The Sun.
London, England, 1861-08-26 00:00:00

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If, however, these objections can be refuted or
removed„ we may, perhaps, see our ships of war
assuming the form which we have delineated above
and of which models have been constructed already:
Sails and masts would probably be dispensed with
and reliance placed upon steam alone. The vessel
lying low in the water, with her single tier of guns,
and her low sides sloping
off like the roof of a house,
would offer no mark to an enemy, and indeed would
hardly be a visible object at a little distance. The
change would be exactly analogous to that which
took place in fortification after the discovery of
gunpowder. Instead of strong towers and massive
walls, the new system introduced sunken walls and
low parapets of sloping turf. The principle of
defence consisted of exposing no surface to attack.
A fort in a flat country was scarcely visible. Cita-
dels of the first order, and capable of sustaining a
six months' siege, could only be distinguished by a
few low embankments from the meadows around
them. Just so will it be with ships if the new
principle should prevail. The poetry of the old
idea will be lost. There will be an end of lofty
masts, swelling sails, and graceful hulls. A ship
will no longer be a splendid compound of strength
and beauty, sitting the waters like a bird. She
will be a terrible machine of destruction, invisible
till she suddenly discloses herself, and as impreg-
nable to all attacks as a submarine rock. The con-
flict of two such vessels would be like the conflict
of two catamarans. A man of war in short would
be reduced to the simplest form of a floating battery
moved by steam. The only object of the builder
would be to cover a certain number of Armstrong
guns with an impenetrable shield, to make the fabric
float in water, and to propel it at the quickest pos-
sible rate. The new British cruiser would be an
armed raft under an iron tortoiseshell.

PR1CE....... .4d.
STAMPED ....sd.

r describe to you. The yells and shrieks of the people
were awful, not only of those who were injured, but
the rest of the passengers of the two trains, whose
alarm, increased by the darkness, was intense. Peo-
ple were distracted with terror. We had not many
injured beyond mere contusions in our carriage ;
but people yelled and shrieked and put up prayers,
believing that they should never see daylight more.
Their fears increased the actual horror of the
situation. They imagined that every moment other
trains, either on the up or down lines, would run
into them and render their doom certain. For some
10 minutes we remained in darkness ; then lights
were hung up against the sides of the tunnel, and
the scene that revealed itself was terrific. There,
in the background, I could dimly perceive a heap
of carriages more or less in fragments, which seemed
to have been piled one upon the other. From among
this mass, and around it in all directions, you could
distinguish people lying, sitting, or running to and
fro, shrieking and groaning. I never witnessed
such a scene in my life. I trust in God never to do
so again. We were detained in this tunnel an hour
and ten minutes before any of our train could be got
out ; then about 15 of our carriages got out, taking
with them a number of the slightly wounded. It
stopped at Hassock's-gate, where the wounded were
taken out, and the whole platform was covered with
them. Some were severely hurt. I saw a lady and
little girl, mother and daughter, I believe, and they
had missed the baby; but the mother was too much
hurt to do more than to put her hands together as
if praying for it. I was told that Mrs. Swaysland,
of the North-street Quadrant, had broken her leg.
Many of the passengers were only slightly hurt—
they were cut or contused, or severely shaken.
Many of the passengers continued their journey to
London, but I returned out of consideration for the
feelings of my friends at Brighton, who would
naturally be in a great state of alarm and uncer-
tainty as to my fate."

However, there is still an obstacle in the way of
this consummation. Sir William Armstrong has
carry
armour
r seemo that
r which been defeated this time, but he may be victorious
again by and by. He won the day at Shoebury-
ness, though he lost it at Portsmouth. and when
his new 300-pounder comes out Mr. Jones's target
may perhaps resist no longer. The attack and
defence
to
ships
h prevailip sw icl
al
nbg yivundoubtedly
turns,them ande considerable,
n is tbi
dei
es
made
hard tti oof
present is, m
say whether artillery or armour may be found the
stronger at any given period. All we can say at
not absolute, security against the most powerful
artillery. If it were not for this protection the
new ordnance would make short work of anything
afloat. The other day an unlucky privateer be-
longing to the Confederate States took the Federal
frigate St. Lawrence for a merchantman, ran out of
Charleston harbour, and fired into her. The frigate,
we may well suppose, was taken aback at the auda-
city of the assault ; but she presently let fly from
her heavy guns, and the first volley cut the poor
privateer in two. An old-fashioned cruiser exposed
to a broadside of Armstrongs would, we may assure
ourselves, fare little better than the unfortunate
Petrel, and, as that is a kind of risk we cannot
afford to run, we must look keenly to the progress
of armour plates and targets.—Times.
7

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.
London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway,
Traffic Manager's-office, Brighton,
Sunday, Aug. 25.
Sir,—l regret to have to inform you that a very
serious accident occurred in the Clayton tunnel of
this line this morning, by which 23 lives have been
lost and serious injuries inflicted on many of the
passengers.
The accident occurred through the signalman at
the south end of the tunnel admitting a second train
into it before a previous train, which was checked
by signal, had got out of it. He ascribes this to a
failure in the electric telegraph signals with which
he was provided; but, of course, I need hardly say
the whole circumstances will have the most rigid
investigation, and that the company will give every
possible information in their power as to the
causes.

'HE TVEA2II.ER AND THE CROPS.

THE NORTH OF SCOTLAND.

One of our correspondents now in titeNorth of
Scotland says :
" During the last three weeks I have travelled
through the counties of Aberdeen, Banff, Moray,
Ross, and Inverness, and have had the best possible
opportunities for judging as to the state of the
crops in the North. The results of my inquiries and
observation may be thus summarized :
" Oats.—Above an average. In Aberdeenshire,
where the granite foundation is favourable to the
growth of this cereal, the yield, both in straw and
grain, will be very large. A considerable quantity
is cat, but none of the grain is housed, and, as the
weather is m_certain, rain being of daily occurrence,
there is some risk that the corn may heat in the
sheaf, and have to be re-opened. In Moray and the
other northern counties the oats are very heavy,
and much of it is laid by heavy falls of rain. The
harvest will be later than usual.

The line is cleared and the ordinary traffic re-
sumed.

Yours obediently,
GEORGE HAWItINS, Traffic Manager.

TILE ANGULATED MAN-OF-WAR.

We shall get by and by to a strange model of a
man-of-war. Hitherto, notwithstanding all the
modern inventions, there has been no great devia-
tion from the old conventional type. A line of battle
ship has still its masts and sails, its towering hull,
its checkered broadside, and its tiers of guns. Ex-
cepting in length and power, there is no great dif-
ference between the Duke of Wellington and the old
Victory. Even the Warrior, the latest specimen of
all, simply looks like a larger frigate than was ever
seen before, and the visitor, indeed, feels inclined to
wonder that so entirely new a design should retain
so very much of the old form. Now, however, areal
change seems impending. If the experiments re-
cently conducted at Portsmouth should be sustained
in their results by further trials, the old bulwarks
of Britain will disappear from the seas, and give
place to fabrics of unprecedented shape. ('ur men-
of-war will hardly be visible on the surface of the
water. A first-rate, instead of frowning in strength
and majesty, will lie almost invisibly upon the
sea, cleaving the waves without sails or spars, and
scarcely distinguishable in the distance from a sea
serpent or a bank of seaweed. This is what we shall
c)me to if the new principle of defence can be esta-
blished, and the result seems by no meansim probable.
It is some time since the theory of a sloping or
" angulated" target was first broached, and the idea
indeed, though new in its present application, is
based on a principle which has always been under-
stood. If a shield of any kind is struck at an angle,
or on a slant, the sword or bullet glances off, and
the force of the blow is destroyed. Targets in all
times have been " sloped" accordingly. Shields
were made convex, either tapering to a point in the
centre, or rounded off at the sides in the form of
semi cylinders. Cuirasses took the same form,
sloping away from the middle like the breast of a
fowl, so that no shot could strike full upon the plate.
It is this obvious principle which is illustrated in
the scheme of ships' armour devised by Mr. Jones.
The armour itself is of the ordinary character,
consisting of iron plates fixed upon a stout timber
backing, but, instead of being placed vertically,
so as to present an upright wall of metal, it is
placed at an angle, so that a sloped face only is
seen, like the slant of a parapet. This was the de-
vice which was tested on Wednesday last. A tar-
get which had already been practised upon in
previous experiments was stripped of its old plates,
to receive the plates prepared by Mr. Jones. It
had originally been 131 inches thick in the wood-
work, but an inch and a half of this was dubbed off
to fit the surface for the new plating, so that only
a foot of thickness remained. On this the fresh
plates were fixed, consisting of four iron slabs, two
being of 4 inches, and two of 52. The target thus
completed was set up on the deck of an old Arctic
vessel, the Griper, iu such a way es to present a
slope of about 50. degrees, and was than towed out
to sea to be tried against the powers of an Arm-

" Wheat. —There is a fair crop of wheat in Moray
and Ross shire but the yield will not be up to tho
average, even if the weather should turn out fine.
There is a smaller breadth of wheat crop this year
than last, with but little disposition on the part of
farmers to increase their culture of this cereal.
Barley is not a heavy crop, but the quality pro-
mises to be good. In the more southern districts it
is nearly all cut, and in the field.
" Turnips.—The long-continued rains have forced
the growth of the turnip above ground, but the roots
are, to a great extent, finger-toed. On some fields,
especially in the low grounds of the straths and
valleys, the bulbs are completely gore, and it is now
quite clear that the crop will be deficient.p Swedes
are pretty safe, but the yellow ball is in very bad
condition.

Potatoes,—Three weeks ago the potato crop pro-
mised abundant returns, but after the rainy wea-
ther set in, about the 10th of the month, disease
appeared, and now the blight is general over all the
low ground. The crop, in fact, is already destroyed,
for, whatever kind of weather now come, the great
bulk of the acreage is hopelessly gone. Since 1846
there has been no such total destruction of the es-
culent. The loss will be all the more serious that a
large proportion of the lands in the north are this
year planted with the potato.
" The grass fields are in excellent condition, and
cattle are now the chief dependence of the farmers
in the north. This will serve to balance their losses
to some extent in the cereals ; but the season, un-
less very fine weather now sets in, will be unprofit-
able both for the cultivator of the soil and the coa-
sumer of its products."

strong gun.
It happened that everything was favourable to
the accuracy of the experiment. The gun was one
of the heaviest in use, throwing a bolt of 1101 b.—
the very kind of projectile which had smashed the
Shoeburyness butts into fragments. The firing took
place at 200 yards' distance, and the practice was
most perfect. The shots hit the target so truly that
if it could have been penetrated at all they must
have pierced it. Six bolts actually struck the ar•
mour within a space of 21 inches by 12, and three
of these fell within an inch or two of the same
spot. Thus the critical test of a succession of blows
at the same point was thoroughly applied, and it
does not seem, indeed, as if any shield could ever
have been battered with more tremendous force.
The effect produced however, was comparatively
insignificent. nificent.The last shot of all, though light-
ing just on the track of the others, and giving, as
it were, the last blow to the work, failed to pene-
trate the armour, and, as a general result, it
was found that, though no fewer than 16 shots
had been planted more closely together than
could ever be expected under ordinary conditions of
practice, the plates were not pierced nor was the
woodwork materially injured. The final shot, says
the report, fell " on Nos. 15 and 3, carrying away
the armour plates in irregular pieces between shots
15, 22, 3, 21, 11, 7, crushing the surface of the .12-
inch wooden backing, but not in any way breaking
through the same or damaging the shell of the ves-
sel in the slightest degree."
Such results certainly seem to open a new system
of shipbuilding, for we do
them
not see how itis possible
to qualify them or explain away. The attack
had the fairest possible chance. fhe shots of the
most powerful piece of ordnance in use were deli-
vered one aftewenother with extraordinary accu-
racy, and yet are assured that they failed in
reaching the woodwork through the iron plating.
It follows, therefore, that if there should be no
other objection to Mr. Jones's principle, we have
found a way of making men-of-war shot-proof. IL
deserves to be mentioned that the iron plates were
of peculiarly good manufacture, and they appear
also to have ben set onto the woodwork in a judi-
cious fashion, but the essence of the device consists,
of course, in the slope or angle given to the face of
the armour. The next question, then, is whether
such a slope is compatible with the sea-going quali-
ties of a ship—whether a vessel built with sides fal-
ling in at an angle of 50 will answer in all other
respects as well as in her power of resistance to
shot. That is a point which we shal probably see
discussed. It has been said that such a vessel
would be washed over by the waves and drenched
like a half-sunk rock at high tide. It has also been
urged, and with obvious plausibility, that a high-
sided ship ranging alongbide such a craft, and firing