[Illustration: H. M. Royal Yacht _Hohenzollern_ with His Majesty on Board in the Lock at Kiel] The range at which the great naval battles of the future will be fought will be very great, all the way up to ten thousand yards. The great guns can easily shoot that distance, while a reason for not coming nearer until, at least, the heavy ammunition is gone, is that at that range each fleet will be practically safe from the torpedoes of the other. The German fleet often practises at that range, firing at a moving target which is dragged along by another boat. On each modern gun is a telescope, and there are instruments for determining the distance at any given moment, as well as complicated adjustments for sighting and aiming. The projectiles used in the biggest guns weigh each nearly a ton and cost well up into the thousands, so every precaution is taken not to waste them. We can no longer speak of a cannon-ball, for the modern charges are cylindrical, pointed and filled with explosives so as to inflict the utmost damage for the money. Experience has shown that at very close range they will pass through blocks of steel more than a yard thick! The bore of the greatest guns in the German navy has hitherto been a little over thirty centimeters, but is fast reaching the forty centimeter mark; the guns themselves are from forty-five to fifty-eight feet long and weigh correspondingly. The best are from the foundries of Krupp, who, when he died, left his daughter the richest woman in Germany. The Krupps have a special steel of the utmost toughness and resistance. The gun-barrel is made of a single block, which is regularly excavated or bored; it is then protected by innumerable rings, which are put on when red-hot, and sit firmly ever after. The “kick” of the gun has been entirely eliminated by an ingenious contrivance. Altogether the cannon of to-day have become so complicated and so perfect as instruments that it takes longer to manufacture them than it does to construct the ship, and the English navy gives its orders for them about six months before even the keel is laid. And the life of such a gun is short. It is said that some of the guns on the new English, Japanese and Italian ships will be useless after they have fired eighty shots; on the American, French and German after from one hundred and fifty to two hundred. The difference lies in the construction of the gun-barrel, and there are controversies and rivalries over which methods are the best, just as there are over almost everything else that pertains to warfare: over the best shells, the best powder, the best mechanical contrivances for loading, for getting the range, etc. Dreadnaughts have scarcely yet been tried in actual warfare, and the nation that has made mistakes in theory may live to rue them bitterly in practise.