The Sun.
London, England, 1864-08-06 00:00:00

••••••• imanlab4
Nasal

igence,

The Dale of Cambridge, Field Marshal Com-
manding
hief of the Army, yesterday drove to
Woolwich, att ended by his aid.e-de-camp in waiting,
Brevet-Col. R. W. P. Curzon, C. 8., late Grenadier
Guards, and reviewed the troops in garrison there.
They were drawn out in marching order on Wool.
wich-common at half-past nine o'clock, according
to orders transmitted from the Horse Guards on the
preceding evening. There were present on the
ground one battalion of Royal Marines, in command
of Lt.-Col. Marriott ; two troops of Horse Artillery,
in command of Col. the Hon. E. T. Gage and
Major D. S. Greene ; two batteries of the Depot
Brigade, and two 40-pounder batteries, in corn.
mand of Col. J. H. Smyth, C. 8., commanding the
2d division of the Depot. The firing of 21 guns
in rapid succession and the hoisting of the
national standard at the Greenhill battery an-
nounced the Duke's arrival in the garrison shortly
before ten o'clock a.m. General `Verde, C. 8., the
Commandant, attended by a numerous staff of
officers, received his Royal Highness in the centre
of the parade and accompanied him to the review
ground, where the troops immediately performed
save
the
usual salute, the bands playing ,
Queen." The operations were intended to illustrate
the attack of an advancing foe, who was represented
as having already gained a position in the north-
east corner of the common. Notwithstanding the
extreme heat of the weather the whole proceedings
went off admirably. His Royal Highness was then
accompanied by General Warde and the attendant
Staff to the Royal Artillery mess quarters, where he
was entertained at luncheon. About 50 superior
officers in the garrison were present. The enter-
tainment lasted an hour, during which time the
b and of the regiment, conducted by Mr Smythe,
performed a choice selection of music. The Duke
left Woolwich for town soon after one p.m., amid
the booming of the battery guns.
A. general order has been issued from the Horse
Guards, by command of the Duke of Cambridge,
and peomulgated at Chatham garrison, announcing
that in future every recruit on first joining the
headequarters of his depot or regiment, is to be
asked whether he is a Roman Catholic, Episcopa-
lian, Presbyterian, or belonging to any other sect,
and that the answer be recorded in the man's
pocket ledger, duly attested by his signature, and
witnessed.
On Tuesday night the Lords of the Admiralty
arrived at New Milford by special train, and on
Wednesday the usual inspection of the dockyard,
forts, &c., took place. After the inspection their
_Lordships left in her Majesty's yacht Osborne for
reland.
The delays which have taken place in the pro-
gress of the iron-clad frigate Bellerophon, 14, 4,246
tons, now building at Chatham Dockyard, in conse-
quence of the non-supplyof angle and plate iron from
the contractors, are likely to be effectually remedied,
arrangements having been completed by which at
least 100 tons of iron will be sent into the dock.
yard weekly by Messrs Cheyney and Co., who have
the contract for supplying that description of iron
for the vessel. Notwithstanding, however, the de.
lcys which have taken place in the construction of
the Bellerophon, which are attributable solely to the
non-delivery of the requisite materials by the con-
tractors, the most marked progress has been made
in the construction of the frigate, which will not
occupy one half the time in building that was con-
sumed in the construction of the Achilles, built at
the same dockyard. The works connected with the
Bellerophon are watched with the keenest interest
by some of the most eminent shipbuilders in this
and other countries, several of whom have inspected
the frigate since she has been in frame. Now that
the works are sufficiently advanced to enable an
opinion to be formed of the class of ves-
sel the Bellerophon is intended to prove,
it is impossible to fail observing that a totally
new and highly economical mode of iron
shipbuilding has been introduced by her de-
signers. The great improvement already observable
is the enormous reduction effected in the amount of
expensive smiths' work. The extent to which com-
plicated and costly forge work has been insisted
upon in all previous iron-cased ships has afforded
incessant grounds of complaint by the contractors
who built the Black Prince, Warrior, Hector, De-
fence, and other similar ships, and it appears pretty
certain the quality of work of this kind which was
actually performed in the Achilles at Chatham Dock
yard has tended to make her a very costly vessel.
Hitherto it would seem the designers of our ironclad
squadron of vessels have considered any material re-
duction in work of this kind altogether incompatible
-with the great strength required in ships of war,
but Mr Reed, the present chief constructor of the
navy, is obviously of a very different opinion, and
in designing the Bellerophon has boldly swept
away the preconceived notions as to what was
deemed indispensable to the construction of an
iron vessel of war. An inspection of the Bellerophon
as she now lies in frame will make it appear evident
that not only has this been done without sacrificing
strength, but with a positive increase of that impor-
tant quality. With this increase of strength is as-
sociated at the same time a still more important
feature—unexampled security. Hitherto the great
defect in all iron ships has been the local weakness
of their bottoms, which has usually rendered com-
paratively trifling mishaps fatal to them, while
wooden ships, meeting with the same casualties, fre-
quently escape with but temporary, and more often
trifling, injury. The usual mode of correcting
this defect is by the introduction of water-tight
bulkheads across the ship. This plan may have
proved useful in the mercantile marine, but it in-
terferes so seriousiy with the accommodation and
ventilation of ships of war as to be an unsatisfac-
tory remedy for the defect alluded to. In the
Bellerophon the evil has been boldly met by the
introduction of a complete double bottom, somewhat
resembling in principle that of the Great Eastern,
but far more complete and perfect in its arrange-
ment. The system of longitudinal girders, found
to answer so well in the latter ship, has also been
adopted in the Bellerophon, but while the longitu-
dinal frames constituted the sole, or nearly sole,
support of the bottom plating of the great ship, a
strong and rigid system of transverse frames has
been brought to its support in the Bellerophon, thus
rendering her bottom stronger and more secure from
injury than that of any other iron iron ship afloat.
Reverting to the subject already noticed in The
Sun—the advantage of working all the heavy de-
scription of guns on board ship by means of machi-
nery, it is satisfactory to find that the Lords of the
Admiralty have decided that each of the ten 12-ton
300-pounders with which the Bellerophon will be
armed are to be worked by an ingeniously con.
trived, but at the same time simple mechanical
arrangement, the invention of Mr. Reed,
and a notification to that effect has already been
received at Chatham Dockyard. By this arrange-
ment each of the monster guns will be daily trained
and handled by three or four men, and each gun
kept upon the enemy through the arc of a circle of
more than 60 deg., as perfectly, in fact, as the'guns
are now trained on hoard Cept. Colea's turret ship,
the Royal Sovereign. Too much importance cannot
be attached to the advantage which will be pos-
sessed in this respect by the Bellerophon, the power
of "keeping the enemy on" and following him
about with your gun being of immense advantage.
the Clio, 22, 400-horse power, Capt. N. E. B.
Tarnoar, which was under orders to leave the Noro
yesterday afternoon for the Pacific, takes out, in
tow, a small steam tug, of about 70 tons burden,
nawed the Turtle, which has recently been pur-
chased by the
Admiralty to be stationed at the
'eland of Ascension, and to be used for towing
purposed.
The chartered transport Acadia sailed from
Woolwie yesterday for Jamaica, after shipping
n.
naval and war stores off the Arsenal. The Albert
William also sailed for Auckland yesterday, laden
with shells, combustibles, hall cartridges, ; and
the Egmont,
for the same destination, wtiteh
London
of guns and other war stores, shipped in h
docks.

Yesterday a party of S wedisb, Prussian, and Bel.
gian officers visited Chatham garrison for the pur-
pose of Witnessing some trials which are now in

progress at the Royal Engineer establishment, for
the purpoao of testing the respreire merits of the

Austrian and Belgian pontoons, as compared with
those of the ordinary English pontoon (Gen. Blau•
shard's) in use in the service. The officers were ac-
companied to the pontoon-ground opposite Chatham
harbour by Col. Harness, C. 8., and the officers of
of the staff, and some time was occupied in watching
the progress of the trials. Although the Belgian and
Austrian pontoons both possess important advan-
tages, yet the balance of superiority for all qualities
was undoubtedly in favour of the Blanshard pontoon.
William Brown has been appointed lieutenant In
the Royal Naval Reserve, and John Wharton hone
orary lieutenant.

Important Experiments at Shoeburyness,

On Thursday last the Iron-plate Committee
brought their official existence to a close with some
experiments upon a target representing an ironclad
built to scale upon the principle generally adopted
on the Continent, and more especially by our
neighbours the French. Nearly all the Iron-plate
Committee were present on this occasion, together
with a large number of officers of both branches of
the service, who were specially interested in seeing
how the theory of foreign armour ships would stand
the downright practice of such heavy ordnance as
Shoebury could bring against them.
This target, the trial of which closes the labours
of the Iron Armour-plate Committee, had been
made at the suggestion, and according to the draw,•
ings of one of its members, Professor William Pole,
F.R.S. Its object differs somewhat from that of
most targets hitherto tried; for, whereas the usual
endeavour has been to test novel constructions
offering promise of increased resistance, this experi-
ment only proposes to obtain exact information as
to the actual strength of a very simple and compa-
ratively slight structure, but still one largely
adopted in practice—namely, a wooden ship with a
plain armour-plate covering, and without any extra
strengthening devices of longitudinal stringers, &c.,
such as those lately tried in the Lord Warden and
others. At the same time, to render the experi-
ment as useful as possible, Mr Pole has taken ad-
vantage of it to try the value of some inventions,
which, though approved by other nations, and
especially by France, have not hitherto been fully
tested in this country. These are—the use of plates
of small area, and a peculiar mode of fastening them
to the ship with large " wood screws," holding by
coarse threads in the timber, instead of bolts pass-
ing entirely through, with nuts on the inside, which
is the usual English plan—and a moat defective
one it is.
The target represented a portion of a ship's side,
lift. long and 10ft. high, covered with four rows
of plates, each plate being about sft. 9in. long and
2ft. bin. wide, The two upper rows were 4-lin.
thick, the two lower nearly 6in.—that is to say,
5 15.16 in. Each plate was screwed to the ship
by about 15 screws, each le-in. in diameter, and
penetrating well into the ship's timbers to the
depth of 16 inches. The hull was composed of verti-
cal frame timbers of oak, 11 inches thick ; outside
planking of teak, 10 inches; and inner planking of
oak, again, 6 inches, all strongly fastened together.
Behind this were portions of decks and deck beams,
strengthened in the manner usual with French ar-
mour ships. These strengthenings consisted of mas-
sive oak brackets, which filled up the angle bee
tween the ship's side and the deck, and occurred at
intervals of about 3ft. apart, answering much the
same purpose as the iron beams used in our own
men-of-war, These, however, appeared to be
stronger ; were certainly placed closer together, and
were, besides their own strong tin. iron bolts, six
in number, still further secured to the deck and the
side by broad, powerful, wrought -iron brackets,
bolted through on each side. Every part of the
target, in fact, was contructed on the principle
universally in use on the Continent, and, above all,
in France, The whole target, that is to say, its
Gin. plates on the water eline, and 41in. plates
above—may be said to have represented the last and
best of the French ironclads—the Flandres; while
the upper half—that is, the 41n. plates alone—
were in most particulars a general copy of La
Gloire, the wood backing being similar in both
La Claire and the Flandres. How Gin. and 4elin.
plates will stand under fire of heavy guns was, of
course, as well known before the experiment com-
menced as at its close. The trial, therefore, was
simply undertaken to test the continental system of
small plates fastened with a large number of screws
instead of bolts. These screws were supplied direct
from France, and were used so numerously about the
plates that at no part could a shot strike without
having its circumference within two inches of no
less than four of them. As either screw or bolt holes
in the plates are evils and recognised sources of
weakness, it was believed that the plates would
soon yield under fire and crack in all directions ; but
the absolutely perfect manufacture of the iron made
by the Millwall Company disappointed this expec-
tation, for, though the target was penetrated and
destroyed more absolutely than any target that has
ever yet been tried at Shoebury, not a single crack
was visible in the iron from first to last. More per-
fect plates have never been experimented on, and a
most apt illustration was afforded by them during
the course of the day of the value of the long labours
of the Iron-plate Committee, which were on Thurs.
day brought to a close with this trial. The target
was fixed right in front of the once-famous Scott
Russell target, tried about three years ago, and
built of plates which were then thought marvels of
manufacturing excellence, but which, nevertheless,
cracked like glass under the shot. On Thursday
almost every shot went clear through the French
target, and afterwards struck full with more or
less of force on Scott Russell's. When they did strike
the latter hard they generally cracked a plate, but,
as we have said, the plates in the French
target never gave a sign of weakness, though it
was perforated in all directions, and once with a
shot so close to the circular hole made by another
previously as to leave only a narrow but a perfect
strip of iron like a lattice bar between the two. Even
from the plates of John Brown and Co. finer results
have never been obtained, and we are not say-
ing too much in praise of the Iron-plate
Committee in attributing to their patient and
careful investigations and the results of their
valuable experiments much of the high superiority
which our own plate manufacture now enjoys
throughout the world. When the committee began
their labours, about four years ago it was an almost
unknown circumstance to get a shot through any
target, but it was then almost equally a matter of
course that the plates shattered and cracked in all
directions under the fire of the least effective guns.
In the interval that has elapsed both the Ordnance
Select Committee and the iron•plate Committee
have been steadily at work, the former perfecting
our means of attack in guns, the latter improving
our system of defence in armour plates, and, as was
to be expected, the former have gained the advan-
tage. True it is that our armour-plates have been
brought to such perfection that a crack in a plate,
even under the most incessant firing, is rarely seen
but, on the other hand, what with larger guns and
steel shot it is now taken as a matter of course that
our heavy ordnance can as easily pierce any system
of armour-plating that can reasonably be expected
to float at sea as if it was so much wood. In plain
terms, this is really the result at which all the Shoe-
buryness experiments have at last arrived. No
matter what the target or the system of coating,
whether it bo Chalmers's or the French plan, 6-inch
plates, a cupola ship, or one of the Warriors or
Minotaurs,the guns we have now got of Sir William
Armstrong's go through all alike. Wooden shipe
are relatively stronger against 68. pounders than
are iron-clads against the 150-pounder and 200-
pounder shunt guns. We have quite reached, if
indeed experience does not show us that we have
over passed, the limit of armour weight which
such ships as the Lord 'Warden and Bellerophon
can safely carry in a heavy sea. Yet these two
vessels, which with the American Bei
Dictator are the strongest and the thickest plat n
ed
known to exist, ere also known to he almost as
vulnerable to the heavy guns at Shoeburyness
as wood is to the 68-pounders. Nothing could
more conclusively prove this truth than the experi-
ments of Thursday. It is needless to go through a
long recapitulation of the shots fired. These experi-
ments are of course only valuable in their results,
;'end when the heavy cues were ueed egeiest the