The Sun.
London, England, 1862-09-26 00:00:00

711. E NAVY.

Admiralty orders were yesterday received at
Chatham, directing the Barrosa, 21, 1,700 tons,
09 horse power, and the Eclipse, 4, 200 horse
power, to be immediately fitted for commission.
The liarrosa is to have a complement of 275 officers
and men, and the Eclipse a crew of 90 men,
both including Royal Marines and Marine Artil-
lery. Both vessels aro attached to the first-class
steam reserve in the Medway, and are in such an
advanced state that they can be made ready for sea
in the course of a few days. They will receive
thei crews from the Coastguard ships at the various
ports.

The line-of-battle steamer Trafalgar, 86, 500-
horse power, having been lightened by the removal
of her large guns, which have been forwarded to
Chatham, and her other heavy stores, has been
placed in No, 3 dock at Sheerness, to have her hull
examined and her defects made good.
Her Majesty's troopship Adventure, Commander
Lethbridge, from North America, was yesterday
docked at Woolwich to be surveyed by the ship-
wright department of the dockyard. On account
of the accumulation of mud and sewage at the
month of the dock the operation was rendered diffi-
cult and somewhat dangerous. By means of a
powerful application of the capstans, however, the
vessel was at length hauled into the dock (which is
in course of being lengthened to receive the Cale-
donia), the head of which was removed for the re-
ception of the Adventure when fitted out for her
present commission. She has been replenished with
50 tons of coarand has received a supply of water
in readiness to proceed to Portsmouth for repairs,
which it is expected will occupy upwards of two
months. On the clearing out of the dock it was
discovered that the angle of her stem had been
knocked away and several of her plates had been
Place, the result of her
turned and torn out of
striking on the rock in the Bay of Fundy. Her
commission, it appears, has been extremely unfor-
tunate. In addition to the accident in the Bay of
Fundy she met with a double collision on entering
the port of St. John's, Newfoundland, and struck a
ship named the Dauntless, cutting her down to the
water's edge. She also carried away the jibboom
of the brigantine Adeline. A Trinity Board, it is
stated, assembled at Newfoundland, investigated
the case, and forwarded their report to the Admi-
ralty, awarded the expenses to the owners of the
damaged vessels in both instances.
The following appointments were made yesterday
at the Admiralty:—Lieut. John R. T. Fullerton, to
the Defence ; Lieut. H. J. Coddington and Lieut.
W. F. Boughey, to the Eclipse ; Lieut. Bernard
Moore, to the Barrow; Lieut. Francis J. Pitt, to
the Perseus; V. L. Cameron, midshipman, to the
Defence, as supernumerary; G. G. Crompton, naval
cadet, to the Barrosa ; Anson Schomberg, naval
cadet, to the Galatea, as supernumerary; W. H. Wors-
fold, confirmed as second master in the Victory, as
supernumerary; H. M. Dearsley and H. W. Cam-
pion, masters' assistants, to the Barrosa ; R. W.
Meiklejohn, in the Euryalus, promoted to the rank
of first-class assist.-engineer, and C. Lawrence,
second-class assist-engineer, to the Defence.

Whit wortl experiments were over, this huge and
most unwieldy piece of ordnance (its weigLt is no
less than 24 tons) was tried at the same mark, but,
as will be seen, with very different and most un-
satisfactory results.
The target aimed at on this occasio was, as we
have said, a built-up section representing the War-
rior's side, It was not, however, the original old
Warrior target, which during the course of the last
12 months has been so constantly and unmercifully
battered that it has at last been withdrawn from
active service. It was a new target, specially made
for these experiments, 21 feet long by 15 high, con-
structed on the same principle as the old one—
namely, with 41 inch iron plates, 18 inches of teak
beams laid transversely, and an inner skin of iron
Iths of an inch thick, supported by massive up-
right angle irons, at intervals of 18 inches apart.
It is but fair, however, to state that the 4l inch
armour-plates which covered the powerful combi-
nation of teak and iron were not manufactured by
the Thames Iron Company, and were undoubtedly
inferior in powers of resistance to the splendid
plate with which the first Warrior target was
coated by that company. Some few shots were
also fired from the Whitworth with low charges,
at a wooden target, to get the range, though even
these were not without interest, as illustrating
the wonderful precision with which it threw
its projectiles. The last experimental shot
was fired witkr, a charge of 231 b. of powder and
a solid hexagonal shot weighing 1291 b., the piece
being laid at half a degree of elevation. It struck
the left centre of the target within an inch almost
of the white spot at which it was aimed, and at the
instant of the tremendous concussion of the metals
a bright sheet of flame was emitted, almost as if a
gun had been fired from the target in reply. This
shot passed:completely through the armour plate,
shatteriag the teak beyond into minute splinters,
and fell full upon one of the massive vertical angle
lines we have mentioned, which it tore in half as if
it had been paper, sending its screw bolts and rivets
in all directions. The shot, however, did not pass
through the target, but remained buried in the teak
with its flat head resting against the broken angle
iron. But the fracture it made was much worse
than a mere penetration. It was a smash, not a
hole, and the inner skin of the ship was bulged and
torn wide in many places, so that in the case of an
actual vessel such a shot striking on the water line
would have made a leak which nothing could have
stopped. As regarded the effect of these flat-fronted
shot on iron ships, the experiment was conclusive.
Such a missile against a wooden ship would have
gone through both sides, making a clean hole and
doing little damage, but the iron, without protect-
ing, offered only sufficient resistance to make the
fracture, if below the water-line, an irremediable
mischief. The next experiment was with a live
shell, loaded with 31b. Boz. of powder. The total
weight of this projectile was 1311 b., and it was
fired at the same range and elevation with a 251 b.
charge of powder. The effect of this shot astounded
every one. The previous solid shot, at 600 yards,
was for Whitworth nothing very extraordinary,
but to get a shell through the target at the same
range was regarded as almost an impossibility. Yet
the shell went completely through everything,
bursting apparently when it encountered the last
resistance of the inner skin, which the explosion
blew completely away, lighting for a moment the
timbers at the back which supported the target,
and sending the bits of shell onward and over what,
had it been the Warrior, would have been her
maindeck, and, therefore, right in the midst of her
crew.