Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1861-05-17
The Gun-boat DIscusvlon.

Every reader of the Cincinnati Commercial
and the Gasetts has been amused at the silly
of these two papers on the subject of
Gun Boats. The Cincinnati Press, of Wednes-
day, thus treats the silly editors of the Gazette
and Commercial:
Having confined our practice in gunnery
principally to weapons of less destructive
character than guns, revolvers, Derringers,
howitzers, Datlgrens, fowling-pieces and Co.
lumbiads, we should do wrong to profess to
speak experimentally upon matter so abstruse
at once and so important as the Gum boat ques-
tion; but as we have read prayerfully, and we
trust not without advantage, the articles Of the
Commercial, we may venture to lay down few
elementary points which will be beneficial to
the less instructed readers of the Press, in case
they should see fit to pursue the subject In the
more profound polemics of our contemporaries.
We will begin with the definition of Gun-bo
What is Gun-boat? r.e
A gun ia gun, and boat Is boat; combine
the two, and the product, in fact as in terminol.
ogy, Is gun-boat. Any boat, with any gun in it.,
is, pro tanto, gun.boat; while huge vessel of
multitudnous tonnage, with bulwarks rendered
invulnerable by massive plates Of iron, and car.
rying several ugly.looking and worse.behaving
pieces Of tubular pot metal, Is still gun.boat,
and no more than gun-boat.
A profound thinker Of New England was
wont to sum up the results of his philosophical
researches in the following brief sentences
"There's odds in deacons " The Gdzette, with
equal profoundly, has reached the conclusion
that there is, or may be, odds in 'gun.boats.-
This factor principle, the Commercial disregards
With q sublime uncoDsciOusnes, of minor dis
tnctions 30 common with lofty intellects, the
Commercial reasons-we give 1t in paraphrast
"a gun is a gun, and q boat is boat; therefore
a gun. boat 10 gun-boat. A gun boat can dc
thus and thus; for example: Let A. B be the OBJ
ject of attack-a battery of sand.bags or a for
OF logs of palmetto; and B. G. the gun boa
whose business it is to destroy it. A. B. can &c
to b. c ay9al B. G. must 60 to A. b. Ever!
thing is in readiness; the universe holds IL
aerial and other fluids in an agony of expecta-
ton; bang goes B. c., and down comes A. B
Hurrah!
Nay, but, says the Gazette, Juggling out it
discovery, and remembering its scripture at thu
same time As one star dffereth from another
star in glory, so one gun-boat differeth from an
other gun-boat in-what shall we call il to turI
the sentence properly 7-pOp- p-ularity.
Besides, says the Gazette now fairly uDde
way with its logie-there's a difference in forts
as well as in gun boats.
To the Devil with your differences, says tht
Commercial, growing alarmed at these fne-spur
distinctions, and trying TO get into deeper water
And the Government, says the CommsTcidt-stil
hsrping on its old strategic point-hsd but TIVE
or three gun-boats at Fort Sumter
How big? puts 10 the Gazette.
D. the odds, says the Commercial
Besides reading up for this article in the Com
mercial, we have been gancing at the Ency'
clopedia for materials. We looked for gun IL
g., and for boat in B., and combined the inlor
nation. Treating its subject miscellsneously
and, as it were, hysterically, the COmmeycid
does not supply those strictly scientific formulas
necessary to full elucidatiOn Of all its practi-
cal aspects. Its fundamental proposition
gun is gun and boat is a boat, therefore Q
gun boat is gun boat-perhaps renders this
unnecessary. We have, however, been seeking
for some rule by which the relative power OF
gun boats and batteries may be determined
mathematicslly; and have found it. II is as
follows, and we submit it to the Commercial
confident that its consummate military genius
will not fail to see in it all that is desirable
We subjoin 1t, confident OF its approval, giving
1t full permission to use the same in its future
controversies with the Gazette:
AS the square of the exposed surface Of the
boat, added TO the calibre of its gun, is to the
cube Of the sand.bags composing the battery,
so is the ratio Of the shots fred by the former to
the cum OF the killed and wounded 10 the lat
ter.
| The conclusion TO which we have arrived ia
that although there may be things in which eiz,
and weight OF metal make no difference, gun
boats are not one Of them.