d of shot from
common cannon. So certain are those who have turned their attention to
this subject that the change must take place, that, in France, they
are already speculating on the means of excluding these destructive
missiles from a ship's sides, by casing them in a cuirass of iron. Nor
are these ideas the mere offspring of idle speculation. Experiments
have been tried on hulks, by bombs projected horizontally, with
terrible effect. If the projectile lodged in a mast, in exploding it
overturned it, with all its yards and rigging; if in the side, the
ports were opened into each other; or, when near the water, an immense
chasm was opened, causing the vessel to sink immediately. If it should
not explode until it fell spent upon deck, besides doing the injury
of an ordinary ball, it would then burst, scattering smoke, fire, and
death, on every side. When this comes to pass, it would seem that
the naval profession would cease to be very desirable. Nevertheless,
experience has, in all ages, shown that, the more destructive are the
engines used in war, and the more it is improved and systematized, the
less is the loss of life. Salamis and Lepanto can either of them
alone count many times the added victims of the Nile, Trafalgar, and
Navarino.

One effect of the predicted change in naval war, it is said, will be
the substitution of small vessels for the larger ones now in use. The
three decker presents many times the surface of the schooner,
while her superior number of cannon does not confer a commensurate
advantage; for ten bombs, projected into the side of a ship, would be
almost as efficacious to her destruction as a hundred. As forming part
of a system of defence for our coast, the bomb-cannon, mounted on
steamers, which can take their position at will, would be terribly
formidable. With them--to say nothing of torpedoes and submarine
navigation--we need never more be blockaded and annoyed as formerly.
Hence peaceful nations will be most gainers by this change of system;
but it is not enough that we should be capable of raising a blockade:
we are a commercial people: our merchant ships visit every sea, and
our men-of-war must follow and protect them there.

_Newspapers_.--No country has so many newspapers as the United States.
The following table, arranged for the American Almanac of 1830, is
corrected from the Traveller, and contains a statement of the number
of newspapers published in the colonies at the commencem