a plunging fire from their barbettes,
offer as favorable emplacements for guns as can be contrived, and afford
to their gunners a degree of security quite as great as _can_ be given
to men thus engaged."

"On subjects which have a mere speculative importance, there is no
danger in giving rein to speculation; but on those of such real and
intense practical importance as the security against hostile aggression
of the great city and port of New York, it is not admissible to set
aside the experience of the past, or the opinions of the best minds who
have devoted themselves to such subjects. A means of defence, sanctioned
by its being confided in to protect the great ports of Europe--which
_has_ protected the great ports of Russia against the most formidable
naval armament that ever floated on the ocean, has a claim upon our
confidence which mere criticism cannot diminish; and a claim to be
adhered to in place of all new 'systems,' until time and trial shall
have _necessitated_ (not merely justified) the change."

"If, then, we refer to the practice of other nations, to find what has
been judged necessary for the defence of important ports,--to
experience, to find how such defensive systems have stood the test of
actual trial,--we may draw useful conclusions with regard to what is now
required to defend New York. We shall find at _Sebastopol_--a narrow
harbor, which owed its importance to its being the great naval depot of
Russia on the Black Sea--an array of 700 guns, about 500 of which were
placed in five 'masonry-casemated' works (several of them of great
size), and the remainder in open batteries. These defensive works
fulfilled their object, and sustained the attack of the allied fleet, on
the 17th of October, 1854, without sensible damage."

"The facility with which seaports are attacked by fleets--the enormous
preparations required--the great risks encountered in landing a
besieging army on the coast of a formidable enemy (while, for protection
against the _former_ species of attack, costly works are necessary, and
against the latter, field works and men can, in emergency, afford
protection), naturally caused the Russians to make these water defences
their _first_ object. Yet, though almost unprotected on the land side,
Sebastopol resisted, for a whole year, an attack on that quarter; and
illustrated how, with plenty of men and material, an energetic and
effectual _land defence_ may be improvised, where the _sea def