lls of sixty to one hundred
pounds,--also with superior rifled cannon. Whitworth and Armstrong guns
are in use that throw shot or shell distances of three to five miles,
which "the wooden walls" of neither England nor America are able to
resist.

We have recently seen the Freeborn, the Pawnee, and the Harriet Lane,
when assailing the rebel batteries on the James and the Potomac,
compelled to take positions at the distance of two miles, and to keep
constantly moving, and compelled consequently to throw away most of
their costly ammunition in uncertain shots, at the same time that they
were constantly exposed to shots which might destroy their engines and
explode their boilers. There was no lack of courage on the part of their
gallant officers; but, from the insufficiency of the vessels, they were
obliged to use a wise discretion, and to take all reasonable precautions
for the safety of their ships, so important and yet so inadequate to the
service of the country. And when Fort Sumter was about to fall, and when
a single shot-proof gun-boat could have defied the rebel batteries, and
without the loss of a man have conveyed to the fortress stores for six
months and a whole battalion of troops, that single gun-boat,--a mere
gun-boat, which need not have passed within one thousand yards of any
batteries on her way,--could not be commanded by the Government, and the
gallant Anderson was compelled to lower to treason that flag whose fall
has aroused the nation to arms.

The earliest experiments upon the power of iron plate to resist the
force of cannon-balls appear to have been made in France by M. de
Montgery, an officer in the French navy, as far back as 1810. He
proposed to cover the sides of ships with several plates of iron, of the
aggregate thickness of four inches, which he alleged would resist the
force of any projectile. But Napoleon had not confidence in his navy; he
had lost the battles of the Nile and Trafalgar; ever successful on the
land, his ships had been swept by Nelson from the deep; and he
had neither time nor disposition to investigate new plans for the
restoration of the navy, or even to take up Fulton's new discovery. It
was reserved for the third Napoleon to develop the original idea of a
Frenchman, and thus to place France on the sea nearly or quite upon a
footing with England.

Some twelve years later, General Paixhans, who gave his name to the
large guns of modern times, (although their prior invent