if the lightly built ends 
were riddled with shot, the ship would still keep afloat. In 
these ends are the coal-bunkers ; when full it would make very 
little difference even if water got in among the coal, and when 
they are empty the ship would be much lighter, and have more 
floating power. But whether empty or not, the ends will not be 
wholly unprotected. A narrow passage will lead round them at 
