f his work as are plainly apparent
in the practice of the present day. A piece of work must be judged by
the circumstances which brought it forth, and by the completeness and
perfection of its adaptation to the needs and possibilities of its age.

We have then the steam fire-engine; compressed air which he early
employed in England, and which has become an instrument of enormous
importance in connection with the industrial progress of the age,
although this is in no especial degree due to his efforts; the surface
condenser, distiller, and evaporator are a permanently and absolutely
essential part of modern marine practice; the screw-propeller has almost
sole possession of the field of marine propulsion; modern marine engines
and boilers in naval practice are always placed below the water-line and
are protected by deflective deck armor and frequently by coal as well;
the turret has become a permanent and accepted part of the practice of
the age, while the monitor type in its essential feature seems to be
evanescent.

The modern battleship is a vastly more complex structure, and
represents more complex ideas and combinations than did Ericsson's
"Monitor." It contains a battery of guns of the heaviest type known to
naval ordnance. At present such guns are usually of 12-inch bore and
throw a shell of about 800 pounds weight, with an initial velocity of
nearly 3,000 feet per second. Then there is a supporting battery of
guns, 6, 7, or 8 inches in diameter of bore, and finally a secondary
battery of smaller quick-firing guns, throwing shells of from 1 pound to
20 or 30 pounds weight, and added to these there may be a torpedo outfit
as well. The exigencies of fighting ships at sea and in all weathers
seems to have pronounced against the monitor type with its low freeboard
as unsuitable for use on the open sea, while the enormous advances in
modern guns and armor have made a totally different problem of the
distribution of means offensive and defensive. Again, the monitor type
was never intended for long cruising, or indeed for other service than
the defence of coasts and harbors. The policy of building a vessel thus
adapted only to an inner line of defence, and not adapted to an outer
line of defence and offence as well, has been further called in
question, and the judgment of the present day has decided against such
policy. It is true that in the so-called "new navy," begun in 1883, one
monitor, the "Monterey," has been buil