The Sun.
London, England, 1866-09-20 00:00:00

able, and watch the lion come to grief, for we hav
not the slightest doubt that in an action between
an iron-clad and an unclothed frigate the
would be knocked into lucifer matches, and set °
fire in the first ten minutes. You might as well
st
match a man in his night-shirt with bare feet again
a burly burglar with hob-nailed boots. The re%
use of wooden frigates and ships in a maritileur
war would be as training ships in o
own waters, or as vessels of defence. It w°•th
be cruel to send them out as cruisers, Ivici
the chance of being caught by an iron-clad an
is
sunk. The fact is, that iron as opposed to vyo°d
everywhere carrying the day against its nl:'re g
combustible rival, and the notion of PittlllB
a wooden frigate against an iron one, because de
guns carried by. each will pierce iron sides
certain circumstances, and set fire to wooden side
under any, could have entered the head of an 111'
genious writer who has not yet received his
tism of fire. We recommend him from choice td
take the iron ship, if the opportunity offers, an
if it does not, to be wise and stay ashore. -11,d
the question of guns versus ships is not settle
yet. The success of Major Palliser's chilled iron
shell piercing eight inches of iron, backed by teak'
is not yet so complete as to dispose of the quest,l.,,
°
for ever. There are more ways than one of fit"'
iron plates ; there are more ways than one of putting
them on, and until it has been clearly demonstrated
that alternate layers of teak and iron of the thicknTs
of a ship's side can be as easily pierced as the single
layer of armour or teak, the question can hardly ov,
considered settled. Sir E. Belcher appears to be ei
opinion that unless you can make your iron-Clad
quite impenetrable to shot and shell the armour 113`,`
better be stripped off altogether. But Sir Edwar'
Belcher does not take his boots off because be
ocasionally gets his feet wet. It is not to be e 1
petted that we could construct a ship which ghoul
be perfectly impenetrable, because the moment If,
arrive at that perfection, although we may In
the superiority which it would give us for a ie43
years, other nations will quickly learn it, and t°,,
necessity for having ships of war at all would, by
comparatively superseded. The battles of the
middle ages, when armies manoeuvred and fought
from sunrise to sunset, and lived to fight the f°.l'
lowing day, without inflicting the slightest loss
upon each other, would be revived upon the sea'
But this perfection will never be arrived at, feb
there are always two modes of dealing with resist'
ance of this kind. If you cannot pierce it by a di-
rect blow from a small bore given at a high velocitYl
you may crush it in by immense weight at a lei
velocity from a large bore, and if there is no limit t 0
the thickness of a ship's side, neither is there to to'
weight and size of a gun. But how or in what de:
gree the absence of perfect impenetrability on the
part of iron and wood combined should be taken td
place wood only upon an equality with iron 31'0
wood, or prove the combination of iron and woods
be unnecessary, we are at a loss to divine. ,
should be much better pleased to possess a few En°:o
ironclads—such as they are—fitted for sea ; and "0
are of opinion that so far from being a mistake, Iv
look upon the introduction of iron in the constrir.c.:.
tion of men-of-war as the very thing to develope our
national resources, and that if we cannot make 011 t
ironclads absolutely invulnerable, we are no worse
10„ .__
off than our neighbours, who have neither our "
nor our skill to work it.