The Sun.
London, England, 1863-11-26 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 26, 1863.

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at

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Observe the Red Seal, Pink Label, and Cork branded
"Kinahan's LL Whisky."

METROPOLITAN BOARD OF WORKS.

A special meeting of this board was held yesterday at the
office, Spring-gardens. Mr. THWAITES presided.

NEW MEMBER.

Alderman Finnis took his seat at the board as ono of the
representatives of the Corporation of London in place of the
Lord Mayor,

THAMES EMBANKMENT.

The Board then proceeded to discuss the subject for which

it was specially convened—namely, " To consider the pro-
priety of inserting an arbitration clause in the specification
for the works for the embankment of the northern shore of
the river Thames between Waterloo-bridge and the eastern
end of the Inner Temple."
Mr. MILLER called attention to the power given to the
engineer by a clause in the specification for the Ist section
of the Thames embankment of determining all questions
arising between the contractor end the board, and contended
that so great a power should not be placed in his hands.
Under that clause the engineer might excuse the contractor
from doing work of the value of £60,000 or £70,000, and
he therefore submitted that the clause should be altered.
He contended that an arbitration clause should be inserted
in the specification, and referred to the practice of the War
Department, and to the specification for the execution of the
Royal Exchange lorks, in support of his recommendation.
He moved that in the opinion of the Board an arbitration
clause should be inserted in the specification for works exe-
cuted for the Board, and that the matter be referred to the
Thames Embankment Committee to consider the nature of
the clause to be inserted.
Mr. SAMUDA. seconded the motion.

The CHAIRMAN hoped the Board would' not agree to
the introduction of a general arbitration clause, or they
would never get through their works, and every
obstruction would be attended with an enormous expense.
He would suppose, for instance, that a contractor sent in
50,000 bricks, and that the engineer having special charge
of the works did not consider them of a proper quality.
The contractor might say that they wore. A dispute would
then arise. In that case would the Board say that was to be
a question for arbitration ? There would be thousands of
such disputes, and unless the engineer had some control
over the contractors, he could not see his way to the com-
pletion of the works. He cautioned the Board, therefore,
against the introduction of any general arbitration clause.
If there was to be a special clause like that introduced in
the contract for the Royal Exchange, he thought there
would be no objection to it, and if the Board should refer
the subject to a committee they ought to meet as soon as
possible, so that no time might be lost in informing persons
upon what grounds they might send in their tenders. Mr.
D'lffanger opposed any reference to a committee, as no
difficulty whatever had been experienced, and he was
not ,inclined to alter a system that had worked so
well. He did not know, indeed, why it should be inserted
at• all, unless it was to please certain persons who wished to
have it all their own way. The Board had constructed the
northern and southern main drainage works, besides the
outfall works, and they had never heard any complaint
whatever, and they had been carried on without any arbi-
tration clause whatever. If they were to introduce this
arbitration clause it would cast doubt on their own engineer,
who had worked so well up to the present time ; and as to
the specifications, there could be no difficulty in getting

plenty of contractors to come forward.
Mr. SAMUDA supported the motion, contending that in all
large contracts there was an arbitration clause, and that if
there was not a clause of this description contractors would
take some other way of helping themselves. Contractors
were in the habit of putting down from £20,000 to £30,000
to cover any loss to which they might be subject, and the
consequence ' was that the Board had to pay many thou-
sands of pounds more than they ought for the work that
was done.

Mr. NEWTON urged that if the insertion of this arbitra-
tion clause would save a contractor £30,000, it would be
the same as putting that amount into his pocket, and any

one: obtaining a contract under it would obtain an undue

advantage,
Mr. FREEMAN did not believe there could be any influ-
ence on contractors, as described by Mr. Samuda, in large
sums being added to the tenders to guard them against loss,
inasmuch as the estimates of their own engineer, Mr.
Bazalgette, had always been greater than the amount of the
tenders for their very large works.

Mr. Carpmael, Mr. Phillips, and Mr. Dermer spoke
against, and Mr. Saunders, Mr. Roche, Mr. Savage, and
Mr. Nicholay in favour of the clause.
The Chairman then put the motion, and there appeared—
For the motion lO
Against
Majority against the motion —9
The motion was accordingly negatived, and the Board
adjourned.

The Iron Frigate Northumberland,
The variety of iron-clad frigates which we are pro-
mised will hereafter form a curious chapter for the
historian of our navy. They must apparently differ
not less in speed than in size, not less in outward
form than in the thickness of their armour-plating.
Though all have the same object in view, nearly
every one is built on a different plan. According
to Mr. Reed's theory, the size of the class of War-
riors at present afloat is a radical and dangerous
error, and the Admiralty reply to this by building
still larger ones, but leave themselves a loophole of
escape by at the same time constructing one on Mr.
Reed's size and plan, which is utterly opposed to
their own. The experience of La Gloire and the
wooden armour-plated ships of the French navy is
considered by scientific men both here and there to
be conclusive against that method of construction.
So we are building them retherrextensively, though
the trip of the Prince Consort points ominously to
the result we may expect. Capt. Cowper Coles says
virtually that all but cupola ships are wrong, and that
his will knock Mr. Reed's "into a cocked hat." So
cupola ships are being built also. Now it is being
said that the ironclads built by Mr. Laird in the
Mersey—vessels of only 1,800 tons, but carrying 4in.
armour plates—are the real things, after all, and
that their form and build are the models which the
Admiralty ought to adopt if they hope to prosper.
Ilere, therefore, we have clearly six /systems, with
scarcely any single point of resemblance between
the competitors, beyond that each agrees to decry
the other as a costly and almost worthless sham.
Of these six systems three have never been tried,
and it says nothing for or against them to add that
the partisans of each predict the utter failure of
the other. Of the three that remain the War-
rior class has been tried and fuund nearly per-
fect ; the wooden-coated ships have been partially
tried, and the resulthas been much the same as has
been experienced in the French vessels, and only
the new Warriors remain to be experimented upon
at sea. Three of these new Warriors are now build-
ing and nearly built,—one, the Northumberland, at
the Millwall Iron Works, one, the Minotaur, at the
Thames Iron Works, and one, the Agincourt, at
Mr. Laird's yard on the Mersey. Of these three the
Minotaur will be launched very shortly, but both
the other ships are well advanced, and the principles
on which they are constructed may be better seen
in them than in the beautifully smooth hull of the
Minotaur, where all is nearly finished.
The plan on which the first Warriors were built
may be roughly described as that of a square iron-
box, armour-plated at the sides and each end, and
having as it were a stem and stern not plated fitted
on to this. These vessels have, to say the least,
fully realised all that was expected of them. Their
armour has been proved to be practically invulner-
able to any artillery which we possess, their speed
is higher than that of any other vessels, their buoy.
ancy is great, their motion in a seaway easy, and,
above all, they have proved watertight. As far,
therefore, as our own experience and those of other
nations yet go, our Warriors are regarded as models,
and the new class of Warriors, the names of which
we have just mentioned, only contain those altera-
tions which there is every reason to believe will be
improvements also.
In the Northumberland, building at Millwall,
these changes can be plainly seen, In the first
place, all the new ships are longer, broader, and
deeper, so as to make them of nearly 7,000
tons burden, and by this increase of size and
a slightly flatter floor giving them greater dis-
placement they are enabled to carry armour-coat-
ing over all from end to end. Their length
is no less than 400 ft. ; their breadth, 59ft.
din.; their depth, 41ft. Gin. Their internal method
of construction is most massive, yet not so massive
but that comparative lightness is made an important
consideration. Having no outer keel, the inner keel-
son is of unusual strength. It is a huge wrought-
iron girder, aft. 42in. deep, which runs throughout
the vessel from end to end, a rigid bolt, the back-
bone of the whole structure. To this the jointed
ribs are rivetted. These ribs are placed very closely
—so closely, indeed, that there are only alternate
intervals of lft. 1 lin. and 2ft. 4in. between each,
and looking at where the ribs of the Northumber-
land are still in some places left uncovered she seems
an almost solid iron shit. These ribs vary in length
from 10ft. long end 3ft. deep, to 4ft. long by 18in.
deep—that is to say, they are made of wrought iron
in these lengths to allow of their being rivetted to
the longitudinals which run from end to end of the
vessel, and which by intersecting the ribs at the in-
tervals we have stated divide the whole bottom
framework into a series of small square cellular com-
partments of great depth, thickness, and unyielding
strength. Looking only at the ribs, however, with-
out these intersections, they form an immense
wrought iron bow, 4ft. thick at their widest part
near the keel, and tapering off to 18in. thick at the
wales or widest part of the midship section, where
they are bent in, so as to form a ledge of 15in. deep,
on which the teak backing and armour plates rest,
sft. below the water line.
harmless.
The heights
Strong and closely packed, however, as these ribs
are, they are not so strong or so important to the
framework as the longitudinals which are placed
five on each side of the keelson, and form single
massive girders, so to speak, running from end to
end of the ship, curving with the curve of her lines,
and all converging in the bows and stern, and
making, in fact, one solid piece or girder of the whole
frame. The cross beams which carry the deck are
also of wrought iron, on the lower decks 15in. deep,
beneath the upper deck 12in., while beneath the oak
upper deck
keep
vesselout s shells.
made
part a
tlalnids portionan
nin
ro
of one
the
scan construct it, and the vibration
avy armour
t s
plates
works
which
strong
oden framed ships to pieces is reduced to
a minimum, andrendered
Taah kindehguri
lck s
angle
se
endervoie ferroy
irons
o iron a
box,
high power and he
a s as girders,
from the floor to the lower deck beams i 21ft from
lower deck to main deck 9ft. 2in., and from main
deck to upper 7ft. tin. clear.
Outside the ribs we have described, but inside the
armour, is the skin of the ship of wrought-iron
plates, and outside all is the
siar inm. our,
rolledcomposed of
9in. of solid teak beams and f r o
fastened through in the usual manner with bolts to
the inner skin. Along both sides of the ship, almost
from the floor to the main deck, run what are called
wing passages, 3 ft. flin•
wide, and the height of the
decks with which they correspond. These wing
t
passages are shut off from the body of the vessel by
wrought iron bulkheads, inside which, and below
the water line, the magazines will be formed. Trans-
verse webs communicatingone with another by man-
holes, which can easily
be shut, divide these wings
into a series of watertight compartments, and their
use is to enable men to get at a leak, in case of a shot
f
entering, or, in case of a fractured plate, to confine
the leakage of the compartment in which it originates.
N
The iron sides of the Northumberland have a
slope 2ft
inward of an incline of about one
foot in ten. The bows are formed in outline like
the curve of a swan's breast, the breast, or beak
of the part to be used as a rani projecting under
water Gift. beyond the apparent bows above.
uite round,
The stern is qand at both bows and
are gradually lessened off
stern the armour plates
from 51in. to 4-aln
i* in thickness. This reduction of
.
their solidity is Partly to lighten the stem and stern
'We and is partly necessitated by
as much asp°s6l
of bending 52in. plates to the
the extreme difficulty
uliar forms required at these portions of the hull.
sec
D, •
'lee points to which both bows and stern are
for shots
'uch facilities for to glance off,
ee thought to be the maximum
outer stern parts of

Carried
offers
in.i
The,.
and 18m. by 10m...-
requisite hereg:enrh efraelher in"-
The beak or bow
the Northumberland are gigantic pee
and weighs 31 tone.
legs,s p
pieceee t i being
ayloalso
loy,i
sa2naodi
single
ie.
na
gbeyhi e
il
is: irng.
i,
n 44ft.
long.forging,.
Thel,kforthumberlaudii to carry 48 of the heaviest

:-, ens of forg

guns on her main deck, with two immense pivot

guns, and six broadside guns on her upper-56 in

all. Her ports are to be as small as those of the
Warrior—that is to say, 3ft. bin. high and only

20in. wide, so as to reduce the chances of a shot or

shell entering to as low a point as is consistent with
working broadside guns at all. She is also to have
an iron tower on her upper deck, 18ft. long by 13ft.

wide, coated with 4iin. iron, and pierced for rifle
men in case of an enemy boarding. Her engines are
already in course of construction by Messrs. Penn
and Sons, and will be of no less than 1,250 horse
power nominal. Her bunkers will hold about 1,400
tons of coal, or enough for ten days' constant steam-
ing, and her mean draught of water when fully
equipped will be only 2lft., or nearly 2ft. less than
the old wooden line-of-battle ships. At this immer-
sion her portsills will be nearly 10ft. from the water
or a little more than 4ft. higher than those of the
once famous La Gloire. The calculations of her de-
signers and engineers give her a speed at full power
of 14 knots, or more than il6 miles an hour. One
great improvement which these new Warriors will
inaugurate is a total change in their rig. When
the ironclads which are now afloat were building,
the Admiralty would not hear of any departure from
the traditional three masts, and those to be wooden
ones. Three masts, and three masts only, were ac-
cordingly put into vessels which are twice as long
as any line-of-battle ship afloat, and it was not until
experience proved that our ironclads were, under
sail, the most unhandy vessels in the service that
their lordships consented to give the new ones their
proper quota of spars. The Northumberland and
her sister, therefore, are to have five masts each,
three to be square-rigged, two with fore and aft
sail, and all to be of iron. The immense importance
of the latter change must be evident to all who can
consider what must be the position of the Warrior
in action with a wooden mast shot away and
floating alongside till its mass of cordage fouled
her screw, and left her a helpless wreck. An iron
mast is twice as difficult to shoot away fis a wooden
one, and if it does fall it goes down alongside like
a deep sea lead, tears itself free, and sinks. Per-
haps, as these improvements are being introduced,
it may not be out of place to mention another which
would be equally gratifying both to officers and
men—we mean the number of the crews of
these vessels. A ship like the Warrior, though
an overmatch for a wooden Channel Fleet, is
only classed as a frigate, and, though twice as
difficult to handle, and more than twice the size of
any line-of-battle ship, has only a frigate's crew.
As regards the mere question of labour in scrubbing
decks, &c., this deficiency is by no means unimpor-
ta from the intense dislike with which such
large under-handed vessels come to be regarded by
sailors. But in the more important matter of
handling the ship in a seaway, and perhaps having
to handle the ship as well as fight it, the adherence
to routine, in considering these formidable vessels as
ordinary frigates, is little less than absurd, and may
at any unexpected moment lead to most serious con-
sequences. The crew of the Warrior is only 550
men, when she ought to have 800. If these new and
larger Warriors have less than 850 men, both offi-
cers and crews will findample work in merely keep-
ing them clean. We believe that in all the new
vessels an endeavour will be made to introduce a
steering apparatus to overcome the serious diffi-
culty which is now experienced in getting these
iron-clads to turn with tolerable quickness.
The Northumberland is to be plated with the
rolled plates of the Millwall Company, similar to
those which recently, both at Vincennes and St.
Petersburg, underwent with success such a severe
gunl
s. fromAt
sbt.opthetetrhsebuFrgretnhs
French and Russian rifled
plates
were fired at
twice with Mr. Krupp's 300 pounder steel gun,
loaded with 401 b. and then 501 b. of powder, and
each time firing a 2841 b. steel shot at 250 yards
range. Both those latter shots, of course, went
clear through the plate, leaving a clean round hole,
without cracking or splintering the metal in any
way. This steel gun of Krupp's, about which so
much has lately been said, has burst since these
,rials. The life of all large guns appears to be
amentably short everywhere.

Naval and Military Intelligence.

THE NAVY.

The Warrior, 40, iron frigate, Captain A. A. Cochrane,
C. 8., will beundocked at Portsmouth to-morrow, and receive
her crew at harbour moorings, preparatory to joining the
flagship of the admiral commanding the Channel Fleet at
Spithead anchorage. Since the Warrior has been in dock
her bottom has been again coated with the compositions
prepared by the chemical-assistant of the dockyard, and
has also had an additional 100 of Brown's patent
sheathing plates
put on her port side, under the superin-
tendence of Mr. B. L. Thomson, of London, one of the pro-
prietors of the patent. These plates are much more expen-
sive, and, consequently, more perfect in their enamel than
those put on the same side of the ship when she was last
in dock, and which remain on for
now being further trial. 'they are
used for the
of the same quality as the plates
Royal Sovereign, Royal Oak, and Ocean, and are affixed
to the ship's bottom with cement prepared under the direc-
tion of the patentees. The Royal Sovereign has a 51t.
band of these plates extending round her at the water-line,
and cutting off the connexion which would otherwise exist
between the armour-plating and the Muntz metal sheath-
ing of the ship's bottom. In the last notice of the Warrior
in the Naval Intelligence column of Me Sun, reference
was made to the condition of her bottom and to the strong
suspicion entertained that the counter sunk rivet heads
which secure the bottom plates were being eaten into
and destroyed, so far as their holding powers are concerned,
but the action of the copper in the unfolding compositions
with which the ship's bottom has been coated. It was
generally believed that some steps would have been taken
to ascertain whether this suspicion was well founded.
Nothing of this kind has, however, been done, and as all
visibly sound and unsound parts have been covered over
and filled up by fresh coating of the same description of
composition, it must be assumed that the suspicions referred
to are to some extent unfounded, and that the Admiralty
are satisfied. On the next occasion of the ship being placed
in dock there will very possibly be a more searching ex-
amination made to ascertain the exact truth, for the matter
is of too great importance to rest as it now does.
The Edgar screw line of battle ship, Capt. Geoffrey T.
P. Hornby, bearing the flag of Rear-Admiral of the Red
Sydney Colpoys Dacres, C. 8., Commander-in-chief of the
Channel Fleet, steamed out of Portsmouth Harbour yes-
terday, and anchored at Spithead, on the completion of her
refit for further service.
By the receipt of private letters from Halifax, dated the
10th inst., we learn that on the previous day farewell ad-
dresses were presented by the mayor and city council, and
by the merchants and citizens, to Vice-Admiral Sir Alex-
ander Milne, K.C.8., Commander-in-Chief of her Majesty's
ships on the North American and West Indian seas, on the
near approach of the time of expiry of the gallant Admiral's
command, and of his late official visit to Halifax. The ad'
dress from the merchants and citizens was signed by up-
wards of 1,200 names.
According to existing arrangements yesterday at Ports-
mouth, the Channel Fleet, under the command of its chief,
Rear-Admiral Sydney Cyclops Dacres, C. 8., gill sail from
Spithead about Tuesday next, for Copenhagen,
to his Majesty Christian IX., King of Denmark, on
the
occasion of his coronation. to do honour
The Pigmy steam tender sailed from Portsmouth yester-
n on board,
day for Sheerness with Excellent gunnery seam
line-of-battle
and supernumeraries for the Conqueror screw
; A r tillery a d
ship, fitting out to convey Royal Marine n
Light Infantry to Japan.
the Or
Yesterday the War Department transports Marlborough
a Ordnance Wharf at
and Bomarsund went alongside
guns belonging Chatham and landed upwards of 30 of the 68-pounder and
32-pounder smooth bore cast ,iron 78 to the
line-of-battle screw-steamer Conqreudertoor,b
fitted for the
power, at the Nore, which is
purpose of conveying a battaliowithn
n s to Japan.
fitted adpossible despatch for
eisto be employed. She will have
The Conqueror is being
the service on which she
the whole of her guns removed, with the exception of some
few of the small pieces, and her ports closed. Portions of
her main and lower decks are to be fitted up with berths and
cabins for the accommodation of the officers and marines she
is to embark.
The Salamander, 6, 220 horse power, paddlewheel
steamer, attached to the first division of the steam reserve
in the Medway, has undergone a thorough overhaul and
repair, preparatory to being immediately commissioned for
_„ryoying service in Torres Straits. Since she has been in
,-•is been fitted with a poop, in order to afford
officers.

dock aho
accommodation for 4,,

rihatbara for the Fawn, 17,

Orders hAve been reciiiod Ekt