sible for the details of this scheme were dependent then as now on
the naval view of what was a suitable naval strength. Public opinion has
since been educated to a better appreciation of the necessity for a
strong navy, and, as the British navy has increased, the scale of coast
defences required has necessarily waned. Such a change of opinion is
always gradual, and it is difficult to name an exact date on which it
may be said that modern coast defence, as practised by British
engineers, first began.

An approximation may, however, be made by taking the bombardment of
Alexandria (1881) as being the parting of the ways between the old and
the modern school. At that time the British navy, and in fact all other
navies, had not really emerged from the stage of the wooden battleships.
Guns were still muzzle-loaders, arranged mainly in broadsides, and
protected by heavy armour; sails were still used as means of propulsion;
torpedoes, net defence, signalling, and search-lights quite undeveloped.

At this time coast defences bore a close resemblance to the ships--the
guns were muzzle-loaders, arranged in long batteries like a broadside,
often in two tiers. The improvement of rifled ordnance had called for
increased protection, and this was found first by solid constructions of
granite, and latterly by massive iron fronts. Examples of these remain
in Garrison Fort, Sheerness, and in Hurst Castle at the west end of the
Solent. The range of guns being then relatively short, it was necessary
to place forts at fairly close intervals, and where the channels to be
defended could not be spanned from the shore, massive structures with
two or even three tiers of guns, placed as close as on board ship and
behind heavy armour, were built up from the ocean bed. On both sides the
calibre and weight of guns were increasing, till the enormous sizes of
80 and 100 tons were used both ashore and afloat.

The bombardment of Alexandria established two new principles, or new
applications of old principles, by showing the value of concealment and
dispersion in reducing the effect of the fire of the fleet. On the old
system, two ships firing at one another or ships firing at an
iron-fronted fort shot "mainly into the brown"; if they missed the gun
aimed at, one to the right or left was likely to be hit; if they missed
the water-line, the upper works were in danger. At Alexandria, however,
the Egyptian guns were scattered over a long line of shore, an