"Navy, consistently with its efficiency for the police of the seas." There again you raise the whole question. We do not want useless vessels, but we do want to maintain the police of the seas; we do want to protect the commerce of England. That raises the serious question, whether or not, in the event of war with a maritime power, the protection of our commerce would not imperatively require a sufficient force of unarmoured vessels; and I hope that I may trace in these expressions of Mr. Brassey that it really is difficult to find a point, if there be one, where he and I would diverge; because I do not contend for any unnecessary amount of unarmoured vessels, but I do contend for such an amount of unarmoured vessels as may fully and fairly attain those great public objects which Mr. Brassey himself acknowledges to be necessary. There is one other point on which I cannot help, after these Discussions, saying one word, which was referred to by Sir Frederick Grey, and that was Mr. Brassey's first point, that there must be a limit to expenditure. That is perfectly true; and, therefore, while I admit most broadly that it is for a great maritime power like England to set the example of grand experiments in every direction which can extend or increase our naval power, at the same time-and I hope none of my friends here will take exception to what I say-I do want to see that great expenditure of England not thrown away in useless experiments, but devoted to the building of ships. I want to see ships, and not monsters built. I hope I shall not give offence to anyone who hears these expressions, but I must say that my desire is to see ships built; and there is a phrase which has lately obtained on these subjects, which is a new one in nautical matters, which fully describes the character of vessels that I think we all should wish to see. We used to hear of good sailing ships, and good ships of various kinds, but there is a new phrase grown up of "sea-keepers ;" and I do hope that the Admiralty will consider the necessity of maintaining a class of vessels of such a strength that they shall be sea-keepers, and able to keep the seas; because when we look at that vessel which will be discussed presently, with every wish to pay full respect to whatever merits it may have, and when I see such vessels as the Devastation and this vessel are costing huge sums of money, I cannot help feeling that those sums of money might be devoted to objects which would better insure our naval power, namely, the building of sea-keeping ships. My own belief is this, that you may build sea-keeping ships which, while they may be enabled to do good service on the ocean, will be equally available when brought home to our coasts to protect those coasts, and thus answer both purposes. I could not refrain from throwing out these observations, but my wish is to see unarmoured vessels to a sufficient extent, and that the vessels on which we are spending huge sums of public money should be vessels available for the defence of England in all places and under all circumstances.

Mr. THOMAS BRASSEY, M.P.: My Lord, with your permission I will say two or three words in reply to what has been said. I am very much obliged to Lord Hampton for the interpretation which he was pleased to put upon my Paper. He has rightly appreciated the policy which I ventured to recommend in the Paper which I have read. I do not at all desire that our unarmoured fleet should be inadequate to the requirements of the country; but I do say this, that, in looking to the future, and making a provision for our future requirements, I think that our leaning should rather be to vessels of whatever type is recommended to us by the naval men for fighting purposes, than to vessels the use and value of which is limited to the protection of our commerce. There must be present to the minds of everybody who considers these subjects, whether in or out of Parliament, the conviction that every vessel that

you build in anticipation of a future want, immediately imposes on the naval estimates a very considerable burden for the repairs which are necessary to keep that ship in order. All admit that it is a regrettable feature in our naval expenditure that so large a proportion of the money which Parliament liberally and cheerfully

votes, goes not to the creation of additional naval strength but to the maintenance and to the repair of the ships which already exist. I say, therefore, that I would limit the number of unarmoured ships to the immediate requirements of the service, and so reduce the serious charge for repairs which the construction of those vessels involves. With regard to the training of our seamen, a consideration which Sir Frederick Grey put before us, and the value of which I am sure we must all appreciate, I venture to throw out this suggestion with great deference. I wish very much that we could go back, for mere training purposes, to vessels which should be purely sailing ships. I do not mean to suggest for one moment that there should be many such vessels in the Navy, but when I look to the valuable use to which brigs have been applied during the past winter in training the ordinary seamen of the Navy, who would otherwise have been spending their time on board the Duke of Wellington, and other stationary vessels, I am perfectly convinced that we should carry that plan a little further, and that it would be an exceedingly valuable addition to our vessels for training purposes, if one or two sailing tenders were attached to each of the largest sailing ships in our home ports. I believe by that means you would keep your young sailors and young officers much more at sea than at present, and at a much less cost than is now incurred. Then, with reference to our position at the outbreak of a war. Sir Frederick Grey has very properly put before us the necessity of giving adequate protection to our commerce in such an emergency. For that purpose I venture to say that we may look, not without some confidence, to the resources afforded by our merchant service. It may be that the greater number of our merchant steamers are not available, but I should be very much disappointed, if, upon investigation, it was found that none were available. Anyhow we know this, that the subsidies to ocean mail services have been advocated, and granted freely and liberally by Germany, by France, and by the United States, especially the two former Powers, because it was thought by the Governments of those countries that if the time came, or the emergency arose, they would then be able to call upon those vessels to render valuable supplementary services for war. Surely, if we give our large subsidies to the great ocean companies, without seeing that the vessels so subsidised by our Government are at least as fit for war as the vessels subsidised by other Powers, we shall have failed to make use of a valuable source of strength. My honourable friend, of course, spoke a word of affection for his own child, the Inconstant, and I have to say to him that I would not pretend to enter into a controversy with a man of his eminence as a naval architect upon such a subject, in reliance upon my own unaided judgment; but when I look to the last Report of the Committee of Naval Designs, and to the evidence tendered to that Committee by Captain Waddilove, I am justified, if I may follow the captain of the Inconstant upon such a subject, in describing the results attained in the Inconstant as only in a qualified sense successful. And qualified in what way? Why in this way. The coal-carrying capacity was pointed to by Captain Waddilove as unsatisfactory, and why? Because the Inconstant at full speed could only steam 2 days. If the Inconstant is to be regarded as an ocean steamer for the protection of our commerce on the wide seas, I say that her coal-carrying capacity is not satisfactory. Then there is another point about the Inconstant: she is a very costly ship for the purpose for which she was designed. Bearing in mind, as we must do, that after all our naval expenditure is not an unlimited quantity, we are brought to this issue, are we to prefer one Inconstant or two Volages, or three vessels of an even more moderate size? You have to choose between the three alternatives. I do not recommend, either in this or in any other place, a smaller vessel than the Inconstant because I wish to spend less on the Navy, but because I feel it important that you should have as numerous a fleet as you possibly can, provided it be

composed of efficient vessels for our protection; and I say that, unless Parliament is prepared to add very largely indeed to the naval estimates which they are now voting, if you spend all your money on unarmoured vessels of the Inconstant type, then you produce a fleet not numerous enough to serve the purpose which you have at heart. The value of numbers, I think, has been greatly commended to us by the Paper of Mr. Barnaby, for he has shown how much you may add to the strength of vessels like the Inflexible, by surrounding them with groups of tenders to protect them against the attack of the torpedo. That, again, I take to be a very strong argument in favour of building unarmoured vessels of as moderate a tonnage as is consistent with the purpose for which they are intended. I will not trespass further on the time of the Meeting, except to say that with reference to the controversy about guns, that in this, as in a great many other problems, a compromise is not an unwise solution of the difficulty. Why should not we have mixed armaments? I observe in the papers that mixed armaments have been strongly advocated by French officers of very great experience. They say, "Have some armour-piercing guns," and as there is an advantage in numbers-not in ships, but with reference to guns—and as it is most conspicuous in a combat between two unarmoured vessels, let us have, in addition to a few armour-piercing guns, a number of guns of less power but sufficient for the penetration and destruction of unarmoured vessels. I believe if the Admiralty can adopt that view, and not be frightened by the idea of confusion in action by the difference of ammunition, and so on, that the plan of a mixed armament may be attended with advantage. I beg to thank the Meeting very much.

แ

ON CIRCULAR IRON-CLADS.*

By E. E. GOULAEFF, Esq., F.R.S.N.A., Lieut. of Naval Architects, Imperial Russian Navy, Member.

[Read at the Seventeenth Session of the Institution of Naval Architects, 6th April, 1876; the Right Hon. LORD HAMPTON, G.C.B., D.C.L., President, in the Chair.]

In venturing to address this distinguished professional Meeting, I am quite conscious of my own inability to deal with this subject in a manner which its importance deserves, especially after the excellent lecture delivered by Mr. E. J. Reed, C.B., M.P., in the Royal United Service Institution, and after what has been written by him previously to the Times on the subject. But I deeply wished that these present Meetings should not pass over without registering the birth, or acknowledging the development and the existence at sea, of such typical new vessels as the "Popoffkas," or the circular iron-clads of Russia; and it is only for this reason that I have with pleasure accepted the proposal to prepare a Paper for these Meetings.

It was in the beginning of the year 1869, that the idea of circular ships such as they are, or very little differing from what they are at present, was conceived by the distinguished Admiral Popoff, of the Russian Navy, and, having had the honour of working under him at the time, I can bear witness to the considerations which induced him to choose such circular form for the ships, which ultimately have become known by his name. It was chosen after many years of experience and study of the behaviour of the long ordinary ships at sea; after the careful study of the development of ironclad construction, to which few persons have paid so much attention as Admiral Popoff did, and it has been chosen principally in consequence of the very important results obtained in this country by Mr. Reed, with his well-known broad and short ships, which superseded the narrow and long iron-clads of early date. Admiral Popoff argued that results of still greater advantage would be ensured if Mr. Reed's principle of broadening and shortening ships were followed still further, and therefore it is to this principle, which has been fully appreciated and mastered by Admiral Popoff, that the circular

* Received 28th March, 1876.

iron-clads owe their existence. It is the continual consideration and analysis of the results acquired with such ships as the Pallas, Bellerophon, Hercules, and others, that induced Admiral Popoff to broaden all the ships of his own design, and to decide as early as in the year 1868, the breadth of his ship, Peter the Great, as 64 feet, in order to supply her with the power of carrying 40-ton guns and 16-inch armourunprecedented until then. Lately, with the same ideas in view, the Admiral has proposed plans for broadening the existing narrow and weakly-armoured ships, built during the earlier period of the iron-clad era, by cutting them longitudinally along the plane of keel, separating the two halves, and inserting between them a new portion of the bottom, thus being able, with a very small additional weight of hull, to get very great additional displacement for carrying guns of the increased size, and additional layer or layers of armour. These plans were exhaustively discussed by Admiral Popoff with Mr. Reed, and when the reconstruction of old iron-clads into ships equally powerful with modern ones may be found necessary, Mr. Reed will be able to bring these plans forward, and apply them to practice better than anybody else. My object in mentioning this here is to give additional proof that circular-ship construction, as well as many of Admiral Popoff's other labours, were based mainly upon Mr. Reed's principle of broadening and shortening ships, and that the circular form is the development of that principle to the extreme limit.

One of the most important conditions for the defence of the Black Sea coasts limited the draught of the vessels to about 13 feet. The only then existing type of vessel which fulfilled this condition was that of unarmoured gunboats, since any armoured ship, if built of ordinary form, and if designed to carry heavy guns and thick armour, required much greater immersion. Unarmoured gun boats, however, were not considered efficient, because a single shot from an insignificant gun is sufficient to penetrate their sides and sink them with all hands on board. Therefore an entirely new class of vessel was requisite to admit of the heavy guns and efficient armour protection, combined with the very small draught of water. To satisfy those conditions, no type of vessel could have been better adopted than the circular, because with no hull of any other form and of the same weight could so great a displacement upon the same draught of water have been obtained.

The head of the Navy, His Imperial Highness the Grand Duke Constantine, with his usual wisdom, appreciated the value of such considerations, and accordingly two circular ships of 96 feet in diameter, and 12 feet 6 inches draught, were ordered to be built. The displacement which such small dimensions gave has yet enabled them to carry two 28-ton guns mounted in a turret, protected, as well as the sides at the waterline, by armour equivalent to 11 inches in thickness. They were meant strictly for