The Sun.
London, England, 1862-03-31 00:00:00

THE ARMY.

The experiments which have been for some time
in progress at Chatham, by direction of the Dake
of Cambridge, for testing the newly invented lime-
light telegraphic night signals, the invention of
apt. Bolton, 12th Regiment, by means of which
messages of every description can be transmitted
-with the greatest rapidity end correctness a distance
of 60 miles, have just been brought to a close. The
final official trial took place in the presence of
Major-General Eyre, commanding the forces in the
district, and about 50 officers of the garrison. The
object of the final experiments was to enable the
military authorities to ascertain the advantages of
the invention in transmitting messages to the dif-
ferent portions of an army when in active opera-
tions in the field, in order that a special report
might be made on the subject. With the view of
putting the invention to a test similar to that which
would be required in a campaign detachments of
troops were despatched from Chatham to distant
parts of the surrounding districts, to each of which
3ignals were to be forwarded. One party of sig-
nalists occupied an eminence, about mid-distance
between Chatham amd Gravesend, a second took up
'their position on the highest point of the range of
hills at Aylesford, a short distance from Maid-
stone. Other parties were stationed at Sheer-
'Bess, Upchurch, and other stations. The whole
formed a circle the diameter of which was about
fifteen miles, with Chatham as the centre.
ach party was furnished with one of the lan-
terns, together with the small portable apparatus,
also the invention of Capt. Bolton, for generating
the oxygen and hydrogen gases by which the lime
light is produced. The plan of operations supposed
an attacking force to be concentrated near the banks
of the Medway, between Chatham and Rainham,
the strength of position of which being known it
would be desirable to transmit intelligence of the
circumstance to distant places, in order that the
'necessary reinforcements might be immediately
despatched to the scene of action. By direction of
General Eyre, various descriptions of messages were
despatched by Capt. Bolton, and the party under
his order to the various stations, all of which were
correctly recorded and instantaneously replied to.
Unfortunately, the weather was thick and hazy, but
this did not prevent the lime light signals from
"being distinctly visible, the brilliant flashes pene-
trating the thick atmosphere even at the distance
of 15 miles, while most of the surrounding objects
were hid in the mist. The men employed in work-
ing the signals had been selected from the troops of
the garrison who have been placed under the in-
struction of Capt. Bolton, and they were found to
despatch and record the various messages with the
greatest facility. After a trial, which occupied
about two hours, Capt. Bolton exhibited the use to
%which the lime light could be put in lighting up
the works of a garrison in order to ascertain the
strength of position of an attacking party at night,
and also to enable storming parties to attack a for-
tilled position under the cover of the darkness. By
a n'oll;ficatiou of his lanterns Capt. Bolton was
enabled to produce a light which for a distance of
300 var..
" was equal to strong moonlight, enabling
every Ist
°"Ject within that limit to be clearly dis-
cernible. The final trial was pronounced to be
exceedingly satia
factory, and a highly favourable
report of the
will, it is understood, be
trans
Th iefmitted to his Royal Highness the Commander-
in-f .
Private Stone, of the
Ist battalion, 6th Foot, has
been sentenced to
four yearn' pe_nal servitude, in
accordance with the
staba recent court-
martial, for having attempted
tof
sioned officer with his
s, being
guilty of other gross acts of insubordi
I?avotet, bnon-eo.m.
nation.
Col. Alexander Anderson,
commandau of the
Portsmouth division of IZuyal 'MarineLight Inc
fantry, is promoted to the rank of major-ge,„„al
the active list of general otfieers, in place or .1T
Nor_
Gen. Wesley, retired, late D. ut Adjut.-Geueral
„ .
Royal Marines.

Notwithstanding the advanced progress of the
arran,,,,,,ments in the tn a.nnElchring departments of
Woolwich Ars'nal for the specimens of workman-
ship prepared for the Industrial Exhibition, an
order from the. War Department was received on
Saturday cancelling thepermission formerly-granted,
and intimating to the heads of offices that the Royal
Arsenal_ will take no share in the Exhibition. The
disappointment which the announcement occasion cd
th
.cmcfilcut the establishment was intense, as
ctlicer3a„,d
men have laboured and exerted them-
aelvte-
and day in cheerful and incessant

Mr. E. J. REED said that as the Admiralty were
always deterred, by official considerations, from re-
plying to such remarks as those of Capt. Halsted, he
would venture to submit an observation or two by
way of rejoinder to the gallant officer's statements,
not because he could presume to be in any sense the
representative of the Admiralty or their designers,
but because he was intimately acquainted with the
circumstances that led to the Warrior's design. He
would say at once that he thought the kind of criti-
cism in which Capt. Halsted indulged was most un-
fair, for, while he pointed out strongly the admitted
imperfections of the vessel, he omitted altogether to
mention those facts and circumstances to which,
from the very nature of the case, the designers were
subjected. In order to show how one-sided the
statements of the gallant officer were he would refer
to the question of partial protection. On hearing
Captain Halsted's statements any one would suppose
that the Admiralty could have plated the entire
length of the Warrior just as easily as a portion of
it, and without encountering any new difficulties.
Yet what were the facts ? Every shipbuilder knew,
and Captain Halsted ought to know, that it was
impossible to plate the Warrior throughout without
greatly increasing her size or greatly reducing her
speed ; and beside this there was another considera-
tion which a seaman should especially consider. He
(Mr. Reed) might state that the Warrior had one
important defect. Owing to her great length and
fineness of form she did not lift readily to a sea, and
consequently in rough weather if she steamed head
to it she ran the risk of carrying away her bowsprit
and head gear, on which account her bowsprit, as
announced in The Sun, was about to be shortened.
But how would it have been with her if she had
been plated, as Captain Halsted wished, from end
to end ? Evidently this defect would have been
increased tenfold, for her fine ends would then have
been encumbered with several hundreds of tons of
additional iron. In fact, there was very great rea-
son to fear that the Minotaur and her sister ships,
which were to be so plated, would pitch tremen-
dously in a seaway, and probably be unable to carry
any head sail at all. As to the sloping armour, he
protested against the experiments which Captain
Halsted had mentioned being taken as in any way
satisfactory. No experiments on this subject were
of value, as Sir John Hay had stated on a previous
day, unless the weights of the upright and sloping
iron were the same. In order to compare blin.
upright iron fairly with iron at a slope the latter
ought to be less than 4in. thick, even when inclined
at 45 deg., but Capt. Halsted's was inclined at 50
deg., and was increased in thickness to 41in., so that
a doubly unfair advantage was given to it. We
were bound to accept the statement of the Govern-
ment Iron Plate Committee, who said that when
the two were fairly compared the inclined plate had
no superiority whatever to the upright. It was at
the same time manifest that a thin sloping plate
might always be pierced by depressed fire. In con-
clusion, he recommended Captain Halsted and
other critical gentlemen to abandon the vague ge-
neralities in which they indulged, and to design if
they could a better ship than the Warrior. It was
in the highest degree unjust that the Admiralty
constructors should be exposed to the extravagant
hostility of persons who were wholly incapable of
improving upon their work, and who fell foul of im-
perfections which were absolutely unavoidable.
With respect to Captain Coles' shield-ship, he would
add that tho Admiralty designers had taken great
pains to produce as good a vessel as possible, in ac-
cordance with the inventor's views, and this, he was
sure, Captain Coles would acknowledge. At the
same time, they had, after all, been unable to adopt
all the proposals of that officer, owing to considera-
tions which the naval architect was bound to regard,
but which other people often found it' extremely
convenient to ignore. He (Mr. Reed) had no doubt
whatever that if' Captain Halsted would submit the
design of an iron-cased ship which should embody
all kinds!of excellences and no defects, the Right
Hon. President and the Council of the Institution,
no less than himself (the secretary), would receive it
with delight, and use their best efforts to get it
adopted.

Captain HALSTED submitted that Mr. Reed was
not justified in imputing unfairness to him as he had
done.

Mr. REED explained that he imputed no bad in-
tentions to Capt. Ilalstead—far from that; but he
maintairied that the gallant officer's criticism was
prejudiced and unjust.

Mr. SCOTT RUSSELL rose to speak briefly upon
the two questions—viz., the use of inclined armour
and the partial protection of the ships. He thought
it could not be doubted that sloping plates would
resist round shot better than upright plates; but
the use or rifled shot bad raised great doubts con-
' che2raniting the value of the inclined principle, for he
in a meonataneh "est
punch the Sloping plate through
all deflectesedtr.aordinary manlier without being at

Cc t. BALsTED--*V
frontcd shot P 4a not the rifled shot a fiat-
•

Mr. SCOTT RussELL__,,r_
shot, which astonished Li 7; n spherical fronted
wc-mld,allow him (Mr. Russen)nt the more. Thoy
v he had
been for the last 15 years an
4,l_veeattsthat of sloping

Mr. SCOTT RUSSELL—" Then I have not seen
what I have seen." He (Mr. Russell) would only
add that we may use inclined plates, if we please,
where we want them; but if we do we must have
them as thick as if they were upright, because, as
Mr. Reed had just said, they could otherwise be
penetrated by depressed fire. We ought at present,
he believed, to use nothing less than 4-lin. iron,
whether it be upright or inclined. As to the use of
partial protection there was no difference of opinion
among practical men. Complete protection was cer-
' tainly desirable ; but if the Warrior had been plated
from end to end she would have rolled fearfully,
and would have pitched many of her bow ports
under the water. Again, if complete protection had
been given to her, as to La Gloire, her ports would
have gone down to within six feet instead of nine
feet of the water. You could of course get additional
armour by such a change as that; and nobody
knew that fact better than the designer of the
Warrior ; but they had to make a choice of disad-
vantages, and prepared a fast, seaworthy ship,
with lofty ports, to a low, and slower, and un-
seaworthy ship. If wholly protected ships must
be had, there was no difficulty in building
them, but they must take certain bad qualities
with them, and must be prepared to pay the oost.
At the same time it should be remembered that in
the case of the Warrior the fighting quarters were
within the armour, and naval men informed him
that when the ship was to be fought at close quar-
ters the men would be within the shelter of the
armour. The constructors of the Warrior, whether
or no, had no choice, nor had they any now, when
a fleet of small protected vessels must be built, and
to which complete protection could not be given.
Sir JOHN PAKINOTON said the question which
has been raised is one of extreme interest, for it
touches alike our feelings and our pockets, and,
after what has fallen from Captain Halsted, I will
venture to offer a few remarks upon the subject. It
may be presumptuous, perhaps, in me to do so, be-
cause I am conscious that I am speaking in the
presence of a large assembly, composed principally
of professional men, who are either naval architects
or sailors. But there may be present some persons
who are neither the one nor the other, and I, for
one, as an English gentleman, must say that unless
Capt. Halsted is prepared to completely bear out
all he has said I should be extremely sorrow for his
statements to go forth to the public as true. On the
other hand, I feel that, on this subject as on others,
we must not shrink from the truth, and if mistakes
have been made the wisest policy will be to admit
them, and endeavour hereafter to correct them. The
importance of the subject cannot be over-estimated.
I have heard the remarks of Capt. Halsted with
pleasure, and think he was right to avail himself of
such an opportunity as this to state the views
which he entertains; and we must all admit the
value of any opinion formed by an officer of such
experience. I confess I was particularly desirous
of hearing his views, because, although this is the
first occasion on which I have had the pleasure
of listening to them, I have heard a good deal of
them in various quarters. In fact, if I may imitate
the plainness of speech of which Captain Halsted
has himself set us the example, I may say that I
have been told that it is a favourite amusement of
my hon. and gallant friend to go about the-eountry
and make out, as regards the Warrior and other
ships of her class, that not only have great mistakes
been made, but that those ships are absolutely
good for nothing. We have, indeed, heard Captain
Halsted to-day assert that the Warrior, although
a large and carefully-designed ships of 6,000 tons,
is no man-of-war; that she cannot be regarded as a
fighting ship. Now, there is a tendency in human
nature, from which even British naval officers are
not necessarily exempt, and in consequence of which
a man who has mounted his hobby is apt to ride it
a little too hard; and I confess that I feel great
sympathy for Captain Halsted, for if ever a hobby
was ridden to death, that of my hon. and gallant
friend on my left certainly has been. Upon one
question there can be no doubt whatever. If we
were to meet a man of ordinary understanding and
say to him, " Give me your opinion ; we.are going
to build some large ships and cover them more or
less with iron armour; do you think they would be
better protected altogether or only in part ?" He
would unquestionably reply, "Of course, protect
them altogether." No doubt of it. But we must
recollect that even now we are only in the infancy
of this great change in marine architecture, and
three or four years ago were much more so, and
there are, therefore, a great many questions to be
well considered; and, above all, there are two
things to be especially attended to. Shall I not be
corect if I say that in constructing a man-of.
war it is most important to combine in these
days great speed with good sea-going qualities ?
I speak under correction of those ss ho may be
more entitled than I to pronounce an opinion upon
this subject, but I am persuaded that you will all
agree with me in believing that speed and sailing
qualities are in these dayi primarily essential. Now,
the Warrior and other vessels of that class were
designed with the express intention of securing
these two great qualities, even at the expense of
total protection. It was the desire of the Admi-
ralty in trying that experiment that these ships
should not be mere floating batteries, but fit to en-
counter the worst seas, and to go to India, America,
or wherever the exigencies of the country might
render their presence desirable, and I firmly believe
I am justified in saying that the Warrior class has
attained this great end. lam also justified, I be-
lieve, in asserting that the Warrior is the very
fastest man-of-war in the world. May not this be
regarded as a great fact accomplished ?
Captain HALSTED—I never disputed the speed of
the Warrior, and no one admires her form more
than I have done.

Sir JOHN PAKINGTON—Then that portion of my
hon. and gallant friend's hobby is cut away. He
admits her unrivalled speed ; and, after what hap-
pened in the Bay of Biscay the other day, I believe
if there ever was a great fact placed beyond con-
tradiction it is this, that under an unusually severe
trial—so severe a trial that Captain Cochrane con-
sidered himself peculiarly fortunate in having en-
countered weather so bad—the excellent properties
of the Warrior in a sea-way have been fully estab •
lished. Thus is another portion of Captain Hal-
sted's hobby gone. We now come to, perhaps, the
most important point of all. The speed and sea-
worthy qualities of the ship having been esta-
blished, Captain Halsted assorts that the Warrior
is not fit to go into action, because she is only
partially protected ; that, having at her extre-
mities only a thin iron skin, Unprotected by ar-
mour plates, she might be readily shot through
and the water might rush in. Bat I wish to ask
this question—if she be shot through at her extre-
mities, what will happen ? I presume with regard
to the portion of her armament which is in her un-
protected part, that these guns will, or will not, be
used in action according to circumstances, and I
presume this, not as a matter of naval tactics, but as
a matter of common sense. So far, then, the system
does not necessarily expose the gunners to that de-
struction which has been spoken of. Further, if
the ship should, nevertheless, be penetrated at the
water-line, as she might be, and as the Defence
was at Spithead, she will snstain, I believe, no great
harm. I here again speak under correction, but I
believe I am right in saying that below the water-
line she has a water-tight deck, to prevent the
water from rushing below, and she has also water-
tight bulkheads, to prevent it from flowing to the
pthwaotaeldouhlde
hc eanptpreen oftt
htehree
fos
rhei,p.woullhdebewtolrisatt tthheinsghi
brought down a few inches in the water—at most,
perhaps, about:lB inchea or 2 feet ; and this would
be a far less eril than would happen to any ordinary
man-of-war wounded in the same way. Captain
Halsted has further stated that the steering gear of-1

the Warrior might be destroyed by a shot. That
may happen, but I apprehend the steering gear of
a wooden man-of-war is likewise liable to such a
casualty, and I should hope that the circumstances
would be such that when the action was over it might
be put right again. If I have stated my views in
accordance with facts, then I think I have a right
to say that it is desirable that an officer of Captain
Halsted's reputation in naval affairs should not
adopt a false judgment upon this question, and pro-
mulgate exaggerated statements with regard to such
a ship as the Warrior. If lam justified in the remarks
I have made, you will not allow yourselves to share
an opinion which, with the greatest respect for Capt.
Halsted, I believe to be a most exaggerated one—
viz., that ships built like the Warrior are not fit to
be classed as men-of-war. For my part, I believe
her to be a most efficient and valuable war
ship. It has been said by a gentleman present
that the French iron coated ships are coated with
armour all round, and that they are a great suc-
cess. (A Voice—" A comparative success; they
would not be fit to encounter the gale which the
Warrior weathered, and were not built for the pur-
pose.") I should like to know, then, for what pur-
pose they were built. Is it right to say in one
breauh that these ships are a success, and then that
they, are unfit to encounter the sea P With all due
submission, I doubt whether their success has been
established. I speak under correction, but, as far
as I am aware, none of the French ships has been
tried except La Gloire. L'lnvincible has been
launched, but I have never heard of her having
been tried. (A Voice—" She is now making her
first trials.") Very good. lam right in saying,
therefore, that La Gloire only has yet been tried,
Now, it is quite certain that La Gloire and her
sister ships are inferior to the Warrior in speed, and
my belief is—and in this Captain Halsted will go
with me—that had La Gloire encountered the gale
which the Warrior wont through in the Bay of
Biscay, she would not have weathered it. I very
Much doubt whether any ship of the Gloire type,
cased with heavy armour throughout upon a com-
paratively weakly hull, would have such a gale as
that. We must bear in mind this very important
fact in connection with the French iron-plated
ships—viz., that out of the 16 which they have
built, or are building, only two are iron ships ; all
the rest are of wood; and, if I am corre3tly in-
formed, instead of La Gloire being a valuable sea-
going ship like the Warrior, she was so much
strained by the weight of 'her armour in the little
weather met with in the Mediterranean, it is impos-
sible to pronounce her a nautical success.
After resuming his seat, Sir JOUN PAKINGTON
rose again, and stated that the Secretary had that
moment placed in his hand a statement written by
one of the gentlemen who assisted in designing the
Warrior, and who is a member of the institution,
to which statement he was sure they would all
gladly listen. It was as follows :—" In the un-
protected portions of the Warrior there is a water
tight deck Bft. below the load water-line. Between
the stem and the foremost armour bulkhead there
are four transverse bulkheads subdividing the spaces
above and below the watertight deck. There is
also a fore-and-aft water-tight bulkhead running
through the foremost two of these divisions. So
that between the stein and the foremost armour
bulkhead the space below the water -line and above
the
,watertight deck is divided into seven compart-
ments, the largest of which will not hold more than
138 tons of water, and the whole of them together,
supposing them all bilged, 400 tons. The corres-
ponding space aft is divide into four compartments,
the largest of which will hold 278 tons, and the
whole of them together 670 tons. If, therefore, the
unprotected parts of the ship were riddled at both
ends, by shot striking in the neighbourhood of the
water-line, or for Bft. below it, only 1,070 tons
would be lost from the buoyancy of the ship, and
she would sink only 26 in. below her present load
water-line."