ns then afloat, and thus, as
perfectly as the engineering means of the day would permit, insured the
combination of offensive and defensive features in maximum degree. It
cleared away at one stroke masts, sails, and all the lofty top-hamper
which since time immemorial had seemed as much an essential feature of
the fighting ship as the guns themselves. It transformed the design of
the fighting ship from the older ideals expressed in the American
frigate "Constitution," or the English "Victory," to the simplest terms
of offence, defence, and steam motive-power. It made of the man-of-war a
machine rather than a ship, an engine of destruction to be operated by
engineers rather than by officers of the ancient and traditional type.
There is small wonder that in all quarters the idea of ships of this
type was not received with enthusiasm. The break with the past was too
definite and complete. The monitor type represented simply the solution
of the problem of naval warfare worked out by a man untrammelled by the
traditions of the past and determined only on reducing such a ship to
the simplest terms of offence and defence as expressed by the
engineering materials and possibilities of the day. Judged from this
standpoint, the vessel seems beyond criticism. She filled perfectly the
ideal set before himself by her designer, and represents as a complete
and harmonious whole what must still be recognized as the most perfect
solution of the problem in terms of the possibilities of those days.

It is proper here that due reference should be made to the claims in
behalf of Mr. Theodore R. Timby as an inventor of the turret and of the
monitor idea as expressed thereby. These claims and the main facts in
the case have long been known, and there should certainly be no attempt
to take from any one his due share in the developments which gave to our
nation a "Monitor" in her hour of need. It is well known that Mr. Timby
between 1840 and 1850 conceived the idea of a revolving fort of iron
mounted with numerous guns and intended to take the place of the masonry
or earth-structures in common use for such purposes. He seems also to
have conceived of a similar structure for use on a ship of low
freeboard, and a model showing such a design was constructed. In 1843 he
filed a caveat for the invention of the revolving turret. Here the
matter apparently rested until 1862, and after the battle between the
"Monitor" and "Merrimac," when he took out a p