water-line and vital parts protected, will still enable us, at a cost of perhaps 50,000l. per gun, to carry these floating structures wherever there is water enough for them to swim: but let not the public be deceived-gigantic guns mean gigantic ships, gigantic docks, harbours, basins, and gigantic annual bills, and now and then gigantic losses. If the object of a navy like that of England is to defend her commerce and protect her possessions on every side, these gigantic and costly guardians must be multiplied in proportion to the spread of commerce and to the number of possessions.

6

The Warrior' ready for sea represents 400,000l. of the public money, and this only defended partially by 44-inch plates; the Minotaur,' wholly protected by 5-inch plates, when ready for sea, will represent 500,000; and both 44 and 54-inch plates have been pierced and shattered by guns already in existence. What then will be the cost of ships where 8 or 10-inch plating should be adopted? Limit the number of guns as we may, immense dimensions will be required to float such structures, immense cost to complete them, and the days when a large reduction of the navy estimates shall be practicable seem farther than ever from our reach.

It may be true that the iron-clad ships of France are less adapted for cruising than ours, and that they seem to have been constructed wholly for the purpose of fighting a great naval action for supremacy at sea, so that so large a multiplication of our iron-clad ships as has been hinted at for the protection of our commerce and colonial empire may not be requisite; yet the power France undoubtedly possesses of detaching these ships has just been exemplified by the proceedings of the Normandie,' and is instructive in pointing out to us that, in distant regions of the world, the honour of our flag and the safety of our possessions cannot be trusted to unprotected wooden ships.

What is passing on the shores and in the inland waters of the great American Continent must add impressiveness, if any were needed, to this lesson. That country resounds from one end to the other with the din of preparation and construction of ironclad ships. Those ships, it is true, were built for a special purpose, and are not formidable, except on their own waters. But sea-going iron-clads are building, and will before long be ready to carry the flag of the stars and stripes wherever the policy of their Government may choose to send them. The American practice differs essentially from that pursued in Europe, and in nothing more than the great size and weight of the guns deliberately adopted. Although the first contest between two iron-clads took place in their waters, and has

Merrimac' and
We know, it is

been commented on again and again, less has been practically learnt from the engagement between the • Monitor' than could have been supposed. true, how the Monitor' was constructed, but we do not know what that construction had to resist, what was the weight of those projectiles that did not harm her, with what velocity they were discharged, nor of what substance they were composed. On the other hand, we do not know of what material the armour-plating was composed, nor exactly in what manner the Merrimac was protected by it; though we do know exactly with what projectiles she was battered, and very nearly what resistance she offered. The report of Captain Dahlgren, presented to Congress in December 1862, gives some interesting details of this action, and confirms what has been stated above. We also know that both ships were entirely unfit for navigating the open sea, and that the ship or ships which the American Government will send to sea must infallibly partake of the type of such ships as England and France have constructed for this purpose. The Americans are confident that they can carry and work at sea 15-inch guns, throwing 450-lb. shot with charges of powder sufficient to pierce and destroy a ship's side composed of 36 inches of solid oak and 1-inch iron lining, protected by 5 inches of solid armour-plating; they have in this way destroyed a target at 100 yards' distance, and they have done this with cast-iron guns and castiron shot.

However exceptional all this may be at present, however impracticable it may at present appear to work such guns in a ship in motion, it will not do to shut our eyes to these eventualities. In designing those additional iron-clads, which it is but too evident England will be compelled to build, the increasing difficulties of the question must be fairly considered, and the magnitude of the cost boldly confronted.

Whether these ships shall be built of wood or iron, it is not the object of these pages to discuss. From what has been said in Parliament and other places, it does, however, appear desirable that iron ship-building should not be confined to one government establishment only, or that, in so vital a matter as the power of constructing a fleet, the public safety should be entirely confided to private firms. Contracts between Government and such firms cannot in all cases, as, for instance, in cases of insolvency, be enforced by Government, but they preclude any deviation except at an immense expense to the public. As auxiliaries, private firms are invaluable, but it might be a fatal error to regard them as principals.

Our past experience shows that constructing ships of war in private yards often ends in bitter disappointments to both parties, and in enormous cost to the country. The very fact that the men to whom the building of iron ships has been entrusted are amongst the most eminent and trustworthy in the country, the zeal and perseverance with which they have contended against all difficulties, and the superior excellence of the work they have accomplished, coupled with the delays, the disappointments, and the totally unforeseen cost of these ships a cost so largely in excess of what either the Government or the builder foresaw-warn us clearly against too great an extension of such a system. When we see that such firms as Messrs. Napier of Glasgow, the Thames Ship Building Company, Messrs. Laird of Birkenhead, and others who are decidedly at the head of their profession, with all their energies, with all the means at their disposal, have taken so long and incurred such cost to accomplish what they have done; and when we see that other contractors have wholly failed in what they had undertaken, we are warned against an entire surrender of such national work as fleet building to private enterprise. It is true that the former want of system and of organisation in our dockyards caused a general wish to see the work transferred to those enterprising companies who so successfully managed their own affairs. But, in the first place, whatever were the faults of our dockyard system, or of any other part of our naval administration, they were surely capable of remedy by a well-considered reform; and, in the second place, to entrust to ordinary ship-builders the whole work of our dockyards would be to impose upon a dwarf the work of a giant. The experience of the last three years has shown that the same firm which derives credit and profit from undertakings in which it has experience will fail to obtain either in the costly and exceptional work of building ships of war. The materials

of our iron navy must still be supplied by private enterprise; but even to obtain them of the necessary quality is exceedingly difficult, and no better proof can be given than the immense proportion returned as being below the required standard. Thus, of iron building plates (technically called ship plates and boat plates) varying from ths to 14ths in thickness, which form the principal part (ths perhaps) of a ship of war, the total supply is immense; but the proportion capable of bearing the different trials is very small. The best iron of the kind will bear a tensile strain with the fibre of 23 to 45 tons per square inch, and across the fibre of 15 to 25 tons. Now, as it is a well-known axiom that the strength of a fabric is equal to that of its

206 Xavier Raymond on Navies of France and England. July,

:

weakest part, Government very properly have fixed a standard to ensure a fair average quality of iron. That standard is a strength equal to 22 tons lengthways of the grain, and 19 tons across it per square inch, being far below the average of the best iron there are also certain smithery tests of heating, bending, and punching, when hot and when cold, which good iron ought to stand. But the custom of the iron trade is to produce large quantities of these plates which will only bear a strain of 14 tons in one direction and 8 or 9 in the other. It is with iron of this quality that our markets are stocked, and that many packets and merchant vessels are built; but to use them in our iron-clads would be madness.* Nor is it only the low-priced iron that is found to be so weak, for hundreds of tons of the high-priced material have been from time to time rejected both at Chatham and in the contract yards. This will explain why, notwithstanding the vaunted (and justly vaunted) powers of private enterprise, much is promised or offered to Government, but little, comparatively, is done. It would also still further justify, were that necessary, the course taken in converting useless wooden ships into very serviceable iron-clads. The attacks made upon the Controller of the Navy upon this subject during the present session were clearly unjust, for, although it was boldly asserted, it was by no means proved, that without these ships we could occupy the position we now do in reference to the French navy. If it was a blunder on the part of our naval authorities to persist in laying down wooden line-of-battle ships when the days of such ships were numbered, it was a happy idea which turned that blunder to such excellent purpose as has been done in the case of the Royal Oak.' That success, guaranteeing as it does similar success with the other converted' ships, is a great triumph for the building department, and extricated this country from a position of inferiority alike dangerous and discreditable.

But although with an able and energetic man in the Controller's Office, we can build good ships, and meet an emergency with credit and success, as we have just seen, there is something harder to build up and to maintain than a fleet, and fully as essential. There is the moral strength which grows out of discipline-out of confidence in, and respect for, the ruling powers-there is the zeal for the public service, the contentment, the esprit de corps, the conscious power and the general smooth working of the whole machine, which a wise organisation at headquarters can alone produce.

*We would again call attention to the article on 'Iron' published in this Journal, No. 235., p. 204. The subject is one of the gravest national importance, especially to the navy.

ART. VII.—1. Memoirs communicated to the Royal Geographical Society, June 22nd, 1863. By Captain SPEKE.

2. Anniversary Address, May 25th, 1863. By Sir RODERICK IMPEY MURCHISON, K.C.B., President of the Royal Geographical Society.

3. Papers communicated to the Ethnological Society, June 30th, 1863. By Captain AUGUSTUS GRANT.

THE

HE two captains sent by the British Government, at the solicitation of the Royal Geographical Society, to discover the sources of the Nile, have been more fortunate than the two centurions despatched by Nero on a similar errand. There may exist doubts as to the exhaustiveness of their search; there may prove to be other tributaries of the Nile flowing from the east or from the west, from more distant fountain-heads than Speke and Grant have seen; but this much appears certain, that these explorers have traced the trunk stream of the river of Egypt to its exit from the Lake Nianza, and that a southern limit of latitude has also been determined, within which the tributaries of the lake must necessarily lie.

The most striking popular fact to be deduced from the present exploration is, that the Nile is far the longest river in the world, at least in one of the two senses of that epithet. When we measure its deposed predecessor, the Mississippi, in a direct line between its mouth and the head of its remotest tributary, we find the distance to be about 1,740 miles; the corresponding measurement of the Nile is no less than 2,380. If, on the other hand, we care to measure the course of either stream in its main features, by following their principal bends with a pair of compasses, we obtain 2,450 for the Mississippi, against 3,050 for the Nile. We have not patience to inquire into the minute meanderings of either stream; indeed, the exceedingly tortuous course of the upper part of the latter river is still unmapped with accuracy. There is no other river on the globe that links such different climates as the Nile, none that is so remarkable for its physical peculiarities, none that is clothed with equal historical interest, and none that has so attracted or so baffled the theorist and the explorer. Let us state, in a few words, the slow steps by which its investigation had hitherto advanced, before we narrate the adventures of the party by whom it has, at length, been accomplished.

All the world knows that tourists may sail readily up the Nile from its mouth, if they wish it, to the second cataract, a distance of 750 miles, neglecting the meanderings of the river;