The Sun.
London, England, 1861-01-01 00:00:00

question 'Of weight was simply a matter of ealcula-
,lien, and some of the other objections to the new
plan were set aside by the results of ex, erimentes
made by the Admiralty,
The second question to be answered was, had we
arrived yet at the maximum of invulnerability ? It
was soon found that the plan of coating a Wooden
vessel with iron would not answer at all against
heavy metal. Though the t Bspound shots directed
against the mail of the Trusty and the Sirius only
made a dent in the iron itself, the concussion to the
framework of the ship was more serious in its
results than if the shot had entered the side. The
beams and framing were so broken and splintered
that the vessel would have soon sink if not taken
into dock. So an iron skin to a wooden ship was
not the desideratum. But it was found that iron
supported by iron gave the maximum of invulne-
rability desired. Perhaps the long bolt of a Whit-
worth 68-pounder gun might pierce such a plate
so supported if aimed at it from a short distance, or
striking repeatedly on the same spot. But this is
a danger to which the new ships are not likely to
be exposed, and it is considered by those who de-
signed the Warrior that the 20 inches of fine teak
wood interposed between the 5-inch plates and the
iron framework will render her sides impenetrable
to all engines of war. With her magnificent
engines of 1,250-horse power, it is calculated that
the Warrior will steam 14 knots an hour; whereas
the Gloire is said to accomplish but 131. Should
this be so, the builders of this ship and the Admi-
ralty will have reason to be proud of her. To Sir
John Pakington is due the honour of having
initiated this great experiment in naval defence;
it therefore fell to his lot to christen the vessel on
Saturday.
Of course many critical eyes Are already busy in
pointing out the defects of this fine ship. The
enormous weight of her casing is such that only
the lowest row of plates was rivetted on before
launching. The rest will be fixed when she lies
in the Victoria Dock. It was thought that
the strain on her sides would be too excessive
when she was out of the water. Some immediately
ask, what will then become of her when she rolls
in a heavy sea, lifting a whole broadside above the
wave ? La Gloire is said to roll so much that the
water comes into the ports when the weather is
stormy. Yet, with a weight of 1,000 tons in
armour plates alone, it is said by others that the
defence is insufficient. The plates extend only five
feet below the water line, and Mr. Whitworth boasts
that he can penetrate the side of a vessel at
a much lower point than that. The 213 feet of the
broadside bear 5-inch plating, but the bow and
stem, more than 100 feet each, are more thinly
cased in iron of 11 inches. The interior is divided
into water-tight compartments, and it is said that
if a bow and stern were entirely shot away an im-
pregnable floating battery would still remain. But
we fear that in a feu d'enfer sufficient to do such
damage as this some shot would enter a port-hole,
or otherwise find means to cripple the hull, even if
its plates held out. We believe that the upper deck
has been much strengthened recently, and made
more capable of resisting vertical shells or red-hot
shot. Further, the ports, which are now 4 feet
square—very dangerously large—are to be dimi-
nished to 2 feet. One more fault is, that the• Wa-
rrior has no special protection against boarding, and
may thus be carried by an enemy superior in fleet-
ness and numbers.

All reflection on this matter convinces us that
vessels of this stamp are, after all, but an experi-
ment, which may or may not succeed. The seagoing
properties of the mail-clad ship have to be ascer-
tained, and then her power of fighting, which can
only be definitely settled in actual war—unless, in-
deed, we are prepared to risk a million of money,
and moor the Warrior at Spithead as a target for
the inventors of rifled ordnance, and other projec-
tiles.
Some day, for all we know, a means of pro-
pulsion may be discovered that will send a ball
through everything. By that time we shall, no
doubt, be a head of the French, as we are now,
having spent some 30 or 40 millions in mail•clad
vessels. They will then be useless, and much more
useless than wood ; but so we shall go on. When
the screw was invented sailing ships were consi-
dered out of date ; if the impregnable succeeds, the
poor wooden walls will be discarded in a heap. We
must certainly not be distanced by the French in
shipbuilding. And yet, just at present, the matter
is so entirely an experiment that we are almost
glad that our Government is only building four of
these ships, two of them smaller than the Warrior.
The French talk of building 16 ; but they would
do well to wait until the theory of protection by
iron has been more thoroughly tested than it yet
has been.

Those who looked at the elegant lines of this
majestic ship on Saturday must have experienced a
feeling of something like jealousy when their memo-
ries reverted to the beautiful frigates and three-
deckers which they had gazed on with such triumph.
at Spithead or at Cherbourg. No more shall Bri-
tannia quell the floods with the " thunders from
her native oak," that her sons boast of in their
songs, if this usurping iron monster is to take the
place of our " Dukes," " Royal Alberts," and
" Earyaluses." The newly-hatched fledgling,
already so big and so masterly, looks in our navy
yards like a young cuckoo that is reared in a
hedge-sparrow's nest. Like it, the Warrior bids
fair, if a success, to destroy its feebler companions.
When we think of our 70 line-of-battle ships, and
how grandly, by exertions that seemed superhu-
man, we have distanced the French in the deve-
lopment of our steam navy, it is a sad thing to
have, after all, to go back to our starting point,
and commence the race anew. We do trust that
these iron ships will not prove so incontestably
superior to the wooden ones as to put our magni-
ficent navy altogether out of the field. if it shall
prove that wooden vessels, on their part, possess
certain advantages which the iron ones cannot
attain to, the case will not be so bad.