The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-24 00:00:00

TRIAL OF THE HECTOR.

THE ARMY.
We have to record the death of Sir John Cam
hp-
bell, who who in the courso of the present, century
seen much military service. He was born in the
Royal dockyard at Chatham in 1780, and catered
the army in 1800. In 1807 he served as a brigade-
major in the expedition under Brigadier-General
Crawford, and was in the action of the Miaerere and
the attack on Buenos Ayres, which, having bee
founded by Don Pedro de Mendoza. in 1535, w
it
ns
taken possession of by the British in 1800. •
was
retaken six weeks after by the inhabitants and a
new' attempt to take it by the British 1:1 r•
Which Sir
aft,
-bell acted a brilliant part) th had

p. - . ...er :ey .
J. Cam
with great loss. He
received reit,f"cements f4ilcd
served at Roleia :ad Vimieria, and with the cavalry
at Saha gun and Benevento in
under Lord Anglesey
In the following year he entered the Par-
180S.
tnguese army as a British •th:rvior and Portuguese
lieutenant-colonel, He Bmed'in
~-11 the eamPeigns

The official trial of this frigate commenced at
Portsmouth yesterday, and will be completed to-
day, weather permitting. The Hector is the first
vessel of her class, at present confined to herself and
the Valiant, that has been put through the test of
the measured mile;
tonnage is one of an intermediate class
a
between the Warrior and Defence
is an intermediary as to armour between M
the Warrior and -
classes, sto
]Minotaur classes. For these
reasons, some description of
her is necessary pre-
vious to recording her performances yesterday.
The Hector was laid down in M essrs. Napier's
i buildingyard at Glasgow in March, 1861, the draw-
ings, &c., being furnished from the Controller's
Department of the Admiralty, and was launched on
the 21st September, 1862. Her principal dimen-
sions are—length between perpendiculars, 2801 t.;
breadth, extreme, 56ft. 3iu.; depth from under-
side of keel to spar-deck, 40ft. Tonnage, builders'
measurement, 4,123 tons. Launching weight, 3,050
tons. Draught of water when launched, 15ft. 81-tn.
forward, 191 t. Bie. aft. Displacement at load water-
line, 6,400 tons. Weight of iron used in construc-
tion of hull, exclusive of armour, 2,588 tons; weight
of armour-plates, 873 tons ; weight of armoured
shield on upperdeck inside stem, 121 tons ; weight
of rudder, 91 tons; weight of engines, 165 tons;
do. boilers, 220 tons; do. water in boilers, 90 tons;
do. propeller and shafting, 641 tons; do. coal boxes,
37 tons ; do. cupola for hot shot, 7 tons ; do. spare
fans, 12 tens ; weight of coal railway for transport.
ing coal from coal bunkers to furnaces, 5 tons
weight of auxiliary engines, 91 tons ; do. spare
engine gear, 20 tons; do. sundries, 23 tons.
The propeller is a two-bladed Griffith, hav-
ing a varying pitch from 22ft. 6in. to 27ft. 6in.,
and set now at 26ft. 6in. Space for coals in
bunkers, 450 tons, the amount she had at the com-
mencement of her trial yesterday. The masts are
of tubular iron, and weigh—main, 171 tons; Tore
17 tons; wizen, 51 tons. When the ship came round
from Scotland she was also fitted with an iron tubu-
lar bowsprit, which could be topped up by means
of a massive brass hinge, fitted on the stemhead,
weighing 251 cwt. Since the ship has been lying
at Portsmouth, however, this complicated affair has
been taken out of her, and she is now fitted with a
running bowsprit, simple and light in character,
and that can be run in and laid along the vessel's
deck with the greatest ease at any time it may be
wished todash the ship's "beak" into the broadside of
an enemy. The engines are 7ft. below the ship's esti-
mated water line, as shown in the drawings, and
occupy a space of 27ft. longitudinally. They are
on Messrs. Napier's horizontal trunk air-pump
principle of 800 horse-power, nominal, and are mar-
vels of engineering work and beauty in casting.
The cylinders have a diameter of 82 inches, and the
pistons a stroke of 4ft. The boilers are six in num-
ber, three on each side the stoke hole ; each boiler
having four fires, or 24 in all. The arrangement of
the boilers in the Hector is precisely the same as in
others of her Majesty's ships,—the fires face each
other, and the stokers work in a kind of irce tuneel
some 10ft. or 12ft. in diameter, with burning fur-
naces on each side, and all but literally roasted
alive. Some clay this may be remedied by simply
placing the boilers back to back, when the fires
would then face the coal bunkers, and save the cost
and trouble of transporting, as is now the case, the
coals from the bunkers to the different furnaces in
the stokehole and for the accomplishment of which
an overhead railroad has to be fitted to transport the
coal bags,—in the Hector, as shown by foregoing
figure?, weighing in the aggregate five tons,
The difference of temperature, and comfort to
the men in their work and improvement in
its healthfulness, would, under the proposed
alteration in the position of the bonus, be
almost beyond belief. The means existing on board
for assisting in the ventilation of the stokehole is a
fan wrought by a 40-horse power auxiliary engine,
which is also used for general ventilating purposes,
clearing the main deck of smoke when in action
with an enemy, and supplying the blast to the
cupola furnace, and supplies the liquid iron for hol-
low shot. The pumps on boards consist of Down-
ton's patent, from 9 to 12 inches in diameter, worked
by cranks on which upwards of 100 men can be
employed at one time. In the formation of the or-
dinary iron hull, the Hector is very similar to the
Black Prince and the Warrior; her frame, floor,
bulkheads, outside planking, &c., being nearly of
the same dimensions with those two ships through-
out. Like our other iron ships, she has no external
keel, it being built up internally at about 3ft. in
depth, and with the longtitudinal gieders and floors
form sections of cells which are plated internally
and externally, and thus bind together the bottom
and frame of the ship. The topsides are built of
10-inch- angle iron frames, with tin. plates, over
which are two layers of teak, the outer layer being
Bin. thick and fixed perpendicularly, the inner
layer being 10in, thick and fired longitudinally,
and thus next the ship's inner skin. On the teak
cushioning rest the armour-plates, 41in. in thick-
nees on the broadsides, and tapering round the e t
oe
umr
and stern. So far the ship is very sihala.r
o but
other iron-armoured ships afloat and building,.
ith her sister
in the disposition of her armour she, vr
For a
vessel, the Valiant, differs from all others.
_ector carries
1
length of 220 out of her 280 feet _ the Hector
her armour-plating from the
sed low-water
deck down to 5 feet belovnher e
line, and continues a band of estimate
of her upper
plating 9 feet in
width round the stem and stern,i
thus
nclosing
the gun deck with armour fixed externally on the
about 30 feet on each how
ship, but leaving
the
lower
edge of the gun-deck
and quarter tomf
A below thewater
line unpro-
armour band an-
et this weakness or apparent
tected. To ale weak-
of the ship are strengthened
DeSS, the endsby a mass
of bulkheads
perpendicular and transverse, rising
m
the under part of the ma •
as high as deck. Her
armour-plate bulkheads, which in the Warrior and
other iron ships in commission extend across the
deck and confine the fighting portion •
gun
in close action to a rectangular box, rise only to a
level with the under part of the gun deck from the
orlop deck. One of these
she carries athwartships at
each end of the 2201 t. of l •
p ating which protects the
ship below the water line, and would thus arrest
any shot or shell ' in or abaft the
coming from before
the broad belt or armour. It is a question, however,
whether the armour plates on these transverse bulk-
heads would not be more seneiblY used up in plat-
ing the unprotected portions of the bow and stern.
As the Hector is built to act as a ram when engag-
ingherself a strong
au enemy of less speed than
'for
bulkhead is built up across her. i
castle and just inside her stern, and
inch armour plates, intended
deck being raked
running 1
ship are coal to
plated with di
prevent her upper
e's broadside when
by the enemy • The decks of the
Lawn upon hrr stem .
posed of 6-inch oak planking, laid on
, the whole supported on 12-
4--in. rolled iron reams' the
anis The height between
in. and 15-in.rollediron e ..
is 7-1-ft. in the clear. There
the gun deck 2
decks on
comp
in the ship's bet
are nine Water-tight co
has also the usual wing passages,
tom, and she
divided by bulkheads, running fore
and att at the
back of the armour plating and its teak backing.
The ship's maindeck is open thrOughout its entire
leugth. The port levies are left. t,prt, 3it, Sin. deep,