The armour is now applied, covering the centre of the ship's side for a length of 150 feet, from 4 feet 6 inches below water to a certain height above the lower-deck level; and, as our diagram shows, sloping in at an angle varying from 40° to 50°, according to the beam of the ship-the two upper edges of this iron glacis being only 24 feet apart, the width necessary for the gun platform. A glance at our diagram will best explain this; k dd representing the armour seen edgeways. The exterior coating is 4 inch wrought-iron over 2-inch plates, the two layers worked in opposite directions, the one horizontal, the other vertical. The armour thus consists of 6 inches of iron, without any wood, and is fastened on to an ordinary iron frame, well braced, and diagonally secured as well as supported by wrought-iron spurs or stancheons.

This citadel, 150 feet long, slopes equally at the fore and after ends, and rests upon the orlop-deck. Wingpassages may, however, be left for increased ventilation, as well as to promote the great draught which, naturally as well as mechanically, will be made to pass upward between the upper edges of the inclined armour. The deck ff, within the area of the armour, is not intended as the usual abode of the crew or officers. All within the armour should be the casemate to which the crew retire in action; and the space within the casemate should, under ordinary circumstances, be simply devoted to warlike purposes and necessary munitions, including powder and shell magazines, as well as boilers and engines. The barracks for the officers and men will be without the casemate, as we will shortly point out. But, to return to the armourclad battery, it will be observed at a glance (see Diagram 1), that if we sent a vessel to sea with such sloping

sides as represented by d d d d, she would be very like a half-tide rock, and that the weather-deck would be useless for any general purpose. To meet this deficiency, Captain Coles ingeniously suggests that the armour be placed, as it were, within an ordinary iron ship's side of ths thickness, represented by gggg, carried up to about the height of the lowerdeck ports of a line-of-battle ship, 6 to 7 feet, or to a height dependent upon the height the gun is to be placed above water, and with a flying bulwark h, working inwards or outwards. This vertical side should be connected by two iron decks to the face of the armour, as at N N N N', the upper one serving as an ordinary upper-deck for the crew, and the lower platform as a place to stow boats or other light gear. The flying bulwark h, similar to those now in use in the navy, would mask the battery effectually until fire was opened, and shelter the crew in bad weather from wind and sea. There are so many advantages in this mode of construction, that we might occupy pages in detailing them all, but refrain, and merely point to two, and the most important. Any sea breaking over the vertical side will only fall as far as the inclined face of the armour, and again flow off; whilst in rolling heavily, the whole resistance of the side g g, instead of the slope dd, will assist to check that motion, and enable her to recover her equilibrium.*

We now come to the two ends of our ship beyond the 150 feet of battery. Those two ends are equal to a length of 110 feet. They may be built of the lightest iron consistent with sea-going efficiency, although, looking to the fact stated in the annexed note, it is likely that ths or inch iron would be the best thickness; and everything might be done in a sanitary point of view to insure the crew comfort, whether in

warmth or ventilation. This is at present utterly out of our power in wooden ships of war-fighting quarters are first looked to, then comfort. The consequence is, that in inclement weather the sickness on board our fleets, in spite of every precaution, is still very great, as an inspection of the sick returns in the late Baltic fleet will testify. In these new vessels, their qualities as meno'-war and comfortable homes for our seamen need not clash. Each may be made perfect for its especial object; but we will have no importation of antiquated ideas-no heads, no tails, but just a bow and stern, anchors carried well aft, not at the extremity of a fine bow; and the rudder, head, and steering gear as simple as possible, and secured from shot.

Take a broadside view of this new craft as she is completed, but not yet armed. Her lines are as graceful as any ship in the navy. We may paint ribands or ports, gild her stem, or smear her stern with vermilion, and make her as coquettish as anything that ever floated. Her armour is masked as well as her armament; and we know that she is just threefold stronger than any warship in a longitudinal direction, because she has no great ports weakening her sides, and only sufficient scuttles in the two light ends to insure due ventilation.

We will now proceed to arm her; and here comes the rub. We propose to do so upon an entirely new plan, by placing our guns in the centre of the ship, and not at the sides. "Good God!" says Baggles, 66 yon

must be insane!" Not a jot. We are convinced that, inasmuch as we gain stability and invulnerability by the sloping armour, so shall we obtain steadiness of platform, and a marked improvement in the height of gun above water, as well as the power of fighting our guns in almost

any weather, by having our guns amidships, instead of at the sides.

Our fourteen breech-loading Armstrongs, 40-pounders, or 100-pounders, whichever are available, are arranged in pairs on platforms, as in Diagram 2.

Each platform is constructed upon the principle of railway turn-tables. The ship-gun platform works upon a strong pillar a a, equal to a strain horizontally of 1000 tons, and a series of rollers xx; it is moved round, or right and left, by very simple mechanical means applied from above or below. The guns, therefore, need not be moved for training; and all the labour and men now requisite to train ship-guns are at once dispensed with. Each pair of guns is placed as close as possible together; and apart from recoiling and going out again upon a slide of a new and ingenious description, they may be said to be fixed to the platform. We need hardly point out that these guns become larboard, starboard, bow, or stern guns, as may be necessary; or that the guns' crews, five men to every 100-pounder, move round upon the platform as it revolves; and it will be observed that the arrangement of the gun-platforms admit of four guns firing right ahead or astern, as shown in Diagram 3.

We will now proceed to shelter the guns and crews with what perhaps is the most ingenious part of all Captain Coles's plan. Over each pair of guns, and resting upon the platform p p, a cupola-shaped shield, cc, is placed, having an aperture of 3 feet diameter in the flat crown, and two small holes in the side, through which the outer part of the guns protrude, and in which the guns fit quite tight at the sides, but with 3 inches play above and below.

The guns and crew fight thus within a 44-inch iron dome, training or elevating their gun as may be

needed, without having any port or embrasure open, and with a perfect glacis of iron in front of them.

The dimensions of each cupola or shield, as the inventor styles them, and its platform, are as follows: greatest external diameter, 20 feet; width of fighting-platform, 16 feet; height from platform to crown of cupola, 7 feet; height of crown of cupola above the upper edge of the glacis, 4 feet; and entire weight of each cupola, platform, guns, &c., 45 tons. Whilst, to sum up all its merits, we may say that, when the

An ordinary lower-deck gun, Gun in a revolving cupola,

It is difficult, in a paper intended for the general reader, to make ourselves thoroughly understood, or to meet all the objections and difficulties which may arise in their minds, without descending into minute technical details; but a careful inspection and comparison of the diagrams, together with the sketch of the new ship, as seen from a broadside view, with just enough of her bulwark down to exhibit the gun shields, will convey, we trust, a satisfactory idea of the great proposed change in all preconceived notions of ships of war. The cupola is of 4-inch wroughtiron, overlaying wood or iron, as may, on experiment, be found to answer best; and it is ventilated and cleared of smoke in action through the aperture of 3 feet diameter, corresponding with the hollow in the centre of the column upon which the cupola or shield works a a. Out of this the smoke from the breech and vent of the guns is forced by a current of air flowing up from the lower deck, where it is set in motion by fanners; and we need hardly point out, that all the smoke from the explosion of the charge, which in ordinary ships comes in through the ports of 12 feet area, is kept out in these cupolas by the extraordinary closeness with which the gun is fitted to its port-hole. The aperture in the crown of the cupola serves another purpose. It is from there that the captain of the gun takes his aim. For this purpose there is a small screen s, with a slit through it, fitted with sights, and on

line-of-battle ship's lower-deck gun would only have been 6 feet 6 inches above water, the guns mounted upon such platforms would be 10 feet 6 inches high; and it is selfevident that such guns can only be put under water when the ship is fairly on her beam-ends; whereas, under ordinary circumstances, a roll of 19° puts most broadside guns into the sea.

The relative training or elevating powers of Captain Coles's plan, compared with present guns, is as follows, in general terms :

a plane only 2 feet 6 inches above the bore of his gun. Through this the captain of the gun, instead of having his vision limited to the width of the port, can cast his eye all round the horizon, and use his own judgment as to range and elevation; whilst, for close action, there is another fine slit made along the line of sight proper of the gun, which will enable him to correct his aim to an inch.

In the event of such a ship being boarded by an enemy of greatly superior force, the arrangements for repulsing boarders are most formidable. The cupolas sweep the decks in every direction with grape and canister, whilst the enemy are prevented descending into them by a slide which fills up the 3 feet aperture, as well as by the fact that every cupola sweeps the crown of the adjacent one; and should the boarders descend upon the lower deck, the fore and after inclines of the armour will be found loopholed for riflemen to drive them on deck again; whilst the spare seamen in the space f can sally out by the wing-passages before referred to, and with fieldpieces sweep away any of the enemy who may have the hardihood to endeavour to establish themselves in the vessel outside the casemate. This great power of repelling boarders is a very important element in Captain Coles's vessels, because it will neutralise the tactics of an enemy of superior force and speed, who, tired of her hard hitting, may try to rush at, and carry her offhand-a stratagem

which will assuredly be put in practice against vessels of the Gloire or Warrior class, and with considerable prospect of success, if their rifled cannon do not sink a wooden adversary before she ranges alongside. Lastly, we have to point out that the cupolas at the fore and after end of the battery are higher than those in the centre, to admit of a plunging fire ahead or astern, and to diminish risk to the iron deck when firing in that direction.

It now remains for us to show, in thus metamorphosing the huge plaything called a three-decker into a terrible vessel of fourteen 100-pounders, that we have not sunk her hull any lower into the water by overweights.

The reader will remember that in our first article we roughly computed the fighting gear and guns alone of the three removed decks at about 1100 tons. Here, then, are the computed weights we put on in lieu :

Thus we solve the paradox of having an inclined armour, a narrow platform, small ships, and no gunports-a shot and shell-proof citadel in the midst of a habitable seagoing ship.

We dare not occupy further space with a full detail of all the merits of this novel yet sound plan of Captain Coles, but will conclude with finally pointing to a very remarkable feature in these iron men-o'-war. We have produced a vessel which can go to sea in any weather-pass, we believe, with impunity to herself and crew into any clime; and one which, in her terrible character of an engine of war, can do more than the proudest three-decker of to-day; and that is, engage at breaching distance with effect any land battery, be it the Digue of Cherbourg or the forts of the Neva. Yet this craft would be perfectly fought and handled by a crew of two hundred and fifty officers and men, in

stead of the one thousand men a three-decker requires. Here at once we strike the key-note to an important revolution in our navy, and a grand improvement in the financial expenditure consequent upon its man material, and the great difficulty experienced in procuring trained men-of-war's men to use the arms of precision now placed in the hands of sailors. These new ironclad vessels will, it is true, cost more than one three-decker, yet their force will represent the value of more than two such castles of wood; and the economy of men, the saving in pay, pensions, stores, and provisions, will fully counterbalance the first cost of this new navy; and even if it were not so, we should have the consolation of knowing that the Gloires, Warriors, and shield ships which we so earnestly call for, will be able to do the service for which navies are especially created, instead of having, as at present, a fleet which can neither attack fortresses nor cope with the mail-clad navy of France. In advocating so distinctly as we have done the invention of Captain Coles, we have been guided simply by public motives, and a firm conviction that it is as yet the best brought forward; but we do not, at the same time, mean to say it is perfect; for so little has really been done in testing the question of ship armour, that as yet we are very much at sea as to the best description of iron or steel that ought to be used, the angle at which it can be most effectually applied, or the form and nature of such armour. It is only ninety days since the enterprise and genius of a gentleman, Mr Jones, placed beyond doubt the fact, that projectiles could be deflected by inclining the plate-armour. We do not, up to to-day, know for certain the nature of the iron laid over the sides of the Gloire. Some assert it to be steel, some say it is wrought-iron, and others again aver that it is a peculiar patent, the exterior inch of the plate being excessively hard steel, and that the iron becomes more soft towards the inner face. The French say that thirteen shot must strike in the same spot on their plates to fracture or penetrate them, and that