The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1859-11-18
Naval Armanlents.

line FarlS correspondent OF the London
Morning Herald says:
have had the opportunity of talking with
a scientific man Just returned from Toulon.
At TOulOn there are at the present moment
no less than % slips for building line of bat
tie ships and heavy corvettes and every
one of those slips is occupied by the shell of
a vessel, at which the shipwrights are work
ing from dawn until twilight. Moreover
fifteen line of battle ships are in harbor en-
commission de port fortnight would be
amply sufficient to prepare them for sea, and
a telegraph from the Minister of Marine at
Paris would provide them at days notice
with numerous and we'll trained crews. All
these vessels mount rided guns. At anchor
in the roadstead may be seen the ungainly
hulls of the floating batteries, each with its
full complement of coal, men, guns, shot and
powder. These batteries may not sail we'll;
they may behave very badly in sea way,
but they are armed with fifty rifled fifty
Founders, and as they are invulnerable, cased
entirely with the new iron plates, their fire
in naval action would be as deadly as that
of a crack frigate.
While on the subject of these floating bat.
teries, allow me to point out terrible mis-
take which your naval authorities have
fallen into. From sundry paragraphs which
have recently appeared in the London pa
pors, it appears that the old floating bat
teries 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 the iron plates, it is
stated that the Armstrong gun renders iron
plate nugatory. This is mistake that may
cost US dear when comes the tug of war. It
is probable that the old iron plates that have
been rusting 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 du-
ring the last five years, tell very 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 l have, Notwithstanding the most
strenuous efforts, been unable to ascertain
But the composition is much lighter than
iron, and enables the thickness OF the plates
to be immensely increased, while their i'm
penetrability to shot, conical or otherwise
has been fully proved. The experiments
took place in this fashion:
A target was formed with great care, ex-
actly as the section of ship, and was COW
cred with these new plates. 1t was then for
six months fired at three times a week at
various ranges, the maximum of which was
a hundred, and the minimum twenty-five
yards, by unrihed ffty-pounders throwing
conical shot weighing one hundred pounds.
One shot "a conical one) penetrated the
plates, the head of the ball lodged in the
plate, and the conclusion was so great 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 bat
teries, the gunboats, and the steam rams are
now protected; and it is quite obvious,
whatever may be the merits of the Arm.
strong gun, that the shot from it passing
through the old plates by no means proves
that it would be as successful against the
new description of blindage.
My friend had also an opportunity of
seeing at Toulon some of the new transports,
of which 72 are ordered to be built, and of
which some Is or 20 are already ahoat.
independently of the crew, they are built
to carry 5000 men. This sounds like
exaggeration, but your nautical readers will
easily understand that such is not the case
when they hear these transports are as large
as l2O gun ship, and that they mount no
Ouns