Last year it was my pleasant privilege to lay before the readers of the Spectator a few details upon the polity of a battleship, and from the amount of interest shown in that subject, it would seem acceptable to supplement it by a few more details upon the mechanical side. First, then, as to the ship herself. Complaints are often heard of the loss of beauty and ship-like appearance consequent upon the gain of strength in these floating monsters. And it cannot be denied that up till a few years ago in our own Navy, and at the present date among the cuirassés of France, the appearance of the made such a complaint well founded—such ships as the Hoche and Charlemagne, for instance, from which it may truly be said that all to a ship has been removed. But in our own Navy there has been witnessed of late years a return to the handsome contour of vessels built, not for war, but for the peaceful pursuits of the merchant service. And this has so far been attended by the happiest results. These ships of the class, on board of one of which I am now writing, have won the unstinted praise of all connected with them. This means a great deal, for there are no more severe critics of the efforts of architects than naval officers, as would be[200] naturally expected. In these ships the eye is arrested at once by their beautiful lines, and the absence of any appearance of top-heaviness so painfully evident in ships like the Thunderer, the Dreadnought, and the Admirals. Their freeboard, or height from the water-line to the edge of the upper deck, catches a seaman’s eye at once, for a good freeboard means not only a fairly dry ship, but also plenty of fresh air below, as well as a sense of security in heavy weather. It is not, however, until their testing time comes, in a heavy of wind on the wide Atlantic, that their other appear. Then one is never weary of wondering at their splendid stability and freedom from rolling, which makes them unique fighting platforms under the worst weather conditions. They , a range of over three and a half degrees on either side of their course being sufficient to bring down heavy upon the quartermaster. They have not Belleville , and so enjoy almost complete from , maintaining their speed in a manner that is not approached by any other men-of-war afloat. In addition to great economy of coal usage they have, for a ship of war, very large coal bunkerage. In fact, in this respect their qualifications are so high that there is danger of being disbelieved in giving the plain facts. On a coal consumption of 50 tons per day for all purposes a speed of eight knots per hour can be maintained for forty days. Of course, with each extra knot of speed the coal consumption increases enormously, reaching a maximum of 220 tons a day for a speed of fifteen knots with forced[201] . It is necessary to italicise all purposes, for it must always be remembered that there is quite a host of engines always at work in these ships for the supply of electric light, ventilation, , , &c. And this brings me to a most important detail of the economy of modern ships of war—their utter for efficient working upon modern inventions, all highly complicated, and liable to get out of order. As, for instance, the . It is quite true that the work of the ship can be carried on without electric light, but when one considers the bewildering of dark passages in the of these huge ships, and remembers how accustomed the workers become to the flood of light given by a host of electric lamps, it needs no active exercise of the imagination to picture the condition of things when that great illumination is replaced by the feeble of candles or colomb lights. Truly they only the darkness, they do not it, and work is carried on at great risk because of its necessary haste. Then there is the steering. Under ordinary circumstances one man stands at a baby wheel upon a lofty bridge, whence he has a view from beam to beam of all that is going on, of the surrounding sea. At a touch of his hand the obedient monster of 150 horse-power, far down in the tiller-room aft, responds by exerting its great force upon the rudder, and the ship is handled with ridiculous ease. Use one to the , and no wonder is ever evinced at the way in which one man can keep that giant of 15,000 tons so steady on her course.[202] But of late we have had an object-lesson upon the difference there is between steering by hand without the of and steering with its aid. In the next water-tight forward of the tiller-room, there are four wheels, each 5 feet in diameter, and of great strength of construction. Some distance in front of these there is an &............