proves no more than that its fire was quite as illy directed, and the
calibres too low. It is said that the _Agamemnon_ was struck in the hull
by two hundred and forty shot and shells, which must have been but a
small portion of what was fired, though sufficient to be decisive, if,
as already observed, the calibre had been heavier."

Here, then, a number of projectiles thrown from the ships, which were
sufficient, had they been thrown from a land battery, according to the
result at Bomarsund, to produce fourteen practicable breaches, failed
not only to produce a single breach, but even "to impair the strength of
the masonry."

The reason of this is obvious. That degree of precision of fire by which
a breach is effected by a land battery is utterly unattainable from a
floating structure, for the motion of the water, even in the calmest
days, is quite sufficient to prevent accuracy of aim at an object at a
distance, as in this case, of seven and eight hundred yards.

With respect to the action of the shot and shells upon the _Agamemnon_,
it is to be remarked that we have as yet had no fair trial of the power
of the fire of modern shell-guns of large calibre from land batteries
against ships of war. The Russians had some of them in their fleet, and
at Sinope, with their shell-guns, they blew up two Turkish frigates _in
fifteen minutes_. It does not appear that in the Crimean war they had
yet provided their fortifications with the modern armaments, for where
shells were thrown from their sea-coast batteries, they were in every
instance of inferior calibre.

With respect to the naval attack upon Kinburn, which has been referred
to as showing the importance of floating batteries as an auxiliary to
ships in reducing harbor defences, we have no official reports of the
Russians from which to derive accurate information of the strength of
the works attacked. Dahlgren, drawing his information from the official
accounts of the "English and French admirals," describes the works and
their location is follows:--

"The Boug and the Dnieper issue into a large basin, formed partly by
the projection of the main shore, partly by a long narrow strip of
Sand-beach, which continues from it and takes a north-westerly direction
until it passes the promontory of Otchakov, where it terminates, and
from which it is separated by the channel, whereby the waters of the
estuary empty into the Black Sea."

"The distance between the spit or extre