The Sun.
London, England, 1863-08-06 00:00:00

Naval and Military Intelligence.

THE NAVY.

The Lords of the Admiralty at present at Ports-
mouth, comprising the Dake of Somerset, K.G., Sir
F. Grey, K.C.13„ Rear-Admirals Eden and Paget,
and Capt. Drummond,. landed at the new landing
stairs of Portsmouth dockyard from the Admiralty
yacht Enchantress at 10 a.m. yesterday, where they
were joined by Rear-Admiral S. Robinson, Control-
ler of the Navy, and Cql. Greene, R.E., Director of
Works, Mr. Manahan, Superintending Inspector of
the dockyard metropolitan police, and other officials.
Immediately after landing, the Board, with the ex-
ception of the Controller, who remained behind in
the dockyard, entered carriages in waiting, and pro-
ceeded to Fort Cumberland to inspect the Royal
Marine Artillery stationed there, and to the new
barracks at Eastney, about a mile distant from Fort
Cumberland, and midway between Fort Cumberland
and Southsea Castle, to inspect the extensive range
of barracks which is now in process of erection as
the head-quarters of the Royal Marine Artillery.
The icspection at Fort Cumberland was conducted
in the usual manner, and the appearance of the men
on parade and in the batteries, as well as the pro-
ficiency displayed by them in the details of their
various duties, met with the highest praise. In
their visit to the new barracks at Eastney the ge-
neral plan, and progress of the works were explained
to their Lords by Col. Greene, R.E., and Mr.
Woods, C.E., Superintending Civil Engineer of
Portsmouth dockyard and the adjacent district.
£68,000 was the original total estimate for this
work, £B,OOO being for the purchase of land, and
the remaining £60,000 for building the barrack.
£47,000 was voted for the work previous to the
passing of the Naval Estimates for 1863.4, and
on the introduction of those estimates an ad-
ditional £20,000 was asked for and passed.
Revised Estimates are promised in the Naval
Estimates for 1864-5 relative to this work, when no
doubt the original total estimate of £69,090 will be
found insufficient for the due completion of the
whole, and an additional sum asked. That portion
of the barracks designed for the married men's
quarters is nearly completed, no accommodation of
the kind existing in the present headquarters of the
corps at Fort Cumberland.
At about 1 p.m. their lordships returned to Ports-
mouth and embarked on board the Enchantress for
luncheon, after which they crossed to Gosport and
inspected the Royal Marine Light Infantry at For-
ton and the gunboat sheds and slipway at Hasler.
Under the sheds at Haslar are five gunboats build-
ing on an improved model. In tee same place are
42 of the old class, which have cost thousands of
pounds in repair to their hulls, which are now more
than suspected of being rotten from stem to stern.
In the evening the Duke of Somerset and other
Lords of the Admiralty, with the Controller of the
Navy and other officers, were entertained at dinner
at the Admiralty-house by Vice-Admiral Sir M.
Seymour, G.C.8., and afterwards patrcnised the
ball in aid of the funds of the Seamen's and Ma-
rines' Orphan Schools, at the King's Rooms, South-
sea.

The inspection of the dockyard by the Board will
take place this morning. Yesterday Rear-Admiral
Robinson visited the Orontes, screw troopship, the
Hector, iron frigate, and the Racoon, corvette.
His Royal Highness Prince Alfred arrived at
Portsmouth yesterday in her Majesty's steam yacht
Fairy, accompanied by Major Cowell, R.E. His
Royal Highness, who wore his uniform and sword
as a lieutenant in her Majesty's navy, had arrived
from Osborne expressly to attend the funeral of a
seaman-gunner late belonging to the Racoon (the
Prince's ship), named William Keyer, aged 22
years, who was killed by falling from the foretop
of the Racoon on the 31st of July. On his return
from the funeral the Prince immediately re•embarked
on board the Fairy, and returned to Osborne.
On the Fairy's first arriving in the harbour from
Osborne the Prince went on board the Enchantress,
and paid his respects to the Lords of the Admiralty.
Some very interesting testing of English and
French manufactured armour-plates took place at
Portsmouth on Tuesday and Wednesday last, under
the superintendence of Capt. Astley C. Key, C. 8.,
commanding her Majesty's gunnery ship Excellent,
the practice againit the plates being carried on in
the usual manner, with a solid castiron shot, fired
with 161 b of powder from a 95cwt apounder, at
200 yards distance, the plates being bolted on the
sides of the Thunder target-ship. The plates were
four in number, and comprised two manufactured
by Messrs. Petin Gaudet and Co., of France ; one
of skin thickness of metal, 16ft 7in in length, and
3ft 4in in breadth, and the other of 41in of metal,
and of the same length and breadth as the 41in
plate. The third plate was a 51in, from the Mill-
wall Iron Works, for the Agincourt, 15ft 7in in
length, and 3ft st-in in breadth ; and the fourth was
a 51in bent plate for the Royal Sovereign's turrets,
from Messrs. Beale's, of the Parkgate Works, York.
shire. Messrs. Beale's plate, the Millwall, and the
French 4in were tested on Tuesday, the French
Sin being. reserved for trial on the following day.
The Millwall plate received 11 shots, and was very
severely tried by overlapping shots at either end,
but stood the test splendidly, and was considered a
plate of very superior quality. The small cracks
exhibited by the overlapping shot blows were vary
insignificant, The metal of which the plate was
built was evidently of very good quality, and
its manufacture was excellent. Messrs, Beale's
plate was not quite so good. It showed a
number of sm%ll cracks and an inclination to open
from the back—in fact the weakness generally ex-
hibited by " bent" plates, whether bent from the
rolls or by an after process. Still, it was anything
but an inferior plate. Messrs. Petin Gaudet's 41in.
turned out, as had been anticipated, from its evi-
dent carelessness of manufacture, very unsatisfac-
tory indeed, and failed in ail the conditions of con-
tract as relating to its shot-resisting powers. The
metal was allowed to be good, but its manufacture
was execrable. When examined at the close of the
firing, its welding was found ito be most imperfect.
It had the appearance of being a rolled plate, and
rolled 4in. plates are generallyfinished by placing
four 21in. layers of iron, carefully cleared from all
dirt or oxyde, together, and then rolling the 10in.
mass down to the required 41-in. The separation of
these four layers in the French plate disclosed the
fact that no care had been taken in cleaning the
surfaces of the four layers of iron, and consequently
Perfect
Compared adhesion
under the rolls was simply impos-
Admir,at mpared with the 41in. plate supplied to
onTeeeday, Petin Gaudet and Co., the one tested
Tileadit, is, of avastly inferior character. The result
in the folloYwll trials placed the three plates tested
for Agineenrituguorder ;—No. 1, Millwall Company,
reign, siin._ ~,,021n.; No. 2, Beale, for Royal Bove-
fulllale410;3 Messrs. Petin Gaudet and Co.,
lin.,
extra inch being made in this classifica-
tion for the
in all
plates. No. 3 reeeilieli in metal in Nos. 1 and 2
distributed, three bein 15 shots, pretty well
spots overlapping, No ledte blows, and in two
an indent of 2 1-10 In., and ad a diameter of 9in.,
a
indent. No. 2 had an indenteraf lc bin. across the
of
Sin. long. No. 3 and 7 jut 2in- and a crack
impinged in
cir-
cumference of their indents upon the
each other,
opened cracks 12in. and bin. long,
No. 5 and
over-
lapped No. 2 4in., and drove the_tured part in a circular form within
frac.
dents into the ship's side 4 6.10 in the in.
•, or beyond
the plate's back. No. 10 overlapped upon
2 and 5 (the last mentioned), and -"n
broke
the plate further into the ship's side, the area of
the fracture being 16in. by 10in., measuring from
centre of each blow, in a triangular form, 91n, at
the base by
.oin. each way. No. 13 was also attended
with bad results for the plate's reputation, the shot
striking full on the plate in its centre, near its upper
edge, and breaking the metal away considerably to
the upper edge. Messrs. Petin Gaudet's siin. plate
yesterday was tested slowly and carefully, and
mh manner
came out of the trial in a most trio
*eh placp ed ant it on full
ill
—in a manner, in fact, w
terms of equality with the Millwall plate tried the
day previous. It received 17 shots in all. The
laminations showed the same faulty welding that
the 4fin. of the previous day exhibited • and the
success of the plate was undoubtedly owing to the
superior quality of the iron, and not to its manu-
facture. The trial of these French plates again
prove that the production of a good armour-plate is