The Sun.
London, England, 1866-06-28 00:00:00

SPORTING INTELLIGENCE—This Day

NEWCASTLE RACES-THIS DAY.
AXWELL PARK STAKES.

El Cid .

Missile
2
Louisa 3
Lady Middleton, Ward in Chancery, and Rhymer
also ran. Betting-5 to 4 agst Louisa, 2to 1 agst
El Cid, 5 to 1 others. Won by half a length ;
three lengths between second and third.

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT

HOUSE OF LORDS—THIS EVENING.
Their lordships assembled this evening, but the busi-
ness was solely confined to giving the Royal assent to a
number of public and private bills.

HOUSE OF COMMONS--Tars EVENING.
The Srv.Axvn took the chair at four o'clock.
There was a pretty full attendance, and previous to- the
commencement of public business, the various members
formed themselves into separate groups —the subject, it is
presumed, under discussion being the state of the Govern-
ment.
IBLACKWATER (YOUGHAL) WOODEN BRIDGE

- BILL.
On the motion for the third reading of this bill,
Mr. CHILDERS, on the part of the Government, said he
had to oppose the motion because the consent of the Crown
to the measure had been refused. He was interested to
the extent of a large sum of money, which had been ad-
vanced, and, therefore, having directed the attention of
the house to the circumstance, he Loped somo notice would
be taken of the matter. The Crown could not appear-and
oppose the bill in a private committee, and therefore he
adopted the present course of calling the attention of the
house to the subject.

The SPEAKER said the consent of the Crown not
having been given to the bill he could not put the third
reading.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

•
The following bills were read a third time and passed :
Scottishßac k wa t er
North( Yo uligahsatle) Wooden
Eastern
nitai
lwayßoriodingpe,anCi
Companies,
e doo,nale'a.n -
anddoni
a ii
JRuaiiiicwtiaoyn(RLaainalwrakys,hFiTrtt-re, c.an
, Bncyhdees),NDavubigalintizllA,uni:litreissra
Railway, North British Railway (Wishaw, &c., Branches),
dracl
Swansea Vale Railway, Tamar, Kit Kill, and Callington
Railway, and Thames Subway.
CHOLERA AT LIVERPOOL.
In reply to Mr. SAlrtEtsoN,
Mr. BRUCE said he bad received private information of
the existence of a nuisance at Liverpool which might re-
sult in an outbreak of cholera. There were certain diffi-
culties in the way with respect to the pow or of the local
authorities, but steps were now being taken to prevent
any evil arising. _

PUBLIC MEETING.
Mr. B. COCHRANE said he had seen an announcement
fora large public meeting in the vicinity of that house, and
what he wished to know was whether it was legal to hold
such a meeting.
Sir G. GREY said he had not seen the announcement
referred to, but it was illegal to hold a meeting, except to
petition Parliament, within a mile of the House of Com-
mons. If the hon. gentleman would forward him a copy
of the announcement, he would inquire into the matter.
THE MINISTERIAL CRISIS.
The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER said on
Monday night he stated that most probably he should have
on Thursday to ask for a further adjournment. He had
had a communication with the Earl of Derby, and in order
that his arrangements might make convenient progress,
ho wished an adjournment of the house for a week. He
therefore had come down to ask the house to adjourn for
that period; but he, however, found that there were cer-
tain arrangements with respect to the Helstone Elec-
tion Committee, and therefore he proposed that' the
house should meet to-morrow and Monday for the transac-
tion of matters relating to the election committoa. After
that had been completed on Monday, he should on that
day ask the house to adjourn until Thursday,
The SPEAKER was about to put the motion, when
Mr. B. OSBORNE said, before the motion was put,
he wished to make a few observations. The position of
the country at the present critical juncture of affairs was
peculiar. A t home, they had a commercial panic, with the
Bank of England charging ten per cent., and a
threatened attack on Canada. Abroad, there was
revolution in Spain, a war in Germany and Italy,
and in the face of all this the country had been left with-
out a responsible Government for eight days. He •con-
demned the conduct of the Government in resigning office,
because they had been beaten merely on a matter of detail.
The Government had thrown up their cards and left the
great Liberal party in the lurch. (Hear, hear, and laugh-
ter.) He felt that the Government had acted decidedly
wrong in resigning office until the feelingof the house had
been tested on the amount of the borough franchise.
(Hear.) He, for one, wanted to know what had become of
It had never been called
had been left in the lurch by its leaders, and now they
ttohgeegthreeart; Liberal
as hehpaadrt sayid(HbeefOrra), the great Liberal party
Tohereer swideereofraathheyhohuilslee
awsetreheaWreusutlts3t of that ttrahantsP°dertesertdit°on.the other
of the utmost importance which he supposed, for the present
session at least they should hear no more of. There was
the Bankruptcy Bill for instance—(hear, hear)—and the
Tenure of and (Ireland) Bill—(hear, hear)—and nume-
rous others, all of which must be sacrificed, because, for-
sooth, the Government chose to waste a whole session upon.
one bill. They were, he believed, about to have a new
Government, composed of gentlemen who were that even-
ing conspicuous by their absence—(hear, hear)—but what-
ever Government they might have he felt bound, as a public
member of that house, however much he might regret the
resignation of the old Government to give it a fair trial, and
lie also felt that it would be his duty for the remainder of
the session to offer no factious opposition. He felt
the majority of the members would agree to
such a course, because at the present peculiar
position of affairs it was of the utmost importance that the
Government, of whatever materials it was composed,
should be firmly supported by the house. (Hear, hear.)
He moved the adjournment of the house.
Colonel KNOX seconded the motion, and said he
wished the right honourable gentleman opposite would
answer the question he put to him ; it was whether
London was to be handed over to mob • law.
Last night London was in a state of siege, and at
the meeting held in Trafalgar-square one of the
speakers asked the assemblage to meet him again on
Monday next in Whitehall, opposite the window where
King Charles was beheaded, in order that they might assert
their just rights. The hon. secretary has just said he
knew nothing of the, meeting held last night, be should
like to know what he knew of the meeting to be held on
Monday next.
Sir G. GREY said the hon. gentleman had misunder-
stood him. He know the meeting was to be held, and
proper steps to prevent a breach of the peace were taken
by his direction.

NEWDEGATE hoped the house would show no
signs of alarm. It was very natural that there should be
a great number of people in Palace-yard on such an
occasion, but as for a mob taking possession of Palace-
yard, that was absurd, because they had a force which
could put such persons down.
The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER said the
considerations which led to the resignation of the Govern-
ment were thought to be of commanding weight to dictate
the course pursued. With respect to the Incoming Govern-
ment, he was prepared to go further than the hon. member
for Nottingham, because ho carefully limited the time to
which he would give it no faetious opposition to the end
of the session. Ho (the Chancellor of the Exchequer)
was, as he had said, prepared to go further than
that. (Hear, hear.) With respect to the Go-
vernment resigning because they had been beaten on a
point of detail, he could not agree in such a statement. It
was quite true that her Majesty had requested delay before
deciding, but after a personal interview with ber Majesty
she was quite convinced that her Ministers had preserved
the strictly proper course.

The motion for the adjournment of the house was then
withdrawn.

One or two bills were then forwarded a stage, and the
house adjourned until to-morrow at 4 o'clock.

Bank of England Returns,•--This Evening.

An Account, pursuant to
cap. 32, for the week ending

the Act 7th and Bth Victoria,
Wednesday, June 27, 1866.
TARTMENT.
Governmt. Debt £11,015,100
Other Securities 3,984,900
Gold Coin and
Bullion
Silver Bullion

ISSUE DE
Notes issued .....£29,170,535

.£23,170,&33

THE

MAIL

To say that the Americans are a great people is
but to repeat a universally acknowledged aphorism.
They build a city, launch a fleet, or set an army in
the field in about the same space of time it would
occupy us in this grand, old, but slow-moving coun-
try to discuss the preliminaries. A pressing national
want felt by them is supplied at once, without refe-
rence to bewildered and bewildering " select com-
mittees." Theoretical problems, in the art of war
especially, are reduced with astonishing celerity into
a practical, definite form, and the work, when com-
pleted, stands forth an accomplished fact, with its
virtues and its faults freely open to the criticism of
all Europe, and is, under all conditions, a striking
monument of the energy, decision, and practical
business sense of the statesmen and people of the
youngest and most powerful among the world's
family of nations.
One of the latest conceived and executed of these
Transatlantic prodigies is the two-turret vessel
Miantonomah, now anchored at Spithead, and in
Allowing this vessel to visit England at the present
moment, the Government of Piesident Johnson has
conferred upon this country a service only secondary
to that so frankly rendered in the recent suppres-
sion of the miserable Fenian demonstration on the
shores of the Canadian lakes. The turret question
is just now to us a matter of vital importance with
regard to the constitution of our ironclad navy. It
may be eventually that iron-clothed fleets may be
composed wholly of turret or of broadside ships, or
that they may be composed of both, as with the
American navy, where turret ships occupy the posi-
tion of the heavy breaching artillery of the fleet, the
broadside ships being kept as the main body, avail-
able for general service where speed and power are
both combined in one vessel. No opportunity for
studying the whole subject with certain profit to
ourselves can be afforded equal to a visit to the
Niantonomah and other turret ships of the Amer--
eiln navy as they may visit our shores.
The Miantonomah is a sister vessel to the
Monadnock, now in the Pacific. As a war machine
for close heavy fighting she appears to be perfect.
The 15-itch Rodman guns are mounted on carriages
and slides very superior to anything before seen
in England. The turrets are believed by the officers
of the ship to be invulnerable to any gun that can be
carried afloat. The sides of the ship are so low in the
water that nothing remains for an enemy to hit but
the turrets, and they, with their two 450-pounders,
hit very ,hard in return. The training power of her
guns given by the reyolving of her turrets is doubled
by reversing at any time the action of her twin
screws ; she is undoubtedly as safe and as seaworthy
as any vessel that ever floated as a man-of-
war ; she is, her officers say, quite as habitable as
any ordinary vessel they ever sailed in ; and she is
very much easier at sea than a broadside gun vessel
of the same tonnage would be. As a vessel of only
1,500 tons, carrying four 15-inch guns in their pon-
derous 10-inch iron turrets, the speed of the vessel
due from the proportion of her nominal engine
power to tonnage has been sacrificed by widening
And flattening the form of the ship's bottom, but
this has left her with a speed of eight knots, mean,
and is quite sufficient to enable her to fight any
action in her capacity of a turret ship, any want of
speed in manoeuvring which would be felt by avessel
of her class, driven by a single screw, being fully
compensated by the manoeuvring power given by
the reversed action of her twin screws.

The first impression felt on stepping on to the
Aliantonomah's deck at Spithead is that she would
mske a welcome addition to the fixed forts on the
Horse and Noman shoals for the defence of Spit-
head, and also that she would as assuredly be an
efficient weapon with which to attack the same forts
and open a passage into Spithead for an accompa-
pying fleet of iron-clad broadside ships. Between
decks the visitor is at first bewildered by the quan-
tity of machinery scattered about. There are no
less than 17 steam-engines, large and small, on this
deck, and all have their apportioned work. Six of
these engines drive the blowers which receive the air
from the main air shaft (standing between the two
funnels on the upper deck, about Oft. in height), and
distribute it along shaftings and up through gratings
in all parts of the ship, for at sea the ship is neces-
sarily battened down fore and aft, and the only air
that can enter the ship then, except down the main
air shaft, is through the perforated tops of the
turrets and pilot-houses. With two of the blowers
set slowly to work on board yesterday there
was a strong upward rush of cool air through the
air gratings in the floor of the ward room and other
parts of the ship, the thermometer in the captain's
cabin previous to the blowers being set moving
marking 75 deg. There was, however, a feeling of
oppressiveness which was, perhaps, due to the ab-
sence of the greater portion of the daylight, and the
knowledge that air was being then breathed which
had been sucked into a part of the vessel below the
water line by mechanical means, through an iron
column communicating with the outer atmosphere.
All the officers of the Miantonomah declare that
they rather like being at sea in a closed vessel. They
get plenty of air below from the blowers, and must
do so as long as there is any steam to drive them,
and of the two, for comfort, they prefer for a sea
voyage a vessel like their own to an ordinary cruiser.
Indeed, the thermometer records kept on board
prove that the heat below during the voyage across
the Atlantic cannot have been so great as would be
imagined by a stranger looking over the ship as she
lies at Spithead and examining the means of supply-
ing and regulating the inboard draught of fresh air.
At sea, however, the upper deck is always awash
with the seas rolling over it, and this no doubt tends
to cool the atmosphere below. As a handful of facts
are, however, with a cartload of opinions, we give
here a copy of the thermometer register of the tem-
perature on the middle of the berth deck on four
days, or rather nights, during the voyage across :
Juno 12. Juno 13. June 14. Juno 15.
Deg. Dog. Dog. Dog.
10 p.m 72 71 70 70
12midnight 69 71 70 71
2 a m 64 70 70 68
4 a.m 64 70 64 68
6 a.m 64 70 70 67
With regard to the seaworthiness of the vessel,
no vessel, her officers declare, could have behaved'
better than the Aliantononaah, and there was a suf-
ficiently stiff breeze experienced between New York
and Halifax to test her in that respect. The seas
rolled over her deck whenever the waves rose, on
the quarters, the bows, or broadside, but they
washed over without affecting the ship, and the
officer of the watch from his roomy perch on the
raised platform between the two turrets could look
with perfect equanimity upon the submerged hull of
his vessel below. In this respect the Miantonomah
only differs from many deep loaded sailing clipper
ships in having no bulwarks to hold the water on
her decks. Of the exact amount of work to be got
out of the 15in. guns there appear to be no exact
data available for comparison with the work of our
best present ship gun, the 12 ton 9in. rifle, or 250
pounder. Commander Cornwall, of the Miantono-
mah, who commanded a monitor before Charleston,
once fired a total of 750 rounds from one of these
guns, but the greatest number he ever fired in one
day was 60 rounds. No phraseology would describe
the outline of this gun so well as the accepted
soda-water bottle." Although of the immense dia-
meter of bore of 15in. at the muzzle, the outer dia-
meter there is only 21in., but the breech is im-
mensely weighted with metal. The
gun is so evenly
balanced upon its trunnions that the captain of the
gun can elevate or depress it with one of his fingers
on the screw lever. The elevating screw is Olin. in
diameter, and works loosely with its heel in a flat-
bottomed metal cup, so as to give with
any sudden
shock from the gun. The carriages are, as already
stated, superior to anything of the kind previously
seen in this country. They are simply made, and
have a "continuity of strength" throughout. The
compressors are three iron plates working between
four wooden balks. The slide lies on a level with

the turret floor, and is merely two iron beams 9in.
by 3in., planed true on their upper edge, and con-
nected to beams and plates at each end. Two men
can run the guns in or out with ease, and one man
can regulate the compressors. The sights over the
top of the gun gave a range of 2,300 yards. The
extreme of the gun's elevation is 9 deg., and of de-

pression 34- deg. The turrets are 9ft. in height above
_ _ _

the iron 3-inch deck, the 3-inch wood deck above

the iron deck being above the actual base of the
turret on the composition ring on which it rests.
When fitted to the ship the under surface of the
turret plates where they rest on the composition ring,
and the ring there itself, are both planed true, and
are always afterwards kept well oiled and greased to
reduce the friction when the turret is revolving.
Supposing that the turret is raised, as it is termed,
for revolving, the fact is that only about two-thirds
of the weight is taken on the spindle, the remainder
slipping round on the composition ring. The turret
is built of ten one-inch rolled iron plates, the surfaces
of which are all carefully planed, and the whole then
set up together in a cylindrical form, each plate
breaking joint with its next neighbour. The bolts
are " marlin-spike " shaped, of less diameter, but
more numerous than in our turrets, and their heads
are clinched on the outer face of the turret, instead
of being cut off, as with us. The top of the turret
is closed in with iron bars, 4in. by 3in., which are
again covered with iron plating of one inch, per-
forated. The two gunports are each 2ft. wide by
3f t. 10in, in depth. They can be closed when the
gun has been discharged by a 13in. iron stopper,
which is pivoted on the floor and roof of the turret.
and easily swings into and out of position. The
pilothouse on the top of each turret weighs about
30 tons.

The side armour of the ship is 7ft. in depth from
the deck level to below the water line, and is formed
of seven one-inch plates.

The engines of the ship are of 800 horse power,
nominal, on the back action principle of Mr. Isher-
wood, United States Navy, the connecting rod work-
ing towards each cylinder head. The cylinders are
30in. in diameter, with a 27in. stroke of piston,
driven at full speed at 80 revolutions, with from 35
to 38 pounds of steam. The screws work inwards.
The average heat in the engine-room in coming over
averaged 80 deg., and in the stokehole 120 deg.

The main fault to be found with the Miantonomah
is that she has been constructed of wood instead of
iron. The enormous weight she has to carry in
turrets, guns, side and deck armour, engines &c., must
tell upon a wooden hull. If we compare her with
our own wooden-hulled Royal Sovereign, we find
her excelling our ship in smallness of target offered
to an enemy's shot, and in manceuvring power by
the action of her twin screws. On the other hand,
the Royal Sovereign's turrets appear to be mounted
on a much better system by reason of the greater
diameter and strength of their central spindle and
the solid wide area of support given by the frames
of conical wheels under the turret turntable. The
Roy al Sovereign, too, is much more habitable than
the Miantonomah. On the relative merits of the
guns and armour of the two ships no one can give a
reliable opinion. The only method by which those
questions could be satisfactorily solved would be to
build two cylinders, one on the American and one
on the English turret principle, and fire with two
guns at each turret, one gun being an American 15-
inch Rodman, smallbore, and the other a 9-inch
English naval 12 ton rifle. The power of the two
guns would thus be proved on each turret at oppo-
site sides, and the principles on which the turrets are
built respectively would also be satisfactorily tested.
One peculiar feature in the American turret was
almost omitted from notice--its ten one -inch iron
plates have no backing. The interior diameter of
the Miantonomah's turrets is 21ft., and their height
from floor to the overhead beams Eft. 4in.