The Sun.
London, England, 1859-06-07 00:00:00

THE FRENCH NAVY.

MARSEILLES, June 5.-011 Friday the steamers
• L„ded to tow the three floatin..• 'ha +teries now in
. off, and 6 v.._
"RS
in L.--. further
Toulon were 4. 1„,. PrOgres§
1""
tl6- t. d
made in the formation of LLL. ine
mainly, it is stated, to force an entrance to the Po.
They have now got their full complement of guns
on board, which can be all fought on a broalTside.
To any one who has recently visited Woolwich
the arsenal at•Toulon will not inspire serious appre-
hensions in its present condition. All the material
and arrangements for naval construction have been
transferred to Moirillon, on the other side of the
harbour, where there are five covered building slips,
of no very great length, and the means, it is
stated, for building ten other ships of the line,
but which I.'was not fortunate enough to see.
There are on the stocks there two liners whose
crews are already. formed and may be seen in the
streets. The 'first is the Massena, of 100 guns and,
800-horse power, and of which 22-24ths are com-
pleted. The Second is a sister ship, Castiglione, of
which 18-24ths are completed. Besides the liners,
there are tw0.50-gun frigates—Gloire and Invin-
cible, rapidly advancing to completion, which are
called frigates blindecs, from having their sides
covered with iron plates. At Mourillon, it will be
remembered, occurred in 1840 that disastrous fire
which consumed the stores of shipbuilding timber,
valued at upwards of £BOO,OOO. To-day the tim-
ber is stored in sheds about 1,500 feet long, and
every precaution is taken to prevent the recurrence
of a like disaster. The steam sawmills have not
that development and activity which may be wit-
nessed at Portsmouth and other English naval
yards. • • •
In a visit: to the Arsenal, the first object of
curiosity was, the number of guns in store., . There
were between 300 and 400 carronades 'of various
calibres, a large proportion being 24-pounders
and even smaller, which are not likely to be ever
mounted, and had far better be sold for oldmetal;
24-pounder brass howitzers and long 2-pounder
brass guns, which we should consider no better than
popguns, were stacked along the path, they also may
be eliminated from the effective of artillery re-
serves, for their model is most antiquated. There
then remained the iron guns, principally 30 and 50
pounders, with a fair sprinkling of Paixhan shell
guns, having a calibre of 22 centimetres. If there
were no other than these in the arsenal, none.stowed
away under lock and key in the structure's along
the docks, I doubt if there were sufficient to arm all
the ships laid up in ordinary, in the harbour. This
may be an advantage, provided no sudden emergency
arises, and it be determined to arm all the ships with
rifled guns, as there then would be comparatively
only a few old models in stock. The 50-pounder
is the nearest approach the French navy has to that
splendid weapon used in the English service—the
68-pounder solid shot gun. The lengths of both
are about equal. The French gun throws a shot
weighing 55. English pounds, and the guns I saw
were stamped with their weights, which were .on
an average 4,766 kilos., with a range of 8 kilos. more
or less. The French 50-pounder would, therefore,
weigh 90 cwt.-5 cwt. less than the English gun
with which I have compared it—and throw a shot
weighing 13 lb. less, if the figures are to be relied
upon •, but I confess the gun does not look as if it
weighed 90 cwt.
Among these guns was a rifled 30-pounder,
which seems to have been bored as an experiment
with three shallow straight grooves ; for under a
shed, where stood Russian guns taken at Botnarsund
were five rifled 30-pounders on which men were
fitting the' hammers and locks. They were bored
with three grooves, about two inches wide, and an
eighth of an inch deep, which made about a quarter
turn from the breech to the muzzle, with an uniform
twist, as far as could be judged. These would ap-
pear to be the model adopted. They are stated to
be rifled at Vincennes, where 30 can be turned out
a day, which one may be permitted to doubt when
oily five are visible, in spite of the urgent requests
made daily. for the despatch of more by railway. If
the shot lying at the railway station are intended
for these guns, the feathers (aillettes) are much
deeper than the grooves. The projectile is cylindro-
conical, that is to say, it is composed of a cylinder
apparently one and a half calibre in length, which,
beyond this length, terminates in a cone about one
calibre from the base to the summit. This, I pre-
sume, would make the new projectile weigh about
double the ordinary spherical shot for the same cali-
bre, which would agree with what is stated, viz.,
that a French rifled 30-pounder gun throws a 601 b.
shot—in English measures it would weigh 661 b.
The range I was informed by an artillery officer was
8,000 metres, bon tir, and 10,000 metresa tout voice,
which is equivalent to a range of 8,749 yards (five
miles all but 51 yards), at which aim can be taken,
and accuracy attained; and 10,936 yards (six miles
376 yards) extreme elevation. If the figures given
are correct—the French rifled 30-pounder will be
lighter than our 68-pounder, will throw a shot
within 21b. as heavy, and will have a much greater
range, It has, however, to be determined by actual
practice whether in naval warfare such extreme
distances could be maintained, and if they could not,
whether the crashing and smashing effects of
spherical 68-pound shots would not be more destruc-
tive to timbers and even masonry than the clean
perforation made by a cylindro-conical shot. Every
one is familiar with the experiment of a pistol-shot
making a clean hole through a pane of Klass which
would be shivered to fragments by a pebble thrown
from the hand of a child. The feathers are placed
about midway on the exterior surface of the cylin.
drical part of the projectile.
By the end of July, or early in August, the dif-
ferent navy yards will have completed 120 flat-
bottomed gunboats, small iodel, having fitted each
with a 5-horse power steam-engine and with one of
the rifled four-pounders. They are intended to act
on the Adda, the Mincio, and the Adige. By the
same period will be completed 40 steam transports,
capable of conveying 1,000 men each, besides the
crew and baggage. Considering how easily France
can now 'transport her troops, that she has 20
paddle steam frigates which she employs for that
purpose, one is curious to learn where it is contem-
plated to land 40,000 men at once ? Three field
batteries embarked yesterday from Marseilles.