The Sun.
London, England, 1864-02-01 00:00:00

fore platform, and, passing between store-rooms on
either side for sails, provisions, water, chain, and
coals, opens into the stokehold. Between the
stokehol and the engine-room and immediately
below the battery are the magazine and shellroom.
The passage is continued between these through the
engine-room onwards, both above and below the
roof of the shaft alley, to the extreme after end of
the ship, all the storerooms both forward and aft
communicating with it. In some cases, as in the
provision and water spaces forward, the ordinary
bulkheads are dispensed with altogether, and stan-
chions are substituted, and where this arrangement
was undesirable, iron gratings are made in the upper
part of the partition.
In order still further to provide for efficient yen•
tilation, and particularly with a view to the preser•
vation of the frame of the ship, a passage is left
along the wings on each side and beneath the floor-
ing of the several divisions. There is thus scarcely
a foot of the frame of the ship which is not in direct
communication with the central passage, and acted
upon either by the draught of the furnaces or by the
Schiele's fan. Directly below the battery, and over
the magazine and shell room, is a large platform to
be used as a cockpit, communicating by a covered
passage through the engine room with an after
cockpit and dispensary:
The dimensions of this minature ironclad are
only 180 ft. long by 36ft. wide, her engines are to
be of 160 horse power, and her speed is estimated
at nine knots. Though an experimental vessel, the
success of the Enterprise has been secured by the
admirable seagoing performance of the Research,
another ship of much the same class, only 200 tons
larger, which made a successful passage round from
Milford to the Thames. This little corvette carries
five inches of armour, and in the run round to
the river, though the weather was very rough, she
often steamed 101- knots, rolled easily and not
deeply, turned a full circle in 4 min. 18 secein five
times her own length, is well ventilated, buoyant,
and, when equipped for sea, will draw only 14ft. of
water. In our description of this vessel on Friday
we stated that "she cars ied a broadside of guns
equal in weight to those of the renowned Warrior."
That, as our readers must, of course, have seen, was
an error, and should have been " carried a broad-
side of guns equal in weight to the heaviest of those
of the renowned Warrior." So far, however, she
has established all the principles which her designer
put forward when he began to modify her form
from what she was originally intended to be—a
wooden screw corvette. We cannot help thinking,
nevertheless, that Mr. Reed would have been more
successful in the matter of speed had the lines of
these vessels been from the outset of his own design.
ing. If the Admiralty have any consideration for
our pockets, they will at once give up the false
economy of endeavouring to coat wooden frigates in
frame with iron—of trying, in fact, to adapt and
work up old materials into a new purpose for which
they were never intended. It makes but a bad
compromise, such adapted vessels, after all, costing
very little less than new, but being infinitely worse.
The French have for the first time last autumn
begun building two frigates which, like our War-
riors and Minotaurs, are to be wholly of iron
from end to end. They have tried plating
wooden frigates with iron, and not finding them
answer, have come back to the point at which we
commenced, and begun building of iron only. With
their costly experience before us, how can our Ad-
miralty hope to be more successful with iron plated
wooden frigates ? As a fact, however, they do not
hope to be entirely successful, but only to make less
conspicuous failures than our French neighbours
have done in La Gloire, The Lard Warden and
Lord Clyde, which are to be built of wooden frames
from Mr. Reed's design, will be magnificent vessels
as far as size and speed, and for a time, perhaps, as
far as strength is concerned. Each of these ships
is to be of 4,000 tons, 1,000 horse power, and each
is to carry two 300 pounders, and 30 100 pounders,
cased in with five inches of iron. Bat, for the nomi-
nal saving of £lO,OOO, effected by building their
frames of wood, which rots at once under the iron,
the country will eventually have to pay some
£200,000, in the speedy decay of the ships and the
consequent early necessity of replacing them with
others. We need no stronger proof of their real
cost than is to be found in the fact that the French,
who were the foremost supporters of this system of
building, now intend to give it up, and in future
build of iron only.
It is very gratifying to our enterprise and manu-
facturing skill to know that, after the start which
our neighbours got of us in the launch of La
Gloire and La Normandie, we are now ahead of the
French in the number of ships afloat, the number
launched and fitting, and in the number building,
while in the still more important particulars of
strength, size, and speed, the French possess no ships
whatever that can even be named in comparison
with those of the Warrior or Minotaur class of fri-
gates. Up to the present the list of the iron navies
of the two countries built or building is as follows
ARMOUR-CLAD SHIPS NOW AFLOAT.
ENGLISH. FRENCH.
Warrior Solferino
Black Prince Magenta
Hector Invincible
Valiant I Couronne
Defence Normat die
Resistance La Gloire
Royal Oak
Prince Consort
Caledonia
Research
RECENTLY LAUNC
Achilles
Minotaur
Ocean

:lUD AND FITTING.
Provence
1 Heroine

FOR LAUNCHING.
Agincourt I Surveillante
Royal Alfred Flandres
Royal Sovereign
Prince Albert
Favourite It
Zealous - -

NEARLY READY

BUILDING IN VARIOUS STAGES.
Northumberland Savoir
L,rd Clyde I Revanche
Lord Warden Magnanime
Bellerophon Guyenne
Pallas Valeureuse
Gaulois°
Thus, then, we have ten iron frigates afloat as
against six of the French ; three launched and fit-
ting as against two of the French; six nearly ready
for launching against two nearly ready for launching
in France; and five in various stages of building,
while the French have six in the same condition ; a
total in all of 21 English iron frigates against only
15 belonging to France. In making this comparison,
however, it should in fairness be borne in mind that
of the six French frigates building not one is less
than half finished, while some of ours returned as
building, such as the Bellerophon, Lord Warden,
and Lord Clyde, have, in fact, only just been com-
menced. On the other hand, it is believed that the
French Marine intend to commence no new vessels
this year ; while it is to be hoped that at least two
more on the plan of the Balicrophon will be begu❑
in this country.
Everything of importance connected with the
French ironclad vessels is, as aggeneral rale, as
well known to our Admiralty as to the Minister of
Marine in Paris, and the substance of all the
knowledge that has reached this country has only
tended to confirm the belief that, both in a military
and in a mechanical point of view, we took the right
course in turning out vessels of the Minotaur end
Warrior class. To this day they have never been
Equalled or even approached. The Solferino and
Magenta, two decked iron frigates, are both slow
and weak compared with any of the ships of this
class, which are strong and swift enough to disre-
gard almost any kind of fortifications.
In the list of French armour ships which we
have given, all, whether building or built, with the
exception of the two first-named, are frigates or
heavy corvettes, carrying from 16 to 40 guns,
The Solferino and Magenta only are two deckers of
the class which in the old time used to be called
double banked frigates. They are each rated as
SO gun ships, but, in reality, carry less, having only
64. All these ships are ordinary wooden vessels of
war, frigates so covered without the slightest
attempt to adapt their form to their new casing.
Their scantling (that is, the thickness of timber
behind the plating) is not, as has been often
stated, as much as sft. thick, but is neither
more nor less than the thickness of ordinary
men-of-war—that is, from 2ft. in frigates to 2ft. in
the Solferiuo and Magenta. Th.:, armour plates are
shorter than ours, and are as nearly as possible
about 4ic. thick. None have grooved edges to