Cleveland morning leader. [volume] (Cleveland [Ohio]) 1854-1865, 1862-02-18
From the New York Evening Post
The Iron Plated steam Batteries.

Plans and specifications have been pre-
pared in the Bureau of Construction of the
Navy Department for the twenty iron.plsted
gun boats which Congress has ordered. We
have before Us these elaborate papers, which
are much too long to print entire, and be-
sides possess In their minute details no par
ticular interest to the public. From them,
however, we condense the following abstract
and description Of one of these proposed
''iron-plated steam batteries"
The length of the vessel is to be two hun.
dred and sixteen feet and two inches; ex-
treme breadth, forty-eight feet; and depth
of hold amidships, thirteen feet eleven inches.
The hull Is to be builtthroughout with white
oak, and copper-fastened to within FIVE feet
of the top Of the deck. The deck -planks are
to be Of white oak, FIVE and one half inches
thick and nine inches wide. On this deck
there viii be deck lights, fitted with shutters
to make them water tight from below, and
two coming houses, (ior guiding the ship, J
enc at each end, which are to be Of wrought
iron plates rough in form, of two feet diam.
eter in width, and forty inches high. the
sides to be six inches thick, composed ofone
thickness Of four inch and one Of two inch
iron. The lid Of the box Is 70 be four inches
thick. At ten inches below the bottom of
this cover, the insides are to be pierced with
four tapering peep-holes, five inches fin di-
ameter on the outside, and six inches on the
inside. while three inches lower down there
will be, In intermediate spaces, four other
peep holes.
The armament Of the vessel is to be con-
tanned in tworeYolving 'tOole-toWsrs, whose
outside diameter is to Be twenty one and one
half feet, and hight somewhatoVe eight feet.
The towers are to be composed Of two thick
nesses Of wrought-iron plates, securely bolted
to backing of oak ten inches thick, on YER
tical timbers. The outside plates to be three
inches, and the inside two inches thick; and
all plates and sppendages to be Of frat quail
ity wrought-iron scrap, capable of sustain-
ing a tensile strain Of $1,000 pounds per
square inch.
Each tower will have one port hole cut in
its side for gun. This holei to be twenty.
four inches wide and forty-one inches ex-
treme hight, top and bottom to be semicir-
cular. In the roof is to be a grating com.
posed of wrought-iron six inches deep and
one inch wide. Each tower rests on twelve
wrought iron conical rollers, eighteen inches
diameter, seven inches width of face, turned
and polished, and with steel axles to work
in wrought iron railway secured TO the
deck at every eighteen inches of its circum-
ference. nFErrr rfH
On the outside Of the tower, the base, to
the height Of twenty-six inches above the
deck, is to be glacis or inclined plane, ex-
tending ten feet in every direction from the
circumference Of the tower itself, snd
composed Of two plates, each one and
quarter inches thick, fastened on proper
timbers. This glscis viii protect the railway
on which the tower rsTolves, with its ma
chinery. Nhe@t = tAat..s..r
The sides Of the vessel sre to be plated
with four and quarter inch wrought iron
plates, except for thirty feet from the stern
poss, where the plates are but three and
thres-q quarters thick. The deck is to be COW
cred with ten thieknesses of rolled iron
plates, each three-quarters of en- inch thick,
and not less than fifteen feet long and three
feet wide.
The entire weight Of iron plates needed
for one of these vessels is thus estimated in
the specifications