New Orleans daily crescent., 1859-11-16
Naval Arnan,ents.

Yours respectfully,
Naval Armaments.
The Paris correspondent of the London Morning
Herald says
have had the opportunity Of talking with sci
entific man just returned from Toulon. At Toulon
there are at the present moment no less than %
slips for building line of battle ships and heavy
corvettes; and every one of those slips are occu-
pied by the shell of vessel, at which the ship
wrights are working from dawn until twilight
Moreover, fifteen line of battle ships are in harbor
en- commission de port; fortnight would be
telegraph from the Minister of Marine in Paris
would provide them at days notice with numer-
Gus and well trained crews. All these vessels
mount rified guns. AT anchor in the roadstead NAV
be the ungainy hulls of the floating batteries
each with its full complement Of Goals, men. guns
and powder. These batteries may not sail well;
they may behave very badly in seaway but they
are armed with fifty rifled fifty Founders, and as
they are nvulnerable, cased entirely with the new
iron plates, their fire in naval action would be az
deadly as that of a crack frigate.
While on the subject of these floating batteries,
allow me to point out terrible mistake which
your naval authorities have fallen into. From sun
dry paragraphs which have recently appeared in
the London papers, it appears that the old floating
batteries which were built at the time of the
Crimean war have been used as targets to test the
Armstrong guns and the shots having gone through
gun renders iron plates nugatory. This is mis-
take that may cost us very dear when comes the
tug of war;. 1t is highly probable that the old iron
plates that have been rustng for the last five years
on the sides of the Trusty, afford no resistance to
the new conical shot; but the plates which are
used in the French service, and which have been
exposed to the severest tests during the last five
years, tell avery different story In the first place.
these plates are not iron, but an amalgam of iron
steel, and another substance, the nature or name
of which have, Notwithstanding the most siren
uous efforts, been unable to ascertain. But the
composition is much lighter than iron, and enables
creased, while their impenctrabity to shot, conf
cal or otherwise, has been fully proved. The eX-
periments took place in this fashion:
target was formed with great care, exactly as
these new plates. 1t was then for six months fired
at three times week at various ranges. the maxi
mum of which was hundred and the minimum
twenty-five yards by nnrifled 80 Founders throw
ing round shot, and by riaed so Founders throwing
a conical shot weighing 100 pounds. One shot only
"a conical one) penetrated the plates; the head Of
the ball lodged in the plate, and the conclusion
was such that the remainder of the shot broke
clean off as if it had been shaved by machinery. 1t
is with these plates that the floating batteries, the
gunboats, and the steam rams, are now protected;
and it is quite obvions, whatever may the merits of
the Armstrong gun, that the shot from it passing
through the old plates by no means proves that it
would be so successful against the new description
of blindage.
My friend had also an opportunity of seeing at
Toulon some of the new transports, of which Is
are ordered to be built, and Of which some Is or 20
are already afioat Independently of the crew,
they are built to carry 5000 men. This sounds
very like exaggeration but your nautical readers
will easily understand that such is not the case
when they hear that these transports are as large
as l2O gun ship, and that they mount no guns.
BURLING AME SHOOTING Observation-Disclosures,
the Boston Congressman, is stumping it in Kansas,
and rcgaling himself in the interval of political
labors, by chasing buflaloes. The Kansas cores
pendent of the Boston Journal says:
AT o'clock we espied buffalo, six of themsplen |
did fellows. They looked as large as elephants
They were standing on the brow of hill, with
myself startrd up the ravine, under coyeg of the
hill. We had been cautioned about shooting them
not to let ourselves be scen and if one was
wounded, to hide in the grass and lie still. We
animals, and took good look at them. They
looked anything but mild and peaceable, with their
glaring black eyes, shaggy heads and humps. They
were moving slowly towards us, and we were ready
the driver being curious to witness the attack. This
them, and up went their heads and they
were off in moment, making the hill tremble with
their hoOfs.
lreds and thousands of them in all directions. We
selected three fine ones. Burngame and young |
Barry started for them. About one mile distant,
they crept up within fifty yards, in the long grass
and bang went the rifles. We knew their shots
had struck; The buffalo did not move for two
minutes; then they began to separate slowly,
leaving the wounded one. Burlingame and Barry
stood up and fired at him: he fell in his
tracks. We started, and were soon alongside of
the monster; he was not quite dead, but we soon
dispatched him with knife.
1t took the whole party to turn him over. Our
men cut him up and cut out the choice bts-about
four hundred weight, (they said he weighed eight
cen hundred,) and went into camp for the night |
We had fine steaks for supper. After that we
killed nine buffalo in ALL and might have Killed one
hundred, if we had wished
Four CHlPPEwAs SHoT.-We learn from Mr. Geo.
R. Day, of Silver Creek, Wright county, that kah-
ge -ha-ho-aye-gon, shooting Starr Chippewa
Chief, went to Shakopee last week to bury the
hatchet and smoke the pipe of peace once more
with his Sioux brethren, who had ceaped the old |
hosttes The success Of his mission is not known,
but on his return to the Upper Mississippi, when |
between Clearwater and Maine Prairie, Stearns |
county, they were surprised by one hundred Sioux
in ambush, and the four braves were shot and
scalped--the Chief alone making good his escape